Sugaring Up The Help

Today was volunteer appreciation day at #1's school. When I originally got the email from his homeroom teacher, I thought, "I was only there a couple times, I didn't help that much. This doesn't apply to me" and thought that if I went, I might get tackled at the door for being an impostor.  But then I got the invite from his special education teacher who teaches him language arts and manages all aspects of his mainstreaming. I figured if she sent it to me, then I should go.

My friend Katie watched the girls and I went. When I walked in the door, I saw the few people I knew and greeted his teacher.  (#1's school is not our home school. It is about 15 minutes away and we don't get there as often as we are at our home school where #2 & #3 go.) I saw the food table and my head started to spin. I think I was in sensory overload.

The food table was covered with an abundance of home-made and store bought sweets that looked so good,  that my ass was begging for me to just spread them all over it. I looked at the cakes and had visions of me laying in the icing doing snow angels. Two weeks ago, I gave up processed sugar, bread and dairy. I was sick the first week, so it wasn't a big deal, I didn't want to eat anyway. But now that I was sick-free and staring at the drool table, I had to dig deep and remind myself of my goals; to dump the 18 pounds I had gained steadily since moving to MD, two and half years ago. I had stopped teaching fitness classes and became a full-time, stay at home domestic slave. After I unpacked the house, painted all the rooms, ripped up the garden with my trusty pick axe, and settled the house down, the weight slowly crept on. 

But when the smell of sugar gets into your nose, your body starts reacting to it. The evil twin starts talking about the benefits of eating the peanut butter chocolate cake and your pants are screaming "No, no more pressure here.  We can't take it, you barely got back into these. Don't stress the zipper. Just don't. You will not like yourself in 10 minutes, let alone the morning." Say my name chocolate babka, you know you want me, even though my pants don't. What, there's fruit on this table? You KNOW it just doesn't have the same appeal as coffee cake. The pants were telling "step away from the cake." So I listened.

I had already lost five pounds though I am not sure if it was from my new exercise routine or being sick. I do think it was from being sick, but I want to believe the exercise has achieved something. So, I watched everyone else eat the goodies and remained focused on the prize: fitting into all my clothes.

I then had to redirect myself and focus on talking to one of the moms that I don't see very often. It is amazing that the more tactics I learn so I can deal with my kid's issues, the more I realize they work equally well for me.  It did work and no bad food went in. Although, I still think it would be fun to lay on a huge cake and make snow angels in the chocolate icing. That will go on my bucket list.