This is my second scary leap into the blogging world. I'd like to thank my new friends Nichole, Natalie and Cheryl for inspiring me to do this!
I am from small town charm with big city dreams, from Target and chocolate chip cookies on Sundays and the smell of coffee in the morning wafting through the house, letting us know dad is up.
I am from a gray house on a busy street, a backyard full of dogs, and toys, and dirt and the sounds of children playing in the neighborhood.
I am from tumbleweeds and Joshua trees, the warm brown earth of the desert and gusty winds tangling blond hair on an impossibly starry night.
I am from Christmas celebrations with the scent of baked goods wafting through out the house, and tons of presents surrounding a 7 foot tree. From a tight knit band of Nomads, from Drinkwine's and Clausen's.
I am from stubbornness, resilience, and incredible hot tempers, and kind and loving hearts. From softball games and riding bikes for hours around the block.
I am from "which part of NO don't you understand?" and "You can do anything you want as long as you're happy." From reading Nancy Drew with my mom, and reaching for the starts and dreaming big.
I am from faithful Lutherans, and my own freedom of choice. From coloring while snuggling against mom or Aunt Jan during the sermons and testing the waters of religion and faith.
I am from the golden state, perpetually tan and French wine tasters, perpetually drunk. From rich Cabernet's and Del Taco and pizza.
I am from my grandfather's purple heart from WWII, from classic cars and trips to Disneyland with my brother and sister, listening to the Jurassic Park soundtrack, skin prickling with the anticipation and excitement of the fun ahead.
I am from endless books of photos tucked away in a dark closet, video taped dance recitals, the smell of peppermint, a thousand happy memories tucked into private corners of my mind.
Today was the magical day. I fought a long and lengthy battle with my Mirena. (If you don't know what it is, ask me or google it.) After 2 years and 3 months, the IUD is out.
The hormone laden, plastic Hoover dam of my uterus put up a tremendous fight. Severe mood swings, (I'm suprised I am still married folks) Extreme fatigue, (like sleeping ALL fucking day) losing tons and tons of my hair, and that's just to name a few of the un-pleasantries that came with this little gem.
Yes, that's the little devil right there...
This small victory for team West means that now? We get the green light to start working on baby #2. Am I crazy? Well, Ethan is hell on two legs most days so, number 2 can't be worse right? Ya, I figured I'm probably just kidding myself.But, I think that Mr. E needs a permanent playmate! And you best believe I'm trying every trick in the book to get a girl over here, if you haven't noticed, team West is dripping with testosterone. We need to tip the scales in our favor here!
So my girly parts and I are celebrating today's triumph!
( I work in the medical field kids, I know how this shit looks in real life.)
As I left the exam room, I opened the trash can in which the evil Mirena was tossed, gave it the finger, and walked out. Fuck you! I'm getting knocked up! Bitch!
* these photos are inspired by an amazingly hilarious blog that I love hyperbole and a half Get on reading her if you haven't, you will not regret it*
The weather changes and summer's death grip is loosened making way for crisp fall air. Truly there is nothing better than taking a walk or run on a fall morning when the cool air fills your lungs and refreshes you completely.
Fall flavors come out of their yearly hiding. Nothing tastes better than anything with pumpkin in it! Starbucks visits become a two to three times a week thing vs. a once every week/every other week visit when the pumpkin spice latte and pumpkin goodies arrive.
Sweatshirts. Anyone who knows me knows that come fall whatever fashion sense I have is abandoned and I'll done hoodies, sweatshirts, and jackets at any chance. I live for comfort and coziness!
Flannel sheets. The cooler temps are reason enough for me to bust out my ultra soft, super warm flannels. I used to have flannel sheets on year round, but one summer in Vegas will change anyone's thinking on that. So I put them up at the first sign of cooler weather. (Which means they will be on in about two weeks here!)
But my favorite fall moments are pulling out the Halloween decorations the first part of September and covering every inch of my home in orange and black. I know, most people go nuts at Christmas time, but not me. I go nuts at Halloween, (and often incorporate Halloween into my Christmas decor, a la Nightmare Before Christmas.) I have more boxes of Halloween decorations than Christmas! It's sad, well, if you LOVE Christmas anyhow...
And we always dress up for Halloween.
2007: We found it appropriate since I was preggo....I mean, after all I am an angel!! (snort!)
2008: E's first Halloween, we all went as a pirate family but alas I do not have a picture of the three of us. We were dang cute though. But he wins, as usual.
2009: We were dirt poor due to the hubby losing his job not long after the last Halloween, but dammit we were dressed up anyhow! Dr. E, nurse mommy (what a stretch for me) and daddy was the patient.
The ideas for this year are as follows....
A Peter Pan theme
The Wizard of Oz
Or a brave knight, dragon and princess
I will post more pics. It will look pretty interesting trying to fit 3.5 boxes of Halloween crap into 900+ sqft this year!
So, I again am sick. I blame my allergies for the chronic sinusitis that I get about 4 times a year, And it is a BITCH!
a) my head feels like a big balloon (so Pink Floyd)
b) can't sleep unless I'm sitting at a 90 degree angle
c) random bouts of hot flashes and chills
d) shortness of breath due to the fat kid asthma
e) I could go on, but you clearly get the picture.
It is ugly. I am inconsolable. And? I still have to go to work, because missing a day of work results in an approx $230 loss on my paycheck, and that? That is groceries right there. So cannot miss work.
Yesterday after toughing it out for 12 hours at work I came home and tried to sleep at 7 pm. It was nice until I woke up feeling like a 350lb man was sitting on my chest, at midnight. Well this wasn't too much of a problem, I thought I would just take a breathing treatment and be back off the the land of snooze in about an hour. Then I would feel somewhat ok when the alarm went off at 4 am. ( I know, waking up at 4 is tragic enough)
But alas, my illness had other plans.
Pretty soon, it's 1 am...still feeling crappy and uncomfortable.
2am...tried sleeping a variety of different positions, including standing up, no fun kids...and then took some cold medicine
3am, well, I may still get that last hour in...
3:30...finally I fall into the most pleasant sleep that one can while sitting straight up in bed...
at 4 am, that dammned alarm goes off...
"Must go to work....Must feed family..."
Like the night of the living dead I manage to fumble my way through getting ready, surprised that I actually got to work with a bra on, and brushed teeth, as it was quite difficult to function properly with a sickness induced fog hovering around my brain.
I had at one point in the night debated about calling in sick, as it is never a good idea to work with needles and blood when one isn't in the proper state of mind, but I had left a project half finished and I was terribly worried about not completing it.
"I'll just try to work a half day." I decided.
When I got to work, my coworkers took one look at me and asked "why are you here you look like crap!"
"I was worried about the path room, I didn't finish it, I think I'm just going to work a half day."
"That's probably a good idea. Please don't breath near me." Everyone kept their distance and no on argued over me leaving early
At some point I went into the bathroom and gasped as I saw what I looked like. I'm not joking it was quite similar to this:
I"m still not certain how I didn't frighten the hell out of everyone in that hospital, but I toughed it out, and went home at noon to rest. I am now stepping outside my sick chamber to tell you all my tales of woe. Pray for my wellness, and for more sleep tonight as I do have to try to work and entire day tomorrow!
I'm awake late for some unknown reason. At my normal bed time of 10 'o clock I simply could not fall asleep.
Husband came home from work right around midnight. We stayed up and chatted, I tried very hard after that to get to sleep around 1 am.
I here my son start screaming.
My husband is in his room trying to console him.
"What's wrong?" I ask him.
"I don't know, he was screaming 'wait, wait' when I came in."
"Why does it smell like vanilla in here?" (I hate and am very sensitive to vanilla smells and have NOTHING in my house that smells like that) "do you smell that?" I ask.
"Yes," my husband replies. "Do you...think something was in here with him?"
"Give him to me... Maybe, I don't know." I say. "Oh my goodness, his head! His head smells like vanilla! What the fuck SMELLS LIKE VANILLA? I mean you smell it too right? I'm not imagining this right? Whatever it was it was TOUCHING HIM!!"
"No, I do, I smell it too, but right now not as much as when I first came in here."
We all retreat back into the master bedroom, me clutching E with all my might, my husband looking suspiciously around the room. We are both on high alert.
"There has to be some logical explanation to this. There has to be!" I say
"Do you think I should sleep in there, see if anything happends to m..."
"No! I need you here!" I yell.
Ethan has fallen back asleep, me clutching him tightly to my chest. Chris is sitting on the bed highly alert. My brain is wracking all the possibilities of what really happened. Chris slumps a bit and turns to me...
"It's my lotion." He says.
"Holy shit you're right, it has coco butter in it right?" I reply.
We both erupt in laughter.
Go us for changing our lotion brand and thoroughly freaking us both way the fuck out. We watch WAY to much tv. (we haven't had cable for 5 months.)
True story.
We are truly blessed by how well our little man sleeps. Well, in the past that is. You see, we were the cocky parents who got plenty of sleep when he was first born. Only to be woken up every three or four hours to feed. He was sleeping through the night by three months old (mostly thanks to a progressive doctor and forward thinking, new age-y parenting by me) And the kid sleeps, like the dead all night long. Well, again, he did. You see making the move from California to Nevada the first time should have thrown off his perfect sleeping ritual. Or even the fact that we lived in a direct flight path of our airport, but after our normal routine of dinner, bath, and story time, E and I would sit in the rocking chair and he would fall asleep. Those were some of the best times I had with him. I would sit there and hold him long passed the time he fell asleep and just hold onto my little boy with all my might. Truly blessed by his great sleep habits.
When the time came to make the transition between crib and toddler bed we thought it would be more difficult. Would he stay in his bed all night? Would he be up at ungodly hours staring us down in our sleep like a serial killer stalking his pray? We put up a gate on his door the first few weeks to *aid* the transition along some, but soon found he didn't need it. He stayed in his own bed until he awoke in the morning. Life was great. We had a kid who slept so perfectly!
Then we decided to move. And things got ugly, real quick.
First, Eth kept falling out of his toddler bed on a regular basis, prompting him to wake up in a rude fashion, and accordingly, come cry it out with mom and dad. So to solve this problem we used our twin sized air mattress in lieu of his tiny toddler mattress. (anyone who has seen my kid knows he's huge for his age)
When we first laid it out he was stoked....all this bed for ME? I'm sure that was what he thought by the look on his face. But we still had a toddler in our bed just about every night.
Then we were gone for the Christmas holiday. And instead of sleeping in his usual play yard at his auntie's house, he was just too damned big, so in bed with mom and dad he slept. When we got home, the house was in such disarray that his normal sleep habits were not enforced. It became easy to just bring him to bed with me on nights when my husband was away. Eventually, we cleaned out his room and it was probably just too lonely for him to sleep in there by himself. Then we moved.
Now we decided to get him a grown up bed once we had moved, since he has become accustom to this new way of sleeping. Good money spent on a great twin sized mattress for a not-quite-then-two-year-old. Now don't get me wrong here, that kid loves his bed. He jumps on it, rolls around on it, plays on it, reads, ect...but trying to get him to sleep the whole night through on it? Slim chance.
At some point, we just started laying with him in his bed to ease him to sleep. Yes, I know here most of you are shaking your heads thinking, well there is part of your mistake love! I already knew that, but pick your battles right? And when it's 11 pm and you have to be up at 4 am the next morning, you get pretty desperate! MMMkay? So this is where we are now. Almost 7 months into our bad habits and starting to try our hand at sleep training, a thing many of you went through at 6 to 9 months old. And our first night? EPIC fail. Epic. I just ended up caving in and sleeping at the foot of his bed for half of the night, not very comfy kids!
It's not awful, him waking me up at 4 or 5 am, wanting to curl up with us in our bed. Nor is it really bad falling asleep with him in his bed, and then slinking off into our own bed later on. But he was such a good sleeper that I am trying very hard to reclaim my bed, and sleeping through the night un-interrupted. I really want him to regain that independence. And yet at the same time, I cherish him wanting me, needing me to comfort him and cuddle him to sleep. He will not be my baby for much longer. I know this kid, he will be shoving me off him at 5! I want my baby to stay just that, my baby, for a little while longer. To have him come snuggle up to me, shoving me into awkward, tiny spaces in my bed, so tight that an astronaut would be uncomfortable. And, I love those mornings when I wake up in the middle of my man sandwich.
Tonight I'm lucky. He fell asleep, all 3'2" of him curled up on my chest, (at two he knows how great boobs are) fast asleep. I let him stay put for almost an hour after he passed out, just relishing that moment, feeling him breath and twitch. Then I put him in his bed, and if I'm lucky he may just stay put all night long, but I won't mind much if he doesn't! Maybe sleep training can wait a while...
*I'd really love to hear anyone's thoughts, suggestions, critiques on this subject. I'm truly torn by the whole thing! Thanks ;)
I'm actually that bored at work today that I'm *attempting* to write a blog on my iPhone. Let's see how this goes ladies and gents!
I know it's a shock to see me posting again after such a long hiatus. But lately folks, I just haven't been feeling very chatty lately. Things at chez West have been pretty crappy on the financial front and that hits me pretty hard as I am the bread winner for my family. If you haven't experienced it already ad so many have in this economy I can tell you there is no worse feeling than the feeling that you cannot provide for your family. Imagine now, if you will, what my poor husband is going through! So needless to say, it's been difficult to find joy at our home lately.
I try very hard to be optimistic at all costs when things like this get us down. I truely look on the bright side, make lemonaide when life throws those dammned lemons and focus on what we do have, which, if you looked at my pantry you would see not much at all! But I lost all my cheery optimism this time. I let my troubles defeat me.
After a miscommunication with a family member I was feeling really low Monday morning, my hubby sensed my crappy mood and decided to come cuddle with me as my bitter ass laid in bed moping. To me, nothing is better than cuddling with that big ass gizzly bear. Not long after he and I started spooning did the little bear come in, also wanting to cuddle with mom. Even at two that kid is so smart! So I sat in the middle if my man-sandwhich as content and happy as Bill Gates is counting his billions. Nothing could touch me in that moment. I could have been dying some horrible disease and it wouldn't have mattered. Because what it all boils down to is we have each other. We may have nothing else, but those boys are all I need. And things started looking up from that moment on.
Sometimes we are given a crappy situation that will ultimately bring us to our knees. But it's in those moments where we discover who we really are. Discover what we are made of. When the night is at it's darkest we can see how brilliant the stars are!
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