Hello?

Well none of you 4 (or so) people who used to come see my blog probably even bother to stop by anymore, as I post so sporatically...It's not that I have nothing to share; quite the contrary, I ponder so much all the time that I would LOVE to blog about, but it's just that I don't have TIME to blog...I guess maybe that is a good thing?

It seems when I DO come here to share it is about my babies...but let's face it; right now, my life consists of running (frantically) between my babies and work, and work sucks and is a complete drain on me, and I don't want to waste any more of my precious time and energy on THAT shit. So, baby news it is :-)

I need to post some new photos - Baby C is huge and amazing and OH SO DAMN cute, even if I do say so myself!

The reason I REALLY wanted to blog today was to share yet ANOTHER cute L snippet...we were riding in the car the other day and he was counting. He got to 40 and proclaimed "FORTY! WOW, that's a LOT, Mom"

"Yes, L, it IS a lot! What comes next?"

"Fif-D"

"Good, what's next?"

"Six-D"

And so on and so forth until he got to ninety, and when I asked him what comes next, he paused, did his WAY funny perplexed expression where he crunches up his face and kinda rolls his eyes off to the side and proclaimed

"Ten-D!!"

:D

Great reasoning!

I really try to not be one of those parents who talks non stop about all the things their kid can do, and thinks their kid is SO SMART because they can do X,Y,Z, but I have to admit that I really do, in all honesty, find myself thinking on a regular basis that L seems pretty advanced for his age. Things seem to come easy to him. It makes me happy, and I hope that he continues on that way as he grows - I just know it will make things easier in some ways as he grows up...

In other quick news, Mama got quite spoiled this tax season. We actually got an okay sum of money back on our taxes, which we weren't really expecting, and W and I decided that I should treat myself and upgrade my camera equipment which I have been wanting to do for about 2 years now!! As much as I know I deserve it, and WANT it, it was EXTREMELY hard for me to spend the money on myself. It literally took me a week to finalize my order; and when I had it all ready to confirm, it took me at least an hour to push the 'confirm order' button. There are definitely other (way less fun) things the money could have been spent on, or it DEFINITELY would not have been a bad idea to put it in savings, but since the money is spent, I will admit that I am really happy and excited that I did it. Had I waited another day or two, I can honestly say that I would have probably talked myself out of it. The camera is amazing, and I have taken a TON of photos already, and really cannot wait for summer to come so I can get outside and take some shots of things other than the boys...who, by the way, are already BEYOND sick of me sticking it in their faces!



So yeah, I feel totally spoiled, and I am STILL justifying the purchase to myself, but that's just how I am, and I am used to the guilt.

Snippet part 2

As I was changing L into his pg's last night (we call 'em pg's, not pJ's around our house), after I took his shirt off he grabbed his nipples and rolled them around between his fingers a bit and said

"Mine aren't big enough, Mama"

:D

To which I replied "Oh Buddy, only Mama's have milk to give their babies"

which he adamantly denied, and informed me that Mama's AND Daddy's have milk for the babies...

He is just so so funny!

Snippet

I was sitting on the floor last night nursing Baby C (a VERY crabby teething Baby C who wants to eat constantly and isn't sleeping very much - not that I blame him, that shit has got to HURT! He popped the first one through last week) and L sat down next to me, put Dino, his stuffed dinosaur's mouth to his chest, looked at me and said matter of factly "He'd hungry Mom, he'd eating Milk!" :D

It's those little things that keep me going these days...

Funny, and yet not...

Someone just reminded me of this story, and I had to share it with y'all, because it made me laugh hard and shake my head at the same time.

So W is still a full time smoker. Of cigarettes. I quit smoking when I got preggo with L over 3 years ago. Although, between you and me, I still have one once in awhile - like if we go out for the night, or when we were at the cabin sitting by the bonfire at night, or once in awhile if it has just been an exceptionally stressful day at work. What can I say, I always did like to smoke. It's relaxing. But I have REALLY no desire to go back to it on a regular basis. I find I smell much better now. Not to mention the health benefits of NOT smoking. But anywho...

So anyway, W and his mom are sitting in L's playroom the other night, L is riding around on his little indoor trike (I was cleaning up the kitchen) and I hear Gramma tell L to ride to the store and get her some something or other. So, L rides out into the livingroom and back into the playroom and they must have done this a couple of times pretending he was getting different stuff, and all of a sudden I hear him say

'Here's yer 'mokes dad, I got you some 'mokes at da store!! Here Gramma, here's yer licorice!"

Funny! And yet so.NOT.funny...

Grass...

I went up to L's room one morning this weekend upon him awakening to bring him downstairs. I was dressed in just the tank top and undies that I had worn to bed, and between the expanding belly and the lack of maintenance, some of the 'forest' musta been sticking out, cuz when I stood in front of him as he stood on his toddler bed, he excitedly told me:

"MAMA! You dot drass!!" and bent down for a little better look...

followed matter of factly by:

"I don like drass..."


Oh, my son, some day you will like's a girl's grass well enough...(but never your mama's grass)

Tick Tock, Tick Tock...

Waiting.

We are still waiting.

No baby yet.

This one is going to be stubborn I think.

I really thought she(he) would be a Cancer. But she shall be a Leo - and that is okay. Leo's are said to be charismatic and positive-thinking, and to be natural born leaders. They are also said to be born fortunate and attract many friends and opportunities. Sounds good to me. Besides, I don't know if I could handle another moody, broody, emotional Cancer in my house - her father is the perfect example of a true Cancer ;0). Leo sounds like the perfect combination of my positive Capricorn traits and the positive aspects of her father's Cancerian traits.

The first thing I really want for her (okay okay, or him) is to be healthy. Please oh please oh please let her be healthy.

When I got home from work yesterday, L said "The baby didn't come out yet?" LOL, even L is ready for me to be done...mostly cuz I have told him that Mama won't be able to make the walk to the duck pond until after the baby comes out. We have been driving there, but both miss getting there by walking.

Last night, I told L to tell the baby to "Come out, we are ready to meet you" and he ran over and put his hands on each side of my belly and planted his lips against it and said "COME OUT BABY!!! WE READY TO MEET YOU! WE WANT TA HOLD YOU!!"

Oh my sweet little man, my love my joy you make my heart smile so and I swear it will burst from the overwhelming love it holds for you. I can't believe we are soon to have another one to bring that much more joy to our lives...I cannot wait to see you interact with your lil brother or sister - you are going to be a great big brother...

He did it! And the 4th and other things...

L is back in his 'big boy' bed! YAY! Last night was the second night back in it, and both nights went well. W got him in it on Sunday night, and I am thinking it was a *little* bit against what L wanted to do, but there was no crying going on, so he obviously didn't have to force him. And last night, I just did the same thing, said "Ya ready to lay down in your bed?" and he said he wanted to lay in his crib and I just said "I think you need to sleep in your big boy bed, you love your bed! You slept here last night, let's try again!" and ushered him in, covered him up and left the room. He slept through the night again, so I am hoping we have made it past his first nightmare.

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Yesterday I arrived at work and was overwhelmed by the sudden need to get everything caught up and organized and ready for me to be gone RIGHT NOW . I was nesting. Or actually, a better description of what I was doing was PANICKING! So I spent the morning going through all my personal things that had piled up around my desk, cleaned my office and my desk off, and got some information sheets written up on the LARGE projects I have going so the person(s) who takes over for me has some idea of what's going on with each project, and so that important actions and billings do not fall through the cracks. I feel much better today about leaving work at any time.

I do NOT, however, feel the same way on a personal / home level. I have no bag packed for the hospital (and I seriously want my own shampoo and body wash and pajamas - last time I wore the hospital gown the whole time, and am wondering why I didn't bring my own comfy jammies?), I have not gone through L's old clothes to pull out the bare newborn neccessities, the house feels like it is a mess (which will only get 10x worse once we bring the baby home, so I would like to at least START with a very tidy, clean house), etc etc. Honestly? None of that really matters, and the baby will be just fine if I get none of that crap done, but I really want to for my OWN sanity's sake.

I think I may find a positive side to W being laid off when the baby arrives, assuming he has not found work by then...It will be nice for him to be home with me for the first little while and to have that time bonding with the baby. I HOPE he finds work ASAP, but if not, I am going to just focus on THAT aspect of it and not worry, for the time being.

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I took L out of the bath the other night, after letting him soak in some epsom salt and baking soda to clear up some butt rash he had, and as I was drying him off and applying lotion and he told me he didn't want to put his diaper on yet, which I said was fine, we would let his bum air out a bit, which would help it feel better, to which he replied,

"Mama? Can I play wit my penis?"

!!!!!!

Usually, he tells me "I touched my penis", but he has never actually asked if he could play with it! I told him that it is HIS penis, and he can do what he wants with it...I don't want to make him feel awkward about his sexuality at all, and I think maybe I should have just added that that is something we do in private, but to be honest, he took me by surprise, and I guess I will add that part in next time.

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We had a good 4th of July, although I can't believe it is over already, and now it kinda feels like summer is on the downslide already. I KNOW it's not - there is plenty of summer left, and after that comes fall, which I love probably more than summer, although I think I love Spring, Summer and Fall equally well, but I just know that before I know it, it will be Christmas again, and then L will be turning 3 and then I will be 60.

Not that there's anything wrong with 60.

Just sayin' that life is going faster and faster and sometimes I just don't like it.

It doesn't help that I am at that point in my pregnancy when I just wanna curl up and sleep until the baby comes. I don't want to talk to anybody; I am just too tired and crabby to chit chat or tell them AGAIN what my due date is, or how long I have left, or about how ready to be done I am, or to answer the question "Are you getting hot yet?" It's fucking 95 and humid and I weigh half a ton; WTF do you think?. My phone rings and I cringe - usually they get my voicemail and I may call back in a timely fashion. I don't have much energy to play with L, and I feel bad that I have to tell him that Mama can't do this or Mama can't do that cuz Mama is just too tired and big, because he just doesn't understand why his usually playful Mama just wants to lay on the couch. I can't make the walk to the duck pond anymore; in fact, most days I don't feel up to making it the 5 blocks to my mother in laws house. It is wearing on both L and I, as we are used to our evening walks after dinner. I miss getting outside and I miss the bit of Mama and L time we get and I miss de-stressing by surrounding myself with nature after being around all that damn technology and electronic CRAP all day...

But then I remind myself that I *AM* almost done, no matter if I go early or late, the end *IS* in sight, and that when it is all over, I *WILL* be sad that I may never ever again get to feel life forming inside of me; never again get to be a vessel for what truly is a miracle, and wasn't I JUST SAYING how life is going TOO fast and here I am wishing the days away and counting them down when I should really just be relishing each and every moment for whatever it is because they are each so precious, and that is what life is about.

***SIGH***

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I have a checkup tomorrow, and as much as it hurts, I am anxious to have the doctor check me and to know if I am ripening at all yet. With L, I was walking around dialated to almost a 3 at this point. Granted, I walked around like that for a couple of weeks, but just to know that the process is beginning does wonders for my mental state :0) Not to mention it would be nice to know if the contractions I have been feeling, which are probably just Braxton Hicks (uncomfortable BH ctx, I might add!) are starting to spark some changes down there. I sure do hope so.

Nightmare

I awoke in the dark to him crying out, SOBBING, a sound that immediately cut through my heart, my soul, and I jumped up off the couch and I ran up the stairs, faster than I thought I could move at this point, and I took an extra step up at the landing and stumbled, but didn't fall and kept running up the rest of the steps because it was one of THOSE cries; an OMG I NEED YOU RIGHT NOW AND IT'S NO JOKE sobbing, and did he fall out of bed? It's only 12" to the floor, and how could he get hurt falling out of there, but JEEZ, something is really wrong and OH MY poor poor baby Mama is coming.

When I got into his room I could see by the light of his radio that he was still in bed and his eyes were squeezed shut and he was SOBBING, and his face was streaked with tears and is he awake or is he sobbing in his sleep? And if I wake him will he know it's me or will it freak him out more? And I say "Shhhh Baby, L, it's okay, Mama's here, Shhhh Baby, what's wrong? Mama's here..." and I touch him on the cheek and he opens his eyes and he says as he is reaching for me "It BIT me, down der, it BIT me on da put" and one of his legs IS hanging off the bed, but what the hell would have BIT him? and I scoop him up and he wraps himself around me and hangs on for dear life and I say "Shhhh, mama is here, it's okay now Shhhh" and we rock in the chair and my shoulder is wet instantly with his tears and he nuzzles as tight into me as he can and he says again "It bit me" but there is no blood, and I just hold him tightly and once again we are tangled together as one and his fear is my fear and my hurt to help bear until finally he calms and his breathing slows and the hitching of his breath stops and finally I feel it is safe to ask if he is ready to lay back down in his big boy bed, but he points to our bedroom and whimpers, and then points to the empty crib and tells me he wants to sleep in his crib and of course, I oblige. He takes his 'beebee' (blanket) and his kitty and he wedges himself into the corner of his crib and covers himself and his face with his blanket and kitty and he drifts back to sleep. And I know he is feeling like his beebee and his kitty are his shield and if he covers up completely nothing can get him because I STILL do that when I have a bad dream, and I just wanna crawl in with him and hold him and take all his fear away.

And this morning he awoke happy and smiling and calling out his usual "Mama - can I go down da stairs?", his signal that he is up and ready and looking for me to come give him permission to get out of bed and come downstairs...And after I got him downstairs on the couch I checked his feet over and as I was looking at them he looked at me with wide eyes and said "A nake bit me. On my put. He bit me. Up der" and pointed upstairs and I said "Oh NO L, you just had a bad dream, there are no snakes in your room, nope, no snakes in our house" and he didn't believe me and said again that "a nake up der bit me" but I assured him again that there are no snakes in our house and he brightened up and said "No nakes? No nakes in our house ta git me?" and I assured him again, and I think he believed me, and I HOPE he believed me, and I think we may need to do some reassuring tonight to get him into his big boy bed again, and Oh my, his first nightmare and I just wanna take all the fear away...take it all away for him. And this is only the beginning. How am going to get through all the times when I want to take away all the pain, the dissapointment, the sadness, the emotional hurt, the unfairness that is life and I can't?? And I have to just be there to hold him and say Mama's here, but what about when that is not enough, but is all I can do?? And how will my heart come out the other side of motherhood intact after being shattered again and again?

From the mouth of the babe - again

W got a call to go and work for the day with some people he knows, and this was the conversation L and I had as I buckled him into his carseat:

HIM "Is Daddy gone come wit us?"

ME "No, he's going to go to work"

Him "NO! He TAN'T go to work, he hafta play brisbee!" (Frisbee - meaning Frisbee golf, W's new past time since he has been laid off, when he is not looking for work, or looking to get out of the house and away from the wrath of his pregnant, crabby wife ;0) )

Yeah kid - you don't know how right you are that he would probably rather play frisbee, but too bad, his ass is going to WORK!

Bits and pieces

Today, I am feeling relatively at peace. Mostly because I have not thought about our budget at all yet. I don't have the exact numbers anyway, so there is no point in doing it yet anyway, and for now, surprisingly, I have been able to just let it go. I am only hoping that when the actual numbers come in, the cut won't be quite as deep as we are thinking. I don't even think I mentioned that the salary cut is coming in the form of reduced health care benefits, and very substantial increases in the amount that I will have to pay toward premiums, deductible and services. But as that has been a part of my compensation package for the last 10 years, and we have no other option (ie W doesn't have any insurance that we can check into - I am the sole person with the ability, at least right now, to provide health insurance for our family) it IS a direct pay cut. And I know I am by no means alone in this, and we are lucky to HAVE health coverage, but dammit, it is still a roughly 20% pay cut all at once, and jeezus, how can they just DO that to someone?? And not just me, who has been there for 10 years, but EVERYBODY; even the guy that has been there for 25 years. They have always said, 'We are a small, family orientated company, we care about you, we are a family here'...yada yada yada, all a bunch of shit.

And, there is a LOT more to the whole story, stuff I will not share as it is confidential company information; the reason the cuts are needed is pretty sad and disgusting when you get right down to it, but let me just say that the future is not bright at all around that place, and I don't see myself still there a year from now. Or should say that I seriously hope and plan that I won't be there a year from now. Unless something DRASTICALLY changes soon.

Enough of that, though. I have fun news today too.

L slept in his toddler, aka 'big boy' bed, last night!! I am pretty sure I have talked about the fact that we set it up a while ago, but as of yet, he has been extremely reluctant to sleep in there at night. He LOVES to play in it, but when it comes time to sleep in it, he has so far THOUGHT he wanted to, but as soon as I would leave the room he would get scared and want to go in his crib. Which I have just let him do. It's not so dire that I need to force the kid out of his crib if he isn't ready.

But last night, when we got done reading books, he told me 'I haf ta lay down in my big boy bed!' and so I said sure, but reminded him that if he wants to sleep there he has to STAY IN BED, and I will be checking and if I come up and find him out of bed then he will have to go into his crib. He said 'otay, mama' and layed down. I checked on him every 5-10 minutes, and each time he was still in bed. There was one time when I heard a loud crash and went up to find him standing at the window (still in his bed, as it is right under the window) and that he has pulled the screwdriver out that was holding the window open (I know, I know, that is not a very good set up now that he is sleeping right there - that is W's assignment, to rig a better way to keep the window open) and the window had crashed shut. It scared him pretty good though, and between that and my threats that he better leave it alone or he will get a BIG ouchie, he didn't touch it again.

It probably took him about 45 minutes total to fall asleep, but he did. With his feet at the head of the bed and his head at the foot; but he didn't fall out all night, which I was worried about since he is such a restless sleeper like his dad. When I woke him up this morning I made a big deal about praising him for being such a big boy and sleeping in his big boy bed. So hopefully he is going to make the transition smoothly now!

**SIGH** it is again, as always, a bittersweet moment. I am excited for him to come into our room on a Saturday morning and climb into bed with us and wake us up! But not looking forward to if or when he figures out that he is no longer confined in his bed and can test me at bedtime by getting out of bed! Hopefully he won't ever get there...he never tried to climb out of his crib, though I have no doubts he would have been fully capable of it had he tried.

He also made another step showing he is getting closer to wanting to potty train...the other night we were at my mother in laws for dinner and as they came in from outside to sit down at dinner, he told me 'Mama, I pooped, needa change my diaper'...usually, when he poops, he will deny it till the end of the day!! LOL...even when you catch him in the act of it, grunting and tensing and all, and you ask if he is pooping, he will say "No, I not poopeen". And he has been content to continue on about his day for as long as possible without getting his diaper changed. So that was the first time he showed the initiative to want to have his diaper changed, which is definitely a step in the right direction! YAY!

Speaking of W's assignments (lol) he DID get my garden tilled, although it is a bit of a sore subject as he did NOT listen to me for location, and did not even go with the location that HE brought to the table that I actually liked better than mine, but put it at the bottom of the yard at the dang tree line, which as soon as the few large trees there get all there leaves, is going to be too darn shady to support vegetables. At least that is my opinion. So I am reluctant to even plant anything for the fear that it is going to be a waste of time. But I will do it, and already told him that if it doesn't work this year, he WILL be redoing it in a different location for next year. MEN. I swear. Sometimes even the best of them are just so frustrating! ;0)

On my mind

Just a couple of things that are / have been on my mind.

-My recent reminiscing of my early days with W got me wanting to go through my old photos. I have been meaning to weed out the duplicates and then someday put them in the empty albums I asked for and received a couple of Christmases ago. On Saturday, I sat on the living room floor and pulled out the big box of photos and started going through them. W sat down next to me while L played with his cars near us. It was GREAT. We reminisced together over memories of days gone by - the good and the bad. And even better than the together-remembering was the deep conversation that followed. We talked about our childhoods and how they affected us similarly and differently (not that we haven't done this before, but it is the first real deep conversation since we became parents, which changes and clarifies your perspective so greatly...) We talked about how I have been going through some really intense reflecting lately, and how I am having issues with my feelings toward my parents right now. We talked about raising L and this coming baby, and how and why we want and NEED and WILL do things differently. It was some intense reconnecting that we REALLY REALLY needed. It was lovely.

-Not too long ago W and I had a conversation about homosexuality. I can't remember what spurred it, and I don't remember the conversation in detail, but the part that makes me sad is that we came to a point where I started getting angry at him for his opinion, and we had to agree to disagree...he truly believes that homosexuality is a CHOICE, that it is a 'learned behavior' and I do not. As far as gay marriage goes, I don't think he could care less either way, but he was surprised and disappointed that I totally believe that TRUE homosexuality is not a choice. It makes me sad that we disagree on that at such a fundamental level.

-W's mom asked us to go out to eat with them on Saturday at a place called Treasure Island. On Saturday morning, as I was getting L dressed, I told him that we were going to meet G-ma and R at Treasure Island and have lunch, and did that sound like fun? His eyes got all wide, he started nodding his head yes, and he said "We gon be PIRATES! We need a boat, too Mama!!!" at first, I was wondering what the heck he was talking about when it dawned on me that Dora the Explorer (L's favorite cartoon character) and her friends dress up as pirates and go sailing off to Treasure Island to look for buried treasure!! I laughed so hard! We had a blast on the way there pretending that the car was a boat, and that the river we crossed was Crocodile Lake; another obstacle that Dora and her friends must cross before they can get to Treasure Island. He woke this morning immediately talking about G-ma and R and pirates and treasure...Ahhh, he's growing up too fast.

-I have almost 15 weeks to go yet in this pregnancy, and it feels like a LONG time, and I am SO SORE. All the time. My hips and back and pelvic region seem to be feeling it much worse this time. Probably doesn't help that I am at the weight already at 25 weeks that I was at at 31 weeks last time. It's a lot of extra weight for my body to carry around...Yeah; I gained THIRTEEN, yes that's 13 pounds in the last 5 weeks (Go ahead and laugh, Kori, it's okay, my doctor did!)...I am not even sure how that is humanly possible, but obviously, for this human, it is. I thought I was doing kind of okay, I figured I would have another 8# month like last month, but it was even worse. I have promised myself and my doctor to buckle down a bit and hopefully slow the weight gain. So yeah, it feels like a LONG time to go. I know it will go by fast, but I am gonna be one crabby mama bear by the time this baby pops out! I am just going to keep walking as much as I can, at least 4 times a week, and keep stretching and hopefully I won't get too much more sore than I am now.

-Here's some more true as hell pregnancy information that, were you never pregnant yourself, you would probably never know. Having a little person kicking you LITERALLY in the anus from the inside is the WEIRDEST.FEELING.EVER. Or maybe she is kicking something like my intestine that's connected to my anus, but my anus is where I 'feel' it. Either way, it is not really all that pleasant. Sorry, but it's been happening, and it's on my mind.

Movin' on Up...

After many strike-outs, I finally managed to get my hands on a mattress on freecycle for L's toddler bed, and we set it up on Saturday.

What an excited little boy we have!!

I wasn't ever planning on using a toddler bed. We received an awesome single bed size wooden bed frame with the nice headboard and drawers underneath from my old boss a while back, and just planned on moving L right into that in the downstairs bedroom when it came time to move him out of the crib. However, I discovered that for whatever reason, I am just not comfortable at this point to have L sleeping downstairs, in a big bed, with us upstairs. It may be irrational fears, but I am just not comfortable with it, and decided we had to come up with a different plan. I think if HE was upstairs and we were downstairs, I would be okay with him being that far away, it's just the idea of him being on the main floor and us being upstairs that doesn't sit well...I mean, if someone broke in, he would be the first one they came across, and I am just not okay with that at this point.

Seeing that the big bed is just too large to cram into the room upstairs with the crib, I decided that we would have to find a toddler bed to put in there. I was able to find a used bed frame for $25 at Once Upon A Child after continually not having luck with the ones I was finding on freecycle, and then finally was able to find a mattress this weekend for free!! YAY!!

I also stopped and picked L up his own, brand new pillow (for only $5!!) and got his bed all set up this weekend. He was in 7th heaven, and must have played on his bed with his cars for at least an hour. I couldn't even get him to come downstairs!

Our first attempt at nap time in the new bed didn't go very well, though. There was just too much excitement over the new digs, I think. I could tell there was no way he was going to settle down in a timely fashion and actually FALL ASLEEP on his new bed, so we just used the crib. I am going to give it a little time to loose it's new excitement, and think we will give it a serious go this weekend and try to get him to actually SLEEP on the bed.

L had a pretty funny moment of realization about the whole situation when my In-laws came over and he was showing them his new bed...G-ma said "You get to sleep in your new big boy bed because when the baby comes, the baby will need to sleep in the crib" L stopped in his tracks, thought about it for a second and said "No, MY crib!" I think even if we have the sleeping in the bed thing down before baby arrives, we still may face some regression and objecting from him on letting the baby sleep in 'his' crib.

Seeing him laying in his toddler bed is so bittersweet! I really can't believe how quickly the time goes when it is being measured by your child(ren)'s growth. It truly TRULY goes too fast.

My son, the Storyteller...

My son is becoming a story teller.

It's not his fault...really. If the resident daycare bully (who happens to be a girl who is 6 months L's junior) hadn't decided L was a good target a few months back, we wouldn't be where we are now. And maybe it's a little bit of my fault too, I guess.

It started a few months ago when my DC lady showed me the first bite mark upon pick up...She apologized profusely, and said she had really tried to keep her eye on The Offender as much as possible, but while trying to do this AND make lunch (how dare she take her eyes off to make lunch??), said Offender quickly blindsided L and sunk her teeth in. She comforted L, and Offender was scolded for being naughty and given a time out.

I assured her that it was okay, L would live, and life would go on.

When I asked L what happened, he matter of factly told me "C bit me - C naughty, time out C!"

Now, I really was not upset about the biting, I mean, when you have 10 kids around, and some are of the age of learning about proper and improper ways to show anger and frustration, there are bound to be some incidents. And to be completely honest, I was thankful she was telling me my child was the victim and not the offender! Call me crazy or a bad mom or whatever, but I hope I NEVER have The Biter...I mean, kids get thrown out of daycare for that! I have known kids to get thrown out of MULTIPLE daycares for that! And god knows it is hard to find REALLY GOOD, affordable, convenient daycare, which is exactly what I have with my current daycare provider. So yeah, at this point, L was not badly hurt and I was glad he was not The Offender.

In light of this fear, I though "hmmmm, this would be a good opportunity to use this as a learning experience about not biting" so I proceeded to stress how naughty C was for biting, and that we DON'T bite people, and if we do, we are in trouble and get a time out. I thought my plan was working perfectly since whenever we talked about biting, L immediately added that biting is naughty and is grounds for a timeout. Great!

The biting occurred a few more times, never very bad, but always accompanied by a very concerned daycare provider apologizing profusely, and after it happened a couple of times, promising that this was to be the last occurance, if it happened again, she would be asking the parent of The Offender to get their child as she cannot remain, and also asking me for reassurance that I was not going to pull L out of her daycare (???!!! Pull L out?? No way...I would definitely push for The Offender to be removed, but would not pull L out!)

I continued to use the incidents as opportunities to stress to L that we do not bite people, that it is not acceptable to express our anger or frustration in such a way...I was happy that he seemed to be catching on well.

Somewhere along the way, however, in his little brain, he must have come to like me talking about how naughty so and so was for doing such and such, because now I am getting stories of misbehavior by some kid or another practically every day!

I will walk in the door to daycare, and he will run up to me yelling "Mama! Mama!" throw his arms around me, give me my kiss, and then proceed to matter of factly tell me how so and so "bit me today" with the most serious look on his face!

Or we will be riding in the car and he will proclaim "C pinches people, Mama, dat naughty!"

Or the other day when we were in the grocery store, racing to pick up a few things and get home to make dinner, and he was NOT COOPERATING one bit - he wanted his boots / coat off, he insisted I carry him around the store (all 35# of him, in my preggo arms, trying to push a cart with the other hand - UGH!) and I told him he was being quite naughty and he said "No, I not naughty Mama, C naughty!"

Or how the story changed from he and another kid bumping into each other and him falling down and hitting his head to "J hit me Mama" while he points to the part of his head that he hit when he fell.

"No" I tell him, " J didn't hit you, you and J bumped into each other and you FELL DOWN and hit your head. It was an accident, L."

"No, mama, J hit me!" and his eyes get big and he shakes his head up and down.

My daycare provider is very good at telling me when something happens, in fact, I sometimes chuckle at the things she tells me about, or worries about. Although I can understand why she needs to be completely forth coming about everything that happens, but really, we are family, and I pride myself on being pretty down to earth in the aspect that I believe kids are going to be kids, and when they are with each other every day, things are bound to happen! So I am pretty confident that she is telling me the truth when I tell her the stories that L tells each day and she says she is pretty sure nothing like that happened today, etc etc.

So, part of me thinks it is fairly comical, because it IS fairly comical...He will come up with these things out of the blue and remind me how "C bites people" "C pinches people, Mama" etc. But part of me is a little concerned that my boy is turning into the boy who cried wolf!!

Or worse, that C's parents will find out that my child is smearing their precious little girl's name all over town!!

Although she IS a little bully...On that he is telling the truth...maybe just stretching it a little...I can't hardly scold him for being honest, now can I??

Fooling myself...

I had this naive notion that I could protect my children from my parents' alcoholism. That due to the fact that *I* was determined to show them with my own actions and life choices that drinking like my parents do is not normal or healthy or the way that all, or even a majority of people, live their lives, that they would be safe from the hurt and pain inflicted upon me by my parents alcoholism. That my parents could be a part of my children's lives and somehow I would use their sickness as a way for my children to learn from a distance...my children would not have to live through what I did in order to learn the lessons; I could teach them by viewing it from afar.

I had this plan that I would simply tell my children that Nana and Papa (him, especially) have a disease, a sickness they couldn't control, and that drinking like that was not a healthy or happy way to live. And that somehow, some way, those words would make them understand and would protect them.

HA...yeah...good plan.

Last night I was telling L that I was going to call Papa B and Gramma C (W's father and his wife) and see if he could stay with them on Saturday night while mama worked. He immediately started whining that he didn't want to go there, he wants to "Go Nana's house...and Papa be der too!" (my parents).

In that instant, at TWO years old, L blew my plan wide open and exposed it for the weak little wanna be protection from the storm that it was trying to be.

"No, you can't go to Nana and Papa's, we're going to see if you can go to Papa B's and Gramma C's house"

"Noooo - wanna see Nana an Papa, and Jack be der too!"

How could I have thought there would be no pain in it for him? How could I have thought that saying the words "No you can't_____with Papa because Papa is sick" would magically make him understand my reasoning and squelch his desires to spend time fishing or hunting or hanging out with his Papa that he loves?

Last night, I was able to brush it under the rug and just move on. I just stopped the conversation, and when Saturday comes and we drop L off at his other Papa and Gramma's house, he will be happy and he will forget that he wanted to be at Nana and Papa's instead. But what happens when he is 4 or 5 or 8 and he won't take no for an answer? When he wants to know why he can NEVER do x,y or z with Papa K? When he wants to know why he always stays at Papa B and Gramma C's, but never with Nana and Papa? What then? Could I seriously have thought that saying those weak little words "Papa is sick" would somehow leave him understanding what my 30+ years of life, and being bombarded by and living through all the ugly faces of alcoholism has taught me? How will there not be pain for him when he wonders why Papa can't just love him enough to NOT drink? Did I think he would not wonder that same thing that I myself have wondered a million times over?

I truly believe that I am here in this life and that I chose these parents because *I* will be the one who breaks the chain, the one who chooses the other path. But how could I have thought that there would be no pain for my children? There is no escaping the pain when you are on the path of leaving your family's legacy of alcoholism behind...and regardless of the shortsightedness of my previous thinking that the pain would end with me; that *I* was the end of that legacy, it is obvious that my children are REALLY going to have to be the end. Hopefully my choices, which were shaped through my own pain, along with my children's choices learned through their own different, but equal pain, can allow my grandchildren to be the ones who won't have to learn the lessons through pain. They hopefully can learn to live healthy, productive lives simply because that is the ONLY thing that they know and see in their immediate family.

And although that thought brings me hope and joy, it does not ease the sorrow I feel for my own children. It does not answer the question of 'what's my plan NOW?' How am I going to help ease their pain? I'm tired. Tired of the alcoholism. Tired of thinking about it and seeing it and figuring out how to live through it. Tired of feeling guilty and disappointed and embarrassed and sad and mad because of it. I would so much like to brush it under the rug, but I keep tripping on the bump it creates. I cannot even look at my father these days, which makes me feel so sad and guilty and angry. I see in his eyes that he knows; he knows that I can hardly stand to look at him, and he knows why, and it hurts him SO BAD...I can see all that in his eyes, and it makes me SO FUCKING angry at him for knowing it and allowing me to feel so guilty because I cannot muster the strength to say it all out loud.

I only wanted to spare my children this pain...this unfair, unrelenting pain caused by the actions of our loved ones which we have no control over. This realization of my flawed plan has dampened my heart...

From the mouth of the babe...part whatever; I lost count

I have been really bad at writing all these cute little speech momentos down lately. I have been really bad at keeping track of ANY little momentos aside from filing them in my memory lately to be honest. L HAS a baby book intended to house these moments, keeping them intact and safe from the fuzziness of memory which happens over time, and I know that someday I am going to regret not making the time to keep score better.

So, lest I forget them, I wanted to write down a couple of my most favorite current developments with L.

Not to long ago, everything became 'for a minute'..."Play ball me, foraminute?" "Brush teef, foraminute" "Nuggle me mama, foraminute? (with his sippy in one hand and the other hand in his hair and his sweet little blue eyes (my eyes) pleading with me to just take a second, mama) " with his voice raising just a titch at the end so that every time he says the word it ends in a question, whether it is a question or not...

His other new phrase is 'can we ____ now'..."Cawee eat now, mama?" "Cawee watch Dora now, mama?" The other day we were at my Auntie Rose's wake, surrounded by a bunch of people that L doesn't know, waiting in line to pay our respects, he in my arms holding on for dear life, and he grabs my face in his two little hands and turns my head so that he is looking directly into my eyes and says "Cawee go home now, mama, please?" while shaking his head yes...

**SIGH**

W said last night that he doesn't want him to learn to talk properly, can't we just freeze him right here for awhile?

Yeah, don't we wish...

Head first into 2009 and the big 3-0

I just read this from Maggie over at Okay. Fine. Dammit., and all I can say is WOW, and that is so true, and okay, I accept your challange, Maggie.

I have really come to like her.

That being said, I am not going to apologize, but I will say that I will probably be more absent than usual in the next couple of weeks...work is getting busy (YAY!) and evenings haven't really been finding me in the mood to blog, so I may just be finding time to keep up reading my blogs that I can't live without.

But, no worries, I will keep updated on the important things :0)

Thankfully, the Holiday season and lots of days off couldn't have come at a better time...I am starting to feel MUCH better, which I am SO thankful for...I don't know how much longer I could have continued making it to work all day, every day if I had continued to feel the way I did...somehow I would have, but thankfully I don't seem to have to figure that out. Especially with the large, important projects I have coming up in the next couple of weeks, I just don't know how I would have done it...

The Holidays were great...L had so much fun, although after 5 days in a row of opening gifts, he had NO DESIRE on the last day to open any...I felt bad for my MIL, because L actually went and hid in the kitchen, saying "I don wanna, mama" when we tried to get him to open them...Poor kid. So, it was more ME opening presents with L standing there...after they were open he was excited to play with them, he just didn't want to have to be the center of attention anymore and open anymore presents. Can't blame him. He got way more 'stuff' than I wish he would have, but how can you tell grandparents not to buy? My MIL did put money in his savings account for his birthday in lieu of a present, which is AWESOME.

Other than that, *I* am glad the holidays are over as well. I guess next is my birthday...WHEW, the big 3-0 this year...How can THAT be? Not sure. I am not afraid of 30 like I was even 5 years ago. I am going to embrace 30. I honestly have never been happier than I have been the last couple of years. W and are in a good place. He has grown by leaps and bounds and I think he is just getting started. Being a mom is definitely something I was meant to do in this life, and it is a joy. L has brought more love to my heart than I ever thought possible and this new baby will bring that much more (although I am still trying to figure out how my heart will not explode!). My career is in a good place. Even with the economic instability, I feel pretty safe where I am at...at least for now. But even still, *I* have grown too, and I know that no matter what happens, we *WILL* make it through, and somehow, everything will be alright. As long as we have our love and each other, the rest is just 'stuff'.

So, yeah. Looking forward to 30 and 2009.

I have my 12 week check up on my 30th birthday...Hah, good way to celebrate; with my doctors hand up my who-ha...LOL. It will be good as long as my BP is at a tolerable level. And we will (hopefully) get to hear the heartbeat that we saw at 6 weeks, which ALWAYS is exciting, and helps to alleviate worried pregnant minds and help convince me that this is indeed really happening :0)

So here's to a new year, and a new decade.

To stop time...

I have been feeling a desperate need as of late to soak up as much time as possible with L. To etch into my memory every cute little mispronounced word or phrase and every tender moment. To bottle them up and pop a cork on them so that in 10 years or 20 years or 30 years I can pop the top and relive these moments as I am living them today. To preserve and protect them from erosion by passing time. To keep this raw emotion intact.

Or better yet, can I please just pause him here, just for a little while longer?

I just know that I am going to blink and he is going to be growing, growing, grown.

I rock with him in the chair, chest to chest, his head on my shoulder, and his feet rest on my shins and dangle down between my legs...Can this possibly be the same baby? The same baby whose head, just yesterday it seems, fit in the palm of my hand? Whom I could hold on my chest with his butt cupped in one hand?

I am once again feeling so overwhelmed by the swift passage of time...

This morning he is standing in the hallway, repeating something over and over as I am in the living room getting ready for us to leave...I thought he was saying basketball, so I bring him his basketball, only to find him pointing at a ladybug and excitedly repeating

"bakey-bug, bakey-bug!!!"

"Yes bud, that's a ladybug"

he points up to the light "Up high!"

"Did he come from up there?"

"Yeah!"

You are getting too smart, my little peanut.

Too smart and too sweet...

Saturday morning we were snuggling on the couch watching some cartoons, as we always do on weekend mornings, and he turns to me out of the blue, puts his hand on my face and says "I wub you, mama" and kissed me on the lips.

The first time he was on the initiating end of that exchange...

I wub you too, L, more than words can say. Surely more than I ever thought possible.

The feminist in me....

So the Feminist in me reared her gorgeous head last night...She still kinda takes me off guard when she surges forward with her sort of newly found voice...

My father-in-law and his wife invited us over for supper last night, which totally ROCKS on a weekday since it means that the mad dash that constitutes 'evening' in our house does not have to be so mad, and there are no dishes to find time for, either.

So we were sitting in the living room after seriously gorging on some bad ass chili, and the CMA's happened to be on the TV (or the TB, as the boy would say ;0) ). I am not a country fan, but whatever. So some chic in a pretty tight, short black skirt and low cut top was singing some song, and L was glued in his spot watching her intently.

"You like that peanut? Does she sing so pretty?"

"Yeah" he says, without even a sideways glance...

"Yeah, she sings alot prettier than Mama"

Then my father in law decides to add his two cents and this is what I hear come out of his mouth:

"She's SEXY, huh buddy, can you say 'sexy'?"

Cue angry feminist voice screaming in my head WHAT THE FUCK!? Are you fucking kidding me? Did you really just tell my 2 year old son that this chic is SEXY? And not only that but try to teach him to SAY IT? Did you really just imply to my son, who happened to be just enjoying a beautiful voice and song, that he should pay more attention to the fact that this lady is SEXY than just enjoy the beautiful voice that is radiating out of her mouth? I really wanted to channel some BHJ awesomeness and slice my FIL's head off with a samurai sword in one fell swoop...

Seriously.

The level of my anger at that statement took me by surprise. And really, it may seem like no big deal to him, and really, it may NOT be as big a deal as angry feminist voice made it out to be, but honestly, that type of shit DOES make a difference. Those subtle messages that we send to our children even, or maybe even ESPECIALLY, at this young age DO matter, and will shape their mentality towards all types of things later in life, and I will be damned if my son will grow up viewing women as objects.

Yes, she was beautiful. And she was sexy. And I don't think for even a moment that my father in law looks at women solely as sexual objects. And I sometimes even feel good about being found sexually desirable. But something about my father in law telling my 2 year old son that 'she is SEXY', and trying to get him to say it, REALLY REALLY rubbed me the absolute wrong way.

From the mouth of the Babe - Part 4

"Wake up, L, it's time to get up and face the day peanut"

"I dough wanna geh dup"

"You wanna go back to sleep?"

"Yeah"

"Awww, you don't wanna get up and have some milk and snuggle with Mama and watch Blue's Clues?"

"DORA!" he says and is instantly on his feet, bee-bee (blankie) in hand, ready to face the day.

**SIGH** sometimes I think he loves that little cartoon girl more than he loves me ;0) He has even been calling out her name in his sleep.

How-ween; and/or From the mouth of the Babe part 3

We watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" as a family last night. W and I have watched it every year for the last few, but this was the first time for L. He laughed his butt off, which was hilarious...He didn't even know what he was laughing at, and he laughed at inappropriate times sometimes, which made it funnier. It was his goofy forced laugh, which made it even MORE hilarious. It was great.


As soon as he saw the gang all dressed up in their ghost costumes, he got really excited

"How-ween!! How-ween!!"

and pointed and looked at me with that excited face; OMG! Look mama, look! Can you believe it?!

That has got to be one of the best parts of being a parent; seeing the big wide world through their eyes, learning again how to revel in simple joys and to recognize the beauty in all things.

The kids at daycare must be talking about 'How-ween' alot, getting excited, because that was the first time he had ever said that. He still doesn't 'get it' though; when I asked him what he wants to be for Halloween, he looked and me, smiled and said "Yeah!", lol.

So he is going to be Darth Vader for How-ween; well, actually, it's Anakin Skywalker, I guess, as he looked when he was a Jedi Knight before he went to the dark side...it is a little black jumpsuit with the different colored buttons on front, a cape, and a little felt Jedi Knight cap. He looks really cute in it, of course, and W is so excited since he had joked a couple of weeks ago that L should be Darth Vader. I didn't plan it, it just happened to be what I found Monday afternoon as I scrambled from store to store quickly between meetings and hoped I would find something suitable and that would not break the bank. I stopped at Halloween express, who happened to have the same Anakin Skywalker costume, but wanted $30 for it!?!? They pretty much wanted $30 for everything in L's size. I ended up stopping at Kohl's on a whim, and lo and behold, they had ONE Anakin Skywalker costume left, in L's size, on clearance for $7.99. Hell's ya, that's what I'm looking for :0)

I had had plans of being all on top of Halloween this year and getting something super cute on-line for cheap, like my stay at home sister in law, but I was not on the ball, and Halloween snuck up on me, and so I did the mad dash. My niece said she wanted to be a duck for Halloween, and she got a TOO CUTE chicken costume, and my younger niece will be a cow. I sometimes get so envious of her. My SIL that is...she always has time to stay on top of stuff like that, like Halloween costumes and 'special' outfits for all the Holidays. Poor L winds up in last minute Anakin Skywalker costumes and everyday outfits for Holidays. But then again, I think *I personally* am more fulfilled with my life than I would be if I stayed at home, not to mention that I know I value the quality of my time with L more because of it, and who needs special outfits for Holidays anyways? It's just one more thing to spend money on that they will wear ONCE in their life...

Did I mention that there is A LOT more adult orientated humor in "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" than I remember or ever picked up on as a kid? Not to mention that scene where Snoopy is a WWII fighter pilot and is flying his dog house and is engaged in a fire fight with the enemy, WTH? I felt like I was tripping...or SHOULD have been!!! Wow, psychedelic. L laughed at that part too. Which was funny. And scary. I had this flash forward vision of him and his friends, 16, sittin' around hittin' the bong laughing their asses off as the psychedelic Snoopy scene unfolds before them. UGH. He is mine and W's son though, so I should not be surprised if, in 14 years I walk in on that episode.

That's what I love about those older cartoons; they always had all this masked adult humor that made it easier for parents to watch along with their kids...I mean, Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go are CERTAINLY not hiding any adult humor.