S Dies and other milestones.

I am learning to accept things about myself now that I am a working mother and wife. One of those things is that I just cannot find time to blog. One of the reasons I started blogging was it was hip and a lot of my friends were doing at the time I started. The other reason was that my father's mom always kept a small set of journals in which she kept a running record of events. I clearly remember her showing me an entry in one of the red hard covered books and reveling in the events written there. I really like looking at old pictures, or hearing cds from a particular time in my life as they awaken memories that I don't often access. My hope was that keeping this blog would be a way for me to document all of the things that are happening in my life, so that someday I could look back and revel at the things I thought and did.

I am going to try to be more consistent with my entries, but life is fast now, really- really fast. I feel strong, amazed at all of the things I do in a given day. Motherhood has made me feel very aware of what I am capable of. It also makes me feel like I am on a marathon that I cannot ever break from. I went and got my hair done today after a 4 month absence from professional hair support. You should have seen my roots! I looked crazy, but simply could not find a time where I could get to the salon. Its all of these little things that just make life hard and me pretty worn down. I usually get through 80 percent of the things that I need to get done in a day, but good night, I am worn thin doing it. There is always something to do, something to get done, and if I take a break I always feel like I am letting something fall a part. I feel super isolated from my friends, I haven't been out with anyone for months. There just isn't the time or energy, and I want to spend any time I am not working with S and Anya. Life is easier than it was a couple of months ago, but is also harder in a lot of ways too. Each new chapter in our lives has definate benefits and challenges.

Anya hit a huge jump in her development about a week and a half ago. Suddenly she went from an active child to a complete mover. She has been eating like crazy and is gaining a little pudge. I say a little, because at her 9 month appointment she was only in the 14th percentile, but that is up a lot from 6th at her 6 month! She is also completely weaned. Stopping breast feeding before a year was not my plan, but it was just to hard to try to keep up my supply while pumping at work. It was hard to figure out how much she was getting, and it just got pathetic how little I was able to pump during the day. I hated breast feeding for most of the early months as it was ENDLESS and super restrictive to what I could get done in a day. Toward the end, however, I got in my grove and found it very helpful in calming the baby and in convinience. I also found that as she got more and more active it was a nice reminder of the baby days to have her all snuggled up against me. But it was time to end it and I have to say the weaning process was nice. We breast fed in the morning, after work, and before bed. We then slowly stopped one feeding, then another. At the end, it was a nice transition for both of us, and I only got a little soreness. It is good we moved forward on that as on the same week she started moving like crazy, she finally got some teeth! We also took advantage of the down time over Thanksgiving break and finally moved Anya into her own crib in her own room. We had tried it once before, but I had cried and so did Anya so we abandoned it for a bit. By Thanksgiving I was ready so we got a heater for the room and moved her over. It has been a good week now and she is doing great in her room. So my little baby is now in her room, weaned, eating solid food with her TWO new teeth, and sorta-crawling. It is absolutely amazing to see. Oddly enough, it also makes us think about the next one. Bizarre, huh? We are beaten down and exhausted, but we want more!

You know how I need time to process? Well I have finally had enough time to process the tale of S's death. For S's birthday we finally had our first night away from Anya. We dropped her off at my parents and we not really sure what we were going to do. I secretly wanted to go downtown and stay at the Graves, but S was not so sure as we didn't have a reservation or money for that. Little did he know that I had money saved and had called ahead to see if they had a room. I wanted a break with my man, but the thought of going back to the empty and slightly dirty house was not going to work. So I threw my weight around and made it happen. We had a lovely night. Check in was great, we found a resturant with great food and no wait within walking distance and then headed back up to our room for sex, dessert, drinks and an in-room movie. I got a little upset stomach that night, but chocked it up to the mass amount of food we had eaten. All in all the night was perfect, a great throw-back to our honeymoon and a much needed break. All was good until we woke up the next morning and S threw up. He felt much better after he threw up and we packed up and headed up to grab Anya. On the way up, S felt sick kind of like he was coming down with something. When we got up to my parents, he threw up again and then moved to the chair to take a nap. Mid-way through our time there I gave him some juice and he had two bites of an apple- both of which he threw up. S seemed to be getting worse so I made the move to take him home and get him to bed. We bundled up the baby, and headed out. The whole ride home S was trying to sleep and varrying between shivering and sweating. Finally about 5 miles from home S suddenly seized up. His whole body went rigid. His eyes rolled back in his head, his hands were clenched into claws, and he was breathing raggedly. It all happened so fast, that I was shocked and unsure of what to do. Keep driving? Pull over? Call first? I started calling his name over and over, and after getting no reply, even after adding some pretty violent pounding, I tried to put my hand in his mouth to make sure he didn't swallow his tounge. But when I put my hand in his mouth, I found his teeth clamped shut. As I approached the exit to our house S gave one final gasp and stopped making any noise while still remaining in his seized position. With an infant in the back and my husband bizarrely ill next to me I accepted the very real possibility that S was dead. At the top of the exit ramp, S finally roused and I headed back onto the highway and called 911. I ended our relaxing weekend feeding Anya a bottle from the drivers seat on 94 while watching the er workers monitor my husband's vitals in an ambulance. They took him in to the hospital and everything came back as a severe case of dehydration from either food poisoning or the flu. He spent the next two days working on finding his strength again and is now fine.

The experience was insane for me. I am really good in pressure filled situations, I go into a zone and get done what needs to get done. I save the emotion for later when there is time. Later when there was time, I found myself okay with S's death. There is a part of me that feels that I will not get to stay as happy as I am now. There is a part of me that feels at any time Anya or S will be taken from me. I don't know what exactly is wrong with me, but it feels connected to Eddie in some way. Life is short and unpredictable, and I know this. I know this well. I also feel overly blessed with the man I am married to and the child we have. It seems almost logical to me that at some point I will loose them. This is a problem to be sure. There is an element to this whole expereince that is far more disturbing than just seeing my husband so severely ill. There is something wrong with me and I don't know how to fix it.