All those sheets and blankets...

When L was born, we got about 5 crib sheets and about 95 million baby blankets. No joke. I used to wonder what the HELL I was ever going to do with 95 million baby blankets, and really, do I *need* 5 crib sheets? I mean, really, you need one and another for when you are washing the first, right?

Ummm, yeah. Enter The Flu.

When your 2 year old wakes up puking his brains out at midnight, you quickly find out how handy those 5 crib sheets and 95 million blankets really can be. There was a point where I even thought I would run out. I *did* run out of crib sheets, so the last time he puked, when it was mainly just the few sips of water I had let him have (because he was begging me for some milk), I covered the wet spot up with a towel, rocked him back to sleep and put him on the other end of the crib.

Hey - when it's 5am and you haven't slept a lick since midnight, you've changed the sheets, the blankets and the kid 6 times already,you do what you gotta do.

Needless to say, it was a rough night.

Now, if *I* can just avoid getting the flu...

Faeries, mysteriously appearing trees and suffocating anxiety...

I left the house last Friday morning dreading coming home after work, which is COMPLETELY wrong and unfair...it's simply not right to dread coming home on a Friday, but the house was a disaster. Complete and utter. There were clothes strewn all across the living room, dirty and clean intermixed, hardly a square inch of room visible through the clothing explosion. L's toys had ALL seemed to migrate from his toy room into the living room, and what wasn't covered in clothing was covered in Matchbox cars and ramps and books and balls and tractors; a severe amount of tripping hazards and toe stubbers. The kitchen counter was a mess of bills that should have been in the mail and credit card and refinancing offers and payed bill stubs that should have been filed last Spring. There was a mile high stack of dishes piled next to the sink...the kind that don't go in the dishwasher, that need to be washed by hand; the kind I HATE and will avoid like the plague. The entry/laundry/cat room was nasty; boots and scarves and recycling overflowing, cat litter strewn about (damn cats, are they NEVER going to learn to wipe their feet?!? REALLY.)

So I knew that when I got home, there would be no relaxing on a Friday night after a long week of work. My obsessive self would not leave it till Saturday morning. I would need to address the mess I had ignored all week.

That evening, when I trudged through the door lugging L and bags and purses I noticed immediately that something was not how I left it that morning. The entry was tidy and vacuumed. For a moment, I though that my wonderful husband must have vacuumed before he left that morning (for a weekend of ice fishing with 'the guys'), but that thought immediately vanished when I turned and set my purse on the dryer, which was empty and obviously wiped off.

L and I proceeded into the kitchen, and that's when I knew my cleaning faerie had paid us a visit while we were at work and daycare...the dishes were all washed and put away, save a few obscure pieces that have no visibly apparent home; these were neatly stacked on the stove top, ready to be put away. The floors were swept; no dirt and dust balls sticking to my feet as I crossed the floor. L's toys had all found their way back to his toy room, and were arranged neatly. The clothing explosion had been gathered into some sort of group in one corner of the living room and besides that, the room was SPOTLESS; all of the throw blankets folded neatly, table and entertainment center spotless and dusted.

It was the best feeling...

I love my mom. As much as she can get on my nerves and drive me fucking INSANE sometimes, she has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know. She has done this cleaning faerie appearance on a few occasions...always seemingly when it will mean the most for me. She has a key to my house, a privilege of which she is way more respectful than I would even expect, but which I appreciate greatly. Even when I tell her to go ahead and stop in tomorrow to drop off such and such while I am at work, she will still call me when she is on her way and let me know she is dropping it off.

I called her right away and thanked her and let her know how much it especially meant to me that day. In her way, she downplayed it, and was just glad that I could relax a bit with L instead of cleaning...She said she felt it was the least she could do seeing as she forgot my 30th birthday earlier this month (Yeah, my mom, the birthday queen herself, forgot her own daughters 30th birthday!?!) and I assured her that this was a gift greater than ANY card or well wishes.

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Since W was out of town and L and I were all on our own this weekend, I decided to treat L and I to a cheeseburger and fries at this place instead of chowing down on mac-n-cheese or corndogs for lunch. As I was cresting the hill into this little town, I noticed a tree that seemed out of place...an empty branched winter tree sitting just beyond the ditch in the field at the side of the road, all by itself...I could not, for the life of me, recall EVER seeing this tree there, and yet, it was apparently NOT a new tree...it was well established, it had to be a good 20 years old judging by the size. A tree, I could not recall seeing, on a road that I have traveled LITERALLY THOUSANDS of times in my life; riding in the car, driving in the car, on foot, on bicycle. I could drive this road in my sleep...I can name every house along that 2 mile stretch, I can picture all of the fields and barns and silos and hills and valleys in my head...I had passed this spot thousands of times, and yet this tree, which jumped out at me this day, had never caught my eye before.

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I have been feeling the anxiety creeping in lately, trying to break down my walls and wrap it's (ITS, even - damn preggo brain) bony fingers around my neck...I have been beating it back; barely. At times I feel the shortness of breath and tightening of chest starting to overtake me.

I am scared about W's job security, and in turn our financial security. I am nervous once again about how we will afford this addition to our family. I fear how much worse is worse before better comes along? I can't handle unknowns and uncertainties...

I hate that FINANCES can do this to me. WTF. I hate that I feel this way when there are those that are so much worse off than us.

I hate that there is a part of me that knows that as long as we have each other and our love, the rest is all unimportant, and yet, that part of me is not strong enough to overcome the fear and anxiety.

Out with the old...

and in with

Hope. And Accountability. And Responsibility. And Acceptance. And Tolerance. And Serving AMERICA; ALL of America...

I told L last night that when he is in HS they will be learning about MLK and BHO :0)

That was amazing...What a great speech.

I wish him the best...I hope that he can implement his vision...I love that he made it about We the People, once again.

I am moved.

My poor W and how the hell do you make THAT decision??

W has been working on replacing the trim in hour house lately, and his current focus is our little entry hall...I told him the other day to just let me put a fresh coat of paint in there before he does it, as it definitely needs a coat.

He was off work yesterday due to the insane cold, and decided to surprise me by applying the coat of paint himself and putting the new trim up...

Well, I was surprised, alright, to find that he had painted the walls GREEN in lieu of the cream color that was in there prior.

I walk through the door to find him kneeling down working in there...

"OH, you painted it green." OMG, why in the hell did he paint it green??! That is HORRID, there is no way I can live with it being GREEN!! How can he think that looks good?!?

"No, what do ya mean?"

"It's GREEN, honey"

"No it's not, it's the same color as it was before; I compared it to the walls to make sure, I even checked the color composition listed on top and it doesn't say anything about GREEN"

My poor color blind W tried his best, but alas, his eyes could not tell the difference between the cream on the walls and the light shade of green that he was painting over it with! He was so bummed. I was so bummed for him.

It continued to baffle him throughout the evening how that could possibly be a different color. I continued to praise him for his efforts, although I don't think it helped.

I can't imagine living like that and not being able to see those differences in color...

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I watched a show last night and the plot was about a single father and his ± 7 year old daughter and 2 year old son. The mom had died (sometime after the boy was born, obviously) and all three of them (father, daughter, son) had cystic fibrosis...They went into the doctor because the father was coughing a lot...Turns out, the daughter had contracted a highly contagious, deadly (to them because of the CF), incurable bacterial infection that was going to, eventually, kill her. The father, of course, wanted to be with her to console her, etc, but they told him that neither him nor his son could make any contact with her or they WOULD catch the infection and they too would die.

So she is admitted to the hospital, and the closest the father can get is to see her from the corridor through the window and talk to her on the phone. They try some long shot treatment, but find out that it is not going to work. They tell the father this, and he insists that he needs to be with her to tell her, and the continue to tell him no, that then he will die, etc...he is so torn between going to his daughter and being with her while she dies, or leaving her to die alone so that he can live to raise his son.

OMG, how the fuck do you make that decision?

Needless to say, I was BAWLING my eyes out for the entire second half of the show...

In the end, the father hands his son over to the doctors, gives them some instructions on who to contact (he has NO close family) to take his son, and he goes into his daughter's room...

I am going to start crying again...

I don't know how a person is supposed to make it through something like that.

It reminded me of all the things that can go wrong in life and that we never know what tomorrow brings...

It totally made me think about this post by Maggie over at OkayFineDammit, and made me sad for all of the people that are suffering and that endure so much while simultaneously others are celebrating joys...

It made me want to beg and plead with the Universe, or Goddess, or God or my Karma or whatever is out there that I NEVER NEVER have to go through something like that...That I somehow live a life that never knows that type of struggle, because I don't know how it is possible to endure that type of pain, and I never ever ever want to find out...

It made me feel bad, somehow, for living the blessed life I have so far lived while others suffer so much...It made me question, again, why things happen the way they do...

It made me feel so grateful for said blessed life...

It made me so so sad.

It's all good...

My Dr. appt yesterday went well...My blood pressure was 134/65, so actually a titch better than last time at 134/70. YAY! I told the doctor that I had convinced myself that it was going to be really high and that she was going to want to pull me out of work already or some crazy thing...She said she wouldn't be surprised if it does go up later, to which I said later, MUCH later, is one thing, RIGHT NOW is another!

So that was good. I also DID get to hear the baby's heartbeat, even though my uterus is tipped slightly backward, which makes it harder to hear the baby's heartbeat, little bean was being cooperative :0)

Other than that, all they did was ask me 10 pages of questions and take like a pint of my blood.

It seems, though, that Mother Nature decided that I would like a head cold for my 30th birthday...I woke up with a sore throat, pounding head, painful sinuses and a general achy feeling. Tylenol is the only thing I can take right now, which seems to have knocked it down enough for me to work, for now...This probably explains the headaches I have been getting the last couple of days, which I was attributing to possible high blood pressure. UGH, just when I am starting to feel almost normal and getting through a really bad 1st trimester, I get socked with this...par for the course, I guess.

Hopefully I will be feeling better by this weekend and can enjoy going out to celebrate my birthday.

Happy 30th Birthday...

To ME!!

I kinda can't believe I am 30.

30 doesn't feel like I thought it would...

My idea of what 30 is has really changed since I was 16 or 18 or 21 and thinking about SOMEDAY turning 30!

I'm okay with this :0)

I don't have anything profound to say about it at the moment. Like I said the other day; I am looking forward to 30...I am more sure of who I am today and that feels good. I feel more at home in my own skin than I ever have, and that feels GREAT.

I brought doughnuts to work today (that's our thing; when it's your birthday you have to bring something), and my employer's are buying us lunch today to celebrate 3 recent birthdays in our office. I only have to work half a day, then off to see the dr. for my 12 week check up...I am hoping to hear the little bean's hearbeat on doppler today....and hoping that my blood pressure is acceptable. And I think we will have some dinner with some friends of ours tonight. That would be nice, to not have to cook on my birthday :0)

There it is, I have now entered the next decade of my life...I am optimistic that it is going to be a good 10 years.

In honor of my birthday, I thought I would share a glimpse of me with you...because I have actually seen photos of a few of the bloggers I follow recently, and never ceased to be amazed with how we get a picture of someone in our heads, and how weird it can be to see what they ACTUALLY look like and how it compares to the picture we have in our head; here you go...see how this compares...

I never felt more beautiful in my life than I did on this day...I was 26.



And just for the heck of it, here I am NOT all done up and tan, just my usual ole pale and pasty self, LOL...This was August 2007 at the cabin with an equally pale and pasty little baby L...



Don't get used to it, though, I don't plan on posting many pics of myself. Except maybe in a couple of years when I have worked all this baby fat off and am back to where I was in that wedding photo from when I was 26...I AM going to get back there SOMEDAY.

The dreams...ohh the dreams...

I have a love/hate relationship with the pregnancy dreams...

Alot of women report having especially vivid dreams during pregnancy, which is (for the most part) one of the nice side effects of pregnancy. I DO dream much more and much more vividly during pregnancy, and for the most part they are of the good variety, which is great.

Especially the sexual ones...hmmm...Seeing that at this point I have no energy left at the end of the day to do the deed, and yet still have some *desire* to do the deed, those sweet sex dreams fill the void ;0) Poor, poor W has to fend for himself on that front, hehehe...

But then there are the bad ones...the tame ones are usually dreams of parental inadequacies; leaving the baby in the car, forgetting them at home, etc etc. Those aren't so bad, but it's the not so tame ones that really make it a love/hate relationship...although they haven't been very numerous (at least for me, yet), they are so horrible that they weigh so much more heavily on the average than even the really good dreams.

The REALLY bad ones are about death and loss and are the kind that have you waking up to find that you have literally been SOBBING in your sleep. They leave you feeling sad and completely out of sorts, and not just for a few minutes...usually for the day, at least. Amazing that a series of thoughts, images and emotions created by our mind during sleep can have such an impact upon our waking lives...

So last night brought a very awesome happy dream and a fairly tame bad one...In the good dream I met up with a guy from my high school life that I haven't seen since HS that I think about and wonder about on occasion. Our relationship was...well, we were friends, but more than friends, but I have no delusions about the fact that it was definitely a little more one sided than a relationship should be...I 'loved' him, at least in my teenage mind, and we hung out alot, and he payed attention to me, and we were definitely friends, and we had sex (only once), and there are still some letters from him in my little (big) black box, but I knew then, and I know now, that he definitely used my feelings for him to his own benefit. It's okay though, it didn't leave lasting damage, and I still remember how nice it was when he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me on top of the head...**SIGH**

So in my dream I ran into him, and it was FABULOUS...it was obviously supposed to be in the present, because I told him I had one child and am pregnant with another, and yet, all the details of where we were don't really match up with the here and now, but that seems to be a common occurrence in dreams...in mine anyway. He looked great; healthy and CLEAN, which, as much as I'd like to believe is true, I am not sure would be the case were I to ACTUALLY meet up with him now...I heard a while back from a mutual HS friend that he was having some issues with meth, which didn't surprise me in the least. In the dream, we caught up on each other's lives, but the best part was when he wrapped those arms around me, towering over me like he always did, and it was just like I remember it...**SIGH**

It was a great dream, and I am left with warm and fuzzy feelings from it. It was one of those dreams that played out much better in my imagination than I suspect it would in real life. I'm okay with that...I have thought a bit more about him today, which has made me feel good, with just a touch of melancholy mixed in...probably mostly just a bit of longing for those worry free days of teenage-dom.

The not so good dream was about the baby...In it I was having some cramping, and some spotting and was angry and scared that I was loosing the baby...I woke up to some ACTUAL in real life discomfort down there; not cramping really, but probably more just uterus growing discomfort. Pretty mild on the bad pregnancy dream scale. Today I have no pain and no spotting, and I am sure all is well with the little one inside me.

I hope that is as bad as the bad ones get...Maybe it was that it was balanced out by such a good dream in the same night, but it didn't leave me feeling icky today, which I am grateful for. I am hoping for none of those wake me in the night sobbing ones about loosing L or W...