Bear with me...

Ok I'm doing some changes to the blog, it's a work in progress as I don't have much time...it might look funky for a while, colors not matching etc...

Yummy peepa mommy!

My mother in law asked me to go with her and her parents(in town to see Baby W) out to eat last night. Not one to pass up free food, I said we’d go(and D’s grandparents are really sweet). They chose a certain pizza place that we love, even though my mother in law has only been there once—with Hailey and I—and the grandparents have never been there. Usually when we go, it’s just Hailey and I. We have our little routine, and it always works out great. Last night it didn’t go quite so well. They wanted to choose a table, and sat down. The highchair they’d gotten Hailey was broken, so I went to get a new one while carrying Hailey. I’m used to this, I usually go alone, remember? His grandpa followed me and took the highchair from me even though I obviously had everything under control…I was carrying Hailey on my right hip as usual, and the highchair w/ my left hand, no problem. So he took it from me. I politely told him thanks. So we’re sitting at the table. Finally I ask if we’re going to go order or not. You have to understand, D’s grandma is even worse than my mother in law. The poor woman is just not bright at ALL. She had no idea that there could ever be a pizza place where you are not waited on. And this is not because of her age, believe me. My mother in law had been there before w/ me, but acted the same way as her mom…horrified that they had to get up and actually go to the counter and order. So we get up there and for once I stand up for myself…I told them if it was okay with them, I was going to order a pizza for us, half what D likes and half what Hailey and I like. They asked(although my mother in law had already asked me once on the phone 30 minutes ago) what I get on our pizza…I explained, so they’d understand why they wouldn’t want to share with us(I get funky stuff like artichoke hearts and mushrooms and onions, stuff they would never eat). They order their pizza, and I put in our full usual order including a salad w/ no sprouts for me, a bowl of shredded cheddar cheese for Hailey and milk and soda. I also ordered sodas for them, as they hadn’t even thought about ordering drinks. We go to get our soda, and once again they start grabbing stuff from me. I like order, organization…I like to be in control of what’s going on with myself and Hailey…I know I may seem like I’m being ridiculous, but all this “help” I was getting from them was not only unwanted but it was stressing me out because it was totally throwing out all order in our routine, and our stuff was spread out between 3 other people instead of being nicely contained where I knew where everything was. Maybe this is my OCD coming out, but I just needed them to back off and let me take care of us myself. I went and got our plates and silverware, and explained to them they would need to get their own as the 4 plates I picked up were just enough for Hailey and I between the pizza and salad etc. They refused to use the towel napkins this place has…one of the “unique” things about this place…because that was “gross” and why use those when they have disposable napkins available? We finally get to the table and they begin griping about having to do all this work themselves. I ignored them as best I could. Then when I went to pick up my salad, they were like “You ordered a SALAD?!?!” Then as I was feeding bites of it to Hailey they had to discuss in length the fact that my 16 month old daughter actually eats and likes salad and how weird it is for an adult to like salad let alone a 16 month old…this is what I’m talking about, this is why I hate eating with his family. We have nothing in common when it comes to food. They don’t need or like vegetables and they always talk about how weird I am because I do…and they act like I put on this huge act just to be different and get attention! Ok if I don’t have some sort of veggie w/ every meal I feel disgusting, I’m sorry…it’s how I was raised, we’ve always eaten healthy food! At least this time my father in law and nephew weren’t there, so I didn’t have to put up with my father in law trying to shove chocolate cookies and pudding down my daughter’s throat the whole meal, knowing I don’t allow those things on a weekday(really hardly at all, she’s lucky to ever get anything sweet besides an animal cracker or a bit of ice cream). My nephew always sits there eating like a bird, refusing to eat anything except sweets and soda…and he’s 2 and ½ and they let him…and they think it’s ridiculous that Hailey’s not just like him, because he’s “normal”...can you tell how annoyed I am??? So, back to last night...after the salad was gone, they had to discuss in great lengths the fact that Hailey was eating SO MUCH, when all she’d had was some of my salad, a bowl of cheddar cheese and a jar of carrot/apple/mango baby food that she fed to herself(sneaky way to get her to eat carrots, and of course they were SHOCKED at how she could actually feed herself—imagine, a kid feeding themselves, WOW!!) They act like I overfeed her. Then they griped about how long the pizza was taking(ok it had been 25 minutes and the clock was set to 30 minutes, hello be patient) and they exclaimed very loudly that pizza hut NEVER takes that long(seriously? Pizza Hut takes an hour!) I tried to change the subject by explaining that they make their own dough and everything, and pointing out the “dough tunnel” and stairs, where the little kids can stand and the workers will throw balls of dough through the tunnel over the glass to them to play with. They did not grasp the concept. I tried for 5 minutes to explain it to the grandma…the grandpa had given up trying to understand…my mother in law didn’t care anything about what I was saying…finally I gave up and changed the subject again. Finally the pizza came, and Hailey chowed down. But they’d messed up our routine so much, that she was really antsy and not focused, so she grabbed my plate and promptly told me I was “all done!” and then wanted to jump on my lap while yelling at the people behind us. She NEVER acts like that there. So I got firm with her, something that by the looks my inlaws gave me I take it they didn’t like…all I did was look her in the eyes, hold her arms firmly, and tell her to settle down NOW and I stood her next to my chair and ignored her cutesy pleading “Mom-MEE!” They looked at me like I was the most horrible mother EVER(they don’t reprimand my nephew, ever…they tell him very sweetly not to do something, and then let him do it anyway) and you know what, she settled down and wanted to sit down in her chair. Hm, think I know my own kid, thanks. By the end of the meal my mother in law had warped back into one of her “moods” where she acts like she hates me and they rushed off. I don’t know if it’s the new baby making them all act freaky or what, but my in-laws are driving me INSANE these past couple days. My mother in law is now trying to tell me when I can go to the hospital and when I can’t…even though my sister in law told me to come by tonight with Hailey and take more pictures for her, apparently my mother in law has it in her head I am not allowed to be there unless they are as well?? God forbid, I spend 15 more minutes with the baby than they get to. Even though they were there all freaking day yesterday and I didn’t even go by because they wanted to see Hailey and take us out to eat, which I gave in to even though my sister in law had begged me to come keep her company each day she was there! I’m just sick of how controlling they are, sick of how they act like I’m a freaking weirdo and after 8 years of being with D still making me feel like an outsider…I’m tired of them flaunting how much they help my brother and sister in law, rubbing it in to make me feel like crap. I’m tired of my mother in law voicing her opinion about us about Hailey, all while acting like she doesn’t even care if she gets to see her or anything, while flaunting how much she LOVES my nephew. I’m just tired of it all, and they’re driving me to the point where I’m just going to not try anymore. It’s starting to feel oddly familiar…it feels like it did when D and I moved in together, and then when I was pregnant, and right after I had Hailey. These people will never be happy with anything we do, will continue to try to control our lives while showing as minimal interest as necessary in our daughter, and continue to try and make it seem like it’s our fault they never get to see her etc. etc. I could go on and on. It’ll never end. This post is really jumbled I know, but I just have all these thoughts and feelings in my head that I can’t get sorted out.

Ok now that that’s out… everything else is going great. It’s Friday, YAY!! I’m hanging out with my mom tonight. Tomorrow if it’s nice, we plan on going swimming. Sunday my sister is riding down to my grandma’s with Hailey and I, to meet the family for dinner. Monday I have off work, thank GOD(I’ve been so busy but so bored here lately!). The weather is still beautiful out, Hailey really enjoyed the ride home last night, with both front windows open blowing the cool breeze on her while she relaxed in her car seat. Things are still great with D and I, and he’s falling totally in love with Hailey all over again, just like I knew he would when he started spending more time with her. It’s killing him now that school’s back in session, he misses her so much…to the point where he’s calling me and making me put her on the phone, and even getting up EARLY to see her on his 1 day to sleep in!!! Things are just perfect, and I feel so positive about life…no matter what’s happened lately, it hasn’t gotten me down. It’s a great feeling!!

This and that

It’s been one of those days…

First off, this whole baby thing has be in a bit of a bad mood. I went to see new baby W last night. He wasn’t in the room when I got there, they were suctioning him out some more since he was having problems getting all the mucous out. I didn’t mind, I was there to see my sister in law just as much as I was there to see the baby. I talked to her for a while, asking how she’s doing etc. My in-laws were there. I think that’s what really started it. They were being so incredibly annoying. They were getting my nephew (who’s 2 and ½ yrs.) all riled up and making him scream. It just irritated me how disrespectful they were being to the other moms in the hospital who were probably trying to get some rest. And my sister in law had been through enough, she shouldn’t have to keep getting onto her oldest son repeatedly…she just didn’t need that. But my in-laws weren’t thinking about her at all, all they cared about was the baby. Then the baby talk started. It drives me up the WALL how instead of talking correctly, they call things what W calls them. For instance, he calls dogs “gogs,” so instead of saying “do you want to go see the dogs?” they say “let’s go see the gogs!!” Hello, that’s not teaching him anything. He’s 2 and a half and he can’t speak a single full sentence, and while this is normal for some children I’m starting to see that it may be quite a while before he starts to talk with the examples he gets from my in-laws! You have to understand…he’s with them ALL THE TIME. But that’s a whole other story. Anyway, so they start asking him if he wants some “Cocket Mulk”…in proper English, “chocolate milk”…it drove me up the wall to hear them repeat the mispronounced words to him OVER and OVER. I’m sorry if that seems petty, but these people are so odd and I cannot stress how hard it is to spend any time around them at all without acting pissy. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when my sister in law was finally feeding the baby she said to me “I’ll hurry with this so you can finally hold him Erin”…and my mother in law exploded…”ERIN, why ERIN, what about ME!?!?!” I looked at her with a look of shock on my face. She is the most immature 50-something year old woman I have ever met. I sternly told her that I had not even SEEN the baby yet, let alone held him. She said “Well I’ve only held him for like 3 minutes!!” Ok she’d been there all morning. The woman is just nuts. I really try to get along with her, really try to tolerate her, LIKE her even, but it’s just not working. I told her that was ridiculous, and jokingly said “I will fight you for him you know, I’m pretty sassy!” My brother in law finished feeding the baby while my mother in law whipped out her photo album devoted solely to big brother W, which is another thing that annoys the crap out of me. Do they have an album for Hailey??? Hell no. So my sister in law and I start comparing the 2 boys, noting their differences and similarities. My sister in law pointed out that the outfit big brother W wore home from the hospital was the one I bought him, the very first gift my sister in law ever got when she was pregnant with him. I thought that was very sweet that they picked that outfit as his going home outfit. She asked me what Hailey went home in, and I honestly told her I have no clue. My mother in law blew up again. “You don’t have a CLUE, what do you mean, you don’t REMEMBER?” I told her I didn’t pick out anything special, and we didn’t take pictures or anything of her going home or arriving home like my brother and sister in law did, so I don’t remember. She actually had the nerve to say to me “God, what horrible parents!!” I politely reminded her “You have to understand, I did not WANT a baby, I wasn’t into doing all that cutesy baby memory family crap!” What I really wanted to do, was scream at the top of my lungs “Can I not get it through your thick head that I did not WANT a baby, and that I was not only not giddy about coming home with Hailey but I was on the verge of a BREAKDOWN because of the whole situation!?!?! Do you not remember the grief you caused us in the hospital by calling and screaming/cussing at us over the phone the night before we came home????” etc. etc. Seriously, to this day I think she thinks we planned Hailey. I honestly think she thinks I put on a huge act, how miserable I was and unhappy I was after she was born. She never offered help. She basically ignored the fact that I even existed. All that mattered is that they could drop by last minute at 9:00 at night and see Hailey. And they thought I was incredibly rude when I didn’t sit and converse with them while laughing and smiling. GRRRRRRRRRRR Ok the visit at the hospital yesterday just brought back TONS of bad memories, and tons of horrible feelings of resentment towards my in-laws for making a bad situation even worse for me. As if all that wasn’t enough, when I was getting ready to leave the hospital my mother in law chose THAT time to give my sister in law a huge gift of Bath and Body Works stuff…a special scent she’d gone to great lengths to find and buy, because she knew how much my sister in law loves in. Ok when I was in the hospital after Hailey was born she yelled to my husband on the phone tons of horrible things about me that weren’t true, even going so far as to call me names(all while he’s rocking our newborn daughter mind you, and I’m trying to dr. my horrible swollen hooha) Thanks ma, LOVELY gift. Why does she treat us so differently?? And it was almost like she wanted me to see her give the gift, like rubbing it in my face. I promptly hugged my sister in law, who begged me to come back and keep her company, and left. I went home, got on my sister in law’s email account like she’d asked me to, did a few things for her that needed to be done, esp. w/ the pictures I’d taken for her…and went to bed in a grumpy mood. I woke up this morning tired, but fine. I came to work and was showing a couple of my coworkers the new baby pictures. I was telling them how I was surprised that seeing the baby didn’t make me have the urge to have one of my own like I thought it would. I thought I’d feel jealous of my sister in law and start wanting a baby more than ever. Maybe my in-laws had something to do with me not feeling like that, but anyway, I didn’t feel like that when I left…I was just happy for them and thought he was a cute baby. That’s all. So I was telling my coworker how D and I have been talking lately about when we might try for another baby and how I was glad the visit didn’t make me want another one right now, and my coworker says “Well you don’t need to have another one til D gets a job anyway!!!” I was shocked. And quite pissed to be honest. That is none of her business, and it wasn’t for her to say! I told her that even if we got pregnant now D would have a job before the baby was born, but we’re not trying anytime soon so that didn’t matter!! It really hurt my feelings that she said this. It just added to my feelings that my mother in law had started the night before. Nobody would be happy if we announced the fact that we’re having another baby, no matter when it happened…what is it about us??? It can’t be money…my brother and sister in law are going through bankruptcy for goodness sakes, and my in laws were still overjoyed to hear of the impending arrival!! But if we were to get pregnant…well it’d be the end of the world. Even though this time we’re married, they would still be ashamed. My in-laws bawled, out of sorrow and disappointment, when they found out about Hailey. And they didn’t share the news with ANYBODY like they did when my sister in law was pregnant both times. And I know that’s how it’s going to be with our next one. And it just breaks my heart. The only thing I know to do, is just not care. Just try to focus on us as our own little family…just D, Hailey and I…and worry about us being happy and what’s right for us. And I already decided long ago that the birth of the next baby will be completely different. I gave in last time, and told the in-laws we’d call them when I went to the hospital…because they insisted they would be furious with us if we didn’t. But after all the drama that happened, with them being furious that we called D’s brother before we told the in-laws Hailey was born, because they didn’t like her name or the way it was spelled…after them barging in my room while I was in so much pain and so out of it, and acting like I wasn’t even there while talking bad about what we named her, and them taking pictures while holding her with pissed off looks on their faces…I’m not taking the chance on that happening again. Next time, we will call them after Hailey’s born, after we’ve had time to bond and breastfeed etc. Then they can come and see her, preferably when I’ve moved to my permanent room where there isn’t blood still splattered all over the floor. That just seems like the best thing for us. They will be very mad…but I’m done with caring about their feelings, as they so obviously don’t give a crap about ours.

SO…now that I’ve got that vent out…

It is a beautiful day here!! 84 degrees, sunny…this is the weather I LOVE…it’s starting to feel like fall!! I’m so anxious!! I absolutely love this time of the year! I love being able to open up the windows and air out the house!! There’s nothing like feeling the nice cool breeze flow from room to room. It’s so hard to stay in a cruddy mood with great weather like this!

A secretary at one of the schools sent me some chocolate today. I thought that was very sweet of her! Really brightened my day!!

I’ve finally started reading the last Harry Potter book, YAY!! I’m only on page 45 or so, but so far it’s pretty good.

When my husband called me yesterday (yes, he’s even CALLING me now!!) I recounted to him the story of how I killed the most ginormous spider EVER right outside our front door that very morning, without freaking out and screaming like a little girl. Even though it was resting a mere 10 inches from my daughter’s feet. And I am deathly afraid of spiders. And did I mention how ginormous it was??? I told him how it was WAY bigger than the spider he’d killed the night before. He asked me what kind it was, and that was that. Then he gets home last night. I’m already in bed. He comes in the bedroom, and starts going on and on about how HUGE this spider I killed was, WAY bigger than his spider, and how proud of me he is. I know this whole thing may seem silly…but it really meant a lot to me when he praised me like that! If you’ve read previous posts, you know how my husband is…for him to make a big deal out of something that seemed pretty insignificant to him but was a huge deal for me is not something he ever does…so it really meant a lot to me.

A couple of my old friends from highschool in KS have been posting old pictures of themselves and their friends from their highschool/college years on MySpace. I got out our old photo albums, from ’99 up until about 2004(when life got in the way and I quit having time to actually put pictures in albums) and I realized something…while my friends were all hanging out together in big groups of girls, being silly together and having a blast…I was with D. All the time. I didn’t go to college, so I didn’t have that whole experience. Since my Junior year of highschool, it’s been just me and D for the most part. I mean of course we each have other friends, but ALL the pictures I have from that time period…all those years…are of us. Being silly, having a blast, experiencing life together. I thought maybe I’d feel sad that I didn’t get those years with my friends, that I didn’t have the experiences that they did…but I realized I didn’t feel sad at all…I think it’s so neat that my husband and I have been together so long, and that we’ve been able to experience half our teenage and all of our adult lives together. We’ve got all these inside jokes and memories together…I love it that I share those things with my husband instead of a group of girls I probably won’t have any contact with in a few more years. And it was incredibly neat to see how much we’ve grown up and changed. Hell we’ve seen each other nearly every day for the past 8 years…we don’t notice the changes. But looking at these pictures, WOW we looked like little kids!! We were so cute! I think back to those times, and how I felt…I never would have thought that after all these years we’d still be together, more in love that ever, and married with a little girl. I realized all over again how lucky I am…these past couple years I’ve been worrying and complaining so much, but what the hell am I complaining about? I have my dream…I’m married to my best friend and I have a wonderful little girl! I’m not un-lucky at all!

He's here! **Updated with a picture!**

Baby W was born this morning at 8:45am. He weighed 8 lbs even and is 20 1/4 inches long. Baby and mom are both doing fine, although they couldn't get the spinal in my SIL's back...they tried for 45 minutes! Finally they gave up and had to put her out. I get chills just thinking about this...this was one of my nightmares I had repeatedly while I was pregnant with Hailey...blacking out only to wake up and have somebody hand me my baby. Anyway, she woke up an hour after he was born and at 11:00 when my brother in law called, she was still groggy. The plus side of them doing it that way was she has horrible reactions to spinals so this way she's not sick at all, she's doing great! I ran downtown at lunch to get goodies for them. When she had my nephew 2 and 1/2 years ago I brought her yummy truffles from this great candy store, so I carried on the tradition with her 2nd baby.


I also got my brother in law and nephew chocolate covered Oreos to share(they're the round cookies at the top of this picture),


and the cutest little bib that says "Simply Irresistable". I cannot wait to see the little stinker, I am SO EXCITED! It's been a LONG time since I've held a newborn! They said he has thick, long, black hair just like Hailey and his big brother W had when they were born...which means he'll turn out blonde in the end like they did! :o)

Here he is!! Look at all that hair!! I know you can't really see his face, sorry...

Midnight parties and realizations about life...

Here I was just saying a few weeks ago how I have a horrible husband. Boy do I feel stupid. Since that breakdown, my husband has shown me daily how he is quite the opposite. It’s a shame it took us hitting rock bottom to knock some sense into both of us, but I’m glad it worked. Things have been amazing! Of course we’ve still had our little moments of annoyance here and there, but that’s just normal. This turnaround came at the perfect time. We’ve had a few weeks to smooth things out and get back to “normal” before D started his last school year. Yesterday was his first day. Considering he left the house at 8:30 and didn’t get home til 11:15(w/ a short break in there for dinner at home at 9:00) he did remarkably well. The “old” D from a month ago, would have been a bear by the time he got home. But we’ve both had such positive attitudes lately, it’s hard for anything to get us down. I’m still exhausted…having only gotten 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night for the last 5 or so nights is really wearing on me. I’m still in good spirits, but my brain is in a fog and I’m moving a bit slower than normal. Last night my coughing wasn’t as bad as it has been. I got Hailey in bed at 8:00, which was amazing compared to the night before(when I was BEGGING her to go to sleep at 10:15…apparently every kid in this town refused to go to sleep Sunday night, how weird is that?? People are blaming it on some lunar eclipse????) and I was asleep by 11:00!! D wasn’t supposed to get home til after midnight from work, but thank God he got home an hour early because not too long after he got home Hailey started crying. He let her cry for a minute to see if she’d go back to sleep and then gave up and peeked in her room. She was standing in her crib, wanting out. I was OUT. I didn’t even hear her crying! I can’t imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t gotten home early…who knows how long she would have had to cry before I snapped out of it and woke up! He tried for 45 minutes to get her back to sleep, until finally at 12:15 he came into our room and turned my bedside lamp on and looked down at me with this look that said “I’m so sorry, I tried”...I asked him what was going on. He put her in bed with us. At that point Hailey was thinking “Yay, PARTY!!” She jumped on the bed, yelled at the cat, giggled, poked us…asked for juice…we gave her juice, because we were too tired to argue. She sucked it down and demanded more, so we gave her more. She splashed it all over the bed and stained the sheets. She wanted to go into the living room and play! How on earth was she going on so little sleep??????? It’s like she took a 3 hr. nap and then was ready for the day. I was so tired I just lost it and started yelling at her to lay down and go to sleep. I feel so bad about it now, but it didn’t even phase her. She leaned over and said “Mom-mee” in that sweet way she does, as if to say “Mom don’t even try, you are totally NOT scary”…at which point I began to have a coughing fit so bad I almost threw up. Eventually I passed out, coughing, toddler jumping on the bed and wallering all over me, husband pleading and persuading her to settle down and go to sleep...I have no idea what time D got to sleep. All I know is that I woke up at 4:00 to Hailey’s head jamming me in my ribs. This morning Hailey was raring to go, in the best of moods. I left her in her pj’s, since I woke up so late. Of course when I got her to school she’d peed even more in the car so her diaper was full to the brim and starting to leak, making me look like a horrible mother…it was barely wet when we left the house, I swear! It was all that juice in the middle of the night… SO…there was my night. Pretty eventful. I’m now on my second cup of coffee at work, and I plan on getting a Mt. Dew this afternoon. And I’ll just HOPE I get some sleep tonight.

Something very odd has happened the past 3 of 4 nights. All but one night, Hailey has wanted me to read a particular book to her. One night she fell asleep w/out me even reading. But the other 3 nights she has requested I read her little pink Bible to her that my mom got her for Easter. It has no pictures. The words are so small I have to squint to read them. Yet she lays there so still, listening to the words she doesn’t yet understand…pages at a time even…until she drifts off to sleep. I’m not going to lie. We don’t go to church. I did when I was a really little girl. I did the whole Sunday school thing. Then my grandpa got really sick when I was about 4 and my grandma put him in a nursing home in another town and moved to be near him. We quit going to church. Life got in the way. For years we only went on holidays, like Easter and Christmas. I know hardly anything about the Bible. I know the basics but that’s about it (so forgive me if I sound ignorant when I’m talking about it’s contents). Even so, all through my life I’ve prayed. I’ve prayed with Hailey before I put her in her crib every night for a long time now. But it struck me as odd that a 16 month old would request to have the Bible be her bedtime story, especially so many nights in a row. On the second night I read a passage about worrying, and it all hit home. I realized that throughout all the bad things that have happened in my life I’ve still had food, shelter, water and love. My life has been hard, but no matter what happened I still had my basic needs met and was kept safe. I’ve always seen myself as an unlucky person, I’ve always focused on all the bad and wondered WHY it all had to happen to me. I always worried, even as a kid, about money and bills, and food and our safety. It’s really frustrating to me that I didn’t realize sooner that I needn’t worry because no matter what happened, we were surviving. I have been lucky. It’s not God’s fault that life has thrown crap my way…instead of yelling at him and asking him why, I should have been thanking him for helping us through everything. If Hailey hadn’t asked to read the Bible again that 2nd night, I would never have realized this. Or maybe I would have years down the road…but I think I wasted enough of my life worrying, and I’m thankful she made me realize it now before I wasted more years. This also made me really realize the big difference between my husband and I. When he said the other night “Well Hailey was an oops, and everything’s worked out OK” I didn’t really realize just how lucky we’ve been. No we weren’t planning on having her right then…the timing was all wrong. But we were able to get pregnant so easily—which was amazing considering the recent scare I’d had a few months before…cancer runs in our family and my mom started having problems when she hit her 30’s…I, however, began having problems at the ripe old age of 20 and since I’d always had this nagging feeling I wouldn’t be able to have kids I thought “well, here’s the proof I won’t” when I found out about the problems I had. But I did get pregnant, even using precautions to prevent it! I was able to carry her to term w/ no complications. I had a wonderful birth. She was perfectly healthy. And despite only making half of what we need to survive every month, we’re not behind on payments for anything. Yes we’ve racked up debt on our credit cards to get Dan through school, but we’re surviving. Hailey goes to a great school, she’s smart. She doesn’t care that we don’t own a house! Why do I??? I realized this morning that something has been different these past few days…I finally pinpointed what it is. The worry is gone. I just have this really good feeling that no matter what life throws our way, we’ll get through it. I’ve got to start living, instead of wasting every day worrying about things that are out of my control. I’ve got to take life as it is right now, and make the best of it!

I generally don’t write posts like this because my thoughts generally take too much time to get in order enough to write it down without making no sense whatsoever. But this was a major turning point in my life, so I tried to organize my thoughts the best that I can. I’ll remind myself each day of everything I’ve learned, and hopefully things will stay this way!!

I wrote this post this morning and here it is almost 2:00 and I haven’t had time to post it yet…busy day. Luckily it’s flying by. I got Hailey the cutest outfit at Penney’s to wear to a bridal shower for a close friend on Sept. 8. It’s one of those little tunic tops w/ the stretchy capris. So cute! It was on sale for $13, can’t beat that for a whole dressy outfit. And my friend is coming over tonight. The one that came over early last week, J. I thought after last week when I was starting to not feel good and so tired that all I did was gripe the whole night, she may not come back anytime soon. I guess I wasn’t as bad as I thought, because she asked to come over and hang out tonight. I just hope I haven’t crashed by the time she gets there…

Surprises

I think my husband’s gone nuts. He won’t quit bringing up this whole baby thing. Apparently he was a little more excited about the whole thing than I thought. I think I wrote before about how he is wanting again to try in December like we’d originally planned…he brings this to my attention AFTER I’ve already told the families we’ll be waiting(to their relief, which really TICKS me off…they just can’t be happy no matter what can they, planned, not planned, it’s all the same as long as it’s US having the baby…grrrr…) and now not only is he wanting to still try in December, but lately he’s been hinting at trying sooner!! I don’t know what’s gotten into him. Last night I’m laying in bed coughing, so un-sexy, trying to get to sleep, and he starts harassing me about making a baby. I made the mistake of telling him we are most certainly NOT doing anything of that sort right now because I’m on antibiotics, which lower the effectiveness of my pills. You would have thought he’d recoil away in horror, right? No, quite the opposite actually. He got all excited at the possibility of an “oops” baby. He assured me it would be okay because he’d be out of school by the time it was born(seriously, has he been thinking about this or something?? How did he know that quickly when the due date would be if we were to get pregnant this month? It’s not like he hesitated before he said this to give himself time to think…) I told him I was not going to take the chance on that happening because what if he doesn’t find a job right away, then where would that leave us? With two kids and even less money than we have now…and instead of saying “yea, you’re right” he just reassured me “But we had an oops with Hailey, and look everything’s worked out just fine!” !!!!!!!!!! Seriously??? Was my husband really laying there trying to persuade ME to have a baby???? What has this world come to??? I very sweetly told him we’d discuss the matter later, but that we were past the chance this month for anything to maybe happen anyway, so to back off and let me try to get some sleep. I knew he wants another baby, but I didn’t realize he wants another one just as badly as I do…if not a little more, as it seems from the conversation we had last night. Unfortunately we’re not at a place in our lives right now where that would be a smart thing to do. But he’s only got 9 more months of school left and then we’ll be able to get on with our lives. We’re so excited to finally be a “normal” family and move on with our lives.

This is what my daughter looked like last night:



Last night, Hailey was running around blabbering about Lord knows what when all of a sudden she stopped…flopped down on all fours…put her head down…and starting making these awful wretching noises. My first thought was OH GOD she’s choking, she’s getting sick, she’s choking and getting sick!!!! And then she made this BLEGH sound, stopped, looked up at me, and stood up. Only to do it again. And I realized exactly what she was doing. She looked EXACTLY like Puss In Boots coughing up his hairball in Shrek 2. The movie she’d just watched at my mom’s that very afternoon. I asked her if she was coughing up a hairball like the kitty on Shrek and she said “um huh!” and walked over and got her big Shrek stuffed animal and blabbered on and on to him. I laughed SO HARD. I was in shock. What on earth made her do that all of a sudden?? Kids are so weird.

Balloon Festival Saturday

This morning I woke up at 9:00 and went into Hailey's room. She was laying in her crib with her feet propped up on her bumper. Such a good girl, letting mommy sleep in! We got up and she got some yogurt out of the fridge. I told her to come into the dining room and I pulled out her chair. She yelled at me "NO! Wee woom!" and looked at me very sternly. I was so shocked...I asked her "You mean the living room?" and she said "um huh!" like she always does instead of "yes"...so we went into the living room and she patted the floor next to her and instructed me to "sit down"...little Miss Bossy!

This evening we went to the Balloon Festival. Hailey loved it! They haven't done one here in town since I was a little girl, and it was really neat this time because unlike in years past you could walk right up to the balloons! Very neat...



She found a great little dirt mound and plopped her butt right down, then instructed me to "sit!"





And here's Hailey's new school bag! We officially retired the diaper bag! She's very excited. You should have seen her pulling this thing all over Penneys! We also got her very first training pants today...the ones that are like real underwear but have the thick center in case they have an accident. The rash I mentioned previously is still hanging on, although not as bad as it was...this way she'll be able to run around the house without a diaper but she won't be able to pee or poop on the floor since the training pants have nice thick centers.

Friday...Part 1 of the picture post

I'm home sick with Bronchitis. My inhaler's not helping, I keep having these bad coughing fits. The dr. put me on doxycicline or something like that...some drug that treats malaria for goodness sakes! Needless to say it made me SICK...within 20 minutes of taking the pill this morning, right after I'd dropped Hailey off at school I almost had to pull over a dozen times to throw up. It's been a bad day. I called the dr, they called me in a Zpac...so when I go pick Hailey up I've gotta go spend even more money on another prescription. So frustrating. I just want to feel better.

D has been doing his best to make me comfortable and keep my stress down...he hung up our new hanging lamp in the living room...he put up our bed(the mattresses have just been on the floor for almost a year now!) and he cleaned the kitchen, doing all the dishes and everything. He's now gone to the Lake...he friend from Mexico just flew back into the country yesterday, he picked him up from the airport...he'd promised he'd take him to the Lake when he got back, so here I am alone. No really I don't mind. I get the bed to myself tonight!! As long as I can keep my food down and take care of Hailey ok, I'll be fine. WOW it is storming here, the thunder is shaking the house. Crazy.

Ok, I'm going to just do a random picture post, to lighten the mood a bit...

My sister's bird Anna...I swear to God this bird is so smart it's scary...she has a huge vocabulary, speaks sentences...smartest bird I've ever seen.




2/3 of the way through my pregnancy...



Appx. 3 months old...look at those chubby legs!!



4 months old...look how long her hair was already!



Look out ma, I'm crawling! 4.5 months old...

Update

Well the meeting yesterday went very well. Aside from having to croak at people and some of them looking at me like I had 3 heads, it went great! We had 65 people show up...we'd planned on 64, and 1 didn't show but 2 extras came...65 people is an awesome turnout! And the majority of them had all the info we needed...and the ones that didn't were very nice about it. I got to leave at 6:30 on the dot, so I didn't get home too late. It's too bad that sort of thing isn't part of my normal job, I actually enjoyed it!

Today I'm back to my "cave" as all of us have come to call it. My office is dark, I'm tucked back in a corner. I talked to J, one of the women in the dept. I helped w/ the meeting last night...she said that everybody was so used to avoiding this office altogether because of the crotchity old lady that used to work here biting their heads off...so everybody's just in the habit of being scared of this area. I told her I get so lonely in here and really started to feel like nobody wanted to talk to me anymore! She assured me that was not the case.

Well unfortunately, this is definately a chest cold. I now know I got it from my boss...she told me today she's had this throat/cough issue for 2 weeks now. Me and D both have it, and it's moved into our chests. We're both coughing up green gunk. And he doesn't have insurance. I'm going to the dr. this afternoon since the crap I'm coughing up is green nasty stuff(which means I can FINALLY get my dumb dr. to refill my heart pills for another year, JEEZ)...luckily he's going to the convenience clinic tomorrow for a physical for school, and his dad's taking him(which means his dad is paying, not being he needs his daddy there for any reason) so thank God...that way they can look at him for his chest cold while he's there as well as doing the physical, and they can give him some meds. Hailey is still doing great, thank God so far she seems to have not gotten the brunt of it. She just has a runny nose and coughs a bit. Last night I snuck her vaporizor in her room because she started coughing in her sleep, and she was better the rest of the night. She woke up in a great mood this morning. She took her big Shrek stuffed animal(the one that Uncle A bought her for her birthday before he went back to Cali) to school this morning. It's as big as she is, but she wouldn't let go of it. She even put Shrek "night night" on the couch this morning. She's so funny.

Wendy I am trying the Monistat...hopefully it works as well on Hailey as it did on Lani! I tested a tiny bit of it on her hip/leg last night overnight, since she has such sensitive skin, and it didn't bother her...so this morning I slathered it all over her rash. How often did you put it on Lani, like twice a day? I figured I'd do once in the morning and once at night??

This morning's post...

I don’t have any extra time today, but I had to update on a few important things/good things that have happened.

First of all, yesterday was an awesome day. Work went great. The day started off with another department asking me to help them at this huge meeting this afternoon. Technically I’m not the “spare” person anymore, but they said they trust me and the trust isn’t there w/ this other person, so they wanted me. I was very flattered, and said yes immediately. I’m very excited about helping at the meeting. Not only do I get to get out of the office today at 2:30, but I should get in a couple hours overtime not being here! And it will be just us three women doing the meeting, which will be for at least 65 new employees. I’m going to have to help check them out in the end, and of course I woke up with a full blown head cold this morning, where I couldn’t even talk…and I’m going to have to talk to probably 20 people individually tonight at this meeting. But I’ve been drinking tons of hot tea and taking Advil, and I feel much better now. I’m determined to go to this meeting and do well!! The rest of the day yesterday was good as well. Towards the end of the day the head of our building came and asked me to help out yet another department today. I have to hurry and get my huge mound of work done this morning so I can help them out before I leave for the meeting. Apparently the new receptionist isn’t quite pulling her weight yet. She’s so nice, but they said they miss me :o) Talk about making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!! So I’ll be doing my job, then her job, then helping at this meeting. Busy, fun day!

Then last night I got home to not 1 but 2 checks in our mailbox. Our usual check from D’s grandparents, in payment for him getting a full scholarship to school…we rely on that check so much it’s ridiculous, just to get by. I knew it would be there. But the other check was a very good surprise. We get a renewal bonus for renewing our lease with our rental agency. It’s normally 100$ a person, but this year since we’re married I thought they’d jip us since only one of us has to sign the lease now, and give us 1 check. Well they gave us 1 check, but for 200$!!! I was so excited. That means we can pay our bills this month, yay!! It came at the perfect time, this payck was short…anyway…

So to keep my good day rolling…last night my husband came home for a quick meal before rushing off to work. I was exhausted, my throat hurt, I was trying to wrangle Hailey down to change her diaper to get her ready for bed, it was almost 9:00…and my husband says to me out of nowhere. “You’re a trooper, you know that??” I told him thanks, that I’m really trying. He said “There’s this country song out now, that talks about being strong and handling a lot or something like that, and it always makes me think of you.” How sweet is that? It really touched me, for him to say that. Here all this time I didn’t think he appreciated everything that I do…I thought he took it all for granted. Just that one little comment from him meant the world to me. And as if that wasn’t enough…D got no sleep last night, he has a major sore throat too. I could hear him rustling around as my alarm was going off this morning, which is odd because he’s never awake that early. I thought oh jeez, he’s going to be a huge grump today. I snoozed the alarm and laid back down. 10 minutes later D is lighting shaking my shoulder, saying “Waky waky Mr. Lion” in my ear. You know, like the lemurs say to the lion on Madagascar. We’ve had to watch that movie a lot lately… So that was a nice way to wake up this morning.

I think I’ve figured out what this rash is that Hailey has on her upper/inner legs and very lower belly. She’s been using these diapers for a while now, so I know it’s not that. Well it appeared right when she finished with her antibiotics for Strep. It’s a yeast rash, a common side effect of antibiotics in babies/toddlers. Not like a yeast infection like a woman gets…it’s nowhere near her little “hooha” as we call it. But it’s not responding to any diaper rash cream we use, not even our old favorite Beaudreaux’s. So I found an article on BabyCenter that says not to call the dr, but to try OTC Monistat cream first, and if it doesn’t get better in 3 days, THEN call the dr. So while I’m at the meeting tonight my mom’s going to go pick up Hailey and get her some cream. Hopefully it’ll work. I’m not too concerned, because I mean it’s not hurting her, and she’s not scratching at it. But I know it does irritate her some, because she doesn’t want to wear a diaper anymore…and of course nobody wants their kid to have a rash. So hopefully the cream will take care of it.

My grandma and I re-scheduled our visit again. I really want to see them, I feel really bad, but she understands my need to spend as much time with D before school starts back up on the 27th, and by some miracle his tournament this weekend was cancelled. He’s going to the Lake with a couple friends from school, one that just got back in town from Mexico(the country, not the city) Friday and Saturday, but then Sunday he’s going to be home. That’s the day I was supposed to go see my grandparents again…but my grandma is busy Saturday. So we’re going to do it next weekend, and that means I get a free day to spend with just Hailey and myself Saturday, and then a day with D on Sunday! Good weekend…

**UPDATE**
It's now about an hour and a half til we leave for this meeting and I'm started to get nervous! My voice hasn't gotten any better since this morning, so I'm feeling all self conscious about that, and I mean come on there's going to be upwards of 64 people there!!