My mom took her prescribed relaxing bath after all.

Afterward she went right to sleep and says she’s never slept like that before. Today she feels 100% better and I could tell the difference in her voice on the phone.

…And now if you’ll excuse me, my daughter has just fallen asleep in the middle of her scrambled eggs.

This weekend we will be celebrating my great uncle’s 100th birthday at a local botanical garden.

It will be 39° with rain/snow showers.

My mom is totally freaking out about it. Not because of the weather. Because she is my mom. Because she has taken on the project of planning and organizing the details, and distributing the information among the family members and has turned the project into a giant monstrosity that will be the death of her. Everything must be perfect, everything must be planned, and everything must be within budget.

She is stressing out about it so much that she wakes up at 4:30 every morning and can’t get back to sleep. So she gets up and starts working. Working around the house, at her desk, in the garden. And runs herself ragged so that by evening time she can barely function. And there’s not much anybody can do to help her because nobody else understands why certain details are SUCH. A BIG. DEAL. But it’s as though she is physically incapable of slowing herself down.

When she’s not party planning, she’s lifting and hauling and planting things in her garden, despite the fact that she’s still recovering from a leg injury incurred on a recent skiing trip. So when I talk to her in the evenings, she can hardly move because her body is so worn out and sore. And she’ll agree that she completely overdid it and that it was stupid. But then she’ll get up and do it again the next day. She’s determined that she has to get all this STUFF planted immediately because…I don’t know.

My aunt and uncle are coming tomorrow and will be staying with my parents. So my mom is freaking out because she can’t finish making the curtains and window pillow for the guest room before they arrive. As though they’ll ever notice that the room is missing a pillow. But it’s a goal she has set for herself in her head and not being able to accomplish it makes her a failure.

She can’t find a file that my aunt sent her in an email like 3 years ago. My aunt lost the file, so she asked my mom for a copy so suddenly it becomes my mom’s problem and when I walked into her study this evening she was completely stressing out because she didn’t have the slightest idea where to start looking for such a thing. I told her this was a completely different computer that what she had 3 years ago and there was no way that file still existed. She agreed that it wasn’t really her problem and that she would just have to tell my aunt “too bad” but her stress level seemed only to increase at that point. As we were exiting the office, she pointed at a pile of bank statements and started bemoaning her failure to keep up with the finances.

She was fading in and out of conversation tonight and walking around like her joints were made of concrete.  It was starting to feel like perhaps SHE was the one turning 100.

Tonight I brought her some bath minerals and a facial mask and foot cream and insisted that she spend at least 30 minutes in a warm bath doing NOTHING. She promised me she would, but I have my doubts.

Will somebody please come tie my mother to a chair before she self-destructs? I’m really looking forward to the celebration with my great uncle, but I can’t wait for this weekend to be over.

I found this site and I’m really excited about it. I’m dieting (agh!) and trying to exercise (double agh!) in an effort to lose 10 pounds, and this site helps me keep track of my intake, activity, progress etc.

I have to be really diligent in charting stuff, but that’s a good thing because when I’m not paying attention to what I eat etc, I forget to be healthy.

One of the great things about having my in-laws staying with us right now is the live-in babysitter thing. The weather has been great here recently, and in the mornings I can just take off and go walking without having to figure out what to do with Little Button, who doesn’t enjoy stroller rides.

Even better, they gave me one of these for my birthday and I have been enjoying it to a crazy degree. Y’all, I’m so techno-savvy now I feel like I could go back to school.

And then I went and got some exercise clothes (holy cow, that stuff is expensive now - even at Target) so I can look the part, instead of walking around the neighborhood in an 8-year-old t-shirt and my husband’s boxer shorts.

I feel totally hot.

I will also say that it’s a lot easier to diet and be food-conscious when there’s someone else in the house who is doing it too. My MIL is on this special cleansing and diet system called Isagenix. It’s been like a miracle diet for her and she’s lost over 10 pounds and 35 inches in the last 3 ½ weeks. But she can only have a shake for breakfast and a shake for lunch and a sensible dinner, so as a family we only eat one big meal per day.

It’s done fabulous things for her energy though. As I’ve mentioned before, she has more allergies, chemical imbalances, and general health problems than anyone I’ve ever heard of, so in the past she wasn’t able to do anything when she visited but sleep and watch 11 hours of TV during the day. There was certainly no chance of her being able to keep up with Little Button without J’s dad there to do it. This visit, she’s up and moving around, getting up before noon, sociable and generally more fun to be around. And she even offered to watch Button while J and I took a nap one afternoon.

I can see a difference in how she responds to and treats her family, particularly J’s dad, as well. I don’t know if it’s a result of feeling better about herself, or just feeling better period, but I think their relationship has definitely improved. Also - and I don’t know if I’m just reading too much into her demeanor, or if it’s true, but - it seems that when she feels better about herself, her insecurities and rejection issues are significantly lessened.

Anyway, that was a tangent. So I’m dieting and she’s dieting and I’ve lost 1.5 lbs and I’ve been doing it for a week, and I’m still doing it, which is little short of a miracle. Wish me luck!

So I guess since I’ve been exercising in 75° weather for the past couple of days, it’s probably time to take the snow off my blog.  I might get around to that some day.

One of the annoying things about having company stay with us is that Little Button forgets her wonderful, predictable schedule.  And I use the term “forgets” in the “wads it up and throws it in the trash with vitriol” kind of way.

One of the beautiful things about having the in-laws stay with us is that when she for some reason wakes up at 6:30am Every. Single. Morning, I can bring her downstairs and drop her off with Papa, then returning to my blissful state of sleep lounging in bed wishing I could go back to sleep.

This was especially important yesterday morning, after a less-than fabulous night.  Little Button woke up with a croupy cough about 10 minutes after I had gone to sleep.  We did the shower steam thing, after which she was WIDE. AWAKE.  She wanted desperately to go downstairs and play.  Upon realizing that simply wasn’t an option, she wanted to be held.  But not while I was sitting down - she wanted to be held and rocked while I was in full, upright, walking position.  For an hour.

My child has never been so heavy.

Eventually, I couldn’t do that anymore and I brought her into my bed, where she would lay for long enough periods of time to make me think she might actually fall asleep there, then she would sit up and want to play.

She finally went back to sleep in her crib sometime after 1:30am, and woke up bright and early at 6:30am.

I don’t do good without sleep.  Enter Papa-Time - oh sweet, sweet Papa-Time, without which I would undoubtedly be a nervous wreck.

The in-laws arrived yesterday and they’re staying with us until the 15th, so I don’t know how much I will be around the blogosphere (or computer, for that matter) during that time.  I did get my body wrap done (actually, two) so I plan to tell you about that…just not right now.