Listen to your gut

I was walking baby Alex in the garden when our neighbor came out and was making funny faces with him, and mentioned he didn't look his peak - he's a step father to two, and a grandfather to one, he knows that look of a poorly kid in a heartbeat.  Alex has just gotten over an awful bug that saw us heading to the hospital at one point because we couldn't get the fever down.  We were on the phone all day with NHS Direct*, but I wasn't quite satisfied with their answers, so off we went, and surprise surprise, he was BEYOND feverish.

I love NHS Direct, but there is one thing they always do that bugs the crap out of me.  When they are assessing my kid, they always invariably ask, "Is he your first?", and when you say yes, there is always the same sad little sigh on the other end, as if to say, "Oh, you're an idiot first time mother, I can see you are probably freaking out over nothing".  Now, it is true I am a first time mother and overall, I am an idiot, but I do still have some faculties about me.  When my child wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, with a body temperature that feels like I put him in the microwave to dry him off after his bath, then I know, first time mum or not, that there is a feckin' problem.  Pushing a child out of my vagina for the first time does not actually make me less able to sense heat fluctuations in the skin.  It also has not made me incapable of saying that there is a problem and I am going to damn well do something about it. Turns out the massive bug he had triggered a huge ear infection, which was causing the fever.  I may be a first time mum, but I still have a gut, and I listen to it.

And yet, I don't listen to my gut in so many other ways.  I know, for instance, that Cornettos (ice cream comes) hurt my tummy.  I know that pasta will make my brain go quite angry about 30 minutes later (I think it has something to do with the massive influx of carbs hitting me all at once).  Yet, I eat these things.  And why?  Because...because I love my kid more than myself.  I'd walk to the end of the earth if it meant he'd smile at me, but I won't cross the street to save my own life.  You can pretty that up and say it's a mother's love, but it's also a girl's ingrained hatred for herself.  That's tough to admit, but true.

I haven't weighed myself since I started this journey.  I guess I need to today.  I haven't been worried about what I was eating, because I was moving more, but I have to remember, it's a total process.  You can't just starve and then loaf about, and you can't just walk more and then eat a cake.  You have to be willing to walk to the end of the earth for YOURSELF, because YOU are worth it.

Sorry this ended on a down note.  Here's a video of a jester telling Henry VIII that his wife is cheating on him.






*US people, think of it like Urgent Care, but instead of going in you just call them and a nurse assesses you over the phone and then makes a recommendation as to whether you come in or not.  Yes, the UK health care system does kick the ass of the US, why do you ask?.