Clouds always pass.

When Hal is home, all is good. He has the next week off for a vacation and on Tuesday, we are leaving for a three day/two night stay in Orlando. Hal’s sister is hooking us up with a hotel and tickets to Universal Studios. Sometimes, I realize just how good life is and am filled with such excitement. I feel so incredibly lucky to have met, married, AND have children with Hal.

Every two to three months I’m needing to buy Bella new clothes. The girl is growing like a weed. Tonight, I just bought her a few new outfits in size 18 months! Tomorrow, she’ll be seven months old!!! As I was walking through the outlet mall, making a bee line from Carters to Motherhood (for a postpartum support band – more on this later) I felt really happy. I was by myself and every time I saw a woman with a small baby I had to comment on how cute and beautiful her baby was. I walked by a guy who had an unusually large Boston terrier (35 lbs.) on a leash and stopped to talk with him about how large his dog was (heh) and how I love Boston terriers. I had a lovely conversation with both the sales reps in the stores I went in.

Now, I have to go upstairs and comfort my son who is currently having a melt down.

Oh, wait… he just stopped crying and fell back to sleep.

Life really is good and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate being able to see that, again.

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Flip.

Life has been pretty chill around here, lately. We seem to have gotten over and through our early year rough patch and have moved on to greener pastures. The shift started with an old high school friend offering to give me a free massage. I remember thinking after I read her e-mail, this is it! This is the start of something new! I know it’s silly, but I tend to see everything like a river… sometimes it flows peacefully and sometimes its out of control. It all depends on the surrounding elements. I’m the river. Maybe one day I’ll run smoothly even when the weather’s not so good.

I’m still seeing a therapist every week. She has also been a calming element in my life.

** Hal’s grandmother decided to give her grandchildren a chunk of money before she passes away, when we all seem to need it the most. Apparently, there is still a lot left over to give after she passes. We are shocked and very grateful.

Our main bathroom is in dire need of work so we’ve decided to invest the money in our home. We’ll probably go about it in the least expensive way possible, however, I’ve been having a lot of fun looking (daydreaming) on-line for tile, vanities, and bathtubs! Realistically, we will be replacing the linoleum flooring with new tile – possibly the stuff sitting in our garage if there is enough, it is left over from when we tiled our front door area. We’ll also be buying a decent, yet inexpensive, vanity/sink. IF the floor isn’t too expensive because of the water damage done to the particle board under the linoleum, we’ll put in a new toilet. I am really hoping we won’t have to replace the bathtub and wall tiling in the tub. We also need to re-tile half of our roof, clean our carpets, and do some yard improvement stuff with this money. Oh, and we’d like to by a nice 32″ TV. I think our current TV is a 20″, which is nice, but we are movie people.

I took out 100 bucks of our pre-inheritance to buy some new clothes for myself. I’ve spent $55 of it already. I don’t have expensive taste – Target clothes are fine by me – but my body is in such a weird middle place right now. I’m afraid to buy any pants because within the last three months I have dropped four pant sizes, and it seems like I keep losing weight on a weekly basis. Not complaining, but unpredictable weight loss makes buying clothes less fun when you’re poor and need to be able to wear what you buy for at least a year. I’m also keeping my larger sizes because once I’m able to eat what-ever I want again, my weight may go up.

After giving birth to Bella, I was a size 20. I’m currently a size 16. Funny how I don’t feel any different. I never see myself as being “fat,” regardless of my size. I also have never felt unattractive because of my weight. The only reason I want to be a size 10/12, is so that I can thrift store shop and find cool stuff! The era of clothing I like was made pretty small. A size 10 back then is like a size 6 now-a-days. When I was 24 years old, I was a size 8. Only now do I realize just how small that is.

** Hal’s sister works at Margaritaville in Universal Studios. She gets free tickets every month to either use or give away. We have been to Universal several times with those freebies. This time, as a birthday gift to Hal (July), Max (November), and me (December) she is giving us tickets to Universal and paying for a hotel at Universal. Walking distance from the park! For two nights! Hal and I aren’t “theme park people,” but when its free… woohoo! yipee! I’m actually pretty darn excited about this.

** I’ve been taking it easy since burning out last week from all the outings with the kids, but tomorrow I’ll head out to Sarasota for “camp.” My nature mama friends have organized a summer camp for our kids. I am what is called a “floater.” Max, Bella, and I pop in when we can without any commitment. If you are part of the regular camp you can drop your kid off on one of those two days for the duration of camp-time. Regular camp runs two days a week from 9am – noon and is held at a different mama’s house each time. All my nature mama friends live two towns away (at least a 30 min drive) which makes it hard for me to commit. If they do it again next year (this is the 2nd year its been done) I think I’ll “sign up” (which is a verbal commitment) to go full-time.

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Pop.

The in-laws are on the way over to pick Max up. Have I mentioned this year is getting better? My depression has subsided leaving behind only the occasional boredom that comes along with being a SAHM. Boredom that has always been around and that I only first experienced once I became a SAHM.

Last week I received an e-mail from a woman whom I used to party with back in the day - way back in the day. It was a nice surprise to hear from her and an even nicer surprise that she was offering to give me a free massage. We had reconnected through Classmates.com a few months ago and had been keeping in touch through e-mail ever since. When I sent a mass e-mail out with BellaGrace’s birth story, I sent it to her. She was moved by the story of my labor and decided that I was in need of a good professional massage. She couldn’t have had better timing. When I opened her e-mail, I knew my luck was changing.

When she arrived we talked comfortably and she got along well with my children – a feat that could make or break a visit from anyone. There was non of that weird awkwardness that you may expect from a blast from the past. The one quality I remembered most about her personality was still present – only stronger and wiser. She has this quality of honesty – stand up honesty – that I’ve always admired. So we talked and laughed a lot and then she gave me one helluvah massage.

My body is always in need of tension release especially in my neck area. These days, I’m sandwiched in between two little ones all night – one who nurses periodically. A professional massage was just what I needed. And it was double-great that she came to me, baring all her massage therapy equipment. Dear friends who read this blog, if you are in need of a wonderful massage, let me know and I’ll give you her information.

The subject of our 15 year high school reunion came up. Oh yeah, I’m going. And I was able to rope her into going with me! I missed our 10 year reunion because I was living in Chicago at the time. I probably wouldn’t have gone, anyway, because it cost around $200 and was a three day event. I guess they expected most of the class to be childless and still partying. This time, the reunion is at a country club, cost $45, includes four other classes, and is from 7pm – midnight, on a Saturday. I can handle that. But I have to ask, dear reader, what the hell does “country club attire” mean??? I’m not quite sure how I should dress for this event.

I’m going because I like where I’m at in life. Had this reunion been right after Bella’s birth, I’d be missing it. I imagine that only people who feel good will be going to this event. Who the hell would want to go if their life was in out-right shambles? Unless, of-course, they are hoping (or expecting) to find other lost souls to comfort their mood. I’m expecting to see familiar faces without really connecting with anyone. I’m expecting superficiality from most and genuine conversation from no one. I’m expecting to see hidden sadness on many faces and palpable happiness from few. I’m also open to the unexpected. All in all, I think whether I enjoy the evening or not, I will be happy that I went.

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Come on, you know you want too…

I’m going to start recording what I eat. Part to make sure I’m eating well and part because I don’t think I will be able to look back on this time in my life and believe I actually ate this well.

Last night:

Dinner: Canned baked beans, brown rice, and a salad the same as what I had for lunch today.

Today:

Breakfast: Oatmeal with sugar and grapes
Lunch: Salad made with spinach, romaine lettuce, carrots, purple onions, cucumbers, celery, a mixture of sprouted beans (for protein), & balsamic vinegar dressing (Paul Newman’s). 1 tbl of flax seed oil added.
Dinner: Lentils (protein) with cut up carrot and celery. Spiced just right, which for me means salty. Brown rice.

Today, for the first time, I felt really good all day. I enjoyed my kids more today than I have since Bella joined our family. I looked at Bella and actually thought I could have another one.

I felt like, I don’t want this to end! I want my kids to stay this age forever!

Hahahahaha! Even I have to laugh at the absurdity of that sentiment. However, its nice to be in the flow of things.

I just love these kids so much.

Please slap me now. Hard.

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On the flip side…

And then I have days like today when I’m reminded of what I love in my life and why:

Oh, and I almost forgot to include this adorable shot… Nature Boy:

When ya gotta go… ya gotta go.

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Nothing like a good party to lift one’s spirits.

Proof (to myself when I’m feeling blue) that there is “life after kids.”

There were lots of parents at the party, just none with a new baby. So, ya know what that means… every woman there wanted to hold Bella! After Bella got settled, ate, and napped she was passed around long enough for me to feel like I had a nice break. I talked with old friends, new people, and ate delicious vegan fare. Let me tell you, the food was awesome but… a vegan BBQ potluck is probably the only kind of food party one can leave still feeling hungry. Everything just digested so fast!

This was the first time just me and my girl went out and about. I’m so excited to have a little girl!

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Pool Fun and Boozing Bossman.

Woke up this morning, ate breakfast, went outside to set up Max’s new pool. It is not as big as it looks in that picture. Anyway, he played outside for a couple hours (skin loaded with sunblock) while Bella slept in her playpen that we originally bought for Max when he was a baby (he has sat in it maybe a total of 2 times). Hal and I have ambitious plans for our back yard. We stood outside for a while talking/fantasizing about the additions and landscape we’d like to add. We want it to be kid-friendly and party worthy (for both adults and kids). Slowly but surely it is getting there.

I sat in Max’s kiddy pool to play with him – and it was fun! Kids + water = good times. Hal’s brother called this morning to invite us to a b-day party for one of O’s kids. It is to be held at the beach and sounds like a great time. Only, he just told us about it today – the day of – which I hate. He has a tendency to mention stuff in passing without any real details then spring the final plan on us the day of, expecting us to be ready for take off.

Hal and I have to plan for these kinds of events. We are not so spontaneous that we will forgo Max’s nap, guaranteed food fare for ourselves, and the subsequent sanity that follows when having these two things in place. I’m going to try my hardest to explain this to R the next time we talk – better yet, I think I’ll tell O (she seems to comprehend these things much better).

After play time outside, I bathed the kids, we ate lunch, and now Max is taking his nap. Hal is upstairs holding Bella and watching the Brit version of The Office. When Max wakes from his nap, we’ll go over to Hal’s folk’s house for dinner.

Speaking of Hal’s folks, I decided that every weekend I would just come right out and ASK my MIL to take Max on Monday. I asked her already and she said, yes! She’ll even pick him up – which is awesome. She loves having him – especially when it is only for a 3-4 hour time period (lucky for me, that is all I need for my own peace of mind).

I was drinking a Pepsi out of the can today and Max kept trying to steal it from me. I asked him if Lola (grandma) lets him drink caffeine (he calls all soda “caffeine”). I was happy to hear him say, No, but surprised to hear him say, wine. I said, “Oh? She lets you drink wine?” “Just a little bit” he said.

Oh boy.

I know what he is talking about, though, because I was there once when she let him “try” her wine. There was a very small amount at the bottom of her wine glass and he grabbed the glass exclaiming, “little bit in there!” Then drank it down. No one stopped him. I was just surprised that he seemed to like it.

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This next month is all about adjustment.

How I’m able to take the time to write this: Hal and Max are out running errands, Bella is napping, and I’m happily and rightfully ignoring the mess in our kitchen and living room.

This last week has been all about making adjustments in our life and healing my body. We do have a few challenges, as one would imagine. The first thing we had to figure out was the night parenting stuff. We are an attachment parenting family and Max was still sleeping next to mommy before Bella arrived. I did myself a huge favor by night weaning him during the month of December, but that didn’t take away his love for snuggling with me at night. So, after rearranging our beds a couple times we finally *think* we have figured out something that will work for us. Max is in a full-size bed – by himself – papa and the dogs on the twin bed – and Bella & I on the other side of the room from Max in the other full-size. That way, papa is in between Max and I.

Hal has started night parenting Max. This means that when Max wakes up it is Hal’s job to get him to go back to sleep. Mind you, before Bella was born Max had stopped waking during the middle of the night, but with all the newness going on in our home his sleep has been a little less than deep. Hal is getting a good taste of what I have been going through since Max’s birth – soreness from being in the same position to comfort him and tiredness from the lack of sleep. However, Max is doing pretty darn well all considering – oh, and so is Hal.

The other challenge, which really isn’t as bad as I was anticipating, is just getting Max acclimated to seeing Bella nurse on his beloved num-nums. Introducing Max to Bella was amazing and easy. He got very excited to see her, knew right away that it was Bella lying on the bed, and started clapping while exclaiming, “It’s Bella! It’s Bella! Yay! Bella not in mommy’s tummy any more!”

It was the best, most sweetest eva introduction of a baby sister to her big brother. He immediately wanted to hug and kiss her, lay next to her in bed, and just stare at her. The whole time he had this big excited smile on his face. It was so touching that Hal started to cry! Max was pretty much like that until he saw her nursing. Then the lessons on boundaries began. He’s taking it well, though, and understands (after only two days of teaching this) that he has to nurse on the other boob (because you know at first he had to have the same one), has to be gentle when he latches on, has to make sure he isn’t laying on top of Bella, and has to wait until mommy latches Bella on first before he can dive in. He’s a very smart kid and I’m very proud of how well he comprehends everything.

Look at that forced smile! Inside I’m thinking, “How the heck did I get myself into this!”

Max has been great with Bella about 95% of the time. The other 5% has been a slap on the face here, a pinch there, even a wide open mouth-full-of-teeth pressed a little here – on the head. First, my way of dealing with it was to talk to him about how it is not nice and he can only touch nicely – then I showed him how and allowed him to follow/copy the behavior. The second approach I took was to, in the spur of the moment, I popped him lightly on the cheek (didn’t even leave a red mark but startled him good) when he hit Bella on the face and another time when he screamed in her ear. I did this once for each offense. It felt right when he hit her but not when he screamed in her ear (I felt bad for that one). Both times I explained that mommy had to protect Bella from him if he was going to hurt her the same way I would protect him if someone bigger was hurting him. I also said, which he probably didn’t understand (too wordy) – it was more for my benefit – that when she can protect herself I’d let them work it out alone but until then mommy will be protecting Bella. After this, I gave him a lot of love – kissing his cheeks where his “owie” was – and just reminded him how much I love him.

I’m not comfortable at all with hitting my children (regardless of whether or not it “felt right” in the moment) so in my heart knew – even in the moment it was happening – that it wasn’t something I could add to my repertoire of disciplining. I think it happened almost as a knee-jerk reaction to being both frustrated with Max’s behavior and desiring so badly to “drill” it into his head that he can not be “mean” to Bella. Oooh the irony in adult behavior sometimes! Don’t be mean! Slap! Anyhoo… so now, my way of handling Max-Lashings on Bella is to just ignore it. I get up and walk away from him (taking Bella with me of-course) without punishing, rewarding, or responding to his actions. And at this point, I know that he knows that what he did was not nice and that it upsets mommy and Bella. On the flip-side of ignoring the undesirable behavior, I am making a BIG DEAL out of it every time Max is nice to Bella. As a result, he has started showing me (making a big deal out of it) every time he is nice. I am most comfortable with this approach – it feels right. All of this in the span of 6 days.

I can’t sing Hal’s praises enough so I won’t even try. However, I will say that he is the kind of partner that makes all of this feel more like “team-work” rather than “mama’s-work” – which is in my opinion how it should be.

The healing of my body has been a lot easier than it was with Max. There is way less soreness down in my neither regions and way less physical, emotional, and mental shock to my psyche. The whole after birthing experience, in general, has been easier. I’m assuming this can be contributed to the fact that everything is already familiar to both my body and mind. What a relief about that!

Bella is fantastic. Perfect in every way. And already so different than Max who is also perfect in every way.

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December’s Sentiments and my to do list.

It’s been so long since I’ve sat down to write that it’s hard to find a place to start. Periodically throughout my day stuff comes up in my head (memories) or happens and it feels so necessary to record it. It feels urgent, even. Then, when night falls I’m too tired to sit in front of the computer. As a person who needs to write to keep sane, this really sucks. However, I’m hanging in there and can say without having to write a book documenting the month of December, that this Christmas has been the absolute best Christmas of my entire life.

As Max is getting older this time of year is becoming so incredibly special. I didn’t grow up in a big family and many of my childhood memories of Christmas are marred by my parent’s fighting. Seems this time of year was very stressful for them – and understandably so. With their marriage slowly falling apart, financial struggles, and my mother’s mental health on a steady decline the holidays were not a good time of year for me growing up. I always tried to pretend that I didn’t feel the tension in the air or hear the late night shouting matches as I opened the gifts with a smile on my face and excitement in my voice, but I always knew what was going on. Kids know.

Having Max and Bella is giving me the opportunity to recreate the holidays and bring beautiful memories about for myself as well as my whole family (including my parents). It’s quite exciting, really. Sometimes I have to pinch myself because I can’t believe how fucking lucky I am to have all that I do. And I’m not talking about owning property or a car. I’m talking about the amount of love that I feel in my life. I’m talking about having a great relationship with my husband. I’m talking about things like having a space to really be myself – whether I’m happy or sad, angry or excited. Sure, I’m thankful for all the “stuff” I have – no doubt about that – but mostly I’m thankful for my family and this life I’ve created.

Now that the holidays are almost over and my due date (January 27th) is quickly approaching I have gone into hyper-nesting mode. I’ve got so much to do before Bella gets here – stuff I’ve had on my “To Do” list for months – and I’m just now feeling like doing it all.

My To Do List:

1. Clean out under main bathroom sink. Put contact paper down there. Move items that are in the linen closet into that cabinet.
2. Clean out linen closet. Move linens from Max & Bella’s closet into linen closet.
3. Organize Bella’s clothes.
4. Move Hal’s clothes out of ugly dresser into closet baskets.
5. Clean out ugly dresser.
6. Call to have ugly dresser picked up and taken away.
7. Clean area where ugly dresser once occupied.
8. Ask in-laws if they can buy us a dresser for the kids (I hate to do this but I know they would love to have the opportunity to help us out – we rarely ask them for anything. I can’t even remember what the last thing we asked them for was -it has been that long) They said yes!
9. Clean out crib
10. Wash all crib linens.
11. Purge some of Max’s toys.
12. Buy some shelves to hold/better organize the kid’s toys.
13. Clean out closet in master bedroom.
14. Set up master bedroom’s sink area as a changing area for Bella.
15. Buy new linens (ours are about 10 years old!).
16. Buy storage cabinets for all of our media stuff that is now being stored in our bedroom closet.
17. Purge books

A couple of these things Hal will have to help me with but for the most part… this is stuff that I have to do if I want it done. My energy level is picking up a little but I still can only do one or two things a day. I’m now waking up every 1-2 hours at night to pee – Bella must have moved down onto my bladder a little more. She is still in position to be born (head-down) so I’m very happy about that. I can tell she has gotten bigger, too, because her feet are now kicking a little higher than they were last month.

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STILL sick. But, getting use to it.

After I made my last post I was depressed up until Hal got home and I was able to let a little bit of it out to (on) him. He let me do my bitching about how hard life has been since getting sick three weeks ago and then he bitched about how hard his day had been. Ahhh, misery loves company. Then, I looked over on the kitchen counter and saw that he brought home, Brokeback Mountain, for my viewing pleasure. My day was officially over and the night was starting out right.

I had a hard time getting Max to sleep, because, you know, when momma really wants to get out of bed his sixth sense kicks in and he refuses to go down quickly. When I finally got him to doze off, I snuck out of bed into the arms of my hubby who was waiting for me with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. We got through maybe half the movie before Max woke up and joined us for the last half. Little stinker.

Max has been getting this crazy energy before bedtime almost every night. I think it has something to do with the fact that he is having all of these amazing developmental milestones with his communication. He’s speaking in four word sentences and loves to tackle any word you give him. Makes a momma and papa proud, I tell ya.

Friday morning we went to Hundsader’s Farm for their annual pumpkin festival. I have been looking forward to doing this since the day Max was born and I turned on the TV to watch “Baby Story.” We didn’t have cable before Max was born so I devoured every show as I sat in my rocker nursing him. It seemed like every other episode featured a family going to a pumpkin farm to pick wild growing pumpkins. It became seared into my head that THIS is a “family” tradition that I want to adopt.

Well, my fantasy became a reality on Friday and it was wonderful. However (because you know nothing is as great as what you see on TV), unlike the crisp fall weather that graced the families on TV, it was sweltering Floriduh HOT heat that was beating down on us. And, there was no wild pumpkin patch. All the pumpkins where picked already and placed under a tent by size. Oh well. Oh, my other complaint (hey, I’m okay with nothing ever being perfect!) is that they didn’t really have any food that we could eat. Pretty much everything was meat based. Next time, we’ll pack ourselves a nice picnic.

Aside from the minor discomforts/disappointments we had a great time. Max’s favorite part was riding in the little train. He went like a big-boy all by himself. I was a little hesitant at first to let him do it but was like, what the hell, if he cries the guy can stop the train (it wasn’t a real train with tracks and it pretty much just went around in a circle) and I’ll get Max off. But, once the wheels started ah’ rollin’ my baby-boy grabbed his steering wheel and drove that car! He waved to us each time they drove by and just looked so damn cute and happy.

We also checked out the farm animals because this is Max’s favorite book. He knows every animal by name and sound. There was a frog show and high school band playing, too. Max really dug the drums and continued making drumming motions long after the music stopped. We ate ice cream, went into the butterfly tent, and of-course, went on a hay ride. After all that, we were pooped (although Max didn’t want to leave) so went home.

On the way to the farm we stopped at two stores looking for the battery my camera takes but to no avail. I ended up buying a disposable camera. When I get the pics developed I’ll post them. I haven’t been able to post any belly pics because of no battery in the camera and I need to reload my Kodak Gallery program. Hopefully I can get that done sooner rather than later.

I apologize if there are a lot of spelling and grammatical errors in this post – I didn’t take a lot of time to write it out.

A Word To Fathers:

When your wife/partner is sick, we truly love it when you take over the parenting duties and play with our children. It’s even better if you take said children out of the house for a few hours so that we may convalesce in peace in quite. However, this is not enough. You must also clean the house. Do the things we do when we are well so that when we get better the house doesn’t look like a hurricane swept though it.

PS – Thank you Hal. You are THE GREATEST (not perfect, just the greatest) hubby in the world. Other men could learn a lot from you.

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