S P A C E

We bought our house knowing we would need to do a lot of work to it. Some things were unexpected (water main break), and others have become priorities (gutters), but then others just had to be done for us to be comfortable living here. The first major rehaul was our kitchen. We changed the entire layout in order to join the 21st century and install a dishwasher (yay!!!!). We can't call the kitchen completely done yet, but the parts currently left undone are just cosmetic: walls need to be plastered and painted, and crown moulding needs to be applied to both the walls and the new cabinets. And then, finished!

I got sidetracked. What I really want to talk about is the upstairs. While selling the house, the previous owners listed it as having three bedrooms. I've drawn a (very rough) approximation of what the floor plan looked like (I've since discovered that it's wrong, oh well).


See how the "third bedroom" does not have a closet? And how you have to walk through it to get to the two REAL bedrooms?

That's what it USED to look like. This is what Senpai and his Dad have done:

There's a room for R!! She doesn't have to be in our room anymore since the in-laws are in the guest room that used to be R's room. Actually, the whole reason I started this post is because the in-laws are currently on a trip. Building the means to take this journey is the very reason they moved in with us in the first place, and I'm so happy for them that they are finally able to do it, after wanting to for so very long. They'll be gone for three weeks, and we've been given permission to move R back into the guest room while they are away, as her new room still needs plaster and paint. It was no big deal to move her from the guest room to our room back in October because she wasn't quite as aware of her surroundings. All she knew was that she was sleeping in the same crib, it didn't matter where it was. But she's grown in the 4 months that have elapsed, and now she realizes that she can't look over the bumper and see Mommy sleeping anymore. She is confused and upset. Mommy and Daddy are in seventh heaven. ^_^

On a final note regarding the upstairs floor plan, this is my dream if we can ever get to it:

Hee hee. Dream on, right?

Moving Forward

The changes are coming fast now.

Before, when I took the picture of her with the ramen noodles, I was putting bits of noodles in her mouth. Yesterday she started practicing her pincer grip, and oh yeah, is she putting the food in her mouth.

And today, well, she's moving forward. She could roll side to side, push herself backwards, and now she has finally found forwards.



There's no stopping her now. :-D

Tears Above the Bathwater

I can't sleep...

Tonight is yet another night when I feel too much to settle down. I'm an empath. I don't like to take that word out often because it always brings up images of Star Trek, and makes me seem like I'm trying to be cooler than I actually am, but at times like these, late at night when I'm experiencing others' pain, I can't ignore it. I don't watch the news because those stories come back to haunt me. At midnight, while the rest of the house sleeps, a baby is thrown in a washing machine (the last news story Senpai unfortunately told me), and I'm in the machine with it. The water washes over me in the dark. I tumble, tumble, tumble, and I can't breath. I only want the soft warmth of my mother's embrace, NOT THIS!!! Terror. Pure Terror. And, of course, I can't sleep. That poor, damn baby (get out of my head).

I have to close myself off from others' suffering or else it becomes too raw, too real. That makes me distant and hard. I'm too serious. I lost my sense of humor somewhere along the way; where did it go? I hate myself. I hate myself for feeling too much.

I suspect a reason why I'm so sensitive to everyone's pain is because I shut down my own pain. I injured my finger today. Though there was blood involved, and a raw nailbed, I couldn't say it hurt exactly. It just felt irritated. I also changed my insulin pump infusion set today, which involves jamming a thick needle in my butt. Always pleasant. And I'm an emotional rollercoaster of hurt, anger, and frustration due to the usual reasons. But I can't let any of it out. Painful accidents happen, whoops. The needle has to go in or I die. I have to swallow my feelings and move on, or else I wouldn't make it through the day/week/month. Keep going, don't break down now/later/ever. Just swallow the pain. Bury it deep. No wonder I feel sick to my stomach.

I took a bath to try to help change my mindset. Calm down, unwind, all that good stuff. It felt nice, but I'm still awake, fighting the same demons I was before. I know I need therapy. I don't know who I should see: masseuse, shrink, yogi, guru, priest? All of the above? Tears brimmed over my eyes in the tub. For one second I allowed myself to BE the emotional wreck that I am, not someone else, ME. I tried to go with it, let it all out while I had the chance, but the tears went away. The hurt, anger, and frustration were swallowed up again. The breakdown was once again postponed for another day. Whatever. I just hope beyond hope that now I'll sleep.

Food, Real Food!

And suddenly, she's eating table food.



Little Miss R, 9 1/2 months old now, just today decided to sample some of my oatmeal for breakfast, and wanted to try some noodles for lunch. I guess I need to put more effort into choosing healthy foods for lunch now instead of just grabbing whatever's available. Someday R will notice that her ramen noodles aren't smeared in the same yellow, sodium-laden seasoning as mine, and that's when we'll really be in trouble. We'd do better to stay away from the ramen I think. ^_^



Like the rest of the country we had snowfall recently, and this time we were ready for it! The last time it snowed was on Christmas. We didn't have a snowsuit for R then, so this was her first experience going outside and sitting in the fluffy whiteness. She wasn't impressed overall.


We didn't have boots for her, so I put sandwich baggies over her Hello Kitty slippers. Kawaii!!



I finished the crochet project I had been working on. It's a blanket buddy for R. It was going to be a birthday present, but since it's a bunny, I figure it's more Easter appropriate. I've given it to the Easter Bunny for safekeeping.

And on a final note...



Don't they look so adorable??

False Alarm / Cloth "Comfort Pads"

Well, the negative pregnancy tests were right. My period decided not to come one or two days off, but an entire week late. That's never happened before; it really caught me off guard! I am relieved to have a little more time to let R grow up before handing her a baby sibling. Yeah, I was worried: R doesn't even crawl yet, and she's getting heavier and heavier by the week. Being pregnant and still toting R around would have been a mite more than I'd liked to have handled. No worries, though! Just one baby for us to handle for now. We'll let R's sibling float around the universe a little longer before he or she will join us here. :-)

Aside from not having a baby we weren't quite ready for yet, a good thing about my period showing up is that I get to use my new FuzziBunz Comfort Pads! I would have been bummed if I had to wait another 9 months before trying them out!!! Haha. After the initial post-pregnancy blood-fest, my period took 6 months off while I pumped breastmilk. The first time it came back, I had a whole new perspective on my disposable pads. I happily wrap my baby's butt with cloth diapers. I wash them, they come out really clean, then I use them again. I love it! And R doesn't seem to mind. There are companies out there who make cloth menstrual pads, so why don't I try them? After my second period, I was done. I ordered my FuzziBunz Comfort Pads, one set of three regular pads, and another set of three overnights.

Now I finally get to use them, yay! They are just as absorbent as disposable pads. The big difference is that disposables are better at dispersing the menses throughout the entire pad, where the cloth ones just accept the blood where it plops. Your options then are to either change the pad, or shift where it sits on your underwear (ewww). I choose to change the pad. Cleanup is a breeze as I just throw them in the diaper pail with R's FuzziBunz. After the same wash cycle that the diapers get, the pads that experienced heavy bloodflow still have slight staining, but the other ones are crisp and white again. I am a very satisfied customer!!! If anything, I'm happy I get to know just how comfortable R must be in her FuzziBunz!

I Feel Fat

"I feel fat."

That's what I said early September 2009 to a friend who asked if me I felt pregnant. Husband and I had just started trying to have a baby. In August I recorded notes in my Mac's calendar program: period from then to then, tried then, feeling like this then. I was pretty sure I was pregnant, but the pee sticks kept coming up negative (also recorded in the calendar... for posterity). It was Thursday when my friend asked me how I felt, and finally on Saturday morning, Labor Day weekend, the pee stick rang true: pregnant! From very early on my boobs were sore, I was bloated, and I peed like a racehorse (Seabiscuit to be exact, if you've seen "Juno"). But mostly, I felt fat.


So now, color me surprised when I say... I feel fat. My period was supposed to help me ring in the new year on Dec 31, but it hasn't stopped by for a visit yet. Usually I'm pretty regular when it comes to vaginal bleeding, so you can bet I was anxious when Jan 1 rolled around and there was still no sign of it. I'm starting this post at 11:00 pm on Jan 2, by the way. It won't be published just yet because the dang pee stick came out negative, and I really can't be too certain until I see a positive result, plus I have to tell my Mom before she reads it on the internet, but, yeah. I feel fat. And I have to pee a lot. And tonight I even felt too nauseous to eat dessert! Gasp! That never happens. But my boobs feel no different, probably because I'm still pumping miniscule amounts of breastmilk for R.

Okay, so now it's 7:00 am on Jan 3. I called my Mom already because I am not a morning person but somehow I was up at 5:00 devouring a bowl of ramen. Totally normal, right? But, might I add, I win the title of "Supermom" this morning: I made Senpai's breakfast and lunch, there's a loaf of banana bread baking in the oven, the laundry has been started, and I took a shower, all before R has woken up, on 3 1/2 hours of sleep, AND completely without coffee. Win!!!

Yup. Positive pee stick or not, I am calling the obgyn today. Now to publish this blog post and go forage in the cupboards for something else to curb my insatiable hunger.

Good morning!!!!! :-D

2011's Dramatic Entrance

The last day of 2010 was spent worrying about this storm.



This doppler picture was taken just before the storm roared into our little town and hung around for an hour. I always thought that tornadoes couldn't form in the rain, so in my mind, we were safe as long as it was raining. The newscasters pierced that happy dream by announcing the storm was producing "rain-wrapped tornadoes," and that set off my panic alarms. We have a basement, but it is unfinished in a dank, dismal, non-baby-friendly way, so we weren't going to go down there unless we absolutely had to, which meant my ears were tuned into every thunder rumble, waiting for it to not stop but only get louder as the funnel cloud touched down in our neighborhood. But the thunder sounds came and went, the dark, terrible sky cleared up again, and the newscasters shifted their attention to the damage that had been done versus the damage that could still happen. We were safe.


Miss R rang in the new year by falling asleep to Mary Poppins.

After being unsuccessful in our attempts to kick the in-laws out of the house for the night, Senpai and I went to a party held by our neighbors. We learned the joys of Farkle, and I re-learned how to get a hangover.

Coming in to 2011, there's a glimmer of something on the horizon, and I'm holding my breath in wait for it. Love and joy to all.