May 9th, Mothers' Day

I'm pretty tired but I wanted to post, both to reflect on the day and to hope that yours was as you wished it.

As I've been mentioning for the past couple of weeks, I'm embarked on a course of steroid treatment for an exacerbation of MS. I'm currently tapering off.

This is always a process involving many unpredictable variables and effects.
I haven't done it for quite some time and never in the midst of a weight management effort.

Mothers' Day and the whole week before it has provided the opportunity for a great deal of reflection.

I've found myself thinking a great deal about my Mom and my two grandmothers; all the things that I learned from them and the relationships of love and caring that surrounded them.

I miss them and yet still have them with me everyday.

In turn, I also had the opportunity to muse on my relationships with my husband and sons.

We celebrated our 31st Wedding Anniversary on Wednesday.

It is amazing to consider the speed with which two baby boys turned into 30 year and 29 year old men who have begun their own lives and families; quite dizzying and not without conflict and disorientation.

I was lucky to have a Mothers' Day greeting call with the elder, who needed to work today and an invitation for my husband and me to a local restaurant with the younger son, his significant other, her son and mother.

We had a lovely, relaxing and delicious meal in a Spanish restaurant.

The dinner posed a challenge to my SparkPeople member identity but I'm actually pretty pleased with my response which was of planning and flexibility. I made conscious choices and not random reactions; looking over the menu ahead of time to plan and making food choices earlier in the day to allow some leeway. As it was, I'm pretty sure that I logged everything and while I wasn't present in the kitchen, my best estimates tell me that I ended the day within my calorie range.

Yes, I could have been heroic and passed on the tapas altogether, but I wasn't and didn't. I did, however, limit myself to small portions and resisted the pull of the "clean plate club" into which my dear Mom and Grandmother initiated me when I was a child, with all the best intentions. (It's OK gals, you got me through childhood and it's up to me now!)

Even if it turns out that I made a mistake or so and the total went above the range, it's not about the numbers, but the choices.

The medication and the flare also put my exercise pattern off but tomorrow I'm returning to the Aquatics Program I began in March. It's the last session of the series.

In addition to my Physical and Occupational Therapies, I'm planning on taking advantage of a Summer Promotion at the YMCA and joining sooner, rather than later so that I can get back into a kind of exercise that I think has been really useful and start building back up.

Did I say I was tired? This was much longer than I'd planned.

I hope your day was as full of love and learning as mine, no matter where you are on the "motherhood spectrum". 211

Below are photos of my mom and me and the boys and me.