more or less for 2012

Yeah, I’m a little late if you will but here are my thoughts for 2012. 

More blogging

More pictures/videos posted in a timely fashion

Less clutter

More walks.  Well, more time outside in general regardless of weather.  The dog we’re in the market for should help with this one.

More time for myself and with Will – on our own!

Fewer poor eating choices

More time spent looking for a job that I like enough to not hate going back to work

Less snapping at others

Fewer bad moods in general – I control my mood!

More cross stitching which should hopefully result in fewer unfinished projects

More DIY house projects

Less time in front of the TV

More time reading

More friends

thankful

This year I am thankful….

- for a beautiful, healthy, growing, chatterbox of a precious little girl

- for an amazing, helpful, appreciative, understanding husband

- for the internet to keep us all connected

- for Lowes which, most of the time, keeps me in supplies for my house projects (our local store has been out of my trim paint all week hence “most of the time”)

- that we have a house to do projects on

- for King Soopers for stocking Blue Bell and making my husband very happy – and it’s cheap!

- that we made a cross country drive with a 3 month old with no horror stories to tell and got to see so many friends along the way

- that I was able to see Dad before it was too late

- that we were able to see the whole family even if under less than ideal circumstances

- that my one brother has managed to totally turn his life around and finally get it all straight

- for planes to take us East for Christmas

- for friends who love us so much that they’ve already come to visit.  In particular, Liz who came to help while we were still buried in boxes and didn’t have a bed for her to sleep on.

- for the hematologist who says that there’s no need for blood thinners when we decide to have another kid

- that Will has a job again where he doesn’t complain every day

- for whole house humidifiers to keep us from being beyond overly dry in this arid Colorado climate

- that Mom came out and made us work our tails off and that she’s coming back on Tuesday!

- that' I’ve lost all my baby weight though that just means that I’m back to trying to lose the 15lbs I was trying to lose before I got pregnant

- for new/old friends to spend Thanksgiving with

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

…

I will preface this by saying that I wish I was better at writing.

It’s 6:15 and I can’t get back to sleep (both hubs and the baby get up at 5) because all I can think is “he’s gone”

He’s gone.

As of yesterday morning, he’s gone.

He’s gone and it’s not fair.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.  We were supposed to get at least 5-10 more years.

I accepted a long time ago that he would never see my kids grow up like he was able to with my sister’s kids but I never imagined that not only would my kids not have a single memory of him, he wouldn’t even get to meet most of them.  She is my shield but it’s also hard to look at Miss P and not think about how he’s not going to be around to see her walk and talk or anything else.

I think that’s the worst part because my dad was (oh god it hurts to have to write “was”) so amazing with babies.  A little less tolerant of kids but amazing with babies.

The timing isn’t fair either.  (oh yes, time for self pity)

We literally *just* moved 1600 miles away.  I have a beautiful baby and a great new house.  This should be a wonderful happy time for us.  And they were going to follow us out to Colorado next year too.

This is not a curve ball that Life needed to throw my direction right now.  Not that there’s ever a good time.

I did get to see him last week but how was I supposed to say goodbye to the only man who loved me for the first 26 or so years of my life?  In trying to be hopeful and upbeat when we left (twice even since we didn’t make it out of Philly airport the first attempt), I feel a little like I robbed myself of the chance to tell him a few things and truly say goodbye.  But that’s my fault and no one else’s.

It all happened so quickly.  He only first went in the hospital on May 31st.  He only came home to hospice last week Tuesday.  14 weeks sick and 9 days at home, really?  That’s all the time we get to wrap our heads around this? 

And another thing… Why can’t we get some research money into other types of cancer?  I think breast cancer has been researched to death and I think everyone on the planet is aware (no offense to breast cancer sufferers).  How about some research on bile, liver and pancreatic cancers so that some day the diagnosis won’t be a death sentence?

Anyway sorry to those of you who are reading this and finding out my unhappy news but I can’t deal with having to talk about it just yet.  I probably wouldn’t even be doing this except I’ve been mentally drafting blog posts for a few days and I can’t really do any of the 13,000 things that need doing (first on the list trying to find the moving truck with the rest of our stuff since it is hauling around 50+ years of family photos some of which we want for the wake) because the babe gets upset if she wakes up and I’m not in bed with her.

This will ever and always be my favorite picture of us, Dad. I’ll never stop missing you.

25th anniversary of the challenger disaster

There’s been a lot of talk today about it being the 25^th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. 

It’s gotten me thinking about those “where were you?” moments that we all have in life.  Our parents’ generation has the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations and when we landed on the moon.  Our grandparents have the attack on Pearl Harbor, D-Day and victories in WWII. 

Here’s what ours are so far.

Where was I when the Challenger blew up?  28 January 1986

I was in afternoon kindergarten at the time so I was sitting on the horrific blue plaid carpet of our family room in Texas watching the launch all by myself on TV.  Other than that I don’t remember anything.  And maybe I’m remembering it wrong – I was only 5.

Where was I when I found out that Princess Diana had died?  31 August 1997

I was a senior in high school hanging out at my friend Stephanie’s house.  We had just finished watching The Princess Bride on video.  It was actually the first time I’d seen the whole thing even though it was such an iconic movie for most people my age and several of her friends had been quoting the whole movie the entire time.  Upon turning the video off, the news of her car crash and subsequent death was running as a “breaking news alert” on the TV.  We didn’t quite believe it so we tuned to CNN for confirmation and they were running nothing but the story.

And the one no one will ever forget. 

Where was I when I heard about the 9/11 terrorist attacks?  11 September 2001

I was a senior in college on 9/11.  I happened to not have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays that semester so I was in bed asleep when it all started.  I can’t remember if I’d set my alarm or if I just woke up around 9 on my own.  I remember my housemate Gina was in her room drying her hair but she had the TV up really loud too which seemed weird.  Because of the hair dryer, I couldn’t make out what they were talking about on the TV but I got the overwhelming impression that they were concerned about something.  We didn’t have a TV in our room so I went downstairs to get breakfast and watch the TV in the living room.  All I had to do was turn the TV on to realize that something was very wrong.  It took a bit to understand though because I turned the TV on very shortly after the plane struck the Pentagon.  That’s all I knew.  I was stunned.  I was even more stunned when they cut back to New York as the second plane hit.  I still didn’t know that there had been a first plane.  Once I had a basic understanding of what was going on – I called my mom.  She doesn’t watch TV during the day normally.  My brother and sister had already gotten her so she was watching.  Unfortunately, she’d had to put the family dog down a few days prior and my dad was in Houston for a conference so she was home alone.  And we have family that live and work in NYC.  There’s more to the day but that’s my story of how I heard about 9/11.

to know or not to know…

that is the question.

The sex of the baby that is.

1 September 2010

Besides the worries about miscarriages, are we going to be good parents, eating right, and all the rest; my biggest internal conflict is whether to find out what we’re having when the time comes at 20 weeks.

I think Will will just let me decide and go with whatever I want – he’s sweet like that – but I’m not sure what I want.

On one hand, I’ve always wanted that “It’s a ____” moment after giving birth.

But on the other, I really like to plan and I can’t plan if we don’t know what we’re having.

Hence – conflicted!

Apparently the new thing is to have a “sex party” – no, not like that. It’s a party wherein the sex of the baby is revealed to all – parents, friends, and family – all at the same time. It involves the technician writing boy/girl on a piece of paper, sealing it in an envelope which then gets given to a baker with instructions to either color the cake or the filing pink or blue so that when it gets cut in to, all is revealed.

Seems weird to me.

But also kind of a cute way to celebrate the news.

As of writing, I have 14 weeks to hash this out with myself and my wonderful hubby.

29 November 2010

So now we’re down to about 2 weeks – our sonogram is scheduled for 13 December – and we still haven’t decided.

I still like the idea of not finding out but then I don’t like the idea of being surprised with the first but then finding out in the future. I feel like it should be all or nothing – either we find out for all our kids or none of our kids.  And I’m not sure that I can handle the waiting more than once.

There was a Baby Center blog post a few months ago that caught my attention on this very topic: 8 Reasons to Find Out Your Baby’s Sex.  I identify most with 3 of her points…

I have admitted that I want a boy first.  I’m not shy about saying what I want – I want any girls that we do have to have an older brother.  Besides, then the family can relax because there will be at least the potential for another generation of Davenports (this comes from marrying the last male Davenport).  So maybe we should find out sooner rather than later because then I can get over myself if we are having a girl first which tends to be the trend in both of our immediate families.

We have so much going on that we can’t plan for that it would be nice to have something that we can plan for and, let me tell you, this lady likes to plan.  We still want to keep things fairly neutral – there won’t be any bright pink princess rooms or all blue with lots of trucks for us – because I don’t see the need to have to buy things new for future kid(s).  If it can be reused the second time around, it should be neutral.  Besides, my favorite color to decorate with – GREEN!

And thinking back on when I’ve bought shower presents for friends, it’s more fun when you know.  It may be shallow but it’s true.

Bottom line: we haven’t decided but lately I’m leaning towards knowing.

So here’s poll because I’m curious what people think:

disclaimer…

Ok, I’m not trying to make this into a baby blog per se ….

It’s just that I have a bunch of posts that I wrote sitting at my desk in the first couple of weeks that I knew I was pregnant in an attempt at calming all the thoughts that were catapulting around in my brain at very high velocity.

And because (a) they’re already written, (b) I can share them because most everyone knows, and (c) I don’t have to sort through pictures to post them, they’re easy to publish pretty quickly.

So no fear… I’m not going for “all baby, all the time.”  At least not intentionally!

secrets

20 August 2010

Ok. I have a problem with secrets. Particularly if they are happy ones.

I just want to tell everyone!

Happy secrets are the worst because I end up feeling like I’m just busting at the seams to tell people.

I just want to shout from the rooftops: We’re having a baby!!!

It’s only been 2 days and it’s already driving me crazy.

I talk to my mom on the phone and she says, “Anything new?” And I respond, “Nope, nothing new” while my brain shouts, “Yes, only the best news you’ll hear for the next 3 months!”

We ran into a girl I met in grad school in the grocery store and we’re chatting about life and she says “How’s things?” and I say, “Good” when I want to say, “Freaking fantastic because we’re having a baby!” We get to talking about leaving the area and schools and she says “All things you have to worry about when you have kids, if you have kids.” Yup, we’re definitely having kids. That journey has begun.

I e-mail my girlfriends… “oh nothing exciting going on here.” LIE.

Knowing that we’ve been trying to have a baby, one responds wondering if we’re going to put things on hold since I’m thinking of looking for a new job and I have to respond that we’re just forging ahead and taking what life gives us.

I want to ask people what the deal is with the deli meat according to my doctor because, seriously, I don’t know what I’m going to eat for lunch and it’s going to be a few weeks until I can ask the doctor myself.

We have all this cider that I can no longer drink so Will thought, “oh we can try to pawn some off on my sister.” Oh wait, that’ll look suspicious.

It’s like on the surface nothing in our lives has changed but really we’ve been totally rocked down to the foundation.

I hate secrets.

Keeping good news to yourself sucks.

15 November 2010

Well, in the end after the first week or so, it got pretty normal not to tell people.  The hardest was not telling my parents the whole time we were on vacation especially with my mom asking leading questions every couple of days (she swears she didn’t realize that she was doing it).  Because we really didn’t want too many people knowing before I was at least 12 weeks along and we had certain people that we wanted to tell in person, it just kind of became a bit of a logistical nightmare as we tried to figure out how to make schedules mesh and see those people before we told the whole world.

Most people know by now though we haven’t made the “official” announcement on Facebook but I actually still haven’t told most of the people that I work with and for the most part, it’s not really bothering me.

It’s like there are so many other things to think and worry about that I’m not really thinking too much anymore about telling everyone in sight.  I’ve also gotten paranoid that the more people we tell, the higher the chances will be that something will go wrong and then we’ll have to spread bad news.  But then I just remind myself that that is, in fact, paranoid and not likely to happen and go on with my day and continue to spread the happy news.

Besides it’s been fun to spread the news. 

Especially when we’ve been able to deliver it in person and see the reaction firsthand.  We got an adorable Charlie Brown-esque dance from Will’s sister.  My niece was a little confused for a bit – but that could have been more to do with my choice of words.  My folks were just like “well, we already knew it” which I expected.  I actually got slightly similar reactions from two of my best friends – ah, the people who know you best can always sniff it out, right?  One of my nephews is already campaigning to have the baby named after him if it’s a boy – um, I don’t think we’ll do that. 

And I discovered today that my extended family news chain is apparently broken as not a single one of my cousins even knew I was pregnant when I was soliciting baby name input (in the form of asking what everyone’s middle names were).

first 24 hours

(I wrote this in the first 24 hours after finding out that I was pregnant but waited to post for obvious reasons)

At approximately 6:30pm on August 18^th, I gave in to my growing anxiety and took a home pregnancy test.

I wasn’t truly “late” and I should have waited until morning but, with the exception of only 2 months of my adult life, I’ve always been extremely “regular” so a day overdue had me on high order. That combined with 8 months of hope and waiting and a week of bizarre hot flashes, I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I had to know.

I didn’t tell Will what I was up to. I didn’t want to get his hopes up.

I just did it.

The results were clear before I was even finished in the bathroom.

Holy crap.

Then I laughed and nearly cried.

Wow. Holy cow.

Will, in the other room, was by now convinced that I was crying or otherwise upset.

By the time I was finished, he was standing outside the door waiting for me to explain what in the world was going on.

So I handed him the test through the crack in the door.

Really?

Really.

Holy crap. We’re having a baby.

*hugs*

Oh my God.

*more hugs*

Wow. We finally did it.

I nearly cried again.

Then we resumed “regularly scheduled programming” i.e. watching “Melissa & Joey,” playing on the internet, watching Shopgirl, etc. All of this was interspersed with:

Wow.

Holy cow.

You’re not telling anyone, are you? (This was directed at me because I can have trouble keeping secrets sometimes and I was chatting on FB with a friend at the time.  That was you, Ravi, if you’re reading this)

Oh. My.

When can we tell people? November? No, October. Mid-October.

Wow.

When we switched back to regular TV, Will started reading the pertinent (now that we have a positive test) chapters in his Dad Labs book and randomly reading me pages.

I was reviewing the list of “forbidden” foods posted to the website of the OB practice that I’m planning to use. (I can’t wait to understand why deli meats are on that list while trying to figure out what to eat for lunch.) I got out my book too but found that I couldn’t really focus on it – still being in a state of shock and awe.

We determined the approximate due date – likely 28 April 2011 (no Coachella for us in ’11. We are a tiny bit sad.)

Finally, we went to bed.

But sleep wasn’t in the cards. Maybe that’s another reason to take the test in the morning so that you have all day to adjust to the news before you try to sleep.

We talked.

I finally gave into the tears.

Because, well, I’m scared.

There are a bazillion things that can happen and go wrong. We feel like we know so many people who don’t have happy healthy baby stories.

I’m going to be someone’s mother.

We have to figure out all the other parts of our life.

How do I apply for jobs in Denver if I’m pregnant?

How can we spend 2 weeks in Ireland with my parents without telling them or having them figure it out?

There’s no turning back now. Wow.

I got hot again. (Man, I hope that doesn’t last and is not a preview of my future with menopause.)

I had to pee again.

Somehow we eventually fell asleep.

And then woke up to the same thoughts. It’s kind of like a CD skipping.

Will’s already thinking of what music he wants to play to the baby in utero so that he/she will be smart. And looking forward to rubbing my burgeoning belly. And following me around.

Wait until he finds out that I’m going to run 3+ miles this evening.

19 August 2010

so few words…

It’s amazing how a few simple words can change the entire course of your life.

You’ve been accepted.

Whether it’s a private grade school, a private or magnet high school, a college or university, a special summer program, or any number of other possibilities; acceptance is a great thing that shapes the future, sets you on one of several paths. Its opposite: “You have not been accepted” has similar effects.

Yes.

Yes, I will accept the job.

Yes, I’ll take the apartment.

Yes, I’ll go on a date with you.

And the ultimate “yes”: Yes, I will marry you.

I do.

The ultimate promise joining forever your future with that of another and giving freely of one’s self to that person.

Pregnant.

A solitary word on a digital home pregnancy test and life as you know it is changed forever.

Such power in such small simple words.

Written 19 August 2010.