Month: April 2006

2 Months Later

Published by dee on April 27, 2006

Today it is the 2-month anniversary of my brother-in-laws’s death. Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about it until I just received an e-mail from hubby’s aunt titled "In Memory of Josh". I suppose that means I am moving on. Then I wonder how I could possibly forget. How can I move on and not even think of him?

I wonder if I am selfish because I don’t think of him and his family more often. Am I a bad person because I have failed in my promise to keep in touch with his wife and my nephew? Or, is this just my way of coping? Is it okay to want to forget? Isn’t it easier to avoid the situation than to feel the pain?

Is it wrong of me to want to click away and not read the e-mail from his aunt who talks about how this is God’s plan and that he now has peace and how glad she is that he has a family who have all been "saved" and how God will comfort us? Because no matter how much I believe in God, it still doesn’t make this feel any better.

Is it wrong of me to be mad at her for sending the e-mail because I know that hubby will read it when he gets home and spend the rest of the evening and possibly the upcoming weekend being severly depressed, angry, and missing his brother? Is it selfish of me to not want him to have to feel that sadness and pain?

I miss Josh. I know that my pain isn’t even close to the pain that his family has. I only knew him for about 4 years. They knew him for 27. But, it still doesn’t make it any easier.

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A Change of Pace

Published by dee on April 27, 2006

Before I became a parent, I lived quite a relaxed lifestyle. I did things on my schedule. I did things when I felt like doing them. If I felt like laying in bed all day watching Lifetime movies and eating an entire box of chocolate chip cookies, I could. Who was going to stop me?

Ten months ago, all of that changed. I became a parent. I became the person responsible for a tiny, helpless child. Suddenly, there were diapers to change, feeding schedules, sleeping schedules and tons upon tons of laundry to be done. My life as I knew it was gone.

As I whipped through the house lastnight picking up toys, dirty clothes, and sippy cups, I started putting together this list in my mind of things that I miss about my life before my son was born:

Sleeping in on Saturday mornings without a 6:00 a.m. wake up call from the next room.
Letting the dishes pile up in the sink until the weekend because I just didn’t feel like doing them.
Running a “quick” errand.
Spending endless weekend hours working on web page code or designs.
Reading books (and actually finishing them).
Finishing the week’s laundry in only three loads.
Wearing clothes without spit-up, drool, or snot on the shoulder.
Going to a movie or out to dinner at the spur of the moment.
Microwaved dinners with absolutely no nutritional value.
Not feeling guilty when I want to buy myself something.
Watching TV for hours on end with no interuptions.
Eating a meal without sharing half of the food on my plate.
Drinking a few too many margaritas without having to worry about how many times the baby would wake up that night.
Paying the bills and having money left over.

I’m sure there is a lot more I could add to that list. While I miss my old life at times, I certainly wouldn’t give up what I have now for anything. My son keeps me on my toes, fills my heart, and enriches my life in so many ways. Being a parent is everything I ever imagined it to be and more. All it takes is one little smile or a few minutes snuggling with my little man to remind me that I am the luckiest woman in the world.

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Curbing the Spending

Published by dee on April 26, 2006

Even though I have been trying to stay away from all places that sell stuff in order to keep my spending down, I HAD to go to Wal-Mart today. The cats were out of food and I needed some kind of carpet cleaner with odor remover in it. When I was at home on Monday I noticed an odd smell coming from Zach’s room. After crawling around on my hands and knees for a while, I was able to pinpoint it to a small area on the carpet. The only thing I can figure out is that he must have either spit up or spilled some milk on the carpet that I didn’t know about and now it is rotten and smelly.

So, I set out at lunch with a $25 gift card that hubby had won at a meeting at work a few weeks ago. I figured if I was only buying those two items the $25 would cover it with no problem. When I walked in the store I was determined not to buy anything else. Then my mom stopped to look at a pair of pants that she liked. Warning signals were going off in my head, but I paid no attention to them.

We ended up spending about 20 minutes browsing through the clothing section before I spotted the clearance racks. I found a rack with jeans that were marked down to $7. I started digging through them to see if I could find something my size because I desperately need some jeans that fit. Losing weight begins to suck when your clothes are all too big and you can’t afford to buy stuff that fits! I didn’t find any jeans that I liked, so I moved on. Then I spotted a pair of dark brown corduroy pants that were just my size. I have almost bought these pants so many times over the last year (not this specific pair, but some very similar to them). When I looked at the price tag, I discovered they were only $5. Did you see that? FIVE DOLLARS! I had to buy them. I quickly vowed to myself that I would not pick up anything else that was not on the mental list.

We moved on from the clothing section and I quickly found some carpet cleaner and the cat food. As we headed to the checkout, we passed by the Health & Beauty section where they had a big display of my favorite shampoo packaged with a free bottle of conditioner. When you have dry, frizzy, curly hair like mine (even as short as mine is) it is absolutely a must that you buy good shampoo and conditioner. Since I would probably have to buy this anyway in another week or two, I figured I might as well buy it and get the free conditioner with it. Buying it today would save me money later. See how I rationalize my spending?

I picked up a Coke Zero at the checkout to go with my lunch, and the grand total came up to $27 and some change. I did go slightly over the $25 gift card, but compared to my usual Wal-Mart trips that always cost at least $100, this is an improvement. Really, when you think about it, I spent less than $3 because the gift card was free. I don’t think that’s too bad. Hubby will be so proud of me!

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10 Months

Published by dee on April 26, 2006

Dear Zachary,

I cannot believe that you are already 10 months old. You are quickly reaching that one-year mark and it is going by entirely too quickly in my opinion. Every day I watch you grow more and more independent and I am so proud of you. It is so amazing to see you develop into a little person. It is absolutely the best gift I’ve ever been given.

I thought that you were moving fast before, but you have become even more mobile over the last few weeks. Daddy and I can barely keep up with you anymore. Besides the crawling at the speed of light, you are now cruising around the room with your hands barely touching the furniture. Sometimes you even let go completely and stand for a few seconds before landing on your butt. As soon as you figure out that balance thing, I’m sure you will be walking on your own.

Besides the crawling and cruising, you have also started climbing on everything. We have caught you climbing up on your rocking chair, climbing on and through the bottom shelf of the end table, along with using various toys as steps to reach objects that you aren’t supposed to be able to reach. Then, last weekend at the park, you showed me that you already know how to climb stairs. I guess you just applied your furniture crawling techniques to the steps. I put you on the steps leading up to the slide and you started climbing right up with no hesitation whatsoever. We have never turned you loose on the stairs at home and to my knowledge that was the first chance you ever had to try them out.

When you actually stop moving long enough, you like to use those four teeth of yours to bite everything in sight. Soon you should be gnawing through almost anything because you have another four teeth quickly on the way. You stuff absolutely everything in your mouth, including strings, fuzz, and various other things you might find on the floor. You are eating mostly table foods now, but every once in a while you refuse to eat so I feed you a jar of mushy baby food and you scarf down every bite. I guess it must taste better than the dog and cat food that you keep trying to sample when you get loose in the kitchen.

A few weeks ago we started giving you a little bit of whole milk and gradually increasing the amount. You are now completely switched over to milk during the day. I’m still giving you some formula when you wake up in the morning and just before you go to bed at night, but soon we will be cutting those out as well. Before long, my baby will be gone and in his place I will have a big boy who eats regular food, drinks regular milk, and walks all over the place on his own.

You are growing up so fast that I can barely keep up, much less remember all the details that I want to treasure forever. Each time I sit down to write you a letter I wonder if I am leaving out something important. I do know I’ll never forget that ornery smile you give me where you wrinkle up your nose, stick out your teeth, and scrunch up one eye. I know that’s not a very good description, but every time you do it I can’t help but smile back. Your little grin lights up the room and Mama’s heart.

Love,
Mama

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Looking Like a Lobster

Published by dee on April 25, 2006

We had a really great weekend, followed up by a not so great Monday. I ended up getting sick and staying home on Monday. Normally, that would have been great, but Zach decided that he did not want want to nap and instead, would sit around shrieking all afternoon while mommy wanted some peace and quiet. Had I known he was going to do that all afternoon, I so would have gotten dressed and taken him to day care. I figured I could handle keeping him at home because he is normally the world’s easiest baby to take care of. I guess I should have known better.

Saturday, we went up to Platte City to watch my nephew play his last two soccer games of the season. They always have a "tournament" on the last day and serve free hot dogs and chips. I put Zach in the stroller with a shade over the top so he wouldn’t get too much sun. Apparently, he wasn’t completely shaded like I thought he was. He got a little bit of a sunburn on his face and his legs and is now sporting a totally sexy sock line. Yes, I did have sunscreen with me. No, I didn’t put any on him. I really thought that he was totally shaded. I honestly don’t know how he got burnt. It wasn’t a bad burn at all–just slightly pink– but I felt really bad about it. At least he wasn’t completely fried like I was. You would think after 28 years of having pale white-as-a-sheet skin I would learn to put sunscreen on. I’m still hurting.

On Sunday, my dad had other obligations so we didn’t have our normal Sunday dinner at his house. Instead,my sister and I decided to pack a picnic lunch and take the boys to Penguin Park to play for a while. You know, I needed a little more sun on my crispy skin. I did at least put the sunscreen on both Zach and myself so we didn’t burn more. Zach had his first peanut butter and jelly sandwich and seemed to really enjoy it. After we finished eating, we went over to the baby area of the park and let the little ones play for a while. Zach absolutely loved the swings. Then I took him over to try out the slides. I was amazed to see him crawl right up the steps to the slide. He has never been on stairs before and he figured out right away how to get up them.

The little guys tired out pretty quickly, so we went over to the older kid area so my other nephew could play for a bit. I took the two babies and sat them in one of the play cars that was there to take a couple of pictures. When I looked over at Zach, he was falling asleep sitting up. We decided we better get headed home.

Zach completely crashed in the car on the way home and didn’t even wake up when I got him out of his carseat. I decided I needed a nap too, so while he was sleeping I went and laid down and took a 2 hour long nap before Zach woke me up. It was absolutely heavenly!

Other than a quick trip to the grocery store, we had a pretty relaxing evening on Sunday. I even managed to FINALLY finish the book I was reading!

I realized again this weekend how blessed I am to have my family so close and to get to spend so much time with them. Sometimes I get tired of always being on the move and doing so much on the weekends, but I love the time I spend with my family.

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I need an intervention

Published by dee on April 21, 2006

Recently I have been adding a lot of new blogs to my blogroll (my personal bookmarks, not the list on this site cause I can’t seem to keep up with it). The list has been growing so quickly that I can barely keep up with my daily reads anymore. I have to make a choice every day which ones I am going to read and which ones I am going to skip. That is a very difficult decision.

Finding new blogs has become an addiction with me. I go to read my regulars and then I find links either in the posts or in the comments and I just can’t keep from clicking on them. Sometimes I’m not real impressed with the content and click the little red x, but sometimes I get totally absorbed in the new site and add it to the blogroll. That has been happening a lot lately. And that is why my list is getting so long. There are just way too many talented writers out there and I cannot say no.

Just a few weeks ago I went through and cleaned out my list. There were a few that were no longer updating or that had simply lost my interest that I was able to remove. The list was much shorter and much more manageable. Then yesterday I started really looking at the list again and it is even longer now than it was before the clean-up. Will somebody please send help? This might explain why it has now taken me 10 months to read a real book (that I’m not quite finished with yet).

And, in other addiction news, I have found a new source to feed my music addiction. It turns out that the new girl in the office has rather good taste in music and a rather decent sized cd collection as well. She loaned me a couple of cds to check out today. I see our friendship becoming much closer in the near future. Well, even without the cd collection, she’s a pretty cool chick anyway.

Also, thank you to all of you who offered advice and suggestions about the money issues. I’m hoping to implement some of your suggestions in the near future. Have I told you lately how much I love you?

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