Looking Back

Ten years ago today I avoided making what would arguably have been one of the biggest mistakes in my life.    June 14, 2002 was to have been my wedding date. (For the record, the only reason I remember that it's today is because it's Flag Day).

Backing up a little - I had gotten engaged when I was 23 (almost 24) after only four months of dating.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.  Thankfully it ended up being a kind of long engagement (over 18 months) and before I made a huge mistake I came to the realization that it wasn't right.  In my heart I knew he was not the man that I was supposed to end up with and I did not see the marriage lasting more than a few years (if that).

As the date was drawing closer I began to freak out.  The evening of March 31st I was at work (I worked at a tv station and didn't get done until 11:00 PM) and I was losing it.  My sister called to ask me something and she could tell something was wrong.  She asked if I needed anything and I just asked her to stay up because I needed to talk to her when I got home (we lived together).  I made it through the next couple hours at work and hauled ass at 11:00. My then-fiance was the director for the 11:00 news so he had to stay for another hour.

When I got home I started talking to my sister, not really knowing what to say, until I finally blurted out "I can't do this!".  We stayed up until 3:00 AM talking.  I was scared that people would be mad at me for calling it off because plans had already been made.  She assured me that people would be more upset if I went through with a wedding that I knew wasn't right.  I sent a quick email to my mom telling her I needed to talk to her the next day and went to bed.

She waited until 11:00 to call me since she knew I was up late due to the time that I sent the email.  We talked for a while and I told her my decision.  She supported me completely and assured me that no one would be mad at me.  I felt a little bit of relief, but knew I still had to do the hard part - telling my soon-to-be-ex fiance that it was over.  On April Fool's Day of all days.

He came by my apartment during his break between the 6:00 and 11:00 news and I was a nervous wreck. The ring was in the box on the dining room table.  He knew something was up based on the expression on my face. I sat on the couch on one side of the room and he sat on the love seat facing me.  I honestly don't remember what I said or how I broke the news to him, but I made it clear that I could not marry him.  When I handed the ring back to him he told me I could keep it, but I insisted he take it.  He left to go back to work and I was relieved/upset/happy/sad - you name it.  The worst part was that we worked together and I had to go in at 10:00 to start my overnight shift. Talk about awkward.

The next few months were kind of weird at work.  Plus I was freaking out not knowing what to do next.  My sister was finishing up her residency at UK Children's Hospital and had accepted a position at a pediatric practice in Walterboro, SC (50 miles outside of Charleston) so the decision was made that I would just move with her and start my life over.  Ryan (my ex) actually moved before I did. He interviewed for and got a job as a director at a tv station in Atlanta and moved a few weeks before I left. I was honestly happy for him despite some of the ugly things he said to me after our breakup.

Oh, and one final detail that I find absolutely hilarious - Ryan married another girl named Kelly two weeks before J and I got married.  I only know that because when I was planning our wedding I would try to look up people's wedding webpages and I randomly typed in his name to see if anything came up.  It's funny because I would have picked the day he got married (April 18th) had it been available at our venue, but we had to take May 2nd instead.

So yeah - I avoided making a huge mistake a decade ago and I couldn't be happier.  I mean, if I'd gone through with it I wouldn't have this amazing little guy in my life:

Wordless Wednesday ~ Little Hidden Surprises

TAT ~ My, How Things Have Changed

I'm hopping back in to Toddle Along Tuesday this week and the topic is how life has changed.  I'm taking this as how life has changed since the little munchkin made an appearance into our lives.

There of course were the obvious and expected changes.  At the beginning we slept a lot less and I cried a lot more (I was a hormone bomb that would detonate at the drop of a hat).  And we had this little person who we would both lay down our lives for at any given moment.  That all encompassing love was expected, but the intensity of it still took me by surprise (and still does sometimes).

One of the more subtle changes that caught me a little off guard was my attitude about morning time.  I'll preface this by saying I was one of those people who LOVED to sleep in - especially on the weekends.  Staying up late on Friday or Saturday night and then lounging in bed until 10:00 the next morning was heaven.  I was never a morning person.  I would curse my alarm every weekday morning as I stumbled over to turn it off. I hated having to get up and start my day in the 6 o'clock hour.  In short - mornings sucked.

Then this little man came along.

Now I'm not saying that I bounce out of bed all bright eyed and bushy tailed singing a song and rejoicing that it's morning time.  I still grumble when I hear my alarm go off and this is something that will probably never change.  But now after I turn off my alarm I pick up the monitor and take a look to see my sleeping munchkin in his crib. More often than not with his little butt sticking up in the air and at least one of his cuddly toys shoved up underneath him. This almost never fails to make me smile - and it's nice to start the day off with a smile.

Weekday mornings used to consist of me getting ready and rushing out the door.  It's a nice change of pace now to have my morning time with the little munchkin.  When I was still breastfeeding I absolutely loved our morning time together.  I adored getting to sit there quietly with him, stroking his fuzzy head and cuddling a little to start the day.  Now that we are done breastfeeding I am enjoying feeding him his breakfast and hanging out with him while I get everything ready to head out the door. Those 15-20 minutes in the morning are pretty fantastic. He's almost always in a great mood after a good night's sleep and starting out the day with a happy munchkin somehow makes my whole day better.

How could seeing this in the morning not make me smile??

So yeah - I won't say that having a baby has made me a morning person, but it has made me a happier person in the morning (even if I would like a little more sleep).

What about you?  What has changed in your life since you had a baby (got pregnant, got married, etc)?  Head on over to Growing Up Geeky and link up with Toddle Along Tuesday.

Who Needs to Walk?

Apparently that is Andrew's attitude.  He is 14 1/2 months and is still showing no interest in walking. None.  If we try to hold his hands and get him to walk he protests and sits right down.  He doesn't even try to stand unsupported.

It's not that he doesn't stand at all - he pulls up on everything and cruises like nobody's business (especially when he sees something he wants).  He just doesn't seem to want to walk.

I'm wondering if when baby Laure is back in daycare next week (her family is on vacation this week) and he sees her walking all over the place that it will inspire him to get up?  She is a month younger than him and had started taking steps before her family left for vacation.  Maybe seeing that little peanut walking around will be enough peer pressure to get him on two feet.

At least for right now, though, he seems content as long as he can crawl, cruise, and of course climb:

I guess even if he won't walk he is still one cute little munchkin.  :)

Nifty & Thrifty Thursday (yeah - I know it's Friday!)

My lovely friend, mrs.monica, over at Running Through Parenthood... In Heels has started a new Thursday series called Nifty & Thrifty Thursdays.  Clearly I am a day late, but I still wanted to participate and share a couple deals that others might find useful this week.  So without further ado - here we go!


I receive weekly emails from Michaels craft store with all the deals they have going on.  Normally I disregard them (I signed up for them when I was planning our wedding 3+ years ago), but this week I took a peek and they have some good deals going on for Father's Day crafts.


First up is the Creatology Ceramic Mug with Markers:

Currently on sale 2 for $3.  Perfect for your kiddos to make a personalized Father's Day gift for their awesome dad.




Next up is the Recollections Photo & Craft Storage Boxes:

These are normally $3.89 each, but are on sale 5 for $10 (save $1.89/box).  And who doesn't need more cute boxes to save photos and other mementos?  




Finally they have all of their 12" x 12" Recollections Open Stock Paper on sale:

Regularly 59¢ per sheet on sale 6 for $1 (16¢ each).  Perfect for scrapbooking and other great crafts - there are tons of different patterns and designs.


So there you have it - my thrifty finds for the week.  I'll try to do better next week (and get it on for Thursday). I just gotta keep my eyes peeled for some deals. I'm cheap so it shouldn't be too hard  ;)

Do you have any thrifty finds you would like to share?  Head on over to Running Through Parenthood... In Heels and link up!

"I Got Booted For Elmo??"

Andrea just texted us some pictures of the kiddos on their walk this morning. There are only 3 kids at daycare right now since two of them are on vacation with their family for two weeks. I know Marc and Andrea are loving it since it's gotta be easy peasy with just 3 kids compared to 5 or 6.

Apparently Gavin took advantage of the extra room in the stroller and insisted that his bright red friend come along for the ride:

He LOVES Elmo. I've witnessed him running around the house yelling "Elmo! Elmo! Elmo!" when I've been dropping off the munchkin some mornings.

Gavin seems very entertained by his seatmate

I cracked up when I saw this. Andrew has a look on his face like "What the hell?!  Elmo gets the front and I'm stuck back here??".  I guess at least he has plenty of room to spread out in his middle seat - little baby Anthony is in the very back, probably lounging.

So far the munchkin hasn't really shown an affinity for Elmo.  I guess that's a good thing - I would hate for him and Gavin to start fighting over who gets to sit with their furry friend.

Wordless Wednesday ~ I Could Stay Like This Forever

That's What I Like to See

After a day of feeling like a bad mommy I was very happy to see this face this morning:

It appears that my little munchkin is back in action. He happily and eagerly chowed down on some pancakes this morning for breakfast.  And while he wasn't overly interested in milk he did drink water and yelled when he ran out.

So I guess this means we've made it through this go 'round of the stomach bug.  We gave everything a good scrubbing with Lysol and Clorox, did a couple loads of laundry, and are back to life as usual.

Now I'm sitting here with my fingers crossed that he doesn't have any sort of relapse.  I took him to daycare today - does that make me a bad person?  He hasn't thrown up from being sick since Sunday evening (he puked yesterday from chugging too much water too fast) and his temperature is back down to his norm.  Please please please don't let me get a call from Andrea telling me I need to come get my kid.  I don't want to be THAT mom that takes her sick kid to daycare and gets the stinkeye from the other parents.

Wish us luck!!

Feeling Like the Worst Mommy Ever

Yesterday morning Andrew got up at 7:00 which is only unusual because it was after only 10 hours of sleep and on weekends he sleeps 12+ hours almost always.  I changed him, got him some milk, and rocked him.  He was fighting to stay awake on my lap and cuddled with me, which should have been my first red flag.

When he woke up 90 mins later he was still cranky.  We fed him some breakfast and he wasn't super interested, but he got it all down.  He was not the happiest baby in the world, but we packed him up and headed to the beach to meet our friend, Jay, and his son, Collin.

We got the tent all set up and I slathered him with sunscreen. He fussed, but that's par for the course with sunscreen application.  We took him in the tidal pool and let him float around in his ducky bathtub.  He wasn't overly amused:

I got him back up in the tent and got him settled on a makeshift bed where he took a 30 minute nap.

When he woke up he was still fussy.  He was drinking water, but he wouldn't eat any snacks.  We packed up and went home and when we got back to the house he was kind of lethargic and limp in the car seat - not being his usual spastic self.  And he felt warm to the touch.  I took his temperature and my stomach dropped when the thermometer made the long beep to signify fever.  101.1.  My poor little munchkin butt.  I felt like the worst mommy ever for not realizing he was sick and taking him to the beach.  Mommy fail - big time m :(

He took a three hour nap while we did some work outside. I got him up and fed him some dinner, which he ate with no problems, but he was still cranky.  I laid some blankets on the living room floor for him to lay on while we ate dinner. That's when the puking started.

From 6:00 until 10:00 last night he threw up at least half a dozen times.  I couldn't get any fluids in him (or at least to stay in him).  Every time he took a sip of water or pedialyte he would throw up within a few minutes.  He had wet at least three diapers and was still producing tears when he cried so he wasn't dehydrated (yet) but I was worried.

We got him to bed around 10:30 after removing all toys from the crib and laying down a towel.  I heard him at 1:30 and got up to check on him.  Everything looked ok, but he had the towel pulled loose and bunched up under him (he likes to lay on things when he sleeps).  At 6:50 this morning he woke up and when I looked in his crib he had thrown up at least 3 times that I never heard on the monitor (and somehow found the energy to gnaw on the one remaining exposed crib rail - what the hell?!?).

I spread out some towels and blankets to try to protect the rugs (he always hits the rugs instead of the easy to clean hardwoods - go figure) and cleaned up his crib.  He was so thirsty this morning he chugged water and then promptly threw it all up.  I fed him some bland cereal for breakfast and had high hopes for it staying down since he ate it eagerly, but that too came up.

For the last couple hours I've been able to get him to drink water half an ounce at a time and he's eaten two crackers that haven't made a reappearance.  He is currently napping in his crib and I'm praying he takes a nice long one and feels a little better when he gets up.  If he does maybe it will ease a little of my mommy guilt.

May Running

The month of May started out promising as far as my workouts. I was on a roll until the little munchkin decided to share his cold and pinkeye. That threw a little wrench in the works and slowed me down a bit.  Plus the long holiday weekend threw me off  I still got my 50 miles in (56.2 to be exact), but I was hoping for 65+ to give me more of a buffer.  Oh well, there's always June.

So far for the year I am up to 266.4 miles, which I'm pretty sure is more than I ran all of last year, so I guess that's not too bad.  My goal for June is going to be to hit at least 60  miles.  Oh, and we are already signed up for next year's bridge run (in March) which is crazy.  I didn't think about it when he was registering us, but what happens if I happen to be pregnant?  I guess it depends on how far along I am at that time, but we'll cross that bridge (literally) when we come to it  :)

I did not take a picture of myself for comparison purposes because frankly I am feeling poofy and gross.  I need to get serious with the ab workout - and fast.  I have been getting a little better handle on my eating habits - I just wish my husband would stop buying cookies.  This mommy has almost no willpower when it comes to resisting the peanut butter deliciousness  that is currently residing in our pantry.  I kind of hope that he gorges himself on them and finishes them off so I won't be tempted.  Fingers crossed...