my journey to wellness

For a recent birthday I was given an anti-aging product. Something called an intensive treatment for face and neck - a ceramide advanced time complex (what the heck does that mean anyway?).

I can now report that the bags under my eyes are noticeably plumper.

It’s rather ironic, but now that I have diabetes, I seem to be more in tune with my physical self than I ever have been before.

Because of my diabetes I sometimes feel like my body is betraying me; but at the same time, I feel like I also have a much greater understanding of my body now. Before my diabetes, when my body spoke to me, I largely tried to ignore it. When it got fat, I just put bigger clothes on it. When it got tired, I just slept more.

It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes that I really started to listen to my body. I made my body (and my baby’s body) a priority, and got in tune with it in a way I never had before. I spent my time (almost all my time) caring for my physical self. I fed myself properly; I exercised daily; I poked, prodded, tested and re-tested every day, day after day, ad nauseum.

For the first time in a long time, I actually ate when I was hungry, and didn’t eat when I wasn’t hungry. I started to eat less and then let my body tell me if it needed more. I was no longer afraid of the feeling of hunger. I worked on consciously telling myself there would always be enough food. (I’m convinced we have a primal instinct to inhale all food in sight just in case there won’t be any tomorrow).

I had never felt in tune with my physical self before my diabetes. I had never felt like I could count on my body to support me if I needed it. I had always felt awkward, overweight, self-conscious, and incongruous. My outside never matched how I felt inside. My outside was never really me.

That’s different now. Even though I’m older and greyer (or redder depending on the dye-job), I know I can count on my body. Though it’s far from perfect, it’s mine.

But I’m trying.

My daughter is a girly-girl and somewhere along the line she chose me to be her mom. Me! Doesn’t she know I’m “hair challenged?” Doesn’t she know I suck at mascara application, costume sewing, nail doing, and body glitter know-how?

I can’t choose a tiara. I can’t do a bun. I don’t shop at MAC, and those old ladies that run every dance shop in town scare the bejeezus out of me.

So what can I do? I can cheer my girl on. I can cry when I watch her lyrical number, and I can comfort her when not everything goes her way on stage.

Just think of me as a dance mom in training.

But really, is there any other kind?

Anyway, I was shopping the other day and came across the “Girls’ Favorite CD-Rom Pack” (or something to that effect), which included the game “My Fantasy Wedding.”

Need I say more?

One of the key kid stressors around here right now is “that’s sooooo embarrassing!”

I don’t know if it’s the age, a phase, or what, but embarrassment is to be avoided at all costs.

So, I usually like to tell the kids embarrassing stories about myself for them to rejoice in. For some reason, parental foibles are glee-making material.

One of their fave stories is “the pop incident.”

This occurred one day while I was leaving the grocery store with a precariously over-packed cart of groceries. As I manoeuvered my cart over a speed bump (or slow bump as my kids call them), the case of pop fell off of the bottom of the cart and I promptly ran over it. This caused several pop cans to puncture and they started shooting carbonated fluid several feet into the air. It was like a geyser of Diet Pepsi.

I could have been “sooooo embarrassed!” but why waste the hilarity?

Sometimes kids just don’t get it.

The other day my daughter was telling me about someone in her class at school whom she really dislikes.

I put my “psychologist” hat on and told her that sometimes when you have intense feelings towards another person it’s because they represent an element of yourself that you don’t really like.

So, while I was so wisely explaining this thought process to her, she interrupted with “you mean like a zit? I really don’t like zits. Yeah, that’s what he is. He’s like a really big zit right in the middle of my forehead.”

The kids have the ability to make me insane, but no where is this truer, than in the car.

I think this is for so many reasons - the kids can’t get away from each other; I can’t get away from them; I’m trying to concentrate on my driving; they’re so darn loud!; they fight about everything; schlock pop music makes me mental; and so on.

But all is not lost. They also have the ability to instantly make me double over with laughter.

The other day, my younger daughter was trying to reach something in the back of the car by throwing herself over the back seat and this is what I heard:

“Yecch! I got your backpack in my mouth.”

Her sister: “Poor backpack!”

I ran out of my blood sugar testing strips yesterday and I’m feeling rather at a loss.

I thought I could view it as a “holiday” from my diabetes but instead I’m finding that I’m spending lots of time wondering what my sugars are doing.

Lately, because my sugars have been high, I’ve been testing more often than usual. I test almost every morning and then at least a few more times during the day. I always test when I feel “funny” - like something is unusual or different.

My meter is so helpful - it confirms or refutes my suspicions in an instant.

Most often, I intuitively know what’s going on inside of me and my meter objectively backs me up. It’s only when my feelings and my meter don’t match up that I’m perplexed.

Sometimes I just don’t know why my blood sugar is betraying me. I rack my brain - what did I eat? am I feeling healthy? did I exercise enough? did I get extra carbs unknowingly?

And then I must be still, and remind myself, that this is all part of diabetes. I can’t control it. I can’t always outsmart it. I must let go.

This past weekend my family and I were “tourists in our own town.”

It has become our annual ritual - we stay at a downtown hotel and do all the tourist-y stuff we wouldn’t do otherwise.

This year we took a horse-drawn carriage tour, went to the art gallery, shopped, swam, and ate a ton of food.

I confided in my husband that what I’d really like to do one day is to map out a tour of eating at all our best local restaurants. There are so many places I’ve heard about but have yet to try.

It would end up costing as much as a “real” trip but would be so much more tasty and convenient!

This is the time of year when the pink snow starts to fall.

The cherry trees are breathtakingly beautiful.

For me it has something to do with the contrast of the pale pink petals and the blackness of the bark.

For the kids, it’s all about the “pink snow.”