White Room Transformed

Many people who know me, know that I have a hard time sitting still. It is one extreme or another - a complete catonic trance in from of the telly or obsessive cleaning and some project underfoot. Ask my friend Ann, she found me under my dining room table (confession: Shania Twain blasting) dusting all of the wood relentlessly. Since that day she has nicknamed me "Monica," from the popular show Friends, well known for her OCD fit of cleaning. Anyways, I decided my son needed a place for all of his toys, art supplies and other playthings. I then decided, the white room would be the perfect spot for him. Over the course of two weeks, I transformed the place from a mudroom/lounge area, to a playroom. Good riddance to the White Room. Here is the final result:

              

Breaking down in TJ Maxx

Okay, so my husband and I are like many people in this day and age - BROKE. We are broker than we should be given my husband's income - but bills, child support, travel expenses, legal expenses, leave us with precious scraps at the end of each payperiod. It stresses me constantly, our financial situation has been making my eye twitch all day.

Today we went down to my mom's house for lunch with family. We got there early and put our son down for a nap and snuck out to run a few errands. On the way back to my mom's house, we drove by TJ Maxx. We decided to stop. Check out clearance racks, my husband needs a small travel bag for his upcoming trip to visit his daughter. The truth is, we just felt like window shopping and pretending we actually have money to splurge on something.

Inside the store, we split up, my husband likes to look at home goods, I like to look at clothes, books for my little man, etc. I was looking at toddler clothes, when I saw the most adorable "set" of girl newborn gear. I lost it...started crying, soft at first then full blown sobbing. Customers curiously threw me side glances, I quickly tried to bury myself in the childrens book section. My husband found me standing there, holding two 'Thomas the Train' books, crying. He pulled me aside, took me to a less busy section to calm me down. After a few loving words, he directed me to the bathroom. He was waiting for me when I emerged ten minutes later, puffy and wearing sunglasses.

As embarrassing as it was to "lose it" in the middle of a store. it could not be helped. I am screaming inside, feeling anxious all of the time. Wondering if I keep holding it together.

Building Blocks

My son like to stack up his blocks, just to smack them down again. I love watching him do this:

It is a reminder to myself - I need to learn to build myself back up again after getting knocked down. Lately, I have had a very difficult time doing that. I am sad, I smile and pretend it is all right, because, I do not want to let my child down. I do not want to let my husband down. People do not like to be around people who are sad. When I lost my Dad, I was the lowest, I had felt in a long time. Almost everyone had abandoned me, they didn't know what to say. I did not know what to say, I just knew I was so sad. I saw a picture of myself recently at a City Council meeting a few weeks after my Dad passed. It was surreal, the news was replaying a clip of the meeting, I was right next to the person speaking, helping them with their presentation. I was at work, looking so grief-stricken, that I wanted to step back into time and hug myself. At that time, no one really knew what to do, all I wanted was a hug.

So if you know someone who has suffered a loss recently, take the time to talk to them, hug them and say your sorry. It really does make a difference. Just listen, they do not need you to solve a problem that cannot be solved.

Today would be my father's birthday. Today, I would be 18 weeks pregnant. Today, all the "would bes" are making me feel really sad.

One opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted?

I was listening to music with my son, while attempting put together an annoying item from IKEA. My iPod randomly selected the Eminem song "Lose Yourself." I blasted it at top volume, grabbed my son up and danced. Shh, don't judge, the little one doesn't know what cuss words are yet. As I bounced around, I was struck my these lines:

Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted - One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

I thought to myself, what is the moment I want to capture? Does life ever throw you just one opportunity? Or is the week just filled with chances to seize your dream? Conclusions: (1) You're in charge of recognizing the daily opportunities presented to you, and (2) I overthought a really silly song.

I am in an abusive relationship - HELP

PARODY ALERT. Help me, I am in an abusive relationship. Today, he head-butted me and it caused my nose to bleed and a bruise on my cheek. When I asked him for a hug last night, he hit me, laughed and ran away. Yesterday morning, he threw his milk at me and proceeded to yell for five minutes. He pinches, kicks and yells a lot. I think he tried to bite me a few days ago.

I know he tortures animals. The cat is scared of him, she runs away when he approaches. The dog has not been the same since he came on the scene. Despite my attempts to get him to be gentle, I caught him sitting on the dog a week ago and pulling her tail. She sat there and took it, but I suspect she did not enjoy it.

Yeah, you know where this is going...we have all heard and lived the stories. The terrible twos, which peeks at 18 months. My sweet little boy is abusive...and I love every stinking (literally) minute of it.

Happy Anniversary, Boo Boo!

Today is my 2nd wedding anniversary with my husband. I am listening to the sounds of him gently playing guitar in the next room. So, I am not going to spend a lot of time writing tonight.
When we met, I never thought we would make it to marriage. I always assumed it was one of those things. Marriage was the furthest thing from my mind. I met him upon the heels of a horrible divorce to a man I had know since I was fifteen (together with since 21). Never having had a rebound before, I figured that is what he would be, that is how I rationalized how intensely I felt for him. He soon became my best friend. Then I thought we would only ever be friends. But he, and life had other plans. Now four years later, we have a beautiful boy and are hoping to make it as far in marriage as our parents have.

Also today I received notice of the burial service that the hospital puts on for bereaved parents who have lost their babies early in pregnancy. I am looking forward to attending, closure? Not ever forgetting, just seeking some feeling of peace.

Love to my husband...XOXO

I get ranty, snarky and quirky, but despite this somwhat cuss ridden exterior lies a heartbeat that quickens everytime my husband steps into the room. I met this tall dark hunk of a man five years ago. As angry as he makes me, my love overcomes those feelings. I know he has a challenging job, that requires him to work more than a 40 hour work week. He is a provider for my family. I lost my job when I was three months pregnant, went on a few interviews after, and despite preganancy discrimination being illegal, I did not get hired anywhere. Our son came along and we knew that with daycare expenses returning to work would be difficult. I still looked. We had unemployment to get us through, but eventually that ran out.


Then, I was pregnant again, then lost that baby to Alobar Holoprosencephaly (HPE). With our dreams of a second child for our family dashed, I am once again looking for employment. If I get pregnant again soon, we are faced with the same dilemma of daycare costs we had when our first son was born. Now my husband bears the sole responsibility of financially providing for us, he is feeling a lot of pressure and stress in trying to support the family. I hate that, because I have a fiercly strong independent streak. I feel guilty, I want to contribute financially.  I at least would feel better having a job that helped pay loans that paid for the Bachelor of Science degree I am not using anymore!


Despite the financial strain, I love him madly - flaws and all...

Knee deep in toddler s**t, WTF?

I have been shifting through the toddler poop all day. After four days of no pooping, we have poopapalooza. That is little man and me, celebrating our poopfest, looking and smelling at all of the poop. I am waiting for my husband to get home. He said he was packing the office up, like 20 minutes ago. Assured he is close to home, I call my husband - he apoligizes, he is still packing up the office. I start to wonder if he got fired - I mean, why else would it take that long to pack up the office? No, he did not get fired, he just takes longer to leave work than my toddler takes to get to the door. I take a deep breathe - I stifle my irritation, but it resurfaces when I remember his vow to be home for family dinners by 6:30pm, that promise lasted a measly week.  Nevermind family dinner tonight - it is out son's bedtime and my poop sniffing sick self is making him shrimp scampi (from a box).

Not knowing when the husband will be home makes it hard to prepare dinner - or any other task I want to complete before prime time programming begins (the TV does not go on in our house until after we put little man to bed). I mainly want my husband home because little man is an absolute barbarian in the evenings. Tonight he is a poopy barbarian. It is creeping past his bedtime and despite my threats to put him to bed before daddy gets home, we are waiting. It is not because I am fairminded - it is mainly because we are waiting for his poopy blanky to finish its spin in the dryer.

The White Room

I have to discuss the "White Room" as my husband calls it. We have a back porch/mudroom. It used to be a room without windows, just a summer porch. Before I moved in with him, my husband finished it off with electric heat, windows, sheetrock the works. As is was formerly a sunny summer porch, there is a lot of windows (9 to be exact), on all sides. Although, my normally very opinionated self would have spoken up about how to decorate the room, I did not want to stifle my husbands vision of the "White Room." I mean, I had just won the battle of getting rid of most of his furniture and keeping my (more tasteful) furniture. Not to say his furniture wasn't nice, but it suffered years of abuse by my husband's brother and his frat roomies who rented my husband's house while he was in Germany for a year- so it had to go! Really, I am not the bitch, who made him get rid of everything that was his...I digress, back to the "White Room." This room - my husband painted everything white, the walls, the trim and he finished it off with white blinds. He finished it off, with a tiny white faux bearskin rug from IKEA. The only thing he did not have was white furniture. Did I mention - we had just purchased a medium sized, black lab, greyhound mix? I did talk him out of white furniture - we agreed that was not so great for a house with animals.

Well, as you can imagine, an all white mudroom, did not fair so well in our busy household - and this was pre-baby! Eventually, I painted the wall underneath the windows brown, soon to be replaced with chalkboard paint to enhance my son's creative freedom. So now only the white trim and white wood blinds remain. The white blinds need cleaning at least three times a year - this morning it took me an hour to clean three. How the heck does dog hair pile up on the blinds anyways? We got these blinds, because they were marketed as great for household with pets. Really, meticulously wiping the blinds is better than taking a curtain down and throwing it in the wash? Doubt it. I am seriously thinking the white blinds have to go, but I feel I am slowly wiping away the last room my husband decorated on his own, thus snuffing out his creativity. Any thoughts?

The Making of the Mayhem

I am starting this blog to explore the person that I am and the person I want to be. I am a woman, a wife, a mother and a daughter. I am very neurotic, snarky, quirky with a tinge of OCD. These past years have been very challenging, but filled with so much joy and love.

I have noticed many of the “mommy” blogs are divided into categories (humor, life, religious, etc.). This will be a humor blog with a little real life stuff shining through. I might rant about my husband, get gooey lovey about him, talk some taboo subjects, sometimes I might be seen as whiny.  Sometimes, I feel like a plant, starved for water and sunlight. Sometimes, I open up too late and my emotions come flooding out of me in a river of tears.  Sometimes, I am filled with absolute happiness (not to be confused with the absolute vodka happiness, cause I rarely drink).  I have many ups and downs, but not enough to be bipolar.  Humor again...


On the serious, I am processing the loss of my most recent pregnancy at 14 weeks gestation.  This baby had been diagnosed with Alobar Holoprosencephaly. I am not strong enough to write about it yet, so let me rant about the humor of everyday life, while I work up the strength to talk about my family's loss.

I often think about how I got here. Thinking…ahhh…there is no time to think because the demands of being a mother kick in. I have a beautiful, vivacious, intelligent, one and half year old and he is creeping up behind me as I write, his giant brown eyes begging me for some attention.  Right now his soft and strong hands are reaching for me, his voice expressing frustration at my temporary diversion to the computer. He is my light, so with that, I bid you adieu.