On the subject of.........

While I am on the subject of self esteem let me share some interesting musings that I am experiencing right now. I have a beautiful Autistic Daughter (Google Jim Sinclair "Why I dislike Person First Language" before you have a meltdown over my phrasing). She has recently put on some extra weight (ok a lot of extra weight when she weighs more than her brother that is two years older than her). Now, understand that I am heavy so I don't have issues with her weight from the "image" perspective but from the health perspective. You see I have several health issues that relate to my weight and I simply do not want her to experience those same issues.

SO.....

I decide to do something about this situation and begin looking for a program with a physical activity aspect that does not destroy her sense of self worth while teaching her to have healthy habits. Her school actually has one because they are a Girls On The Run Program Site. So, like any "good mommy" I decide to put her into the program. I sign up as an assistant coach because she requires a one-on-one aide because of her autism. This is all good. I am going to be getting myself in better physical shape and enjoying the company of my daughter while helping her to become more physically fit and develop her sense of self-worth.

WELL..........

Now, one of the many things I do is help my husband in his church calling. He is responsible for all of the computers in all of the church buildings for our church in all of Western North Carolina and part of North Georgia. After signing up my daughter for this program, which requires walking/running and prepares the girls for a 5k walk/run I proceed to fall down on the stairs outside one of the church buildings and have a golf-ball sized lump on the side of one of my ankles and a huge scrape and bruise on the knee of the other leg. The ankle is not broken but is severely sprained. The knee is not broken or wrenched but hurts almost as bad as having a baby (I have had 9 so I am pretty familiar with that feeling). SO now I get to take my splinted ankle and my crutches to the first day of GOTR. Of course this will show my daughter that we have to push through adversity and find our inner strength and all that............

EXCEPT.......

It hurts SOOOO BAD that I want to scream, cry or hit something and I DO NOT want to go do this on Monday!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to sit on my BUTT in my BED and FEEL SORRY for myself. I want to sit on my Pity Pot and moan about how stupid it is for steps to be built in a way that, at night, they create an optical illusion of being at the same level with the sidewalk directly in front of you when they are still higher than the sidewalk. It is also really annoying that the lighting in the parking lots at these buildings is garbage.

Yes I want to whine because my ankle hurts and so does my knee and I am like any little kid that gets hurt. But that is not what I will do. I will put on my "Mommy" Face and go out there on Monday, on my crutches and hobble along with my daughter. She is hobbling a little too because a few weeks ago she sprained her ankle while dancing around while watching a video on her dad's cell phone on our stage in the cultural hall of our church after Wednesday night activities. Yes the other thing my daughter is besides being overweight and Autistic is clumsy and she gets all of these lovely things genetically from her mother, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! I am the Proud Autistic Overweight Clumsy Mom of a Beautiful Clumsy Overweight Autistic Daughter! Honesty is such a nice thing.

There is nothing wrong with being overweight except for all those health issues I referred to earlier. One of those health issues is being clumsy and accident prone because of not being able to control the momentum that the extra weight gives you when your body is in motion and the extra weight that you have to "catch" when trying to prevent yourself from falling. So, on Monday, Mommy and Buggy will be out there hobbling on our recovering sprained ankles together in order to try to improve our health, our self-image, and hopefully some of our clumsiness. Watch for my new blog where we will be writing about our GOTR experiences.

Meanwhile this blog will be dedicated to my own personal journey beside the founder of GOTR and her Friend as they experience 60 days of not primping to meet the world's expectations of how a woman should look. Personally, this trek for me is going to be easy because I rarely wear make-up or do most of the primping things they are leaving off. I will have to draw the line at not wearing deodorant because that is not a "woman" thing in my mind. I don't think I want to send a message to my Autistic teenage son that not wearing deodorant is OK considering I just got him to a self grooming point where he will actually put it on every day now. So come join me, Molly and Caitlin in The Naked Face Project.