The Light of my Life

Last month it seemed that BB was putting most of his efforts into learning to pull himself up and stand.  He's still doing this (he can even pull himself up using the wall now for support... nothing to really grab on to!) but he's back to developing some more neat tricks as well. 

A couple of months ago he started giving me kisses.  His kisses consisted of him wriggling over to me and pressing his open mouth against my face, and drooling all over me.  He never would do it if I asked, it was always something he would initiate on his own.  Now if I put my cheek in front of his face and ask for a kiss, he'll give me one.  And I noticed yesterday that he's starting to move his lips a little bit while he does it too.  So sweet!  This morning when he kissed me he dug his bottom teeth into my cheek... hopefully he doesn't continue doing that!  

DH has also taught BB to make kissing noises.  Now we can say, "kisses!" and kiss the air, and BB will smack his sweet little lips together to make a smacking sound.  The little grin that accompanies the sound is absolutely adorable.  He's so proud of himself.  One more way we are able to communicate with one another that doesn't involve him crying.  

Speaking of crying, BB is beginning to get angry when we take him away from something he shouldn't be into.  He'll cry and scream.  Luckily at this point, you can usually distract him pretty quickly with a toy.  But he remembers what he shouldn't have and eventually tries to go for it again.  

I've noticed this week that BB is now doing an honest-to-goodness crawl more often than not.  Up until now his main mode of transportation (besides being in our arms!) has been the "Wounded Soldier Shuffle"  (I actually read different stages of crawling in a Pampers brochure recently, and they called it the "Combat Crawl".  I had to laugh at the similar description.)  I don't think he moves much faster by crawling this way, but I think it's one step closer to being vertical. 

More on the vertical--He's now cruising a bit.  Not a lot but he is taking a few steps between the toy box and the chair in the living room (they're close enough that he can keep one hand on something as he moves about) and is also moving from end to end of the couch.

Dancing has become one of BB's favourite things.  He does it everywhere.  In his highchair, while playing and standing.  Yesterday he even did it while crawling.  He got on his hands and knees, pointed his bum in my direction and started wiggling it.  hehe.  

BB now claps his hands.  He'll do it when he's dancing (and he dances everywhere... in his highchair, while playing, standing, etc.  Sometimes he even does it without music.  

Yesterday his sixth tooth arrived--just two days after the fifth.  This one is on top, to the left of where his left front tooth will be.  I'm expecting that missing tooth any day now; it's so close to the surface, as is the tooth to the right of his right front tooth.

I went out last night to visit a friend, so DH was left to take care of the bath and bed time routine.  BB was happy in the grown-up bathtub!  Hurray!  Looks like I won't need to don my swimsuit tonight for his bath!  

Hopefully I've remembered everything I wanted to log.  If not, I reserve the right to edit to add things as I remember them!  :)

My Favourite Ladies are No Longer Whole

I normally don't pay much attention to the stuff that goes on in the entertainment world.  I am completely out of touch with it all.  I used to find it somewhat interesting when I had lots of time to kill reading about their silly lives, but now all of that celebrity gossip stuff just irritates me.  And now suddenly, I'm searching it out...

Yesterday morning I received an email from N sending me her condolences on Steven Page leaving Barenaked Ladies.  I was hoping with all of my being that it was a joke.  Nope, not a joke.  *sigh*  Normally I wouldn't care about such a thing.  This stuff happens.  But this is different. This is BNL.  These guys have been such a huge part of my life for about 15 years.  So many of their songs touch me in a way that most songs don't, and others still make me laugh out loud, even after I've heard them (literally) thousands of times.  I've been a bit distraught over the whole thing.  Yeah, I know, seems minor in the big scheme of what's currently going on in my life, but I can't help but feel a strong sense of loss over this whole thing.  He brought so much personality to the band's songs and to the band itself.  They say they're going to continue on without him, but I'm not sure how complete they will be now.  They're supposed to be recording a new album this fall, so I guess we'll see...  I have to say though, if I was to have expected anyone to walk away, it totally would have been him.  He seems to be a complex guy with a few demons that he's dealing with.  Hopefully he finds happiness in his solo career.  I am very very happy that I got to see them in Saint John two years ago this past Monday night.  Definitely an amazing experience that I will never forget.  They totally put a cherry on top of the concert for me by performing my all time favourite song, What A Good Boy, as their final encore.  

Since I'm thinking about music right now... I've recently discovered some very cool music.  I noticed that some of my friends from high school are fans on Facebook of someone named Marty Kolls.  I didn't think much of it.  Then last week it suddenly dawned on me that "Marty" might be a stage name for "Martha", and I went to high school with a girl named Martha Kolls.  I checked out her fan page, her website, and her myspace, and sure enough, it's Martha.  We weren't friends or anything, I just remember her.  She was pretty and seemed nice, but she seemed completely out of my league.  Her myspace page has some of her songs so I checked them out... then I bought both of her CDs from her site.  :)  They were only $5 each, so I didn't really have to worry about breaking the bank...  I'm sure that in May I'll be thinking twice before doing something like this.  Anyway, I'm really enjoying her music.  I played some while BB was eating lunch today and he was totally grooving to it.  Pretty cute.  :)  

No title for this one

I feel as if I've aged 10 years since Saturday night.  I'm trying not to show my hurt (and now the anger that's starting to well up inside of me) towards DH, but it's there.  

This did give me a good belly laugh tonight, which I totally needed.  (Note, the top here is female, the bottom is male.  Looks like something I'd see with our crew.) 

BB's fifth tooth arrived today.  It's his top, front, right tooth.  I have a feeling this is going to be another night with more than one wake-up.  I can't complain though, if the night time wake-ups are the only side effect of his teething.  I was chatting on Facebook today with some friends, and one of them was talking about using Oragel on her baby's gums and giving him ibuprophen.  I can't imagine drugging BB.  Either he's a very good natured baby, or I'm incredibly tolerant.  I'm guessing it's the former.  

Weekend

This has turned out to be the worst weekend in a very very long time.  

DH and I normally hang out together Saturday night.  We play games, have a snack, chat, etc.  The rest of the week we tend to go in our separate directions most nights, and on occasion I'll join him in front of the TV with the poochies.  

Last night neither of us was feeling up to a game, so we decided just to have a snack and a chat.  I had just received a response from the babysitter I had contacted on Thursday and was feeling cornered again about having to make a decision about the whole returning to work thing.  So we finally started talking out our options.  After lots of tears on my part, we eventually we came to the decision that I need to decide either way within the next few days whether I'm going back full-time, or whether I'm going to stay home with BB during the day and find a way to make $X on the side (most likely evening work of some sort) and then start working on making it happen.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before, I really really really want another baby.  I have so many reasons.  I've been afraid to bring it up though, because DH wasn't exactly keen on having BB.  Yes, he was in agreement to it, but he was only doing it for me.  So as long as I didn't bring up the subject of having another baby, my dream couldn't be crushed.  However, if we were going to have a second child, it would make sense for me to return to work full-time and try to get pregnant right away so that I wouldn't miss out on too much time with BB, and so that they'd be close in age.  By returning to work full-time, I'd get EI benefits to help us get through another year.  Since we were talking about options and whatnot, I knew that I had to bring this up.  

And then my little imagined world of what our future will be like came crashing down around me.  At first I thought he was going to agree.  But no, it didn't happen.  The little bursts of conversation and tears and sobs and heartbreaking went on until almost 23:00.  I know he has his reasons.  I get that.  And I get that kids were never a part of his master plan.  

My heart is breaking for BB because he's never going to know what it's like to be close to a sibling.  It breaks for myself... I have so much love to give to another baby.  I now know how amazing it is to be a mom.  When I was pregnant with BB, I didn't look forward to him being born, because I didn't know how much I would love him.  I want to do it again and actually be excited about the baby's arrival.  And when BB was born, I only got to hold him for a moment before they whisked him away to NICU for most of the entire first day of his life.  I know that overall it didn't affect our bond, but I feel like I really missed on something by not getting to spend that first day together.  My heart breaks for us as a family.  

I feel as if I am mourning the loss of a child I never even had.  I don't know how this makes sense.  

When I view our family in my head, it's like there's this extra spot... it's blank right now and has something like, "insert child here" written over it.  It feels so weird knowing that it's going to be blank forever.

I don't know how else to put what I'm feeling into words.  I just re-read everything I've written and it reads so empty compared to how I'm feeling.  

It's so odd... having so much in common with one person, being so compatible with that person, loving that person so fully, yet being not on a different page, but an entirely different book on one topic that is so important.

And on top of all this, we quit flyball this weekend.  If I go back to work full-time, I can't leave BB on the weekend to go to practice or tournaments.  If I don't go back to work, we can't afford to go away to tournaments.  It's lose-lose.  We both feel terrible for disappointing the team, and having to give up something we both love so much.  In the end, it's all worth it for BB, but it's still hard to walk away from so many great friends.  

Bath Time, Take II

I wrote Wednesday night about our (failed) attempt to transition BB to the grown-up bath tub.

Thursday night didn't go any better.  More screaming and crocodile tears.  

Friday night I had to go into town to run a few errands, so DH was left to deal with bath time.  We decided beforehand that he should just bathe BB in the little blue baby tub, rather than upsetting BB while I wasn't here to help soothe him.  Turns out that bath time is no longer okay even in the little blue bath tub.  He reacted the same way as he does in the grown-up bath tub.  :(

Tonight we tried something different.  First, I geared up in my bathing suit.  When we took BB into the bathroom and he realized what was going on, he started to whimper.  So he and I sat on the toilet and chatted until he calmed down.  Then DH held BB on the toilet while I climbed into the bath tub and read his little bath tub book to him a few times.  ("Red crab scuttles fast.  Pink jellyfish glides past."  Yep, I have most of his books memorized.)  Then we played peek-a-boo with the shower curtain.  Finally he was giggling and laughing, so DH placed him in my lap in the bath tub.  We read the story a few more times and played silly with him while his little lower lip quivered.  Once he was okay with being in my lap, we placed him in the water facing me.  Bring on the tears and the crying.  So I hauled out the big guns.  Sing it with me!  "Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!"  I'm not sure why, but I have some amazing success with that song.  From that point on, the rest of the bath wasn't too bad.  We worked quickly but gently and even got a few giggles out of him along the way!  (He loved it when DH played the "Near... Far!" game with him...  think Grover from Sesame Street.)  Once we were finished we didn't linger; we called it a success and got him out of there!  

I'll probably climb in again tomorrow night too, just to be safe, and then hopefully he'll be okay.  There's an awful echo in the bathtub, and the side is quite high; it's no wonder he's feeling overwhelmed in there! 

For some strange reason, putting on my bathing suit, climbing in the bath tub and singing my heart out to Old MacDonald completely reminded me of the night I spent giving birth to BB.  I felt exposed and a bit weird having an audience, but I had a job to do, so that's what I focused on.  I know the two incidents are nothing alike, but it really left me with that same feeling.  And now that the job is done, I have a similar feeling of victory.  :)

Blue Wrapped in White

It's snowing again.  This winter, the snow hasn't bothered me.  I haven't had anywhere to go.  Let it snow.  Today though, it seems exceptionally dark.  We're almost out of wood, and electric heat isn't the same, so I'm feeling a bit chilly.  

The whole work thing is starting to seem more and more real every day.  Some days I have the "I can make this work!" attitude.  Days like today I just want to cry.  If I stay home with BB and find an evening job, will I have any energy for life?  I'm one of those people who needs at least eight hours of sleep to properly function.  I need to take a sick day every couple of months.  Not because I'm sick, but because I need a day to recharge my batteries.  If I choose this path, that will not be an option.  

I've said it before... I can't stand the idea of someone else raising BB.  It's our job.  But will my time with him be quality?  If I take an evening job we won't have the family suppers that I planned on.  If I take an evening job, I won't be here for bedtime.  But if I take an evening job, will I have the energy to give BB the best days possible?  

Why can't I have it all?  The money and the time with BB?  Okay, I know why, but just indulge me in my whineyness.  

I responded to another kijiji ad today.  I hadn't contacted anyone since the week I met with my manager.  This daycare is about seven minutes from home.  The ad was worded nicely and there were no spelling mistakes.  Yes, that is important to me.  If you can't spell well enough to post an ad on kijiji, you're not going to be spending all day every day with my son.  None of the other ads I had responded to really worked out due to location.  Location won't be an issue with this one.  I'll need to find another excuse not to like it.  

DH and I need to sit down and figure out exactly what we need in order to make this work.  I don't know where to start.  I'm overwhelmed, emotional and I can't think straight.

Bath Time!

Tonight we gave BB a bath in the grown-up tub.  Bye-bye little blue baby tub.  In all honesty, he should have been out of the little tub a long while ago, but our tub has been too gross to put him in.  So we've each had a pass (or three or four in DH's case) at the tub, and it's finally clean.  We were both pretty excited to move him into the tub, but he hated it.  No, hate isn't a strong enough word.  HATE might be better.  He sat there taking it all in for a couple of minutes, long enough for me to get a couple of pictures.  Then he tried to move a little bit and looked like he might be about to lose his balance.  Then the tears started.  And the screaming.  Poor little guy.  His bath ended up being a quick soap, rub, and rinse, and then wrapped up in the towel for some hard-core cuddling.  

I've read that some babies don't like moving into the big tub, but since BB is so good natured, it never occurred to me that he might have an issue with it.  We'll see how tomorrow night goes.  I think I'll be ready to hop in with him if he needs the moral support.  

Heh, this reminds me of people I used to babysit for when I was a teenager.  I started flipping through one of their photo albums (it was in their family room, not hidden away some place private or anything) and saw lots of cute pics of their little guy.  I came across some pics of the little guy in the bath tub, no biggie.  Then I turned the page...  and there was 'dad' in the bathtub with the little guy, and all of his stuff was in the picture!!  Ew.  Ew.  Ew.  I quickly slammed the book shut and put it back.  I doubt I was meant to see that.  

Oh, and that brings me to another story.  I told DH that I wanted a picture of BB as soon as he was born.  You know, still all covered in cottage cheese, fresh into the world.  On Facebook, I saw a pic of a friend's little girl that was taken within moments of her entrance into the world.  You could tell the doc was holding her up in the air, and it was a great shot of her.  I was envisioning the same thing.  DH is wonderful at following my instructions, and he did exactly what I asked for... I have a pic of BB laying on my stomach with my hands touching his body, he's completely covered in cottage cheese, and completely purple... and you can follow the cord from his tummy to my crotch.  Yep, included in this picture of BB is a full-on shot of my crotch.  I thought about cropping it out, but decided against it.  I think it's actually a very cool picture, so soon after birth that the two of us are still connected together, but it's one of those things that you don't really want to share with everyone.  Or anyone for that matter.  

Hamburger Soup and Biscuits

I made the yummiest supper tonight.  Hamburger soup and biscuits.  Both were simple yet tasty.  We don't seem to do a lot of homey, simple meals, but we've started trying to make more of them to save a few bucks.  One of the best parts about this meal is that it isn't spicy (90% of our meals are) so it's something that we'll be able to make when BB starts sharing more of our meals.

I didn't have a recipe for the soup, I just winged it.  When I visited T a couple weekends ago, she had made a pot of it, so I felt inspired to give it a try on my own.  As for the biscuits, I used the recipe my mom has always used, but I included some whole wheat flour to up the wholesomeness factor, and I had to guess at the instructions as they were kind of vague.  Here are the recipes if you're interested in giving them a try (I'll try to be more detailed in the biscuit instructions that the original recipe is.)

Hamburger Soup

1 lb hamburger

2 carrots, chopped

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

Fry all together in frying pan until ground beef is cooked.  Drain fat.

Add:

2 tsp oregano

28oz can of tomatoes, diced (use the salt-free kind)

4 cups beef broth (I used the liquid bouillon and water)

1/2 cup barley

Freshly ground pepper to taste (I used oodles of this.)

Bring to a boil then simmer for 1 hour.

Fluffy Biscuits

2 cups white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp salt

1-1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp cream of tartar

1/2 cup butter

1-1/3 cups milk

Mix first six ingredients together in bowl.  Cut in butter with pastry blender.  Stir in milk.  Mixture will be gooey.  Flour a workspace and place the mixture on the flour.  Sprinkle a bit more flour on top of the mixture and use your hands to spread it out.  Use a round cutter to cut approximately 12 biscuits.  Bake at 400F for 15 minutes or until browned.

Quick Update

Once again, I'm sitting here wondering where the time has gone.  It feels like forever since I last posted.  I've had so many things that have made me think, "I need to write about this."  Then I proceed to mentally blog, but I haven't had the time to sit down and actually type any of it out.  

I need to get to bed soon; I feel like I'm running on empty.  But first I want to record a few things while they're on my mind.  

• Sunday was a big day in our house.  I celebrated my 10th anniversary with Kitty, and it was BB's nine month birthday!  

• BB has been working on standing up for a little while now.  He's pretty much mastered it and is now starting to stand up using a wall for support--nothing to grab on to to pull himself up!  If you blink, you can miss the process of him getting up.  He's sitting down one second, and the next he's standing there staring at you.  He's really getting good at landing on his bum when he's ready to get down.  You can't turn your back on him for even a moment--you never know what he's going to grab on to, and it's so scary to think of him flipping something over onto himself, or him falling and crashing into something that could seriously hurt him.  

• I cleaned out the bottom two shelves of the pantry yesterday, and found room for the big bags of flour that have been sitting on my kitchen floor for months, and the bags of cat food that have never had a home (besides sitting next to the cat's dishes on the kitchen floor!)  Tonight I packed away most of our pictures and decorations from the living room.  Hopefully I'll have the place baby-proofed soon.  I'm just so uncertain where to put everything.  I find I have to think hard to come up with a good place to re-home all of our stuff.  It's a slow process when you always need to find the perfect solution to a problem before you can proceed.  (Before anyone thinks I'm a bad mother, BB is never left unattended in a non-baby-proofed area!  Heck, he's rarely left unattended if he's not in his crib or play pen.  After a diaper change, he'll crawl into the bathroom while I'm in there washing up, so my back is turned on him for that 30 seconds while he's scooting to the bathroom.  hehe.  It's so cute seeing him round the corner into the bathroom with a big smile on his face, so proud of his ability to move from room to room now!)  
  

• My in-laws visited today.  It wasn't bad.  BB is very much in the clingy and shy stage, so it took a while for him to warm up to them.  I don't force him on to people if he wants to be with me.  I want him to feel reassured that everything is safe and secure in his world.  When he's ready, he makes friends.  

• I've done something I haven't done yet - I have intentionally shared my blog with a friend.  Eek.  Hi M.  :) 

• S is back in town!  Wahoo!  N and I visited her last night.  We picked up those super expensive but incredibly yummy candy apples from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate place to eat during our visit.  I also made brownies and S had some delicious cheese from the market and some crackers and some great spreads.  I didn't get home until almost 11:30... way past my bedtime!

• I got an email from the HR manager late this afternoon.  She wants the details on what I'm looking for if I don't return full-time in May.  I'm feeling a bit panicky.  I don't handle rejection well (or at all) and I'm worried she's going to tell me I'm asking for too much.  But if I don't ask there's no chance of it happening, right?

• I've decided I need to cut back on the refined sugar I'm eating.  I've been making so many squares and cookies lately.  I love baking.  But unfortunately, all of the baking needs to be eaten!  (What a chore!)  By the end of last week I was starting to feel pretty bad and came down with a bit of a cold.  I've always noticed that if I have too much sugar it seems to affect my immune system.  So I have to find something else that I enjoy baking...  I'd like to try bread sometime.  Maybe I should give that a go sometime soon.
  

Banana Snack Cake

I love how a scent or a flavour can take me back in time.  Right now I'm enjoying a cup of Almond Rocker tea and a piece of banana snack cake.  I haven't had this tea since the summer...  when BB was a tiny baby boy, when I was beyond tired, when a cup of this tea would make me feel like I was a little bit more connected to the world.  It's funny, it was a difficult time but I really miss it.  Not that I'm not happy how things are now; I'm sure that in a few months I'll be missing right now too.  I think more than anything I'd love to be able to re-live it all again.  These past (almost) nine months have been such a wonderful time for me.  

Hmmm... I didn't begin this post with the intent of talking about the tea.  It was actually the banana snack cake that I was thinking about.  I've loved to bake for as long as I can remember.  When I was little I'd beg mom to let me bake something.  Every so often she would give in.  I'd mix lots of everything into a bowl, and then she'd pop it into the oven for me.  I remember all of my creations always tasted very salty.  :)  I was feeling a bit creative yesterday afternoon.  Rather than winging it the way I used to when I was a kid, I started with a recipe, but changed it significantly to make it a bit healthier.  The result is pretty darned tasty!  Normally the first time I make a recipe, I do it exactly the way the original recipe says so I can evaluate whether it's even worth trying to improve it.  But yesterday I could see so many opportunities to improve on this recipe, so I just jumped in.  I chose this recipe because it has mashed banana in it, and I had three over-ripe bananas sitting on my counter screaming at me to do something with them!  Without further ado, here is my wonderful recipe!

Banana Snack Cake

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Mix together, set aside.

2 eggs

1/4 cup canola oil

3 mashed, ripe bananas

1/2 cup sour cream (go for the low-fat stuff)

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used the normal sized ones, but minis would be good.)

With a mixer, mix the eggs and canola oil in another bowl.  Then add the bananas, sour cream, and vanilla, mixing well again.  Gradually add the dry ingredients to the went ingredients, mixing well after each addition.  Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour batter into a greased 9 x 13 baking pan (I used a Pyrex dish) and bake in preheated 350F oven for 28 minutes (use a toothpick to test that it is done.)  Cool on a wire rack, cut into 16 pieces and store in an airtight container.  

What are you waiting for?  Give it a try!  :)

Ewwww!

Since starting BB on solids, I've noticed that he seems to become a bit constipated if I don't eat lots of fibre.  He's normally a poop once (maybe twice) a day kind of guy, but if I don't fibre it up, he'll skip a day.  Very recently I've noticed that when he skips a day, the following day it takes a long while for him to get things moving again.  It starts off with what my mother used to call a 'bunny turd' in his diaper, and then later on he'll have a real bowel movement.  I'm not sure what the connection is between my fibre intake and his BMs (it's not like bits of fibre flow out of my breasts!  I think I would feel that!) but there definitely does seem to be a connection.

Normally for breakfast I'll eat a bowl of oatmeal with wheat germ and ground flax seed mixed in, and some cinnamon sprinkled on top.  I'm getting a bit tired of this, and I'm starting to use crazy amounts of brown sugar on top of the concoction to try to choke it down.  

So last week, I decided that I would take another break from the oatmeal, but to make sure that I didn't cause any issues for BB, I started eating bran cereal for breakfast instead.  I don't have any BM issues, so I'm doing this entirely for BB (but I know that the fibre is good for me, even if I don't have any issues.)  Apparently the bran wasn't enough though, and he had another incident this weekend.  So yesterday morning I filled my bowl up with my oatmeal mixture again.  I noticed that the wheat germ seemed to be going lumpy, but I didn't think anything of it.  

Yesterday afternoon I wasn't feeling well...  was super nauseous.  I assumed it was simply because I was over tired.  

This morning I was preparing my bowl of oatmeal.  I had everything mixed up and was about to add water, when I picked out one of the little lumps of wheat germ.  It looked like it had a bit of mould on it.  I tossed the lump into the compost bucket, and picked out another one.  Same thing.  I went to the pantry and hauled out the container of wheat germ.  Yep, there was small blue fuzzies growing over all of the wheat germ.  

Since mould is actually one of the things I'm very allergic to, it's not surprising that I felt sick after eating a couple tablespoons of mouldy wheat germ with my breakfast yesterday.  Yucky, yuck, yuck, yuck!

Socially Inept

I made it to SJ and back home yesterday. BB was wonderful in the car, both ways. Not a peep out of him. I was quite anxious though.

We spent about three hours visiting at T's house. The boys were so cute together. T's little guy, N, is about 17 months, and did not want to share his toys with BB.  Every toy BB had, N would snatch it out of his hand.  BB didn't mind, he was pretty groggy acting the whole time we were there.  I think he was a bit overwhelmed being in a different place with different people and different toys.  We really need to get out more.

I've always felt uncomfortable in social situations.  But when I'm with my immediate family or a few close friends, I never feel that way.  Yesterday, I was with one of my BFFs, and felt like I was socially inept.  I realized about half way though the visit that I was hardly talking.  So then I started stressing over the fact that I wasn't talking, and really couldn't think of anything to say other than, "I don't know what to say."  I think it might have been a bit different if her husband wasn't there too.  He spent the entire visit hanging out with us and the boys.  Not a big deal, but it really does turn on my censor.  Also, I find it hard to have a real conversation when there are two kids on the scene.  Someone always needs attention.  So in that situation, I find that I don't even bother trying a whole lot to make deep conversation or tell stories because it's usually completely disjointed or ends up being left unfinished.  

I've been feeling out of place whenever I'm in a group of people lately.  I wonder if all of my much-loved home time might be making me less confident around other people.  It was so surprising to have that same feeling yesterday though.  I'm going to chalk it up to me being overtired from the 5am wake-ups these past few weeks, the anxiety about making the return trip home, the little ones needing attention, and the extra person with us.  

And, if I do get to stay home with BB instead of returning to work full time, I think we definitely need to find a play group--for both him and me!

I Don't Like Doing This, But...

I've reviewed my posts, and changed how I refer to my hubby and son, "just in case".  I think this move will help me to keep it real.  Not that I haven't been.  But this will ensure it continues.  I'm not too worried about the odd friend reference, but anyone who remotely knows me would recognize the initials of my family plus some of the obvious facts about my life.  (Really though, do you know that many people with five dogs?!  ;o)  )

I didn't change anything in the blog other than how I referred to them... I've recently been referring to hubby as DH and baby boy as DS, but I haven't really like either of those.  They sound so impersonal.  So DS is now BB for Baby Boy, something I call him quite frequently.  He may get Monkey Man some too, since I seem to call him that a LOT.  I don't have anything different for hubby yet other than DH, but once I think of something, I'll use it on a go-forward basis.  

Stepping Out

Tomorrow I am stepping out of my comfort zone.  And I'm taking BB with me.  I'm asking myself if it's fair to him, to drag him along when I'm not comfortable doing something.  But he's the entire reason I'm not comfortable doing it.  If I stayed in my comfort zone, he would never leave the house.

I'm taking a little road trip to visit my BFF in SJ.  And of course, BB is coming with me.  Before BB's arrival, I didn't think twice about jumping in the car on the weekend and spending the day with T.  But, I haven't made the trek since before he was born.  I haven't been comfortable traveling that far with him all by myself.  (I don't really need to list the reasons.  I think they're pretty obvious.)  But T came up to visit me with her little guy when BB was born...  and now BB is almost the same age her guy was at the time.  It's time I spread my wings and fly again--with BB on my back.  Or in my backseat, rather.  I have a gnawing pain in my stomach just thinking about it.  

Wow

I was plugging away having a perfectly normal day. Then pow. Suddenly I no longer feel like myself. I feel like a stranger trapped in my body. Hopefully I'm just over-tired. I feel lost and bewildered right now. I've blown 'date-night' with DH, and all I want to do is hold DS... but he's in bed sleeping, so I should just leave him alone.  Even the Internet isn't amusing me right now.  I'm going to knit until the washer is done washing the diapers, then take a shower, and go to bed.  And hope that I'm back to being myself tomorrow.

Pictures

I haven't been feeling the blogging vibe this week.  However, I have finally uploaded a bunch of post-Christmas pictures to Facebook!  Not a small task, considering the number of pictures I take on a daily basis!  Finally one little project caught up!  

My next project is to sort through my pics from September to January and choose which ones to have printed for my album.  That's going to be an expensive Wal-Mart trip!