Thankfulness...

Words are not coming very easily to me tonight.

A poster on a message board that I am on very frequently lost her darling son today. They don't know from what- he was running a fever, they took him to the pediatrician, were told all was fine. He was a healthy, happy little boy, being his healthy, happy, normal self- just with a fever. Then it got higher, they took him to the ER and his brain started to swell- he passed away in his mom's arms not too long afterward.

Just like that, gone.

Tonight, I am thankful for my son. I am thankful for my husband. I am so very thankful that I have never had to endure that kind of a tragedy, never have had to find out if I would have the strength to go on after something like that.

I am so very thankful.

Cherishing the Sweet, Sweet Moments

... of babyhood. The past few days, a few things that have happened with B have brought me to the realization that soon, he won't need me anymore. Soon, it will be "No, Mom, I'm fine- just go" and "Mom, please don't kiss me when my friends can see". The thought of that breaks my heart.

So- I'm cherishing every moment with my giggling little boy who looks at me like I'm the most amazing thing in the world. I'm slowing down, and savoring those nursing sessions at night where small chubby hands are playing with my shirt and occasionally making their way up to where I can kiss them, or down to grasp my thumb. I'm loving every time he comes to me, arms out, just for a hug, and then continues on his way to wherever he was going. I'm trying to make as many moments like these as I can, because someday, he'll be gone. Someday, he'll be grown up and have his own family. As much as I want that for him, the thought brings tears to my eyes.

There's nothing I can do but enjoy this little guy. Laugh with him, play with him, crawl with him, giggle with him.

So I'm doing just that. :)

The City Mouse and the Country Mouse

We've all heard the story of the city mouse and the country mouse, right? You know, mouse that lives in the country goes to visit his cousin in the city, decides to stay until a cat appears in the city house. I used to think "Wow, that country mouse is sure stupid- how could you go back to the country after being in the hip, cool city?"

All my life, my parents crowed about how much they loved the "small-town" life. I, in turn, would roll my eyes and tell them how someday I was going to move to New York City. I loved the hustle, the bustle, the crowded streets, the feeling that you're "where it's at". Or, I THOUGHT I did anyway. (I should mention that, at this point in time, I had never actually been to New York City.)

And then I went to NYC. I saw the smelly, garbage-ridden streets, the claustrophobic crowds on the sidewalks, the ugliness and unfriendliness of the people. Then I became a parent. I pictured trying to navigate my stroller through mobs of pretentious, self-absorbed New Yorkers with attitudes the size of New York itself and no mercy for anyone having a hard time.

No way in the world. Over my dead body. I don't mean to pick on New York here, I could be talking about any city. Especially since becoming a mom, I find myself turning more and more away from the city, away from the hustle and bustle. I want wide open spaces, I want to see the stars, I want to not have to worry about traffic noises waking up my baby. I now want that "small town" life.

I guess everything comes full-circle, huh?

Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage

Sing with me now! "... go together like a horse and carriage..."

Now that I've brought the show Married...with Children into your mind, it's time to get down to business. I have a radical idea in this here post. I'm going to share it with you. Here goes.

I think that in life, we so often forget HOW lucky we are to have our spouse. I think we forget what made us fall in love with him or her, we forget how it felt on those head-spinning excited first dates.

I know I do. It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day "He didn't do X" or "I wish he was like so and so's husband, who does Y" that I sometimes forget how incredibly lucky I am to have the husband that I do. Does he irritate me sometimes? Yes. Do we bicker? Absolutely.

But you know what? Past all that, I have a man who LOVES me! A man who works his fingers to the bone to provide for me and our baby. A man who is an AMAZING father and loves our son with all of his heart. A man who, at the end of a long day, can look me in the eyes and say something that takes all that stress away.

I think so many divorces happen nowadays because people get caught up in the crap, day to day, mundane, bickering details of life. They forget all of that LOVE, that infatuation, that amazing time in the beginning of a relationship where everything seems so right with the world.

Kind of an out-there way to look at it, but there you go. That's my opinion. :)

What No One Told Me About Motherhood... (Oh, and I'm back)

After an extended hiatus, I'm back! No real reason for the hiatus, I just felt like I had nothing interesting to say. However, today, as I was unloading the dishwasher during the baby's nap, it hit me.

I needed to blog. There was something that came bubbling to the surface that I NEEDED to express. So without further ado, I bring you- What No One Told Me About Motherhood.

During your first pregnancy, (if you're like me anyway) you DEVOUR books about pregnancy and motherhood. You read what's happening to your body every week, what is developing on the baby every week, and then as the due date nears, you start reading about how to deal with your little bundle when it arrives. How to breastfeed, how to calm them down, how to get them to sleep (and also, if you're like me, you CONTINUE reading those books until they just. go. to. sleep. and. stay. that. way. already.).

Anyway, you also talk, a lot. You talk to your parents, your friends with kids, your relatives with kids, anyone who has some experience in the matter, trying to glean whatever wisdom you can get from anyone who will talk about it with you. So for me, by the time the baby was about to come, I felt like I had pretty much gotten the low down on everything. I didn't feel CONFIDENT, mind you, because I knew I was the one who had to put those ideas and techniques into practice, on very little sleep and with large amounts of hormones running through my system, making me feel crazy.

I thought I knew most of what I was going to be dealing with. 9 months later though? I realize that I knew NOTHING. Sure, I figured out the logistics, when to put them in the crib, when to start solid food, et cetera et cetera. There were lots of things no one told me!

1. That bringing that baby home was going to be just the start of your life completely and totally being turned upside down on a daily, if not hourly, basis. You will NEVER be able to think about yourself first ever again.

2. That depending on the person you are and the type of metabolism you have (thanks a lot mom) it's a LOT harder to lose the baby weight than you could ever imagine. Books make it sound like "oh, breastfeeding burns so many calories, it really is a good way to lose that extra weight" A big Phbbbtt to all of that. Breastfeeding also makes you hungry. REALLY freaking hungry. All. The. Time.

3. No matter how hard you try, at a certain point, your house will NOT be as clean as it used to be, nor as orderly. We have maids that come in and clean... MAIDS, people- and still- the next day? You can't even tell they've been here. And now that B's favorite activity is taking things out of the toy box as Mommy tries to put them in, and generally causing destruction and mayhem wherever he goes (and he goes a LOT of places- that little bugger is FAST)... it's incredibly hard.

4. How hard it is to get dressed, shower, get out of the house, and go somewhere. Seriously- I was a "Give me 5 minutes, I'll be ready" type of gal before I had a baby- Now it's turned into, "Please just sit here and play for 2 seconds while I take this clean shirt out of the closet, take off the one that has sweet potatoes down the front from you spitting your lunch all over me, and put the clean one on so people at the grocery store don't think I've completely lost my marbles, although it feels like I have." I get in the car, drive away, and don't realize until I'm halfway to wherever I'm going that I forgot to brush my teeth, or brush my hair, or cover up that gigantic red pimple that has suddenly appeared on my chin.

5. The Mommy Guilt. There is guilt over everything! Am I playing with him too much, and not letting him foster his independence, am I not playing with him enough and making him feel neglected, should I let him cry in his crib, should I not, is he eating enough, is he eating too much, is he eating something that's not good for him????? And on and on it goes.

6. That one little smile makes it all worth it, no matter how hard it is. All the nap failures, all the crying and hard days are negated by that one little look, that one little smile or giggle, and you know that you want to do it all over again tomorrow. Being a parent is by far the hardest thing I have ever done, but it makes me feel more fulfilled on a daily basis than any other job I've ever had.

A Bad Day at Home...

is better than a good day anywhere else! Office-wise, that is. Days like today, I get frustrated when B won't nap, or the day doesn't go how I planned it. Then, I remember.

I'm at home! I don't have boring meetings to sit in, I don't have to get dressed up, I don't have deadlines or a boss breathing down my neck, I don't have crazy coworkers who try to sabotage me, I don't have piles of paperwork to file... because I'm at home!

I'm wonderfully, amazingly, thankfully, magnificently, miraculously, remarkably, extraordinarily, able to be at home with my beautiful baby boy (and apparently quite sesquipedalian today)!

I am so thankful to be home, even on the bad days. This is the first job I've ever had where I've felt that way! :)

People...

You know, I try my best to like everyone. I feel like life is too short to walk around being critical of everyone and everything. I try VERY hard to see past people's faults, as I hope they are able to see past mine (and there are MANY)...

Every now and then, though- someone does something that steams me enough that I really want to say something about it. This happened today. The whole story is this:

I am friends with someone on Facebook. Let's call her Mrs. T. (Side note: I check Facebook at least 14 times a day- It's interesting to me, and I have a good variety of people that I keep up with- old high school friends, new mom friends, in-laws, etc.) Mrs T. is a friend of my in-laws, and consequently, my husband. Her children grew up with my husband. She sent me a friend request a month or two ago, and I thought, "Hmm. She seems like a nice person, even though I've only met her a handful of times, but she's friends with my in-laws, so I'll accept". Now, the hubs has always said a few things about this particular lady, things like, she's a little bit of a busybody. I always shrugged him off, thinking he was just saying this because he's not a fan of people, in general.

Mrs. T started a blog. Since she posts updates with links to her newest blog post, I'll read it from time to time. Sometimes I agree with her, sometimes not as much. Her blog post today happened to be about Facebook. Thinking "well, she's on it, I wonder what she has to say", I followed the link.

The post that appeared certainly took me by surprise. In it, she basically was wagging her finger at everyone she's "friends" with on Facebook, telling us all how it's crazy that we all post stupid, inconsequential, trivial things on status updates. She actually said that it's okay to post if say, you were a grandmother talking about her grandchildren, or if you got a new job and wanted your friends to know. Apparently those types of things are big enough news to broadcast to your friends, whereas something about your child's nap does not fall into that category.

I post things about B's naps all the time- so as you can imagine, this kind of needled me. Newsflash, dollface... I post those things so that my mom friends can read and comment- not you. They care, and guess what- if you don't? Facebook has a little thing called the "hide" button. You can hide anyone's updates you want. It just struck me as very petty and well, busybodyish (if that's even a word). The hubs was right- I guess I should listen to him more often!!