Wordless Wednesday

Feeling his oats

Tonight after my oldest attending the "child care" portion of my zumba class, he exclaimed that it really "sucked ass". Yup, you read that right and I heard it right.  Excuse me? and he repeated it!!!  Yeah, this has been happening a lot lately.  Just things here and there that he says or does, almost as if he is testing me or forgetting that he is not 18! I am all for having a good relationship with my son, but not at the cost of his morals and dignity.  I hope and pray he isn't trying this on other grownups!  Not sure what goes on at his father's house (another joy of divorce) but he is old enough to know the differences in how our households are run and swearing is not an option for an 11 year old.  yes, you read that right. 11 going on 25! 

HELP!!!

Eat, Pray Love

Its been a full week since I finished reading, Eat, Pray, Love.  I had not been familiar with the book until my friend Courtney suggested we go see the movie.  Then I found out it was a book, and when I happened to run into her in the library and she told me I could find it in the biography section, I figured I would read it first.

The reason I have waited to blog about the book is because I wanted to be sure that I felt the same way about the book after I processed it.  While reading the book I was enthralled!  I wanted to jump inside the pages and yell "me too, me too!". I wanted to underline passages and mark additional comments in the margins, but it was a library book after all.  So I went on Amazon and bought myself a copy!  I think this clearly puts me in the nerdy category but hey, that's okay!

I am not a religious person, but I do consider myself a spiritual being.  What I believe in depends on the day and my mood, but the underlying moral comes back to myself, and being  my own guiding force. This book really got me to thinking about how does one go about finding God? I can't just pack up and spend three months in any one place, heck, I can't pack up and spend three days!  Does the journey have to involve the travel or can I do so on my own, in my own world?  I believe I could but truly understand that by removing myself from my daily life and responsibilities I would be able to focus just on myself.  I just don't see that happening anytime soon.

So I must be patient, and understand that I will find God, when I am ready to.

Tonight we are going to see the movie, I hope its 1/8th as good as the book.  It also helps that Julia Roberts is the star and I absolutely adore her!!!

Fatty and the beast

In my perpetual attempts to free the skinny me, that is hiding out inside me I am always trying to find ways to work into my daily routine more calorie burning. I even go as far as wear a pedometer, to track my progress daily. Have I mentioned I am a Virgo? yeah, so that should explain a lot. I like to track progress, to work on a goal to see visible results. Which is also why I love a treadmill! So rewind to last Friday, a week ago. Its very  hard to get my husband home so that I can get out and hit a Zumba class so last week I asked him what his plans were for the rest of the night when he surprised me by being home around 5:30pm!  He told me he wanted to mow the lawn, which means that there would be no leaving the kids with him so I could get out.  Then i said, well why don't I mow the lawn?

Yes, you heard right, I was offering to mow the lawn.  I actually really enjoy it.  Its one of the chores that you can do and be in your own world, because you can't hear anything else that is going on!  Dogs could be barking, children could be fighting or screaming, and there you are just pushing this thing along a nice row of grass.  (again, those Virgo tendencies!) Its also one of the chores that no one but mother nature can mess up after you are done. The thing is that I haven't mowed the lawn since Mr. Mr. was born.  The entire summer before he was born, while I was pregnant, I happily mowed the lawn.  It was great exercise and I had the time.  But since he and Poo have been born, I can't seem to do much without having someone attached to my hip.  The other side of this is that we have a HUGE mower.  Hence, the beast!

My husband purchased this 60 in mower with all intentions of him using it, little did he know that he married a girl who loves a challenge. (okay, yeah he probably did!)

At first I was very intimidated by this thing.  It self propells and the way it steers is by breaking either left or right to make it turn. In order to get the blade on, and get it in gear you have to hold on to both brakes , which are located on the handle grip, and use your knee to put it in gear.  It has 5 of them, but I only work myself up to 2.  At our old house, the lawn was pretty straight forward with the exception of the big rocks that lined the yard.  Needless to say, I was determined to master this thing.  I figured, I can drive a motorcycle, I should be able to drive a mower.

The first couple of times, I would get it so close to the rock that it would run part of it over and sparks would fly and loud grinding noises could be heard.  I think I made him replace the blades twice that summer.  The final episode was when i got it stuck in the ditch in the front yard.  I just wasn't strong enough to pull it out and get it on level ground so that the wheels would catch.  I thought about taking one of the fords out and pull it out, but with my luck I would get it  stuck worse or break something.  As luck would have it my father in law stopped by and gave me a hand, and my husband was unaware... well except for the ruts in the lawn!

At our current house, the lawn is a little bit more tricky.  There are low branches on the apple trees that you must limbo under, there are stumps sticking out and the back yard is one big hill.  I did pretty good on the front, just kept it in 1st gear while doing the limbo, but the back yard was another story!  I quickly learned that the heavy mower would pull me down the hill faster than 5th gear would allow it to go!  I must have been a sight, running behind this thing then trying to jerk on the breaks to slow it down and swing back around.  

I would have fired me, the job looked that bad!  Not even weed whacking would help!  Oh well, I did get in a good work out, the lawn got mowed and my hubby got to spend some quality time with the kiddos.  As for how many steps I walked?  Well, somewhere between the limbo and the downhill obstacle course, I lost the pedometer.   Guess that's a sign!

The birth of Poo

With each of my four children, I have a tradition of retellling the tale of their birth.  Its their very own personal story of how they came to the earth and its a moment of time that is only between us.

As my fourth child, one might think that pregnancy and birth would be old hat, but truth be told, i was a little nervous!  Not knowing if any of the minor complications I had during labor with Walker contributed to his delays, I wanted to be sure that everything went smoothly.

Each birth is different, not only in the physical sense but also the psychological.  With my first, I was petrified, did everything the doctor told me and was a nervous wreck the whole time. With my second, I was exhausted from chasing a toddler and wanted it over and done with as soon as possible.  With my third, I wanted everything to be as natural as possible, I read books written by mid wives, I used my essential oils, I wanted everything to be blissful. But as the birth of my fourth came closer, I was really trying to go with the flow. If they wanted me to take drugs, so be it.  If they wanted to induce me, so be it.  I was going to let the doctor, whom I trusted, guide me and hope that there would be no complications like last time. I was due August 12th, but kept feeling like I wouldn't make it that long.

A week before my due date I was becoming really uncomfortable, but I just passed it up to carrying around a toddler and keeping up with my other two.  When I went to see my Ob/Gyn, she took one look at my face and said, "you're ready".  She did not want me to go one minute past my due date and when they hooked me up to the fetal monitors, I was already having contractions, but nothing steady.  So after some talking and planning, we decided that I would go into the hospital that night and they would induce me.  This would hopefully insure that by morning I should have the baby and she would be there to deliver.  Sounded like a good plan to me!  I wanted this baby out!

I called my mother and sister and told them the news, but insisted that I would get to the hospital and call them once things started.  I didn't want them sitting around all night.  I was still having contractions but my mind was just racing about the cervidil that they would insert in me and then the possibility of pitocin.
I knew that once we started down this path that there would be no turning back, that if my body didn't respond then the final destination would be the operating room for a C- section.  This scared the hell out of me!

When Ramiah and I got to the hospital my mother and sister were already there.  They insisted on being there. They felt that by the way I sounded on the phone breathing through contractions it wouldn't be long at all.

I checked into the hospital at 8 pm, shortly after they inserted the cervidil.  The worst part was that I had to stay in bed for an hour to make sure that it stayed inside me and worked its magic.  I am a person who needs to be in active labor.  This was torture!  I couldn't just sit and be in pain, if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna take charge and make sure it goes as quick as possible.  At that point you better just jump in and swim!  They also hooked me up to the monitor and this made it difficult to move around in the bed.  The belt kept slipping off and then beep and my mom or sister would have to adjust it for me.

Finally, after an hour the nurse said I could get out of bed, so onto the exercise ball I went and out came my oils! Everyone was hanging around and just laughing and watching the clock.  I was enjoying myself except those pesky contractions.  At those times, Ramiah would just rub my back and the whole room would go quiet.  When the nurse came in and looked at the numbers on the monitors read out she was all "ho hum", and everyone in the room looked puzzled.  Now, hold up!  I am not some whimpy first timer here, and those suckers were hurting so why weren't they registering on the machine?? Finally, my mother piped up and said, "ah, that isn't working right, cause she's having some good ones here".  Ah, yeah!!!!! Hallelujah, thank you!  So the nurse checked it out and look at that! it wasn't reading right.  By now,I was in no mood for funnies and just wanted whatever they put in my out! Lets get this show on the road.  It was 11:05pm.

The midwife returned, and when she saw my face, you said. "yup, we are going to have a baby tonight".  (ya think?)  As the contractions came harder we all watched the clock and my husband said that I had to wait until midnight to have the baby because that would ruin my nieces birthday too. (they have a love/hate relationship) we all had a good laugh!  This is how he handles stress... with humor.... 

At 12:04am, on Tuesday August 4th, they said "its a girl!".  The look on my face had to be priceless! I was convinced I was having another boy.  She came out with dark hair and pudgy cheeks.  She was beautiful.

Her name was Willow Marie... well... maybe... this was the name that we had been planning on naming a girl, but in my mind I had pictured a girl to be the same light coloring as Walker.  This dark hair, sturdy girl did not seem like a Willow to me.  So I asked Ramiah if we could sleep on it.  But he knew what I really wanted to name her, (it was the name I kept slipping back into the drawing that he really didn't seem to like), so Sawyer Rose was finally settled on.  Okay, so I'm not really sure if we settled or not, because at that moment, I think any man would be a complete jerk for not giving his wife, who just pushed out another baby, whatever she dam well wanted!!! 

Sawyer Rose is the perfect name for this little girl.  It is a salty mix of spice and sugar.  Her tom boyishness, comes on strong, like her brute force and intensity, but she is soft and beautiful at the same time.

Happy Birthday my beautiful daughter!

Motherhood fantasy #36

I'm achy, sore and just plain tired.  Too many nights without sleep, too many mornings to have to get up and get moving before I can even get a sip of coffee has left me feeling depleted. To make matters worse, today is Sunday and the hubby is out working. So our "family" day is out the window.  It feels like I could use an espresso this morning, and I hate espresso! I've had the television on for 45 minutes and my mommy guilt has kicked in.  Laundry needs to be done, my floors haven't been washed in weeks, beds need to be changed but I am ready for a nap and its only  8:33am. My mother always reminds me that "this too shall pass", but on mornings like this it doesn't feel like I can make it through till then!  So for the next 15 minutes, I will add a little Baileys creamer (don't worry its non alcoholic) and meditate on this picture.... I can almost feel those hands on my back and the cushion of the table under me.... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh