Week 7 - Freezing temperatures, snow days, sickness, and heartbreak oh my! This has been a pretty rough week. This is the week we were set to travel to Chicago for a gymnastics meet, and our gymnast was pretty sick. I'll dive right in to my review - here's Week 7!

Day 43: After a trip to the doctor and another chest x-ray, Olivia has been diagnosed with pneumonia again. Sigh. This kid just can't seem to stay healthy this year. What else was there for me to do but to hook her up with my homemade chicken soup with rice. When you make your own broth, it's easier to control the amount of sodium and use fresh, healthy ingredients! Add a pinch of parsley, delicious chicken, and brown rice and you have a warm and yummy dose of healing and comfort. 

Day 44: Today, I literally felt my heart break. Last night, I found out my girls' swim coach, who they love, admire, respect, and look up to will no longer be their coach. Just last week, we had a conversation on the way home from swim practice where I mentioned to them again how lucky they were to have Coach Gregg. It's a statement I made often, and one that they echoed frequently. I always enjoyed watching Gregg coach his team for many reasons, but mainly it was his gift of empowering them to do their best every single practice that as a parent I was incredibly grateful for. My girls loved their Coach. He was a stable, consistent part of their routine. He was a part of what they looked forward to. He was a source of support, trust, and encouragement. When a grown up shows faith in a child, it has limitless power. Gregg's faith in my girls was not only imperative in their growth, it was a part of their life. For this reason and many others, I strongly feel this person is not replaceable. Due to a failure in judgement by a third party, this man was ripped from his team, and there was nothing we could do about it. Now, I was left with the horrendous task of telling the girls that this had happened. They came home from school, and I asked them to join me in my room for a discussion. They are 11 and 9. They are smart. They are emotional beings like their mother. I am a face things head on type of person, so we had to do this openly and honestly. Wow, this hurt. This conversation set forth an emotional tailspin that has tested all of my skills as a parent. This experience made me grateful for all of the other life skills I have accumulated in 39 1/2 years of life. My background as Mom, counselor, coach, student, child had to come into play here. I had to see this from all angles. I had to tell them that sometimes in life, things will happen that are beyond our control and it will suck. You will hurt. You will be angry. You will want to fix it. You will try. You will cope. You will heal. My heart...wow it hurt today. I was angry. I wanted to fix it. I tried. I couldn't. I wiped tears. I explained over and over. I held. I listened. I loved harder. I was spent. When I had four little girls under 4 years of age, people would stop me and say things like "You have your hands full." All I could think about was that the little years were going to be my easiest years, even though people were telling me the opposite. Well, here I am, the little years are all but gone along with their fleeting innocence. The potential for loss and sorrow is real, now. They say it feels like he died, and they aren't wrong. When you don't get a chance to say goodbye to someone, it hurts. Despite this toughness of this day and the several that followed, things got a little bit easier as pain often does. All I could do is try my best to comfort them and offer them hope and encouragement to continue working hard in something that they love. I hope I helped them today. I know I love them enough for that.

Day 45: Early this morning, our girl's fever finally broke after 4 days and off we went to Chicago for her gymnastics competition. Despite being exhausted and not herself and still coughing like crazy, she earned her highest all around score of the season. I love this girl's perseverance!

Day 46: Oh the Windy City earned it's nickname this weekend! We spent this Valentine's Day morning nestled in on the third floor of our favorite little breakfast place in Chicago for cinnamon roll pancakes. We discovered this little sweet spot last year and vowed we would be back. Turning her chair around and looking out into the city streets, Emi was busy discovering what it felt like to have no top front teeth (she lost her 2nd one after the gymnastics competition last night). I love it when my girls cuddle together. They keep my heart warm on the coldest of days...

Day 47: What a lovely thing to come home to - Valentine's Day roses from my Dad! When I was a little girl, he used bring my Mom a large heart box of chocolates and me a small one. I loved that and have never forgotten. He still remembers me on V-day.  

Day 48: Monday was my meal prep day for the week. If I have to fuss about what to bring for lunch to work, the bigger the chance I'll start making poor food choices. Being prepared is my most important weapon in this war against old patterns...I'm a fast cook, so that helps. I made several different meals and salads to last me the week. Nothing can stop me now! 

Day 49: It's Fat Tuesday! I don't talk much about my day job on the blog, but today I will. There's always food laying around the place. Coworkers baking, bringing stuff in, leftover catered food from meetings, staff meeting goodies, etc. Of course today several people brought in paczkis. Seriously, I have never eaten one of these in my life. Not that they haven't been appealing, but the truth his, I'm always dieting this time of year. We've talked about my dysfunctional yo-yo dieting before, remember? So today, I decided to give it a try for a couple of reason. The first, isn't it obvious? These things look delicious! Second, if I don't allow myself a little bit of freedom once in a while to enjoy treats, most likely I will hit a certain point and fall off the wagon again. So I took a very small piece of a custard paczki...heaven! My coworker suggested I take a photo with a staple remover to demonstrate the size of my serving. It was just enough! The moral of the story? You can have your paczki and eat it too, as long as it's the size of a staple remover. Enjoy!