All Kinds Of Stuff

This was originally written on Saturday, March 28, 2009:

Okay I definitely recommend the babysitter thing for stay at home moms -- it was a very healthy move for me, which means it will be a healthy move for Logan as soon as he adjusts (more on that in a minute)! On Thursday while he was there I went grocery shopping, gave one of my dogs a bath, did 30 minutes of exercise, and finished a book I'd been reading FOREVER. In just those 4 hrs I did more for myself than I'd been doing during an entire week in 2009. Even though I was busy, I GAINED energy so that this week when I was with Logan all of the other hours and days, I was 100% having a blast with him.

That had not been happening lately. For the past couple of months I'd been staring at the clock a lot of days, counting the hours until Joe would get home from work. Don't get me wrong, the majority of the time I was having fun with my little guy (I can't help but every day verbally tell Logan how much fun he is), but two of the most important things I strive for in life are to 1) Be real 2) Be in the moment. Now I can like being real every moment again!

Those reasons are part of why I blog. Some people have a problem with bloggers like me who "tell it all," but I will never make apologies for being real. I want people to know "the real me." Those who have been my faithful readers, never missing a post (and reading every word), getting caught up when they get behind, posting comments or sending e-mails about topics I write about - you guys actually know me the best and so I appreciate you taking the time to do so. I learned that not everyone is comfortable with me putting everything "out there," back when Joe & I made a website after we got married (it had pictures and info for our family & friends). I was thrilled when I was able to post my geneology info after interviewing my great aunt the summer of '03. I had no idea what a fascinating story my mom's side of the family had! (I'll have to post it here sometime - her grandma was sent to the U.S. from Italy as steerage on a ship to live in a convent in New York because her mom married a man with two sons and didn't want her daughter to be around them!)

Flash forward two years later when my great aunt's son who I've only met once stumbled across my website in Texas and demanded I take it down. Apparently he called her (she is in her 90's so she doesn't understand the internet) and made it sound like I was bad-mouthing the family to millions of people. My great aunt called my grandma (her sister) crying, telling her I was ruining the family's name forever! My grandma called my mom who then called me wondering what in the world was going on.

To make a long story short, I had mentioned that their grandma (the one who had been sent to New York) had been married to an alcoholic. I also said that their father (my great grandfather) had been invited to be a part of the mafia and when he refused they fired shots through his house. My grandma said yes, this was all true, so there was no reason why I should take the page down. Her sister, however, was embarrassed by these things and was worried future generations would view her family in a negative light. I tried to explain that actually people nowadays would think the mafia thing was "cool" and that nobody would think anything of the alcoholic-thing. Doesn't everyone have an alcoholic in the family? But it was explained to me how back then nobody talked about flaws. Everyone must think they were perfect and "anything we consider to be worth of interest nowadays" was to be kept silent back then.

I wrote my great aunt an apology letter and made it so that the geneology page wouldn't show up in search engines or for those who weren't directly given the URL. I was taught in my journalism classes in college that I have the freedom to write what I want and if it's accurate and the intent is pure--not to hurt anyone--then I should stand up for my work and not let someone else censor me. I had never run into that problem before, but knew as a writer it probably would happen again -- and sure enough, I have with this blog twice (both by the same person). My intent has always been to tell MY story (not anyone else's) -- I don't want to offend anyone, but if I learn that I somehow have, I will make the decision based on the individual circumstance whether to delete something I write. But I won't ever do it because I feel pressured or talked into it.

In 2007 I took our family website offline just because I'd started blogging and was tired of updating it (so my mom's cousin would be glad to know), but I still have the info which I'm proud of (I sooooo admire the women in my family, especially my great-great grandmother who after her husband died due to his alcoholism she raised three kids by herself after the age of 29 and ran three businesses)! I am glad to have "the whole story" for my children and their children (since it is my family, too), thanks to my great aunt being the one to tell me everything nearly 6 years ago because she actually said the words, "You should make this into a book some day" (which I also hope to do, only I will expand it into a fiction novel -- her son can't get mad at that). Anyway, my point is nobody should ever be ashamed of the truth (good or bad), which is why I write about the good AND the bad about my life here. I prefer reading blogs that are honest rather than the ones that never share a problem and act as if everything is always perfect. . .that's just not real life. Older generations might not understand blogging, but I think it's great we have such a support system and community - I'm sure 100 years ago there were many moms who wished they didn't have to keep quiet about everything. I think we're healthier nowadays because of blogging and such!

Okay, back to what I was originally saying. . .I'm glad to be in the moment again with Logan, especially since I was right in my last post: "month 11" is going down as the best ever, so far. He's never been so fascinating to watch as he is right now!!! He actually problem solves now, is understanding cause & effect, consequences, etc. It is so entertaining to see him discover the world (I'd always heard people say that it's awesome to see the world through a child's eyes but never knew what it meant until now).

I love that he wants to put everything IN something. (He tries to fit whatever he can in whatever he can.)

I love that he sticks his tongue out when he's concentrating.

That he knows when I'm holding him by a door to reach down and try to turn the knob to open it, and then when I help him do so, he pushes it shut.

As of today he's taking 9 steps in a row by himself when he walks, although he still prefers crawling most of the day.

He's been consistantly giving me "high 5's" on command every time I ask, which is tons of fun.

I still am in awe that we made this human being and he lived inside of me for 36 weeks+1 day.

Last night I was getting sentimental. He's not even a year old yet and it makes me cry to think of him growing up because I've never been this close to a human being before and it doesn't seem like it's going to stay that way. It seems like "mama's boys" are a bad thing -- i.e. I don't want to be one of those mothers who doesn't want to let their son go when he gets older and then intereferes in his female relationships. But it seems like mothers & adult sons are just acquaintances otherwise. Getting along & checking in with each other, but not being best friends like girls and their moms can be once they're adults. I don't want to be just a casual family member with my son!

So, I went into his room while he was sleeping peacefully and just scooped him out of the crib and rocked him in the recliner, wanting to treasure this time because I never got to rock him in these 11 months and pretty soon he's not going to be a baby anymore! I always thought that was what all mothers did with their babies. Before Logan was born I pictured my baby wanting to be held all of the time, that he was going to need me to soothe him and comfort him. So when he never cried for these things because he was already content & happy, I figured I might as well not fix what wasn't broken; I didn't want to make him develop habits that weren't necessary and were going to be hard to break later. So I rarely held him if I wasn't nursing, and since he never needed me to calm him down or soothe him, nor did I rock him. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the sleep I didn't miss or the energy I didn't drain, but no mom ever said at the end of their life that they wished they hadn't held their baby as much. There is a bonding and comfort for a mother during that time as well! Even though nowadays Logan can hug & kiss me in his own way, and I've always been very lovey-dovey-affectionate towards him (he's never been short on love), without nursing the past two months there is something I miss. So last night I thought what the heck, I'm going to be selfish and hold my son for absolutely no reason!

It was the sweetest of moments, I found myself wiping tears from the corners of my eyes, and then when I placed him back in his crib so that I could go to sleep an hour later, he woke up and started crying. Yes, my fault. So then I held him for another hour. . .but the same thing happened when I placed him in his crib again. Great, see, this is why they tell you not to do this. :p So I held him for another hour until, yep, same thing. At this point I was incredibly exhausted and feeling guilty because I figured he was wanting me/needing me all of a sudden to hold him for the first time because he'd had to be alone for the first time with a babysitter this past week. Not except during his first two weeks of life had I been up 'til 2 am with him! So I woke Joe up and asked if he could get a bottle to see if that would help. The same thing happened to Joe: Logan fell asleep in his arms but then when he put him in the crib Logan woke up and starting screaming. But Joe shut the door and by the time he got to our bedroom thankfully Logan had fallen asleep. It was 3 am. Needless to say I'm groggy today. . .it's too bad I'll be 46 when Logan goes to college, that's too old to have baby #2, haha.

But I don't regret holding him last night. Just like what I said earlier about no mother regretting at the end of her life that she held her child, when I'm 100 years old I'm not going to say "On the night of March 27th, 2009 I missed the most sleep I had with Logan since he was two weeks old because I went in his room to hold him -- that was a mistake because I was tired the next day." If anything I'll say, "I'm so glad that I took moments like March 27th to treasure holding him."

I can't think of a relationship more important or special than that with my son. It's always been hard for me when close relationships end or drift apart. But maybe we will define our own relationship. Maybe it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Hopefully we can always feel this close without him being a "mama's boy" or me being one of THOSE mothers, lol. :p

As for how he did on Thursday, Babysitter said it was definite improvement from Tuesday. This time I brought him over at 8:35 and told her Joe will bring him from now on his way to work at 8 and I will pick him up at noon. I could tell right away that he remembered and knew where we were & what was going on. He didn't take his eyes off me this time and when I said goodbye and started to go up the steps I heard a "cough" that he sometimes does before he starts crying. I said in my head, Please don't cry while I'm still here because then I'll cry! Fortunately, I didn't hear any other sound from him.

When I picked him up, it was better than last time because he gave me the biggest smile (rather than cried) when he saw me. Babysitter was walking around holding him so I could tell that he'd been crying again, but she said that it was only a few times. When I had left that morning the almost 4-year-old had asked, "Are you going to stay with Logan?" I answered, "No, I'm not." He said, "But he's going to cry!"

Stab.

Babysitter said that this time he ventured off by himself a couple of times -- crawling and exploring areas away from her, whereas last Tuesday he hadn't left her side. However, when she had to leave his side to get some paper towels during lunch, he got extremely upset. So he's definitely attaching to her, which is good. It made me feel nice that I saw her eyes tear up when she was talking about how they sang a song to him that she has taught all of her kids, "Mommy Comes Back."

When I had arrived there had been fun "kid music" playing in the background and the almost 4-year-old had said they'd been listening to Babysitter read a book. When I was talking to her and holding Logan, the almost 4-year-old was running around with another 4-year-old who comes over at noon from pre-school on Tues & Thurs, and Logan was sooooo intrigued, he didn't take his eyes off the boys running around. I do think that he's going to end up really liking & wanting to go there. Especially once the 9-month-old is at an age to play with him. Right now the 9-month-old reminds me of Logan at 6 months old, but hopefully when he comes back this fall (since he's not going to come over the summer) they will be more at a similar level.

Also hopefully when I take him back this Tuesday he won't have to start all over again. The only downside so far is that Babysitter told me she fed Logan spaghetti and oranges for lunch on Thursday. We've never fed Logan oranges because that is citrus which you aren't supposed to have until 12 months old because a lot of babies are intolerant. Well on Friday I was changing Logan's diaper and he had only the second diaper rash he's ever had in his life on the inside of his cheeks -- and a piece of orange was in diahhrea. :( He only took a half-an-hour nap that day (which was the hour before), which I thought was odd (he always does 1.5-3 hrs); that may have been why. I read those are common signs that he had a bad reaction, so citrus is going to be off limits to Logan for a couple of more months. At first I felt that pit in my stomach like, this is the kind of stuff I dreaded about him being under someone else's care. He's never had a food allergy before. But Joe was like, "Logan is going to be 12 months old in 2.5 weeks. He would have had that same reaction in a couple of weeks if we'd been the one to feed him oranges, which was bound to happen." I knew he was right and so I relaxed about it immediately. The main thing is that Logan was in an extremely good mood on both Tues & Thurs when he woke up from his naps those afternoons, so it does not appear that going to a babysitter's a total of 8 hrs per week is traumatizing to him.

Unfortunately, however, the bump on Logan's scar has grown. After I called the ENT on Tuesday, it went away again but then 24 hrs later it came back bigger. I forgot to pick up bacitracin ointment so we've been putting witch hazel on it a couple of times a day (a more natural remedy), but that hasn't helped. They had said that if it didn't go away within a week to call and make an appt so that they could look at it. So I'm calling first thing on Monday because the area is all red and swollen. :( Joe & I saw on the internet this means that the sutures inside have gotten infected. Great, the whole reason why we had the surgery was to avoid infection and now he's gotten an infection due to having scar tissue!!!! :(

On the bright side, the past couple of days he has been sleeping until 8 am again and hasn't had anymore nightmares, so hopefully the getting up at 6:30 am again was just Mon thru Thurs. I also figured out how to cut his fingernails at this age: just do one at a time quickly & randomly throughout the day!

The only other news from this week was that I had a massage yesterday for the first time since the end of January (it was nice not to have to worry about my breasts leaking or my wrists hurting from de quervain's for the first time, lol). AND, my first friend due to have a baby in April, Heather, had her little girl exactly one week before her due date, Wednesday, March 25th at 1:01 pm! Her labor was 14 hrs and Eden Elizabeth was 9 lbs and 21 inches long!!!! She had a snapped collar bone, but both she & mommy are doing well now and are home from the hospital with Daddy Nick! My other two friends are due in 1.5 and 2.5 weeks!

On a completely different subject, I changed the title of this blogsite because now that I have a babysitter I DO have time for a haircut, haha (and have one scheduled for April 10th when I plan to get my hair back to its original color rather than this current not-red-but-not-any-other-color; I don't plan to color it anymore until I go gray!) :)

To conclude today's post. . .I deleted my Facebook page last week. For those of you who don't know my story: I started off as a MySpace addict in October 2005. I'm not kidding when I say "addict," I was on ALL of the time. I was always signed in while I was working on my novel -- those days I was either fiction writing or on MySpace, that was pretty much my life. Sad, but true. Joe knew it was bad when we'd be laying in bed at night and I'd say, "I just thought of a change I need to make to my MySpace page!"

Seriously.

Everyone came to me for help with their pages because I was a pro. (The pic to the left is my dog Cosmo looking at the page I had in July '07.) I changed my layout depending on my mood, changed my song every day, updated the info, pictures, and videos constantly, and had everyone else's pages memorized (to the point where I actually knew where they were located on my pages so that if someone left I knew immediately who they were). I looked up everyone I had ever met as far back as pre-school and at least I did get a lot of enjoyment from it. It was my hobby, since back then I didn't scrapbook, and it was my socialization since I stopped working at the radio station during the spring of 2006 and would go a week or more without seeing anyone except Joe.

But, like all addictions, they run their course. After I took our family website down during the spring of 2007, I began to lose interest in MySpace that summer. I had begun blogging, scrapbooking, and finally came out of my cave to have a social life in Omaha (I lived here for 4 years before I hung out with anyone in Omaha other than my friend Melissa who moved away last year to Arizona). A lot of people began saying Facebook was better, so I signed up for that instead. But I found it boring compared to all of the stuff that you can do over at MySpace and a lot more confusing and ADDish. So, I only had a page for about 2 weeks and then re-joined MySpace. . .although I wasn't as "into" it as I'd been before. I hardly talked to anyone the second time around and so I deleted my page that summer (2008). Meanwhile, I was getting more requests to give Facebook another try so I did that fall. . .but still didn't like it, so I deleted my page again! I was glad that it kept all of my info, though -- it was nice not to have to start all over.

At this point I was confusing everyone because then I re-joined MySpace again. :/ But, in early 2009 I remembered why I'd quit and so I deleted my page once and for all. (I won't be coming back.) But then what did I do? I activated my Facebook page again! I stayed on for 2.5 months (the longest I ever had there) but although I enjoyed getting in touch with all of the people who hadn't been on MySpace, I found it to be a waste of time and still confusing and headache-provoking, so now I am off BOTH sites. (Although it is possible I may give Facebook one more try in the future.)

With that said, on January 29th I had an interesting experience worth mentioning. Here is the blog I started writing that night, but I got too tired and never finished it until now:

11:07 PM. . .Oh my gosh. Tonight I decided to look for people I might know on Facebook--and so I randomly thought of as many people from my past as I could. One of those names? We'll call him D. He was the guy I was an intern for during my first summer out of college.

I'd been soooo excited in November 2001 to have a job lined up for when I graduated from ISU in May 2002. One of my journalism teachers had recommended I interview with a woman who was hiring for an intern reporter & photographer position at a TV station Eastern Iowa. Little did I know until I got to the room that I was LAST of 60 applicants to be interviewed. Maybe it was this (the fact that I didn't think the odds were in my favor to get the job so there was no pressure) or that my teacher had told me about this that day (so there wasn't time for me to get nervous--I remember there was hardly enough time for me to throw on my "interview outfit"). . .but I did get the job!

It was in the same area where I'd lived for ten years (1988-1998) so I was familiar with the city and had a couple of friends close by. I was appreciative of my mom & stepdad apartment-hunting with me over my spring break and I found a perfect place with a pool and tennis courts (the picture to the left is me by my door; I was never able to use the pool & court, though, because I was so busy that summer). I was looking forward to beginning my career as a television reporter. I'd been preparing for this moment since I was 12 years old and had big dreams to be a national news anchor. The year prior I'd been chosen to intern at CNN's Chicago bureau as well as MSNBC in New York, but my parents had not been supportive (that's a whole different story) and so I hoped that my contacts would still be around once this internship was over since I'd have $ to move then. I was engaged to Joe, but he didn't have a job yet (he still had another semester at ISU because he was a double major), so believe it or not at that time he was going to go wherever I went!

But, New York or Chicago wasn't meant to be for us. Not only did I work 60 hrs each week and D made me come in as early as 5 AM some of the days (because "that's the life of a TV reporter, plus holidays & weekends, so get used to it"), but I spent every second with D, who I realized was the definition of the words: Egotistical and Jerk.

On my first day we were covering an election in Dubuque, IA and he told me that I was never going to make it as a reporter because I was "too nice." Funny how in the 10 years that I'd been preparing and centering my life around this profession, no one had ever told me you must be mean to be a reporter. He told me I could not follow rules if I wanted to succeed. Police might threaten to arrest me, but I must ignore them! I planned to prove him wrong. I had the ambition and the talent and 10 years of experience (lots of TV news in high school and college), so I was sure he'd change his mind.

Sad to say, I was the one who changed my mind. By the end of the summer I didn't know what to do with my life anymore. I wish I could say that I stayed strong and came out "showing him," but mid-way through the summer when I lost my grandfather I realized there were more important things in life and I really didn't care to impress D anymore. Until then I'd been putting 110% into every day, keeping a smile on my face, never letting him know when I felt like crying, working so hard and pushing myself that I became sick (I lost 22 lbs and had IBS for the only time in my life, here you can see how skinny I was. I didn't really recover or put the weight back on until a year later after I got married and moved to Omaha).Nor did I report him when he made advances towards me (he was married, by the way). After July 11th when my maternal grandpa died, it occured to me that the job wasn't worth me sacrificing my health, so I basically counted the days until my internship ended on August 31st. I was offered a full-time job by the news director at the TV station, but I turned it down.

My next job was at the most popular TV station in Iowa (Des Moines) and it was IDEAL compared to my internship. Instead of reporting I was a tape editor and was also in charge of playing all of the footage during the 5, 6, and 10:00 PM newscasts. This was a very difficult job, so I am proud of myself that I did so well and loved it, never messing up once. I received constant praise which helped me get my self-esteem back, and I loved my co-workers! I appreciated every second after my nightmare summer with D. They offered me a job as a producer (which is a better paying job than a reporter and would have allowed me to WRITE all of the scripts), but by then it was April and Joe had gotten his first job in Omaha, so since our wedding was April 26th, 2003 I left the world of TV forever when I moved with him (then I was a radio host for the next three years until April 2006, followed by a writer for the three years after that (which means the last three--obviously a better fit for what I wanted to do with my life). The TV station had a going-away party for me and I was on the 10:00 news that night which was fun. I'm still grateful that I had a positive experience to overshadow my negative one. . .but I will never forget the summer with D.Not only did he criticize everything I did and constantly put down my personality and other things personal to me, but early on he asked, "Are you a Christian?" I was surprised that he would ask me that but I answered, "Yes." He let me know that he was an athiest. Um, okay. . .what was he expecting? That I, a 22-year-old in my first job was going to get into a debate with my 27-year-old supervisor over religion? It was awkward. . .he would bring this subject up from time to time over the course of the summer because we had a lot of long drives in the newsvan. I support debaters, but God did not make me one -- it is not something I feel comfortable doing -- if you've noticed I refrain from talking about religion, politics, etc. here because I respect that everyone I know has different opinions and beliefs and that is all right with me. I'm a very spiritual person and value my close relationship with God, but I don't think I have all of the answers or that it's necessary for others to agree with what is in my heart.

D had a lot of hurt and anger towards his mother for being an alcoholic and unloving towards him when he was a child; he asked me "why" God would have her be his mother. Maybe I made a comment about free will, I'm not really sure. . .I know I told him situations that had been enough in my life to prove to me there was a God. . .but needless to say, over the years every now and then D would come to my mind and I'd feel sad for him. So I'd think about things maybe I could have said to help him have peace in this area. Since he was the one who always brought up the subject, I do think he was actually looking for someone to help change his mind (despite most people not wanting to be preached to, I think he really did -- but I didn't) so I wondered if I had failed in being a person who could have done so. I almost wonder if God was trying to use me because of what was about to happen in D's life.

Imagine the shivers that went down my spine when I saw him on Facebook and learned that not long after I left in 2002 his dad was diagnosed and then suddenly died of cancer, then just a month later his mom fell down the steps and died, and just a few months after that his wife's dad committed suicide for what appeared to be no reason. He felt the need to get out of Iowa and so the summer of 2003 he got a TV job in Portland, but his wife wanted to stay with the rest of her family in Iowa and so they divorced. Last year he left Portland for Ohio but doesn't like it and is now trying to get a job as a reporter in Chicago. He's been writing a book about his experiences. . .but I can't tell if he's changed for the better since I knew him. We exchanged "updates" and he said how great it was to hear from me, but he was one of those guys that half of what made him a jerk was that he would be nice to someone's face and then turn around and make fun of them. This happened to people we interviewed that had sad stories that brought tears to my eyes! So, after 3 messages back in January that was it and I don't plan to contact him again, but if he gets his book published I'll be interested in reading it. I do hope the best for him, NOBODY deserves to go through that kind of pain.

Well that ended up being a longer story that I'd planned (what else is new, lol) so I will bring this to a close now!