My children go back to school in 2 weeks. This brings tears of excitement to my eyes. As much as I love them (and I really do) I am ready to miss them. I will have 3 of the 4 1/2 in school full time. School mornings are crazy and hectic and sometimes I feel like 12 red bulls wont get me ready fast enough but we always make it. They need more structure than my tired pregnant self can provide. I can toss a ball back and forth to the 2 year old all day but the older crew wants adventure that I am currently incapable of. I mean for heavens sake they had swim team and basketball. They've been to water parks and movies and friends homes and a short trip up north and yet they look at me and say "What are we going to do today?!?!?!!". I've tried to convince them that "Mommy spa day" is very fun and full-filling but they just aren't buying it. School gives them structure and challenges their minds but most importantly it wears them out!
I see this look of anticipation and excitement in the eyes of other Mother's too. When a Mom is at the grocery store and a child is screaming for candy, I see the wheels turning in her head that in 2 weeks they'll be gone for 7 hours, everyday, for many many weeks. I know that there are Moms who will say I'm mean but...I doubt they'll be many. The people at Staples wouldn't of made that fabulous back to school commercial if I was the only one. I don't give myself that much credit. I know that I'll miss them and feel like time slips by too fast and these are our golden years together but then we'll have fall break and I'll be ready to send them back in no time. I'll savor these 2 weeks and I'll enjoy them like I always do but I still have the daily countdown in my planner and sometimes that gets me through the day.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Peeing on ones self and other pregnancy perks
Every pregnant woman I know has peed on herself at one point or another. Even after pregnancy you pretty much lose bladder control and any mild sneeze or scary movie can have you running to the bathroom in a panic. Is it a lot? A little? Do I need to change? I'm only 27 I can't wear diapers!!!
I personally have embraced this part of my child bearing years. My first true incident of peeing on myself didn't even involve the actual act. My first child Avery was a rather large baby. I would learn only after my delivery that his father was also large and also had a very very large head causing his Mother to have a cesarean. I personally believe that maybe on the first date a man should mention this tidbit. "I like long hikes on the beach, soft rock music, and oh yeah my head was so huge upon delivery that they cut my Mother open and had to use the jaws of life just to extract me from her womb". Anyways I digress...so Ave, large headed boy wonder, decided to "drop" 6 weeks before his due date making me severely uncomfortable and giving me the unsightly ability to waddle. One day my Mother, Sister, Husband, and I are sitting at Starbucks enjoying a relaxing afternoon when I feel a slight gush of water "down there". My Mother proceeds to tell me that my water could not have broken because it would be a huge gush and a puddle would glisten below. I novice Mother to be believed her. I continued to believe her for four hours! I reconsiled that I had just completely lost the ability to control my bladder and this was a sign of the times to come. Finally at 9:00pm I said "eh maybe I'm not peeing on myself and I should go to the hospital". Sure enough my water had broken and because watermelon head was lodge so far into the birthing canal only a little bit of water could trickle out. Needless to say after 24 hours of labor we ended with a c-section. I still remember my husbands look of horror when Ave came out and resembled the father in The Cone Heads...luckily that only lasts a few days he now has a wonderfully, yet still large, head.
Peeing on oneself will continue and it's almost like a right of passage into pregnancy and then Motherhood. You notice it with your first ultrasound when they want you to drink 32 oz and then maybe release "a little" as if you can close the dam on that floodgate. When you wake up 4 times a night to pee, when you sneeze and wet your drawers. All these peeing incidents prepare you for motherhood. You lose sleep, you learn tenacity, you learn patience as you sit on the porcelien bowl to release every last drop. Last but not least you learn that you are willing to go through all of this just to be a Mom... and that's worth every last drop.
I personally have embraced this part of my child bearing years. My first true incident of peeing on myself didn't even involve the actual act. My first child Avery was a rather large baby. I would learn only after my delivery that his father was also large and also had a very very large head causing his Mother to have a cesarean. I personally believe that maybe on the first date a man should mention this tidbit. "I like long hikes on the beach, soft rock music, and oh yeah my head was so huge upon delivery that they cut my Mother open and had to use the jaws of life just to extract me from her womb". Anyways I digress...so Ave, large headed boy wonder, decided to "drop" 6 weeks before his due date making me severely uncomfortable and giving me the unsightly ability to waddle. One day my Mother, Sister, Husband, and I are sitting at Starbucks enjoying a relaxing afternoon when I feel a slight gush of water "down there". My Mother proceeds to tell me that my water could not have broken because it would be a huge gush and a puddle would glisten below. I novice Mother to be believed her. I continued to believe her for four hours! I reconsiled that I had just completely lost the ability to control my bladder and this was a sign of the times to come. Finally at 9:00pm I said "eh maybe I'm not peeing on myself and I should go to the hospital". Sure enough my water had broken and because watermelon head was lodge so far into the birthing canal only a little bit of water could trickle out. Needless to say after 24 hours of labor we ended with a c-section. I still remember my husbands look of horror when Ave came out and resembled the father in The Cone Heads...luckily that only lasts a few days he now has a wonderfully, yet still large, head.
Peeing on oneself will continue and it's almost like a right of passage into pregnancy and then Motherhood. You notice it with your first ultrasound when they want you to drink 32 oz and then maybe release "a little" as if you can close the dam on that floodgate. When you wake up 4 times a night to pee, when you sneeze and wet your drawers. All these peeing incidents prepare you for motherhood. You lose sleep, you learn tenacity, you learn patience as you sit on the porcelien bowl to release every last drop. Last but not least you learn that you are willing to go through all of this just to be a Mom... and that's worth every last drop.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Another one?!?! Really?!?
So now that I'm done ranting on predisposed judgements I'll get back to dishing on my personal life. I truly don't feel it's very exciting but many (some, a small few, probably no one) people may beg to differ. So with that being said my husband and I found out that we're expecting...AGAIN. This will be our 5th child. The baby will be due in February which will be nice because I won't have to endure my fattest months in the horrible Arizona heat. When the baby is born Avery (my oldest) will be a few months shy of turning 9, Syd will be 7, Colby will be 4 1/2, and Rusty will almost be 3. Of course the idea of completely starting over exhausts me just in thought but I always wanted a large family. I was lucky enough to find a partner that I could trick into having a bunch of kids with and now he's stuck with us.
Having a baby is not capricous to us. For one, I have to have another c-section and that really is a lot to deal with. When I had Rusty (besides all the other awful things that were happening in our lives) the incision to my c-section reopened. I had an extra long recovery and my husband had to "pack" my incision every night until it completely healed. I also have high risk pregnancies. This will actually be my 9th pregnancy. That being said when I look at my kids and I see them enjoy everything I desperately wanted as a child I can't help but be thrilled to expand our brood. I truly believe God believes enough in me that he's only going to give me what I can handle. Sometimes though I think he gets confused and gives me a hell of a lot of crap when I'm already drowning, hopefully this is not the case.
Overall I'm excited. I know this will be hard but what hasn't been? When I got pregnant with Rusty I thought everything in my life was on track. We owned a home, my husband had a good job, the kids were healthy, everything seemed perfect. When Rusty was born we lost our home, my husband lost his job, I lost 2 loved ones, I had surgery complications, I had postpartum psychosis, and Colby was diagnosed with Apraxia. We survived. We made it through. We'll make it through this and one day when it's all said and done I'll only remember the good times, good times and sleep depravation, but mostly good times.
Having a baby is not capricous to us. For one, I have to have another c-section and that really is a lot to deal with. When I had Rusty (besides all the other awful things that were happening in our lives) the incision to my c-section reopened. I had an extra long recovery and my husband had to "pack" my incision every night until it completely healed. I also have high risk pregnancies. This will actually be my 9th pregnancy. That being said when I look at my kids and I see them enjoy everything I desperately wanted as a child I can't help but be thrilled to expand our brood. I truly believe God believes enough in me that he's only going to give me what I can handle. Sometimes though I think he gets confused and gives me a hell of a lot of crap when I'm already drowning, hopefully this is not the case.
Overall I'm excited. I know this will be hard but what hasn't been? When I got pregnant with Rusty I thought everything in my life was on track. We owned a home, my husband had a good job, the kids were healthy, everything seemed perfect. When Rusty was born we lost our home, my husband lost his job, I lost 2 loved ones, I had surgery complications, I had postpartum psychosis, and Colby was diagnosed with Apraxia. We survived. We made it through. We'll make it through this and one day when it's all said and done I'll only remember the good times, good times and sleep depravation, but mostly good times.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Cleaning
I'll be perfectly honest in admitting that I was a neurotic, anal-retentive cleaning freak before children. Even after I had Avery and Syd I would find myself personally washing EVERY toy. I felt a deep sense of accomplishment and pride when the barbie clothes were placed in 1 bucket and barbie shoes and household items in other buckets. I had closets color coordinated and shoes lined in perfect rows. I did have toy boxes but only for "select" toys. Rooms with clutter were overwhelming to me and I even found myself not being able to get a good nights rest if I knew things were disorganized (it's like they were taunting me). This is truly a life long compulsion. I was 6 when I found my true love of cleaning and organizing I would go home after school just to clean. When I was a 10 we had a maid and I followed her around cleaning because I just didn't feel she did good enough (I do this to my husband sometimes, he's not a fan).
This all changed one day. I woke up and realized I'm in a losing battle. By no means am I saying I now have gone to the opposite end and live in a pig sty, but I think if every toy is off the ground and into the bucket then the room is clean. If the clothes have left the clean pile in my room and made their way into each childs room then we're good. If the beds aren't made who cares. I still try very hard to be that person who cleans all the time, or lines all the food in order in the fridge but alas I'm outnumbered. I have 4 (5 if you include my husband) children who don't care, they don't care if R2D2 is in the Star Wars bucket or if my little pony is in the corral, as long as they can swim and play and jump on their beds then the house is awesome. I still have select things that are just mine though, my own little neurotic things that they can't mess up. I have notebooks upon notebooks of school info and magazine articles. People laugh at me when they see my books but they're my calm in the storm, perfectly organized calm. Every Mom needs a little calm in the storm.
This all changed one day. I woke up and realized I'm in a losing battle. By no means am I saying I now have gone to the opposite end and live in a pig sty, but I think if every toy is off the ground and into the bucket then the room is clean. If the clothes have left the clean pile in my room and made their way into each childs room then we're good. If the beds aren't made who cares. I still try very hard to be that person who cleans all the time, or lines all the food in order in the fridge but alas I'm outnumbered. I have 4 (5 if you include my husband) children who don't care, they don't care if R2D2 is in the Star Wars bucket or if my little pony is in the corral, as long as they can swim and play and jump on their beds then the house is awesome. I still have select things that are just mine though, my own little neurotic things that they can't mess up. I have notebooks upon notebooks of school info and magazine articles. People laugh at me when they see my books but they're my calm in the storm, perfectly organized calm. Every Mom needs a little calm in the storm.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Why I'm blogging
Why am I blogging? Do I have anything important to say? Not necessarily. Do I have wisdom to share? Not particularly. Am I crafty or a wonderful cook with ideas galore? No, no, and definitely no. Do I think I'll get tons of followers? Hmmm....maybe. :) I like to write and sometimes I have experiences or stories that other Moms can relate to. Overall I need an outlet for me. Raising kids for 8 years has taught me that it's very easy to wake up one day, look in the mirror and say "Who the hell are you?". That's where I am in my life, of course the next rational step is to open a blog and share my haze with others. So "blog" here we go...
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