Birthday Baby.

The last two weekends have been dedicated to Anya. Last weekend, Anya met her namesake at a small get together at S's mother's house. Everything about it was a hassle, but it was great to finally have S's grandmother see Anya. Anya was super sleepy as we headed over, and took a small nap in the car. When we brought her in, she was so drowsy, she just cuddled into his grandmother's shoulder and cuddled for a good while. Typically she is so wiggly, but it was perfect- just perfect. We got some decent photos (L never really smiles for pictures.) and that was all I really wanted.

Today, we went over to K's house and visited for a while,and tomorrow we will head to my parents to have the final birthday. I shopped a long time- because I have issues- to find her birthday outfit and settled on this. It has been perfect- she looks adorable and it is super comfy.

It has been surreal looking at her lately. She has so many remanents of baby left in her, but she is such a different kid than the one I met a year ago. This whole year has been so amazing, and I know I am sounding like every other old person when I say I can't believe how fast this year has gone. There were moments this year that were so long and hard to get through, but this whole parenting thing has been made so much easier by the remarkable baby we were given. I really can't explain my amazement when I look at her.

She is still pretty small for her age, though she is catching up. She now fits in 12 months clothes which is her actual age, but her shoe size is still about 6 months behind her age. She is pretty average for development, but she refuses to speak. Oh, she makes noise- jabbers and yips all the time, but makes no discernible or repeatable words. I am a little worried, but she knows the words that S and I are saying and responds to them, she just has no desire to say them herself. She has a nice even temperament and is very interested in people. She is not quite walking, but along with crawling, she pulls herself up at every opportunity and loves to stand.

Being a mom is a great, great gift and I feel so lucky to be able to have Anyara as my daughter. Shockingly enough, even though I am super irritated with my body, I am excited to give Anya a little brother or sister. I feel a little sense of loss watching her get bigger. Watching S take her upstairs tonight to put her to bed seemed odd tonight. It is almost impossible to remember what it was like to hold her the first time. She was so small and so far away from the baby I know now. A year ago I had no clue what S and I had just embarked on, and now I feel that feeling exponentially. I have no idea what the future holds for us, all I know is how much I have loved what has come so far.

Blob.

Feeling big. Feeling blobby. Had a hard time finding an outfit to wear to a party with coworkers this weekend. Just felt huge. It is hard to deal with my stomach being big when my ass and thighs already are.

I want to feel attractive again. Sometimes buying cute clothes or trendy things helps- but all of my money is tied up in buying Anya cute clothes. Apparently I am a baby clothes whore. Sometimes its nice to just know that you are vaguely attractive to other people. However, that gets me in a little bit of pickle. I know that others find me attractive- but its not their opinions that matter to me. (I KNOW that S finds me attractive- he says it all the time. I just don't know that I trust it. I mean he signed on to me for life- what if he is just happy with what he has, but not as happy as he could be?) But beyond that, I am not happy with myself, and that feeds all of my problems. I know that I either need to wake up at 5 and work out, just eat raw foods, or be patient until more time presents itself. But in the meantime I feel gross.

Beyond the desire to be cute, I have this nagging feeling that I am gaining weight due to my PCOS. I had the no ovulation, cyst part of PCOS, but I didn't have the weight gain. I am hoping that I will not have to do severe alterations to my life- but I have the feeling I might. I am eating very little during the day and one big meal at night. But my weight keeps going up in my middle. I really hated breast feeding at times, but boy the extra calorie burn was nice.

Baby is big, growing a lot. No walking, but some good looking standing. Also some really squiggly crawling. Been sick for a while, but hopefully will be better for her first birthday.

Only the sad. . .

Why is it that the awesome days, the cheerful days, the relaxing days are never the ones that motivate me to blog? I worry that when I look back on these days that it will seem as though all I did was barely keep from coming undone! There is a certain aspect to my days that is very stressful. There is a certain aspect to our lives that is so busy and so crazy- but all in all we have a lovely life, a lovely baby, and a lovely life.

However, since I am blogging. . . . This was the first year I can remember where we did not go up north for Christmas. Mike's schedule was very odd and very short this year and it made going up impossible for all of us. So we didn't go . . . and it was so nice to not make the car trip with the baby. It was so nice to not have to pack or plan for all the things Anya would need. It was so nice to make the house neater and get a chance to catch our breath rather than just rush-rush-rush. However, the combination of not going with the general irritation of spending every Christmas minute trying to make Anya and everyone else happy rather than do what I wanted to do put me in a FUNK. Like a "cry in front of Niel" funk. Like a "what the hell do I care" kind of funk. I have not been a very happy camper for the last few days. I desperately want a break, but I desperately do not want to leave Anya with anyone but Niel. I have a very hard time trusting people, but there is a new craziness to my illness.

Lately I have been having a lot of trouble not focusing on Anya's death. I can chock this up to Eddie, or life, or just general weirdness- but it is my reality. I feel that if I let up my focus for one minute, I may miss something and she will die. This is exhausting, but not untrue. She is moving so much now- crawling so much that she is constantly one step away from danger all them time. It also effects my willingness to let go. Daycare is paid for all through winter break but I have only been able to send her for a 1/2 day. I can get so much more done when she is not here, but I get anxious to send her. Death is something you can't control, and the way I have made peace with it is to make every memory mine. The memories I have can't be taken. They are mine- forever. I feel like if Anya is to die at any moment that I better spend every minute I have with her making her feel loved and creating those memories.

Fucked up, right? Seriously fucked up. I need to figure this out. I just don't know how. Anya could live to 103 or she could die tonight. How do I make peace with that? Especially if I am a factor in her death? What if I don't watch her closely or hurt her accidently? These are all real possibilities so I can't just dismiss them as bizarre. I know, more than anyone how real they are, but I do need to find a way to make a sort of peace with them so I can be more . . . more. . . well, me. I need to get back to me.

So here is the second anual "facebook status updates" post. Kind of fun to see a year's worth of musings shoved together!

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.

First time for everything.

So the house is quiet, silent in fact. I have the tv going, but other than that- no husband- no baby. So for todays standards- silent. Anya is upstairs sleeping after a good visit from my parents, and S? Well, S is off in Wisconsin. His job is moving forward quickly and asking quite a bit from him. I must admit it is nice to see him so excited and motivated. However, his great job performance is making it so that he is needed/wanted by several different departments. He was asked to start being on the rotation for a crew that does overnight trips to Wisconsin to do testing of MRI equipment. He has been both looking forward to and dreading this opportunity. So this morning he headed out and now I sit alone.

My parents were very nice to stop by tonight, so that helped distract me, and the baby. . . well the baby is distracting by her very nature. However, now I am alone with my thoughts and a little freaked out by the thought of sleeping without S. Since our first date, we have not spent a day a part. We saw each other every day, and then eventually slept together every night. . . except for the two weeks that S went to Guyana. To my embarrassment I actually got so homesick for S when he was away that I had my ex drive me down to S's house so I could smell him as I slept in his bed. Odd huh? (The reason I had him drive down was that I was so scared that my car would get broken into when I was there, and I didn't want to have to explain to my dad why I was there. . . So I left my car at my apartment and had him drive me down. Strange but true.)

Tonight is a little different, as I am in our home, which is full of reminders of S- so no problem there. The problem is our ritual. Every night S gives me his good thing for the day, his selfish thing, and the good thing about him. These little bits of information are what I use to hear about his day, make sure he is taking time for himself, and reinforcing how great he is. After that we usually chat for a bit and then we kiss, he kisses my head, and then we kiss again. We repeat this pattern about 3 times and then we go to bed. Tonight, I will have to make do without.

I love my husband, and I am so proud of all the work he does. However, I do miss him. He is the best part of my life and has given me Anyara- who is everything. I am excited for his return tomorrow, and hopes he has a great trip.

boobs and baby.

Boy this, "I don't have time to blog, here is everything that happened in the last year" post seems to be the trend. . .

boobs: So the new pattern seems to be that there hasn't been a weekend since school started where something tragic hasn't happened to one or several of our bodies. S was sick, I was sick, baby got sick for the first time- I mean it has just been one of those things. Anya's first illness was at 7 1/2 months- so really I have nothing to complain about. All in all, it was just a slight fever which mad sleeping interesting for a night or two and one Saturday pretty much was just baby/mommy cuddle time. (Don't tell anyone, but that day where she was all curled up with me on the couch was actually pretty sweet. I mean, I don't like that she was sick, but she just spent the day cuddling with me and it was nice.) By Monday she was good to go back to daycare. S spent one weekend pretty sick and then nursed the never ending cold for a good week. Me? My illness takes the cake. Apparently the shift to nursing at school didn't go as well as planned and I ended up getting a clogged milk duct. Then because I have a high pain tolerance I developed Mastastis which, simply put, is a real bitch. I was feverish, exhausted, and in constance pain. The best part is that part of the cure, along with some antibiotics, is to just nurse through it. My god. Nurse through it. Let me just say, that weekend SUCKED. However, I have made it 8 months nursing, so I feel motivated to make it to my year goal. Am I excited to get my tits back? YEP!!

husband: S is such a great man. About a month ago I was loosing it and I had a couple of freak-outs because of all the extra work I was doing. I started to see how women get that "men don't do anything" attitude. I started looking around and seeing how other couples did it. That, in the end, was stupid. Our relationship is our own, and we have to make things the way we want them. I let S know how much extra work I was doing, and how burnt out I was because of it. He said he was aware, but just felt helpless to do anything about it. We discussed options, and let me tell you- he has made huge improvements. HUGE. He is so helpful and considerate, and it makes me appreciate him more and my stress level so much lower.

S is also really busy at work. I cannot tell you how different his attitude is about work now. He is so happy and motivated at this new company. It is really a blessing to see him have pride in what he does now. There is almost no day that he doesn't come home with stories of how well things are going at work. The downside to this, is that he really hates our house now. Before, he felt depressed generally, but now with a good family, good job, good car, and his weight much closer to where he likes it, he can really see how this neighborhood is holding us back. He has dreams of moving us out of here in 10 years. . . I would love to leave, I just don't know how we could possibly make that happen.

job: My job is continuing to kick my ass and be the best choice I could have made. I am constantly figuring out how to do and how NOT to do lessons and labs. I am feeling out my new rythym and trying to figure out how to incorperate all of this new technology. I hope that each year I do this grade gets better and better.

baby: Anya continues to be amazing. Even when she is waking me up too early, or can't communicate what is irritating her, I think she is the best thing ever. I am unable to imagine life without her. I still have dreams about loosing her, but it is getting better. I can't believe she is 8 months old. She is eating a lot lately, and even though she is still pretty skinny, she is so much bigger. She loves banana, beans, yams, and applesauce, carrots, peaches, tolerates squash and pears, and doesn't really care for peas. She is a pretty neat eater, if you can keep her hands out of the equation. She continues to be a performer in public and keep most of her drama for home. This has its benefits, but at times it is irritating she can keep it together for daycare and then save her irritation for mom. She has said, what we believe to be her first word, which was da-da. She seems to be focusing it directly at S, and it is the sweetest thing ever. She sits up fairly well, and rolls very well. Crawling seems a little way off- which I think is a good thing. Her eyes are a dark amber brown, her hair is my boring brown, and her skin color seems to have darkened a bit, but she is not as dark as when she came out. I would really love if she got S's hair- but I suppose I will love her either way . . . I cleaned out all of the unsorted laundry from her crib today, and I think we are going to try to move her into her crib tonight. After spending some quality time with her over MEA, I may be ready to try for this separation. Maybe.

family: Today was S's sorta birthday celebration with his family and I just have to say- GOOD GOD- what is wrong with Nalin? He is so out of control, and now that he is 3, it is not cute in any way shape or form. He threw such a huge tantrum today, that I had to take Anya out of the house because it was upsetting her so much. I know it is not my place to say anything, but it is so annoying to spend all of our time together having to watch him to make sure he doesn't hurt Anya. He is actively looking for negative attention all the time, and it is exhausting to keep my comments to myself. I am not looking forward to Thanksgiving or Christmas!

me: I am having a really hard time liking my body. I have lost a lot of my weight, and in all actuality, I am probably a little under where I was when I first got pregnant, however, all of the fat is not in the same spot it used to be. I now have a belly, which is new to me and very irritating. It changes how all of my clothes fit and how I feel in them. I used to feel pretty confident, but now I feel pretty mediocre and pretty frumpy. I am trying to be patient, as I cannot fathom fitting one more thing into my day, but I am not happy. It changes what I wear around the house, and I really feel the change in letting S see me naked. Big butt, big hips, I never used to care, but this belly- its got me stressing.

Lets hope that it isn't this long before I find the time to write again. Life is really really full, but really really good too.