Monday, March 30, 2009

Normalcy

The weather dictates my mood on an almost daily basis. During the fall/winter months when it's gloomy, cold and rainy, I get fatigued and grumpy. But now that it's beginning to get sunny and warm, I find myself getting happy and energized! Add that to the fact that we're getting braver and taking Lauren out to public places and I almost feel normal again.

We're beginning to take more family outings and enjoying our time together. It feels so good to be out of our dark hole when we were wearing masks around the house because we were afraid of getting Lauren sick with RSV, me pumping every 3 hours, washing pump parts, sterilizing, preparing medications and oxygen tanks.

I never thought that I'd be where I am with this whole ordeal. I'm definitely not 100% better. Not even close. But I was in such a dark, bitter place compared to now. Though, I confess, I think that place is still there - hiding. I'm probably trying to bury it some place deep hoping that it never finds its way back to the surface. Only, I know that no matter how much I try to push it aside, it'll always be there lurking... until I decide to deal with my emotions and sift through all the millions of pieces of me that shattered when I went into preterm labor. The guilt and anger and the worries of "what if" - they slowly seep through at unexpected moments and I turn my back on them hoping that they'll just go away.

I plan to meet with a therapist soon....I just need to make the time. I want to heal from this. I need to be strong for my family because I know that this is going to be a long road of ups and downs. I need to be in the best condition I can to face everything that will come our way so that we can come out of this on top.

But for now, I'm going to enjoy this beautiful weather. And in between the constant doctors visits, therapy sessions and other exams, I'm going to keep claiming the bits and pieces of normalcy we experience and continue to push those pesky unresolved issues aside.

Monday, March 9, 2009

A Lesson In Love

Lauren is beginning to get her nights and days mixed up. She sleeps during the day and then is fully awake at night wanting to be put over someone's shoulder and then walked around. The lack of sleep is beginning to really take a toll on us.

Starting this month, I decided to keep Christian home from school 2 days a week just so I can spend some time with him. He's growing up so fast and I feel like I'm missing out on the cutest age ever. So, today, I had both kids with me. He was an angel. She, well, was not such an angel. I wasn't able to put Lauren down for more than 2 minutes - literally. She was driving me nuts with her shrilly cry.

At one point, I got so fed up, I snapped at her. To me, it didn't sound too bad - I just sounded really annoyed and kept saying, "what! what! what do you want?!" as I was walking down the hall with her in my sling. I walked into Christian's room and in the middle of playing with his toys, he looked down at the floor and just sat there looking sad.

I asked him, "What's wrong, honey?"

C: "Mommy mad to Rauren."

Me: "Oh honey, no, mommy's not mad - mommy's just tired of hearing Lauren cry."

C: "Mommy happy?"

Me: "Yes, honey...mommy's happy. Mommy loves Christian and Lauren very much."

C: "Then, mommy talk nice to Rauren."

I nearly cried when I heard him say those words.

He could've easily been jealous of Lauren because he wanted me to play cars with him all day but I couldn't really.

He could've easily been resentful to her because he was forced to keep on a poopie diaper for over 10 minutes while I was nursing - all he kept saying was "owie, owie - poopie diaper" as he patiently waited.

He could've easily been annoyed at the fact that he was trying to watch tv but Lauren's cry kept drowning out the characters' voices - instead, he went over to Lauren's swing and tried to comfort her with a cheerful, "Hi, Rauren!" as I was trying to get dinner ready.

In that moment when he told me to talk nice to Lauren, I was humbled. I realized he was so right. All day today he was nothing but patient and thoughtful to his little sister.

Today, my son taught me a simple lesson in love.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Our Budding Little Chef

One of Christian's favorite books is a book by Karen Katz called Grandpa and Me where the grandkid and grandpa make a pizza together. Everytime he reads that book, he pretends he's making the dough, sprinkling the cheese, sticking it in the oven and then gobbles up the imaginary pizza. So, we thought it'd be a great idea to make pizza at home and have him really play the part.

I made him a makeshift chef hat using cardstock and tissue paper, presliced all the ingredients and just had him assemble everything. He had a ton of fun and we got to eat a healthy whole wheat organic homemade pizza made by our budding little culinary artist!~ Enjoy the pics!!

Hi Everyone! Today, I'm going to show you how to make a delicious homemade pizza. First, you need to put on your chef hat.



Then, you add some sauce on the crust.


Make sure you put lots of sauce on!


Then, sprinkle lots of cheese.


Add fresh tomatoes and other toppings of your choice.


Here mommy, have a taste!


Mmmm...Pepperoni!


Bake in the oven and Voila! Yummy, delicious, healthy homemade pizza!~


Enjoying the fruits of my labor. Chef Christian signing off!~ ;)


Sunday, March 1, 2009

I've Finally Caved...

and jumped on the FaceBook bandwagon.

Because all of my friends are talking about pictures of eachothers' kids on their facebook accounts and I'm the only one who doesn't know what's going on.

But the idea of someone from my past being able to track me down is not appealing. Not that I have anything to hide. But I'm the type of person who likes to weed out all unnecessary relationships and just keep the ones that are meaningful.

I have a close knit circle of people who I can truly call friends and I am soooooooo grateful to have them in my life. I don't want my inner circle to be invaded by a bunch of people I don't really know or care to know.

Plus, I feel like Facebook can take up a lot of time. Time that I don't have to spare. But can easily get sucked into.

Oh what the hell am I complaining about - I run a public blog for crying out loud. And I'm announcing that I'm on Facebook.

I just want to be able to see my friends and their babies.

So girls... how does this work? Do you add me as a friend? And then I get to see pictures? Sorry, I'm Facebook illiterate. =/