There is Always Room for Cell-o!

Right now I will blame this on pregnancy, but I am a crier.  Doesn't matter the emotion, happy, sad, frustrated, angry, confused-tears are running down my face.  I'll also blame this fact for the reason I don't wear makeup (but in reality, that is just because I'm lazy).   I had to avoid the Olympics this year because any displays of great sportsmanship, or a tough loss, will cause my throat to bubble uncomfortably.  Not to mention all those sappy JOHNSON'S Baby commercials, "You're Doing OK Mom."

    I bring this up because I've discovered the newest way to have my, if existent, mascara smudging my eyes.  But first, I have to share a little story.   When I was in the fourth grade, each student picked a fine art-music (orchestra or choir), art classes, etc.  I desperately wanted to play the cello but was too small.  I was fitted for a violin and sent along my way.     I was horrible at it.  No matter of practicing would have ever made it even remotely appropriate to play beyond the safety of my closed bedroom door.  I didn't enjoy it one bit, and in 7th grade I made the executive decision that I would no longer play the violin and without telling my parents, signed up for beginners orchestra to play the cello.    Ultimately my mother caught wind, probably when the Director called her and told her that I couldn't use the school's loaner cello any longer and she would need to start to rent one for me.  My mom pulled me out of beginner's orchestra, put me back in the class I was originally enrolled in where they just as quickly hid me in the last row.   I continued to play the violin for several more years, finally ending my orchestra history in 9th grade when I was placed, along with five other girls, in what would be named "Select Violin Ensemble."  Each one of us were deemed to play so atrociously that we couldn't even taint the musical waters with the rest of the performing orchestra.  Within weeks of our special class, our Director ended up just giving up on us and never made us play-it was the best two hour class of my freshman year.   I don't blame my parents for not allowing me to continue with the beginner's class, I can only assume my eagerness to learn the cello would wane just like many of my other preteen desires.  Not to mention, there was quite the investment of the violin that is still sitting in my garage to this day.     Back to the few weeks I played the cello, my fondness for the richness of the instrument grew even deeper.  I loved to hear the bittersweet sounds coming from the strings.  I appreciated the deep, soulful melody you could create with just a few strokes of the bow.   And with that explanation, I can now tell my coworkers why, while I am writing, that I'm not suffering from allergies once again, but all of my Spotify playlists (mostly featuring 2Cellos) that are all cello based music.   Something about the music the gorgeous instrument makes speaks to my soul and makes me feel as though I have to stop everything just to experience each note, each pause with my eyes shut (which isn't as productive as I would like while at work).     I secretly hope that either Baby or #2 will inherit my love for the cello.  Even if they are as bad at it as I was the violin, that is ok.  I mean, I'm sure my parents only encouraged me to stick with it as long as they did because their love for me gave them earmuffs and blocked how truly bad I was, right?

Happy Birthday Boyfriend

  Every year I start the 39 day countdown from January 16th to February 24th with great anticipation.  It isn't as popular as the countdown between say, Thanksgiving and Christmas, but there is one single thing that makes me cross off each day on the calendar with satisfaction-one less day that Boyfriend can refer to me as "the older woman".   For whatever reason, he takes such great pride in the fact that I, "rob the cradle" or that I am his, "Cougar."  Just a bit of harmless teasing but all the same, we are officially on even playing ground- 30 and awesome.   I adore the fact that I have watched him grow from a youngin who was looking forward to the day he could relate to Old 97's Nineteen track  to a man who now identifies more with Phil from Modern Family.    

I've mentioned this before, Boyfriend and I decided that we would marry and our future family plans once we hit that major milestone, two weeks.  Sitting and dreaming about what our children would look like, what type of home we would have, gently arguing on the breed of dogs we would have.   Life looks a little different than we anticipated (we thought we would just now be starting our family instead of taking the steps to complete it) and sadly our plan to win the lottery hasn't quite happened yet, but many things have remained consistent and exceeded expectations.   Boyfriend is the perfect co-parent.  Seriously, I couldn't ask, or even dream of more.  He always steps in where I lack, and I always can count on him to be where I can't.  As a partner he wants to see me fulfill my dreams, even if it is to the sacrifice of his.  For him, happiness is making me happy.   Sure there are days that he has me ragingly angry that puts a 13 year old girl going through puberty to shame but they are far and few between and maybe I might contribute to whatever situation, just a little bit.   I'm excited to enter the next, new and exciting, stage in our life with Boyfriend.  I'm thrilled that I get the opportunity to give him more grey hairs (that no joke, started the week after we got married), I look forward to us growing old together, looking back at when we were just babes at the age of 30.   Happy Birthday Boyfriend.  You are my favorite and I wub you very, very much.  

  

She Did It!

Update to Baby sleeping in her own bed:she has officially completed her first goal, seven stars!  

    I am beyond impressed by her.  She picked her own goal, selected a prize and worked her little sleepy head off to get there.  Many of the nights resulted in her waking and crying in fear because we weren't there but she was very adamant that she had to stay in her own bed (despite this tired Mama's assurance it would be ok to come cuddle and let us fall asleep faster) because the original agreement was to stay until the sun woke up.   Despite the fact that I really wanted to get lunch elsewhere, she was adamant that the entire Chuck E. Cheese experience included pizza.  I think it might have just been the fact that I was starving, but I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed my lunch.

When we arrived, I asked Boyfriend how many tokens we should purchase.  I wanted to spend the extra $10 since I had a feeling he would want to play as well but he was adamant that he wasn't in the mood to play games.  Well guess who played a lot of games?  

  I know that a (nearly) four year old sleeping in their bed doesn't seem like a big deal, but for her it really is.  She has spent all of the life she can remember always being within reach of her parents to cuddle at night.  She can never remember waking in the middle of the night from a scary dream not knowing where she was.  Despite the fact that she was (and still is) a little unsure and nervous each night going to bed, she is so brave to face the challenge face on. I also feel really confident that we did the right thing in waiting this long.  I know that we could have forced the issue much earlier, I know that we could have let her cry in her room each night mad that we weren't giving in.  But my gut told me that emotionally she wasn't ready until now.  Just like potty training by waiting until we knew she was ready-it was such a more pleasant experience for both her and us.  Also, it makes me feel good that we can see the trust that Baby has in us. We let her pick one more goal to keep the momentum going.  Her next prize is going to be a trip to the "trampoline park" aka Jump Street or some variance.  After that I think we are going to still celebrate each successful night and praise her but we need to move onto our next milestone-brushing our teeth without a fight Every.Single.Time.

 

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

While I was sick last week, I might have complained quite a bit about having to stay at home and rest but there was one major advantage-Thursday was a snow day!  When you live in Texas, any chance of snow is always highly anticipated by the news and all they can talk about, only to wake the next day to nothing other than cold, for Texas, weather.   When Boyfriend texted me (and woke me up, rude) the next morning to see how I was feeling he told me it was snowing.  Somehow I and almost every other person I knew, missed the fact that not only were we anticipating snow but there was tons of it (again, for our area of Texas which maybe sees it once a year).   I had anticipated on taking Baby to daycare so she could play with her friends instead of being around her mom on a couch but decided it was too rare of an occurrence to miss watching her play in the snow. When I woke Baby to tell her it was snowing, she literally squealed and screamed with delight.  She immediately started running around the house looking for her white boots because those are snow boots unlike her brown ones which are cowgirl boots.  Texans don't really have appropriate snow gear so I layered her up in a couple of jackets, found some mittens and let her go to town.  

 When Boyfriend came home, we took a quick walk to the park down our street.  It was just incredible to me that I had no idea that we would even see a snowflake and we had enough to make actual snowballs.  Baby had a ton of fun throwing them at her dad but was not pleased when he would reciprocate the action.

There are a lot of experiences that are just better when you have children, and snow days are definitely one of them.  It was just magical to see how excited she was and the novelty of it was infectious.  All that said, I was extremely glad that just two days later I was greeted by the warm sun and nearly 60 degree temperatures.  

The Empty Space in My Bed

This past weekend was one of transformation for Baby.  Some times I look at her cherub little face and still see a baby but I can no longer deny the signs she is starting to complete the evolution from toddler to kid.  

  Even though we didn't become one until Baby was nearly 18 months old (at the time many parents are working on getting their toddler's out of their room) we are a bed sharing family.  We started because I accepted my current position and the hours were drastically different than my previous one and the only way I could get Baby to sleep was in our bed, she just physically needed to be near me since it was such a jarring transition of having such little mommy time unlike before.  

The early days of cosleeping (or sleeping and snacking).

I actually haven't minded and there is nothing sweeter than when she wakes up in the middle of the night and asks me to cuddle her and tells me that she loves me.  I have started to become concerned though, for when #2 arrives and how that will work so I have started to contemplate how we would get her back into her own bed.   We started out telling her big girls sleep in their own room, she tells us she doesn't want to.  When asked why she told me, "I like to cuddle.  You like to cuddle Daddy and don't have to sleep alone."  Well dang kid, you have me there.   I really wouldn't push it until she wanted to (I have no worries she would willingly sleep in our bed for even another year, even if left to her preference) but with a newborn who will be in our room for at least a couple of months, I want to make sure everyone is getting the best sleep possible-except for mom, breastfeeding moms get the worst sleep.   Randomly Baby told me she wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese and I decided to capitalize and tell her that if she slept in her room for a week straight, she would be rewarded with a trip to the house of that other mouse.  We purchased a calendar and some star stickers for her to mark each night she sleeps in her bed.  We told her she is welcome to sleep in our bed, but she only gets a star if she sleeps the whole night in her bed. 

 We only started Friday night, but she has done better than expected.  On Friday night, I fell asleep with her but went to my bed after about an hour.  Around 5:00 Saturday morning, I had a whimpering Baby in my face.  I asked her if she wanted to cuddle and praised her for sleeping so long in her bed.  She said it wasn't light outside yet so she wanted to go back to her room so she could get a star, I brought her back to her room, cuddled for a few moments and she came back in at a much more respectable hour, 9:00 a.m.  
I already miss her at night.  She really is the best cuddler (sorry Boyfriend) and it just feels empty without her in our bed but I know this is the right move, at the right time.  If she decides she no longer wants to work towards her goal then that is ok with me.  But I have a feeling we have officially started to wean our bedsharing, but just for a few months until #2 arrives.
Since Friday, Boyfriend and I have traded off bed time and letting her fall asleep before we leave.  We will work on her falling asleep on her own but for now I am incredibly encouraged by the progress we have made, especially since she is so adamant that she wants to wait until it is officially morning before coming to bed.  I'm less excited about our upcoming trip to Chuck E. Cheese, but if a calendar with stickers and some bad pizza make it a relatively painless process, I am in. 

Mom's Can't Get Sick (and Other Lies I Tell Myself)

This week has been a hard one for me, somewhat physically but more so mentally.  To sum things up, I developed a bladder infection and while I have had many in my life due to some internal plumbing issues, never has one knocked me out the way this one has.  Without going into too many physical details since that doesn't matter much, this was actually not your standard infection and had other things going on surrounding it (though we didn't find that out until lab results came back today) that explain why this wasn't "just a bladder infection".

What did impact me the most though was the lesson I learned that sometimes I really do have to take a step back, stop trying to control what I have no control over and take care of myself.  Not going to work for nearly an entire week is something I have never had to do-ever. If I'm not contagious, I'm at work (I am not one of those jerks who come to work spreading germs that will get others sick, that is just so unkind).  

It was extremely hard for me to allow myself to be sick.  When you are a mom-the household doesn't stop.  I don't mean the cleaning or cooking, because let's be real-I don't do that when I am feeling my best.  But emotionally I feel the pressure to be "on" until my family is asleep.  I can't make myself check out and put myself first.

I feel the same way about work.  I love that I am a working mother, and while I do it because financially I have to-even if I didn't, there isn't a doubt that I would still work part time.  I love having something that I can call mine.  No one else in my life gets to take that away from me, I take immense pride in my work and love what I do.  So for me to also have to put that on the back burner to just sit on the couch, well that is really hard for me.

After an entire week, I can finally say that I am feeling better.  I am still weaker than before last Friday but at this point it would be hard for me to tell if that is because I was sick or just pregnant.  I look back and nothing imploded at home or work, my family managed just fine, and now on Monday I can go back to work being able to give my 100% instead of only a percentage of that had I tried to push myself before I was physically ready.  

It is strange to me, I have no issue claiming some "me time" from my family.  I will get massages randomly, make sure to get semi-regular pedicures or just take an afternoon to shop alone.  But when it comes to being physically off, I just don't give myself the same allowance and I'm so thankful for family at both home and work that push me to put myself first.