Glam-O-Mommy

At Disney, Dreams Really Do Come True

2012-01-29T21:09:00.000-06:00

I love Disney World. As a kid, I used to daydream that I lived in Disney World. I would ride all the rides during the day and by night I'd sleep in Cinderella's Castle. Occasionally, I would camp out in the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse or on Tom Sawyer's Island.

So, it was a no-brainer to want to take Sophie to Disney World. I hadn't been myself since 1994. To make it even more fun, I thought the Grandparentals could come with us and we could combine the trip with a Thanksgiving visit to my mom's sister, my favorite aunt, who is now disabled and unable to travel.

Disney Highlights:

First sighting of Cinderella's castle, or as Sophie calls it "My Castle."

Pluto!

The castle looked gorgeous in lights!

We spent lots of time taking buses from our resort, Shades of Green, to the parks.
Sophie loved the bus rides as much as anything else! Here she is with the Grandparentals.

My favorite part of the Animal Kingdom was the safari!

Sophie loves Chip and Dale, so we were glad to see them!

The main man, Mickey!

I loved riding in Spaceship Earth at Epcot!
Sophie loved the bubbles the Disney folks were blowing for fun!

A Francophile like me was very excited to visit the Paris section of Epcot,

but we were especially excited to encounter Marie
from one of our favorite movies, The AristoCats!

Everything we did was leading up to this...

Sophie in her Cinderella costume going to meet Cinderella

and eat dinner in the castle at Cinderella's Round Table!

Cinderella with her lord and lady in waiting.

Cinderella and her favorite subjects, Papa and Nana.

As we waited to be seated, Sophie really hit it off
with this little girl Grace who was dressed as Ariel!

Sophie and Grace were fast friends...they were so adorable
and this was one of my favorite moments of the trip!

Princesses have to twirl!

Sophie was totally starstruck when she met Cinderella!

The blue crew...Cinderella commented that we were all wearing her favorite color!

Still stunned when meeting Snow White back at our table.

Still in disbelief meeting Belle. Not sure why Belle isn't wearing her yellow princess dress.

By the time Aurora, Sleeping Beauty, came by, Sophie was warmed up and ready to chat!

Excited to meet Ariel!

It was such a magical night and Sophie is still talking about all of it months later!

Oops...Sophie turned into a pumpkin on our way back to the resort!

She was so tired she didn't even wake up as we changed her into her PJs and put her to bed!

Eating dinner at Cinderella's Castle was the fulfillment of the dreams I had of living in the castle as a little girl, but the experience was made even more amazing by how much Sophie loved it. It was worth every penny we spent...everyone there was so nice to us, the princesses were so sweet to my shy, starstruck little princess, the food was amazing, the pictures turned out wonderful...I just can't say enough good things about it. And Sophie still talks about it, so I hope that it's a memory she treasures forever. I know I will.

Overall, I think the trip was fantastic...we had some moments where we all had different ideas about what we wanted to do and everyone got on each other's nerves a little in the interminable waiting in line for rides, but despite that, our party of five had a really great time!

After we finished up at Disney, J and I took a side trip over to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was super fun and deserves its own post, and then we all headed to my aunt's house to spend a few days with her and celebrate Thanksgiving, which was wonderful.

I'm so glad we did this trip when Sophie was this age. It was the perfect combination of Disney magic and family together time!

What are your favorite things to do at Disney World?

How Do You Know When You’re Done?

2012-01-12T21:29:00.000-06:00

This is a question I’m asking myself a lot lately in relation to having children, because I am pondering taking steps toward permanent birth control.

I love being an only child. I don’t feel I missed out by not having siblings. I have a very close, very loving relationship with my parents. Growing up, I got to take dance classes, piano lessons, and fun summer programs, and go to a great university. Our family was firmly lower middle class, so if I’d had additional siblings, these things probably wouldn’t have been possible.

Given my background, I really only ever wanted to have one child. And J was good with having just one as well. Other than moments of desperation during our infertility battle when we would’ve happily taken quintuplets if that’s what we were blessed with, and my one bout of serious babyfever when Sophie was 18 months old, we’ve both been completely grateful to have Sophie and, at the same time, completely in agreement that we were one and done.

Sophie is an amazing kid. She has traveled with us to several states and two other countries in her short life. I’ve already got her in ballet, tap, and soccer, and life is SO GOOD. We are so blessed.

I really, deep down in my heart, know with 100 percent certainty that I don’t want to have another child. I don’t.

Our life is busy, our house is always messy, and I had to go part-time just to feel like I had a handle on things after Sophie was born. And I’ve adjusted to it and I love it (other than the messiness of my house) because of all the wonderful moments in those crazy days with my little girl, when she’s talking to me about her day or playing princesses or dancing alongside me to Just Dance 3 on the Wii. I just can’t see adding another child and more craziness and more stress to my life.

And I’m certainly done with fertility drugs and infertility treatments. NEVER AGAIN. I’m pretty sure seven months of fertility drugs did a number on my body that continues to this day and I have no desire to put myself at further risk physically or emotionally.

So, considering that I AM infertile, why am I even considering permanent birth control? Do I really have to worry about that?

Yes, because it would be my luck to have a fluke cycle where I randomly got pregnant despite my infertility. It has happened to people I know. And while if it happened, I’d consider that God’s will and proceed forth in life as a mother of two, I don’t really want to leave things to chance.

TMI ALERT!

The bigger reason I am considering permanent birth control is simple. I’m tired of having a period.

As a teenager, I had horrible periods (probably caused in part by an undiagnosed thyroid condition) where I bled for a month straight or every other week. All the time. It was traumatizing, until I was 17 and my mother took me to an OB/Gyn, Dr. F, who put me on the pill. Suddenly, I had simple, three-day periods, once a month like clockwork. I stayed on that pill for 16 years, until J and I decided to start trying for a baby when I was 33.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that pill-free, my period only lasted an extra day and was still pretty regular. Then, six months later, I was UNpleasantly surprised to find out I wasn’t even ovulating and couldn’t get pregnant, so what was I doing with a period every month anyway?!

Then, we finally had Sophie (who was delivered by Dr. F-I find someone I like, I stay with them!). When my periods returned post-pregnancy, they were much heavier, crampier, and longer. The pill no longer worked for me and I had lots of breakthrough bleeding, so I stopped taking it. This last year, my periods started coming closer and closer together, so I was basically bleeding every third week.

I really feel like my quality of life is suffering. I’m exhausted, probably a little anemic, and uncomfortable, more than I’m not at this point.

Researching my options, I discovered something called ablation, where they laser off the uterine lining and you no longer have a period. You usually have to do something else along with ablation, such as your husband having a vasectomy (not likely) or having your tubes tied (more likely for me), because if you did get pregnant after having ablation, the egg wouldn’t have anywhere to implant and it would be a bad, guilt-inducing situation.

So, I visited Dr. F, explained the situation, and waited to see what he recommended. I didn’t mention anything about ablation-I wanted to see if he brought it up as an option. I did tell him that my ever-closer periods, plus a laundry list of other symptoms meant I was going into early menopause. Ha!

He told me I was NOT going into early menopause (not sure I believe him), didn’t mention ablation as an option, but thought the reason my periods are coming closer together is because my eggs, which were so awesome and viable just three years ago (it’s the only fertility test I passed with flying colors-I had good eggs, they just didn’t GO anywhere to make me pregnant!), are now aging and unable to last a full cycle. Thus, closer-together periods.

He actually said, “Well, if you were trying to get pregnant now, you’d need a lot of help.” Um, hello, I needed a lot of help the first time when my eggs were GREAT!

He recommended I go back on a very low-dose version of the pill that would sort of smooth things out hormonally and help the eggs hang on longer, thus spacing my periods back out some. Great! A solution that’s not so drastic, I thought.

I started the new pill at the end of my period on a Sunday. Six days later, OUR FIRST DAY AT DISNEY WORLD, I began bleeding again. Heavily. And I bled for the rest of the trip, until I finally stopped taking the pill. Two periods in three weeks. ARGH. No more pill for me.

Then, last month, pill-free, I had a few days where my cycle ran long and I hadn’t started bleeding, and I was like, “What if I am pregnant?!” and I was in a complete panic. I really didn’t want to be pregnant and I was so relieved when my period finally came and I knew I wasn’t.

So, now I’m back to considering talking to Dr. F about more drastic measures like ablation and tube-tying, but I’m having a hard time with it. Because even though I know I truly don’t want to have another baby, it is so hard for me to take a step that will make it COMPLETELY impossible. To close that door forever.

As an infertile person, I spent a lot of time praying to God because I wanted a baby more than anything in the world. I’m so lucky to have a beautiful, healthy child and I’m completely happy, grateful, and fulfilled as a mother of one. Even though I really don’t want another baby, it still feels too hard to personally take an action to end my childbearing ability forever. Even if it is probably already gone on its own anyway (see: AGING EGGS).

So, I’m just waiting and thinking. And giving it more time. And hoping that I can be at peace with whatever decision I ultimately make. If anyone else has thought about this or done this, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Say My Name, Say My Name

2012-01-09T22:57:00.000-06:00

Ever since I started this blog almost two years ago, I've referred to myself as Glam-O-Mommy, my daughter as S, and my husband as J.

I did this because I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into and being anonymous seemed like a safe choice. My husband preferred that I keep things anonymous...he's a very private person and doesn't even like knowing that I share our life so openly on Facebook. Also, I really wanted this to be a place where I could write privately from my "in-real-life friends" and just write whatever I think without having to filter my thoughts.

All this time later though, I find I really want to come out of the anonymous closet. I want to use my first name and my daughter's first name. Through this blog and Twitter, I've made some terrific internet friends and I know their names and their kids' names and it seems weird to keep carrying on anonymously.

I will say that everything I've written on my blog to this point is absolutely true and my real life with just names changed, but now I'm going to just say my name, say my name (sorry-Beyonce on the brain).

Hi, I'm Sonya aka Glam-O-Mommy.

Hi. I'm Sonya, aka Glam-O-Mommy. I am indeed 38 and a working mother of one who went through seven months of hellish fertility drugs and two rounds of IUI to get pregnant with my miracle baby.

This is Sophie.

The miracle baby's name is Sophie and she is the smartest, funniest, prettiest, tallest three-year-old who isn't completely potty-trained (still!) I know.

J and Sophie, ringing in the New Year.

I'm going to continue to refer to my Canadian, IT-guy husband by his first initial J, just for him.

Sonya and Sophie...pretty cute names for a mother-daughter duo, right? :) Both of our names are derived from the Greek "Sophia" and mean "wisdom." Sonya is the Russian derivation and Sophie is the French derivation. When we found out we were having a girl, J wanted both of us to have "S" names. He is part French-Canadian, and I love all things French, so Sophie was an easy choice.

So, there you have it, internet. Feel free to say my name anytime, and I hope you come back soon. I'm going to try and blog more regularly in 2012!

Glam-O-Update

2011-11-06T22:31:00.000-06:00

This has been a crazy fall. Over and over again, I have an idea for a blog, then time passes and I can't seem to find time to stop and write. So here is an update on all the random things that have happened in the last two months or that I wanted to post about recently.

1. Goodbye, Paci.
S turned three at the end of August, so I knew the time had come that we absolutely had to take away the paci. We considered doing it last year, but thought we would wait until she was potty trained (ha ha). Since that is an ongoing process, we decided to do it in late September when we had a week off from work and could afford a few sleepless nights. We had already limited her use of it to her room at night only several months ago.
In the last few weeks S had with the paci, I was really emotional. S took to the paci from day one and it always soothed her so well and calmed her down immediately no matter what. I was sad to see this last vestige of her babyhood going away, but I was also really sad that I knew it was coming and she didn't. The last two days she had with the paci I got teary watching her sleep with it.

We got rid of it in an interesting way. The last month we hid all the pacis except one that had a sea turtle on it. The week we were off, we went down to Corpus Christi to the beach and then spent the night.

On the beach, no idea this is her last day with the paci :(

The next day we visited the Texas State Aquarium and saw the sea turtles. All of them are injured in some way and cannot be released back in to the wild. S was fascinated by the guide's explanation of which ones were missing flippers and such. "He's missing his arm!" she said, over and over. J and I, sensing an opportunity, told S that she should give them her paci, because it would make them feel so much better. "Because they're missing their arms!" she replied. Before we left, she picked out a stuffed sea turtle to take home.

Hemingway is missing a few arms, poor thing

The sea turtles are so sweet!

That night, when she asked for her paci at bedtime, we told her we had left it with the sea turtles to make them feel better and that she had her stuffed turtle to make her feel better. She cried, but adjusted well. She's only asked for it twice in the last six weeks. She's definitely not sleeping as well without it and there have been days J and I wished we could give it to her to help, but we've stayed strong even though we're sad.

2. Potty Training Continues.
S has gotten really good about going pee on the potty, but still has the occasional accident at home and at school. She still mostly refuses to poop on the potty, but did go unprompted recently. We were at a friend's house for a dinner playdate with my two mom friends and their kids. All of a sudden, the kids got quiet, so we went to check on them. They had left my friend's son's room and went into the bathroom together! When we found them, my friend pulled her four-year-old son out of the bathroom, just as S hopped off the potty totally bare butt, having just pooped on the potty, and my other friend's daughter was jumping on without flushing LOL. S doesn't want to poop on the potty, but it's cool to do it with friends? Peer pressure at work? I don't know, but it was really funny!

S with Spiderman, her bathroom buddy!

3. Disney!
We are leaving for Disney World in 10 days and I feel really unprepared. I have no idea what to pack. I feel like I have nothing to wear. And I've been working so hard and planning the trip for so long that it doesn't seem real it's 10 days away. I feel like I should be more excited? But I can't quite muster up the enthusiasm yet? What is wrong with me? DISNEY, PEOPLE! I haven't been since 1994! Come on!

4. Giving Hope.
Last year, I wrote about one of my sorority sisters who reached out to me after I posted something on Facebook about going through infertility. She thanked me for speaking out about my infertility battle and wrote "now when I see your posts it also reminds me that even people who struggle with infertility can end up with a fantastic family." I was incredibly touched to hear that, since I've made a point about speaking out about my infertility in hopes of helping to end the stigma infertile women and men feel. We wrote back and forth, sharing information and experiences for several months.

This week, she announced on Facebook that she is pregnant! I literally cried tears of joy for her and her husband. It's so wonderful to see someone else getting their miracle. She wrote me a personal note after she announced it, thanking me again for my support. I couldn't be happier for her!

5. Extracurriculars.
S has started two new extracurricular activities this fall. She is taking ballet and tap at her day school every Wednesday and Soccer Tots on Saturday mornings.

She took to dance right away and is very excited every Wednesday to get to wear her tutu! She loves her teacher and seems to really love dancing! And this just warms my heart, since I took 11 years of ballet, two on pointe, 11 years of tap, several years of jazz, and danced on my high school and college dance teams. Nothing would make me happier than if dance is something she loves and continues to love doing as she grows up! Don't get me wrong...I don't want to be one of those crazy Dance Moms, but I would love to share that interest with her and get to relive some of my dance years through her!

S doing her best Flashdance impression

Soccer had a bit of a rocky start because the skills class requires the parents to be involved at first until the kids get comfortable. We finally figured out that if we just sit out and cheer her on, but let her do everything by herself, she follows the coach's instructions and behaves MUCH better LOL. She's doing great though and it's terrific exercise, so we are signing her up for the next session and will probably keep with it for awhile!

Score!

6. High School Reunion.
My 20-year high school reunion was at the beginning of October. I kind of dreaded it beforehand, but it ended up being SO MUCH FUN. I think the reason I liked it was that it was better than the 10-year. At the 10-year, everyone was focused on what they had and what they were doing. At the 20, people were just genuinely excited to see each other and see everyone's kids and it was awesome!

Me, Salutatorian of my class, 1991

My two girlfriends/dates for the reunion, a guy friend we were all excited to see, and me at the reunion banquet!

Another reason it was fun was because instead of dragging my poor husband who didn't know anyone and would've been miserable to the banquet, I went with two of my girlfriends from high school. One is getting divorced and didn't want to go alone and the other's husband was like mine and wouldn't know anyone, so we went together! And driving around before and after, reminiscing, and dancing at the event really felt like old times, as if 20 years had not passed!

Then, the following day, we had a big reunion picnic, so I brought J and S to that and introduced them to everyone. It was neat to see S playing with the daughter of one of my friends from junior high!

With my friend and her new baby at the reunion picnic

My friend P's daughter with S. P and I were really good friends in junior high!

7. The Best Halloween.
This was S's fourth Halloween, but definitely the best so far. The first year, she was eight weeks old, and I dressed her in a furry pumpkin onesie and worried that she was hot all night since it was 95 degrees.

My little pumpkin, Halloween 2008

The next year, at age one, she was a cute Tinkerbell, but was so cranky she only wore the costume long enough for me to take pictures and did not go to any houses. (Also? Still 95 degrees!)

Tinkerbell, Halloween 2009

Last year, she went as sort of a bee fairy. She was cranky about putting on the costume and only made it to three houses before she had a complete meltdown and the night was over. And it was 95 degrees.

Bee Fairy, Halloween 2010

This year, S decided she wanted to be Cinderella. I got the full Disney costume, since we are going to have dinner with Cinderella at the castle during our Disney visit, so she can wear it again. She tried it on a few days before Halloween and was SO excited! "I'm a princess, Mommy! Like Cinderella! I'm so pretty!" she said. So adorable!

Halloween night, she came home from school and wanted to immediately put on the costume! And when she realized people would give her candy at each house, she was all about trick or treating. We went all the way around the block, hit about 16 houses, and had so much fun! She didn't meltdown or fuss once. Everyone thought she was so sweet! And it was actually only 75 degrees, which was AWESOME.

Cinderella, Halloween 2011

Trick or treat!

Happy Halloween!

So there you have it...my fall, abridged version. How was yours? I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving and I will try to post a Disney vacation update after we return! If you have any Disney travel tips for me, please share. I definitely need them!

Ten on Tuesday

2011-10-04T23:12:00.001-05:00

I thought I would take a moment to do Ten on Tuesday! Thanks to Chelsea over at Roots and Rings for hosting and providing the questions!

1. How do you take your coffee?
I don't. My regular Starbucks order is a Grande Peppermint Hot Chocolate. However, Coke is my real coffee. I drink it every day!

2. Do you prefer soft or crispy chocolate chip cookies?
I prefer chewy and warm chocolate chip cookies. Or better yet, I can be happy just eating the dough straight out of the package before I get around to baking any.

3. Do you wear a belt everyday?
I haven't worn a belt since I graduated from college, not even with jeans. Post-baby especially, I am attempting to camouflage the mommy pooch in my waist-ish area, so I don't need a belt shouting, "LOOK! FAT RIGHT HERE!"

4. What is your favorite color combination?
Pale blue and black. Or turquoise and chocolate brown. Or cherry red and pale pink.

5. Do you like sour candy?
I LOVE Sour Patch Kids. Obsessed.

6. How often do you do laundry?
I do laundry almost every day. S often comes home from school with poopy, wet, or food-stained clothes, so I try to toss those in the wash and take care of them right away. Some weekends I do five loads in a row to catch up (towels, my lights, my darks, darks for S, lights for S).

7. Did you ever wear braces?
In third grade, I wore braces on my front two teeth and my bottom teeth to straighten them up for a year. Then, I wore this awful contraption called a bionator for another year to correct my overbite. I have pretty straight teeth today, so I think it was all worth it.

8. Are you good at Roman Numerals?
I know enough to figure out the year at the end of movies.

9. What is your favorite form of social media?
I love Facebook for connecting with my friends and family across the globe. It's especially great for sharing what is going on with S with her Canadian grandparents who don't get to see her often. I love Twitter as a way to learn from others with common interests (Harry Potter, mommy stuff, infertility issues, Castle love, etc.). I also love that I can ask a question out to the Twitterverse and almost instantaneously get an answer! That totally surprised my husband when I tried it recently.

I think Twitter is really my favorite at this point, because I feel like I've "met" so many interesting people from across the country, even the world! As I go through my day, I find myself checking in on my Twitter friends!

10. How do you feel about chin dimples?
I think dimples in general are awesome. And usually adorable. :)

3rd Birthday Farm Fiesta!

2011-09-18T16:25:00.000-05:00

On August 27th, 2011, we celebrated S's 3rd birthday with a fun birthday party at Fiesta Farm and Petting Zoo!

It was super fun, although it was the hottest day of the year. The Nana and I have decided no more outdoor parties in August, but we think the farm party was a big success! Here are some pictures!

S, the birthday girl

Climbing on tractor tires

Watch out world!

Party decorations

Thank-you gift bags

Greeting her friends

Hugs galore

Tiny goat!

The kids loved this part!

That's my hand holding the goat food LOL

S and her friend play trucks in the sandbox

S and Papa (my Dad) play with toys in the water trough

S and Papa

Pony rides!

S's friend E riding-all the kids got a turn!

S's friends get ready for the hayride!

S at the back of the hayride with her friends

She's having fun so Mommy's happy!

S enjoying the bubble machine!

Um, why are 40 people staring at me and singing?

I don't want to have a birthday! I don't want to grow up!

I DON'T WANT TO BE A BIG GIRL!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Wait, birthday girls get cake?!

Maybe being a big girl isn't SO bad.

(Nana and Daddy are in these last two pictures with me)

S's friend G enjoys her cupcake

Nana cut all these cupcake toppers!

Wow...I'm three now!

Mommy's big girl! *

The party was so much fun, but I have no idea how I will top it for S next year! I guess I have a few months to figure it out. :)

*All photos by Orange Crayon Photography.

Still Good in the World

2011-09-06T06:00:00.009-05:00

The world changed irrevocably on September 11, 2001. While I didn't lose anyone I personally knew in the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, I lost the belief that living in the United States meant being protected from outside forces of evil, that being an American meant things usually worked out okay. I was incredibly naive, obviously, bad things happen in America and to Americans all the time (e.g., Oklahoma City, Columbine, etc.). But 9/11 just destroyed any sense I had that things would usually work out and be okay.

On September 11, 2001, I was single, 28 years old, working, and had moved in with my parents after my Daddy had retired from the Air Force and they moved back to San Antonio. The first year they lived here I spent three to four nights a week at their house eating dinner, so it made sense to move in with them and save all that rent money for traveling and other adventures. In fact, I had a solo trip to Paris planned for February 2002.

The morning of 9/11, I was driving to work, listening to a CD in my car. When it ended, I switched over to the radio and heard the normally jovial DJs talking in somber tones about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. When I walked into my office, I headed for our conference room to turn on the TV and see what was going on. I found all of my coworkers already assembled, watching the news, some crying. Grasping the main details of the crash, I called my mother, who I knew was still asleep at home, and told her to get up and turn on the TV, something big was happening. Then, I called my Daddy at work to make sure he had heard. When I stepped back into the conference room, the second plane hit. Then, the Pentagon.

Realizing the United States was really under attack sent me into shock. I couldn't and didn't cry, not that day, not the first week, not the second week after. On Friday the 14th, I had plans to drive to Dallas, spend a night with my sorority sister and her family, then drive over to Granbury the next day and spend the night with my aunt before coming home on Sunday. My mom didn't want me to go, which now as a parent myself I totally understand-she didn't want me out of her sight, she wanted to know I was safe-but I didn't want to change my plans and felt bad for my aunt, who was all alone. My uncle, working in Poland as a contractor for the U.S. Treasury department, was stuck abroad and unable to fly home.

I listened to the 9/11 national memorial service on the drive to Dallas. 9/11 was all we talked about all weekend. I still couldn't cry. My sorority sister couldn't either, which made me feel better. When I got home, I slipped into what was definitely depression. I would go to work, then come straight home and immediately change into my pajamas, and watch the news and TV curled up on the couch in the family room with my parents. At the end of the second week after 9/11, I started crying and crying, about every 9/11 story on the news, in the paper, whatever. My mom, who cried the first two weeks and was starting to get over it, couldn't understand why it was all hitting me then, but it was. Then, I talked to my best friend from college and discovered that her first cousin died in the North Tower. He was on the 92nd floor. I had no idea anyone I knew had a direct connection to the attacks. I felt awful I hadn't known about her cousin. I made a contribution to a scholarship set up by his company in his name. I never told my friend. I just wanted to do something.

I don't remember what CD I was listening to in the car the morning of the attacks, but on my drive to Dallas, I heard a version of "Walk On" by U2 with audio of 9/11 interspersed through it. I bought the CD and played "Walk On" obsessively, on repeat, for the next three months, on my way to and from work. The lyrics, to me, spoke directly to the situation, and how I was feeling, and while I was listening obsessively in my depression, the song helped me heal.

And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Still, what lingered was this sense that life would never be the same. That life would never be as good as it had been before 9/11.

I went through with my solo trip to Paris in Feburary 2002 (couldn't let the terrorists win), but I didn't enjoy it as much as my first visit in 2000. Instead of wanting to lose myself in Parisian life and culture as I did before, I felt my American-ness more keenly. Instead of enjoying my own company and the thrill of adventure, I just felt isolated and homesick. I was suspicious of people in airports, in the streets, on boat rides. I think I was still pretty depressed, and being alone, in a country questioning America's decision to go to war, did not help the situation. I was happy and relieved to get home safely.

Slowly, after that trip, my depression began to subside and the tide began to turn back to the good. In fact, amazingly, all the best moments of my life have happened in the last 10 years. In November 2002, I met my now-husband. We got engaged in 2003 and married in 2004. (We honeymooned in Lyon, France, and Geneva, Switzerland. It was a much better trip.) In 2008, we became the parents of our beautiful daughter, the light of my life.

In our wedding ceremony, the reverend, who was the chaplain at my university and who was and is a very dear man with a gift for uplifting messages, said something completely unexpected and perfect, that just hit me right in the heart and brought tears to my eyes at the time. He said that despite all that had happened in the last few years (obviously referring to 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq), that there was still good in the world and we should always look for the good. I love that, and love that he included it in his message during our wedding.

9/11 and the person I was at that time seems like a lifetime ago, not just 10 years. I can still see how our world has changed forever as a result of it. I am still changed because of it, although I no longer think about it every day, as I did for a long time. Every year around the anniversary, I have to force myself not to watch remembrance specials, because I see the footage and hear the recollections and the memories flood back. My chest tightens; I can't breathe. I have to stop watching. But I'll never forget.

I am actually going to be in Granbury this weekend, the weekend of the 9/11 anniversary. I am going up there for work and am staying with my aunt and uncle while there. When I made the plans to go, I didn't even connect the dates and the fact it was the 10-year anniversary to my trip. It seems like, as Oprah would say, a "full-circle moment."

Most likely, I will play "Walk On" on my iPod in the car on the drive up and remember. I will pray for those we lost that day and for those we've lost in war since. I will pray for those who loved all of them. I will pray for our country and for peace. And I will remember there's still good in the world. And I will thank God for all the blessings in my life these last 10 years.

"Walk On" by U2

And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage that you can bring...
And love is not the easy thing...
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Walk on, walk on
What you got they can't steal it
No they can't even feel it
Walk on, walk on...
Stay safe tonight

You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom

Walk on, walk on
What you've got they can't deny it
Can't sell it, or buy it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight

And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Home... hard to know what it is if you've never had one
Home... I can't say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the heart is

And I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Leave it behind
You got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you feel
All this you can leave behind...

From America: A Tribute to Heroes, U2, "Walk On," Live from London, September 2001

Three!

2011-08-28T01:42:00.000-05:00

On August 28th, 2008, at 8:48 in the morning, my little girl S was born. Her birth was the happiest, most exhilarating moment of my life.

S literally at birth. My doctor pulled her out, gave her a quick wipe,

lifted her up so J could take this picture, and then placed her on my chest.

Today, she turns three! It's been amazing to watch her grow and change from minute to minute, day to day, year to year. She came out with her own little personality, and continues to show it to us every day!

Smiling

Silly

Happy

Shy

Motherhood has been amazing and tiring and happy and challenging and lovely and bittersweet and easy and hard. But even in challenging moments, I remember how lucky I am to have her.

S at three is funny and sweet, stubborn and strong. She speaks in complete sentences. She's my little backseat driver, telling me when to stop on the red, go on the green, or turn right on the red. She reminds me to put her seatbelt on ("Mommy, I need my seatbelt!"). She can spell her name, the word "Stop" on signs, and other words randomly. She loves stuffed animals, animal-shaped balloons, and animals on TV. She hugs on them (even if that means pressing against our TV screen LOL) and says they are nice and they are soft. She will hug real people, but without quite the same level of enthusiasm! She has no interest in dolls yet: princess, baby, or other. She loves cars and balls and books and various little kid video games on her eReader. She has recently developed an interest in wearing bracelets (her first glam-yay!). She knows how to slide things on the touchscreen of my smartphone. She will pee on the potty, but refuses to poop on it. She used to love The Backyardigans, now she loves Busytown Mysteries and Super Why. Her favorite sayings are "You can't catch me!" and "Don't DO that!" She likes to sing, but doesn't like you to sing with her. She sings a couple of little songs in French almost perfectly. She loves to swim and play in water. She is three, but is the size of most five-year-olds and already wears size 4 and 5 clothing, with or without the T. She loves tortillas and cheese and rice and beans and bananas and corn and oranges and applesauce and watermelon and cantaloupe and mac and cheese and pizza and milk and cookie stix and ice cream and cake and will pretty much eat anything she is given. She is not a picky eater at all.

In short, she is awesome and I love her very much. :)

S in the fancy outfit the Nana bought her to wear at her birthday party. Note the bracelets!

Happy birthday, S, my little pumpkin. I can't wait to see what this next year has in store for you and me!

Love,

Mommy

P.S. Her party was yesterday, and I am still so exhausted I will have to do a post about it at another time. Note to self: New rule--no more outdoor birthday parties in August. TOO HOT.

It's a Party and I'll Obsess If I Want to

2011-07-11T22:40:00.000-05:00

For the last few weeks, I've been obsessing...no, make that OBSESSING! over S's 3rd birthday party. Her birthday is August 28th, so it's not like I am running short on time to plan. However, unlike the last two years when I had a clear idea early on what I wanted to do for the party and had things booked and confirmed in June, this year I've been indecisive and wishy-washy.

Pool party? Carnival party? Zoo party? Bouncy party? Children's museum party?

It didn't help that we've attended a few of her classmates' parties recently and so, in the spirit of not repeating what everyone else is doing, I had to cross the carnival party idea, which I considered for the local Kiddie Park that S loves, off the list, as well as the zoo and the bouncy house (we actually did a bouncy house party last year). I crossed the pool party idea off the list because S has been having some issues with her ears since her last tube surgery, so we haven't been swimming as much this summer as we did last summer. And I nixed the children's museum party idea because a friend of mine had taken her son to one recently and the museum is so big, they didn't see much of the people at the party except for the 20 minutes they served cake in the party room. I want to see and hang out with our guests, thanks.

My criteria for S's party are as follows:

Not at my house
An activity or location S likes
Something different than what we've done in years past
Something that has built-in activities for the duration of the party

Then, I came across a local farm/petting zoo that hosts parties. The Nana and I took S out Friday to check it out and make sure she would like it. Given that she loves animals, I wasn't too worried, but just wanted to be sure. I also wanted to see how the party setup worked.

S and the Nana arrive at the farm. The Nana realized pretty quickly
she's going to need to wear different shoes at the party.

The only downsides to the farm party I could see were (1) the farm theme is dangerously similar to the cowgirl theme we had at last year's party and (2) it would be an outdoor party. In August. Which is hot as hell! (The main argument for the pool party-coolness!)

Luckily, the farm has several covered pavillion areas with electricity and fans to keep party guests cool. Each party gets its own pavillion. The kids will be able to feed and pet goats, llamas, pigs, bunnies, and guinea pigs and be able to see a real longhorn cow, donkeys, and a huge peacock that roams the grounds.

S feeds the goats--so cute!

S pets the goats. Of course, we smelled like goat the rest of the day.

The kids can also play in a huge sandbox and water table and playground. Every kid will also get a pony ride during the party-S will get two rides as birthday girl! And then they will take everyone on a hayride around the property!

Big sandbox--everyone will need a bath after the party for sure!

S riding Butterscotch the sweet pony. S got right up in the saddle. The kid has no fear!
No idea where she gets her fearlessness from. She seemed like a natural.

It took us about an hour and a half to do all of these activities on Friday...add in time for pizza and cake and I think that will fill up the two to three hours of the party perfectly. So, location-check! I put down a deposit and booked the party at 10 a.m. so as to beat as much of the heat as possible.

The Nana, my co-party planner, and I decided we would focus the decor around the animals, so as to differentiate it from last year's western theme. I've found two printable party designs on Etsy I like and am trying to decide between them:

Option 1 is probably my favorite. The seller has a version
where everything shown here in red is pink, which I really like.

Option 2 is also cute in pink and green...didn't have a picture of all the pieces together.

Both options have matching invitations and the pieces can be customized with S's name. I'm probably leaning toward option 1--what do you think?

I've also decided to make the party and invite planning easier on me by outsourcing all the photography. Last year, I was chasing S around in our backyard, trying desperately to snap cute shots of her in a cowgirl hat for the invite. Then, at the party, I got all stressed out trying to be the host, make sure everyone was okay and had what they needed, and take pictures. (In my family, I'm the designated photographer.)

A friend of mine introduced me to her friend who is a young, stay-at-home mom of four, who takes beautiful pictures, and is looking to expand into photography as more of a business instead of just a hobby. This week, I'm going to have her take some casual shots of S for the party invite and if I like what I see, I'm just going to hire her to take candids during the party, so I can actually enjoy the party (and maybe even end up in a picture or two LOL). Since she is just getting started, she's not charging very much for the pictures, but if she does a good job, she'll certainly get more business from me!

So, now I'm just obsessing over the details (cake! favors! food! what to wear!), but feel better that the location has been secured and the theme selected. And that I've solved the photography problem of years past. And yes, I'm sure I'm a little crazy, but I have great memories of the awesome theme parties the Nana threw for me when I was growing up, and I just want S to have the same. :)

What was your favorite birthday party like--either one you had as a kid or one you threw for your kid? I can always use more ideas to obsess over!

Potty Progress?

2011-06-27T23:38:00.000-05:00

I think potty training is a special circle of hell for parents. It feels like we've been working on potty training with S FOREVER.

In reality, we started working on potty training S last June. Yes, A YEAR AGO. She expressed interest in the potty at that time, so like the eager-beaver parents we are, we got S moved up a class at day school two months early to a class where they worked on potty training. She was not quite two at the time.

She took to it pretty well for a few weeks, at one point going pee pee on the potty three times in a single day. Based on that, I thought FOR SURE she would be fully potty trained by the time we went to Jamaica in September.

If you are a mother with older children reading this, I know what you are thinking: "HAHAHAHAHA! Like that was going to happen! Silly, first-time Mommy!"

Unfortunately, in July, my husband had to have emergency abdominal surgery and ended up being in the hospital for three days and then recovering and unable to lift, carry, or care for S for about six weeks after. Confused by her unexpected stay with the Grandparentals while J was in the hospital and then her Daddy's sudden inability to do anything with/for her, S completely regressed. No potty for her. Accident after accident in her panties at school. My dreams of diaper freedom by Jamaica ended. J and I tried to stay with it and get her back on track for awhile, then completely backed off potty training for months in defeat.

In November, J thought we should kick start it again with a potty weekend, where we cover the house in plastic, put out the potties, put S in panties, and let her realize that it feels like, well, crap, to pee or poop in your panties and you should run to the potty instead. A friend had told me about this and said you had to do it for three days straight, then you never put them in a diaper again. Riiiight.

Now, my husband does not have the patience or attention span to do anything for three days straight unless it's play World of Warcraft or rebuild a computer, so I did not hold out high hopes for us making it through a three-day weekend only focused on going potty.

J lasted until about 2 p.m. on the first day and then he was ready for it to be over. LOL. S, upon feeling any sensation of poop or pee would run off the plastic we laid down to cover our carpet, stop on our kitchen tile, and cry and go in her panties there, no matter how much we tried to get her on the potty. So epic fail all the way around.

At this point, I was willing to back off potty training until the summer before Kindergarten. I figured by then she might get the hang of it. However, in February, her teachers started pressuring us to send panties to school and they would work on it with her there. No way, I said, remembering last summer's parade of poop-filled laundry when S regressed during potty training. I told them, of course, I wanted them to keep working on getting her on the potty to go, but they could just keep her in pullups because she would never TELL US she needed to go and making a mess in her panties did not seem to deter her. All it did was make my life a stinky poopy hell trying to get stains out of the laundry each night!

So S would faithfully sit on the potty at school as directed by her teachers, but she wouldn't go. At all. At home, we brought out the Sesame Street potty poster that came with her Elmo potty and put it on the wall, all ready for stickers. For weeks it hung, stickerless.

Then, sometime in late March, the tide turned, thanks to my mother, the Nana. S stayed with the Grandparentals overnight on a weekend and the Nana got her to go pee pee on the potty by saying if she went pee pee, she would get to call Mommy and tell her. Amazingly, this worked. Turns out S likes to get to call someone and have them praise her for her potty-going accomplishments! I got several phone calls that day from S saying, "I went pee pee on the potty, Mommy!"

I need positive affirmation of my potty progress people-hand me the phone!

But back at school and at home, S's potty standoff continued. She would only go for Nana. A few weeks later, I took S to school-a rare occurrence as J usually takes her-and I told her if she went on the potty for me, we would call Nana and tell her. AND IT WORKED. After that, she started going potty for J as well as Nana and me. She likes to call someone and tell them afterwards...Nana, me, or Daddy depending on who gets her to go. She also started getting to put stickers on her poster, which she likes a lot.

A few weeks ago, I relented and started sending panties to school. She has had some poopy accidents, but it has not been a few times a day every day like last summer. The last few weeks she has come home from school in panties without having an accident in my car. Last Thursday, she got a big sticker, because she wore panties all day without an accident!
The next day, although I have been totally chickensh*t to take her out of the house in just panties, I took her shopping sans pullup or diaper. She went pee pee on the potty for me after we'd been out for over an hour and had eaten lunch. Sadly, 20 minutes after that success, she pooped in her pants. However, I had brought an extra outfit and plastic bag and wipes, so I cleaned her up and changed her and she was good to go. It was not as scary as I thought it would be.

She's definitely making progress. She completely understands to hold the pee until she's on the potty when wearing her panties, but she does not grasp the idea of doing the same with her poop. She DOES NOT want to go poop on the potty! The last time I tried to get her to do so, by the time I got her to the potty and pulled her pants down, she had already pooped, and half of it got all over her pants and the potty seat and the other half fell on my foot. That's right. ON MY FOOT. Not. Glam.

So, we're still working on it. She turns three in August. I think she will be completely in panties by then, but still having poop accidents. My new goal is for her to be peeing and pooping in the potty by the time we go to Walt Disney World in November, but we'll see. This time around, I'm not so naive as to think it will be that easy! (I also have a mom friend with a four-year-old son who REFUSES to poop in the potty. Still. She is beside herself.)

Potty training...not glamorous and not for the faint of heart. Just like the rest of motherhood. :)

What worked for you when you were potty training your kids? Especially to get them to poop on the potty? This will end someday, right? Talk to me!

Queens for a Day

2011-06-12T18:01:00.003-05:00

Every year, May to June is a crazy time. My birthday always falls a week after Mother's Day and my mother, the Nana's, birthday is a few weeks later and always falls near Father's Day. Every year, Mom and I rack our brains over what to get each other for these occasions. (Father's Day, sadly, does not usually warrant too much fanfare...maybe a barbecue dinner or picnic!)

This year, I decided to take two days of vacation, a Monday and Tuesday, for my birthday. S had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday, my actual birthday. On Monday, I thought I would send S to school and then either get a massage or go to an afternoon movie or something. When I mentioned this plan to Mom, she suggested we do a spa day together and count it as Mother's Day and my birthday. "Why not your birthday too?" I suggested. And then Mom said, "And let's go to a really nice spa, not just a day spa."

Now, I should explain at this point that my Mom and I are not fancy people. I've had the good fortune to go to several spas, day and otherwise, in different cities. My Mom has only done day spa stuff with me, maybe twice before, and never a full massage, only facials and pedicures and such. So I was a little surprised at her request, but all for it. I researched and found out that the Mokara Hotel on the San Antonio Riverwalk has the only five-star spa in town. They have a package where you and a friend can get a massage and a deluxe pedicure and enjoy lunch on the rooftop deck overlooking the skyline of the city. It's a little expensive, but sounded great.

When I proposed the idea to my Mom, not only was she raring to go, she upped the ante. "Why don't we check in the day before and spend the night at the hotel and have dinner on the Riverwalk? I mean, it is for both our birthdays and Mother's Day, so we should go all out!" she said. So we did!

Getting ready to head downtown for our Mother-Daughter Retreat

And it was wonderful! The staff at the Mokara Hotel treated us like queens. When they discovered we were from San Antonio, it seemed like they went out of their way to make our stay special. Would you like complimentary champagne, chocolate covered strawberries, and a cheese plate sent to your room? Yes, please! We can put you in a better room if you don't mind waiting a little bit, is that okay? Yes, thanks! How about a tour of the spa while you wait? OK, great! And now enjoy drinks on the river and we'll call you when your room is ready!

Isn't my Mom cute?

Cheers!

And they didn't actually call--the Manager came and PERSONALLY ESCORTED US UP TO OUR ROOM. I thought my mother's eyes were going to bug out of her head--she couldn't believe it! Didn't he know we were just regular people?! LOL

And then our bags, which had magically disappeared when a gentleman took our car off to valet parking, leaving my mother fretting slightly over their whereabouts, were delivered, followed shortly afterwards by the champagne, strawberries, and cheese. We kicked back and snacked on all our goodies, plus a few nuts and snacks in the minibar and just talked and talked. It was really lovely.

Later in the evening, we wandered down the Riverwalk and stopped in at the Republic of Texas restaurant for dinner. We sat on the patio, watching the world stroll by on the Riverwalk and noshing on fantastic Tex Mex appetizers and drinking frosty margaritas! So good!

After dinner, we went back to our room and watched a bit of the Survivor finale. Then, we put on our suits and headed upstairs to check out the rooftop's heated pool and hot tub.

Looking at the stars and the skyline from the heated pool, we decided "This is the life! If only we could do this all the time!"

The next day, we enjoyed our spa experience to the hilt. We relaxed, we got massaged, we lunched on the rooftop in our spa robes, neck warmers, slippers, and shades, we drank more champagne, we got our toes done, we steamed, and we whirlpooled. It. Was. Amazing.

Post-massage lunch on the rooftop deck.
Mom and I wore our robes, slippers, and neck warmers, plus shades, of course!

All too soon, it was time to leave. Mom and I were super-relaxed after our day of pampering and wanted nothing more than to go upstairs to our room, crawl into our plush beds, and nap until dinner time. Unfortunately, we had to go pick S up from day school, which was sure to bring us back to reality with a thud.

"When we do this next year, we should stay TWO nights," my Mom said. And just like that, a tradition was born.

Happy birthday, Mom! I love you! Thanks for being a wonderful mother, an amazing Nana, and an even better friend. I am already looking to next year's Mother-Daughter Retreat!

Note: I was not paid in any way for my experience at the Mokara Hotel and Spa or the Riverwalk. All opinions expressed are my own, achieved on my own dime. :)

Every Day Is Mother's Day to Me

2011-05-06T23:09:00.000-05:00

Last night, my baby girl, S, was having trouble going to sleep. When I went in to check on her, I picked her up, wrapped her in a blanket, snuggled with her in the glider in the corner of her room, and rocked her.

As we rocked, I stroked and kissed her hair and talked to her. I told her how very happy I am to be her mommy and how lucky I am to have her. How she is my best little girl and I love her so, so much. I breathed in her sweet baby smell and felt tears coming to my eyes.

As we continued to rock, I thought about the fact that at this time, four years ago, I didn't think I would ever get to be a mother. My world seemed extremely bleak, and I was sad and angry most of the time.

Then, I thought about the fact that at this time, three years ago, I was happily pregnant, and enjoying a pretty easy pregnancy (sciatica and swelling aside), which would be followed by a fast and easy delivery.

May 2008: Happily celebrating my birthday and Mother's Day

Still in the "cute" pregnant stage. The "HUGE" pregnant stage was still to come!

Then, I thought, how I wish I could go back in time and tell the sad woman I was four years ago to have faith--that the hard part was almost over, that she was going to be a mother and soon, and that her daughter would be the most beautiful, sweet baby who is growing into a strong, smart, independent, funny little girl who makes her proud everyday.

Since she was riding a horse, she HAD to wear a cowgirl hat!

My little girl's growing up so fast. But she's still my baby!

S with her pal Zoe at Sea World of Texas

Four-years-ago-me would have a really hard time believing it. Some days, I can't believe it myself.

I'm so blessed. So lucky. Every day is Mother's Day to me.

Thank You, Prince William, or With These Cufflinks, I Thee Wed

2011-04-29T20:13:00.000-05:00

Prince William has decided not to wear a wedding ring. Much has been made of this fact in the media. I'm still not sure why he decided not to wear one, but all I can say is "Thank you!" Now I can finally get over the fact that my husband, J, does not wear one!

J has a wedding ring, sure. And he vowed to wear it as a symbol of our love or something to that effect in our wedding. And that vow lasted...about 13 days. Thirteen days in which he actually lost his ring TWICE!

J has never worn any jewelry, not even a watch. The only jewelry he had when we met was an iron pinkie ring which he never wore, because he got his degree in engineering, and in Canada, all engineers get a pinkie ring made out of iron to remind them of how if they make a mistake in their job, bridges and mines can collapse and people can die, so they should always remember not to make a mistake. (I'm sure I don't have all the particulars of this tradition right, but this was the gist of what he told me. He actually became an IT guy after he graduated and so has never needed to wear that ring to remind him.)

J told me in advance he didn't want to wear a wedding ring because he doesn't like wearing jewelry, but I thought surely he would get used to wearing one. We picked out a lovely white gold band, I had our wedding date inscribed inside it, and we forged ahead to our wedding day.

J's ring is JUST out of sight in this picture, taken during our cocktail hour.

We exchanged the vows, I put the ring on him, and all was going very swimmingly until about an hour into our reception. Suddenly, our videographer came over and tapped J on the shoulder.

"Are you missing something?" he said, and held up J's wedding ring, which he had seen slip off his hand. J, not used to the ring, hadn't even noticed! One hour into our marriage and the ring was already a problem.

The next morning we flew off to France and Switzerland for a 10-day honeymoon. We started off in Lyon. J put his ring on everyday, but he kept turning it around and around on his finger and it was obviously driving him nuts. And him fiddling with it all the time was DRIVING ME NUTS!

Our third day in Lyon, we took a boat ride along the Saone River. J kept fiddling with his ring. And then all of a sudden, I heard, "plink, plink" and then nothing. I looked at J. "Did you just drop your ring?" J looked down at his hand and then up at me: "Yeah, I guess so." We looked at the metal bottom of the boat...I figured after the second "plink," the ring probably went over the side, into the water, and that was that!

As we looked around behind us, a voice from two rows back said, "I"ve got it!" and handed forward J's ring. I put the ring on my finger for the rest of the ride. I was like, "Seriously, J? You've lost the ring twice in four days?!"

"I just can't get used to it...I'm not a jewelry guy," J said. "It doesn't mean I don't love you or we're not married if I don't wear it."

I took this picture about 30 minutes before we went on the boat ride
where he almost lost the ring. It is LITERALLY the only picture I have
that shows him wearing it!

J toughed it out with the ring until the end of our honeymoon and a few days at home. The first time he drove the car, he felt like he had to take it off to drive! And the day we returned to work was the last straw for him.

"I can't type with the ring on," he complained. "How do you do it? I'm sorry, but I just can't get used to wearing it."

And that was the end of the ring. I really had a hard time with it the first few years of our marriage and wanted him to give it another try, but he steadfastly refused.

Over time, however, I started to get over the ring issue. Especially after I began to realize that I actually HAD given J a piece of jewelry on our wedding day that he wore, maybe not every day, but at least weekly.

Cufflinks.

Before our wedding, J had a dress shirt with French cuffs, but he didn't have any cufflinks. He just wore the fake ones that came with the shirt. (My husband needed a little help in the style department when we met, obviously LOL. OK, he still needs some help.) Since I knew he loved that shirt and would need cufflinks with his tuxedo, I got him a pair of silver cufflinks engraved with his monogram and gave them to him as a wedding gift.

He wore them at the wedding. He wore them on our honeymoon with the shirt. He continued to wear them when we got home and bought other French cuff shirts because he LIKED wearing his cufflinks. They perform a FUNCTION with his outfit and do not GET IN HIS WAY. As an IT guy with an engineering background, this is something he appreciates.

Apparently, I should've simply held his wrists during the wedding and said, "With these cufflinks, I thee wed" or "Wear these as a symbol of my love" or whatever. :)

Some of my girlfriends have commented on J's lack of wedding ring over the years, and I've told them about his wedding cufflinks. But now that Prince William has decided NOT to wear a ring from the get-go, I think I can finally let the issue go and get over it, once and for all.

After all, if Prince William doesn't feel the need to wear a ring, J, my prince, certainly doesn't have to! :)

Note: J still has his ring. It sits in a lovely music box we purchased in Geneva, Switzerland at the end of our honeymoon, along with his cufflinks. J actually picked the music box out because it has a red rose on the lid and we did a variation on the Unity Ceremony with roses in our wedding. He liked the symbolism. So he's romantic in his own way. :) I'm lucky to have him.

Ten on Tuesday

2011-04-19T21:14:00.002-05:00

I thought I would try "Ten on Tuesday" after I saw this on a few other blogs I follow. It's hosted by Chelsea at Roots and Rings.

1. When someone asks you for a book recommendation, what is your go-to book?

Lately, it's The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister or Two Kisses for Maddy by Matt Logelin.

2. Do you buy your books, or are you a library patron?

Both. I love putting things on hold and picking them up at the library, but sometimes I go crazy at Barnes and Noble and buy five books at once! I tend to alternate...check some out, buy some.

3. E-readers, yay or nay?

Nay for now. I don't have one and I can't really imagine giving up physical books, which I love, love, love. But I do not go anywhere without my Blackberry, my iPod, and my digital camera, so I'm a total gadget person and it's weird that I'm NOT into them yet!

4. What was your favorite book as a child?

As a child, I loved a book called The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr. I still have the copy that my parents bought me when we lived in England in the late 70s and I read it to my daughter now!

The first long book I read was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I was in the fourth grade and I finished it in five days, which seemed epic at the time because it was so thick. It's still a favorite, just a lovely book.

5. If you could be any character in a book, who would you be?

Probably Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice...I'll take Colin Firth or Matthew MacFayden as Mr. Darcy any day. Or Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books. :)

6. What book would you love to see turned into a movie?

It's often hard to find a movie that lives up to a book I really love, Pride and Prejudice notwithstanding.

7. What is your all-time favorite book?

Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sun Also Rises, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Little Women, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, 84 Charing Cross Road. If you haven't gathered from this list that I was an English major and have an affinity for epistolary novels, I don't know what to say. :)

8. How many books do you read at once?

I'm lucky to get through one at a time. I cannot focus on more than one any way due to lack of time and Mommy brain-I just start getting confused and forgetting what is going on in the book.

9. What is your favorite book genre?

I actually really love mysteries (obsessed with Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series) and chick lit!

10. Which Harry Potter book is the best? Or haven’t you read them at all?

I love the Harry Potter books. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite book of the series and happens to be my favorite of the movies too. Love the time travel elements and Hermione's leadership role. I can't wait until S is old enough for us to read these together!

"Two Kisses for Maddy"

2011-04-17T23:16:00.000-05:00

In July 2008, I came across Matt Logelin's blog late one night while I was up surfing the web and trying to fight off pregnancy-related heartburn. His daughter Madeline had been born a few months earlier on March 24th. She was seven weeks premature, delivered by c-section, and taken directly to the NICU. His wife Liz died 27 hours later on March 25th of a pulmonary embolism as she was preparing to get to go visit Maddy in the NICU for the very first time. She only got to see her daughter once, fleetingly, and never got to hold her.

Reading back through old blog entries and catching up on Matt's journey since Liz's death, I was incredibly moved by the way he wrote about his wife and the amazing love and heart-wrenching grief that emanated from every word he wrote. I was also touched by his love for Maddy and how hard he was focusing on being the best father for her and some of the unexpected challenges he faced as a widowed dad, especially when confronted by strangers asking where Maddy's mom was or questioning why a seemingly single man was out with a baby.

As a pregnant woman about 40-50 days out from my due date, the circumstances of Liz's death scared the crap out of me and compelled me to have a conversation with my husband about what I would want if I died in or after childbirth--what I'd want him to give my daughter for me, what I'd want him to tell her about me, how I hoped he would raise her, and how I hoped he would keep my parents an important part of her life. As you can imagine, this kind of freaked J out, so I had to explain about Matt's blog and Liz's story.

I have faithfully read Matt's blog ever since, always touched by his remembrances and stories about Liz, who sounds like someone I'd have liked to know-just a very cool, fun chick. As a new mom to S, I learned from some of Matt's fatherhood experiences--mistakes he made (forgetting a bottle during a trip to a baseball game), triumphs he had (how to deal with too-large baby pants--snap the onesie over them!). I was excited when Matt got a book deal and moved to India to work on the book and show Madeline all the places he visited with her mom when she was alive, including the Taj Mahal and the spot he proposed to her.

Matt's book, Two Kisses for Maddy, came out on Thursday, April 14th. I picked up my copy yesterday and read it straight through in three hours. As I expected from reading Matt's blog, the book is an amazing love letter to Liz and to Madeline. And though I knew how it was going to go, when Liz goes into distress in the book, I started crying so hard, wishing she would pull through. Although Matt always seemed to lay his soul bare on his blog, in the book he goes deeper into the aftermath of her death and his grief than ever before. He also shares more about his life with Liz before Maddy's birth.

It's a beautiful, compelling love story. I know Matt wishes he never had reason to write the book, and I wish he didn't either, but I can't help but think what an amazing gift the book is to Madeline. Through the book, she'll get to know her mother. She'll also get to know how much her father loved her mother, and loved her, right from the moment she was born. In pictures, Maddy looks so much like her mom and in the last chapter of the book, which is a letter to Maddy, Matt lists the ways she acts just like her mother too.

As I've watched Maddy grow up in pictures on Matt's blog and watched my own little blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter grow up a few months behind her, I've just felt so much for Liz and for Maddy and for Matt. It's so unfair Liz didn't get to stay here with them. It's unfair Maddy has to grow up without her. It's unfair Matt lost the love of his life. But life isn't fair, and Matt has navigated through his grief admirably, thinking of others as well as himself--Liz's family and friends, and other widowers in need--he helped create the Liz Logelin Foundation to help others in his situation, which alone would've been a major testament to his love for his wife. He's also created and experienced moments of happiness for himself and Maddy from the earliest days of her life. And he continues to do so today. I'm sure, somewhere, Liz is amazed and proud.

I highly recommend Two Kisses for Maddy. Just make sure you happen to have some tissues at the ready.

Lumpdate

2011-04-13T22:19:00.002-05:00

So on Tuesday, the 5th, I went to see the surgeon. He attempted to aspirate the lump in my right breast one more time (long needle, lots of poking in all directions-OW) before concluding that it seemed less like a cyst filled with fluid and more like a solid lump. What fluid he did get out of there, he sent off for testing. Then, he sent me and my lump off with orders for a mammogram and an ultrasound. Having already missed an afternoon of work, I scheduled these tests for last Friday, my regular day off from work.

The day before the tests I made the mistake of Googling breast cancer and spent most of the rest of the day paralyzed with fear, since you can always find something that sounds like your situation when you Google.

Friday afternoon, my mother came over to watch S and I headed off to the radiology center. A very nice older lady named Carla took me back, had me take off my top and bra and put on a gown open to the front. Then, she proceeded to position me as if I was about to take the most awkward school picture ever-shoulder back, head turned this way, hips a little more this way, lay my arm along here. Then she grabbed my right breast with her hands and mashed it as flat as it could go against a clear plastic plate and pushed a button that sent another clear plastic plate pressing down on it HARD, told me to hold my breath, took the picture, and then let me relax before repositioning me for the next picture.

She took two pictures of each breast, and she showed them to me between each shot. Amazingly, most of the interior of my breasts looked like mesh netting, clear between the grid lines. Kind of like in the movie Weird Science, when Gary and Wyatt can't decide on how big the boobs should be on the girl they are making, and they size them up and down on their computer.

Image from "Weird Science"--most of my breasts looked kind of like this
on the mammogram, lines with dark spaces between them.

However, in my right breast, my lump appeared solid white and egg-shaped. It was larger than I could feel from the surface, going down into the center of my breast more than I expected. Seeing it was kind of overwhelming.

Carla took the images and went to see the doctor. He decided he wanted two more angles on the right breast (my left appears completely clear). Carla was apologetic as she positioned me for the next two pictures, as they were going to be more painful, she explained. Oh goody, I thought, kind of numb and in shock. Luckily, the doctor was satisfied after seeing these and Carla escorted me to another room to wait for my ultrasound.

By the time the two ladies came in to do my ultrasound a few minutes later, I was full-on crying and freaking out. I tried to get it together, but I couldn't help it. They gave me tissues and chattered on about random world news stuff (the rising price of gas, politics) in an attempt to distract me while they took tons of images of my lump from all angles, even from my armpit. They showed me none of the images. They left me in the room forever afterward while they checked that the doctor was satisfied with the images. He was, and they left me to get dressed and then showed me out.

When I got home and explained everything about the appointment to my mom, I broke down. "What if I have cancer? I don't want to be sick. I don't want to die. I don't want to lose my hair." I just sobbed and she hugged me and told me not to worry about it until the doctor got the results and called me. We'd deal with everything then.

I spent the rest of the weekend purposefully doing everything in my power to distract myself from thoughts of cancer...dinner out with my parents, playing in the backyard with S and my hubby, a playdate with another family at Sea World, anything to not think about the possibility of having cancer. (OK, I did think that if I had cancer and lost my hair I would invest in the best damn wig ever...I mean, my hair is so important to me and I spend so much money maintaining it, I could easily pour that money into an awesome wig, right? Aside from that, I tried not to think about it. At all.)

Monday afternoon, the surgeon called me while I was in a meeting with the president of my company. Of course. I called right back, but he was back in with a patient. I checked my voicemail, and he left me a very reassuring message that he was calling with my results, but there was no urgency! He would be in tomorrow if I wanted to call him then. He stressed the "no urgency" thing twice!

Last night, I finally got to talk with him and he informed me that my lump is a fibroadenoma, which is a benign tumor. Fibroadenomas are almost always benign; malignant in very rare cases. Based on the tests he had run on the cells taken from my lump, plus his review of the radiology report from my mammogram and my ultrasound, he feels very certain that it is benign. I am relieved.

He tells me we could watch it or we could take it out, it's my decision. I tell him I want it taken out as soon as possible. He thinks that's the best course and reiterates that he feels the fibroadenoma is benign; however, he then also tells me that the radiology report categorized my lump as Category Four, which means "suspicious/potential for malignancy." I'm going to get a copy of this report in my mail and he doesn't want it to alarm me. If he takes the lump out, he can have it thoroughly tested to be absolutely sure it's not malignant. Now, I'm less relieved and back to worrying.

So I'm having my fibroadenoma breast lump surgically excised in an outpatient procedure a week from Friday, which is actually Good Friday. I hope it is a good Friday for me. I've never really had a surgery or procedure requiring me to be under anesthesia, except for having my wisdom teeth extracted in 1994. I hope I recover easily. I hope I get good pain meds. I don't like pain. I HOPE IT'S REALLY BENIGN AND NOT CANCER.

My surgeon told me he plans to go in through the edge of my aureola so any scarring will be part of that darker skin and less noticeable. I'm not that worried about aesthetics since my boobs=NOT GLAM. They are small and already took a major hit after I had S (they dropped an inch and started to point in odd directions when I lay on my side-and I didn't even breastfeed!). It does occur to me that my right breast is my slightly smaller breast already, so I wonder if it will be more noticeably small after the fibroadenoma is removed. I SO DON'T CARE AS LONG AS IT'S NOT CANCER.

Now I'm feeling mild anxiety, because I just want to get my lump out and find out that everything is OK. It's going to be a very LOOOOOONG week or so until then. My husband is on call Easter weekend, so he's going to work from home and watch S the day of my surgery and my mom is going to go with me. Then, she and my dad are going to take S home with them that night, so I can rest and recover. I'm so lucky to have a great family and support system.

I'll just be happy when it's all over. I'm going to be on pins and needles until then. Please keep a good thought for me if you will. And please pray for everyone out there battling cancer in all its forms. I'm praying for them too.

I'm a Little Freaked Out

2011-04-01T01:24:00.000-05:00

I have a lump in my right breast. Have had it, actually, since last fall. It's a recurrence of a lump that first appeared the fall before that, in 2009.

According to my OB/Gyn, the lump is a fluid-filled cyst. The first time it appeared in 2009 and I mentioned it to him, he aspirated it, meaning HE STUCK A HUGE NEEDLE DIRECTLY IN MY BOOB AND SUCKED THE FLUID OUT. Ouch. He sent the fluid off for testing and it was all apparently benign. The lump went away.

Last fall, it reappeared in the same spot. Out came the big needle again, but this time my doctor was unable to get all the fluid out. He believed there was just this little sac inside my breast that keeps refilling with fluid like a balloon, and since aspirating it didn't work the second time around, he referred me to a surgeon to have the sac surgically removed.

Now, the lump is annoying because it's right to the side of my nipple and I feel it all the time, but since he seemed confident it was all benign and stuff, I put off going to see the surgeon initially. Then my husband had surgery. Then my daughter had surgery. So I put myself last.

This past week, every time I've turned around, I've been reading, seeing, hearing something about cancer-online, on Twitter, on The Moth podcast, etc. I kind of felt like it was a sign I should call the surgeon and get that breast lump taken out, once and for all. Since the lump is apparently benign, I need to get it out of the way, so that if I get other lumps I will notice them.

So, I called the surgeon my doctor recommended and set up an appointment for next week. His assistant asked me if I've had a mammogram. I told her I haven't, as I'm 37, so not quite the age when you normally start getting those done. Then, she directed me to their website to fill out a new patient packet, and while I was there, I looked at the doctor's bio.

He's a breast cancer specialist.

Now, realistically, I know my OB/Gyn was very casual in his referral and didn't act like it was a big deal and they tested the fluid both times the lump appeared and it was benign. And it's understandable the assistant would ask if I've had a mammogram-if I have to have surgery on my breast it makes sense they would want to do one of those. I know. But when she asked that and then I read his bio, I started freaking out. Just a little bit.

So while I'm generally hopeful that I'm in for nothing more than an annoying minor surgery that will leave me with a scar on my right breast, I'm kind of anxious for my appointment on Tuesday. Keep a good thought for me if you will. Because while I could care less about what my boobs look like (they've never been particularly spectacular), or about a minor surgery (although I don't look forward to any kind of pain, even minor!), I just want to get good news and be around for a LONG time.

In the meantime, I'll be here, quietly freaking out.

One Year Blogiversary! More "Getting to Know You" Random Facts

2011-03-26T00:42:00.000-05:00

One year ago today, I launched Glam-O-Mommy. I didn't have a real plan for my blog...I'm just a woman who writes for a corporation for a living who wanted to write about myself, my life, my daughter, and things that interest me. But mostly my feelings about and experiences with motherhood.

Glam-O-Mommy and S

Lately, I've been a bit remiss in keeping up with my blog. In December, I was sick or my daughter was sick and my husband had surprise shoulder surgery and the holidays were crazy and I just had no energy left over to give to it. In January, I got assigned to a huge, insane-making project at work and began having less of a work/life balance and more of a working-on-my-Friday-off-and-often-Sunday-nights-just-to-keep-up life and again, I've had no energy left over for the blog.

To top it off, I feel like I'm in a bit of a personal rut. I work, I spend time with my daughter and husband, I do tons of laundry, I try unsuccessfully to keep our house straight and orderly, I sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat.

BORED YET? Me too. Doesn't exactly inspire much in the way of insightful writing either. I mean, don't get me wrong...I have a really good life, with many moments of fun and love and beauty and I'm very grateful for all that I have, and yet I just feel like I want a little surprise, a little unpredictability now and then...just something. (Like my last post, about my adventures in San Antonio Snowland-that was unpredictable and surprising and thus, good blog fodder!)

Anyway, for my blogiversary, I thought I would share more "Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You"/Random Facts About Me, for your reading pleasure. In no particular order, here we go:

1. I have three playlists in heavy rotation on my iPod currently: all the songs I buy from Glee, Legally Blonde: The Musical (OMIGOD, you guys have to see it if you haven't-SO GOOD!), and "Children," which consists of the Backyardigans, Yo Gabba Gabba, Sesame Street, Sharon, Lois, and Bram, Laurie Berkner, songs from Mary Poppins, and Three Little Birds by Bob Marley. ("Children" is for my daughter S, obvs.)

2. Last weekend, I got my first mani-pedi in two months (SO not glam). My nails have really been suffering from my lack of time lately right along with my blog (see also: interior of my car). Anyhoo, it was a rainy day, I was reading this lovely book, The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister, and just relaxing. It was pretty much perfect. J and S were at home napping, so I didn't miss out on anything with them either!

3. I used to be addicted to chocolate. Like, I had to eat a little something chocolate EVERY DAY or I could not make it through that day. When I was pregnant, I often indulged in Baskin Robbins Chocolate Fudge Ice Cream Milkshakes, because a) HELLO, PREGNANT, b) MUST HAVE CHOCOLATE, and c) HOT FROM 1,000 DEGREE HEAT IN SAN ANTONIO SUMMER AND DID I MENTION I WAS PREGNANT?! I say "used to be," because the weirdest thing happened about a year ago. I just stopped craving chocolate. I didn't need to have it every day, or even every week. I've sometimes gone weeks without having any! I have no idea how, after 36 years, my body just stopped craving it, but it did. I still eat chocolate occasionally, but I no longer seek it out and go crazy when I do have it.

4. Weirder still, I've begun craving two things alternately in the place of chocolate. For awhile, it was candy, such as Spree or Sweet Tarts or Sour Patch Kids. Then, I switched and began craving chips and salsa. All the time. Like, planning our meals out around which restaurant has the best chips and salsa!

5. In November, we're taking a big family vacation (the three of us, plus the grandparentals!) to Walt Disney World. We're going to spend five days visiting the parks and then a few days and Thanksgiving with my 74-year-old widowed aunt, my mom's sister. I'm super excited, not just because it will be S and J's first visit to WDW, but because it will be my fourth visit and first in 17 years! The grandparentals are coming along to take care of S when she gets tired, but I want to keep going!

6. Next month, my husband and I will have lived in our house for six years. THIS IS THE LONGEST I HAVE EVER LIVED ANYWHERE. Growing up an Air Force brat, I was used to moving every three years. While I love our house, I now seriously have the desire to move, partially because since S's arrival I feel like we need more room, partially because we think we might want to live in a different area when S starts elementary school in two years, but mostly because I have the itch to move and have a new place to decorate and an opportunity to clean out stuff that has been accumulating in our house for six years! And yes, I realize I could just clean out that stuff on my own without moving, but come on! Like I'm going to do that! Silly.

7. I am a picky eater. I do not eat fruits or most vegetables. I am a steak-loving carnivore. I KNOW. Very unhealthy and weird. Now, for the record, I enjoy the flavor of most fruits, but I do not enjoy chewing the texture of fruits. So I drink LOTS of fruit juice instead of eating fruit straight up (I also take vitamins and drink health shakes). Of vegetables, I eat peas and green beans. And that's pretty much it. Again, it's a texture thing. I have been this way as long as I can remember. As a kid, I also did not like pizza or any seafood, but started liking more of these foods in high school. My poor parents, who eat most anything, did not know what to do with me growing up. I special-ordered everywhere we went! And my food things are so crazy, such as I won't eat a tomato (always take it off my burger order) but I love ketchup and salsa.

8. Bananas freak me out. Obviously, I don't eat them (see #7 above). I think my reaction to them is severe because I had a potassium deficiency when I was five and the remedy the doctor prescribed was I had to eat bananas. A LOT OF THEM. My mother had to basically force me to eat them since I didn't like them and it was traumatic for me! Ironically, bananas are my daughter's very favorite food (I should mention my daughter is not a picky eater at all, thank goodness, and my husband and I go out of our way to feed her all kinds of fruits and veggies-bananas, apples, oranges, corn, peas, sweet potatoes, and watermelon are her faves. I want her to be a better eater than me!) When I peel a banana for S and give it to her, I work very hard to look normal and then when I turn to walk away I usually shudder a little and have to wash my hands! LOL

9. I was a Girl Scout for only one year. My mother and my best friend's mother were the co-leaders for our Brownie troop. When both our moms decided not to be troop leaders the next year, my friend and I quit too! I don't think I was really cut out for Girl Scouts, as I'm what you call "Naturally Indoorsy."

10. I've informed my husband recently that we are going to Paris in Spring 2013. I will be turning 40 then (EEK!) and S will start Kindergarten that fall, so it will be our last time to do a big trip during a school year and avoid crowds. And I love Paris and I will be turning 40 (OMIGOD!), so we have to go! We're doing Disney this year and our big trip next year will be Canada, since we go there every other year to visit my husband's family, and I haven't been to Paris since 2002 (our honeymoon in 2004 does not count, as we flew in to Paris and took a train from the airport directly to Lyon-hubby didn't even plan for us to spend a day in Paris because I'd already been there twice!). Really, I want to go spend a few days in Paris and then take a train and visit some other areas of France. Mostly, I want to take S to another continent...I was lucky to live in England when I was her age and think it's great for her to get exposure to other cultures while she's young.

First night of our honeymoon, Lyon, France 2004-we look so young and happy!

So that's enough randomness for now. If you have read my blog randomly or regularly this year, I thank you and hope you'll comment from time to time. If you have commented on anything on my blog, I've really enjoyed our interactions!

So to help me celebrate my blogiversary, please tell me about yourself! What's in heavy rotation on your iPod? What's the best book you've read lately? Any weird food habits? Planning any dream vacations? I really want to know!!

Sometimes I Think I've Got This Motherhood Thing Figured Out...

2011-03-17T21:33:00.003-05:00

At the beginning of February, I was really proud of myself as a mother. I was also proud of my daughter, S, and how we were together as a team, traveling alone to Phoenix for the weekend to visit my girlfriends from college.

Before I get to why I was proud, I should back up to explain how things were going in Glam-O-Mommy land shortly prior to the trip. S, a heretofore pretty easygoing and sweet kid, had suddenly entered full on into the Terrible Twos. She started hitting me when I told her "no" or when she was mad about something. She also tried scratching me and throwing things. It was terrible. When I booked our Phoenix trip, she was not acting remotely like this, so I was all freaked out, expecting her to be terrible on the trip and make an awful impression on my friends. And stress me out!

Enter the Supernanny
My husband and I began employing the Supernanny "naughty step" concept right away and it definitely worked. The first time she hit or scratched or threw something, we warned her, and if she did it again, we took her to the step, told her why she was there, asked her if she was sorry, made her say it, gave her a hug, and then moved on. At the start, we had to do it multiple times, but then it began nipping the problem in the bud the first time we put her on it.

Still, I was worried. In Phoenix, we were going to see my friends J and R. J is single and does not have children. R is married with four children ages five and below (five-year-old twin girls, a three-year-old girl, and a seven-month-old boy). We were going to be staying with R and her family. A few weeks before the trip, I tried to warn R that I wasn't sure how S was going to be during our visit because of her recent behavior. R immediately began laughing, saying, "Seriously, there's nothing she can do that I haven't already seen with one of my kids! Don't worry--she'll be fine!"

Threat of Snow
The week before we left for Phoenix was extraordinarily cold for San Antonio, with temperatures below freezing and wind chill in the teens. We were leaving on a 9 a.m. flight on Friday morning, direct to Phoenix on Southwest Airlines. All week, the forecasters in San Antonio were predicting snow and ice for Friday morning. If snow fell, this would be a problem, because if San Antonio sees one eensy snow flurry, it says, "HELL TO THE NO!" and completely shuts down the highways and everything else.

However, I was not worried. San Antonio had not seen significant snowfall since 1985. Every other time in recent years they've predicted snow, a warm front came in at the last minute and it didn't snow. I finished packing Thursday night and went to bed, confident all was well.

Needing to be at the airport by 7 a.m. for a 9 a.m. flight, I awoke a little before 5 a.m. to discover that SNOW HAD FALLEN AND EVERY HIGHWAY IN SAN ANTONIO WAS CLOSED.

My flight, however, had not been cancelled and was on time. Most people would've just given up and gone back to bed. I, however, REALLY wanted to go see my friends. Also, I'm married to a Canadian, who's used to driving in icy conditions, unlike everyone else native to San Antonio. So I kept one eye on the airport flight board online, an ear on the traffic report, and continued getting ready.

At 6:30, we bundled S up, got in the car, eased down our icy driveway, and began our slow pilgrimage to the airport, taking highway access roads, and detours along the way. In several spots, we had to stop and turn around and try another route because the few other idiots besides us out on the roads had no idea what they were doing and were sliding around all over the place. My husband=AWESOME WINTER DRIVER. He would just wait, watch them slide into a curb, ease around them, and keep going, slowly, but surely.

S in the snow at the San Antonio airport

Adventure at the Airport
At 8:30, we pulled into the airport (it's normally a 25-minute drive). I had been checking my flight by phone and it had been delayed till 10:30, but that didn't bother me. We checked in, kissed hubs goodbye and wished him luck on drive home, easily went through security, and headed to our gate. I wanted to get our stroller tagged first and then grab breakfast.

While getting the stroller tagged, I double-checked that 10:30 was now our takeoff time. The woman helping me sighed and said we'd be lucky to get out at 10:30, because while flights were taking off from San Antonio without problems, our plane was coming from Dallas, which was essentially snowed in. That's when I knew this was going to be a real test of my mothering skills!

S and I got breakfast and for the next two hours, we explored every inch of the terminal, walking up and down, visiting every bathroom, and pointing out colors and pictures on the wall, back and forth, up and down, always moving. When we would stop and take a break and sit at the gate, I immediately broke out the big guns from the bag of tricks I had been saving to entertain her on the plane--her Fisher Price iXL book, which keeps her engrossed for a long time, colors, new books, and snacks. Some Southwest flight attendants gave her a little color pack from Southwest and some of their plane-shaped crackers, which was nice. When she got antsy, we began to pace the terminal looking at everything again, and again, and again.

S named the colors on the terminal floor OVER and OVER

At 10:30, they pushed our flight back to 11:15. At 11:15, they pushed it to 1:15. OMG, I thought...how will I ever keep her entertained and happy for two more hours?!?! I went back up to the gate attendant to see what she really thought our chances were for leaving town at some point. My husband was already offering to trek back to the airport to get us, since the roads were starting to re-open.

Luckily, I was informed they had cancelled the flight coming from Dallas, but a plane was coming from Phoenix and would land at 12:30...they would put our flight on that plane and send us right back to Phoenix. WE HAD A REAL PLANE.

Two more hours, I thought. So far she hasn't had a meltdown and neither have I. Can we do this? R, who I had been texting updates to all morning, called, concerned. "Are you going to make it?! That's a long time with a toddler at the airport!" "We're going to try!" I said.

So, off we went to have our second meal in the airport, pizza. I convinced S to climb into the stroller afterwards and rolled her up and down the terminal twice. Then, a fellow traveler mouthed, "She's OUT!" And she was. She slept soundly for the next hour and a half until we actually boarded the plane and took off!

We're on the plane!

She was a peach on the relatively short flight to Phoenix. When we landed at 3:15 p.m. Phoenix time (only five hours after our original arrival time), R picked us up at baggage claim (her husband was home with their kids). I got S settled into the car seat and R handed her a juice box. Then, she handed me a cup. I took a sip: RUM AND COKE!

"I thought you might need it after today," R said. BEST. FRIEND. EVER. "You know, neither of us had a meltdown or remotely lost it all day today," I said. "I'm proud of us!"

Weekend in Phoenix
We had a great weekend with R and her family and our friend J, who came over and spent the night with us too. S just walked in like she'd always known everyone and played wonderfully with R's kids and handled the time change/sleeping in a new place great.

Trying to imitate the big girls

Little ladies who lunch

J teaches S how to bat

R, Me, J

R, J, and I became friends 20 years ago, our first year of college, and seeing our kids together was just fantastically cool (we so hope J will have one to add to our group someday). I think R is a rock star mom for how wonderfully she balances four children; R told me she was impressed with how I handled S the whole time and how well behaved she was (I only had to put her on the naughty step once), which is always nice to hear.

Too soon, it was Sunday afternoon and we were back at the airport. Thankfully, we experienced no delays, S was entertained by riding the moving sidewalk while we waited and didn't mind airport pizza for lunch. Again. She was pretty good on the plane, only throwing a slight pout fit when we had to wait to get off the plane at the end. I didn't chip a tooth the way I did the last time S and I flew alone together. SUCCESS!

All in all, I came away from the weekend confident, feeling like I had this whole motherhood thing figured out...

And then, the rest of February happened...which involved a re-appearance of S, the Terrible Two Toddler Edition of before, which has left me wanting to tear my hair out lately. (My daughter made me cry last Saturday. TWICE.)

But I'll always have my Snow Day/Weekend in Phoenix.

True Confession: I Never Wanted to Breastfeed

2011-01-25T22:33:00.000-06:00

I have confessed this once on my blog before. I did not breastfeed my daughter. I did not even try. And I am not ashamed of this fact.

That said, generally, I do not shout this off the rooftops. When I was pregnant and talking to someone and they would begin talking about "when you breastfeed," automatically assuming that I was going to, I did not correct them. I just smiled blithely and moved on to another subject. I've never wanted to get into a debate with someone over breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding, because I don't think that's necessary.

The truth is, some women want to breastfeed. Some women LOVE breastfeeding. Some hate it, but do it anyway. Some women want to breastfeed and try and cannot, for whatever reason. Some women have to pump exclusively for whatever reason, and they do that, no matter how hard it is.

And then there are those of us, I imagine it's a VERY small minority, who have no interest in it at all.

That was me.

I just never saw myself breastfeeding. I had no desire to do it. It seemed a little weird to me. Also, I'm the person who goes into the stall to change clothes at the gym, so there was no way I was ever going to be one of those people breastfeeding in front of others, covered or not. And I wanted my husband to share fully in the feeding as he would in all the other baby-related duties.

Since I was born in the 70s, at a time women were encouraged to use formula, my mother did not breastfeed either, so I did not get any pressure to breastfeed from her. She always talked about how great it was that my dad could give me a bottle while she made the two of them dinner when he came home from work and how they would pass me around to family members to feed when they went home to visit their parents and siblings every weekend.

My mother also told me that her mother, who breastfed nine children and then did formula with baby number 10 for some reason, told her that she wished she would've been able to do that with all 10 babies--it was so much easier.

Apparently the women in my family aren't natural earth mothers. :)

Although I had no desire to breastfeed, I did consider it when I became pregnant, mostly because my husband, who is much more natural and earthy than me (I attribute this to his Canadian-ness), thought I should. I thought, okay, maybe I could do it just for the first few weeks to give my daughter all those antibodies and such they talk about and then switch to formula.

So, on one of our OB visits, I asked my doctor, who I've been going to since I was in high school and trust implicitly, about this first few weeks' idea.

"You're going back to work, right?" he asked me.

"Yes," I replied.

"Well, unless you're really going to commit to breastfeeding for at least a few months, I wouldn't recommend starting it then moving on from it so quickly...better just to do formula from the start," he replied.

I have to admit, I was pretty surprised at his answer, but since I didn't really want to breastfeed anyway, it was fine by me.

But the final nail in the coffin on any thoughts I had around potentially breastfeeding came when I researched the medicines I take and if they would be safe to take while breastfeeding.

One, my migraine pill, was not. And that was all I had to hear.

I've suffered from horrific migraines for years. Most of my migraines are triggered by hormonal changes. Without medication, I cannot function. At all. I cannot think, I have to be in dark rooms because light bothers me, and I get so nauseous I throw up.

I was not allowed to take my migraine medication while I was pregnant, and I suffered two three-day-long migraines in the first trimester, when hormones are all over the place, that were so awful and debilitating, I felt like I wanted to die. I also threw up for the first time in my pregnancy (the only other time I threw up while pregnant was when I was in labor!).

With those two awful medication-free pregnancy migraines fresh in my mind, I considered how I would fare as a new mother if I could not take my medication and was struck with a migraine while caring for my baby. And I knew I could not. I needed to be able to take my medication and have the migraine go away fairly quickly so I could be a good mom.

So that became my "good for the public" excuse for not breastfeeding. That was how I got anyone questioning my decision off my back. And it is a very valid excuse and I stand by it.

But the plain truth is, I never wanted to breastfeed anyway.

When my daughter was born, after I held and snuggled with her for a bit, they were going to take her off to the nursery for a checkup and a bath and a bottle. Since I wasn't breastfeeding, the nurses wouldn't let me give her a bottle before they took her away, they said they were going to do that in the nursery, which I have to say, seemed kind of mean--they couldn't hand me a bottle of formula? I felt like I was being punished here a little for my choice not to breastfeed.

However, since we had already planned for my husband to go to the nursery with our daughter and take pictures of her first bath, I requested that they let him give her the first bottle and they did. It was pretty special for my husband to get to be the first to feed her, since I had done most of the nurturing up to this point. :)

This was my daughter's first feeding at home on the third day of her life.
My husband and I both wanted to do it!

For the first four months of her life until she went into daycare, my daughter was never sick. And I didn't keep her at home in a cocoon--we went out to eat, over to visit friends and the grandparentals, to the mall, all over. She was extremely healthy.

The end of her first week in daycare she had a cold and an ear infection. I felt extremely guilty about putting her in daycare and exposing her to all those germs. But all the babies had some cold, infection, or illness, even the babies whose mothers came and breastfed them on their lunch breaks while I was there feeding my daughter her bottle on my lunch break.

I felt more guilty about going back to work and exposing her to daycare germs than I ever did about not breastfeeding.

But, as I do on many topics, I support every woman's personal choice in this matter. If you want to breastfeed, I support you. If you pump exclusively, I support you. If you, like me, do not want to breastfeed, I support you. If you cannot breastfeed and want to get milk from a milk bank for your baby, I support you.

My husband mentioned this news story to me recently, about women going to milk banks to get milk for their babies, and was surprised when I had no problem with it. I guess since I had been pretty strident about not breastfeeding myself, I gave him the impression I thought breastfeeding was wrong. And I really don't! It just wasn't right for me.

I have friends who have breastfed their babies, and those who wanted to but have not been able to, and I did not. All of us made the right choices for ourselves and our babies. It would be nice if we could all support each other and our individual choices.

What I Wish for 2011

2010-12-31T23:47:00.001-06:00

I'm not a huge fan of New Year's resolutions (I have two standard ones: lose a little weight, exercise a little more--that's pretty much it.)

Rather, I'd like to think ahead to what I wish for 2011.

First, I wish for good health for all my family and friends, especially my husband, who went from never having surgery to having two in one year. The first one, back in July, was more scary and potentially life-threatening, but both have been tough on him and on all of us as he tries to get back to normal. Please let him have a healthy year this coming year!

Second, I wish for more time...time for fun with my daughter, time for myself to unwind and be pampered a little, time for reconnecting as a couple with my husband, time savored with my parents, and time spent catching up with good friends.

Third, world peace. That would be pretty awesome. :)

Fourth, a few fun adventures with my family. This last year, we visited family in Florida, Canada, Alabama, and spent a week on Survivor--I mean, in Jamaica--on vacation. In February, I'm taking my daughter to Arizona to visit my two best friends from college. One is single and the other is married with four children under the age of five (guess which one we're staying with LOL), so the weekend will definitely be an adventure! We don't have anything else planned at the moment, but I'm excited to think about where 2011 can take us.

That's really it...2010 has not been a horrible year. After all, it's the year my daughter learned to spell her name, count to 15, talk in more complete sentences, give hugs and kisses, answer the phone, use a computer, and swim like a fish! It's the first year she could wear her hair in pigtails and appreciate a pretty outfit as she did tonight, saying "That's cute!"

My daughter proclaimed this outfit "Cute"! Future Glam-O-Mommy, I hope!

This is my daughter with one of her potential future husbands--my friend's son.
She's looking a little less glam after spilling juice down her shirt at dinner this evening
at our "Early New Year's Eve Party" aka "New Year's Eve With Small Children
That Ends by 10!"

Happy New Year everyone!

We Need a Little Christmas, Right This Very Minute

2010-12-24T01:05:00.000-06:00

It's been a rough two weeks around my house.

I had a raging case of strep throat for three days last week, just as my husband was visiting an orthopedic specialist and finding out he was going to have to have surgery on the shoulder he slammed into the boards playing hockey a few weeks ago. As in, surgery RIGHT NOW. So just as I was getting over strep, I was suddenly caring for my now-completely helpless husband (because of course it's his right shoulder and he's right-handed--he's not even allowed to tie his shoes right now!) and my toddler who has also been a little under the weather with a sinus infection.

I had to cancel a Christmas playdate I was supposed to host for my friends and their children. I also had to miss taking my daughter to see the Nutcracker for the first time. Boo!

Already behind at work due to my own illness, I'm now getting farther behind because I have to shuttle my husband everywhere (appointments, twice-weekly physical therapy) and I have no one to share the school dropoff/pickup load. I had planned on taking all of next week off, but now plan to work at least three days to try and catch up. Boo!

So we NEED a little Christmas, right this very minute! I feel pretty unprepared for Christmas and certainly would've done more if illness hadn't felled me last week; however, I find myself really looking forward to the next two days despite my exhaustion. On Christmas Eve, we read the Christmas story, open gifts, and eat a little buffet dinner with my parents at their house, then on Christmas morning, we open Santa gifts at our house and then host Christmas dinner for my parents.

I need just a few things for it to feel like Christmas: (1) To hear "Thistlehair, the Christmas Bear" by Alabama, (2) To drink lime sherbet punch, which we have on Christmas Eve every year, and (3) To hang out with my husband, daughter, and parents. So I am sure by tomorrow night, I will feel the Christmas spirit very strongly!

What do you need for it to feel like Christmas?

I really only have one Christmas wish this year: for everyone in my family to have good health and happiness in the year to come. Especially my husband, who went from never having surgery to having two in the span of five months.

Merry, merry Christmas to all of you and your families!

Giving Hope

2010-12-05T22:47:00.000-06:00

Recently, I posted a link to an article, Infertile couples cope with prolific Facebook friends, on my Facebook page with the comment "I have to say, I completely understand this reaction. I'm glad I wasn't on Facebook when I was battling infertility. If someone wants to hide me because of my baby pictures and updates, I would totally understand. I've been there."

This week, I got an inbox message from one of my sorority sisters. She's two years younger than me, married, and living in another state. I haven't seen her since I graduated, but keep up with her on Facebook. We were not super close in school, mainly because we only overlapped in the sorority together for about a year since she's younger than me, but I've always thought she was a very sweet person.

She wrote: "I just wanted to thank you for the post you made a little while back about fb and infertility. Although I can't really figure out why, somehow it's something you're not supposed to talk about. I was glad you mentioned it.

We've been dealing with infertility for awhile now, and it really sucks. No other way to put it. And yes, fb can be really hard when everyone I know has such beautiful children and gushes about them all the time...But I don't think I'd hide anyone for it bc I'm so glad to see these people I know so happy. Honestly, it's huge to me to know you dealt with infertility but have had such a fantastic happy ending. I've always enjoyed seeing your pics of your daughter bc she's so cute and looks like a mini-you...but now when I see your posts it also reminds me that even people who struggle with infertility can end up with a fantastic family."

This message means the world to me. I cried reading it. I do have a fantastic family and I'm so blessed. And I'm so happy that by sharing this link and my experience, I gave my friend some hope in her own infertility battle.

Infertility is nothing to be ashamed of--it's a medical condition, despite the fact that most insurance companies do not cover its treatment. I made a promise to myself after I had my daughter that I would always talk about the way she came into being honestly and share my experience in part to try to take the stigma away from infertility. I suffered mostly alone and in silence while I was going through it, feeling like a failure and angry at God. So I won't be silent about it ever again.

I wrote back to my sister and told her how much her words meant to me. I also gave her my number and told her to please call me if she ever wanted to talk and needed a sympathetic ear from someone who's been there. And I told her I'd be praying for her and her husband. I so hope they will get their miracle baby. Mine was conceived about this time three years ago via IUI...a true Christmas miracle.

"Now when I see your posts it also reminds me that even people who struggle with infertility can end up with a fantastic family." This is one of the best sentences I've ever read! I gave someone hope today. What a great feeling!

My little Christmas miracle

This Year, I'm Thankful for...

2010-11-24T23:52:00.000-06:00

My adorable baby girl. When she sings along to songs in the car, concentrating very hard on getting the words right, when she tells me the elevator is sleeping and she's going to get it to "Wake up!" by pushing the button, when she leans her head in to me for a hug or kiss, when she screeches in delight at something the Backyardigans are doing or a thousand other things, my heart just melts and I feel so blessed. Thank you God for letting me be a mother to this little girl. I love her so much.
My husband. Who always takes the early shift with baby girl because I'm not a morning person. Who is a great daddy and loves her so much and would do anything for her. Who always thinks of the perfect gadget to buy me for Christmas. (This year, a new stereo for my car so I can play my iPod directly through speakers. Last year, a notebook laptop!) Who I started dating at Thanksgiving eight years ago--happy anniversary!
My parents. What would I ever do without them? My mom's my best friend and my daddy's my hero and one of the best people I know. They are terrific grandparents who love my baby so much! They are always happy and eager to babysit, whether it's because baby girl is sick and we need to go to work, but don't want to send her to school, or because my husband and I want to do something together, or just because. (If they haven't seen her in a week, they often ask to babysit and encourage me to find something to do LOL.) I'm so grateful I don't have to leave my daughter with a babysitter.
My part-time job. I've been working four days a week for a little over a year now. Occasionally, I miss the extra 20 percent I was making when I was full time, and people have gotten promoted up to my level with no apparent promotion for me on the horizon, but I don't regret my decision and am thankful to have more balance in my life and a day just for me and my daughter to spend time together with no obligations.
My girlfriends. Most, but not all of these, are my mom friends and I don't know what I'd do without them. It's nice to talk mom stuff with them, like potty training tricks and when Gymbucks start, but it's equally nice to talk about non-mom stuff, from Eva Longoria and Tony Parker divorce rumors to what happened on Glee the night before!
My gadgets. I know this is silly, but I don't know what I'd do without my iPod, my Blackberry, my digital camera, and my notebook laptop! I like having the world at my fingertips with the ability to record my experiences on the fly and hear my favorite tunes on demand. It's amazing to me to remember that my grandmother had a "party line" when I was a little girl and my daughter will never really know the concept of a landline because we are a cell-only family.
My memories of my grandparents. Being southern, there was nothing my paternal grandparents and my maternal grandma loved more than putting on a big spread of food, gathering their large extended families around their tables, saying a prayer, and then eating a meal together. My maternal grandma died the day after Christmas in 1997, my paternal grandma died a week before Thanksgiving in 2000 (right after she bought her turkey for the meal), and my paternal grandfather died on Thanksgiving Day in 2003 (my maternal grandfather died before I was born), and so the holidays are always a little bittersweet for me. But as the years pass, I've chosen to focus on really remembering the good times I had with them and my love for them at Thanksgiving in particular and throughout the holiday season. Especially now, when I have this cute little baby girl who they would absolutely adore (partially because she is a way better eater than I ever was!), I miss them so much.
You. I haven't been blogging for very long, and I don't do it very regularly, but I have made some wonderful connections with people through this blog. So I thank you for reading and wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving filled with the glamour of love and the blessings of friends and family!

Epidural: A Love Story, or Why Having a Medicated Birth Doesn't Make You Less of a Supermom

2010-11-16T00:41:00.002-06:00

I was reading parenting.com today, as I often do, when I came across a post by Jenny Feldon, one of the Project Pregnancy bloggers. In Supermom Does Childbirth-The Natural Way?, Jenny, pregnant with Baby #2, wonders if she should opt for natural childbirth this time around vs. getting an epidural as she did with Baby #1.

Jenny writes, "Shouldn’t Supermom be able to handle natural childbirth with strength and grace? I’m fascinated by women, like my own mother, who have delivered multiple children without the benefits of anesthesia. If she could do it, shouldn’t I be able to? If I’m strong enough to be a mom, then maybe I should be strong enough to go it alone starting with that very first contraction."

The tone of this bothered me a bit. I mean, don't get me wrong, if you want to do natural childbirth and not have an epidural or any other kind of medical intervention, knock yourself out. I'm all for women having the freedom to make these choices and if Jenny or any other woman chooses this, that does not bother me at all.

What does bother me is the implied subtext here--that giving birth completely "natural," aka unmedicated, makes you a better mom or a stronger woman or something, and that if you choose to have an epidural, you are less of a woman or weak or a worse mother or something. I mean, if that were true, what would that say about women who end up having to have a c-section? Are they not Supermoms then because their bodies couldn't deliver their babies without major medical intervention? Of course not! Can we stop ranking the levels of our motherhood, ladies? We're all equally mothers from the moment the lines appear on the pee stick, and we're all trying to do the best we can. We're all Supermoms here!

Now all of that said, I didn't title this post "Epidural: A Love Story" without reason. I think the epidural is AWESOME. I'm all for it. And I don't think it makes me less of a Supermom or a woman because I do. I never questioned whether to have one or not to have one--I always wanted to have one, partially because of the birth story I'm most familiar with--my own.

When my mother was pregnant with me, she had gestational diabetes, and as a result of this, I was a very large baby. The military doctors my mother was seeing also allowed her to go a full three weeks past her due date with me, so I was extra large (9 lbs, 11 oz). When my mother finally went into labor, she labored hard for about 18 hours...at which point, they gave her an epidural for half an hour to give her "a chance to rest." My mother, in retelling the story, always describes the time period when she had the epidural as "THE BEST 30 MINUTES OF MY LIFE." When it wore off, she had eight more hours of hideous pain, and then the doctors realized, duh, this baby is too large to have ever been delivered vaginally AND she's stuck sideways in there, so maybe we should do a c-section before both mother and baby die.

The story ends with my mother recounting how she wasn't very happy to see me after all that (LOL) and it was a terrible experience. Now, she loves me very much, but my birth story IS pretty awful. And I think she's a Supermom for surviving all of that, especially because what she went through meant she couldn't have any more children after me, which is why I'm an only child.

When I was pregnant and thinking ahead to labor, my only thoughts were, "I want an epidural and I'd like to avoid a c-section if I can, but if we need it, I'll do it sooner rather than later. Oh, and I'd rather tear naturally than have an episiotomy." That's it. That's all I thought, and that's all I communicated to my doctor. That was the sum total of my birth plan.

As I approached my due date, I did do all sorts of things to help along the dilation process, so that with 11 days to go, I was already 2.5 cm dilated. I had a checkup with my doctor and he was concerned about how big the baby was going to be in 11 days--his estimate was over 8 pounds. How did I feel, he asked me. I don't want to go past my due date, I told him. I'm worried I'll end up like my mom with a big baby and need to have a c-section and I'd like to avoid that if I can. Since my due date was on a Saturday when he would not be on call, he suggested we induce me in exactly a week--four days before my due date.

So that was the plan. I was only a little concerned about being induced early -- I had one friend where induction didn't work for her and she ended up having a c-section, but they induced her a few weeks early, which was more likely why that was her result. Another friend has been induced twice a few days before her due date and both times, the baby was born a few hours later, no problem, so I was hoping I'd be more in that situation.

As it turns out, I didn't have to worry. A mere 12 hours later, I spontaneously went into labor 10 days early. It was 12:30 a.m. and I was on my way to bed when what I thought was my water broke. I called and they told me to come in, but no need to rush. So I took a shower, styled my hair, and applied fresh makeup--I am Glam-O-Mommy for a reason! My husband also took a shower--hey, for all we knew, I had 26 hours of labor ahead of me! While I was getting ready, my contractions started. The first one wasn't bad. Seven minutes later, the next one wasn't bad. Five minutes later, the next one still wasn't too bad. TWO MINUTES LATER, OMG BAD!! Less than two minutes later, OMG BAD!!

At this point, it was 1:40 a.m. and we were on the way to the hospital. My husband wasn't speeding or anything crazy, although I urged him to, because the contractions were less than two minutes apart, OMG BAD!

We parked at the hospital, walked down LITERALLY the longest hallway ever, with me having to stop every few feet because OMG BAD! OMG BAD! and finally entered Labor and Delivery. I walked right up to the nurse at the desk and said, and I quote, "If you need to wake up the anesthesiologist, please call and do so NOW because I want an epidural as soon as possible." Seriously.

They checked me out in triage and I was 4.5 cm, my water hadn't broken yet (apparently, it was the plug), but they were definitely checking me in. They asked me what seemed like a thousand questions, got me into a Labor and Delivery room, put IVs in me (I was positive for Group B Strep so I had to have an IV), and then asked me a thousand more questions. (I got asked my height over and over--still have no clue why!) The whole time I was OMG BAD! OMG BAD! less than a minute apart and in the less than 60 seconds between contractions I was all, "WHERE'S THE ANESTHESIOLOGIST?! WHERE'S MY EPIDURAL?!"

Because y'all, contractions HURT LIKE HELL. I had mine up front AND in my back and the back ones hurt way worse than anything I've ever felt in my life. They kept saying the anesthesiologist was on his way and would be there any minute and I should just focus on breathing and all I felt was OMG BAD! OMG BAD! OMG BAD! And it wasn't like how they described contractions in my childbirth class, where they said you would have a BREAK between contractions where you could REST. I did not have that! As soon as one contraction was ending, I could literally feel the next one revving up. I couldn't catch my breath, my blood pressure was sky high (gee, I have no idea why! OMG BAD! OMG BAD!), and I just wanted my epidural.

Then, the pain became so intense, I threw up. Twice. OMG BAD! OMG BAD! And then I heard the magic words, "The anesthesiologist is coming."

Dr. Johnson arrived and I was so happy to see him. I was also worried, because I didn't think I could hold still for him to get the needle in my back because the contractions were so intense I was shaking all over. No problem, he told me. He got the needle in and in seconds, I felt blissfully numb from the bump down. No more OMG BAD!

"Dr. Johnson, I could kiss you!" I told him. "If you hadn't just thrown up, I'd take you up on that," he replied. Favorite. Doctor. EVER!

It was now 3:30 a.m. I had endured two straight hours of OMG BAD! contractions less than a minute or two apart. They checked me and I was 7 cm. My parents had just arrived at the hospital, so everyone cleared out of the room and my husband brought them back to hang out with us. For the next three and a half hours, I zoomed from 7 cm to 10 cm dilated without feeling a thing but BLISS. I was relaxed, savoring my last moments of pregnancy, talking with parents and my husband, taking little cat naps, and eagerly anticipating meeting my daughter.

I pushed for an hour and 15 minutes with no pain but enough pressure to guide me in my pushing and out my daughter came, screaming loudly, pink and healthy and beautiful, a mere eight hours after the whole thing started. She was 8 lbs and 6 oz, which is what my doctor thought she would weigh on my due date, so it's good she didn't wait till then. I did tear in two places, probably on the last big push that got her out. I felt amazed at myself and my body and my baby. I felt like Supermom. I felt like I could do anything, including scale Mt. Everest! It was an awesome feeling--an amazing high!

So that's my love story with the epidural, and that's why I think having a medicated birth doesn't make you less of a Supermom. Truthfully, I don't even describe my daughter's birth as medicated. Given the OMG BAD! OMG BAD! contractions I endured, I had natural childbirth! I experienced both sides, unmedicated and medicated. For me, the epidural was the way to go. I have absolutely no doubt I could've gone on without it, but I'm so glad I didn't have to.

And I'm glad that thanks to the epidural and the eight short hours, I remember labor as one of the best experiences of my life (even though I still remember the OMG BAD! very distinctly) rather than one of the worst like my mother. When she came in afterwards and was holding my baby girl, she looked at me and told me she was so happy for me, because I had had a better birth experience than she had. And I told her that I loved her so much and couldn't believe she'd had 25.5 hours of OMG BAD! OMG BAD! to endure epidural-free, plus major traumatic surgery, to have me.

However, your birth story goes--natural, medicated, c-section, we're all Supermoms here, ladies. We are--every single one of us! We have given birth, brought life forth.

But the epidural's kind of awesome, I'm just saying.

I'm Still Here

2010-10-30T12:59:00.000-05:00

It's been quite a month. I've intended to blog several times, but have had trouble summoning energy this month.

There's something about having a months-long buildup to a long, fabulous vacation you've planned out in your head, complete with gorgeous beach pictures for your Christmas card, that leaves you completely drained and devoid of energy when said fabulous vacation unravels in a swirl of tropical storm winds, continuous rain, and lack of continuous power in the hotel room you are stuck in due to the aforementioned continuous rain.

It started well, then...

disaster struck (tree knocked down outside our room).

It looked like this for 80 percent of our week..

So, yeah, Jamaica did not turn out to be the fabulous vacation I hoped for. We had decent weather for the first 2.5 days and then the rain started and did not let up until we went home. Which might've been okay if the power had stayed on in our room. But we had about 1.5 days of no power in our room. Ever changed a dirty diaper on a wiggly toddler in a dark room? It's messy and no fun.

And still, it all might've been okay, if it was just the power in our building or room...however, it was the power on our side of the resort. So if we didn't have power in our room, neither did three of the restaurants, the kids' camp for our daughter, the XBox gaming room, and the spa...pretty much all the other things you do at a resort when it's raining and you can't swim. (To their credit, the spa managed to keep going by candlelight when the power was out, which was awesome.)

No power also means no air conditioning, which means massive humidity, which means feeling wet and sweaty for five days straight. Yuck. I'm high maintenance. I'm Glam-O-Mommy. This is my nightmare, people!

Mommy should be in this picture instead of me, because the bad weather turned her into Mommy the Grouch!

We ate almost every meal the last four days in the same single restaurant on the side of the resort with power...the last two days I was so tired of the food and depressed, I quit eating. Seriously. I came home three pounds lighter from vacation. WHICH NEVER HAPPENS.

It was incredibly stressful, especially not knowing if and when the power might go out again, and what might go wrong next. I couldn't relax. I was completely on edge. I was frustrated that the resort didn't seem to have a decent plan in place for handling the storm and the power outages. (They couldn't relocate the kids' camp to the side of the resort with a power? Add extra activities in the areas with power to give people something to do? Had they never had a storm before?!) All in all, I came away feeling like I'd spent a week on Survivor, which is a show I am not cut out for. It was like we went camping in the jungle instead of staying at a nice luxury resort. All that money down the drain.

Now, I should mention that while I had a pretty unhappy time on this vacation, my daughter loved it! She's two, so it's not like all of the weather and lack of power and sweating meant anything to her. And since they managed to keep the power on on the side of the resort where they did the nightly Sesame Street shows, she got to dance with Elmo, Ernie, and the gang for one hour every night--AND LOVED IT. She was a total Elmo groupie, standing right in front of the stage with her little arms up to him. It was the absolute saving grace of the whole trip, because I enjoyed watching her have such a fun time, even when I felt miserable. :)

ELMO! I'm right here!!

I don't know why Mommy is so upset. I'm having an AWESOME time with my Sesame Street friends.

And I don't mind that this is the dirtiest I've ever been in my life, because check out the cool sunken boat behind me!

Obviously, I need to take a page from her book about making the best of a bad situation. :)

Unfortunately, I came home drained and depressed, and that feeling has dragged on a bit. It took me two full weeks to unpack all the suitcases and do all the laundry, something I usually do right away. I let the house get a little crazy until the maids came to clean, which only added to my depression. I had a hard time focusing at work.

Worst of all, I feel terrible whining and complaining and being depressed about my vacation, because it's what I call a "high-class problem" to have...not that I'm high class or anything, just that it's not a real problem. It's not a real disaster. We all survived, we were lucky, our vacation just kind of sucked. Some people lost homes in the storm. Other people have real crises in their lives. I shouldn't complain.

However, I can't help feeling let down and like we wasted a bunch of money (oh, what else I could do with that money!) and I think I needed to write about this one more time just to purge it from my soul and move on, you know?

I've turned a corner in the last two weeks...got the laundry caught up and the house mostly back in order. Took my daughter to get two-year portraits made, which made me happy, since I didn't have family beach portraits from Jamaica (Note to self: next time, take family pictures on beach at first opportunity). Went to dinners with girlfriends and three Spurs games, which always cheers me up. And I'm rocking and rolling at work too.

Our ONLY family picture from the entire week. Cute, but not exactly what I planned for our Christmas card. Note that my daughter is snuggling up with Elmo. We tried to take a few family pictures after the characters left, but she pitched a fit and tried to follow Elmo, so this was it.

So I'm still here, I'm moving on, and I will try to get back to regular blogging (and NO WHINING) soon.

Things I'm Learning in Jamaica

2010-09-29T00:01:00.000-05:00

1. That you can chew pure sugar cane and it will pour sugary sweetness into your mouth. But you only chew it...no swallowing. This is thanks to our bus driver (we were the only ones on the bus from the airport to our resort in Negril) who pulled over to buy some for us to try when my husband asked what it was the people were selling on the corner.

2. That my daughter, who has always been a great sleeper and early riser right along with my husband, may be turning to the dark side and becoming a night person like me! She started out getting up early, but these last two nights she has suddenly been finding excuse after excuse to stay up late...wanting to read books and listen to music. Hilariously, she has also figured out that telling us "I'm stinky!" or "I go poopy!" sometimes warrants a diaper check and has used this to get out of bed. She's also tried this when she's done with dinner and ready to go do something else, but after the second time she pulled this trick, we figured out that she KNOWS this will make us act and so now we are ignoring this excuse LOL!

3. That if there is something on the buffet line called the "Bubble and Squeak," it's essentially a potato pancake. No idea why it is called this interesting name.

4. That a man walking by on the beach will offer to sell you marijuana right in front of your two-year-old daughter. This happened to my husband when he took our daughter for an early morning stroll on the beach. He refused the man's offer, of course.

5. That it's a good thing you brought enough swimsuits for you and your daughter to wear a different one practically every day because it's so humid the wet ones you hang up will never dry out.

6. That upgrading your room to concierge level is awesome because you have a mini fridge in the room stocked with Cokes, Diet Cokes, Sprite, water, juice, ginger ale, and Jamaican beer, and it's refilled every day...and it's all included-no extra charge.

7. That maybe planning a trip to the Caribbean in September/hurricane season wasn't the best idea, now that Tropical Depression 16 aka soon-to-be Tropical Storm Nicole has been dumping loads of rain directly on Jamaica for 20 hours, even though it's 200 miles away from the "center" of the storm and not even ON the projected storm path. Move on storm!

8. That you should've taken your family portraits on the beach the first day, since now it may rain for the rest of your time here. So much for the Christmas card picture...

9. That champagne flavored with peach and blackberry schnapps is kind of delish.

10. That your daughter is going to be a terror at concerts in her teens, considering she spent all evening trying to bum rush the stage during Bert and Ernie's Island Adventure Stage Show! I felt like security trying to get her off the stairs to the stage--she couldn't understand why she couldn't go up there to be with her Sesame Street pals. Thank goodness the gang all came down into the audience at the end of the show and danced with all the little kids and she got hugs from everyone and danced with Ernie!

11. That Arnold Schwarzenegger had reason to be frustrated in Kindergarten Cop when he had to keep explaining to the one kid, "IT'S NOT A TOOM-AH!" I've spent all day the last several days telling my daughter, "IT'S NOT BROKEN!" as she declares EVERYTHING-the TV, the phone, my iPod, the computer, a closed door, you name it-"IT'S BWOKEN!" if it does not appear to be doing what she thinks it's supposed to/wants it to do!

12. That generally, when a resort throws a talent show and the guests are supposed to provide the talent, it should be called Beaches Guests Don't Got Talent. One kid did a cheer no one could hear, one clogged, one sang Don't Stop Believing by Journey and forgot the words halfway through (luckily for her, everyone from Generation X sang along FOR her-poor thing)...two adults sang a semi-nice version of I Can't Help Falling in Love With You, and a guy did a drum solo with the band. I'd say it was a toss up between the duet and the drummer, but we didn't stay to see who was declared the most talented of the talent-less.

13. That I cannot go without sunblock for two hours. Evidence: the sunburn I got on my shoulders on our first morning here. I have no excuse...even though it was overcast, I should know better. Have used 90 SPF ever since...well, until the rain started, anyway.

14. That my kid, like her father, is not going to be prone to sunburn--she's just going to turn beautifully brown. Lucky!! Using 90 SPF on her too.

15. That even when you have internet access in Jamaica, abc.com and hulu.com will not let you watch episodes of Castle online since you are "outside the United States and its territories." Seriously?!

16. That the Jamaican people, while generally lovely and friendly, all seem to suffer the same deficiency: giving incomplete instructions. We took our daughter to play in the toddler pool at the kids' camp and decided to leave her there for a bit since she was having fun. The nannies told us to bring them a change of clothes and diapers for her. We walk to room, obtain said items, and return to camp. Then, they tell us they also need us to bring our own wipes, causing a return trip to our room. At the airport, one customs person told me I could put my daughter on my customs/immigration form. Another told me she had to have her own form, but I only needed to fill out the front top section. A third told me I had to fill in the whole thing, both sides, top and bottom. @^#&$*@!

17. That I'm not the thinnest mama here rocking the bikini (a couple of anorexic looking moms have me wondering how they ever produced a baby from their skinny bods!), but I'm definitely fine to do so. Others not so much.

18. That one upside to staying at a family resort is NO NAKED PEOPLE. When we went to Sandals (a couples resort) just down the beach four years ago, we had some people going topless and we kayaked by the Hedonism resort and got the full frontal from another guy who seemed to be waving us over ("Paddle faster!" I said to my hubby.) I'm not against nakedness per se (good nakedness), but the kind of people who generally go naked at these resorts? NOT THE KIND YOU EVER WANT TO SEE NAKED. It's never the hot people, just the delusionally uninhibited.

I'm sure I've learned more in these past few days, but I should sign off for now. I have a hot breakfast date with my husband, daughter, and the Sesame Street gang. Anyone know a good "Stop Raining" Dance?

Random Wednesday Thoughts

2010-09-15T22:16:00.000-05:00

I go to Jamaica in 10 days. Only things standing between me and Jamaica at this point? One major project at work that has to be completed, the bikini wax I have scheduled for Saturday which is absolutely essential for spending a week in a bikini, and packing.

And it would be great to lose like five pounds between now and then, but since I'm not, I'm still going to rock my bikinis and rock them proudly for two reasons: (a) I don't know anyone in Jamaica so who cares what they think of my slight mommy pooch, and (b) We are going to Beaches, which is a family resort, so who cares what a bunch of little kids and Elmo and Big Bird think of me in a bikini? I actually ordered a new bikini from Victoria's Secret recently and, upon trying it on, worried that the bottom might be a smidge small. I mean, it covered everything, which is key, but I still felt a LEETLE nekkid in it. (Nekkid=naked and up to no good LOL!) I asked my husband what he thought and he replied: "It's not too small. You look good." Love my husband!

When I daydream about our Jamaica trip, it's all sunshine and Bob Marley songs and relaxing under palm trees. Which is how our last trip to Jamaica, four child-free years ago, was. I imagine this time is going to be more of the chasing-after-my-toddler-while-trying-to-keep-my boobs-and-butt-covered variety, with a Sesame Street soundtrack and no time for palm trees, but that's OK. My husband and I considered going to Jamaica and leaving our daughter with my parents, the grandparentals. But we like taking her places with us and seeing her have new experiences in new countries and cultures. And she loves Elmo and the gang, so I think it's going to be fun for all of us. And if I really need to relax under a palm tree, I can put her in the little Sesame Street day camp for a few hours LOL.

So this past weekend, my mother-in-law [MIL] was in town visiting us from Toronto. (See? Not a smooth transition--this is going to be a very random post.) The good part of her visit was that it was only three days. Oh, and I did enjoy shopping for shoes and sunglasses with her for two hours. That was actually really fun. But three days is about my limit.

My MIL is a nice person, but she analyzes everything everyone is doing to the point that she doesn't really enjoy anything. We took her out to eat at a nice restaurant in a nearby small town Saturday and we were sitting on the patio overlooking the river, enjoying the breeze and the food, and she was analyzing everyone's meal to determine whose was the healthiest option (my mother, the Nana's, which kind of upset her because she thought when she ordered hers it would be the healthiest) and whose was the worst (my husband's--chopped steak smothered in queso-yum) and sharing facts about the little town we were in from the brochure on our table. On the way home that night, she commented on how excited my parents were to see my daughter and how much she could tell they enjoyed playing with her, and all I could think was, yes, that's because they are her GRANDPARENTS and that's how most grandparents are! (She's not...she loves my daughter, but she's mostly focused on herself and what she wants--I attribute this to the fact that she's been divorced and living alone for about 30 years.)

The most trying thing about my MIL though is that she considers herself an expert on everything. She once explained to me what an oil change WAS and why she got them done. (Um, hello...I've been driving for 20 years...I think I grasp what an oil change is LOL!) She crossed the room to get her reading glasses this weekend to analyze the nutritious facts on the Graduates toddler meals we occasionally (read: regularly) feed our daughter and then lectured us on preservatives (even though the meals don't have any!) and fiber intake and sodium. Gah.

On the same infamous drive home Saturday night, she informed me that my daughter's swim coach was a lesbian, a fact she determined by observing my daughter's class for 15 minutes that morning. OK, to be fair, first she ASKED me if she was a lesbian. I replied that I didn't know, but that she was a good teacher and was very sweet with my daughter and the other babies. THEN she informed me that she was. "She had that weird tattoo of a pinup girl on her arm--she's a lesbian," she informed me. Then, she proceeded to explain for 10 hellish minutes how some lesbians have short hair, but some don't and she works with a lot of gay people, so SHE KNOWS. Meanwhile, I sat there praying for her to shut up with all of her stupid comments about gay people!

For me, when I first met my daughter's swim coach, I was a little puzzled as to why she would want a tattoo of a pinup girl in a red 50s-style bikini tattooed on her arm, but that's because I'm not a tattoo person. I didn't consider whether it meant she was gay or not, because I just don't care. I went to a small liberal arts university. I have gay friends. I don't have issues with that. I just don't like tattoos. I thought about it for all of about three seconds before she opened her mouth to start class and was just a very sweet early-20s girl who is amazingly patient and has fun while teaching my daughter and the other babies in her class. And that's ALL I care about. So I was especially irritated because I hadn't realized my MIL had some sort of issues with the gays she knows so much about LOL, and because HELLO--she was supposed to be watching her granddaughter swim! Not analyzing everything as usual. Sigh.

Anyhoo, let's just say I'm glad she lives in Canada and I only see her once or twice a year. How much was I over her visit by the time we put her on the plane? Well, despite my recent post about margaritas, I am a very infrequent drinker, maybe having one drink every few weeks or sometimes months. After we dropped her at the airport on Sunday and went home and put our daughter down for a nap, I opened a bottle of wine, drank three-fourths of it, and took a big nap myself!

Jamaica can't come fast enough.

Kids' Birthday Parties: Yay or Nay?

2010-09-08T23:23:00.000-05:00

I just threw my daughter a party for her 2nd birthday. It was a Western Backyardigans Birthday Bonanza. My daughter loves, loves, loves the Backyardigans and we live in Texas, so I wanted to combine them with a cowgirl/cowboy theme.

The cake--I did not make this myself

The Birthday Girl in her boots, ready to go!

We rented out a local western-themed indoor playplace with a bouncy house, slide, swings, and party room, and had the whole place for two hours. (My daughter spent most of the party in the bouncy house with the exception of coming out to eat LOL.) We decorated the partyroom in western/Backyardigans birthday decor and played a few of the Backyardigans' western-themed episodes in the party room while everyone was eating.

The party room before--my mother, the Nana, sewed all the gingham tablecloths

Party decor--my mother bought the little hats to put on the Backyardigan Beanie Babies LOL

We served pizza, cake, and ice cream cups, plus juice boxes for the kids and soda or water for the adults. Every kid left the party with either a pink or blue cowboy hat and a little gift bag of Backyardigans goodies, plus a CD I burned of my daughter's favorite songs. Our party guests included 12 kids, about half of them from my daughter's classes at day school and half of them children of my close girlfriends, plus the birthday girl, and 14 adults, including the parents of all of those children, my husband and me, and my parents, aka the grandparentals.

My daughter and two friends in the bouncy house

Guests swinging

The kiddie zip line

Dressing up like a cowboy!

Everyone eating in the party room

Now lucky for me, I didn't have to do all of this by myself. My mother, aka the Nana, is a party planner extraordinaire. She totally missed her calling and should do party planning professionally; she is incredibly good at it.

Of course, she's had lots of practice. She planned themed birthday parties for me every year from when I turned one till my sweet 16. I had a Mickey Mouse party and a Snow White party and a Cinderella party and a Strawberry Shortcake party, plus a McDonald's party, a skating party, a putt-putt golf party, and on and on. She did everything from renting a village hall for my 4th birthday when we were living in England, to pitching a tent in our backyard for a camp out party for my 9th birthday, to renting a country club pool/outdoor volleyball area for my sweet 16. (One of my gifts at my sweet 16 was a photo album she put together for me with pictures from every one of my birthday parties!)

The Nana should do this professionally--
you should see how beautiful my bridal tea, rehearsal dinner,
and later baby shower turned out!

Now, my parents are not and never have been rich by any stretch of the imagination, but my mother has always tried to make my birthdays special with whatever she had. And when I asked her about why she did that, she talked to me about her own birthdays. My mother grew up poor in Alabama, one of 10 children. For her birthday, my grandma usually made a cake from scratch for them to eat at dinner, which was delicious, but was divided among all those kids. Depending on money, my mom might have gotten one present, like a doll, but more than likely, she got something she needed, like a new pair of shoes. That was really it. So making my parties a real event, something beautiful and special, made her really happy. She kind of re-lived her childhood dreams vicariously through them!

So, with this kind of childhood birthday experience, of course, I think throwing a fun birthday party for my daughter is important and something you just DO. I've never questioned that I will throw my daughter some sort of party or gathering every year until she turns 16. (As if the Nana would let me NOT throw my daughter a birthday party if I felt differently LOL.)

If I hadn't planned to throw a party, the Nana definitely would've!

A friend questioned me about it though a few months ago, not really understanding why I was throwing a party for my daughter--who was I going to invite after all? Which I thought was a weird question.

Now for some background...this friend is one of my best mom friends and her daughter is three months older than mine. Her daughter's birthday falls in the same week as her husband's birthday. So last year, when her daughter turned one, they had a luau party for her husband and his best friend whose birthday is also in the same week, and just had an extra cake for her daughter, but it wasn't really her party per se. I didn't see anything wrong with that...it was actually really cute because my friend's husband got a Hawaiian shirt to wear at the party that had a matching dress for their daughter, so it was tres adorable! Everyone at the party was an adult though, except her daughter, our daughter, and one or two other older children that came with their parents.

When my friend's daughter's 2nd birthday rolled around a few months ago, I kind of expected her to throw her daughter a little party, but once again, we were invited to an adult party for the two guys, with an extra cake for the little birthday girl turning two. We RSVPed, and then my daughter and I were having dinner with the friend and her daughter and my other mom friend and her son, and my other mom friend asked me what I was doing for my daughter's birthday in three months. I had just reserved the playplace, so I mentioned we were renting that and having the party there.

And that's when my friend started asking me questions. Why was I throwing my daughter a party? Her main issue seemed to be, who would I possibly invite? Which was odd, because she, her husband, and her daughter all came to the 1st birthday ballerina-themed party I threw at my house for my daughter last year, so it wasn't like she hadn't already seen one of my parties in action. Well, I said, I'm inviting all the folks that came to the party last year (my parents, a few of my girlfriends, and their children), plus some of my daughter's friends from school (and their parents, of course).

Last year's 1st birthday party for my daughter--theme was ballerinas.
The doll at left was mine as a child and the Nana made the cover that turned the highchair into one big tutu!

My daughter's outfit for her 1st birthday--she wasn't quite walking yet!

And this seemed to be her main issue. She was surprised my daughter has "friends." Now granted, my daughter's two and they mostly parallel play still at this point, but she has been going to her day school with a certain group of children for the last 20 months. She sees these babies all day, every day, four days a week. They play and sing and read and eat and go potty together LOL. In my mind, they're friends! And my friend considers her daughter, who we only see every few weeks on playdates, my daughter's friend, so why wouldn't her classmates who she sees every day be her friends?!

My daughter's friend from school--he's actually the first little boy to hold hands with her
when they were mere babies in the nursery (daughter is wearing new outfit due to a poop incident LOL)

I just thought it was weird...her daughter has been in daycare since she was 10 weeks old, longer than my daughter has, so I was surprised she didn't consider any of the kids in her daycare class her daughter's friends, or know any of their parents. (I only invited kids who I know pretty well and whose parents I've at least chatted with a few times in passing--some I know better than others.)

This is my friend's little boy who does not go to school with my daughter,
but goes in for a hug everytime he sees her! He's my favorite potential future son-in-law LOL!

I don't know if she was just feeling insecure/competitive because she wasn't having a separate party for her daughter, and was using that as an excuse, or if she really thinks her daughter has no friends. I think it would be sad to think my daughter was in school all day and wasn't friends with any of those kids! Recently, I talked to my daughter about the concept of best friends and asked her if she had a best friend. Usually, she'll only parrot back the name of anyone I say, so I specifically did not name anyone...just asked the question and let it lie there. She thought for a minute and then said the name of a little girl who was invited to the party from her class! I asked again if she had a best friend and she repeated the little girl's name, so I was very excited to think she considers that little girl her best friend.

The little girl my daughter named as her friend

Anyway, so all this got me thinking...what do most people think about little kid birthday parties: yay or nay? Do you think it's a waste because your child really doesn't have "friends" at such a young age or are you, like me, all into hosting a party? I think that, like my mother before me, I am living vicariously through my daughter's parties too. :)

Glam-O-Mommy and daughter, enjoying pizza

Break the Funk: Ask Glam-O-Mommy

2010-09-05T23:49:00.000-05:00

Glam-O-Readers, I've been in a bit of a funk this past week. Not sure if it's a post-baby's birthday letdown or pre-mother-in-law's visit meltdown (Cannot. Keep. House. Clean. EEK) or if it's a I'm-Working-on-Two-High-Level-and-Highly-Annoying-Projects-at-Work-That-Will-Never-End breakdown, or just the fact that I haven't had a vacation since February and Jamaica is still 20 days away.

The funk has extended to my blog. I keep starting posts, getting a few paragraphs in, and then setting them aside, unsure if I want to declare my thoughts and feelings on a variety of topics...just at a bit of a loss as to what to say.

So, I'm looking to you for ideas...what do you WANT to know about me? Or any thoughts/positions/opinions I have on anything related to motherhood or anything else? I reserve the right to not answer certain questions, as I'm obviously protecting my privacy a little bit here, but other than that, ask away. I'm generally an open book in real life, and am curious what you want to know about me, based on what you've already read/seen here.

Post your questions in the comments...and I'll post a response blog answering the questions soon!

Come on...you know you want to ask me something! Here's your chance. :)

Two Years of Miracles and Dreams Come True

2010-08-28T08:48:00.004-05:00

"I was waiting for so long/For a miracle to come/Everyone told me to be strong/Hold on and don't shed a tear.

Through the darkness and good times/I knew I'd make it through/And the world thought I had it all/But I was waiting for you..."

--From A New Day Has Come by Celine Dion

Two years ago today...I met an angel God sent to me. She saved my life.

Glam-O-Mommy meets daughter

Ready to go home--third day

First moments at home

8 lbs 6 oz, 21 inches long

When I look at her, I believe miracles can happen. Dreams can come true.

One month old

Seven months old

One year old

Thank you, God, for answering my prayer.

Two years old, 30 lbs 8 oz, 37.25 inches long

Happy birthday, Big Girl. Mommy loves you SO much!

Cowgirl cutie, ready for her big party

This Blog Absence Brought to You by Twilight

2010-08-18T21:58:00.000-05:00

I was on a really good blogging roll during the month of July, and then, almost three weeks ago, I discovered the Twilight phenomenon.

Now, I haven't been living under a rock. The first movie came out while I was on maternity leave, so I heard about it, but was a scooch more focused on my DARLING, ADORABLE BABY to go to a movie or read a book. Since then, obviously, I've heard all about the movies and the books when New Moon came out and then again just six weeks ago, when Eclipse premiered.

And still...very little interest in seeing the movies or reading the books. Kind of thought people were a little crazy for being obsessed with it. Not sure why...Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner are hot and I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but really did not care for Interview with a Vampire, and I think I mistakenly thought it would be more Rice-like than Scooby Gang.

And then, on a random Sunday night, with nothing on TV, I happened upon the movie on Showtime. I watched the last half and thought, hmm...interesting. My husband was out of town for the week, and TV was a wasteland, so when I saw it was on again the next night (gotta love Showtime), I DVR'd it and watched it after my daughter went to bed.

And that was it...I was obsessed. Crazy.

The following night I rented New Moon. And then I watched Twilight again Wednesday and Thursday night. When my husband came home Friday night, I was like, hey--good to see you! I'm going to see a 10:20 showing of Eclipse! Watch the baby for me!

And then I bought all four of the books and read them in about six days. I'm a fast reader, but even so, my husband was impressed...and probably a little perplexed with why his wife was all of a sudden obsessed with vampires and wolves LOL.

And then I bought the Twilight soundtrack and put it in heavy rotation on my iPod.

Note to other parents: The slow or instrumental songs on this soundtrack do an excellent job of lulling toddlers to sleep in the car.

More Twilight watching, ANOTHER rental of New Moon ensued this week, and I'm plotting to go see Eclipse again this weekend. Somebody help me.

In fairness, my Twilight obsession is not the ONLY thing that has kept me from blogging. I'm smack dab in the middle of two MAJOR projects at work that are causing me to want to tear my perfectly highlighted hair right out of my head and making me work some extra hours. I'm also in the final stages of party planning for my daughter's second birthday extravaganza next weekend, trying to figure out where to take her for two-year portraits now that my favorite studio has closed, shopping for our upcoming Jamaica vacation, and still carrying a bit of the parental load, although my husband is slowly doing better on the recovery front.

BUT...Twilight is probably the biggest factor in my lack of blogging, since I've mostly watched and re-watched it after my daughter goes to bed, which is usually when I blog. :) I'll try to be better, if I can resist temptation...

And for the record...TEAM EDWARD all the way!

Margaritas by 9 a.m.

2010-08-04T22:15:00.000-05:00

You know your day is not going well when you feel like downing a couple of margaritas by 9 a.m. in the morning. Especially when you can't remember the last time you had a margarita or alcohol of any kind.

My day started with a jolt as I accidentally turned my alarm off instead of hitting the snooze. I woke up an hour later, knowing I had no hope of getting my daughter to school in time to eat her school breakfast. What is key here is that her school breakfast is her SECOND breakfast of the day...she has milk and a handful of Cheerios when she gets up at home, then, within an hour, she has a second breakfast at school...usually something like milk, a muffin, and a big slice of honeydew melon. She cannot miss the school breakfast. Or any other meal. EVER.

She's not a picky eater, my kid. I am, extremely, so I'm constantly amazed I created this little person who has yet to dislike any food I put in front of her. I feed her all kinds of healthy fruits and veggies and stuff that I don't actually eat myself and she LOVES it. So I try to ensure she always gets to school in time to have the school breakfast. She does not like to miss a meal!

So as I rushed around trying to get ready, I gave her a banana in addition to her regular breakfast since we were going to miss the school breakfast. She scarfed it in less than a minute and wanted more, so I gave her a second banana, which she also polished off quickly, and then I gave her a little extra milk. BREAKFAST ACCOMPLISHED.

Finally ready myself, I thought it would take me my normal 10 minutes to get her ready. Forty-five minutes later, sweaty and defeated, we finally left for school.

The minute I tried to get her dressed, she threw one of the biggest fits I've ever seen. She cried. She crawled away as I tried to change her diaper. She refused all my attempts to put her pants on. I took a break and gave her a minute to calm down, then tried again. More flailing and crying on the floor. Then, I tried my "I'm going to have to leave without you" trick, wherein I say, sadly, "Oh well. If you're not going to get dressed, Mommy's going to have to go ahead and go without you." Then, I take my purse, her bag, my lunch, and other assorted crap to the car, and by the time I'm back in less than a minute, she is usually eager to go with me and very compliant as I dress her. Not today! More wailing and flailing about on the floor ensued. At this point, I began talking directly to and trying to make deals with God. Seriously.

Finally, I wrestled her into her clothes and then put her socks on. She cried and tried to take them back off as if she were in pain from the socks, so totally defeated at this point, I took them back off. Then, she immediately got hysterical, crying, "Socks! Socks!" and put her feet out for me to PUT THE SAME SOCKS BACK ON. So I did. Then I put her shoes on and gave her a paci. And she finally calmed down. (Should've used the paci earlier, but I try to only let her have it in her crib and nowhere else.) Finally calm (both of us), but sweaty and frazzled (me), I took her out to the car. Where she promptly flailed a little as I was going to put her in the car and hit her head on the corner of the car door. And then more wailing ensued. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm an awesome mom.

The 15-minute drive to her school was oddly silent. Neither of us happily sang along to the Laurie Berkner Band as we do most mornings.We were both kind of exhausted and defeated. At school, I hugged her and told her I was sorry for not handling her hysterics well and I was sure she was sorry she didn't just get dressed protest-free as she does most days. I felt it was important for both of us to own our mistakes. I then drove the few blocks to my office, went into my office, and sat down at my desk, totally deflated.

And desperately craving a couple of frosty margaritas. Like, seriously wondering, do they sell margaritas at 9 a.m.? This is San Antonio, home of the best margaritas in the world...surely someone is selling them at this time of the morning?! I'll just say I'm going on a Starbucks run and go hit a bar. I'm obviously not doing well as a mother. I need a drink!

Then, the crap started rolling in at work and I let my mommy guilt go and tried to deal with the work in front of me and get through the day.

At the end of the day, I started thinking about my poor daughter though. She is a child that lives and dies by routine. Not a schedule...just a routine. Like, if I say let's go take a bath, no matter what time of day the bath happens, she has to go get her towel first, then get in the tub, then when she gets out she tells the water goodbye, then she runs naked to her table and puts her arms up for me to pick her up and dress her. Every time. She thrives on routine.

And in the last month, her routine has been off. Way off. First, she spent three days with my parents while my husband was in the hospital. Then, my husband, a super hands-on Daddy, suddenly can't do all the many things he normally does with her and she doesn't understand why. Mommy is doing everything, including all the school runs to and fro. Nana is coming over two nights a week to handle her dinner, bath, and bedtime so Mommy can go to a class and Daddy still can't do those things. This week, Daddy is out of town at a training course, and she doesn't understand where he is. Her life's been kind of turned upside down a bit and the only thing she can do is refuse to go potty on the potty (total regression in potty training since my husband's surgery) and throw a crying fit because she doesn't know why Daddy's not there in the morning to help her get dressed or take her to school.

That's how an almost-two-year-old copes with stress. Her 37-year-old mother just craves margaritas at inappropriate times of the day.

I'm 37, But I Don't Want to Be an Older Mommy

2010-08-01T23:52:00.000-05:00

I'm 37.

I turned this age over two months ago, but I find myself thinking about it a lot lately, especially as I am reading other people's blogs. I'm fairly sure the majority of bloggers I read are in their late 20s/early 30s, and many of them are moms of small children. And in my head, I totally think of them as my peers, but then they sometimes make a comment that tips me off to the fact that they are younger than me. And it's a little depressing, because I am also a mom of a small child, but I am an OLDER MOMMY.

Here's the thing... my mom had me when she was 24. When she was 37, she was having a full hysterectomy and I was 13, in junior high, angsting over whether any boys would ever grow taller than me, and listening to Tears for Fears and Heart.

Now, I'm 37, possibly peri-menopausal (why the heck else am I so darn HOT all the time? I used to be a cold person!), with an almost two-year-old, who is in day school, ignoring boys, and listening to Elmo and the Laurie Berkner Band.

I don't want to be an OLDER MOMMY. I still feel like a cool, vibrant young person most of the time--I stay up with the latest technology and movies and pop culture and all that. I tweet, FB, text, etc. I watch Glee and listen to Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. I know who Justin Bieber is. Granted, I'm just now catching up on the Twilight movies, but in my defense, the first movie came out the year I gave birth. I was kind of busy then and have been ever since. But I am trying to catch up on all of that because I don't want to be an OLDER MOMMY not with the times like the woman I'll call Mrs. S.

When I was 11, about sixth grade I guess, I had three close friends: K, J, and R. My mother was 35 at the time, as was K's mom. J's mom was only about 30, possibly a little younger, as she had her as a teenager. R's mom, Mrs. S, was 45. She was an OLDER MOMMY.

My mom and most of my friends' moms let us watch MTV* and knew all the latest bands and singers we liked--Hall and Oates, Huey Lewis and the News, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, etc. Mrs. S never let R watch MTV or popular movies or anything like that. She didn't let R watch the premiere of Michael Jackson's Thriller video! Only the biggest cultural phenomenon of our time, the Thriller video, and she was not allowed to see it! Her mom just didn't understand any of that stuff.

*Note to younger readers: Back in 1983-84 when this story takes place, MTV actually played music videos 24-7. Seriously. IT. WAS. AWESOME. None of this Snooki-Jersey Shore crap.

So anyway, we always felt really sorry for R because her mom seemed so much older than our moms, and so out of touch with the times. And as I do the math, when my own daughter turns 11, I am going to be 46. One year older than Mrs. S was at the time--EEK!

I don't want to be like Mrs. S, an OLDER MOMMY! I mean, 40's the new 30, right? Look at the Sex and the City gals! I want to be tuned in to the latest trends and music...not in a way that will embarrass my kid or anything (I mean, Madonna's rocking and still awesome in her 50s, but I kind of think she should give up the leotards, you know? And cover up her arms--they kind of freak me out!), just in a way that she can relate to me and will think I'm a pretty cool Mommy when I'm picking her up from school with all the 20- and 30-something moms of her classmates LOL.

I kind of hope that tattoos and body piercings (other than ears) are out of fashion by the time my daughter is older, because if she wants those, I really will sound like an OLDER MOMMY. I can't help it--it was instilled in me by my proper Southern mother that nice girls just don't do those things LOL. The one time my mother seemed like an OLDER MOMMY to me was when I wanted to get one (ONE!) extra hole pierced in one of my ears (whichever one was the cool ear to do so, I can't remember now). She balked at this initially, but finally relented on the condition that I get one extra hole in BOTH ears, so as not to look lopsided or asymetrical, which kind of defeated the whole purpose. (Seriously. I am not making this up!)

So to my Future Tween and Teenage Daughter, I make this promise: I will try hard to be young at heart and up with the times so that you want to talk to me and share your world with me, but not so into it that I embarrass you. I will let you watch the cool cultural phenomenon-type events as they occur and take you to concerts by your favorite bands.

I only ask two things of you in return: (1) Please stay my little girl as long as you can--you have the rest of your life to be a grown-up, and (2) Please only pierce your ears and don't get any tattoos. Please. For me and for my mother, your Nana. OK? :)

Winning an Award and Making Friends Through Blogs: Very Glam

2010-07-31T22:28:00.000-05:00

The very fun and entertaining Kimberly over at The Stinker Pinkers bestowed my first-ever blog award on me: The Versatile Blogger Award!

Thank you so much Kimberly! I like to think I won this award because I write insightful, thought-provoking prose on motherhood; however, Kimberly says it's because I make her laugh, which is cool too! Motherhood, especially in its least glamorous moments, is often entertaining. And I used to think about going into standup comedy because I like to tell funny stories, so that is a wonderful compliment to make someone laugh!

I hope I get this right...apparently to accept this award, I have to share seven things about myself and then pass the award on to 15 other blogs. So here we go!

1. I am a total grammar/punctuation nerd/snob. This serves me well on the job since I am an editor and a writer. It doesn't mean I get things 100 percent perfect on my blog or Twitter because I tend to be more casual or hit publish too quickly LOL. But it does mean if I see grammar/punctuation mistakes on billboards, ads, FB posts, blogs, etc., I do judge them. Just a teeny tiny bit. If it's a person, I still like them. I just can't help myself!

2. I was Valentine Queen in my second- and third-grade classes in Arkansas (where we lived at that time), elected by my classmates. For this, I got a paper crown with glitter on it--my first two tiaras! I also got some boy drama in second grade as the boy I liked was not elected Valentine King and the boy who was the King gave me a white carnation-my first flower. Petty jealousy and melodrama between the two boys ensued. Good times.

3. That boy...the one I liked who was not elected Valentine King? He and I reconnected on FB a few months ago (we haven't seen each other since I moved to Nebraska in 4th grade). He's engaged to be married and his wedding date is my wedding anniversary--September 25th. How weird is that?!

4. My parents were high school sweethearts who started dating at 15 (Mom) and 16 (Dad), They celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary this month, although they've been together 46 years!!

5. I have a weird obsession with Mt. Everest. I don't like heights and I would never rock climb or scale a mountain EVER, but I'm fascinated by the people who try to climb Mt. Everest. I've read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer and I watched that reality show about people trying to climb Everest. I think those people are IN-SANE, but I can't look away. My husband thinks this means I secretly want to try and climb Everest, but I really don't!!

6. Regular Coke (or Co-Coler as my grandma used to say) is my number-one vice. I would drink it at every meal and throughout the day if I could (in college, I did!). I try to limit myself to only one or two a day now, but it's hard.

7. I didn't breastfeed my daughter. At all. I didn't even try. Scandalous! (Pause for shocked gasps!) I know. Go ahead and judge me a little if you want to. Come on--you know you do! I can take it. (OK, not really--please be nice!) It was my choice, for a variety of reasons, most personal, one medical in nature, and I don't regret it or feel that I missed out on something at all. My daughter's healthy and happy and it was the right decision for me and my family.

And The Versatile Blogger Award Goes to...

What I've found to be amazing as I started blogging and getting to know other blogs/bloggers a few months ago is how very different so many of the people whose blogs I read are from me and how I enjoy getting a little window into their lives through their blogs. I'd love to have a long, chatty dinner with these folks, so now, I'd like to bestow this award on the following blogs/bloggers:

1. the state that I am in Just in the short time I've been reading her blog and corresponding with her, I feel that Erin is a little bit of a kindred soul as we share similar feelings about our bouts of infertility. I look forward to following her journey into motherhood when her twins are born!

2. The Life and Times of a Self-Proclaimed Saucy Bitch First of all, that is one of the best blog titles ever, plus she wrote a post on "vajazzling" the other night that was laugh out loud funny! You're awesome Saucy B!

3. St. Monica's Bridge Kristen is the first person who ever commented on my blog and as I've been reading her blog, I'm in awe of her faith and her willingness to share her thoughts on controversial topics such as childhood vaccines. She is incredibly thoughtful in her posts and I always look forward to reading her perspective, even when it differs from my own.

4. Mighty Maggie I discovered Mighty Maggie through parenting.com and started reading her personal blog months before I started my own. I really look forward to reading her blog as she always makes me laugh! She, of course, has no idea who I am LOL.

5. Absolutely Narcissism I hesitate to give this award to Sandra as her ego is big enough already LOL, but she is always an entertaining read! And she's Canadian, and I have a well-known soft spot for Canadians!

6. The Stinker Pinkers I know Kimberly just won this award and gave it to me, but I really enjoy her blog. She makes ME laugh and makes me think about new ideas, like living in a small space. She made me think about it. I decided it wasn't for me, but I thought about it LOL!

7. Du Wax Loolu I don't remember how I originally came across Jess' blog. I do remember I was like, "Du Wax what?" That's a pretty memorable blog name. I enjoy reading her blog...her recent in-law travails were particularly funny, but she is often thoughtful and interesting as well. She probably thinks I am a blog stalker or something since I recently posted a comment on her blog and it showed up nine times for some reason. I'm not a stalker, I promise!

8. Confessions from a Working Mom I came upon this blog fairly recently, attracted by the title as I am also a working mom. She recently wrote a post about maybe only having just the one child which resonated with me. I like her. I'm going to keep reading her.

9. Baby Making Machine Jennifer is another blogger I discovered through parenting.com. I enjoyed following the end of her pregnancy and am getting a big chuckle out of her now that she is in that I'm-so-in-love-with-my-baby and paranoid-new-mother phase.

And here's a slight problem folks...I don't really read a bazillion blogs, so I don't really have six more I'm ready to bestow this award on just yet. Do I get to keep my award, or is this failure to list award-winning blogs 10-15 akin to pulling a Milli Vanilli and having to give my Grammy back to the Academy?

What do you think? Can I bestow the other six awards in a few months when I've read more? That's what I'm going to go with for now! Thanks again, Kimberly, and thanks to these bloggers who I so enjoy, and thanks to all of you for reading!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

2010-07-29T23:02:00.052-05:00

Sweet sleepy moments...

Little pumpkin butts...

Baby burritos...

Funny faces...

Little pink cheeks...

Big blue eyes...

Movie moments...

Big pretty bows...

Looking up to others...

Edgy fashion choices...

Friends...

Family...

Hugs...

Sweetness...

Coolness...

Goofiness...

Joy...

Laughter...

Drama...

Love...

Vanity, Thy Name is Glam-O-Mommy

2010-07-24T15:37:00.000-05:00

A major part of my feeling of self-worth lives and dies by the state of my hair.

If my hair looks good, there's almost nothing that can ruin my day. If my hair looks bad, well, the day is only going to go downhill from there.

Lately, I've been having LOTS of bad hair days. This is partially because about seven months ago I let my stylist of 17 years convince me to change the way he does my highlights. For about five years or so, I've sported chunky double blonde highlights set off with double lowlights. This makes me look very blonde, which makes me very happy. (I was born a blonde, so I'm always trying to return my hair to its natural state LOL.) He really thought I should go back to thin blonde highlights and few lowlights, with more of my regular (I refuse to call the dirty dishwater color that grows in my natural color) color coming through.

When I decided to try it his way, I instantly regretted it. Not only did I look less blonde, my roots became visible much more quickly than normal. For seven months, I've been trying to get him to switch my highlights back to the chunky double highlight/double lowlight look I love...the look that feels like me.

Then, July happened. Let's take stock of my July, shall we? Hurricane Alex hit the first week, which meant I worked extra long days at work and missed out on time with my kid, which makes me unhappy. By the time that was over, I had a horrible cold, which dragged on through the next week and caused me to miss some work. Then, just as I was getting over that, my husband had emergency surgery and was in the hospital for three days, and then was still down for the count recovering all this last week. This meant that I again missed work, putting me behind on a big project, plus I was extra stressed taking care of both my dear husband and my daughter without his help, PLUS I missed my normal highlight appointment, meaning my already scraggly, rootsy hair had to stay that way for an extra week.

So, I've felt kind of like Crap Walking all month, but especially the last two weeks. And when my parents offered to keep my daughter yesterday (hubby's not allowed to lift her for FOUR MORE WEEKS-GAH), so I could go get my hair and nails done and do a little personal pampering, I jumped at the chance! When I called my stylist to make my hair appointment, I was all, "Look, dude...I am not letting you talk me out of this again...I WANT my chunky double highlights and lowlights back! I want my MOJO back!"

Two points here:

I said "dude" to my stylist because he is a 6"4" straight guy (strange for a stylist, I know) who has curly 80s rocker hair all the way down to his waist. I'm not even exaggerating this description. He once got mad at me when I told him I had DREAMED he had cut his hair short like Sammy Hagar did when he was in Van Halen. Last night, he was going to see the Scorpions in concert here in San Antonio. Because I've been going to him for 17 years, I can call him dude and be completely honest with him about what I want. I realized yesterday he is one of the few people I can talk to this honestly LOL, and it's very refreshing. :)
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "mojo" as (1) a magic spell, hex, or charm or (2) magical power. I truly believe my hair is the font of all my mojo and has magical powers. But only when the highlights are RIGHT!

So yesterday was a fabulous day for me. I got a mani/pedi for the first time in at least a month. My stylist willingly obliged me and did my highlights the way I like them, which has made me SO happy. (In his appointment book, next to my name, he had written, "Wants mojo back!" LOL) Then, I got a massage and a facial and capped off the day with dinner with all of the people I love: my sweet parents, my dear husband, and my darling daughter.

Am I vain? YES. But I was thinking about it this morning and I realized I'm a lot LESS VAIN than I used to be.

As a mom, there are lots of situations you find yourself in where you just can't take the time to care about your personal appearance or how you look to other people.

This morning, for example, I took my daughter to a different pool because our swim class was cancelled. I would've preferred to carry my daughter about in the water and practice some of our swim class activities, like back floating, kicking, going underwater briefly, etc. This could all be done in the four- to -five-feet deep section of the pool, so that my poochy mom belly and flabby thighs would be nicely covered up by the water as they are in swim class. My daughter preferred to sit in the shallow two inches of water at the entry end and splash, which meant that is exactly where I sat with her, poochy belly and flabby thighs out above the water for the world to see. :) She was happy as a clam, and I was happy she was happy. This is a far cry from the pre-baby me that only ventured in a pool to cool off, never got my hair or face wet, and inclined on a lounge chair with one leg cocked up at a precise angle to make my belly look as flat as possible LOL.

(OK, technically, I am working out twice a week to try and tighten the belly and thighs up before our Jamaica trip; however, realistically I know that I will spend very little time in Jamaica lounging on a chair under a palm tree like I did on my last visit and most of my time carrying her or chasing after her and looking crazily disheveled and wet like I did at the pool today. A girl can dream though.)

Other situations I've faced as a mom where all vanity and caring-what-other-people-think-of-me went out the window:

Infertility treatment. Everyone and their brother got a look at my hoo-ha during this time--the first part of my journey as a mother.
Giving birth. Everyone and their brother got a look at my hoo-ha, I threw up twice in front of a room full of people, and continually felt stuff other people could see gushing from me for several hours. BUT I got the epidural, which made all of that go out the window and was A-MAZ-ING, and my beautiful daughter came out healthy and loudly a mere eight hours after the whole thing began. AWESOME.
Explosive diapers. My daughter has gifted me with several of these, most memorably as we descended into the San Antonio International Airport. You know, on the descent. Where you cannot leave your seat. Where my husband and I belatedly wrapped my daughter and her RIVER of poop in her changing pad and I ran off the plane (not really, even the threat of poop doesn't stop the idiots in front of you from taking forever to get their damn suitcases out of the overhead bins) to the bemused stares of the surrounding passengers and had to inform the flight attendants to check seat 24B for poop on the way out. Where I then had to strip my daughter completely naked, wipe all the poop off of her and myself and change her into another outfit to the bemused stares of the surrounding female passengers, who had all come to the bathroom directly off of our flight and seemed to be enjoying my Poopapalooza.
Vomit. The first time my daughter ever threw up, I tried to catch it in my hands to save the couch. Take it from me...that doesn't work. It leaves you with a couch still covered in vomit and HANDS covered in vomit...hands that need to pick up your baby who is freaked out and covered in vomit. Luckily, this was at home. I've also worn another kid's vomit on my pants back to work after feeding my daughter her bottle at school. Word of advice: identify the stealth vomiters in your baby's day school class early and do not sit near them while feeding your own baby. It's bad enough to wear your own kid's vomit...worse to wear some other kid's!
Insane crying, part I. This has really only happened to me twice in public. Once was at my daughter's first swim class, where she cried hysterically from the beginning to the end of the lesson, all the while clinging to my neck and face and HAIR and almost exposing my boobs to the assembled parents watching their older children's lessons. I just kept going and tried to keep my boobs covered and my hair out of my eyes and now she loves swimming.
Insane crying, part II. The other time was worse. My daughter really is generally a good traveler, explosive poopy diaper aside (that was the airlines' fault, we had experienced several flight delays, but the kind where you are on the jetway and they won't let you get up from your seat and people don't like it if you change a diaper right on the seat, so you try to wait the situation out, thinking, "We'll be there soon."). Counting each leg of a trip as its own flight, she has been on 14 flights in under two years. The explosive diaper was one bad experience. The only other, insane crying one, I also blame partially on the airlines. She and I had already had a flight delay, so we were taking off on our last flight of the day into San Antonio later at night than I'd expected. My daughter was overtired from being out of town, meeting new relatives, being spoiled by my parents who were at our destination, and napping erratically despite my best efforts to keep her on a schedule. As the plane took off and the lights were turned out for our 40-minute flight, she fell asleep, which was awesome...for 25 minutes. Then, the flight attendants abruptly turned on the lights and made an announcement, which jolted my daughter into having a night terror. This is a bout of insane crying where the baby isn't actually awake or consolable. They last 10-15 minutes and there is really nothing you can do to calm the baby down. She had had a few of these night terror episodes at home before, usually when she skipped a nap and was overtired, so I recognized that was what was happening right away. I knew nothing would console her, she just had to get through it, but I tried everything to do so anyway, all the while with her screaming, trying to climb out of her seat and up my body, and clawing at my hair. Yes, I was that parent unable to calm down their child on a plane. Yes, I got RUDE comments from people in the surrounding rows, although I got several supportive comments from parents who had been there themselves. I got a little more sympathy when a flight attendant asked me my daughter's age and I told her she was 18 months old. Because my 18-month-old was as big and TALL as many three-year-olds, so most people just thought she was being a Terrible Toddler. "She's just a baby then!" the flight attendant exclaimed, which shut some of the people up. Yes, she is indeed a baby, I said. And she's having a night terror episode because she was overtired, our flight was delayed till late, and the lights and announcement jarred her from a sound SLEEP! The capper to this episode was discovering as I finally deplaned with my finally calm baby that I had gritted my teeth so hard trying to calm her down that I had CHIPPED the top of one of my lower teeth. We met my husband at baggage claim and I promptly burst into tears. Not glam.

So there you have it. I am admittedly vain, but becoming less so all the time. I mean, I did live without nails and accepting bad hair days way beyond my pre-baby tolerance for that type of thing (ZERO TOLERANCE). This is just one of the ways my daughter is making me a better person. I'm growing. I have less time for vanity and more acceptance of imperfection. I've also become amazingly more patient, but that's a subject for another post. :)

This is what my daughter has looked like on 12 out of 14 flights.

This is how we normally look when we travel--poop and night terrors aside.

Seven Quick Takes Friday-Hospital Edition

2010-07-16T00:59:00.000-05:00

1. At the beginning of this week, my plans included dinner with my girlfriend on Wednesday, followed by a joint shopping trip to Gymboree to use our Gymbucks on fall clothes for our kids, and a stop at Vera Bradley for me to splurge on a new purse and a matching tote bag, which I am totally justifying because I "need" them for our upcoming Jamaica trip. Then, on Saturday (tomorrow), after swim class with my daughter, I planned to leave her with my husband and get my hair highlighted and cut (it's too long/thick/unmanageable with DARK roots right now--classy) and get a mani/pedi (I've had no nails for almost three weeks now--horrors!). Sounds like a fun plan for a week, right?

2. On Tuesday, my husband, He-Who-Never-Goes-to-the-Doctor, aka He-Who-Never-Takes-Medication-EVER, voluntarily went to the doctor for unexplained pain in his abdomen. (He only mentioned the pain to me on Monday night, but apparently had started experiencing it Sunday night. Sigh.) The doctor thought it was appendicitis, so he sent him to an imaging clinic for a CT scan to confirm. At this point, I left work, picked up our daughter from school, called my mother to come to our house to watch our daughter, and then headed to the imaging clinic with my husband. Sure enough, they said it was appendicitis and sent us directly to the hospital. My mom took my daughter home with her to stay overnight and my daddy left his work and came to meet us at the hospital to sit with me during my husband's appendectomy Tuesday evening.

3. What should've been a 45-minute appendectomy turned into a 2.5 hour surgery because it wasn't actually appendicitis. Apparently, everyone has these "fat fingers" that hang off of your intestines called "Appendix epiploica". One of my husband's appendix epiploica had twisted on itself and died, which caused his pain and filled his belly with blood. It was near his appendix, which is why they thought that was the problem. The surgeon had to remove the dead, necrotic appendix epiploica and went ahead and took his real appendix out while he was in there. He still managed to do the surgery laproscopically, but rather than getting out of the hospital Wednesday morning as we thought he would after the appy, my husband is still in the hospital. Hopefully, he will get out today (Friday).

4. Once the surgery started going longer than expected, I started freaking out. And when the doctor finally came to talk to me, the look on his face was so serious (and he had been a jokester beforehand when he thought it was a walk-in-the-park appy), I was afraid my husband had died. It was terrifying. I was in shock and had a hard time absorbing his explanation of what was actually wrong with my husband and started crying. And I was really glad my daddy was there at that point so I had someone to lean on (I had been trying to get him to go on home because it was so late, and he goes to work at 5:30 a.m. Thank goodness he didn't listen to me!).

5. So I've spent all evening Tuesday, all day Wednesday, and all day Thursday at the hospital with my husband. Instead of dinner and shopping Wednesday night, my girlfriend brought dinner to eat with me at the hospital since my parents, who live clear across town, were taking care of my daughter. Thursday night, one of my coworker friends brought me dinner and ate with me. She also brought me my computer so I can spend this weekend trying to catch up on work. Or not. Thank goodness for good friends!

6. This is the longest I've ever been away from my daughter. I miss her now, but honestly, until Thursday evening, I didn't have time to miss her...I was too busy taking care of my husband, helping him get out of bed, walk around, go to the bathroom, shower, etc. Luckily, she has been having a ball with my parents--so much so that she barely talked to me when they would put her on the phone until Thursday night, when I got a quick "Hi Mommy!" before she handed the phone back to my mother. Now, we just have to figure out how to keep her from climbing on/jumping on my husband when they both come home today. That'll be fun.

7. So, I didn't make it to Gymboree and I'm pretty sure the hair highlighting-and-cut/mani-pedi plan is out for tomorrow (I will just have to suffer nail-less and rootsy for a few more days--not glam LOL). I am still going to try and take my daughter to swim class, because that's only a half-hour in the morning and I think my husband should be okay on his own for that long. I did make it to Vera Bradley and splurge on my purse/tote Thursday evening, because my husband was already falling asleep thanks to his pain medication at 8 p.m. and told me to go on home early, so I went there and treated myself (it was a tough week, don't judge me--shopping is my therapy) and then ran to the grocery store and stocked up on all kinds of lovely, soft food and soups and orange drinks (his fave) for my husband to eat and drink when he comes home.

Thank you, God, for taking care of my husband in his hour of need, for giving me amazing parents who always have my back, for the kindness, care, and love of friends and family near and far, and for the miracle of modern medicine/surgery to heal. It hasn't been the week I planned, but it could've been a lot worse. I'm so lucky and can't wait to bring my husband home!

Just Another Glam Saturday Night

2010-07-11T00:12:00.001-05:00

As you may have noticed, the way I describe myself above is "I aspire to glamour. My life is not remotely glamorous." Ha! Tonight is a perfect example of that.

It's Saturday night. In my single 20s, on Saturday nights, I'd get dressed up. The evening started at 9 p.m. with dinner with girlfriends, followed by dancing at a club from 11 p.m. until last call at 2 a.m. This was sometimes followed by early morning tacos on the way home to my apartment and then sleeping till noon. Ah...those were the days.

When I started dating my now-husband at 29, our dates started out following that late-night/dressed up timeline, but then began creeping earlier (although I still dressed up). Once we were married, Saturday nights, if we went out, were more along the lines of dinner at 7 p.m., followed by a movie, or ice skating, or grabbing a drink at a bar or something until 10 or 11 p.m. and then home. (I still dressed up. Usually.)

Now that I'm a mother, Saturday nights are often like tonight. Feed and bathe daughter, put her to bed by 7:30 or 8 p.m. Watch crappy TV or the occasional movie on pay-per-view (while husband plays World of Warcraft on the computer and goes to bed early) while folding/ironing loads and loads of laundry. Go to bed at midnight. Wash, rinse, repeat. Tonight, I am wearing the shorts and t-shirt I threw on at the end of my and my daughter's Baby and Me swim class this morning, which means I didn't actually shower today and I didn't go anywhere. SO not glam.

Occasionally, if I am very lucky, I make plans to meet one of my fellow mom friends on Saturday night for a late dinner. We meet at about 8:30 p.m., after we've seen our kids off to bed for the night, with our homebound husbands on kid duty (mine playing Warcraft as usual). We meet at a semi-hip restaurant, semi-dressed up, eat, gossip, and talk mommy stuff for about three hours, then look at our phones in horror upon realizing how late it is, and go home. (We would stay out later, except that the kids get up SO early.) It's funny to think that about 10 years ago, the two of us used to dance on the stage at one of the local clubs and now we're obsessing over preschools and potty training.

Very occasionally, my husband and I will leave our daughter overnight with the grandparentals (my parents, who live across town) and have a date night. The last time we did this, a few months back, we had a late lunch/early dinner, then went to an 8 p.m. movie (Date Night LOL, which is a hysterical movie--if you haven't seen it, rent it), then went to a bar and game room. Where we saw people with babies all over the place. AT A BAR. Which totally ruined our night, because we kept saying to each other, "What is wrong with these people? It's 11 p.m., why do they have their baby out with them?! Ours has been asleep for three hours already! OMG, that couple has the baby's bottle PROPPED in its mouth in the stroller...they're not even holding and feeding their own kid! AAAGH!" Total. Buzzkill. So we just came home. And haven't had a date night since.

Don't get me wrong...I wouldn't trade this life for anything. My 20-something clubgoing days were filled with a lot of Single Bitter Woman angst and "I'm-going-to-become-a-spinster-cat-lady" melodrama on my part. I'm happy to be married and a mommy. And most Saturdays, tired from the week, I'm happy to stay in, watch crappy TV, and catch up on laundry. Really!

But sometimes, I miss a good night out, dressed up to the nines, and dancing the night away. Sometimes.

Join the Blog Hop!

2010-07-09T11:22:00.000-05:00

This is a blog first for me...I'm participating in a Blog Hop!

Hop on over and join in the fun!

Holding Tight, Letting Go

2010-07-03T11:54:00.000-05:00

This week, my daughter started a new class at school. Upstairs. Where all the big kids' classes are. (All the baby classes are on the first floor.) I took her to drop her off for the first day of this new class...this class she is in because she started expressing an interest in potty training a few weeks ago, and so we asked when they would start working on it at school and were told she could move to a class upstairs where they work on it with the early training kids.

So she essentially skipped a class, leap-frogged over almost all the kids within four months of her age, and is already upstairs working on potty training. All the other kids around her age on the first floor will move up in August, so it's not that big of a deal, but she is getting a little headstart.

So far, it seems to be going well...she's peed on the potty at school for her teacher a few times. Tuesday night, she peed on the potty at home for my husband (I was working late and missed it). She tells us when she's going poo-poo, but isn't quite ready to try the potty for that yet. She remains completely obsessed with Elmo's Potty Time video and would watch it on repeat 24-7 if we let her.

Dropping her off for her first full day upstairs was hard on me. Physically, my daughter is very tall (probably 36" tall at 22 months) and looks older than she is, so she was the same size as the kids in her new class, but when I looked at her, holding hands and walking with the other big kids to go down to the cafeteria for breakfast, all I could see was my little baby becoming a big girl.

I held it together at school, as I was also learning new things, like where to sign her in upstairs and where to put her bag in her new class. But when I drove to my office, I found myself crying as I pulled into the parking lot. Crying not only because she's growing up, but because I don't want to rush her growing up, so why did I push for her to go upstairs? Actually, I didn't push...I just asked when they would start working on potty training with her class, and things moved rapidly from there. But now, it might be moving a little too fast for Mommy!

Realistically, I do think it will be a good thing for her. I think she might be a little bored in her regular class, where it's a lot of open play between meals. She already knows her colors, can sing the ABC song, spell her name, recognize all the letters and numbers, count to 12, and more, and she loves to learn new things.

Upstairs, the classes are more structured, with fun new activities. Tuesdays, they have Splash Day, Wednesdays, they have music class (she loves to sing and dance!), and Thursdays, they go to a Chapel service, which I'm very excited about (it's a Lutheran Church Day School...I'm Baptist, my husband is technically a Catholic, but not really...all of that is another post). They have structured activities throughout the morning and afternoon with a little time for open play still.

She does know one of the other girls in the class and all the kids seem cute, though it feels weird, because I don't know them the way I know all the kids in her last class, because they've all been together since my daughter was four months old. In August, when all of those kids move upstairs, the class she is in right now will close down and all the kids will be re-shuffled, so my daughter should end up back with her buddies, I hope.

It's such a push-and-pull...I want her to learn, to grow, to be independent, and I'm so proud of her when she accomplishes something new, but at the same time, I want to stop time. I want to put her back in a swaddling blanket wrapped up tight and hold her in my arms and never let her go. I love her so much, more than anything else in this world, and it fills up and breaks my heart on a daily basis. Fills it up with love with every smile, every hug, every moment, and breaks it in tiny little pieces every time I see her becoming less and less of a baby. Doing more and more things without needing me. She's my only child; I'll never have another, so let's just stop the clock. Wind time back. Slow things down.

Right now, I'm holding tight, but I know I have to let go.

Seven Quick Glam-O-Takes

2010-07-01T20:55:00.001-05:00

1. I am dead tired and coming down with a cold after working two 12-hour plus days at work, thanks to Hurricane Alex. (I handle emergency response communication for my company which has operations along the Texas border.) All I have to say is "Thank you, Alex, for wrapping up quickly today so I still get my four-day weekend!"

2. Elmo is a freaking magical monster genius. My daughter and I have watched the Elmo's Potty Time video easily 10 times this week, and lo and behold, my daughter went potty on her own little potty for the first time on Tuesday night while watching the video! I was working late, so my husband texted me to tell me the news. I felt sad I missed it. 22 months old and well on her way to being potty trained...love it!

I'll do anything for Elmo!

3. I am totally looking forward to our Baby and Me swim class on Saturday. It's definitely been a journey. At the first class, my daughter clung to me and cried from the moment we touched the pool straight on to the moment we got out. We did all the activities, but she sobbed the whole time. She did, however, high-five the coach at the end of class, which, to me, was an amazing sign things were going to get better, since she does not engage with strangers AT ALL. She acts very shy around strangers, and so I was amazed she willingly high-fived our coach after what seemed like 30 minutes of terror! Week two, she cried for probably the first five minutes of class and then got engaged in doing the activities and did everything great through to the end of class. Last week, our third class, she cried for 30 SECONDS and then got right into the swing of things and loved it. When we did a new activity that involved running along a mat floating on the water and jumping to me and going underwater, she was eager to try it and wanted to do it over and over, even though it wasn't her turn yet! She didn't want to get out of the pool at the end. We had so much fun together, and I've created a fun little post-swim school routine of juice in the car (a treat for her) on the ride home, and picking up two McDonald's breakfast sandwiches for us to enjoy when we get home.

Before the crying started at the first lesson, clutching her Dora towel

4. Last weekend, I met a coworker friend and a new mutual friend of ours who's applying for a job on our team for lunch and then shopping for interview clothes, shoes, and accessories. The new friend is one of those super cute girls with an adorable figure who's kind of a tomboy and doesn't really know how to put stuff together even though she looks great in everything. The two of them had done the clothes shopping in the morning, so after we ate lunch, we helped her pick out new shoes and accessorize all her new outfits. It was like What Not to Wear: she was holding tops up on their hangers and I was hanging necklaces on them and holding watches and other accessories up by them to see what worked with each top! We had so much fun, but what struck me was how grateful the new friend was for our help. She's trying to make a fresh start in her life and was profoundly appreciative of our fashion help, which seemed like such a simple thing for us to help her with. We love her and really want her to get the job, so it was easy and fun for us to make the offer to help. I truly hope she gets the job as I just adore her and want some good things to happen for her.

5. I did not get to go to Jazzercise this past week (see #1). Next week, in addition to the hour of Jazzercise I get on Tuesday and Thursday, I'm going to begin a six-week boot camp class that starts right after Jazzercise ends each of those nights. I've taken this class in the past and it kicks my booty HARD. But I really need it because we are within three months of our Jamaica vacation and I need to lose at least 10 pounds and tighten up the abs. I don't need a six-pack...I'd be happy with two cans...just a little definition in my stomach, a little flatness like I used to have pre-baby!

6. I have to read The Caine Mutiny for my book group next week. I love to read, and I hear this book is a classic, but for some reason, I'm not super excited about snuggling up to this tome over my long holiday weekend. I'd rather read easy chick lit or a mystery I can finish in two hours. But, there's nothing really on TV right now, so I'll probably finish it. Hopefully, I will enjoy it.

7. I spent all day last Sunday redecorating my patio with new stuff (which is probably why Hurricane Alex came to town). I am hoping to have my parents over to our house on Sunday to eat outside for the July 4th holiday; however, this plan, which I've put into motion (meaning I mentioned it to my mom back when I started our patio project and she has not forgotten I invited them) means two things for me: (1) I have to cook something or order something or do something that involves preparing food, which will probably take up most of my Saturday in terms of planning because I don't really cook, and (2) I have to try to coerce my husband into buying a grill, which I've wanted us to get for a long time, because cooking on the grill is actually easier in my mind than cooking in my kitchen LOL. I don't actually expect to win the grill argument, and I think I will have fun planning the food and having my parents over, but in the end, I think I will be super tired. And I'm tired now after the crazy week I had, so it's hard to think about all of that work in advance, even though it'll be fun.

OK, enough for now...I'm starting to ramble due to sleep deprivation. Here's a picture of the new patio stuff:

Cardona 5-pc Patio Set by Martha Stewart Living from Home Depot

Pillows, outdoor rug, and cream Japanese lanterns (not shown) from Target

Red mosaic vase from some random flower arrangement I got years ago

"Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You..."

2010-06-24T22:55:00.001-05:00

I never did this on Facebook, so I thought I would share a list of 25 random facts about me here on my blog.

1. I am an only child.

2. My parents come from large Southern families. My daddy is the oldest of six boys, while my mother is the eighth of 10 children. I have 16 first cousins on my mom's side of the family and I'm the oldest of seven first cousins on my dad's side. In the incredibly small Alabama town my parents are from, I'm literally related to everyone in town in some way by blood or marriage, on one side of the family or the other.

3. My husband is Canadian. Yes, he plays hockey. No, he does not say "eh?" at the end of sentences.

4. I grew up an Air Force brat. We moved every three years until I got to high school. I attended four elementary schools, two junior highs, and one high school.

5. I lived in England from age three to six. From this, I gained a love of drinking tea and British comedies.

6. My dream from age 14 on was to travel to Paris. I finally went at age 26, on a vacation with a girlfriend. It was all I wanted it to be and more. I've been back once on a solo vacation at age 28. My husband and I flew into Paris on our honeymoon when I was 31, but did not stay there, as we were on our way to Lyon and Chambery, France, and Geneva, Switzerland instead. We had a fabulous time, but I wish we'd at least spent a day in Paris! I can't wait to take my husband and daughter there in a few years.

7. I've taken 12 years of ballet (two en pointe), 11 years of tap, several years of jazz, and two years of hip hop. I also spent three years on my high school dance team, one year on my college dance team, and another year on my college country and western dance team. In case it isn't obvious, I like to dance.

8. I was the Salutatorian of my high school graduating class of 835 people.

9. I majored in Communications and English and minored in Speech at a private liberal arts university. I call it the Everything-But-Math-and-Science degree plan.

10. My grandma taught me to drive her car when I was 15. My papa continued my driving lessons on his tractor, four-wheeler, and truck. I love being able to say I've driven a tractor!

11. My all-time favorite movies are When Harry Met Sally, Say Anything, and Moonstruck, followed closely by the original Star Wars trilogy. Seriously.

12. When I was a kid, I liked to play school. I had a little chalkboard and some used elementary textbooks. I was always the teacher and made my friends write sentences when they misbehaved in class. They actually did it. That's me, always having to be in charge LOL.

13. I've been a chronic nail biter all my life. As a kid, I bit my fingernails AND my toenails. (I was a lot more flexible then than I am now!) Twelve years ago, tired of my hands always looking ugly, I started wearing acrylic nails, and that pretty much ended the biting.

14. My husband is the fourth guy I've dated with his first name. Granted one of those guys was a guy I went steady with in 7th grade, but the other two were more serious relationships in high school, including my first love. It's part of the reason I went out with my husband originally. I thought, "Well, I've always had good luck with guys named ______."

15. I had an imaginary friend until I started elementary school. He was a little boy named Moochie, based on something from the original Mickey Mouse Club. My parents just acted like he was part of the family. In fact, he traveled all over England with us when we lived there. I talked to him all the time. When I started kindergarten, I told my parents Moochie had gone to live with his grandmother and that was the end of that.

16. I took three years of piano lessons as a kid. I wish I had taken more.

17. This is my favorite number. It's also my birthday. My husband wears this number when he plays hockey now in my honor.

18. In third grade, we had a weekly spelling bee in our class. I won every week except one (I misspelled 'February' and have never gotten over it--darn, confusing "r" after "b"!) the first semester. To give other kids a chance at winning, my teacher let me call the words for the bee the next semester. As usual, I enjoyed being in charge!

19. I took five years of French while living in San Antonio. I know, I know. I should've taken Spanish, and after 24 years here, I've got a passing basic knowledge of it, but I love France and all things French (see #6). And I married a Canadian who went to French Immersion school as a kid and is fluent in French, so see? It all worked out!!

20. My first job, besides babysitting, was at a Po Folks Restaurant when I was 18. I was a cashier/hostess, and my uniform consisted of jeans, a dress shirt, a bow tie, and suspenders. By the end of the summer, my jeans were tight because I gained probably five to 10 pounds from eating fries with ranch dressing on my breaks. Luckily, I weighed only 112 pounds when I started working there (oh, those were the days!!!) so I could afford to gain it.

21. In sixth grade, it was all Duran Duran, all the time in my world. I was in love with John Taylor, while other friends claimed Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon. No one wanted Andy Taylor or Roger Taylor, although I always thought Roger was kind of cute too.

22. When the Thriller album was popular, I once attended a "Michael Jackson Night" at my favorite skating rink wearing a white sequin-covered glove on my left hand. To my credit, this glove was from a pair I had to wear when I was a dancing snowflake in the pantomime performance section of The King and I (also the source of the title of this post) at a community theatre a few years before--I didn't make it special for the night or anything. Boys kept skating up to me and asking if they could wear it, so I told them they could have the right-hand glove of the pair, but since that was the wrong hand, none of them wanted it. I also won a poster of Michael Jackson during a drawing that evening! (RIP Michael.)

23. My senior year of high school I tried out for and was accepted into the teen modeling board at one of the local malls. We did a few runway shows throughout the year and mannequin modeling in stores and around the mall at other times. Mannequin modeling is where you pretend you are one of the store dummies and freeze into position for 10 minutes or so at a stretch and try not to laugh or move as customers come up and make funny faces at you. It's hard! At our final runway show of the year, Kelly Ripa, who was new to All My Children at the time, made a personal appearance at the mall as part of our show. She was probably 20 at the time. She hung out in the changing area with all of us teen models and was very nice and friendly, just like you see on TV today. It's amazing to see where her career has taken her!

24. I am really good at picking things up with my toes. I've done this for years, but it REALLY comes in handy when you are holding a baby and don't want to bend down to pick something up off the floor. Maybe I will audition for the "Cool Tricks" section on Yo Gabba Gabba!

25. I am a good ice skater, and an even better roller skater. Today, at 37, I still have a pair of ice skates and roller skates and have used both of them in the last five years (the ice skates more than the roller skates sadly). I cannot wait until my daughter is old enough to learn to skate, so I get to indulge my passion for skating more frequently!

Bonus Random Fact: I only follow one sports team: the four-time NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs! They are the best and my love for them knows no bounds.

Looking back over this list, I'm not sure it's very glamorous. Maybe my name should be Nerd-O-Mommy?!?! :)

Hi. My Name is Glam-O-Mommy and I'm Infertile.

2010-06-16T22:45:00.001-05:00

Me: "Hi. My name is Glam-O-Mommy and I'm infertile."

Me: "Hi Glam-O-Mommy."

This is me imagining myself at an Infertility Anonymous meeting. And how many people are in the meeting besides me? NO ONE. I'm having the conversation with myself.

I've documented my battle with infertility in somewhat graphic detail here on my blog before. I am one of the lucky ones. I emerged victorious from my battle with a beautiful baby girl.

Still, I wish I had known someone like me when I was in the trenches of my battle. Someone willing to talk about it.

My battle had been going on for over seven months before I even realized I was in a battle and I was losing. We had been trying to get pregnant faithfully each month. My doctor told me to come in and get a blood test to check to see that I was ovulating. I was at work when I realized I'd missed a call on my cell phone from his nurse. On the message, she told me I got a "two" on the test and needed to call her back. Being EXTREMELY naive, I called her back. "I got your message," I said hopefully. "Is a 'two' good?" "You need to be a 14 or above to be ovulating," she informed me matter-of-factly. "So, I failed the test," I said stupidly.

I remember vividly how at that moment I felt like icicles were sliding through my veins, when in fact the temperature was in the 90s with high humidity and I was sweating. Things were about to get VERY DARK and emotionally torturous for months, with no end in sight.

And the worst part of it was...no one I knew, except possibly my husband, could really understand what it was like to be me.

Or, the ones who did know, weren't so big on talking about it. Many women feel that battling infertility is something shameful, and I understand that feeling. You feel like a failure as a woman. Women were made to give birth. That is our role in the circle of life. We carry the babies. So it is devastating to find out that something so elemental, something you spent years and money trying to PREVENT from happening at the wrong time, is never going to happen now that it's the RIGHT time.

You feel damaged and broken. And the majority of people you encounter just have absolutely no capacity to understand or relate to how you feel and what you are going through, even when you try to half-heartedly give them a little insight into the fact that you are having DIFFICULTIES without going into graphic detail. And they say stuff that they think is absolutely well-meaning, but in reality STABS you in the heart repeatedly.

I mean, when you have gotten a "two" on a test that you should've scored a 14 or above on, and the doctor tells you that means you do not ovulate (which is totally weird because you seemingly have a period every month, so what is that about?) and you, being an educated person, understand that no ovulation=NO BABY, you don't really know how to respond when confronted when these kind of statements from Well-Meaning People [WMP]. Because most of the time, it's none of their business, so you just keep things to yourself, but other times, you just want to come out with the truth so they will shut the H-E-double-hockey-sticks up. Although most times, these people are the truly clueless, who upon hearing you have a problem, continue with these statements, not understanding they should just shut up.

Things Never to Say to Anyone (Because You Have No Idea If Someone is Possibly Infertile):

"You just need to relax, then you'll get pregnant." (Um, no I won't. I am barren.)
"The minute we stopped trying, we got pregnant." (Um, that won't happen for me. I am a failure!)
"I heard if you put your legs in the air for 20 minutes after sex, that will help you get pregnant." (Um, no it doesn't. Believe me, I tried. Stupid waste of time. Besides, I'm barren.)
"Maybe you should adopt. I heard that when people adopt a baby, they usually get pregnant right afterwards." (Hello...adoption is a wonderful choice, but that's not a good reason to adopt a baby!)
"I know how you feel. It took us two months to get pregnant." (Please kill me now.)
"I just don't understand why you don't want to give your parents grandchildren!" (Speechless devastation.)

While I heard all of these things and many more, the last one was a real doozy. It was said to me by an Annoying Aunt of mine, who is not a WMP by any stretch of the imagination, at a family reunion. Loudly and haughtily. So most of my relatives could hear it. As if I was CHOOSING to be childless to spite my parents!! I was literally rendered speechless and just walked away. I had to avoid her for the rest of the weekend because every time she came within 10 feet of me, she started in on the topic of my selfish childlessness like a dog refusing to let go of a juicy bone.

Believe me when I tell you that if a woman says to you she is having problems getting pregnant, she does not want you to say any of the statements above, or anything else. What she wants is for you to simply say something like, "I'm so sorry. That must be really tough." And then LISTEN and be a friend.

Anyway. I am getting a little off-track here. What I feel passionate about now is speaking up about my infertility battle. I tried to talk about it with people as I was going through it, and I mostly got blank stares or the aforementioned comments, because it's just impossible for people to understand it unless they go through it themselves. And today, when I bring it up in conversation, most people still don't get it. But I bring it up very specifically, so that if the person I'm talking to IS facing that battle themselves, they know I am someone they can talk to and someone who will listen and understand.

Here's how the conversation generally goes:

WMP: "So how many kids do you have?"

Me: "I have one daughter."

WMP: "How old is she?"

Me: "She's almost two."

WMP: "So, are you going to have another one?"

Me: "No. I had to take fertility drugs and do fertility treatment to get pregnant with her, because we couldn't get pregnant without help. I don't want to put myself through all of that again, but I'm just so grateful I have one healthy baby."

WMP who has no trouble getting pregnant: "Oh, well, some people still get pregnant on their own after fertility treatments, you know. I have a friend..."

Me: Trying to not roll my eyes....

or

WMP who is having trouble getting pregnant: "Really? You guys had trouble? We're kind of going through that right now."

Me: "Ask me anything. I'm happy to share my experience with you."

I've actually had this conversation with several women who started asking me questions because they were facing infertility. One was a coworker, and I met with her almost monthly, kind of like a little infertility support group for her, for over a year until she finally got pregnant through treatment. Her baby was born recently and I'm so happy for her! And she is grateful to me for being there as someone who can understand and relate, which makes me really happy, like something good (besides my amazing miracle child) is coming out of the pain and loneliness I felt during my infertilty battle.

NOW, I know there are tons of infertility-related blogs and online communities out there. I wish I had known about them when I was going through my own experience, because I am sure they would've provided support to me and helped me feel less isolated, but I didn't. Either way, both online and in person, I am now all about speaking out about infertility. It is NOTHING to be ashamed of. It is a MEDICAL CONDITION and we need to support women going through it rather than making them feel like there is something shameful about it. (We also need to get insurance companies to cover more of the costs related to infertility treatment because it is a medical condition, but that's another post entirely.)

I really admire the actress Constance Marie. She is 44 and has a young baby. She's currently blogging on People.com in their celebrity baby blog section about motherhood and wrote an in-depth entry the other week on exactly what she went through to have her daughter. Her battle was WAY worse than mine. Her honesty prompted lots of comments from other women facing their own infertilty battles and I think it's terrific that she is speaking so openly about her experience, as it can really help other women to know they are not alone.

This last week, actress Catherine Bell was also featured on People.com's celebrity baby blog. She is pregnant with her second child. The headline was "Catherine Bell: Son Was Conceived 'Pretty Much Naturally'". In the article, it says: "'We were totally trying,' the Army Wives star, 41, reveals. 'I conceived pretty much naturally.' In fact, it was just two months after starting the fertility drug Clomid that Bell became pregnant."

I like her, but this really rankled me. And it's probably completely irrational on my part, I know, but I was disappointed. Why couldn't she just say, "We needed some help, so we used Clomid." Instead, she's trying to make it sound less shameful that she had help, when there is NO SHAME in getting help. Actually, from the article, she makes it sound like they just wanted to get pregnant quickly, so they may not really have needed help anyway, they just used Clomid to speed things along, but still! I have to tell you, there is nothing 'pretty much natural' about Clomid. Clomid makes you a raging menopausal crazy person, which is very unnatural. But it does help you get pregnant, so it's amazing. And that is what I think we should say.

I feel so grateful that medicine and technology (gifts from God in my opinion) have given women like me a chance to be a mother. Even with all of that, there are still women who will not be one of the lucky ones. Who will still not get pregnant with all of that in their corner, for reasons mysterious and unknown. But all of us, the lucky ones and the unlucky ones, have nothing to be ashamed of. We need compassion, support, and understanding. And we need to use our voices to help fight the stigma of infertility. So that's what I'm doing.

Yes, I have a beautiful baby. But I am indelibly changed by the experience I went through to have her. Sometimes I feel like I walk around with an invisible red "I" on my chest. I am still an infertile woman. My experience colors how I view the world. So I am going to keep speaking out and hope that sharing my experience helps others in some small way to not feel alone. And I am going to hug my baby tight and love and cherish every moment I have with her. Because, while all children are miracles, I know mine really is. :)

Seven Quick Takes on a Thursday Night

2010-06-10T22:45:00.002-05:00

Many blogs I read do a "seven quick takes" blog entry on Fridays, so I am going to give it a shot here on a Thursday night!

1. I have not abandoned this blog, I swear! It seems like this last month has flown by between Mother's Day and my birthday, which are a week apart, and crazy busy-ness at work. I may not have mentioned this before but I am paid to write for my company, so sometimes, while I have interesting ideas for my blog, and would much rather spend my day writing for my blog, the most energy I can muster when I get home at the end of the day is to note the idea, thinking I will come back to flesh out the post later. Um, yeah. I will try to write a little more regularly here in the future. I am better at posting pithy, 140-word updates to my Twitter feed, @GlamOMommy, so follow me on Twitter if you dare!

2. After almost two years and nine months, I have started regular exercise again--yay! Pre-baby, I was a regular, three to four times a week, Jazzerciser. Some people may think that's crazy, but I love Jazzercise. It feels more like dancing to the latest top music rather than "exercising," but it combines cardio, stretching, and strength training in one hour. I always feel so much better after a class, because I know I've worked every part of my body. I couldn't exercise during my pregnancy, because I had an early bleeding scare and considering all the difficulties I encountered to get pregnant, my doctor advised me to take it easy for the first trimester just so I would have peace of mind that the baby was okay. When the second trimester began, I was primed to go back to Jazzercise and do it all low impact, but then I was struck with a severe case of sciatica that left me having trouble simply WALKING for several weeks. By the time that passed, I was so huge and it was so hot in Texas, I just gave up and told myself I'd get back in class after the baby was born. Um, yeah. I went three times while on maternity leave, and it was SO hard because I'd been practically immobile for so long. Now, almost two years later, I am back in class, and doing WAY better than I expected. Apparently, chasing after and lifting a 28-pound toddler is fabulous exercise all on its own. My stamina now is almost better than I went to class all the time! I'm only going twice a week after a work. The other two days, I pick up my daughter from school and my husband goes to work out, so this way, we both get a good workout in!

3. On Saturday morning, my daughter and I start the first of 11 Saturday mornings of Mommy and Me swim class. What was I thinking? Well, I was thinking I didn't want my daughter to be as old as I was (six) when she started swim lessons. I wanted her not to be afraid of the water and possibly save herself. I was thinking it would be cool for her to have some good experience in the water before we go on our vacation in September (more on that later). What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to GET UP and BE SOMEWHERE at 9:15 in the morning every Saturday this summer. What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to WEAR A SWIMSUIT every Saturday morning this summer. In front of other people. With my mommy pooch and less-than-toned thighs in full effect (thus the Jazzercising!). What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to wrangle my cute baby for essentially TWO HOURS every Saturday morning this summer for a half-hour class. What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to WAX regularly this summer! (I have an appointment tomorrow!) Hopefully, it will be a fun bonding experience for me and my little gal and she will take to the water like a cute little duckling.

4. I found out this week that yet another friend of mine who has a kid around the same age as mine is pregnant with baby #2. And I feel fine. I feel I am good with my decision to only have one child, after having moments of doubt and serious babyfever this spring. While I'm not completely ready to start selling off our baby equipment and clothes yet, I feel that I am done, and I'm okay with that. I essentially knew going into our pregnancy that it was most likely my one shot at experiencing that miracle, and so I really reveled in it and tried to enjoy it as much as possible. It's a little bittersweet knowing that was truly it, especially as my daughter now looks like a kid vs. a baby and hits huge new milestones all the time, but I love her so much and I'm so grateful to have her, it's okay. She'll have all of our love and attention, whether she wants it or not! :)

Watch out world! I'm a big girl now! (21 months old)

5. Next week, for the first time in my motherhood, I am going to be single-parenting it all week, as my husband is going out of town for work. EEK! I am taking the advice of another blogger, and have lined up dinner with the grandparentals on Monday night (it's my mom's birthday), dinner with a mom friend on Tuesday night, and may take my daughter to the grandparentals to spend the night on Thursday, so I can get in one Jazzercise class at least. :)

6. As if things weren't going to be hairy enough for me next week, what with some looming deadlines at work and the single parenting, I had to go and make things more complicated by choosing NOW to start working on potty training. SIGH. I really don't know what I was thinking. For several months now, I've talked up the potty with my daughter--she comes in with me occasionally, we've watched an Elmo potty video, and read an Abby Cadabby potty book--just so she would start getting the idea. This week, I set up her little potty in our bathroom, but did not point it out to her at all or tell her it was for her. Yesterday morning as we were getting ready for work and she was playing in our room, I told her I was going to go potty, and she immediately ran over to HER potty and sat on it! Hooray--she's ready, I thought. But the thing is, at her school, they don't reinforce potty training in the class she's in now and I wasn't sure when she was going to move up to a class that would. So my husband and I stopped in at her school today and talked to the director, and she told us they have a transition class they are putting some of the early potty training kids in, and that she can visit the class NEXT WEEK (while I'm single parenting) to see if she'll do okay there, and if so, she can move on up there and doesn't have to wait until August, which is when the rest of the kids her age will move up to the potty training classes. And, in the new class, she will get music and a stretch and grow class once a week, so I think that will be fun for her...I worry that she is bored in her current class. (I may be biased, but she can count to 10, spell her first name, sing the alphabet song and many others, recite some books from memory, and recognize all the letters, shapes, and colors, so I think she's pretty smart and a fast learner and want her to be challenged and learning new things.) But, and I do this every time she moves classes, now I'm sad to see her leave her teachers, who are so sweet! It's tough...I want her to move on and grow, but I want her to stay my baby and stay with good people that love her too, so it's a push and pull all the time. Luckily, one of the teachers in the new class was her teacher when she was first in school at four months. My daughter doesn't remember her now, of course, but I loved her and so that makes it a little better for me, although we have yet to have a bad teacher at this school. :)

7. Jamaica. Jamaica. JAMAICA!! We've booked our big vacation this year, and we're going back to Jamaica! (Another perk of not having another baby--we can still afford to travel fun places!) My husband and I went to a Sandals resort in Negril about four years ago and had an amazing time. We also took the picture that became our Christmas card picture that year on that trip.

Our 2006 Christmas Card Picture from Jamaica

I thought this was pretty glam, I have to say!

Next door to Sandals, which is couples-only, is their sister resort named Beaches, which is for families. On our last visit, we walked over to check Beaches out because we had privileges there, but came back quickly after encountering all the noisy children. Now that we have a noisy child of our own, we are excited to go to Beaches! And our daughter is excited too, because she saw the pictures of Elmo and the other Sesame Street characters that live at Beaches on their website! She was like, "Elmo!!" So we will get to have a fun beach vacation in a beautiful place and help our daughter make some fun memories with her Sesame Street friends too. So, as you can imagine, the Jamaica vacation is essentially what prompted both the return to exercising and the Mommy and Me swim class! (The potty training will help too...our daughter can participate in better kid activities at the resort if she's potty trained!) And, on a few recent shopping trips, I bought two possible outfits for myself and one for my daughter for the Christmas card picture we will take on the beach in Jamaica on this trip LOL. Now I just need to coordinate a nice outfit for my husband too. :) I'm already ahead on our 2010 Christmas card--BONUS!

If you are reading this, thanks for reading! I'll try not to be away as long next time. :)

Marking Milestones with Jewelry

2010-05-16T00:46:00.005-05:00

I love things that sparkle and shine, so it should come as no surprise that I love, love, love jewelry. (I am Glam-O-Mommy after all.) Over the years, I've marked many milestones in my life with jewelry.

For my 29th birthday, I was living the high life in Las Vegas for a weekend trip with two girlfriends and one of my friend's extended family. Her dad was considered a high roller, so it was all expenses paid for us at Mandalay Bay while we were there, which was amazing! I used my own piddly spending money to play quarter slots and won a big (for me, not for any high rollers LOL) pot, so to commemorate my 29th birthday and my awesome weekend, I took a taxi over to the Bellagio and used my winnings to buy myself a Tiffany heart bracelet with my initials engraved on it. I was so proud of it, because it was my first piece of Tiffany jewelry--we didn't even have a Tiffany's in San Antonio then. It seemed glamorous and iconic to have a little piece of that on my arm. Being 29 and single, I was fairly bitter at the time; in fact, my nickname for myself then did not include "Glam" in the title at all...it was Single Bitter Woman LOL. I regaled all of my friends and coworkers with stories of my Single Bitter Woman bad date and awful pickup line encounters (Single Bitter Woman would've been an AWESOME blog filled with hilarious, horrifying dating stuff!). I was pretty sure I was going to be single FOREVER at that point, so the bracelet was sort of a "I don't need a man...I can buy myself pretty things" statement for me too.

Ironically (and luckily for me), later that year, I met and started dating my now-husband, the Destroyer of Single Bitter Woman (hard to be bitter when you're happy and in love) and the Co-Creator of Glam-O-Mommy. :) For our first Valentine's Day together, when we'd been together about three months, he was trying to do things right, so he bought me some roses and candy from the grocery store, and a piece of jewelry...a $7 silver bracelet that he bought at Target. He kind of meant it as a joke, but I put that bracelet on and told him I was going to wear it every day until he replaced it with another piece of jewelry! And I did. I never took it off until...

Seven months later, when he proposed to me with a gorgeous engagement ring. We had looked at rings together, so he got exactly what I liked (a marquis diamond surrounded by princess-cut diamonds), and he proposed to me at the ice skating rink we frequented (he's Canadian and plays hockey, so he's a great skater and it's one thing we love to do together!) for two reasons: (1) because it's the first place he told me he loved me and (2) because he thought the ring would look extra sparkly out under the lights on the rink! Does he know me or what?

For my wedding, in addition to the beautiful wedding band my husband gave me to go with my engagement ring, I bought myself a diamond and pearl tiara to wear. At first, I did not plan to wear a tiara, because at 31, I thought I was too old of a bride to wear one, which I thought for months...until I finally tried one (just one, THE ONE) on and that was it! I was a tiara girl, to the surprise of NO ONE, since all my bridesmaids, my maid of honor, and my mother were like, really...YOU are not going to wear a tiara?! You know they sparkle right? And make you look like a princess? Are you sure?

My lovely parents also gave me a pearl and diamond necklace and earrings to wear at the wedding, since their originally planned gift went out in the trash a few years before. See, my Mother's engagement ring had a tiny chip of a diamond in it, and a few years after my Mom got the ring, she accidentally vacuumed it up while cleaning. This destroyed the band, but my Mom managed to find the tiny diamond and kept it for almost 30 YEARS, in a tiny plastic bag in various jewelry boxes. Her plan was to have the little diamond set into a necklace to give to me to wear at my wedding. About four years before I met my husband, my parents were cleaning things out of the house in preparation for a move, and my poor sweet Daddy accidentally threw the little plastic bag with the diamond away! He thought it was a stray piece of plastic and didn't even see the tiny diamond inside. Once they realized what he had done, Mom and Daddy searched the trash thoroughly, but never found the diamond. They were heartbroken about it, and so was I when they told me, because I would've cherished having that since it was the diamond my Daddy gave my Mom when they were 20 and 21 years old! (They've been married almost 42 years!) So they gave me a beautiful pearl and diamond necklace and earring set to wear on my special day instead and I cherish that as well. Someday, I hope my daughter will wear the tiara, necklace, and earrings on her own wedding day...I'm keeping all of that for her!

It's a little tough to make out the earrings and necklace in this picture,
but the tiara looks amazing, right?!

My husband, the Destroyer of Single Bitter Woman, also rocks!

Another thing I'm keeping for my daughter is a present I picked out for myself for my 35th birthday when I was pregnant with her. As I've explained previously, I fought a tough, completely unglamorous battle to get pregnant. The fact that I was pregnant and going to have a daughter was amazingly miraculous to me, so I when my 35th birthday rolled around, I had been thinking about jewelry to commemorate my impending motherhood. My parents decided to give me a little cash for my birthday that year, and since clothes and SHOES were not really that exciting an option for me at that point, I decided to add to the cash they gave me and splurge on an initial necklace from Tiffany's (which had made its way to San Antonio in the six years since I turned 29), because my daughter and I share the same first initial. My plan, from the moment I bought the necklace, is to wear it myself until my daughter turns 16, and then give it to her on that significant birthday. I hope she loves and treasures it and understands what it represents...my love for her and how she is the fulfillment of my heart's deepest desire.

My husband has given me some other pretty wonderful pieces of jewelry that I adore. And when I say 'given', what I mean is 'taken me to the store and let me pick out what I want', which is his favorite way of giving gifts and one that I'm generally down with, since he actually hates to shop and is not a huge fan of getting or giving gifts at all. So the fact that he gives me gifts this way tells me that he really does love me a lot! For our first Valentine's Day as a married couple, he gave me a pretty diamond drop necklace. For our first anniversary, he gave me a set of diamond stud earrings, because I had had surgery to repair both my earlobes since our wedding and needed real earrings to wear after they were re-pierced and while they were healing rather than costume jewelry. On my 34th birthday, I was deep in my hellhole of infertility despair at that point. I saw two things I liked when he took me to shop for a gift, a pink sapphire necklace and a pearl necklace, and told him either would be wonderful, I couldn't decide. He bought them both. I know...I am one lucky lady! He was really trying to make me feel better with that double gift, because it was literally the saddest, lowest point of my life at that time, and he was in those emotional trenches with me every day. He was my rock.

A month before my due date, my dear husband took me out for a nice dinner and to shop for a special gift since I was in the home stretch of my miracle pregnancy. He balked at the suggestion that this was a 'push present' as many people call it, he was like, "This is my idea! I just want to give you something nice because pregnancy is tough and you only have a month to go!" Together, we picked out another pair of diamond earrings, this time a little drop style vs. the studs I normally wear. And those lovely earrings were the only piece of jewelry on my person when my beautiful baby came into this world and took her first breaths and laid in my arms. And I still marvel at the fact that I am a Mommy every time I look at those earrings.

This year, for Mother's Day, I bought myself my own gift. My husband is not big on Mother's Day and my daughter made me a beautiful painting of a sunflower with her hand and thumb prints that I framed and have displayed in my office, but I had been wanting a Mommy necklace, a simple one that would look chic with jeans or a dressy outfit. I found the Tiny Tag Designs website and decided to order myself a simple two-tag necklace with my daughter's name and birthdate, which is of course, one of the best days of my life! Certainly, an amazing day to commemorate, but it's really a commemoration of the greatest gift of all: being her mother, a role I wasn't sure I was ever going to get to play, and a child's love, one I was not sure I would ever know. I'm so grateful to know it now. I got my necklace a few days before Mother's Day, and could not love it more! (Note: I bought the necklace myself and am not receiving anything from the designer or the website for this plug...I just seriously love my Tiny Tags necklace!)

My daughter's gift is super sweet and looks awesome framed in my office!
I smile every time I look at it.

While I love beautiful things, and aspire to glamour in all aspects of my life, ultimately what jewelry comes down to for me is love and life. The most important days, milestones, loves, and experiences of my life have been marked with jewelry. When I wear that jewelry, more than swathing myself in sparkle and bling, I'm clothing myself in the love and the memories of the people that gave me the pieces or that were part of my experience, whether that's my 29-year-old Single Bitter Woman self who I now remember with love and wish I could go back and advise her to relax, you will find someone, you will eventually have a beautiful daughter, life will be okay, or my husband who is truly my love and my partner in life and changed my life for the better in so many ways, or my amazing parents who sacrificed everything they ever had to give me a good life, symbolized in a pearl and diamond necklace and earrings that are really stand-ins for a tiny, not-worth-much-except-the-world-of-my-parents'-love chip of a diamond I never got to receive.

I am blessed and I am grateful to have so much love in my life. It's like the Mastercard commercial...gorgeous bling, sparkling diamonds, and pearls=$$$ dollars. Having an amazing family, loving, and being loved in return=priceless.

Another Baby?

2010-04-29T23:06:00.002-05:00

Now that my daughter is 20 months old, I get a lot of the "So when are you guys going to have another baby?" inquiries.

OK, that's a lie. Those inquiries actually started when I was on MATERNITY LEAVE. Seriously. I was like, HELLO? Do you see the tiny pink-clad person sleeping on the Boppy right here? She just came out! Give me a break, please. I'm still sore from labor.

Lately though, the baby issue has been on my mind as well.

It's noteworthy to mention here that I am an only child. As such, I don't really understand sibling relationships. The ones I see around me seem like a lot of drama for little emotional payoff. Since I don't have a sibling and feel like I had a pretty great life growing up with the full, undivided attention of my two loving parents, I always felt like I wanted to have one child. I would consider two, but really I was good with one.

My husband and I met when we were 29. Until me, he had given no thought to getting married or having a family. I am his first and only girlfriend and we got engaged after 10 months of dating. As such, I made sure to have the kids talk with my husband when we knew our relationship was going somewhere. I definitely want one child, I told him, so I need to know that you would be onboard with having at least one. I hadn't thought much about kids, he replied, but I can go along with that. So we were good to go.

Then, two years after we got married, we started actively trying to get pregnant and encountered difficulties. Understatement, much? DIFFICULTIES.

As our battle with infertility wore on, my husband and I started to get a little desperate. We went from wanting one kid to whatever we could get. Twins? No problem. Quintuplets? No worries...we'll just get our own TV show to make ends meet! LOL. And given the drugs and procedures we were trying, multiple births were a definite possibility. When I finally, miraculously got pregnant, we were actually very surprised we were only having one baby...my husband was convinced there was a hidden twin at the first few ultrasounds, especially because I popped out belly-wise early and why else would I be so big already? (Thanks, honey.)

Ultimately though, ending up with one healthy baby is the actual end goal of fertility treatments...not the Octomom freak show that you see in the media. And so I was very, very happy and grateful to be having one beautiful, much wanted, much loved baby.

And I'm sure I am biased, but my daughter was/is a wonderful baby. She's got gorgeous blue eyes and blond hair and other than demanding food loudly when it was time to eat (she doesn't like to miss a meal), she was the most easygoing baby ever. She rarely cried and slept ALL the time for the first few months after her birth, so she was easy to take anywhere and everywhere...to restaurants, to the mall, to friends' houses. She transitioned to day school without a hitch at four months. Now she is coming in to her own independent, strong, smart personality, but even with the occasional toddler tantrums, she is a gem of a kid. Really funny and smart and generally well behaved.

So now I find myself at the point where another baby is on my mind a lot.

In theory, I want another one...another beautiful, tiny, sweet little baby to love and sing to and carry around just like when my daughter was small. Because she really was not small for very long and now she looks like a little person, because that is what she is. She's not really a baby any longer.

My I-think-I-want-another-baby thoughts reached a fever pitch this evening when I visited a friend who just had her first baby yesterday (after her own battle with infertility). I went to the hospital and I held that tiny, gorgeous baby girl and my mind flashed back 20 months. My baby's tiny fingers. Her little feet. How she slept adorably all the time. Her little funny faces and movements. Her tiny button nose. How she fit into my arms perfectly, swaddled like a little burrito. Oh, it was magical holding that other baby and remembering my own. I think my uterus actually ached.

None of this is helped by the fact that my friend who was pregnant with me two years ago is pregnant with baby #2 now and another friend is trying to get pregnant with #2 right now. A little part of me feels they are moving on to the next class in Mommyschool and I'm being left behind. I want to go with them and have another beautiful baby too!

But then there's reality. And the reality is I found working full-time hours and being a mommy too stressful for me and was lucky that my company allowed me to reduce my work (and subsequently my pay) to four days a week after being back full time for nine months.

If I have another baby, I have no idea how I would have the energy to keep working and juggle everything, and I am not cut out to be a stay at home mom full time. I'm just not. I love being with my daughter and treasure the extra time with her that I have thanks to my reduced work schedule, but I'm not sure I could handle lacking in adult conversation every day. I drove my husband nuts peppering him with questions and inane mommy chitchat every day he came home when I was on maternity leave. He was like, you really need to go back to work honey. You need the social and intellectual stimulation. I need you to have it. I was like, what...poops and burps aren't stimulating enough for you as conversation?! But he was right.

Mostly though, I have continued to work because if I didn't, I would miss my paycheck. Because I like buying pretty things, and I'm used to having my own money to do so! I also love to travel and with one child, we can still afford to travel and it is easily manageable to do so. It was hard to take a paycut, but it has been so worth it to have every Friday off with my best girl. I don't think I could take a complete paycut to zero though.

So there's the part of me that wants another tiny baby to love in theory battling the part of me that thinks I couldn't handle a second baby in reality, along with the part of me that doesn't want our lifestyle to take the financial hit another baby would bring (our daughter's almost out of diapers!), and then there's the other two factors: my husband and my history.

My husband says he's good with one child. He was good before we had her and he's good now. Until recently, he had not seemed to waver in that viewpoint at all. He is such a great father and loves our daughter so, so much that I thought maybe he would change his mind and want to go for two, but anytime I've broached the subject with him, he's pretty set with one. She's a great kid, he says. One's easy to manage. We each still get time on our own. We're so tired now I don't know how we would make it with another, he says. And he's right. I absolutely concur on all these points.

Recently, in a moment of weakness (I think), he kind of said he had not closed the door completely on having a second child, and that surprised me. And freaked me out, because as I go back and forth on whether or not we should have another baby, it's easy for me to fall back on the fact that he is generally steadfast in being set with one child and that makes my decision for me. I told him that, and now he has reverted to his previous stance of one-and-done. But now, I don't know whether I should totally believe him. Now, I'm starting to get the feeling that if I were really set on two, he'd consider it.

The other factor is my history of infertility. I am so grateful that all I endured resulted in my beautiful miracle baby. I don't want to seem ungrateful or tempt fate. I got one healthy baby. I'm done. It is possible that we could get pregnant on our own without treatment, but it's pretty unlikely. And, if we did treatments again, they might be successful again...but maybe too successful and then we'd end up with more children than we ever planned to have, which would come with its own set of stresses. I am also about to turn 37, so what if another baby had health problems due to my advancing maternal age?

But my bigger issue/worry than all of these is my fear of failure. Ultimately, I'm afraid to really let go and want, really want another baby. Because if I do, if I decide I definitely want one, and commit myself to that journey, I risk plunging myself back down the hellhole of despair I lived in for over a year while I was trying to get pregnant the first time. I don't ever want to go back there. And I certainly don't want to go back there and have my daughter, the miracle baby I do have, suffer as a result.

Maybe it wouldn't be as emotionally hard for me if we tried again because she is here, she exists, and she lights up my life, every minute of it. But what if it did? And what if we decided to go for it and we didn't get lucky this time? How would I handle my disappointment then?

Or what if we did get pregnant and then I realized I really was good with one child all along? That I should've left well enough alone? That I can't handle the reality of two kids? That I was swept up in baby fever after all? How do I know what I really want?

I just don't know. But I think about it. A lot.