trudging

To trudge: the slow, weary, depressing yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on.

anyone else feel like that?  i sure have been lately.  charles has been working so hard lately to get the house as fixed up as possible before he leaves that we're both left pretty much financially screwed.  financially, i feel like we're on one of those fair rides that's the big huge viking boat that goes back and forth until you inevitably get stuck upsidedown with your coins falling out of your pockets, every major organ lodged at the top of your skull and the overwhelming urge to throw up all while convincing yourself that you must be having a good time because after all, this is a ride - and rides are supposed to be fun. 
charles' grandfather has also unexpectedly passed away, this last saturday.  thankfully, i got the call friday evening that he had fallen and was on life support; charles was able to leave work and get there before the machines were turned off.  he has since been with his family navigating some waters that are extremely difficult and i hate that he is doing it alone.  i'll be heading that way after work today and am anxious to be with him. 
this last few days apart and with extremely minimal contact have been rough for me.  they are a fairly good indication of how i will cope when he leaves for korea and it scares the hell out of me because i do not think i'm coping as well as i should be.  much depends on my strength, and it is not an option for me to be weak when he leaves.  or now, for that matter, although it's happening.  (at least in my opinion)  but i'll figure it out.  i have a couple of great and attentive friends here who are ready to help with whatever i need and i have resigned myself to the fact that i will need to suck up my pride and ask them from time to time.  my parents will be life savers, of course, and i am eternally greatful that i can count on them for anything.  so i'm piecing things together slowly.  i have just a couple more months to put a plan in place that will put my and charles' mind at ease before he goes.  it's amazing how overwhelming life can be.
on a much happier note - a couple very very good friends of ours were in town this week to visit.  that made me very happy.

being one with dave

in the weeks before the baby was born, my employer offered to pay for anyone who was interested to take the dave ramsey financial peace university course for free.  this is ordinarily costs a couple hundred dollars but the district would pay for it provided that you complete the course.  on the brink of a major financial life change, i figured it would be a great idea to participate.  (side note, i just used the hashing out text thing for the first time, how exciting!) 
so yea, 7 weeks of unpaid maternity leave and a few hundred dollars loaned out later, i'm pretty much up the financial creek and it's not cool.  so things are evening out now and i just found out last week that i'm getting a whole 3% raise so i figured it was high time to get back on the band wagon and get my shiznit together.
for the sake of pretending like i'm having a conversation with you, whoever you happen to be, i'm going to list out my efforts:
1. made my pathetic excuse for a "gazelle budget" http://www.daveramsey.com/tools/budget-lite/ based on my monthly income of about $2000.  discovered that the outflow surpasses the income by about $150. 
2. called the bank with my car loan to find the payoff amount - about $17,500 in case you're curious (just keepin it real).  looked up blue book value - about $28,000.
3. researched used car trade ins that might give me a snowballs chance in hell of being able to buy as much food as i think i should buy every week.  called husband to consult.  was advised to keep plugging away with current vehicle.  requested budget pow wow asap.
4. re-worked budget to ensure that all bills were paid and made realistic goals and devised a plan to accomplish them.  for some reason making a budget is actually very easy but making it REALISTIC is not.  this is why i thought i could make ends meet by taking a $4 an hour paycut last september.  good times.  so i now have a REALISTIC budget.
5. prepare for life in realistic budget mode.  i can do this!  i CAN do this!  i can DO this!  i can do THIS!
.............
yea.  should be interesting.

just checking in

so my summer of "working 10 hour days" is about half way done and although it's nice to get 3 uninterrupted days with my son, i will be glad when it's over.  although i get paid for 40 hours of work each week, i doubt that i have even been able to scrape together one solitary hour of actual work.  so these days of sitting here like a grown up in front of a computer at a nice wooden desk with my own phone line are mostly just a sham that prevents me from actually accomplishing such earth-shattering tasks as "laundry", "vacuming", "cooking", or dare i say - "sleep!".  but whatever, it's a paycheck.  and for the most part, it pays the bills.
my health and fitness regime is going fairly well.  i may or may not have eaten a few cookies for dinner sunday, but otherwise it really is going ok and i am pleased to say that my black work capris which were unbuttonable 2 weeks ago are borderline loose this week.  it seems there is more than a grain of truth to the 70% diet/30% exercise line because i dont think i was able to do my workout video once last week because i pulled a muscle in my back the week before.  but all is well now and i am happily eating well on a 3 hour schedule and doing my best to balance it out as the pantry/fridge will allow.  i cant buy groceries till friday so things are about to get pretty creative, but i'll make it work.  i will weigh and measure myself again on sunday - the 1st.  so although i dont think there will be as big of a change as i had planned, i am content in the knowledge that i basically did my best and my plan of not beating myself up about it seems to be going well.  Lord knows i need to cling to whatever makes life easier right now.  i'm having a hell of a time!  i see my husband for about 10 hours a week and not at all on some days.  i usually get to talk to him on the phone a couple times a week outside of that time too, today being oneof the days i should get to do both.  (yay!)  i can honestly say that i am not at all struggling with taking care of the baby by myself, i just get lonely for him and also hate it that he misses out on so much with the baby, who he sees less of than he sees me.  all around, our schedules just blow.  but he'll start his leave at the end of september so we'll just hold on till then.  and i am of the opinion that i'll actually talk to him more when he's in korea than i do now, so i'm not really worried about that.  i know it's a silly thing to complain about when there are so many people worse off, it's just wearing on me.  so if i happen to go off the deep end - at least you had some warning.
cameron is doing very well.  he has been having a MAJOR growth spurt this last week and has almost doubled his intake.  i'm keeping up with him but i'd be lying if i said it didnt feel like i spent my weekend feeding and pumping.  but that's not entirely true, i also spent it packing up his 0-3mo clothes and brining out the 3-6's.  he certainly doesn't look like a newborn anymore and i have no idea how this has happened.  but he continues to be a very happy little guy and although he's more and more squirmy every day, he does very well to keep himself entertained and is  easy to calm.  i hope to be able to buy him one of those great bouncy exercise saucer chair things soon.  he's not to much for the swing that we have but loves his laying back bouncy chair.  he's getting better in the bumbo seat (although last night i was afraid he had gotten stuck in it because his fat little legs wouldnt come out until i held down the seat with my elbow while pulling his body out of it) but when you pick him up his little legs push and flap so i think he'll really enjoy something that allows him to work on those thunder thighs.  overall - being his mother is supremely magical.  there have been a number of times when, due to stress or sleep-deprivation or whatever, i have been extremely down or grumpy and just when i think i'm about ot break he will look into my eyes and let out this huge grin and make his nerdy laugh sound and it almost moves me to tears.  God sure knows how to orchestrate that emotional ebb and flow in me.  i can be sitting in his room rocking his squirmy squirmy squirmy little self against my body (because he occasionally decides that he in no way is interested in laying down in my arms) and patting his back quietly thinking about all the things i have to do for the next day before i can go to sleep an hour or so later.  when everything around me is threatening to overwhelm me i will feel his little breath sigh on my neck and his body will go limp with sleep and i just can't stand to put him down in his crib.  even though i know he's out, i will just continue to rock him because this peaceful time is the cherry on top of the sundae that he already is.  it is filling me up with the strength i need to plow through one more day with relative grace.  there are many more important things to be thankful for than there are to be stressed about and that little boy manages to remind me every day of just that.

ouch

i see no reason to make the general population of facebook made aware of this situation but i wanted to "say it out loud" somewhere for accountability purposes: i started p90x this weekend.  i also took a "before" photo, but i won't subject you to that until i have an "after" photo to turn your attentions toward.
charles started swing shift on friday, so he is gone from noon to about 10:30pm.  other than the fact that he isn't there to calm the baby when he cries, this is actually very helpful (at least as exercising is concerned) because i do not feel comfortable exercising around him - partly for my own insecurities and partly because he has a way of being "supportive" that is less than ideal.  plus i am able to work on my nutrition without planning for both of us.  the whole p90x thing is 90 days of some hellatious videos that are about an hour long. then they break the whole program up into 3-30 day sections.  the first section you're supposed to focus on increasing protein and eliminating carbs; second section you can add some carbs; third section you can add more carbs because you're supposed to be on an "athlete's diet"... psh!  so yea, eliminating carbs is HARD!  i thought i ate fairly well but my goodness is my diet heavy on the pasta!  (imagine that...)  and pretty much all of my dinner staples involve pasta.  i guess because it's cheap and easy and i'm good at pasta dishes.  so yea, i made a big ass lasagna thursday night thinking that it would feed us through the weekend and i wouldnt have to cook much.  great plan, except that charles started swings friday and hasnt eaten a full meal at home all weekend.  it's pretty bad when you have to text your husband to request that he save you from the pan of lasagna.  but whatever, hopefully he helps me out.
so yea, p90x.... 
the end of the 90 days is approximately the beginning of september.  so if i can stick with it until then, i will turn my focus towards running - because that (running) and being able to do actual sit ups *gasp!* are two HUGE goals of mine. 
here goes nothin!

did mary have stretch marks?

so yesterday i posted partly about the great struggle of fitting in exercise in the sleep-deprived life of a woman with a new baby.  bolstered by the blog comments (see how important this is to me???) and the absolutely beautiful weather last night - 73* at the end of May is fantastic - i loaded up the baby in the stroller and set off down the road for the 2.5 mile treck there and back.  the last time  exercised was at the end of april, right before i went back to work (and discovered how tired i could really be).  it took me 52 minutes that day in the heat.  last night it took me 51 minutes.  not a grand improvement, but it's something.  and i DID it, even though i had worked for 10 hrs and the baby has been up every 3 hrs the last couple of nights.  i left my husband on the couch and took off down the road to push a stroller and stare at my baby while he slept.  not bad.  go me.
so by the time i got home i was naturally pretty sweaty, the baby was hungry, he needed a bath, i had to make lunches, feed myself, PUMP for the love of all that is holy, and generally prepare for today - while also trying to interact somehow for at least a few minutes with the husband before he went to sleep.  so at some point in the litany of chores above, i found myself in the nursery feeding the baby, still sweaty and smelly but holding my freshly-washed child close all the same.  (eh, i'll just wipe him down with baby wipes later.  he's bound to puke on  himself anyway...)  this is the time that i have found to really enjoy praying.  there's something about holding this gift in your arms, knowing that he is the closest thing to you who has most recently been with God.  i can't look into his sweet little face and NOT think about being thankful and blessed.  but last night i was thinking about those things and also how gross i was from exercising, and i found myself wondering if mary ever had a similar experience.
did the sinless woman put on too much baby weight?  i like to think not.  she would not have been a gluttonous person, even if the nazorean equivilant of sonic cheeseburgers and chili cheese fries had been available to her, she would have treated her body well - like a sinless woman would.  or would God have spared her from stretch marks because he would figure that she had enough to deal with already?  it's not like her clothing would have been form fitting so that people would know that she had a few extra pounds after jesus was born, but ol' joseph would have probably gotten a peek.  and HE wasn't sinless, did he give her a hard time about it?  but then, she was young, so her body probably bounced back pretty quickly. 
then i found myself thinking - how can i be more like mary in this situation?  clearly i can't rewind my body 15 years, or even15 months.  i have to make due with what i have now.  but maybe i can not beat myself up about it so much.  yes, i am unhappy with my body, mostly my chin(s).  but that doesnt mean that my body isn't awesome.  it did make a baby, afterall.  so i can be a bit more nice to myself.  along the same lines, i can give my nice body better fuel.  i don't imagine mary was an unreasonable emotional eater who reached for a snack cake everytime she got into a "discussion" with her husband.  not only would it not have been available to her, but she would have been more serene and obedient to her spouse - you know, like a sinless woman.  (granted, her spouse maybe wasnt such an asshole sometimes, but still...)  emotional eating is just the action of a weak person.  i know i'm weak.  and i know that overcoming those times is difficult.  i'm going to try to think of more ways that i can be like mary though, because i choose to believe that she had herself together a bit better than i do.  she had a pretty direct connection to God, but i see no reason why i can't have that too.  just something to think about...

life goes on

i am bored at work.  starting yesterday and through the summer i am working monday-thursday for 10 hrs with a 3 day weekend.  it would actually be pretty awesome if it werent for the fact that i don't have much work to do, i dont get much sleep, and the schedule leaves me only about 2 hrs of decent time with my family each day.  but hey, at least i have this job and at least i do get that 2 hrs.  also, i think the 3 day weekend thing will be pretty awesome.  so if nothing else, at least i know that the summer will pass quickly.  although with a little one in our world, i dont think i'm such a fan of time passing quickly anymore.
speaking of said little one, he is doing well.  over the weekend he really improved his tracking and can now pick people out (me - yay!) in the room with his eyes.  he is also smiling more, which is heavenly.  this weekend i aim to take and post more pictures of him because he's just changing so quickly i don't want to miss out on documenting it! 
i am also very pleased about how the day care situation has panned out.  as much as i'd love to be a stay at home mom, it's just not a possibility for us.  i have had the baby on the waiting list for daycare on post since august and so when i went back to work at the beginning of May, we had to find care for him until there was a space available.  enter the wife of one of charles' former co-workers.  aka - a friend who lives on post.  she and her husband have 2 amazing little boys already, she keeps an incredibly clean house, and if it werent for the fact that i want to do it myself, i would TOTALLY let her raise my children.  i know a lot of great parents, but wow.  her 3 year old can read and spells about 30 words, both boys sign, instead of doing that annoying kid thing where they incessantly repeat everything people around them say, they will ask permission of their parents to say something if it is exciting enough to repeat.  they also tell me, in the cutest little boy voice ever, to "have a good day!!" every morning when i drop off the baby.  they LOVE my son, all of them do, and i am rediculously pleased to say that even though i got a call last week that the daycare can place my son on post, my friend is perfectly willing to keep him in her house until they  move.  this had not been my original plan because i didn't want to have to put cameron through the transition when his current provider leaves, but the closer it came to the time of getting a call and placing him in a larger facility with a 4:1 kid to provider ratio, the more i just wanted nothing more than for him to be with ms. shellie for as long as humanly possible.  and so it shall be!  they are staying in the area at least until March so he will have the best care possible for at least his first year of life.  it will suck when they leave, but i decided to sacrifice the ease of transition in order to gain the best care.  i'm going to teach him some signs and she will work with him also.  overall and in many aspects, it is a complete relief to know that if i can't stay home and raise my son, he is with someone who will do as good if not a better job.  plus, she has asked to be paid less than half of what the center on post charges (which is already a substantial discount from off post care); but we're paying her more anyway because she's definitely worth it. 
here's a beastly topic: exercise.  how does one find time to exercise on such little sleep when working long hours with a baby?  yea, i dont know either.  but i'm going to give it my best shot.  charles has agreed to help by taking point on the baby watching in the evenings as he is able.  my struggle, in addition to the sleep and time thing, is taking myself away from them.  i do not want to load up the baby and go out to exercise because of mosquitos, so i will either work out at home or go to the gym after work.  both take time away from my boys.  time with both is too precious for words and i need it to keep me sane and whole.  but i also need to feel good about myself and be healthy - oddly for the same reasons.  i think i'm pretty much where i was before i got pregnant, so i'm not saying that i'm totally nasty or anything, i just need to do better.  need to BE better.  it's a constant struggle and no one can do it but me.
so yea, that's a good rambly post for ya - enjoy!

I FOUND IT!: the arrival of the best thing that's ever happened to me

i've had some pretty amazing blessings in my life: people, relationships, experiences, etc.  but wow.  just wow.  every day and every minute is just more beautiful than the last.  i feel the same but yet so different.  it's overhwelming yet completely comfortable.  life. is. good.  and by good, i mean - perfect.
so yes, here is the story of cameron's birth.  i feel like i'm bragging when i tell it (maybe i am a little bit), but most of my followers have posted theirs so i feel compelled to comply with the unspoken mommy rule, now that i can finally be a mommy and comply with the rules.
monday, march 12th:
at my weekly OB appointment, the doctor decided to check me for the first time because i had suspected that i had finally felt some contractions the previous weekend.  these contractions were a bit crampy, and in my mind they were not at all contractiony, but it was the first time i had felt "something" so i mentioned it to her as a point of interest.  so she checked me 2 or 3 times with vigor because upon first check, she felt that i was 4cm dialated and 90% effaced and did not believe that it was possible for me to NOT have noticed that.  but sure enough, the clock was ticking and i was beginning to suspect not only that he might come early (which i was very much hoping since the sonograms showed him to be about 7 pounds already!) but also that labor might not be so bad/scary after all if i had already made it that far.  unfortunately for me, i had saved my big grocery shopping run for after the OB appointment and in checking me, the doctor had stripped my membranes.  so here i was waddling around dillons, huffing and puffing, looking like a giant plum in my big purple dress, becoming increasingly suspicious that i was now actually in labor 3 weeks early with no groceries, a filthy dirty house, no hospital bag packed and no car seat in the car.  after buying God knows what at the store i went home, unloaded only the stuff that needed to go in the refrigerator, and took up residence on the couch with my legs as closed as i could get them hoping that whatever was happening in my body would slow down enough for me to get a game plan going.  a short while later, charles came home from work to find me curled up on the couch with francie laying on my chest (isn't it amazing how animals know when you have something going on and try to take care of you?  looking back, this is a funny forshadowing of how much she looks after the baby...).  i promptly informed him that he will probably be meeting his son sooner than expected; and also that i needed him to pack the bags, load the car seat, put away the groceries, clean the kitchen, and make dinner.  with minimal protest, he accomplished his tasks and we went to bed with fingers crossed that everything would work out well. 
tuesday, march 13th:
i had my weekly diabetes appointment scheduled for that afternoon.  still feeling crummy in the morning i was not at ALL looking forward to driving an hour to overland park and was also nervous that they might tell me to stay there (as the hospital is on the other side of the building from the diabetes doctor) and pop out a kid.  i asked charles to take off work early to drive me/load the car in case we were staying there/come along for moral support.  he was able to do so, much to my relief.  just in case i was not to return, i spent my morning at work frantically completing my "this is how you do my job" information and preparing them in every way i could for me to be gone.  consequently, i ended up leaving work late and we just barely had enough time to load the car and get to the doctor - no lunch. 
well i had been suspecting that i was leaking fluid after the OB appointment but never having done the whole birth thing before, i wasnt sure.  but i knew that the weekly sonogram would be the best way to ensure that the baby was doing well.  at the diabetes doctor, the nurse lady does the sonogram and measures the fluid and checks the baby for movement and then the doctor would breeze in for about 45 seconds, look at my blood sugar levels, make uninteresting assessments, then leave.  well considering that this appointment was a bit different in that i was in LABOR, i was adamant that the doctor double check the sonogram because the other lady felt that my fluid level was sufficient and i disagreed.  also, the doctor noted that my sugar levels had been high the last few days (labor - duh!) and was trying to put me on insulin for the remaining 3 weeks of my pregnancy and he could straight up bite me because that wasnt happening.  so yea, the doctor looked again and found that indeed i had a very small amount of fluid so he called my OB and sent me on over to the hospital. 
enter: michelle's mild panic attack.
we called all the parents and bosses right away.  my parents had somewhat already packed their bags and were on the road within an hour or so, charles' mom was not far behind them. (doing 85 on the highway i might add!)  since we didnt know how serious it was that the fluid level was low, and hadn't thought to ask really, we stood in the parking lot for a few minutes debating a quick run to a drivethrough for some lunch before checking in to the hospital.  in the end, we opted to be cautious and went straight over.  hungry, diabetic michelle was now only allowed to eat popsicles.  grr. 
as we were settling in to our labor room, i'm pretty sure i had the deer in the headlights look.  charles took up residence on the horribly uncomfortable "hospital lazy boy" and was rediculously relaxed about the whole thing.  they did my IV and some monitoring and then sent us for some laps around the floor where we walked arm in arm and i was amazed at how incredibly surreal the whole situation was.  8 months of pregnancy and somehow the actual birth came as a suprise to me.  i think i just hadn't yet wrapped my mind around the reality of it, but admittedly it is a pretty big thing to do.  not suprisingly, my blood pressure was through the roof so after 45 minutes of laps i finally managed to chill the hell out and they put me back in bed and went forward with the pitocin.
so there i laid for the next several hours while the blood pressure cuff (seriously, do those things need to go so tight?!) automatically kicked on every 10 mintues, they upped the pitocin every 30 minutes, and checked my blood sugar every couple of hours.  charles guiltily snuck down to the caffeteria for some dinner and reported the food to actually be pretty good, so i was even more so looking forward to my next meal - whenever that might be.  the parentental units arrived at around 7 and we all sat around in the labor room laughing and watching stupid things on tv.  periodically a nurse or the doctor would come in and check on me.  at first they would look at the monitor and ask me if i needed any pain meds yet, but as the evening went on, they would come in and check the contractions then look at me and go "WOW!  that was a big one!  are you SURE you don't want any pain relief?" and then even that turned into pretty much a poking in of the head to the room, see me on the bed about to fall asleep or eating a damn popsicle, laugh at what a labor freak i am, and go back out to report to the nurses station that i am officially the envy of every woman who has ever labored.  birth ninja - that's my new self-appointed name.  straight up birth ninja.  i didn't feel a thing until about 11 or 12 when the doctor came in to check me again and i was at 8cm and she found me to still have a tiny bit of fluid left.  once that was gone, the real fun began.  i started to feel the contractions.  thankfully they were still just like waves of menstral cramps and as they intensified to the point that i felt i might make an ass of myself in front of our parents, i asked them to step out and charles helped me breathe through them.  yay for yoga experience!  about the time they got really intense, i asked the nurse if i might be able to get something to take the edge off.  i felt like a bit of a weenie for making it all the way through the evening without drugs and then experience about an hour of contractions and wuss out, but hey - whatever.  so she checked me and found me to be at 10 cm already - the point of no return.  and so i gave myself a quick "suck it up" pep talk and kept on breathing.  at about 12:30, the doctor breezed in and (jokingly, apparently) told me that she was going to go do a c-section and that she expected me to be ready to go when she was done.  well i guess my body didn't pick up on the sarcasm either because a very short time later i felt that uncontrollable convulsion of the vajiggity that i immediately knew to be "pushing".  i equate it to 'vomiting of the vagina' because there was certainly nothing that could have been done to stop that!  luckily betsey, the super awesome labor/delivery nurse, was in the room and charles was right by my side.  she told me to just breathe through them for now and she would go check to see where the doctor was in the surgery.  a short time later she came back to report that the doctor was done and was on her way and we began pushing.  pushing. feels. great.  it was nice to be able to do something with the pain and i found that it didnt really hurt much anymore.  i also found that i wished i had exercised more because my lung capacity was not very good.. or maybe it was because i was tired and had a baby pressing on my lungs.  either way, exercise would have been good...  so anyway, the doctor came in and laughed at me for a second, revealed that she had actually been kidding about me being ready to go, and went to get her hazmat suit on.  she came right back and was telling us how she liked to wait till the last second to put on all the protective garb because it is really hot to wear (she is pregnant), then she took a look at my "situation" and immediately started putting on the damn stuff!  a team of nurses materialized out of thin air and on we went.  so after a total of about 15 minutes (tops) of pushing, i felt the head and body enter the birth canal.  isn't that a crazy feeling!?  looking back, this is one of the many times when i am grateful not to have taken any pain meds because i wouldnt want to miss out on this 3 minutes of my life for anything!  i felt my son make his way into the outside world - on the next contraction i got 2 pushes out as instructed, felt his head come out, and then squeezed in another good push and he was out!  i gave birth!  it was the most beautiful and amazing minute of my entire life.  he didnt really cry much, just a mild protest.  he was a little blue and slimy but they wiped him off a bit, laid a warm blanket on my chest and gave him to me.  "wow, that is amazing."  nothing else i could have said.  i touched his little hand and he grasped my finger and i was hooked. 
charles, who had done a completely amazing job, then cut the cord.  and for a few brief moments we were the only 3 people in the world - my husband, our son, and me.  nothing else mattered, and really, it still doesnt.  we are a family, and life is perfect.