Age and Babies

I just turned 30 a few weeks ago. My baby turns 11 in June. Now, while I am still in my prime baby birthing days, I feel like I’m too old. I have been going back and forth for years about having another baby someday. There are days that I want nothing to do with starting over. With getting pregnant and the exhausted and nauseous first trimester. The never ending, waddling, praying for the end, third trimester. The breastfeeding, the middle of the night pacing with a colicky newborn, the diapers and the amount of belongings for this child, that we have to have, that we really don’t need. The new body and soul to depend on you for the next forever. Oh, and let’s not forget, the day care bill.

But then the thought of not doing that again makes me so sad. The feelings of joy when you find out you are expecting. The look on your partners face when they find out they are going to be a parent. The excitement to keep it a secret for those first few weeks until you tell the world and everyone else’s excitement when they know. Feeling those first flutters that will soon take over your body and make people (strange people) have the desire to touch you. A lot of people have issues with that, but I never did the first time around. People are fascinated by pregnancy. What isn’t there to be fascinated by? There is a person that is half you and half someone that you love with your entire being. For the most part anyway. Seeing that little person and spending months trying to figure out who they look like is such a great and happy time.

See my issue? The light at the end of my tunnel is getting brighter by the day. The day my son graduates from high school, I will be 37 years old. If he sticks with the 4 year plan, he will be graduating college shortly after my 41^st birthday. People are still having babies at that age! If I were to have a baby 9 months from today, I will be almost 50 years old with a high school senior. I know that’s common place now, but I don’t know if I want that to be my life. A kindergartener and a high-schooler. Driving tests and ABC’s. Proms and kinderkickers soccer. That’s a huge adjustment.

I had such a rough go at raising a child the first time around, that now that he is older and independent and can do things for the most part by himself, I can relax a bit.  I can enjoy the adult life I have, since I missed the college years and the young 20’s years. Being young and free. That was my choice to continue on with my pregnancy at 18 years old that many women choose not to. Because I knew it would be worth it in the end. While my life has not gone how I had envisioned, I am happy. Genuinely happy with my life. Nothing is every perfect, things go wrong, things get messed up, but all in all, I am happy.

But then again, I don’t want any regrets. I think the main concern is the fear of starting over. I keep telling myself that this isn’t something I want to do because Im scared to start all over. I know things now that terrify me. I hear stories, and know people I didn’t know the first time. I was young and everything was sunshine and puppies.

 I know Chase would be an amazing big brother. Chris would be an amazing father. But this is also something he bounces back and forth about as well. We are financially sound to be able to do this as soon as we get through the process of buying a new house. But we need to get past the fear of doing this. We have never had a life where it was just the 2 of us. It’s always been the three of us. What’s one more? Right?

January Un-Blues

 

A lot of people get the blues in January. Not me. I love it. The craziness of the holiday season is over. I have a few gift cards to spend. The plans with friends dwindle down to once every few weeks instead of something every weekend. We get back into a healthy eating routine, and my family hibernates in sweats and hoodies, under blankets watching tv cuddled up on the couch with a very often loudly snoring bulldog.

Plus the chances of snow get higher this time of year too. I love the snow. Not so much going out and playing in it anymore, but getting the little guy dressed and all toasty, then making him hot chocolate when he comes in and his cute little face is all red. I love seeing my mom’s old wooden drying rack we always used growing up, set up in my dining room in front of the heater vent drying everything out for the next round of snow play. The lunches on these days always taste better too. Something about grilled cheese and homemade soup on snowy days makes me happy. I cook a lot on days that it snows. Thankfully for the most part if the little guy is off school my work is closed too.  But considering the temperatures here recently, we won’t be getting any of the white stuff any time soon. Everyone keeps saying it will happen, but I’m not holding my breath.

OCD- The Disney Addition

So Chris and I are taking our little guy to Disney World for the first time. We leave in a few very short weeks and I am more pumped about this trip than if we would have gone to Aruba as we originally planned.

See we are a bit spoiled. My parents own a 5 star timeshare that we can use at about a million places worldwide for a small transfer fee.  We normally go to Aruba as a huge family in April, but my parents won a cruise last year so they aren’t going, my younger brother is getting married in October, two of my siblings are not beachy people and my youngest is currently unemployed. So with my big 3-0 looming, we decided we would go anyway, just the three of us and move it to January instead of April. Hey, they were going to lose that week that was already paid for if we didn’t use it.

That’s where the trouble started. We had to trade in a week of my parent’s timeshare and hope that someone would be willing to give up their week in Aruba in January so we could slide on in there. Please, WTF were we thinking expecting someone to give up their week in paradise in January? Especially since a huge majority of Americans coming to Aruba are from the frozen Northeast. So we expanded to the entire Caribbean within flight cost reasoning. Nothing. Zero. So we moved a little further north. Southern Florida. Not quite the 85 degrees we were aiming for, but it still better than the before mentioned frozen northeast. Nothing. At this point we were willing to go anywhere that had a temperature above 60.

I casually mention Disney World. Chris who is not a fan of crowds or small children that don’t share a house or DNA with him said, sure why the hell not? Can’t be any worse than being stuck here in February. This of course was after quite the side eye and after telling him about the week we are going, historically being the lowest attendance rating of the entire year. This same Chris, who is anti-Disney to the fullest extent, whom I have been trying to convince for almost 9 years to take Chase to Disney World, is finally admitting defeat. We are now locked, stocked and loaded for a non-stop trip from DC to hopefully a sunnier, warmer climate of Orlando Florida. 

Now entering, my obsessive compulsive desire to plan this trip. I booked our plane tickets and car rental within 10 minutes of each other, about 10 minutes after we got our hotel confirmation. I ordered maps pinpointing the activities we wanted to do in each park, wrote down everything in a notebook, obsessed over the website looking at the parks, checking the weather everyday (its February so you never know what it’s going to be like one day to the next) started a packing list, adjusting and readjusting our park/day itinerary, figuring out other things in the area to do, you know in case a 5 full days in amusement parks isn’t enough. 

To add even more non-stop craziness, the Sunday after we land, we are driving an hour and 15 minutes to visit family in southeastern, FL. Then depending on the weather, another 35 minutes to the beach.  We plan to watch the Super Bowl there and stay the night then drive back to Orlando to begin our Disney extravaganza the next morning.  We are also going to Seaworld one of those days too, THANKS MIL!! Cannot wait!

Last night after cruising Pintrest while cooking dinner, I happened upon a blog where this woman successfully packs 2 weeks’ worth of clothing (very cute stylish clothing) into her carry on. Thus, avoiding the ridiculous bag checking fees.  I have always found packing things to gain more space very gratifying. After some scouring I found out that we have a washer and dryer in our hotel unit, as well as basic toiletries. So now I am on a serious mission to get all of our stuff into our three rolling carryon suitcases and our personal items. That will save us $120 round trip! $120 might not be a lot of money to some people, but it’s still a nice chunk just to put your bag on a plane. Basically you are buying a cheap, cold, abusive ride for your Samsonite friend. My baggage prefers the comfy ride in the overhead compartment. That way we won’t have to wait at baggage claim and hopefully can get to the car rental place before everyone else bombards the place. Chris is still giving me the side eye every time I mention carry-ons only and says lets take at least one checked bag. Maybe, we will see.

Weight Watchers and Wedding Plans

 

Well, my little brother is getting married in about 9 months. I am one of two girls in the wedding and I am going to try my damndest to not look like a whale in my pretty pool colored dress. You know what makes this even more difficult for me? The maid of honor looks like Tinkerbelle. She’s a teeny tiny little thing standing at about 5 foot 2 inches. Then there is me, at 5 foot 9 inches and 6 foot in heels certainly not petite in any way. On top of the fact that MOH is pregnant and will deliver her baby in June, she will still look better than me in October after my 9 months of dieting. This should be amusing. I feel very pretty in my dress and its super comfortable as long as I’m not standing next to Jess.

But 9 months is a long time. Many people I know have had great success with Weight Watchers. WW has offered my employer an amazing option of being able to offer us employees the ability to join with no joiner fee and a discount on our monthly membership. It was too easy to say yes and sign up. I used the excuse before that I didn’t want to pay for it because it was $70 to sign up and for the first month. But only paying $16 a month? There were no excuses left. So I joined and I am super excited about it.

I have a close friend that has been a member for quite some time so I can always bounce questions off her since she goes to the actual real people meetings as opposed to my online membership.

I spent 5 hours in my kitchen yesterday planning, washing, cleaning, cutting, cooking, packaging and calculating my entire weeks’ worth of food.  I’m not going to change my dinner meals too much because that would be forcing my family to also submit to meals they might not be so keen on. I also want to make sure that I am sticking to our weekly grocery budget and not only buying food for myself. So that shopping trip was a little tricky. I’m sure it will get easier the longer I am with the program.

I also joined Zumba. Two nights a week for an hour each night. My first class was last Thursday evening and I am fully willing to admit that I was terrified. I have not actively worked out at all in about 4 years. Bike rides here and there and the occasional whorl on the treadmill for a few weeks is about all I have done. Being in a class of women of all shapes and sizes, all ages and all abilities was very encouraging. It also made me keep moving even when I wanted to stop and I would have if I was at home doing a workout. So I’m hoping this mild winter will also give me the option of a few nice days to be able to take a bike ride with my little guy just to move around on my days off Zumba.

Oh, that reminds me, I need to take monthly pictures!

Terrible Blogger

And again, I have failed at keeping up with my blog like I wanted to. Again, I will try harder. The weekends have been crazy busy and the weeks have been deliciously mellow. Which, gives me no excuse as to why it’s been almost 4 months since my last post. Sitting at a computer all day doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy about sitting at one for a while to type blog posts. But I will try harder. I promise. Plus I’m not that eloquent so I read what I have written, then re-read it, then delete, change and re-read it again. It takes forever.

               Anyway!! Since my last post, we have painted our living room, painted the fireplace, got a POD, started packing up the house, spent weekends at the beach, spent time with our friends, gone crabbing 4 times, seen 6 concerts (5 Phish, 1 Zac Brown Band) gone camping in Saratoga Springs New York, saw the Red Bull FlugTag competition in Philly and gone back to school. That’s 5^th grade for my little guy this year!

Weekends at the beach

 

Painted our fireplace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phish Atlantic City - Bader Feild

 

3 days camping in Saratoga Springs to see Phish at SPAC

 

 

Philly RedBull FlugTag

 

Right now we are enjoying the cooler weather with Friday night high school football games, open windows, and spiced scented candles. The chili making will be getting started here soon with Sunday Fundays in full effect.  I will be doing some freezer/make ahead meals and baking more since my momma found me a bread maker. For FREE!! It should be a good time.

This weekend we are starting a multi weekend celebration of our best friend Dave’s 30^th birthday at our favorite bar. His girlfriend Jen is planning to surprise Dave with all his friends there when they come to meet Chris and me for drinks Saturday night. He’s going to be super surprised.

Then next Friday Chris, Dave and I are taking half days from work and traveling 3 or 4 hours to Jens parent’s lake house in northern PA, just south of the New York state line. Once there, Jen will be meeting us right after work as well as Dave’s sister and her boyfriend, who also happens to be Chris’ best friend Nick. It’s a little odd, but we are getting used to it!  Then the party will continue until Sunday afternoon when we have to make the 4 hour trek back home. It’s going to be a great time and I will make sure to take tons of pictures.

For The Future

Life since then has been a lot quieter, definitely more reflective. You appreciate more things when you go through the loss of loved ones.

But now we are on to happier times and bigger plans for our little family. We are fixing up our house to sell it and buy our “Forever House”. I am working on eating better and getting healthier heading into my 30’s. Chase is his team’s starting pitcher and he is doing really well. Chris is working on his handyman skills around the house and trying to save us money in as many places possible, while trying to fix up the house. I hope to be around and post every couple days. Life should be picking up fairly quickly right around the corner.

Blog Revival - October 2011

October 2011

Life was recovering slowly and quietly then we were hit with another hurricane. My beloved grandmother died unexpectedly. At 86 you can’t believe she will live forever, but it’s still heartbreaking. She was ready to go and told me those exact words the weekend before. She was prepared and ready to go. She wanted to be with my grandfather again. She said she couldn’t go because too many people were still holding on too tight and she needed them to let her go. It wasn’t and still isn’t easy. The family parties, going to the beach house, picking up the phone to call her only to remember that she is gone is so hard. She was such a huge part of my life that is now gone. My rough and tumble little boy was so gentle and sweet with her it made you heart hurt. Seeing him breakdown when they closed her casket for the last time, was the most devastating thing to my entire family. But she is happy now. I know she is. I just miss her so much.