I let my kid play outside alone.  It sparked a pretty heated debate.

I haz the fevahs.

Harrison’s headed to “school!”  He’s totally psyched because they have a slide.

Our Easter recap, as told by Harry.  This one is my personal favorite of the week.

I hope y’all are still hanging in there (it’s like, 90 degrees here so I’ve started my yearly internal Southern belle melt).  I was up in Philly visiting family for the past five days & it was glorious & stress-free but now it’s back to life, back to reality.

You’re welcome for that ear worm.

After less than 24 hours, I was aching for Harrison like I might as well have left my arm in North Carolina when The Momma & I boarded a plane to Philadelphia.

I didn’t quite realize how over the past three months, he’s become my little buddy & I no longer roll my eyes when a celebrity calls their child a “best friend.”  My constant companion & it feels a little strange to not be eating Cocoa Puffs at lunch or discussing the virtues of various vehicles.

It feels so quiet without him.  I feel so quiet without him.

I find myself staring at buses & the trolly, thinking of how he’d love them.  My first instinct at the restaurant is to order something easy for him to eat, but then I order mushroom soup & a pecan chicken salad.

I remember that I have other relationships outside of Harrison that must be tended & loved.  It’s been 3 years since The Momma & I made a trip together & drank coffee in the morning with my cousins.   It is easy to make excuses that I’m a mother & I have a child that needs me & that tiny voice inside me that says if I loved him more, I could never leave him.  Then I remember that I’m still Beth Anne & there are still people that love me for me, not because I’m a mother.

Those relationships still matter just as they did three years ago.

Doug:  “Oops.  I killed St. Joe.”

Me:  “How did that happen?!”

Doug:  “I mowed him over.  He’s decapitated.”

Me:  “We are so fucked.  The house is never going to sell now!”

Doug (defensively):  “I thought he was supposed to be burried!  What the hell was he doing above ground?”

Me:  “Yeah, well…they said the same thing about Jesus.”

Sometime in late August,  I was new to the school, nervous in a fourth-grade classroom.  But I met another girl with dark brown hair & a glow-in-the-dark retainer.  Somewhere between birthday parties & a love of horses, we became fast friends.  There were limo rides through Christmas light shows & Spring Break vacations.

She joined my Girl Scout troop & a few years later, we earned our Silver Award by planning an overnight camping trip for a group of young girls, the ages that we were when we first met.  The night of the camp out, laying under the stars & cool air, I asked her if she had ever walked on air & we laughed until tears ran & our sides hurt.

Then we grabbed pompoms & cheered on opposing teams after practicing toe-touches in my garage & back handsprings in her backyard.

The day we left for college, she stopped by.  We started to different schools, different adventures.  We stayed in touch briefly over instant messenger, but classes & studying & parties distracted until it had been three years since I last saw her.  I missed her, but it would be a few years before Facebook where keeping touch is easy.

On a whim, I added her name to the guest list of my Bachelorette party.  She walked through the door & I held her tight.  The next day, I handed her resume to my boss.  Four years later, we switched places & she wore the white dress.

We worked side-by-side for five years.  I spent more time with her than my own husband; she became my sounding board & best friend, just as we were twenty years ago.

People ask how we will cope without seeing each other every day.  The truth is, I don’t know.

So as it stands right now, I’ve lost 7 lbs since I started logging in on My Fitness Pal.  My pants fit better, which is pretty nice on the days when I stay seated behind my computer for a solid 9 hours.

I cannot wait to finally pack away these jeans for good – jeans that I bought on the cheap after Harrison was born, not for flattery but just to have something to wear on the weekends.  I am so ready to be in the “pretty” jeans still folded in my dresser.  The one’s that actually make my ass look good.

I realized this weekend that where I used to judge overweight people…I now feel sympathy.  It dawned on me at a wedding this weekend as I watched a very attractive but very overweight girl go back for seconds at the buffet – seconds of bread & fried cordon blue.  I am ashamed to say that in the past, I would probably roll my eyes but now I understand that more than likely, this girl faces the mirror the same way I do.  More than likely, she knows it is unhealthy but there’s something inside her that cannot stop the impulse.  More than likely, she wishes she could buy bikinis & a smaller dress & envies her smaller friends that make it look so darn easy.

I understand that for some of us, it’s not as “easy” as just saying no to bread.  It’s not as easy as just “deciding” to be pretty & skinny.  That sometimes, even when you do EVERYTHING right & stay within calories, exercise, & drive past Bojangles, the scale still doesn’t move.  & thus starts a vicious cycle.  That sometimes it runs deeper into childhood examples & a self-critique that has run deep since the age of 10.  It runs past just putting on a little too much weight during pregnancy & into food struggles within a family.  (I think we all have issues in our life that may seem “easy” to fix on the outside, but in reality & when we are very honest, those things run deeper than we care to admit.)

You smell what I’m steppin’ in?

So if it’s not easy for you, I understand.  You will not find judgment for me, just a friendly smile & a heart that hopes you one day find the motivation behind getting seconds at the buffet line.

From a lot of talks with my husband this past week, we have decided to tackle my our health as a family.  That although he has a lot of shining qualities, Nate is pretty piss-poor at nutrition decisions & therefore has zero say in dinner anymore.  That when I put out chicken for him to grill & I’m roasting vegetables, I do not need him to suggest pizza.   That if he makes cookies & I leave the room to go crawl in bed to read a book, it’s not that I’m rejecting him – it’s just that I really, really like sweets.  I don’t have a weird relationship that makes me down 24 cookies in one night, but I am better off just saying “no” rather than having one & trying to walk away.  Because while I may not eat the entire package, I will probably eat a few that will add up to a few hundred unnecessary calories.

One “trick” that I have started using this week – my personal favorite, which is writing my current goal weight on the inside of my left wrist as a constant reminder.  I saw this on Biggest Loser (a guilty-pleasure show of mine for years as I am kind of in love with Bob).  Each week, the contestent wrote a new short-term goal weight his arm to serve as motivation. When I get that urge for a mid-afternoon Coke, it serves as a reminder of what I’m working for & how close I am.

So.  Now that I have emotionally vomited ALL OVER YOUR SCREEN, I ask this of you – when you begin to judge someone’s struggle, try to remember something that you battle that may seem so “easy” to another.

How are y’all doing this week?  Any successes you would like to brag about?  Any frustrations you’d like to scream out to the universe?  Have at it, friends.