I'm not really sure if the title of this entry works because the "Goliath" in this case is my dog and of course he's the good guy. Also, Brutus, in all of his manly dogginess, weighs in at just about 22 pounds on a good day and stands somewhere about knee high next to an adult. Not exactly a giant. And, since he has been known to stand idly by while another dog attacks him, he's hardly the ferocious attacker that Goliath was.
However, the "David" in my story is a small baby Possum (or is it opossum? I have no idea which is correct) roughly the size of a softball which has taken up residence in my backyard. Matt, at least, swears it is a possum/opossum but I'm not really sure because the only possum/opossums I've ever seen up close were dead along the side of the road back in Ohio when I used to ride my bike a lot as a kid. That kind of thing doesn't tend to present a very clear picture. To me, without my glasses, in the middle of the dark, the creature looks more like one of Brutus's stuffed hedgehogs. I suppose though if it were a hedgehog than the quills would have gotten involved by now and Brutus would not at this very moment be happily wandering around the house terrorizing the cats.
Anyway... so the last two nights at roughly 1:00 am Brutus has decided he needed to go outside to take his nightly "Constitutional" (as Archie Bunker would put it.) I have no idea why he waits until such an unGodly hour to do his business but by the barrage of whining, barking, scratching and general mayhem he makes until one of us rolls out of bed to let him out I'm working under the assumption that the spirit is really moving him, so to speak.
Now, Matt and I both really, really hate when he goes out in the middle of the night because after he takes care of business he has this fun habit of not wanting to come back inside. Forgetting that this is coyote territory and I would really rather prefer he NOT get eaten, he tends to bark quite a lot and tick off the neighbors (who really have no business complaining since they too have a big dumb dog) AND the sprinklers go off at 2:30 in the morning which tends to result in a very wet, grumpy dog.
Since we hate it so very much when he goes out late at night we tend to watch him like a hawk until he is back in. The last two nights while he was wandering around sniffing and ensuring that his grass is all still, um, his grass... he's encountered the little possum/opossum guy and promptly FREAKED out. The following is how it went down last night:
Brutus: (while jumping madly up and down about a foot and a half away from the creature) "Arf, arf, bark, woof, ooof, oof, moof, foof, doof, bark, etc...!!!"
Visitor: "GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
Brutus: "Oooooof, woof, woof, mmmmoof, whine, whine, whine, arf, arf, arf, bark, bark, etc!!!!"
Visitor: (Standing its ground firmly) GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
(seriously the thing sounded like a little motor boat.)
Me: "Brutus! Let's go. Leave it alone!"
Brutus: (Looking at me) "Mmmmmmooofff?"
Visitor: "GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
Brutus: "Oof, oof, WOOF!"
Me: "Brutus, COME ON!"
Brutus: (turning to come inside) "whine, whine, whine"
Visitor: "GRRRRRRRRRRR!"
I can't help but wonder how things would turn out if I hadn't been out there. Matt swears to me that possum/opossums are really mean, but, um, seriously, the thing is the size of a softball even if it does have a rather menacing growl. I also wonder how long the little visitor is going to be making his residence in my backyard. I mean, where do possum/opossums live? I think I once read a book about them hanging out in trees, and we do have several large trees but do they sleep there? Or do I need to worry about falling in a possum/opossum hole in my back yard? Could it be living under my house?
And a better question still, is how many more nights in a row is Brutus going to try to do battle with the thing? What if it gets bigger?????
I wish I had a picture....
buck·eye - noun, \ˈbək-ˌī\ 1: any of various shrubs or trees (genus Aesculus) of the horse-chestnut family; also : the large nutlike seed of such a shrub or tree 2: capitalized : a native or resident of Ohio — used as a nickname
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Our own Genesis story
I think I'm feeling a little better today. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that I am now on Spring break for the two weeks and will be able to hide, blissfully from all the unwanted advice givers.
I still feel like my head is spinning from all the yucky things that are happening to my friends and coworkers, but I am really really trying to remember that there is a reason for everything. God doesn't make mistakes. He doesn't give people more than he can handle and sometimes the very worst things have to happen in order to get to the miraculous ending.
Personally, I know this is true because at the end of all the drama in my younger life, I found Matt. It was a long journey for us to end up together but he was the answer to my prayers in so many ways, and when I think about a lot of the stuff that happened to me and my family when I was younger, its easy to see how that stuff prepared me for life with my husband.
So how did Matt and I end up together? I have been thinking about it a lot lately and now I shall bore you all with the story....
My senior year in high school I was working at the Movie theater in my home town. I was stuck behind the concession stand shoveling popcorn but most of the time I loved the job because I worked with a ton of really great people. One particularly dull afternoon I was standing at my register bored out of my mind from the lack of customers when two new employees came in. I remember watching them walk through the lobby in their regular street clothes and noticing that they were "attractive-ish" boys. (Stop acting surprised and appalled, I was 17 years old at the time and completely crazy about boys!!) I also remember thinking that one of them had some really stupid loafer type shoes on that really, really didn't need to be worn with the shorts he was wearing.
I'm sorry to tell you that was my first impression of Matt.
A few minutes later the boys emerged from the locker room in their new penguin outfit movie theater uniforms and joined us in the concession stand. The two boys were Tyler, a junior from a neighboring high school and Matt, a freshman in college who'd apparently been in the Navy for a few years before coming home to go to school. Tyler was annoying in the young, over eager boy way and Matt was so, so, so full of himself. I remember he used to flex his navy-push-up muscles for the girls all the time. (Seriously, and, I know!) He was nice enough, I guess, but totally full of himself (in my opinion) although thinking back he probably deserved to be because nearly all the girls became smitten with him. Even the managers. It was one of the most annoying things ever.
Mind you when I say nearly all the girls... I can assure this did NOT include me. I was caught up in the middle of my own boy drama at the time and found Matt to be dreadfully obnoxious. He was good at everything, he knew it and so did just about everyone else. Because of this, he quickly started getting promotions and this made him bug me even more.
Don't worry. He disliked me too. He once told me (and I'm paraphrasing here,) that I was a gigantic brat and what I needed was a nice man to, er, straighten me out and get me to relax. Nice huh? And also, pretty ironic if you know the end of our story.
Over time, he and I worked together more and more. As my summer between finishing high school and starting college progressed it became obvious that we were both pretty much dependent upon ourselves to pay for school and we'd willingly pick up shifts and stay late whenever the chance arrived. We slowly started to get along as coworkers and even, on occasion, had deep meaningful conversations about life, the universe and everything at like 1:00 in the morning while waiting for the last movie end.
Eventually, he got moved into the projection booth. A few months later so did I. He got put up there because all the mangers loved him (and not necessarily just because he was hard working.) I got put up there because my brother worked there already, I was dating another projectionist and I bugged the crap out of the booth manager to put me there. This worked well for Matt's and my friendship because we worked a lot of shifts together and he gave me a lot of rides home.
He had this annoying habit of always making sure to do the right thing, even if it meant driving way out of his way to ensure that a girl made it home safe after a shift. My brother once said he had a "Farm boy heart-of-gold" and was like programmed to perpetually do the right thing. Whenever there was some awful late night assignment to be done, Matt would step up and volunteer to do it. Along those same line he had this annoying habit of criticizing my relationships. He'd tell me he could plainly see that I wasn't happy and thought I deserved better. In retrospect, he was right, the guy I was dating was a total idiot, and Matt used to take great pleasure in telling me about it.
Around Christmas that year, AMC opened a new theater across the street from OSU. Nearly all of us in the booth attended school there, so we nearly all transferred. Matt didn't though. Remember how he always had to do the right thing? He didn't want to leave the Dublin theater projectionist-less, so even though he lived about 5 minutes from the new theater he stayed behind. I figured it was a bummer, because he had become a nice friend but didn't give it too much thought. I was still dating the idiot boy and was busy being wrapped up in all that drama. It's strange now to think about how that could have been the end of our relationship forever.
However, when our new theater opened the old theater got a new general manager who was pretty much a dirt bag and, believe it or not he did not think the world of my future husband. After a few weeks, Matt had enough of him and before long, he was back working with us at the new theater near campus impressing all the the managers and getting promoted faster than all of us again.
Life went on, winter turned to spring and then summer. That summer was the first year I tried out for the OSU Marching Band which meant I had a lot of evening rehearsals and worked mostly days. Meanwhile, Matt had gotten himself a second job at night loading trucks for UPS so he was also working days often times with me. I began to consider him a close friend. By that time I was wrapped up in drama about another idiotic boy and Matt would patiently try to talk me through. He'd been a relationship with a mysterious girl he knew from his hometown since before we'd ever met, so there was never any urge to like him or anything, we were just good friends. He understood me and for some reason accepted me. It was easy with him.
More time went by, and before we knew it another winter was approaching. I'd spent the fall bummed about not making the band and subsequently wrapping myself up in more drama with idiotic boys when I wasn't at work. (There's a pattern there if you notice, about me and stupid boys, and I'm glad Matt helped me to finally break that cycle.) Somewhere in there Matt became single as well. I remember him joking about it and trying to act like it was no big deal. The idea occurred to my brother that Matt and I should be together. Steve had not been impressed when he'd met Matt's former girlfriend and was convinced that I could win him over. He told me about it all the time.
Then one night toward the end of Finals week there was going to be an employee showing of Scream 2. I really wanted to go but my roommate wasn't home and I needed somebody with a car to drive me. For some completely unknown reason I called Matt. He seemed reluctant to go since he had a Final the next morning at 7:30, but for some reason he agreed.
When we arrived at the theater somebody told us the screening had been pushed back an hour so Matt decided we should go get some dinner next door at the Johnny Rockets. After the movie somebody else told us that a long awaited print of the new Titanic movie had arrived and they were going to screen it for employees starting at 1:00 am. Despite his impending final, Matt decided to stay and watch it with me which meant he got home at like 5:00 in the morning. (Thankfully he managed to smoke out an A on that exam so it worked out, but to this day I can't believe he stayed.)
I don't really remember how the next few days went, but during the winter break we both worked a lot of hours and watched a lot of movies and hung out a lot during free time at work. Several more prints of Titanic needed to be screened, as did a host of other new holiday movies and we watched them all together. Matt brought in this book of crossword puzzles and we worked on them together between starting movies. When our grades came out he took me to dinner (at Johnny Rockets again) to celebrate. One of our friends had a party and he took me. We'd stay up all night at each others apartments watching movies that we both wanted the other person to see.
It was wonderful and fun and also very strange. People around us (especially my brother) started to notice and ask us what was going on, but neither of us really knew because we didn't talk about it. We were just going with it I think.
Somewhere in there I'd met Matt's parents when he'd brought them up to watch a movie. They responded by inviting me down with him for Church and dinner on New Years Day, which again, was very weird because neither of us had yet to acknowledge what was happening. We spent all our free time together. We held hands. We snuggled while watching movies. But that was it. Period.
A few days before the school started up I think Matt had had enough of the ambiguity. He and I had been the late projectionists with him being off at 11:00 and me around 1:00 when the last show ended. Naturally, he decided to stay and hang out with me until I was done, under the guise of giving me a ride home. Then finally, in one of the cheesiest moments in the history of movie theater employee romances ever, as the last showing of Titanic was running credits, and Celine Dion was belting out "My Heart Will Go On," he cornered me between the projector, the booth window and the sound tower and kissed me.
That night, or possibly a few nights later we were snuggling together on his bed staring at the ceiling and dreaded the prospect of winter quarter starting up. Neither of us really wanted to go back to classes, especially not in the freezing cold, and neither of us wanted to stop spending time together. We both admitted being afraid that whatever it was that was happening between us was going to end.
The very next afternoon he called me as soon as he got out of class. His financial aid check had come in, he was going to go grocery shopping and stock up on supplies and for some reason he wanted me to come too. We hadn't even gotten past the parking lot when he confessed that he had something he wanted to tell me. Apparently, that day at school he'd been called in at ROTC to discuss his grades, study habits and social life because he'd had some issues in the past with the Navy mandated advanced math classes. He told me that when they'd asked if he had a girlfriend he didn't know what to tell them, because he didn't know if I was, but that finally he'd told them he did. Then he asked me if that was okay.
Obviously I said that it was and, we've been together ever since.
And, while it certainly hasn't been "happily EVER after," (who came up with that impossible scenario anyway?) its been an amazing gift.
I still feel like my head is spinning from all the yucky things that are happening to my friends and coworkers, but I am really really trying to remember that there is a reason for everything. God doesn't make mistakes. He doesn't give people more than he can handle and sometimes the very worst things have to happen in order to get to the miraculous ending.
Personally, I know this is true because at the end of all the drama in my younger life, I found Matt. It was a long journey for us to end up together but he was the answer to my prayers in so many ways, and when I think about a lot of the stuff that happened to me and my family when I was younger, its easy to see how that stuff prepared me for life with my husband.
So how did Matt and I end up together? I have been thinking about it a lot lately and now I shall bore you all with the story....
My senior year in high school I was working at the Movie theater in my home town. I was stuck behind the concession stand shoveling popcorn but most of the time I loved the job because I worked with a ton of really great people. One particularly dull afternoon I was standing at my register bored out of my mind from the lack of customers when two new employees came in. I remember watching them walk through the lobby in their regular street clothes and noticing that they were "attractive-ish" boys. (Stop acting surprised and appalled, I was 17 years old at the time and completely crazy about boys!!) I also remember thinking that one of them had some really stupid loafer type shoes on that really, really didn't need to be worn with the shorts he was wearing.
I'm sorry to tell you that was my first impression of Matt.
A few minutes later the boys emerged from the locker room in their new penguin outfit movie theater uniforms and joined us in the concession stand. The two boys were Tyler, a junior from a neighboring high school and Matt, a freshman in college who'd apparently been in the Navy for a few years before coming home to go to school. Tyler was annoying in the young, over eager boy way and Matt was so, so, so full of himself. I remember he used to flex his navy-push-up muscles for the girls all the time. (Seriously, and, I know!) He was nice enough, I guess, but totally full of himself (in my opinion) although thinking back he probably deserved to be because nearly all the girls became smitten with him. Even the managers. It was one of the most annoying things ever.
Mind you when I say nearly all the girls... I can assure this did NOT include me. I was caught up in the middle of my own boy drama at the time and found Matt to be dreadfully obnoxious. He was good at everything, he knew it and so did just about everyone else. Because of this, he quickly started getting promotions and this made him bug me even more.
Don't worry. He disliked me too. He once told me (and I'm paraphrasing here,) that I was a gigantic brat and what I needed was a nice man to, er, straighten me out and get me to relax. Nice huh? And also, pretty ironic if you know the end of our story.
Over time, he and I worked together more and more. As my summer between finishing high school and starting college progressed it became obvious that we were both pretty much dependent upon ourselves to pay for school and we'd willingly pick up shifts and stay late whenever the chance arrived. We slowly started to get along as coworkers and even, on occasion, had deep meaningful conversations about life, the universe and everything at like 1:00 in the morning while waiting for the last movie end.
Eventually, he got moved into the projection booth. A few months later so did I. He got put up there because all the mangers loved him (and not necessarily just because he was hard working.) I got put up there because my brother worked there already, I was dating another projectionist and I bugged the crap out of the booth manager to put me there. This worked well for Matt's and my friendship because we worked a lot of shifts together and he gave me a lot of rides home.
He had this annoying habit of always making sure to do the right thing, even if it meant driving way out of his way to ensure that a girl made it home safe after a shift. My brother once said he had a "Farm boy heart-of-gold" and was like programmed to perpetually do the right thing. Whenever there was some awful late night assignment to be done, Matt would step up and volunteer to do it. Along those same line he had this annoying habit of criticizing my relationships. He'd tell me he could plainly see that I wasn't happy and thought I deserved better. In retrospect, he was right, the guy I was dating was a total idiot, and Matt used to take great pleasure in telling me about it.
Around Christmas that year, AMC opened a new theater across the street from OSU. Nearly all of us in the booth attended school there, so we nearly all transferred. Matt didn't though. Remember how he always had to do the right thing? He didn't want to leave the Dublin theater projectionist-less, so even though he lived about 5 minutes from the new theater he stayed behind. I figured it was a bummer, because he had become a nice friend but didn't give it too much thought. I was still dating the idiot boy and was busy being wrapped up in all that drama. It's strange now to think about how that could have been the end of our relationship forever.
However, when our new theater opened the old theater got a new general manager who was pretty much a dirt bag and, believe it or not he did not think the world of my future husband. After a few weeks, Matt had enough of him and before long, he was back working with us at the new theater near campus impressing all the the managers and getting promoted faster than all of us again.
Life went on, winter turned to spring and then summer. That summer was the first year I tried out for the OSU Marching Band which meant I had a lot of evening rehearsals and worked mostly days. Meanwhile, Matt had gotten himself a second job at night loading trucks for UPS so he was also working days often times with me. I began to consider him a close friend. By that time I was wrapped up in drama about another idiotic boy and Matt would patiently try to talk me through. He'd been a relationship with a mysterious girl he knew from his hometown since before we'd ever met, so there was never any urge to like him or anything, we were just good friends. He understood me and for some reason accepted me. It was easy with him.
More time went by, and before we knew it another winter was approaching. I'd spent the fall bummed about not making the band and subsequently wrapping myself up in more drama with idiotic boys when I wasn't at work. (There's a pattern there if you notice, about me and stupid boys, and I'm glad Matt helped me to finally break that cycle.) Somewhere in there Matt became single as well. I remember him joking about it and trying to act like it was no big deal. The idea occurred to my brother that Matt and I should be together. Steve had not been impressed when he'd met Matt's former girlfriend and was convinced that I could win him over. He told me about it all the time.
Then one night toward the end of Finals week there was going to be an employee showing of Scream 2. I really wanted to go but my roommate wasn't home and I needed somebody with a car to drive me. For some completely unknown reason I called Matt. He seemed reluctant to go since he had a Final the next morning at 7:30, but for some reason he agreed.
When we arrived at the theater somebody told us the screening had been pushed back an hour so Matt decided we should go get some dinner next door at the Johnny Rockets. After the movie somebody else told us that a long awaited print of the new Titanic movie had arrived and they were going to screen it for employees starting at 1:00 am. Despite his impending final, Matt decided to stay and watch it with me which meant he got home at like 5:00 in the morning. (Thankfully he managed to smoke out an A on that exam so it worked out, but to this day I can't believe he stayed.)
I don't really remember how the next few days went, but during the winter break we both worked a lot of hours and watched a lot of movies and hung out a lot during free time at work. Several more prints of Titanic needed to be screened, as did a host of other new holiday movies and we watched them all together. Matt brought in this book of crossword puzzles and we worked on them together between starting movies. When our grades came out he took me to dinner (at Johnny Rockets again) to celebrate. One of our friends had a party and he took me. We'd stay up all night at each others apartments watching movies that we both wanted the other person to see.
It was wonderful and fun and also very strange. People around us (especially my brother) started to notice and ask us what was going on, but neither of us really knew because we didn't talk about it. We were just going with it I think.
Somewhere in there I'd met Matt's parents when he'd brought them up to watch a movie. They responded by inviting me down with him for Church and dinner on New Years Day, which again, was very weird because neither of us had yet to acknowledge what was happening. We spent all our free time together. We held hands. We snuggled while watching movies. But that was it. Period.
A few days before the school started up I think Matt had had enough of the ambiguity. He and I had been the late projectionists with him being off at 11:00 and me around 1:00 when the last show ended. Naturally, he decided to stay and hang out with me until I was done, under the guise of giving me a ride home. Then finally, in one of the cheesiest moments in the history of movie theater employee romances ever, as the last showing of Titanic was running credits, and Celine Dion was belting out "My Heart Will Go On," he cornered me between the projector, the booth window and the sound tower and kissed me.
That night, or possibly a few nights later we were snuggling together on his bed staring at the ceiling and dreaded the prospect of winter quarter starting up. Neither of us really wanted to go back to classes, especially not in the freezing cold, and neither of us wanted to stop spending time together. We both admitted being afraid that whatever it was that was happening between us was going to end.
The very next afternoon he called me as soon as he got out of class. His financial aid check had come in, he was going to go grocery shopping and stock up on supplies and for some reason he wanted me to come too. We hadn't even gotten past the parking lot when he confessed that he had something he wanted to tell me. Apparently, that day at school he'd been called in at ROTC to discuss his grades, study habits and social life because he'd had some issues in the past with the Navy mandated advanced math classes. He told me that when they'd asked if he had a girlfriend he didn't know what to tell them, because he didn't know if I was, but that finally he'd told them he did. Then he asked me if that was okay.
Obviously I said that it was and, we've been together ever since.
And, while it certainly hasn't been "happily EVER after," (who came up with that impossible scenario anyway?) its been an amazing gift.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Maybe I've got the pre-baby blues...
It's 7:30 am on Thursday morning and I am sitting at my desk typing this in an email so that I can post it later... I am in the most foul mood ever, which isn't all that surprising since it is well before 9:00 in the morning, except that this is so much worse than usual.
I just don't want to do this today.
I am so completely over the way people treat me since I am pregnant. I didn't realize that choosing to have children meant I have lobotomized myself. I can't stand people who walk up to me, stare straight at my stomach and ask me how the baby is doing. Um, the baby is growing, and occasionally kicking, just as it has been doing for the last 25 weeks. Why is this news? I'm glad you are excited for me, but I, on the other hand, might have something interesting to say. Might anyway.
And, somebody please save me from the old 1950s mother-types. You know, the ladies who's soul purpose in life was to have babies and, despite the act that they are pushing 60, would just about give up their life savings to be pregnant again. Grrr. Having a baby is just one milestone in my life. Granted it is a HUGE one, but it is just part of my life. Waddling around with an extra 20 pounds hanging off my middle is hardly the defining experience of my life. It's a cool one, mind you, most of the time, but not the only cool one.
I know that I should be grateful that I am even able to be pregnant and believe me I really am. I just think this whole experience would be a lot more enjoyable without a lot of the random people bugging me about it all the time.
As for when the baby comes, despite that this seems to be everyones' favorite topic of conversation, I can not speak on that. It hasn't happened yet. I honestly CAN NOT wait until that day, even though I know the baby needs to cook a lot longer, but it doesn't do me much good to agonize about how I'll feel when that day comes. So, with that in mind, I really wish people would stop telling me about how it is going to change me down to the very core of my being to hold that little baby in my arms. You know what, it probably will, and I hope it does, but since that day is still a good 3 months away, can we please stop talking about it because it is really, really stressing me out to hear about it every 5 minutes. All this is accomplishing is making me want even more for it to be July already so I can meet my child and the waiting is sort of killing me.
And there is the whole labor and delivery thing. *sigh*
No doubt I am about to really annoy some people, but I absolutely refuse to believe that giving birth is the most horrible experience ever. If it was that bad nobody would have 2nd children.
Is it going to hurt a lot and suck a lot? Probably. Probably more than I can even imagine. But, first of all, does it compare to fighting cancer or some other potentially fatal illness? I highly doubt it.
And, I've been through a LOT of crap in my life. While I feel extraordinarily blessed with the way my life is going now, it was a long, steep, bumpy climb to get here, and in the process I had to basically leave my entire family behind me. It sucked. I put myself through college working insane hours and trying my best not to fail out. That sucked too. How can all the struggles of the first 22 years of my life even remotely compare to giving birth? Sure, labor and delivery might go on for anywhere from 2-72 hours. Sure, I'm probably going to end up needing stitches in some really embarrassing places. Sure, it is probably going to feel like a rhinoceros is stabbing me someplace awful repeatedly with his big fat old horn...
but at the end of all of it, God willing, I get to meet my child.
Doesn't really seem that scary to me at all because I really really want to meet my child.
Now breast feeding on the other hand... that flat out terrifies me.
(But that is another post for another day.)
Maybe the reason I am so annoyed all the time right now is because I am scared. Not about how this baby will change me, or my marriage, or about the delivery or about any of that. But I'm scared that I won't be a good parent. I didn't have a very good example. It's been 10 years since I spoke to my mother, and while that is honestly the way it needs to be in order for me to live my life outside of sanitarium, it sucks. A daughter should be able to call her mother with questions when she's raising her children and I won't be able to do that.
Meanwhile my husband secretly worries that I will end up just like my mother, with children who hate her and would rather stab knitting needles through their eyes than talk to her. He thinks he hides this fear from me and that he is 100% supportive 100% of the time but he isn't. I can tell he's scared. He's scared about how this baby will change him, and whether or not he'll be a good father, but most of all, I can tell he's scared I'm not going to be any good at this either. He's scared I'm going to mess up our children like my mother did me. I can't make him understand that I'm worried about it to. I'm more scared about that than anything else. And all I can do is hope that I will do better and that I learned from her mistakes.
I keep looking to outside sources for that "Happy Ending" which will allow me to believe in my own. I'm always looking for stories of hardship that end well, which will help bolster my faith and allow me to believe that me as a parent won't automatically equal disaster. I'm not finding the miracles I'm looking for though. Instead an adoption is being contested. An ultrasound found very severe birth defects. She had another early miscarriage. A husband and new father has an inoperable cancerous brain tumor. A boy has cancer. And these are just the six examples that occur to me off the top of my head. Six examples of people who are going through some of the worst things life has to offer.
Everywhere I look awful things are happening to good honest, amazing, deserving people. Why? I pray about it, and their situations so much that I forget to pray for my own child and family, but still all I can do is wonder why all the awful stuff is happening? Maybe it is just part of me finally being a grown up, but I just don't know.
I know that God has a plan for all of us, but I am really struggling to find the sense in any of it. At this point I'm tending to lean towards the theory that all of these awful things are more the work of Satan than the Lord, but even still, it's a scary thought that perhaps the Devil himself has gained that much power here on earth in these dark times.
And I know that I shouldn't look to others for a happy ending. I need to believe that mine is coming, and that God will provide. I need to trust in the blessings he has provided. It's just very hard for me sometimes. This morning, is one of those times I guess.
If your reading this and you have any, I'd love to hear your thoughts/comments. Thanks.
I just don't want to do this today.
I am so completely over the way people treat me since I am pregnant. I didn't realize that choosing to have children meant I have lobotomized myself. I can't stand people who walk up to me, stare straight at my stomach and ask me how the baby is doing. Um, the baby is growing, and occasionally kicking, just as it has been doing for the last 25 weeks. Why is this news? I'm glad you are excited for me, but I, on the other hand, might have something interesting to say. Might anyway.
And, somebody please save me from the old 1950s mother-types. You know, the ladies who's soul purpose in life was to have babies and, despite the act that they are pushing 60, would just about give up their life savings to be pregnant again. Grrr. Having a baby is just one milestone in my life. Granted it is a HUGE one, but it is just part of my life. Waddling around with an extra 20 pounds hanging off my middle is hardly the defining experience of my life. It's a cool one, mind you, most of the time, but not the only cool one.
I know that I should be grateful that I am even able to be pregnant and believe me I really am. I just think this whole experience would be a lot more enjoyable without a lot of the random people bugging me about it all the time.
As for when the baby comes, despite that this seems to be everyones' favorite topic of conversation, I can not speak on that. It hasn't happened yet. I honestly CAN NOT wait until that day, even though I know the baby needs to cook a lot longer, but it doesn't do me much good to agonize about how I'll feel when that day comes. So, with that in mind, I really wish people would stop telling me about how it is going to change me down to the very core of my being to hold that little baby in my arms. You know what, it probably will, and I hope it does, but since that day is still a good 3 months away, can we please stop talking about it because it is really, really stressing me out to hear about it every 5 minutes. All this is accomplishing is making me want even more for it to be July already so I can meet my child and the waiting is sort of killing me.
And there is the whole labor and delivery thing. *sigh*
No doubt I am about to really annoy some people, but I absolutely refuse to believe that giving birth is the most horrible experience ever. If it was that bad nobody would have 2nd children.
Is it going to hurt a lot and suck a lot? Probably. Probably more than I can even imagine. But, first of all, does it compare to fighting cancer or some other potentially fatal illness? I highly doubt it.
And, I've been through a LOT of crap in my life. While I feel extraordinarily blessed with the way my life is going now, it was a long, steep, bumpy climb to get here, and in the process I had to basically leave my entire family behind me. It sucked. I put myself through college working insane hours and trying my best not to fail out. That sucked too. How can all the struggles of the first 22 years of my life even remotely compare to giving birth? Sure, labor and delivery might go on for anywhere from 2-72 hours. Sure, I'm probably going to end up needing stitches in some really embarrassing places. Sure, it is probably going to feel like a rhinoceros is stabbing me someplace awful repeatedly with his big fat old horn...
but at the end of all of it, God willing, I get to meet my child.
Doesn't really seem that scary to me at all because I really really want to meet my child.
Now breast feeding on the other hand... that flat out terrifies me.
(But that is another post for another day.)
Maybe the reason I am so annoyed all the time right now is because I am scared. Not about how this baby will change me, or my marriage, or about the delivery or about any of that. But I'm scared that I won't be a good parent. I didn't have a very good example. It's been 10 years since I spoke to my mother, and while that is honestly the way it needs to be in order for me to live my life outside of sanitarium, it sucks. A daughter should be able to call her mother with questions when she's raising her children and I won't be able to do that.
Meanwhile my husband secretly worries that I will end up just like my mother, with children who hate her and would rather stab knitting needles through their eyes than talk to her. He thinks he hides this fear from me and that he is 100% supportive 100% of the time but he isn't. I can tell he's scared. He's scared about how this baby will change him, and whether or not he'll be a good father, but most of all, I can tell he's scared I'm not going to be any good at this either. He's scared I'm going to mess up our children like my mother did me. I can't make him understand that I'm worried about it to. I'm more scared about that than anything else. And all I can do is hope that I will do better and that I learned from her mistakes.
I keep looking to outside sources for that "Happy Ending" which will allow me to believe in my own. I'm always looking for stories of hardship that end well, which will help bolster my faith and allow me to believe that me as a parent won't automatically equal disaster. I'm not finding the miracles I'm looking for though. Instead an adoption is being contested. An ultrasound found very severe birth defects. She had another early miscarriage. A husband and new father has an inoperable cancerous brain tumor. A boy has cancer. And these are just the six examples that occur to me off the top of my head. Six examples of people who are going through some of the worst things life has to offer.
Everywhere I look awful things are happening to good honest, amazing, deserving people. Why? I pray about it, and their situations so much that I forget to pray for my own child and family, but still all I can do is wonder why all the awful stuff is happening? Maybe it is just part of me finally being a grown up, but I just don't know.
I know that God has a plan for all of us, but I am really struggling to find the sense in any of it. At this point I'm tending to lean towards the theory that all of these awful things are more the work of Satan than the Lord, but even still, it's a scary thought that perhaps the Devil himself has gained that much power here on earth in these dark times.
And I know that I shouldn't look to others for a happy ending. I need to believe that mine is coming, and that God will provide. I need to trust in the blessings he has provided. It's just very hard for me sometimes. This morning, is one of those times I guess.
If your reading this and you have any, I'd love to hear your thoughts/comments. Thanks.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
It's too bad it was turtles, not tortoises and there was no hare... because we could have had a race!!
Yesterday at school was one of those Fridays that's just, like, reeeeally Friday. It might have something to do wit ht he fact that it is only one more week until Spring break. In the morning when I arrived at school only about 5 minutes later than usual the place was a ghost town as everybody else was running way later than me and none of us wanted to be there. Personally I was sort of thinking it might be fun to call a "Senior Skip Day" and leave the kids to torment a few substitutes all day... but I was informed that there supposedly is a shortage of subs these days. Whatever.
So anyway, the zombie like staff sort of forced ourselves to make it through our day, keep our complaining to a minimum and try to get something productive accomplished. That was until about 2:00. My last class is finished at 2:00 on Fridays at that school but it seems that most teachers like to give their students some fun time at the end of their academic week. Sometimes this just means time for arts and crafts, or extra time outside on the playground for PE. Last week the 4th graders were enjoying ice cream as a reward for completing one of their state tests. This week, a few of the 3rd grade classes were just having some all out play time.
Apparently somebody thought that it would be a good idea to bring the class pet Turtle outside to play too. I guess the Before/After school program recently acquired a pet turtle and the children thought they needed to be friends. I found the whole thing to be kind of hysterical, so here are some photos.
So anyway, the zombie like staff sort of forced ourselves to make it through our day, keep our complaining to a minimum and try to get something productive accomplished. That was until about 2:00. My last class is finished at 2:00 on Fridays at that school but it seems that most teachers like to give their students some fun time at the end of their academic week. Sometimes this just means time for arts and crafts, or extra time outside on the playground for PE. Last week the 4th graders were enjoying ice cream as a reward for completing one of their state tests. This week, a few of the 3rd grade classes were just having some all out play time.
Apparently somebody thought that it would be a good idea to bring the class pet Turtle outside to play too. I guess the Before/After school program recently acquired a pet turtle and the children thought they needed to be friends. I found the whole thing to be kind of hysterical, so here are some photos.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The latest news is no news
I feel like I should update about something. The trouble is life has been sort of boring and uneventful these last few weeks. I'm not complaining, I'll willingly take boring over drama any day, but it does make for some very bad blogging. :(
But there has to be something to talk about, so let's see....
The latest and the greatest:
I have reached 24 weeks pregnant and randomly I don't feel pregnant any more... aside from the lack of a waist, the swollen feet and the frequent kicks from inside. Maybe my hormones just leveled out, but for the first time in weeks I don't feel like I'm spinning out of control. Also, even though everyone tells me I am "only pregnant in the front" and supposedly not getting fat anywhere else I know this is not true. Today I wore a dress and the inside of my fat thighs are all irritated from rubbing against one another all day. This was never problem before but its a huge, itchy, borderline painful problem now. And, so far as I can tell, if things continue on the current path I will come out of this baby-growing thing completely normal sized except for ENORMOUS thighs and a even flabbier post baby-stomach.
(I'll be hot.)
Oh and, I measured my tummy the other day. Well, technically I only sort of measured it because I didn't have a tape measure. By "sort of measured" I mean I took a yard stick, started at my belly button and rolled it around my tummy to see how big around I am. The trouble was I ran out of stick before I got back to the other side of my navel. :( I guess this means my tummy is officially bigger around than 36 inches. Sweet. My hubby, adorable though he may be, wears size 36 pants, so i am officially bigger around than he is.
(That is soooooo hot.)
In other news, I cleaned the house the other day. Now, granted, that should not be news because I should be doing that regularly... and I do, on a very basic level, keep the house clean. But it was time for something deeper and I took it upon myself to, among other things, scrub the shower and then make my husband scrub the bathroom floors.
The trouble with this plan is we have a crazy dog. I should have remembered before I started scrubbing why attempting to keep the house clean tends to be a futile project with that dog around. As it turns out about 45 seconds after I finished scrubbing Matt heard the sound of a jingling collar and a sniffing nose coming from the tub. This is what he found when he pulled back the shower curtain...
Nice huh? Apparently it was muddy in the backyard and Brutus felt the tub needed a share of it....
But there has to be something to talk about, so let's see....
The latest and the greatest:
I have reached 24 weeks pregnant and randomly I don't feel pregnant any more... aside from the lack of a waist, the swollen feet and the frequent kicks from inside. Maybe my hormones just leveled out, but for the first time in weeks I don't feel like I'm spinning out of control. Also, even though everyone tells me I am "only pregnant in the front" and supposedly not getting fat anywhere else I know this is not true. Today I wore a dress and the inside of my fat thighs are all irritated from rubbing against one another all day. This was never problem before but its a huge, itchy, borderline painful problem now. And, so far as I can tell, if things continue on the current path I will come out of this baby-growing thing completely normal sized except for ENORMOUS thighs and a even flabbier post baby-stomach.
(I'll be hot.)
Oh and, I measured my tummy the other day. Well, technically I only sort of measured it because I didn't have a tape measure. By "sort of measured" I mean I took a yard stick, started at my belly button and rolled it around my tummy to see how big around I am. The trouble was I ran out of stick before I got back to the other side of my navel. :( I guess this means my tummy is officially bigger around than 36 inches. Sweet. My hubby, adorable though he may be, wears size 36 pants, so i am officially bigger around than he is.
(That is soooooo hot.)
In other news, I cleaned the house the other day. Now, granted, that should not be news because I should be doing that regularly... and I do, on a very basic level, keep the house clean. But it was time for something deeper and I took it upon myself to, among other things, scrub the shower and then make my husband scrub the bathroom floors.
The trouble with this plan is we have a crazy dog. I should have remembered before I started scrubbing why attempting to keep the house clean tends to be a futile project with that dog around. As it turns out about 45 seconds after I finished scrubbing Matt heard the sound of a jingling collar and a sniffing nose coming from the tub. This is what he found when he pulled back the shower curtain...
Nice huh? Apparently it was muddy in the backyard and Brutus felt the tub needed a share of it....
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Baby Belly Photo 2
One of the unfortunate things about my job is that I work at 4 elementary schools which means that people at each site only see me roughly every two weeks. Forgetting how it makes forming meaningful friendships tricky and keeping up with my schedule and more importantly the latest gossip near impossible, it is also making for a special brand of prenatal torture.
Each and every single time I walk into a building at the start of my next rotation at a particular school, people practically jump out of the woodwork to tell me how much my baby belly has grown. It's very, very flattering, and absolutely doing wonders for my self esteem. Because you know how every woman likes to hear how huge they are. This morning when they refused to lay off, I was close to tears.
(I blame the hormones.)
(And also perhaps an unhealthy self-image that is struggling quite a lot with the change in size associated with the growth and impending arrival of my first born.)
Please don't get me wrong. I am THRILLED to be pregnant and recognize what an amazing blessing this is. However, the getting fat around the middle part of the process sucks. The swollen feet suck. The acne sucks. The nausea sucked while I still had it and the exhaustion and cramping still suck. You know how there are those woman who claim to "love being pregnant" and claim that it is "magical and amazing." I'm really starting to think they're a little crazy.
Forgetting the ever changing horrific status of my belly button and roundness of my middle, I'm starting to live in fear that I will be giving birth to a 25 pound baby come summer. Already I have real trouble shaving my legs above the knees and tying me shoes.
But there are still 18 weeks to go.....
Then again, the kicks are sort of nice. It's good to know that baby is in there, and doing fine and developing a nice case of hyperactivity just like his or her Mama. There was one just now. That part is sweet really. I like to imagine what is going on in that tiny little baby's mind that causes the kicks. For instance:
"Mommy! Why is there a lap top sitting on my head right now? I'm smoooooshed!"
or
"What happened to the music? There was so much singing earlier today, why is it so quiet now???? Sing to MEEEEE!"
or
"Donuts! Cake! Ice Cream! Mommy you gave me this sweet tooth, and even though I haven't actually developed teeth yet I still think we need some sugar!"
I could go on like this all day.
Anyway, here is the latest snapshot of me, trying my very best not to look like a whale at 22 1/2 weeks.
For the love of everything that is good and holy please do NOT ask me if I am sure there are not twins in there (you know who you are.) It's one baby. Period. It has always been one baby, a fact that was confirmed in December at our first ultrasound and again at each month doctor's appointment since. I don't know why I am this big already or if it is abnormal, but it is definitely NOT because I'm having twins. Sorry to disappoint, but enough of that already.
Each and every single time I walk into a building at the start of my next rotation at a particular school, people practically jump out of the woodwork to tell me how much my baby belly has grown. It's very, very flattering, and absolutely doing wonders for my self esteem. Because you know how every woman likes to hear how huge they are. This morning when they refused to lay off, I was close to tears.
(I blame the hormones.)
(And also perhaps an unhealthy self-image that is struggling quite a lot with the change in size associated with the growth and impending arrival of my first born.)
Please don't get me wrong. I am THRILLED to be pregnant and recognize what an amazing blessing this is. However, the getting fat around the middle part of the process sucks. The swollen feet suck. The acne sucks. The nausea sucked while I still had it and the exhaustion and cramping still suck. You know how there are those woman who claim to "love being pregnant" and claim that it is "magical and amazing." I'm really starting to think they're a little crazy.
Forgetting the ever changing horrific status of my belly button and roundness of my middle, I'm starting to live in fear that I will be giving birth to a 25 pound baby come summer. Already I have real trouble shaving my legs above the knees and tying me shoes.
But there are still 18 weeks to go.....
Then again, the kicks are sort of nice. It's good to know that baby is in there, and doing fine and developing a nice case of hyperactivity just like his or her Mama. There was one just now. That part is sweet really. I like to imagine what is going on in that tiny little baby's mind that causes the kicks. For instance:
"Mommy! Why is there a lap top sitting on my head right now? I'm smoooooshed!"
or
"What happened to the music? There was so much singing earlier today, why is it so quiet now???? Sing to MEEEEE!"
or
"Donuts! Cake! Ice Cream! Mommy you gave me this sweet tooth, and even though I haven't actually developed teeth yet I still think we need some sugar!"
I could go on like this all day.
Anyway, here is the latest snapshot of me, trying my very best not to look like a whale at 22 1/2 weeks.
For the love of everything that is good and holy please do NOT ask me if I am sure there are not twins in there (you know who you are.) It's one baby. Period. It has always been one baby, a fact that was confirmed in December at our first ultrasound and again at each month doctor's appointment since. I don't know why I am this big already or if it is abnormal, but it is definitely NOT because I'm having twins. Sorry to disappoint, but enough of that already.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Saving the Music and the Beach
This past week was a real killer. Monday morning a memo came out concerning the ongoing battle to balance our school district's budget listing potential cuts and OF COURSE the elementary music program was near the top. I don't know why I was surprised, or actually why I even really care (since we are moving at the end of the school year and I'm not going to be in that job anyway,) but the whole thing just set me off. The thing is, the district receives an Arts and PE grant for roughly $335,000 each year from the state. When this grant was originally awarded the decision was made to use this money to hire the elementary music teachers and use that money to pay our salary. They could have chosen to do a lot of other things with the money, but they didn't. Four full time music teachers were hired to see students across 14 elementary schools and 2 part time music teachers who were already in place and being funded by their schools PTA organizations received additional funding. We are now two years into the program and the children are doing phenomenal!
However, when the California state legislature FINALLY passed its budget apx. two weeks ago, word trickled down that our district was going to need to cut something between 11 and 16 million dollars worth of spending. AWESOME. So naturally everything that is in anyway considered a supplemental program was on the chopping block. Everyone seemed to forget the fact the money was being provided from the state specifically for our program and seemed eager to gobble up that money for something more important, like I don't know, math workbooks.
Eventually however, at the board meeting Thursday evening, as the district was chopping programs left and right they did choose to SAVE the music program. It probably had something to do with the fact that when you're talking about $15 million, $300,000 is chump change... and for that price something like 10,000 students are receiving music instruction.
Anyway, by Friday I was feeling MUCH less stressed out as it seemed that for just once, something came down "Right" in the field of education. And, if I can wax poetic for a moment, you could almost measure the change in my mood by the change in the weather. The sun FINALLY made its way back out and Saturday we were blessed with gorgeous blue, sun filled skies and temperatures in the mid 70s.
Matt and I celebrated by taking the doggie to the beach for a walk. Here are a couple of photos and a short video of our activities. Brutus,, did his part by acting completely ridiculous and being completely terrified of the water. You know, that terribly mean water that had the nerve to "chase" him.
I can't say that I was particularly surprised that he was afraid of the water. He's been water-shy since about this time last year when we took him to Balboa park and he promptly fell in the fountain. But still, a couple weeks ago it started to all out POUR while Brutus was in our very muddy back yard. (Someone accidentally let the grass under the trees die last summer while her husband was on deployment...) I bring this up now because that afternoon when we tried to let our puppy in out of the monsoon that, this is what we found....
Now I'm just wondering why he couldn't have been this brave at the beach?
However, when the California state legislature FINALLY passed its budget apx. two weeks ago, word trickled down that our district was going to need to cut something between 11 and 16 million dollars worth of spending. AWESOME. So naturally everything that is in anyway considered a supplemental program was on the chopping block. Everyone seemed to forget the fact the money was being provided from the state specifically for our program and seemed eager to gobble up that money for something more important, like I don't know, math workbooks.
Eventually however, at the board meeting Thursday evening, as the district was chopping programs left and right they did choose to SAVE the music program. It probably had something to do with the fact that when you're talking about $15 million, $300,000 is chump change... and for that price something like 10,000 students are receiving music instruction.
Anyway, by Friday I was feeling MUCH less stressed out as it seemed that for just once, something came down "Right" in the field of education. And, if I can wax poetic for a moment, you could almost measure the change in my mood by the change in the weather. The sun FINALLY made its way back out and Saturday we were blessed with gorgeous blue, sun filled skies and temperatures in the mid 70s.
Matt and I celebrated by taking the doggie to the beach for a walk. Here are a couple of photos and a short video of our activities. Brutus,, did his part by acting completely ridiculous and being completely terrified of the water. You know, that terribly mean water that had the nerve to "chase" him.
I can't say that I was particularly surprised that he was afraid of the water. He's been water-shy since about this time last year when we took him to Balboa park and he promptly fell in the fountain. But still, a couple weeks ago it started to all out POUR while Brutus was in our very muddy back yard. (Someone accidentally let the grass under the trees die last summer while her husband was on deployment...) I bring this up now because that afternoon when we tried to let our puppy in out of the monsoon that, this is what we found....
Now I'm just wondering why he couldn't have been this brave at the beach?
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