Musings of a Drugged Mind

I've taken approximately 3 Midrin. While the 1st two usually don't have much affect, the subsequent doses tend to make the sedative in the Midrin effective. I should be going to bed instead of writing this. I probably shouldn't even divulge these subsequent thoughts, yet I won't censor myself completely.

2008 was both wonderful and terrible. It brought me more love than I ever thought possible in the form of a squalling, laughing, squealing, and pooping tiny little human being, my daughter, Lillian. She stands at 11 months now; hard to believe how much she's altered in the past year. She giggles, she flirts, she's learning so much every day and never fails to make me smile. My heart bursts at the thought of her. I have been blessed and I am thankful to have such a wonderful, intelligent, loving, and healthy child. I cannot wait to see what the next year of development brings.

Alfred and I continued to grow closer even though I have tried to shove him away several times, believing it was for the best. I've been difficult to deal with, unfortunately riddled with postpartum depression. It lingers still, but not quite to the extent of it all.

I never really faced the changes in my life the year before, I kept going, kept trying to take one step forward to make a life for the child I carried in my womb. But, I lost a husband. I almost lost my best friend. I almost lost Alfred. My early pregnancy was wrought with stress, tears, and heartache. I wasn't sure if Alfred was going to stay, was ever going to forgive me. I lived in an environment that stressed me out everyday, I felt so alone because I barely saw him and I had no friends remaining in San Diego, all of them in Pittsburgh. I still feeling so alone many times due to this fact. I dream and miss Pittsburgh quite often. I miss the open country. I miss the character of the old houses. I miss the weather. I miss my friends. But now as of December, Alfred and I have lived together for a year and our love remains steady and strong. I still can't trust that he won't leave me eventually, though. I am insecure and I worry despite his promises.

We officially entered into escrow on a house today. It's a decent place but has no character; just white and tan. I know we can make it so it has life again with plans of xeriscaping the desolate yard and adding color to the white walls. Still, the homes here cost more than other cities, and lacks in the same character and beauty (and land, though we will have a fairly decent sized yard), so at the same time I am sad, but excited, and scared of this important step forward.

As for my relationship concerns. I am afraid that I will rue the day he and his ex before/in between me actually see each other in person once again. I know he still loves her. I can't fault him for that, but the thought hurts and it makes me nervous. She had a great personality, very funny, exceptionally creative, is beautiful and I believe, made him happy. He loved her, and loves her still, I've no doubt. So I worry over it. I prepare for it.

I desire more than just being a girlfriend at this juncture though I won't bring it up anytime soon, I am not that kind of person to nag about such things. I yearn for my child to be legitimize to know that I'm not giving the milk for free, so to speak. Yes, I want marriage again, eventually. But I want to do it right this time. I want the proper proposal, the ring, albeit simple, but a ring nonetheless. I want an extended, long engagement, with plenty of planning. I don't care for a fancy ceremony, just the two of us would suffice. I want a dress that Lillian can one day declare, "this was my mother's dress. She looked beautiful and was so happy" and maybe use one day for her own wedding, or simply cherish as a keepsake. I just want to be a family in every sense possible. And I want to live that life together as a whole. I want to do it right. I want to love, to be loved in every way.

My goals for this year, finally get out of the last etches of my financial debts except for school loans. To acquire a new car before mine officially bites the dust. To lose the last of this baby weight. To make it through the school year with some sanity intact and prepare for my Master thesis. To dance in a feis. To save money in preparation of sending Lilly to a performing arts pre-school when she's 3. To maybe take up fencing again. To master the timing of the treble reel. To love Alfred and Lilly with all the I am. To be happy. To smile and laugh often.

The Run Down....

Christmas hasn't totally happened yet for us. What did happen was a case of the worst stomach bug ever. I say this with no exaggeration. I've had the stomach flu before but this, this was absolutely number 1 of bad bugs....so far. Last Monday, Lilly came down with it, which I feel so bad that she got this horrible thing as her first real sickness at 10.5 month old. It was so hard having her writhe in pain and scream as her little body was racked with the heaves of vomiting. Ugh, poor little girl. On Christmas Eve, I came down ill, very ill. I could not stop vomiting. I could not hold any liquid down, period. I quickly became dehydrated to the point I could barely stand anymore and my lips started turning blue. I was rushed to the ER and after 4 rounds of anti-nausea meds and a bag of fluids, my blood work was incredibly abnormal and I still was sick so they admitted me at 1 am Christmas Day into the hospital. After a 5th dose of meds, more fluids, and a private, quiet hospital room, I slept and mended, being released at 1 pm Christmas Day to go home and sleep. Almost a week later, we're still all recovering. Alfred got sick while we were in the ER and had to go home. He, luckily, was only sick for 24 hours because on the 26th, his mom and sister came down ill. His mom had been helping us watch Lilly while were we sick. Soooo yeah, Merry Christmas! We celebrated a bit with my folks on Sunday, and will hopefully have Christmas with Alfred's family, albeit late, but happy :). Maybe I can actually eat the Christmas feast. My parent's gave us the rest of their huge ham, but I've yet to be able to enjoy it. I just graduated to dry cereal.

Otherwise, life is good. The Winter Quarter starts in a week for school. Irish Dance continues to be enjoyable.

I shall muse about 2008 next...

Nothing is like it seems, turn my grief to grace

Unfortunately life has just been exhausting. I began my Master's program at the end of September. One week of class equals two weeks of work on campus, so you can imagine, I have a ton of reading and writing to do within a week's time on top of my job and my family life. I will admit, it has not been easy. While I have happier moments, with states of calmness and tranquility, my breakdowns come without warning now. Suddenly, I am overwhelmed, then anger takes its strangling hold, or else, bitter tears stain my cheeks. Hell, I actually began crying in public yesterday over stupid Build-A-Bear. I don't cry in public! So, in some ways, the PPD has begun to improve, but with exhaustion and stresses, it never ceases to remind me, the demon lives on inside. I remain medication free though and am bound to get through it medication free.

I love, love love, my Irish Step Dance class as well. It's going wonderfully and frustratingly. Surprisingly we get to begin hard shoe either this week or next. She told us in August, when we began that it would be at least a year before we got to hard shoe, but apparently we must be doing a good enough job to do it sooner! I know the beginner's reel, light jig, slip jig (most difficult but I love it...or have a love/hate relationship with it), and single jig. I believe the first hard shoe dance is a treble reel or treble jig. Regardless, its going to be difficult. I'm not ready to compete yet, personally, I'm too much of a perfectionist to attempt it so soon; a lot of technical aspects to work out first.

Alfred and I have been working on purchasing a home. The market sucks. Yes, even for a buyer's market, it still sucks. A foreclosure means you have a 50/50 chance of finding a home in need of only cosmetic repairs, or an oh my god, did this place used to house drug dealers or animals? In some instances, both wound up being the case (Alfred and our agent, Eric, located a crack pipe in one of the houses). People get angry. In turn, these people take their aggression out on the house before being evicted, can't blame them really, but ugh, the banks rarely desire to fix up the property. Although, I have noticed that there is an increase in banks paying for repairs, new carpet and paint in cases of homes being totally wrecked because they know no one will purchase it otherwise. We have lost out on a few homes because we were too late in getting our offer in (you literally have to go that same day the home is posted and hope for the best), or the bank decides to accept multiple offers, then requests the "best" offers to be submitted, which means, we lose because investors with cash available tend to have better offers. We have an offer standing on a house right now, that we got in literally just a few hours after the house had come on the market, but unfortunately it was the night before Thanksgiving so over this entire weekend, people could be looking and submitting offers. If its a bank that is evil and likes to have multiple and best offers, rather taking first come first serve, then we're doomed. I am trying not to get my hopes up, disappointment seems to be the name of the game, alas.

Lillian continues to grow and amaze. Her physical milestones appear to occur at average levels, but her cognitive skills however, seem to be advance. She has a growing awareness and vocabulary. She can say, "woof woof" and "dag" for dog, and loves to bark at them. It's cute to watch her tug on Alfred's pant legs, lifting her arms up, saying, "Dada, bup!"...yes, that's a sentence in a 10 month old. "Num nums" are food and only food. She's known mama and who it applies to for several months now. She learned how to shake her head no from one single video on Sesame Street the other day too. She loves, absolutely loves music (to the point that she can bob her head and kick her leg in time with the music) so I went onto Sesame Street's website where they have videos of their songs. Well, one of the songs is Oscar the Grouch with some kids doing the "No No Dance" where they shake their heads and literally halfway through the short video she began to shake her head no and has been doing ever since. I told Alfred, uhm I knew Sesame Street was educational but I had no idea it was that immediate. Yeah, as I said, my kid's brain is developing faster than her body, which is just fine with me!

I began Weight Watchers about a month ago. Two weeks ago I started the Couch to 5K program. I know, I've done running in the past, but my body is just so beat up, I decided it was time to start from the beginning. I get up earlier every other day before work and do the program. I have lost 5 lbs in the month since beginning Weight Watchers; finally the pregnancy weight is going down.

I also began physical therapy for my back again. It's only been about 8 years, but I finally decided to do something about the scar tissue and pain. The PT said there was no easy fix for someone in my condition, bah. I need to do a combination of strengthening the really deep inner muscles, then out as well as painful deep tissue massage to try and break up the scar tissue. This mind you, hurts. Using arnica gel, and his stregnth, Alfred has volunteered to provide the deep tissue torture. After this is done, its followed by ice to calm down the inflammation. Over years and years worth of scar tissue, I feel like I'm in that scene of 40 Year Old Virgin when he gets the wax treatment to violently rip the hair from his chest and he's cussing out thet technican, yeah I feel like doing that to Alfred when he's working my back.

Really, despite small inconveniences, and amidst this whole economic crisis, we are truly lucky. We both have jobs. We can feed Lillian and ourselves. We have a home. We can afford to purchase the things we need and pay our bills. In today's modern financial depression, that's an accomplishment. We have a wonderful family, a strong, steady, and growing love, a beautiful little girl, and our crazy dog; much to be thankful for to say the least.

Tick, tock, tick, tock

So, everyone is all excited about Alfred and Lilly...and then I'm somewhere thrown to the side. What I mean is, his friends who find out about the baby, get all excited over her and him. I'm offered congrats and a "she's beautiful"...sometimes, but really, I always get thrown to the side, unless I'm enduring comments such as, "Oh, is this the mother?" No, no, I'm not, I'm just the hot nanny he's screwing. Seriously. Women. Suck. Why are we our own worst critics? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this at all. When Alfred and I first began dating, people were livid, they hated me for the simple fact that he picked me and not them. Rumors were spread, looks were given, nasty comments made. So, now, he not only picked me again, but I am the mother of his child, reasons to hate me more. Whatever. Fine. I'll be the pariah, but one day, I won't sit by quietly. Tick, tock, tick, tock....

It's been a while since I posted, I know. I haven't much felt like it really, even though work is as boring as usual. Sigh. Life update: I'm still depressed. I still hate living in San Diego and desire to be elsewhere. We're looking to buy a house. I start school on the 24th. Lilly started crawling, waving and wanting to feed herself this past weekend. She can pull herself to standing when given the chance as well. She loves to dance. I started an Irish Step Dance class a month ago and LOVE it...gives me something else to love in my life besides Alfred and Lilly, gods know I needed it. And yep, that's it in a nutshell. Fin.

“He who has a mind to do mischief will always find a pretense”

It's been a little while since I wrote...

I've been working my butt off on working out and cutting calories the past 2 and a half weeks, really stepping it up. The scale mocks me, but the measuring tape is being generous; I've lost a half inch from the thighs, waist and an inch from my hips. It's going to be a very slow progress as I may have what they call postpartum thyroid-whatever, which showed signs of a hyperthyroid at the beginning of the postpartum period (which mine did) and then around this time postpartum, it slows down into hypothyroidism. Good news, in most people it goes away at about 12-18 months PP *sigh* But in the meantime, I'm redeveloping healthier eating habits; I get full sooner so I can't really pig out and I can go longer between eating.

My ex-husband appears to may be getting remarried. He emailed me stating he needed a copy of the divorce decree and how to go about getting one from the courthouse here. Seriously, the only reason a guy would need a copy of a divorce decree is to prove that he's really no longer married to obtain a marriage certificate. As much as I hate him, this sort of pisses me off. After all the crap he put me through, the financial damage, the spiteful actions, the stress, and a year later he's looking to get remarried? I know I had a child, I should talk, but the baby wasn't planned, it was accidental, I didn't go out and propose to Alfred and he hasn't proposed to me. But I think as Maggie pointed out, I got the better end of the deal as I got Lilly and who knows what his new wife to be is like.

Lilly is doing great. She's crawling in circles now, and she's good at it, so maybe she'll start moving forward soon, then we'll be in trouble! We're trying to see if we can wean her to a regular formula now. We did 2 oz of the Carnation Good Start with cultures and 4 oz Nutramigen mix for the first week, now this week we're up to a half and half mix. So far so good! She actually doesn't spit up as much either and lets out burps that makes her momma proud ;). Next week we'll move to a 4 oz Carnation, 2 oz Nutramigen mix and then hopefully, fingers crossed straight onto nothing but regular formula. If that happens, with the solid food increase, she'll be taking in less formula and with a cheaper formula that means saved money!

We had our annual trip to Disneyland on July 17, Disneyland's birthday. Our theme this year was paparazzi. We had a token "star" which was Scott dressed in regular clothes with a baseball cap, a bluetooth and sunglasses. There were a couple "bodyguards" dressed in black and the rest as press with their cameras or press badges. We made a couple press badges and dressed normally. However, first ride in, Pirates, the management asked us to remove our badges because people were asking us about who that was with us, thinking that Scott was really a star and we were his entourage. So because we created "too much commotion" and made people "think there's actually a celebrity at Disneyland" that day, and our press badges looked to authentic (yay for us) we had to remove them and behave. Disneyland management and higher ups really have a stick up their butts, I tell ya. Second ride, Haunted Mansion, we got to ride back up the large elevator with all the photos, the stretching room, you know, on our backs...the ride person told us to lay on the ground and it just looks neat watching the ceiling coming rushing back at you so that was different. And Alfred got to go into California Adventure for the first time. We only did California Screamer, The Tower of Terror and Soaring Over California, but really, those were the couple of rides that aer worth it. All in all, we had a great time :)

Oh yeah, the new Batman movie, rocks. Heath Ledger, its a damn shame, he did an awesome, awesome, creepy job.

Lonely...

I am alone. I miss my friends. I have none here. I hate it. No one even seems to talk to me anymore, or very rarely. What the point anymore?

Life is going well. Alfred and I are still doing fantastically. Lilly is getting big so fast and is such a delight. I'm finally seeing some muscle definition on my thighs which is awesome. Speaking of Lilly here are some new photos, mostly goofy ones, she has the silliest expressions, but she's cute nonetheless :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/aroebuck/June2008BabyLillian?authkey=7YZ5Wu6H150