Blah Thanksgiving

I'm a bit bummed today.  First, I was trying to sleep last night and kept remembering my miscarriage on Nov 25, 2002.  It was a very traumatic event and there is one thing about it that I wish I'd have done differently.  There is nothing I could have done to stop it, and as far as that baby and my life are concerned, it is best she wasn't born.  Miscarriages almost always happen because there is something wrong with the fetus and it would not be able to survive even if it were to continue and be born.  Even knowing that... it still hurts.

Then I wake up this morning from a nightmare.  That is never a good way to start the day.  I did however lose some weight this week.  Not a whole pound, but I still have two days before I have to weigh in.  I have been eating fairly well.  I just need to incorporate some exercise.  I'd probably feel better emotionally if I did too...

Finally, and the thing that prompted me to write this entry, we are not celebrating Thanksgiving today.  It is just DH and I (LB doesn't eat table food yet) so there was no point in cooking a whole lot of food.  We had planned on having filet mignon as our own little tradition until we have a family large enough to cook a feast for... but the roads have been closed for nearly a week now and we haven't gotten to the store.  We are going out for shopping at 0400 tomorrow morning so there is no point in getting out on the roads today just to pick up one thing from a store we'll be visiting tomorrow anyways.  I suggested we go out to see a movie but DH would rather just stay in.  He isn't very fond of movies to begin with and the roads are still kinda icy.  I guess I'm just sorta bummed because, even though it isn't my favorite part of the year, I am just kinda used to spending holidays with my family.  I was hoping to continue that with my new family.

I think I'll bundle up in my winter gear and go for a walk around the neighborhood.  We are moving on post next week and I can't wait!  We'll have sidewalks and won't be on a main road.  Right now it is a bit dangerous to be walking out on the street by our house.  People like to speed around the corner where we live and with the roads so icy they normally skid.  I don't feel safe taking LB out in that.  Next week though we will be able to walk through our entire neighborhood knowing we are safe from cars.  It's not a big neighborhood, but there are two main streets to it that should be at least 1/2 a mile to the end and back.  Hopefully some cool winter air will do me some good.  Time to go get bundled up.

Major Stress

Today is not starting out well.  I had to call our ticket airline and make sure we wouldn't be harassed by their attendants for bringing LB's car seat on board like I have heard from several women who flew out of our airport on this airline.  The lady I talked to last night was not reassuring at all saying that "the stewardesses don't like car seats on the plane anyways" and "If you put a seat belt on him it is just as good."  Well first off, I don't give a damn what your flight attendants like or not.  When the safety of my child is concerned, I will choose him over your convenience any time.  And secondly... seriously?!  You think you can strap a 1 year old into an airplane seat belt and he won't crawl out of it, or fly out of it in heavy turbulence?  Right...

The man I talked to today knew the airline policies (as they are stated online) and reassured me that if there is a seat open (because my parents won't buy LB a ticket) we can bring his car seat on the plane.  The first 4 hour flight is completely full... I hope we don't get hassled.  This whole trip is stressing me out.

LB has been screaming all morning because I'm not preparing his bottle fast enough for his liking.  When I got off the phone and he was still screaming I yelled at him.  He has no idea why I am upset, and truthfully I don't think he is old enough to know that screaming is not an acceptable means of asking for something.  But I couldn't stop myself from getting angry.  To top that off, he is almost one year old and I'm feeling pressured to have him eating finger foods and mushed table food.  He can't even eat a soaked cheerio without choking and throwing up.  He is not going to be eating ground up ham or turkey for Christmas but my mom is going to insist that he does.  I do not want to deal with that!

This whole trip is stressing me out but we have to go.  I asked DH last night if he wanted to stay home, but he said we need to get down to see his grandparents.  It may be our last chance to see them and LB's only chance to meet them.  I just don't want to deal with my mom's opinions on LB's eating and walking.  I feel like I am constantly defending myself with her and it is so tiring.  I wish she would just keep it to herself and bitch to her friends about how horrible a mother I am if she feels the need (which I'm sure she does).  She is constantly telling me what someone at her office thinks about LB's eating and crawling (before he learned at 8 months) so obviously she is telling them she thinks he is behind or that I am doing something wrong.  I don't give a damn what they or she thinks but having to listen to it all the time is draining.  I never call her anymore and now she worries that something is wrong with me.

We found out a few days ago that baby number two, Pumpkin, is on the way.  We are not telling our families.  I don't want any more stress.  In fact, I shouldn't be stressing out at all but I just feel like all this pressure is on me... even though I don't agree with their ideas.  I just don't want to hear it anymore!  Oh, and I've told them not to mention it anymore... they still do.  What else can I do?  How can I relax when I know we have to go on this trip?

{EDIT} I just got off the phone with DH.  He is so wonderful!  He told me to sit on the couch (now that LB is napping), drink some water, then lay on the floor and do some gentle stretches.  He said that we are going to see his grandparents so they can meet their only great grandson and everyone else (including my mom) are just lucky to see us.  We are traveling down there as a courtesy to them and they had better be thankful we came so they can see LB.   It's good to hear that from someone else and to know I'm not being a heartless, selfish person.

Now, how can we make this trip fun instead of stressful?

Complete Emotional Wreck

This had better be PMS and not a baby on the way!  I can not stop crying!  Granted, it has been a rough couple of days.  I literally packed up and either threw out or donated my past and I still have more to go through.  My son is now learning to sleep sans binkie because I am sick of watching him purposefully throw it out of his crib and then cry about it.  Before I figured he was just young and testing the physics around him... but now, when we catch him playing with cords he throws them down and looks up at us like "They jumped into my mouth I swear!"  That little boy is learning right from wrong now and he knows we know!

So I had an emotional day, kissing away (sometimes literally) my past.  My husband is preparing for his upcoming deployment at work and he is stressed to the brim.  And LB is no longer allowed the comfort of his binkie after having thrown it AT me yesterday.  I got very little sleep last night.  I suppose that is reason enough to cry... but the catch is, things like this don't normally make me cry.  And especially not to the extent that I have been crying these last two days.  I am a complete emotional wreck.

For example, this video is HILARIOUS!  But... it had me laughing and bawling...
See?  Why should that make me cry?  I have no earthly idea.  It wouldn't normally make me cry.  I have to wait until next Thursday (Veteran's Day no less) to see if we are expecting or if I can go back on the dreaded birth control until DH leaves.  I am not looking forward to the depression that brings, but I also know full well I would be hard pressed to survive another postpartum depression without DH here to hold me and tell me its okay and remind me that I am a good wife and mother.

Emotional Release or Breakdown?

I just lost it... I mean weeping, screaming lost it.  I unpacked four boxes of clothes today which means I packed up three boxes of clothes to be donated.  I figured it would be an emotional experience and I have to admit, I did kiss some away that meant a lot to me but I knew I'd never wear again.  It wasn't until nearly five hours later, after listening to my son scream himself to sleep because we took his binkie today, that I lost it.  I collapsed into bed and sobbed uncontrollably.

I hate to see what happens when I drop it off at the goodwill...  Wish me luck.  I'm going to need it.  Any likely some prayers.

Ahhhhh!

I am so tired.  I am exhausted even.  I haven't slept more than 4 hours straight in months.  Today was so frustrating.  It was all going well until this afternoon.  I sprayed something to clean up a mess on the carpet and apparently I am allergic to it.  I have had the worst headache all day because of it and at one point my upper lip was even a bit numb.  That just set me up for a bad evening I guess.

My headache worsened and LB didn't want to go to bed.  He screamed and screamed until eventually I had to call DH in to take over.  I wanted to badly to spank him and tell him to be quiet, but he's far too young to know what a spanking is.  Plus, he wasn't in need of a spanking.  He wasn't doing anything wrong... he just couldn't sleep.  It was just so frustrating.  DH took over and I realized I still had laundry to do.  I nearly broke down right then.

I am feeling better now.  LB is in his crib, not crying; and DH knows that I didn't mean to snap at him.  He's going to bed now.  I'll be up for another hour waiting on our laundry to finish drying so I can go down and get it.  Hopefully tomorrow that smell will be gone and I can relax and get some work done.

Self Worth Part 1

Am I worthy?

We all ask this question at least once during our lives, usually more than once.  I find myself asking this question a lot lately.  I decided I would commit to a short series of post exploring this question in my life.  Today I want to pose the question:

How do I measure my self worth?  What makes me feel worthy?

• clean house
• decorated house
• enough money to afford some luxury while not going into debt
• niceties like a favorite bath salt, fine china, quality books, and nice linens
• others' opinions of me: am I a nice person, loving, well dressed, pretty?
• self worth when it comes to my parents: money, am I worth spending money on {like for my wedding for instance}, do they brag to their friends about me, do I have a degree and a career?

Now, obviously, some of those ideas are not mine.  DH and I only have fine china because it was an heirloom wedding gift, but I was taught that having nice things was a sign of worth.  A lot of the items listed above do not reflect my opinion of self worth, so much as they reflect what I was taught to think of when I hear "self-worth".  I grew up being taught that if you had material things and people approved of you, you were worthy.  You can see how that is reflected in the above list.  If my parents thought I was worthy of their love and attention, they would spend money on me.  They had a budget of $10,000 for my wedding; however, when I became engaged to an atheist and planned to marry before I finished my college degree, they cut it back to $2,000.  Our wedding was last minute, in a college chapel (it was a compromise btw my parent's church and the garden DH and I wanted to wed in), with about 20 guests (mostly from DH's side of the family who drove over 500 miles, because my mom was too embarrassed to invite her friends who lived in the town where we married).  Our reception was at a restaurant in a back room that wasn't even sectioned off from the general public.  There were people seated at tables right next to our wedding cake (thankfully they weren't in the pictures).  Because I married someone who wasn't like my mother had planned and because I didn't already have my degree and a career, I was not worthy of their money to give me the nice wedding they had planned and saved for.

As you can see, my family has a very skewed view of worthiness that I plan to move away from.

How do you define "Self Worth"?  

What makes a person worthy of respect, love, friendship?

In my next post, I will think about and discuss how I would like to define self-worth in my own life now that I am an adult.

Emotions Evening Out

It's been a month since I stopped taking my birth control and I am feeling better.  My libido is definitely higher, not back to normal, but not completely frigid either.  I'm enjoying sex again and, on occasion, initiating it.

I am still having some low days.  DH and I had a big fight a couple nights back.  Well, we don't really fight actually.  We skip straight to the after fight where we are both angry and hurt.  It's kinda silly, but we tend to sit in our separate rooms on our computers in the evenings.  DH wanted to come and create a D&D character with me but I thought he was just playing his computer game so I was in here looking at blogs.  It turns out he was waiting for me to finish so he could come spend time with me.  You see, we were both passing the time waiting for the other to finish.  Silly right?  Well, of course we both felt ignored and hurt but neither one of us spoke up, so we missed the "fight" and went straight to the "I'm hurt and want to be alone now" stage.  It was pretty bad despite there not being any yelling or blowing up at each other.  We talked it over the next day and seem to be doing fine now.  We know to update each other if we want to spend time together now instead of assuming the other is doing something important.

My weight is going back down, but given that I gained back baby fat last week... I'm not really that happy.  I think I'll be more excited when I get back down below 220 and stay there.  You can read about it here, on my weight loss blog, if you want.

LB is about to crawl.  As in, any moment!  That is pretty exciting of course.  I'd say all in all, I'm just sorta blah.  At least blah is better than depressed though.  Oh and I have a cold.  It sucks, my throat hurts, but it's okay.  I really feel bad because LB has an ear infection and a molar breaking though.  The poor thing is so cranky all day long and can't nap well.

So anyway, I guess I'm just posting to update you and let you know that my emotions are still up and down, but more up than before so I think I am heading in the right direction at least.