Camille turned 2 months yesterday. At the risk of becoming horribly repetitive, I'll instead just post pictures because really, that's all I would want if I was you.
My cousin Steph gave me permission to not respond to her tag due to the pure silliness of it. But not responding is in poor blog taste and we all know how hard I try to stick with edict. She is sorta right though, it is a little silly so I've come up with a alternative that will keep the blog realm moving smoothly. Instead of answering the list on her site....I'm going to form my own list full of things you could probably care less about but things that I'm dying to talk about but have no clue how to spin it into a post.
1. For those of you not wondering, pumping is going great! Camille has been fed breastmilk for 7 weeks now and I'm able to pump more than enough that sometimes it ends up in the freezer to be saved for later. I only have to pump 4x's a day and get 26-27 ounces. Camille will nurse for comfort but I don't get let-down. I know I could put her through baby boot camp and force her to suck harder but who would gain here? My goal is for her to not be on formula full time and that goal is being met. There are times that I get a little sad that she is not a "breastfed" baby but it doesn't last long. She will latch on and eat until there is nothing left and I can still nurse her if there is an emergency like last week. We were at the beach with no bottles. D was on his way over and Camille was loosing her patience. I was able to nurse her right there on the beach giving her enough to last until her bottle came. So to those stupid lactation jerks who said it would not work you must learn that you actually gave me the strength to make it work, so I owe you.
2. Camille is sleeping through the night thanks to what is referred to around our apartment as "Magic Potion". She has the ability to sleep from 10 p.m. - 7 a.m. and as of last night, when she woke up squeaking at 4:45 a.m. she fell back to sleep without a feeding. So, night times are going great, now if I could only get her to nap regularly during the day we'd be good.
3. I miss being pregnant. No, I don't miss it so much that I will get pregnant right now, but just enough that my hand immediately goes to my stomach if I feel a twitch. Just tonight I was at Kohl's and saw a pregnant woman and there was a little part of me that was jealous. I know I'll get criticized for saying this, but, I loved being pregnant. I loved feeling that little life inside of me. I love seeing my belly in the mirror and would stand in awe of it's rapid growth. I had a great pregnancy but again, let me state for the record, I will not be eager to do it all over again anytime soon because, um, I'm just recovering from the whole newborn thing!
4. As furious as I am for my past employer totally screwing me over and lying to me about doing training after the baby? I can't imagine what I would do if I had to return to work this month leaving Camille with a sitter. I really wanted to do training in the hospitals, heck, I didn't get certified and go through all of that for entertainment sake. But thinking about leaving Camille for an 8 hour day makes me uncomfortable, the thought of leaving her for even a couple of hours makes me uncomfortable. I never thought I'd be this way. I've work for the last 13 years non stop and have been financially independent. I was sure that by this time I would be itching to get back to work and get out of the house and away from the baby. I obviously was wrong. Even on our worse days, I can't imagine leaving her. No one else can give her what I can or read her the way I do. No sitter would take an hour out of there day to sit and sing songs with her. No sitter would be able to understand her cries and which each one means. How can you explain the difference between her hungry cry, her tired cry and her "I just want to be cuddled" cry?
5. I only have 4 days left to drive until my license expires because I'm stupid. Yes internet, I'm a idiot. See, when I moved here, I denied for a while that I actually lived here so I refused to give up my VA license. But then, I realized the inevitable and decided to go for it but needed my birth certificate which was at home in VA. I found it while visiting my Mom but then she ended up having cancer and that just got shot to hell and I lost the darn thing. So, let's fast forward to December, I give birth to Camille and lo and behold I remember that the stupid thing will expire this month but not a big deal I'll just renew it in VA and then get a new one here. Turns out that it's a misdemeanor to sign a form saying you live in a state that you don't in order to renew your license. This was realized in the beginning of February. So, good me applies for a new Social Security Card (because now thanks to 9/11 not only do you need a birth certificate but you also need a Social Security Card and I lost that to) and figured it would be here by the time I returned from FL. However, it turns out I'm illiterate and didn't read the part that said "Certified copy of drivers license" as proof of identity so still no Social Security Card. And, just to further prove my case of denial, I still have not changed my name to my married name because the thought of giving up my maiden name just makes me sad. Anyway, long story short, my butt will be down at the Social Security office applying for a new card. Until I get it, I can't drive anywhere because D has kindly informed me that if caught driving on a expired license you could go to jail and I'm not about staying anywhere that doesn't consist of the words Ritz or Carlton.
So there you have it, my list of things that no one wanted to ask but have now been forced to read. Instead of tagging someone, I'll instead give all of you permission to do the same.
I read many sites. Typically, I read them as a lurker, never commenting as many of you do with my site. During my last months at my old place of employment, my days were bored and counted so I would read the sites of those who would comment on other sites. One in particular I had been following for sometime now but never got a moment to add it to my list there on your left. Even the sites to your left have no clue that I'm reading. All I am to them is a IP address. I don't make it a habit to talk about them on my site but today I have made an exception. This particular site caught my attention last summer. Not only was her story interesting but her way with words was mesmerizing. She stopped writing for several months due to heavy and unneeded critisicm from idiot readers and upon her return she was living in England and pregnant. I've known that she was due in February and have been waiting patiently for the post with the news of the arrival of her wee one. That news finally came today and while I read I was just thrilled for her. A little boy, Oliver Harry, 9lbs. 2oz. close to the weight of my Camille. But as I got to the end of her post, I gasped. I gasped so loud my sister asked what was wrong. I gasped because the news she brought was that shocking. And I am sick for her. Her sweet little boy died only 11 days after his birth. I have not met this woman, she has no clue who I am, and here I sit hurting for her as if she and I were college roommates. It's amazing, how you can be an anonymous spectator into someone's life and feel heart broken at their loss.
Can you guess where I've run off too? I am cruel, yes, that I know. I've been in Florida and from what it seems I've forgotten all about posting but don't worry, I'll make up for it in the end with pictures. If neglecting my site wasn't bad enough, I sent Derek back to the frozen tundra sick. Yes, I sent him back sick with a temperature. And I stayed here. Go back to 20 degree weather or stay with 80 degree weather? It's a no brainer in my opinion but I did feel guilty about sending him back in his condition. But if Camille and I returned with him he would have had to help me and since he wasn't feeling good that would have been a burden on him, right? So by sending him home before me I was really helping him so he could rest so he would be up to going back to work tomorrow, right?
Anyway, I'm on vacation and I'm in Florida and remember how I said I wasn't looking forward to it? I lied, so sue me. We've had a great time and Camille did even better on the plane and since she did do so well, I've decided that I'm brave enough to fly alone with her on Wednesday. Ha! We'll see if she fooled me.
Along with the plane ride, Missy here has had many first this week:
First time at the beach:
First time on a boat:
(well, she wasn't allowed on deck but you get the point)
First time in the pool:
Sadly though, during this trip she has decided it would nice to go through a growth spurt just to make Momma sad. Which I haven't been since I wrote that post where I basically revealed to everyone how much of a whiner I am but the vent made me feel a heck of a lot better and I have a grip now, thank you very much. I came to the conclusion rather quickly that I was spending so much time making sure everything was perfect and everyone was happy that along the way I forgot to make sure I was perfect and happy.
And for the record, so it's perfectly clear:
D has been an incredible support for the past 8 weeks. He has been an amazing father and a loving husband as he too has been navigating through this new phase of our lives. Sure he's hit some bumps along the way as he has been learning exactly what kind of help I need, but I would hate for anyone to think that all he has done is sat on the computer. Maybe I made it sound that way. Maybe I was being dramatic if I did. In his defense I haven't been the best at communicating my needs. His life has changed too but for me, my entire career, my entire schedule and way I live has been shuffled around and I've been learning how to reshuffle and regain some order.
This vacation has been great for me. I absolutely am in love with my daughter. I can't for a second imagine my life with out she or D in it. I know that when I get home, where the sun just doesn't shine until Spring I might feel a little blue again. But I'll get through and I'll have all of you to vent to and have all of you to share your own experiences with me. Which, thank you for all of you who did, it was encouraging and it made me remember that I'm not the only new Momma out there who sometimes looks around and wonders what the heck she's doing and praying to God that she's doing it right.
In 45 minutes exactly I will be saying goodbye to my twenties and ushering in a new decade of my life. I've started many post about this in the last couple of weeks but have ended up each time deleting them because for some odd reason it is not as big of a deal as it is supposed to be I guess. I'm not upset, I'm not the least bit concerned. I am more than thrilled to say goodbye to my twenties and say hello to my thirties. My twenties were marked with bad choices, very bad humiliating choices that I will one day have to explain to my daughter. Not because they affect her in any way, but more because I'll be able to prove to her that I know what I'm talking about when she brings home some dumbass football player who can only grunt unrecognizable syllables that not even he can understand. When I warn Camille of how it will all end and she screams that I don't understand and am only saying that because I don't want to see her happy, I'll be able to pull out evidence that, in fact, I do understand and contrary to popular belief, I am only trying to protect her. Hindsight is 20/20 and I'll pray to God that she'll see life through my lenses and learn from my mistakes. It wasn't until my very late twenties that I woke up and began to make healthy choices for myself because I finally realized that if I wanted to be happy in life I needed to take more control of it so that the consequences were ones that were positive and not painful. My first good choice of my twenties was marrying D. He's the healthiest person I had chosen to let into my life up to that point and that choice has also brought me the most amazing daughter. D and Camille are what allows me to look at my thirties and know that I have so much to be grateful that I have no time to feel old or feel like I'm loosing anything because I've gained so much.
I wish me a happy birthday and my gift to me this year and this new decade is immeasurable joy that I didn't feel in my twenties, by no fault of anyone but me of course. I've got a great family, and great friends who feel like family. I have a amazing husband who I adore and a daughter that even in my best daydreams, I couldn't imagine. So, happy birthday to me, I rock!
I've been tagged by Skokufeh (who also has a itty bitty baby) which is great because my baby is just about to wake up so I don't time to actually think and post but I wouldn't want you all to assume that I've run off with the local gypsies tarring driveways. During this brief abscence, please enjoy these enlightening little tid bits about yours truly:
Four jobs I've had: 1. Inventory Control Specialist (not as exciting as it sounds) 2. Head Counselor at a Camp for Inner-City youth 3. Assistant Counselor at a Drug Rehab Program 4. Adoption Assistant
Four movies I can watch over and over: 1. Napoleon Dynamite 2. Love Actually 3. Beaches 4. While you were sleeping (all for the last line in the movie!)
Four places I've lived: 1. Northern VA 2. Harrisonburg, VA 3. Beaver Falls, PA 4. Frozen Tundra, NY
Four TV shows I love: 1. Sex and the City 2. Boston Legal 3. MTV reality shows 4. Bones
Four places I've vacationed: 1. Friday Harbor, WA 2. Cape Coral, FL 3. Denver, CO
That's it, I don't vacation much, see why I'm so high strung?!?!
Four of my favorite dishes: 1. Anything and Everything that comes out of my Mom's kitchen
Four sites I visit daily: 1. eBay 2. eBay 3. eBay 4. Every single blog listed there to the left
Four places I would rather be right now: 1. Northern VA visiting my Mom 2. Florida visiting my Dad
And anywhere tropical because I've NEVER been and that makes me truly pathetic.
Now, we all must remember how I am NOT and will never be Ms. Popular basically because I'm to darn likeable. But, I don't have many "blogger friends" and the ones I do have, have either tagged me already or have been tagged already. Which leaves poor Mary who is probably sitting there asking herself what she has gotten into!!
It's 4:30 am right now and I have just finished feeding Camille and putting her back to sleep. Actually, I finished doing that 15 minutes ago and decided that this would be a good time to pump real quick. I was uncomfortable to begin with it so it would allow some relief and the apartment is quite which means I could maybe get some time for myself. I know that Camille will wake up in about 3 more hours but will then take a good 2 hour nap if I put her in her swing, so I could use that time to sleep. But right now? The phones aren't rining, everyone is sleeping and the cruel realization has finally hit. If I'm ever going to be able to do anything that I liked to do before the baby came, I'll either have to yell and shout to get a moment, or just wake up super early to do it. I haven't touched my hobby for weeks. Five weeks to be specific and the only way I was able to get some me time this weekend was to have a meltdown dramatic enough to make D realize that yes, maybe she does need a break. Of course I was supposed to leave at 8 pm to do so but the baby wasn't cooperating with these plans so my "me" time was now minus one hour. I didn't even step out of the apartment until 9 pm. At times I become very jealous of D. His life, when it comes to his hobby's haven't changed much. The sole responsibility of the baby doesn't fall on him, it falls on me. He can still sit at the computer at night and play online with the guys and chat. He still has a piece of his identity. I feel like I've lost a huge chunk of mine. I'm still responsible for all the normal household things plus another complete human being on top of that. Right now if I had to grade myself I think I'd have to give myself a C-. Laundry isn't getting done in a reasonable time and I still haven't swung grocery shopping yet leaving us scrambling for dinner on most nights. Vacuuming is easy to do because when the baby is screaming I can turn that on and she tends to stop, or atleast I think she does, with it being so loud, you sometimes can't even tell. But everything else is getting done in a half-ass kind of way and I tend to not be a half-ass kind of person so you can imagine my frustration. And as far as squeezing things that I actually enjoy doing in there? Well, let's just say that my scrapbook is 10 months behind, I finally started working on the birth announcements this weekend and due to lack of "me" time, I bought the rest of my thank you cards rather than hand making them. That alone made me very frustrated. I love making cards, it's therapeutic for me, but I can't even catch a moment to sit and do them without getting interrupted so I simply gave up. I would sell my left thumb right now for uninterrupted time, a luxury D gets to enjoy and would never realize how precious it is until it's gone.
I think when it all boils down, the conclusion that I have come to is that something has got to change here in order for me to be a whole person again. Right now I'm not. Right now I don't even recognize the person I see in the mirror each morning. I've been struggling with this for a few weeks now and have been hoping that if I just stuff it down it will just all go away. I keep reminding myself of the women who struggle with infertility who would change places with me in a heartbeat. I tell myself to stop being such a cry baby and deal. I also think of the handful of women that I know who just had their baby's and who are in motherhood bliss. They don't complain like I do, they're perfectly happy. I need to be happy like them, how dare me.
These guilt tactics aren't working to well anymore.
I'm edgy. Very edgy. I'm trying not to be, I promise you that. I'm trying to be the person that everyone else needs and wants for me to be. I'm trying to keep my chin up and keep a nice big smile on my face but deep down inside, at this very moment, I want to hide and just do some me things. Maybe go get a cup of coffee by myself, work on my scrapbook pages uninterrupted, get my eyebrows done which have gone untouched for months now. I just need to try and resemble the person I liked 5 weeks ago.
I am going on vacation soon to Florida. This usually makes me thrilled and full of anticipation. But I could care less. If anything it's stressing me out. Just choosing the week to go felt harder than labor and resulted in spitting contest between D and I that you could not have imagined. I'm not going when I wanted to, I gave in and settled on a date so that to makes me a little frustrated. And? I turn 30 in 8 days and won't be spending it how I wanted to. Hmmmph.
Now, I don't want anyone to go commenting with any hint of the words Post Partum Depression. I simply just don't want any advice right now. I need to vent. I need to work through these feelings. And duh! It doesn't take a freakin genius to figure out what's going on here. I know what's going on here but what I don't know is how I'm going to fix it right now. I just need to vent, I just need to put it out there and work through it. There are people who read this and know me in real life, but I don't want to talk about it. I'm a prideful person and a perfectionist at that and talking about it makes me have to admit defeat over myself. I hate kicking my own ass here, but that's just what it is and I'll be alright. I promise.
There used to be a time (approximately 5 weeks ago) where I took the shower for granted. I would pull myself out of bed and meander into the bathroom cursing the whole way because I've had to wake up at 8:00 a.m. after only sleeping for, um, 8 full hours, knowing that I could have had another fifteen minutes of sleep if I would only become a night time shower type of person. Ahhh, the good ole days. Now? There is a daily competition between clean hair and clean clothes. On most days the clean clothes win because considering half my wardrobe is covered in spit up, leaving the house shirtless is just not an option. I would love to be able to do both but unfortunately my new employer refuses to sleep and insists on being held through out the entire day and if you attempt to put her down for just a minute to do selfish things such as pee, she quickly reverts into her split personality which is NOT pretty.
It's amazing that how in 5 short weeks all my priorities have shifted and my obsessive compulsiveness has had no other choice than to take a backseat for the moment. I can no longer vacuum and mop the floors daily nor can I clean the bathroom twice a day. And my strict rule that the counters and sink be cleared before going to bed every night? Well, let's just say we're running out of clean spoons.
So yes, life here in Princess and Johnsy land has made a dramatic turn which I am daily learning to accept. Yesterday I vacuumed the entire apartment and even mopped the floors. Typically my cleaning spree's would last for at least 2 hours. Yesterday I felt so relieved to have an entire half hour. But would I press rewind and go back in time, let's say 5 weeks? Only if Camille was still promised to be there. This is hard, it's stressful but there are days it was well worth it.
As of yesterdays doctor's appointment, Camille is now 11lbs. and 22 inches long. She has gained basically 1 1/2 pounds and grown 1 inch since her birth. It is so rewarding to know that it's because of me that this child is growing. All this pumping that I do each day is actually working. She is growing and I'm solely responsible for that. Talk about payoff for a control freak!
