Looking back, I laugh now because it was sheer torture after that first week. God was testing me in every way to see if I would cave and do what I normally do under immense pressure: eat chocolate. I came close many times to diving into the bag of chocolate chips in my fridge like a monkey on a cupcake. My husband thought it would be nice to stock up the house with chips ahoy for the moment I did cave I could throw myself into a diabetic coma immediately.
I had the 40th day marked on my calendar. I knew when it was by heart, and what I would do to celebrate my triumph. Thankfully Lent ended, or when I thought lent ended, was at the beginning of our family trip to St. Croix. My husband had to stay back because he couldn't get off work so it was me and my 2 daughters, one is 3 1/2 the other just turned 1, taking a 9 hour trip to St. Croix to meet my in-laws. YUP! Bert really fucked me over with that one. Knowing my luck I made sure we had the top of the line double stroller because there was NO way I was manning this trip of 2 flights without the necessary materials. And I took EVERY necessary thing. No flight attendant would fuck with a woman coming to the gate with a double stroller, 2 car seats hanging off said stroller, a camera bag, computer bag, diaper bag, food bag, and Bjorn infant carrier. I was a woman on a mission and it sucked. This is just a taste of the stress I had to deal with during my lent challenge. Celebration was on the horizon so I took one for the team and made it to St. Croix barely unscathed.
Apparently when you load a double stroller down with 2 car seats, diaper bag, camera bag and computer bag, when you take the weight (my children) out of it, it will in fact flip backwards. I managed to scare many a passerby when they saw the stroller flip backwards and then glare at me when they realized the kids weren't in it. I thought I had it figured out so when I went to change my one year old, Allie and Madi jumped out of the stroller too I figured I'd catch the stroller with my foot, the stroller would stay up and I'd be Super Yoga mom of the year. It seems as though all the shit I had stacked on the back of the stroller weighed more than my tiny foot was going to hold down and the stroller flipped back with a vengence but not without digging one of the metal poles up my shin so I looked like I had a run in with a baseball bat during my whole SWIM SUIT CLAD vacation. Fucking awesome! Yup, by this time I would have sold a kidney for a lifesavers.
The 40th day comes and 41st morning arrives and I celebrate with a decadent mocha and buckets of ice cream for 2 days before my husband calls me and says "Did you know Lent ends this Sunday, not last Sunday?" I said "No honey, forty days was up 2 days ago. I counted on the calendar." I was going off of the movie "Forty Days, Forty Nights", where Josh Hartnett (YUM!) gives up sex for the duration of Lent hence the name of the movie, and not off of my Catholic upbringing where in fact I did attend Catholic school, uniforms and all, till 5th grade, went to CCD (yeah that's right, I"m bringing it back old school yo!), and even confirmation classes. Clearly I never paid much attention because everyone, even non-catholics, were telling me Lent ended on Easter, but Easter wasn't until the NEXT Sunday so that would have made it 47 Days and Nights and I KNOW Josh Hartnett would not lead me on like that. So to prove Bert wrong I looked it up on my Blackberry and it read, Lent started on February 17 and ended April 4.
FUCK ME!!! I just made it through 40 days without sweets of any kind to find out I fell a week short. (Insert pissing and moaning). SON-OF-A-BITCH! Give me a fucking donut. I guess I'll try again next year. So the moral of the story is, it pays to pay attention during school because if you don't the big man up stairs WILL have the last laugh. Also make sure you do your research because your efforts could account for shit. The end.
