what’s REALLY on my mind
… the state of the world, as we know it, is freaking me out. a few weeks ago, i ate breakfast at a counter next to a man who liked the book i was reading and struck up a conversation with me. he mentioned reading a study that mentioned that last month alone, the national debt was so huge that it was as though every single family in the united states was $650 in debt. EACH FAMILY. do you know how many families are in america right now? how overpopulated we are? (asks the woman with a vagina-fetus in her belly.)
… why won’t my son take a dump in the toilet? we have tried EVERYTHING and he still prefers to shit his pants. it’s mind boggling. should he continue this shitty business in 2012, he will not be attending full-day school, AND HE MUST GO TO SCHOOL BECAUSE OMG I’LL DIE.
… really? you celebrated the official end of the iraq war yesterday? i don’t even know what to say about that except please don’t knock on my door come march when my husband is deployed… again.
… i’m kinda pissed that ‘the girl with the dragon tattoo’ is all americanized and redone. the books were FANTASTIC, in my opinion, and the original swedish films were genuine adaptations of the books. sure, not everyone enjoys subtitles in movies, but now we’ve gone and americanized this story which means EXPLOSIONS! STUNTS! CRAZY SHIT! and color me disappointed.
… really? you want to ask me why i would choose to have a baby, knowing that my husband will be deployed for the birth? stay tuned. i’ll lay it all out for you in a piece i’m working on. (hint: it has something to do with BECAUSE WE WANT ANOTHER BABY.)
… what is up with former president’s daughters being news reporters and journalists? the bush daughter is a today show correspondent, and a few nights ago, i saw chelsea clinton conducting an interview for i dunno abc/nbc one of the c’s. do they list “president’s daughter” on their resume? i just don’t understand.
… sandusky showered with kids in order to teach them basic hygiene? you expect people to believe that? how about the few of you who are justifying the actions of this man just go ahead and call it what it is… it is rape. stop insulting the survivors and making excuses for someone who is not worthy of excuses.
… we’re done with traveling for the holidays. this will be our last year of going ‘home’ to atlanta for christmas, and we couldn’t be happier about it. because really, while it’s lovely to have both sets of family in the same city, it’s a ping-pong match on crack. and as of 2012, we will officially out number our families with family members of little people. we’ve gone home to atlanta for the holidays since paul and i started dating in 1999, it’s REALLY time to be done.
… yesterday it was 81 degrees in jacksonville. 81. this morning, jackson went to school in shorts and while i love that we’re back in florida, i worry about our planet burning up. seriously? 81 degrees? even north florida has been known to get a wee bit frosty in december. does this mean that next christmas will be even hotter? because pretty soon, we’re all going to have loin cloths in our closets, and nothing else.
… really? a baby seal showed up on your couch? WHERE’S MINE?!?!
acknowledgement and allowances
to-do lists fill my desk. notes and reminders and phone calls to be made. there’s not enough time… there’s too much time… there’s time that you wish you were spending differently than you currently are…
and in amongst the holiday stress, the cooking, the NOISE, shopping and entertaining and prepping, the UPS man at your front door, the holiday cards that still have not been sent… you find a way to breathe, if only for a moment. something occurs that allows you to make peace with the chaos and inhale a bit of joy.
the clock keeps ticking, moments continue to pass by with gusto and ferocity, and out of nowhere you hear laughter.
it takes a brief second for you to realize that the laughter is your own… which is so strange because just moments prior, you were certain that your head was going to explode and ooze out your ugly stress and angst and panic.
you pause and acknowledge the moment. your laughter quiets just a bit. you find you’re still smiling. it’s not that you have forgotten the hectic things that cloud your mind. they certainly haven’t gone anywhere, gotten any better, changed their status in any way. stress is still very much there, but the all-consuming nature of it has lifted… if only for a moment.
and for that snippet of time, you are free. you allow yourself to feel ok. good even.
it’s as though your brain reconciles with itself. it doesn’t let go of your stress, the stresses around you. it doesn’t allow you to forget the things that keep you up at night. but it loosens its grip.
and you happily acknowledge the momentary release of pain.
**********
if you could spare some words of encouragement, maybe light a candle, send some good juju to our dear friends, acknowledging their heroic strength, it would be so greatly appreciated. if i could take just a moment of their anguish away, i would. and if you could take a moment to offer them some love, i know it would lessen their pain just a bit. you can read their latest update here.
slipping away
over the last few weeks, i have felt my brain slowly slipping away to the land of panic and tension and fear. some days i worry that it’s the pregnancy screwing with my head, and other days it’s circumstantial things that have nothing to do with me but everything to do with me. and i take it all on as my own.
the sleeplessness has returned. the tears are RIGHT THERE. the heaviness and weight of it all feels paralyzing at times.
do you ever find that you are surrounded by people, loving people, well-intentioned people, and yet you feel utterly alone?
logic tells me this is a difficult time of year. the holidays are rough on everyone for varying reasons. the end of a new year and beginning of another brings on feelings and emotions that i am not yet ready to deal with. so i’ve been stuffing. i’ve been swallowing and stuffing and pushing these feelings down in the hopes that they bury themselves somewhere. i don’t know where exactly but somewhere. should they surface, i’ll have to deal with them and i simply don’t want to do that right now.
paul worked late last night, so i took jackson on a dinner date to panera. i watched him play with his batman and joker super heros, enjoy his grilled cheese, make faces at another little boy who i think wanted his batman and joker super heros, and just enjoy a change of pace.
as much as i relished some one-on-one time with my quickly growing little man, i couldn’t help but think of the dinner dates jackson and i have ahead of us come spring time when paul deploys. and then i couldn’t help but think about the fact that HOLY SHIT I’M HAVING A BABY WITHOUT HIM come april. and then i thought about how quickly time passes and how i am half way through this pregnancy… half way to delivering this little girl without my partner by my side.
how do you bring a life into a world without the love of your life being there?
and yes, it could be worse. i could be in the shoes of my 33 year old friend who is awaiting a double mastectomy next week for breast cancer that was luckily found with early detection. i could be in the shoes of our dearest friends, jackson’s godparents, who are awaiting results on their 2 year old daughter’s MRI and lumbar puncture to determine her course of treatment. because that’s what you do after your twin daughter has a brain tumor removed… you wait.
there is always someone who has it worse off than you do, just in the same way that there is always someone who has it better off than you do. it’s what you do with what you have been given that i’m trying to figure out. and given my brain and what it has a tendency to do, i’m struggling with that at this moment in time.
i’m hopeful. most days, i’m hopeful. and i do have support. but i feel it.
i feel myself slipping away from myself.
mish-mosh, updates, and a side of ginger snap cookies
so… this morning, after i found myself able to lift my head off the pillow without feeling a strong desire to vomit all over my king sized mattress, i promptly got dressed (no shower FTW!) because who wants to be first-trimester-bloated pregnant and walking around in a t-shirt and underwear when a demolition comes into your apartment?
not me. at least not me today. maybe tomorrow, ya never know.
after inhaling a few ginger snap cookies for breakfast, i wrangled up jackson to head for a quick trip to the grocery store because we’re out of milk and apparently i enjoy milk and all things dairy-like when i’m pregnant. i should just buy a cow for the next 7 months.
the only way i coax jackson into the car and out of the numerous puddles he wanted to jump in was to promise him a donut. a chocolate donut.
parenting at its finest! bribery wins all things.
now that i am back home, the milk is chilling in the fridge, and i took my asshole dog out to have the nervous shits for the umpteenth time this week, my son’s sugar high has kicked in. i should just kick my own ass.
the demolition crew arrived. what? why? demolition crew? they promptly began tearing apart more of our master bedroom due to the hurricane damage. no, the crew is not hot, for those of you wondering. not hot at all.
i started a new gig over at babble.com’s “being pregnant” blog today. totally excited to share my crazy pregnant insight over there, monday thru friday. and the extra income with a little person arriving next spring is nice as well.
my first post was published just this morning, and i burst the bubble of the infamous pregnancy glow that totally does not exist during the first trimester.
you can check it out here.
so with a new writing gig, a torn up apartment, the day-to-day with a 3 year old who still refuses to poop on the potty… oh yeah, AND I’M MOVING NEXT WEEK, things are a wee bit hectic.
life is fun, y’all. fun and fantastic and i’m just rollin’ with it all in the hopes that no one notices my lack of personal hygiene for the next week or so.
also, before i forget, an abundant amount of THANK YOUS to all of you who have commented, tweeted me, emailed, and left me messages on my facebook page with your sweet congrats for our growing family. truly, thank you.
then i sat his damp little ass in a plastic bean bag chair and he got stuck
i heard 4 words uttered from jackson’s mouth last night that i REALLY hoped i wouldn’t hear (though i think subconsciously, i knew i would hear them at some point in time).
“OH NO. I’M PEEING.”
ya see, it’s been a rough week. i’ve been single-parenting it around here this week, and well, i’m basically just trying to keep my head about water.
so when paul told me his flight got in at 9:40 pm, all i could think was “well hell, by the time he gets home, he’ll be hungry.” shit knows, i would be hungry. i eat only 905 times a day.
being the dutiful spouse that i am, i got a large pizza for dinner. not because that’s what i wanted… oh no no… i was thinking only of paul and him arriving home after 10 pm, starving, and THE LOOK upon his face to find A LARGE CHEESE PIZZA waiting for him.
i know. wife of the century. i won it again.
::side eyes::
the sweet local pizza shop owner has come to know and adore jackson. he gave my little dude a free LARGE lemonade tonight when we picked up our goodies. jackson had an entire styrofoam (EGADS STYROFOAM!!!!!) cup full of pink lemonade all to himself.
of course we get home and he eats pizza…
PAUSE: HE ATE PIZZA!!!!! HE ATE!!!!! ZOMG!!!!!
and then downs the entire lemonade. the whole thing. i’m pretty sure he didn’t even pause to breathe. he just drank and drank and drank. much like his father did when we were in our 20′s.
(ok… our teens.)
so i make a mental note of it (sort of) but like i said, i’ve been single-parenting all week long and i’m fuckin tired man and there are dishes to be done and a dog to be taken out and PAUL’S COMING HOME, I NEEDED TO SHAVE MY LEGS!!!
while i’m in the kitchen, tossing crusted dishes into the dishwasher, i hear this “OH NO. I’M PEEING,” come from a small voice in the living room.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” i yelled and then for a minute remembered potty-training our dog.
we were told to “NEVER shame the dog when accidents happen. he’s just as upset as you are about it.”
hmmm… i doubt that.
so, like any good parent, i shamed my son. he looked up at me with those doe eyes, all wide and curious and wondering what he had done that made me respond the way i did. i kept telling him “STOP,” but i’m afraid after all that lemonade, not even jackson was in control of his own body.
seriously, i could never drink lemonade in a cup that big and live to see the bottom of the cup before spilling my urine all over the floor on which i stood. after kids, your bladder is never the same. your EVERYTHING is never the same.
that’s a post for another day.
i picked jackson up from underneath his armpits and carried him to the bathroom. his entire front side was soaked. shorts. underwear. tee-shirt (apparently he aims up). when i put him down in front of the toilet and told him, “ok, you can finish now,” he peed a drip and said, “i’m done mom.”
removing all of his piss clothes, i asked him why he didn’t tell me he had to go.
“because i was peeing.”
“right, i know that. but WHYYYYYYYY were you peeing in your pants?”
“uh. because i had to go.”
“right, everyone has to go, but you need to tell mommy when you have to go so we can get to a potty.”
“ok but i was playing.”
fair nuff. too busy playing to let anyone know that you had to take a leak. happens to the best of us. it’ll happen to you plenty more when you’re in college.
Have a Sip
