Mom's Groundhog Day

Hi, I'm Joey. A mom of four kiddos on an extreme weight loss journey and this is my day.
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Hi, I'm Joey. A mom of four kiddos on an extreme weight loss journey and this is my day.

My alarm screams in my ear at 4:30 a.m. I hit snooze in a zombiefied state. Or at least I think I do, I don't know maybe I just sleep and it screams in my ear for 15 minutes and I never realize it.

The second and then third alarm goes off and I finally roll out of bed at 5:00 a.m. I stumble my way to the bathroom, careful not to wake the house. Make my way to the kitchen, get a glass of water, chug a preworkout out, check my Facebook and make my way to the basement to get a workout in before the sun rises.

The house is so cold. I am always freezing now that 120 pounds of insulation is gone. I have about 60 more to go and I feel like I need a wardrobe that is heated somehow. I hate this. I want to be in bed. Where it's warm.

I push play on my workout; this month my mornings are dedicated to Turbo-fire. It's fast and I am uncoordinated and chubby while trying to nail the choreography, somehow I make it through -- but I finish just shy of winding up on the floor dead.

Yay! I get to take a steamy, hot, uninterrupted shower and listen to my music and get ready for the day. That's the joy of waking up early, right? Yeah no, I'm a mom of four. As the shampoo is running down my face someone bangs on the door. "I have to pee mom." "Go down stairs," I often say. "I'm scared," he usually says to me. So I wrap in a towel and hop out so my 7-year-old early bird can use the upstairs bathroom. By now I am trying to wipe the shampoo out of my eyes and it's burning as I am begging him to hurry up. He's out and I finish my shower quickly. I dress in what crappy clothes I have (as a stay-at-home mom on a weight loss journey, I would hate to waste money on clothes I don't need).

Time to start breakfast and wake up the masses.

I make eggs and bacon with some fruit. "Can't we just have Trix like our friends?" one will say. "No and hurry up and get ready," I beg them. One of my daycare kids gets dropped off (I am lucky enough to work two jobs from home) and out the door we all go to school. We no more than get home and another daycare kid gets dropped off. Somewhere during the day I receive four phone calls about missing library books and shoes needed and something about possibly wondering about lunch money and permission slips.

I start to clean up the house a little. Get some of my work in online, write a little. Cook lunch, and start dinner. I find time to play with the kids I am babysitting. All of a sudden it's time to pick up my kids... where did my day go and where did those Reese's peanut butter egg wrappers come from? Why isn't Easter over yet? Time for homework, basketball, church, Boy Scouts, detention, the oldest works tonight.

Thank God dinner is prepped. Wait... did I prep it? No, looks like pizza and salads tonight. We say grace, get everyone off to bed after dinner, and I hit the home gym for workout number two, weight lifting.

I can hear someone jumping upstairs.

They are supposed to be in bed.

Wait, no, they are trying to bust through the floor; nope it's a fight. I hit pause and go see what's wrong. "He was looking at me." "Your suppose to be sleeping," I answer as calm as I can.

Tuck them in again.

And suddenly that damn alarm is going off again.

You see I feel like Bill Murray day in and day out. I can hear that same old song going off and it feels like I am reliving the same day over and over again... Groundhog Day. Except where he needed to make changes to move on and live a happy life, it is because I did make changes. I chose to have my day replay over and over because I chose to work on losing 200 pounds. I never had the time to workout and I still don't. I make it. I don't eat perfectly but I try to make better choices and not give up and I can't tell you that the journey is easy, because that is what my day looks like day in and day out.

It's hard. It's messy. It's life. It's health and I owe it to myself and to my children to show them that it's worth it. Even if I want to break that damn alarm.

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