I have yet to buy brand new clothes for myself. I deceided that if tomorrow the scale shows a 2 lb loss making my total loss on my ticker to 39 lbs I am going to buy at least one pair of those size 14 jeans. Wish me luck.

Update: My side thing on weight loss says 39 lbs lost but I am really at 38.5 lbs so I didn't make the goal.

As much as I want the jeans I am still excited to see the loss. I only aim for 1 lb a week but have been trying to eat cleaner and workout more often. I have slowed down on zumba at the YMCA and added walking on most days that I don't do zumba.

I am glad that I am not stalled or going backwards. We have had a while without the meltdowns and it came to me that me slowing down at the Y is another thing that has changed with our family.

The others are that Stepeh didn't go to his Dad's to see the stepmom.
He has had candy everyday but not much and honestly the candy he was given was crappy.
His counslor is away on vacation cause she got married.

I don't know if one of these is the cause of the meltdowns going away or nothing related to it. I will take it though.

Growing up

In two weeks, I will be the Mom to grown up. This is new to me even though I do have an adult child. I am having a hard time wrapping my finger and heart around the idea that at the 18th birthday I lose all legal rights to my son.

Not only do I lose legal rights to him I no longer will be financially responsible for him. I don't have to house him, clothe him or feed him. This doesn't mean that my son will be asked to move out or start feeding himself after his birthday.

He lost his job and he has been told that we can't afford to support him and he must find a new job. One example my husband gave him was on the theory if we gave him 5 dollars a week to eat and how much that is monthly. Kind of late here but I believe that is 140 dollars a month and of course I can't feed a 6 foot 4 inches 200 lb man on five dollars a day.

Another thing we did is that my husband took him to the dollar store and they bought him personal care items and it's been told that he needs to start buying these things.

He has been having his girlfriend over quite a bit and tonight she ate with us. I didn't have enough to feed her so I left in a hurry after only eating half what I would have ate and acted like I was running late to get my friend for aqua zumba. Truth was that I didn't have it in me to serve her half as everyone else was getting.

Speaking of money. I got my first week of child support since my husband changed jobs. For some reason they only took half and sent me 50 dollars. He gets paid weekly now. 50 dollars really shows how little he pays. It's like he pays 25 a week for each kid. I blogged about not being able to feed my kid on five a day.

Child support for Alex will stop when he is 18 but not sure if that requires a court date or not.

Sorry for jumping all over but the whole girlfriend thing.. do I just deal with feeding her since when I was dating their Dad.. his Mom fed me too?

Basically he would give me half of his dinner but he was eating two servings of pork ect. Whatever it was that they ate. I don't overly feed my son don't think cutting his portion in half will work. Is this like payback?

follow up post

I wanted to touch base a little more on this post here.

I call Izzy my daughter and no one can take that away or change my mind. I will refer to Izzy as my sons' sister not birthsister or half. If people can adopt children and their children be whole sisters/brothers then half doesn't belong in the description.

What I want to touch base with is that even though I call Izzy my daughter I respect tht I am not her Mom and she has a Mom that was there for her and will continue to be Mom.

I don't expect the Mother's day card addressed to Mom or birthday cards addressed to Mom. I would love it and would feel honored if Izzy choose to call me Mom or one of her Mother's.

I do have to accept my place in her life and that is her birthmom.

Izzy is my daughter but I am not her Mother.

I know my husband feels a little different and I understand why he feels the way he does. At times he gets upset with me cause I don't like to talk about it. It often ends up feeling like a debate and I am not up for a debate about my right or non right to call Izzy my daughter.

I started trying to lose weight in February. A blogger had wrote about myfitnesspal and since I just recently gotten a new phone I checked out the ap.

When I first started logging my food I thought it was kind of fun. Now, I find it a bit of a chore but keeps me in check with my food intake.

Every time the scale moves I am impressed that I pulled it off. I am 13 lbs away from a 50 lb weight loss goal.

It was with diet and exercise. I know some people blame not having time for an excuse to workout but if I can find time with working full time and being a Mom then I think a majority of the people who say they don't have time actually do if they tried to make it. I do believe that some people say that and it's just the truth. They don't have any time.

Today, I had to return something to Walmart and since my size 16's are loose I decided to try the next size down.

I picked out two size 14's and they fit!! I was amazed and shocked!! Me in a size 14? I don't recall ever owning a size 14. I wish I could have bought the jeans but my husband forgot to give me my debit card back from a soda run and I really can't afford to buy them.

I did the best thing and took a shot of me wearing one of the jeans.

I almost started to cry on the way home. I am not sure if it's the fact that I fit in them or that I had to leave them there.

One little neat thing about this weight loss journey is that Izzy is doing the same thing. We are both 37 pounds down and she said that my picture inspired her.

daughter vs. birthdaughter or sister

My husband and I don't see eye to eye on most adoption related things.

When it comes to Izzy being a sister to my son's. I know my son's will have a much different reltionship than Izzy will have with them. They have different parents and did't grow up together. However, they are sister and brothers.

I just feel like that they all have lost so much that don't take that away from them. Don't make it as if they want to talk about Izzy that they shoudl refer to her as a birthsister. When you think about it isn't everyone a birthsister to their brother or sister?

To Izzy's credit, she has never once told me not to refer to her as "my daughter" We briefly spoke about it in writing and she told me she would feel the same way if she was in my shoes.

I know I didn't raise Izzy. I am not the Mom that was there every day. However, I thought about her daily. I wondered what she was like. Was she safe? Was she happy? I cried many tears of sadness due to just being in the dark. I would wonder if I ran into my own child would I know it's her? The truth is she looks so much like me I would think I would wonder if it's possible. However, I have seen other girls that reminded me of Izzy. Especially before we actually met in person.

One time at my son's school, I seen this girl that really made me wonder was I face to face with my daughter and we don't know each other? I listened in to hear her name cause I just didn't know.

Izzy hadn't agreed to meet me yet and I didn't want to have an accidental meeting for her sake.

Then there is this zumba instructor that reminds me of Izzy and me. I don't know if it's just me but the girl looks like she could fit in our family. I wonder if this the sort of thing that drives adoptees crazy? Staring at someone's face and wondering is it possible they are my mother? my father? My sister? My brother? Or some other distant relative?

Back to the daughter compared to birthdaughter question thing. It's the same thing. I lost so much don't take my right to call her "my daughter" away from me. I see no reason to say "birthdaughter" I don't mean any offence for birthparents that choose to call thier child in that way. Maybe, if I had raised another daughter I might say it to make the difference between placed child and raised child. But I really don't think so.

When it's Izzy's birthday.. I proudly search out the cards that are addressed to my daughter. They don't really make cards that say birthdaughter. I choose them carefully so the card is talking as if I did the hard work.

I suppose the whole child growing up and not knowing they had a sister could make things hard and it might be easier for a child to call her his birthsister or not admit to having a sister.

Alex will tell others he has a sister but Stephen doesn't really do that. Maybe, it has something to do with me telling him to shhhh we don't everyone Mommy gave away your sister. That was before we ever had contact.

I have decided to slow down on the zumba by a little bit. I don't have any clear set plans on if I will go back to my typical average of 3 to 4 times a week.

As of right now, I have decided not to do zumba on Saturday and Sunday both. My plan is to do it on Saturday morning but leave Sunday for more relaxing time. I hope to walk my dog more. I have already been doing that.

I hope to add more swimming to my routine. I am excited to try Aqua Zumba at this place called The Rock. The good part is that they have an hot tub and if you pay the five to get in then you get the use of the whole place. I can't wait to give it a try. I would switch gyms but I like all the YMCA has to offer for families.

I actually met a lady that lives a few streets over because she stopped me cause she seen me walking. She asked if I walked daily and I said no but I do zumba and she got all excited and we exhanged information and she said she would like to try it.


I was a little nervous about the can I ride with you question. LOL Hope she isn't a serial killer. However, I am such a zumba freak and love to share the craze I will risk fighting off a murderer. HAHA

Today, I sent her a text to see if she wanted to walk. We walked about 30 minutes and unless she is packing weapons I think I can take her. She appears to be much older. I am not sure if she understands what she is going herself into. Zumba Fitness Rush - Xbox 360 Kinect - Kinect Games & Accessories (Google Affiliate Ad)

And the truth will set you free...

I love the movie Liar Liar and just had to steal that line. I haven't wanted to write about the job issue with Alex because I am just not sure what to do with Alex.

A couple days before we suspected something was up with his job he fell and broke a tooth on the carts. He explained people were getting fired around the 90 day mark and then came up with that he was sent home due to him not reporting his fall.

When my husband pushed for them to tell him where to go get the tooth fixed since it was work related he came clean that he was fired for being late.

Only in this case the truth isn't going to set him free. It puts him in the hot seat.

He didn't take the job serious. He never bought himself another pair of pants to help assure he had a clean uniform. He didn't make sure he got a decent nights sleep if he worked a morning shift. On a few occasions, we woke him up when we noticed he should have already left. My son acted like this just wasn't a big deal.

My son didn't pay his phone bill and today he should have gotten his last check.

We really don't have any plans. The only plan is to shut him off the internet if his phone isn't on tomorrow. We expect for him to get another job but at what point do you kick your child out? In 20 days, he will be grown. It's not that I am out to charge him an crazy amount for rent. However, I do feel as a newly grown up that he as long with everyone else has a responsbility in our house.

He is rarely home for meals. So much that when the other day he popped in and out and we were wondering what to do because we didn't cook enough chicken wings for a 4th person.

I refuse to support his partying days.

Speaking of support. My ex's new job received my paperwork and already took half of one payment from his weekly check.