may 1 - an update on life. literally.

so clearly there has been a lot going on these last few months and i figured i'd take some time to give "you" an update. 2014 has been quite a dirty bitch, let me just say that. shortly after the first of the year we got the suprise of our lives with the knowledge that there is a little one on the way. i've never given much thought to people who experience "suprise" pregnancies, but now i will have much more sympathy for them. with all the trouble it took to be blessed with cameron, we were not expecting to ever concieve naturally. in fact, our plan was to wait about 2 or 3 years before even trying. (and if charles had his way, we might not have tried at all!) poor charles had only been home for about 2 months and was (and still is) just starting to learn how to be a dad again after a year away. in all honesty, the transition for all of us has been pretty intense and is still most definitely a work in progress. but over hte last few months, i have come to accept that god has given us this gift for the sole purpose of keeping us together. there have been weeks on end this year during which nothing but the knowledge that there is a child inside of me, an additional member of our family who needs to know their father, has kept us going in a positive direction - even if we were just stationary and staring in different directions. marriage is hard. parenting is hard. life is hard. pregnancy is hard. 2014 is hard. so we now seem to have moved past some of that. charles left for school the same week i started getting sick with the 1st trimester glories, and he returned 7 weeks later as i was recovering from a violent stomach flu. he brought back a cold, which i then caught, which cameron then caught. i had a few days of health and am now going on week 3 of allergies which have turned into a raging chest cold. but on the bright side, we don't hate each other, cameron gets to see his daddy pretty much every day, and as far as we know, so far everything inside is looking great. tomorrow we will find out whether or not i am going to buy out joann's fabrics entire stock of cute girly fabric. ooooh how i want a girl so badly!!! charles is positively terrified to have a girl, mostly because he recruits in high schools and is convinced that any female child in the history of time will unavoidably turn out to be a whore. i've tried to use myself, and many other people i know, as an example of why that's not true. at all. but he is still nervous. (understatement) but i definitely think a daughter would be good for his personality. maybe it will teach him to be a bit more empathetic. cameron will do great either way. i have not had a lot any close personal contact with a toddler in the same capacity as i do my own son, but seriously, i have never known a sweeter kid than he is! huggies and kissies for everyone, especially stuffed animals. he certainly is working the terrible twos these days, but for the most part it's fairly logical. *grain of salt* or at least understandable. although it's exhausting, i think it's good that i'm the one who pretty much soley takes care of him because it's a lot easier for me to see what he's feeling because i'm used to the way he looks at things. but oh boy can it be frustrating. many of my worst parenting moments have happened these last few months. i am lucky he is forgiving and sweet and i continue to work on my patience. he has definitely not been the recipient of the best of me, nor has charles for that matter, but i honestly think that's just the season of life we're in. it's stressful and it will continue to be so for quite a few more years, but there will also be some of the best times of our lives mixed in there and we owe it to each other to trudge on through the muck and frustration to have a chance to really live to the fullest through our family. as for me - it really has taken until recently to get excited about this baby. as pathetic as that is to say or even think, it's still true. but just yesterday i caught myself telling someone at work that "we are excited" and i have decided that it is actually finally true. it's coming whether we intended it to or not, and my 2014 mantra is "clearly, god trusts us much more than we trust ourselves". but that's totally ok. in fact, it's comforting. although it's been hellish, it's also been good - and will get better! we will figure out how to pay for everything, we will figure out how to balance our time and obligations, and we will figure out how to parent 2 kids. and theoretically, for at least the next 3 years, we'll get to figure all that out in the same house/state/country. and so we continue moving forward.