Whoopsie Spaghetti O's

I have to admit, I kind of forgot I had a blog for a bit... and as my 2 year old would say... "Whoopsie spaghetti o's".  But now that I have been reminded, it is time for some typing therapy. :)
It is funny how reading my lasy post has made me realize how far I have come in the last couple months.  I think the best part about my life right now is that each time I think "Yep, this is the old me" and start to feel comfortable, I realize that I want more than the old me and take a step to make the new me a little better.  While parts of this changing have really sucked (and I mean REALLY sucked), turns out I am pretty awesome and can do just about anything.  Today I decided I really wanted to get up to the mountains before it got super snowy so I packed a picnic lunch, picked up our friends and headed to the mountains.  While this may not mean a lot to most people, today I conquered a goal.  I bought a GPS for my car last summer with the sole intention to be to take the very trip I did today.  Things always seemed to come up and my plans got pushed back further and further.  I will be the first to admit that I am pretty sure the "things" that kept coming up were just me trying to delay the trip.  But back to the awesome part, today I did it!  And it was one of those days that makes you realize how great life really is.  It may not be where I expected to be and some days are a struggle, but when it all comes down to it, I am a pretty lucky girl.
I have been able to improve relationships that were lost/damaged for a couple years when apparently I lost touch with the world.  Turns out, I have some really great friends. :)
I am trying to think about what has changed since the last post and really it is just hard to put into words.  So in honor of my old style of blogging, here is the rest in a brain dump:

• Turns out, I like feta cheese.  And greek salads.  And sandwiches.  And I even ate a black olive and didn't die.
• I LOVE my new furniture I picked out.  It has horrible static but it is soooo comfy.
• Sometime I sit in my living room and just stare at it and celebrate my victory of decorating it exactly as I wanted.
• I seriously hate the smell of the last two hairsprays I have purchased.  Thats why I usually stick with the same kind, not because of its hold, just because I know the smell is acceptable.
• I really hate doing dishes.  Like to the point where I think it might be unreasonable to hate it that much. 
• Sometime when I am doing dishes and I get to something that I just don't feel like cleaning, I will weigh the consequences of just tossing it in the trash instead of cleaning it.
• Sometimes the trash wins.
• Sometimes I see my old self reflected in others and I feel bad for them but then I think that I would have to feel bad for myself and I just can't do that.
• I should really put a lot more effort into potty training my daughter.
• What is up with the creepy kids toys that just start playing their creepy music in the drawer when no one is in the room?
• Some of those toys have been thrown into the trash.
• Sometimes I am tired of being the bigger person and I just want to say exactly what is on my mind.  And in my outside voice.
• I do not understand how people are okay with not being honest.  What's the point?
• While I may be generous with the speed limit at times, who in their right mind thinks that it is okay to speed through a school zone?  I strongly dislike that part of my drive each morning.  Its an elementary school and it is maybe two blocks that people need to slow down for. 
• I wish that I had spike strips I could throw out when those people are speeding through the school zone.  And then after their tires were flat, I would say "Ha ha ha".  (Not very nice, might need to delete this one)
• Every major part of my life has had a theme song, it helps me deal with things.  I am pretty sure I am in the place where I need a new theme song (see personal development at the beginning of this post) and I am excited to see what it will be.
• I believe that everything happens for a reason.  I like to know the reason.  So much so that sometimes I think I make up the reason before the real reason presents itself. 
• I like myself better now.  I am nicer.  I am happier.  I am a better person.  I think I might actually be making a positive impact on the world. 
• When I get into those situations where I wish I could see the future I play the "what if you really did have that power" game and think about what it would be like if I knew everything.  Makes me happy I can't see the future.
• I really need a new book to read.  I just finished "Gone Girl" and I don't have anything else I want to read right now.  I don't like that.
• I love that I just met another personal goal for my weight loss!  Next one is in 5lbs.  The overall goal is 50lbs.  I am down 20 so far.
• I don't understand people that don't have basic courtesy towards people.  Is it that hard to be a decent person?
• I could really go for some Cold Stone right now.  Cake batter with Snickers.  Instead I will drink my glass of water and go to bed.  And hopefully dream about eating ice cream :)

Once again, this post did not turn out at all where I thought it would be.  Oh well, guess I will have to come back tomorrow and try again.  :)

My new life

Sometimes I have been jealous of people that "accidentally" get pregnant.  (I use quotes because I think accident is an innappropriate term since we all know how babies are made and how to not make babies but that is a standard term so I use it begrudgingly.)  Some people just learn at 6-8 weeks that they have created life and then move forward.  For others, it is just not that simple.  For these people, there is no accident.  There is a lot of planning, a lot of hope, a lot of heartbreak, and a lot of stuff people who have not been through the journey can just not understand.  There are doctor appointments on top of doctor appointments, conversations about bodily functions that become so routine sometimes they forget that not everyone talks about these things.  There are procedures that happen that are only tolerable because of the hope of having a tiny little person.  There are tears that only a few people closest to you can see and then there are the tears that no one ever sees.  There is the hope that never dwindles no matter how many times it gets stomped on, twisted, squished, and thrown in your face.  There is a loneliness that only people that have been through infertility can understand.  You don't want to talk about it because you get that look of pity or people want updates each month.  It is just easier to deal with it privately than deal with it in front of others.  Your life becomes so different than what it had been prior to knowing what you now know.   So you figure out this new life.  For me it was taking a year off all the talking and planning and focusing on getting myself in a better place.  I lost weight and got in a much more positive place.  No matter what though, in the back of my head, I knew it all had a purpose. 
And then, the day happened where the magic stick finally said "pregnant".  Life changes.  All of a sudden, nothing matters except getting to 12 weeks.  The downside of the planning and thinking means that it takes a lot longer to get to twelve than it does when you don't start counting so early.  Every moment is spent thinking and wishing and hoping to make it to 12 weeks.  And finally that day comes and the goal is extended.  Every drink, every bite, every pill to keep my blood pressure in check, every moment is spent thinking about this new life (and yes, so there is no confusion, I am one of those people that believes life begins at conception).  And then for us, the doctor office calls and says they accidentally did an extra test and it could be bad so its time to see a specialist.  Now time is measured not only in baby weeks but also doctor visits.  There are regular visits, specialist visit, lab visits, and lot of needles.  The time in between the visits is spent thinking about all the possibilities and wondering what life will be like when the little one finally gets here. 
Finally the halfway point comes.  The time to meet the little girl is getting closer!  The appointments are becoming routine, the flutters/kicks/hiccups make it all feel okay and life becomes manageable.  A couple months later, one "routine" appointment lands you in labor and delivery way too early.  A horrible feeling overtakes life and the thinking and wishing increases.  Finally, the medicine works and you get to go home.  Of course that means bed rest or house arrest depending on how you look at it.  Life becomes a different counting game.  Now the magic number is 36.  Just get to 36 weeks.  Doctor appointments are 2-3 times a week.  To make life exciting, I sneak in a trip to Home Depot or  the grocery store.  At 36 weeks, the medicine is stopped and then it is just time to wait for labor.  And then time to wait for an induction date.  And then time to wait for labor.  And then time to wait for the baby to come.  And then life gets serious when the c-section is added to the picture.  And then a new life begins.
Now life is all about feedings and diapers and pain pills and counting days and weeks.  My life becomes focused on feeding and pumping and eating and drinking and sleeping.  The little baby grows.  Life changes but every day is still spent with her.  Watching every moment as she learns and grows.  And then the rest of life happens.  All of a sudden everything you thought you knew changes.
At that moment, my life became something different.  I spent a night away from my daughter while she stayed at her dad's for the first night.  I cried the morning I dropped her off but I did okay that night.  And the next day, I hugged her and life was good again.  A new routine develops and each week, I got through that night focusing on the next day.  And life keeps changing.  One year into this new life, life changes again.  And so begins a new life.  A new life with more nights away.  A new life where I need to find me.  A new chance to start fresh.  I survived the first week.
In this new life, I need to embrace my mommy time and embrace my Melissa time.  I need to remember that this is good for her.  I need to remember that she knows I love her even when she doesn't see me.  I need to remember that she is not a baby.  I need to remember to try new things.  I need to remember that a happy Melissa makes a happy mommy.  I need to learn how to sleep when she is not at home with me.  I need to remember to be thankful she has a daddy who wants time with her.  I need to take time to find me.  Time to work on relationships with people that got bumped down a few notches during the other parts of life.  I need to remember to be happy.  My new life is happening and just like before, this will not be my last life.  My life will change again.  I need to remember that change can be good.  For the first time in almost 4 years, I have consisten time to myself.  I spent the day at the lake with friends today.  It was fun but it felt so strange.  I am not used to daytime, not working and not having her with me.  I am looking forward to this new life becoming a routine.  I am looking forward to all of us adjusting to the new life.  I am looking forward to not sitting at home at night with my heart breaking because I will be used to my girl sleeping away from me.  When I started writing this, I was thinking that I was going to be looking forward to not counting every minute of my life as part of how it relates to my child.  I don't think that will ever happen.  I am counting the moments until my girl starts her first day of daycare.  I am counting the time until I get to leave work tomorrow and pick her up.  The moments until I get to tuck her in and give her a kiss and hug good night.  The moment my heart is at home with me.  This new life almost makes me understand why my mom slept on the couch until I got home.  There is just peace knowing your child is home with you.

Welcome to my new life.

My baby is so cute!

Over the last week, I have started walking at night with Alexis and Emma.  Usually we go out after dinner to give everyone a chance to get some fresh air and calm down a little before bed.  Apparently Alexis has been listening to me when I have been talking about out walks :).  Friday night after I cleaned up dinner, Alexis brought me my tennis shoes and said "Momma!  I need to go for a walk!  I sleep better after a walk!".  Of course, I can't turn down my little cutie pie so we went for a nice walk.  During the entire walk, she sat in her stroller wiggling and saying "my legs/tushy/feet are so excited, I just can't be still!".  She also loves to give Emma commands and surprisingly, Emma even listens to a few.  The one thing she cannot figure out though is why I pick up Emma's poop.  Everytime I get the bag out, she says "But momma, we aren't supposed to touch poop". 

Three good things happen on these walks.  First, my knee has been feeling much better if I just keep doing my foam roller.  The walks have not even been hurting at all.  I really don't even remember walking without my knee hurting.  It is nice to be able to walk three miles and be completely fine during and after the walk.  Second, my daughter cracks me up!  I love the memories I am getting with her and since she talks almost all the time, her thoughts make the walk that much more enjoyable.  Third, it gets us out of the house.  Sometimes it is so easy to fall into a boring routine and I love getting out of the house and changing things up. 

Not really sure...

I have absolutely no idea what is going to fall out of my head tonight so please consider yourself warned.  One of the things that has been on my mind A LOT lately is that it seems strange to me to be growing at 35.  Looking back at times when I thought I was a grown-up and set in my ways, I was obviously wrong but still, I am surprised.  In my work life, I have almost become the person that I want to be.  I am leading a couple of giant initiatives and since my friend just quit, I am now taking over the monthly budget summaries for the transfer agent.  Everything is a lot of fun, as far as things I can do at work fun, and outside of the couple of annoying things that will likely never change, I think I am happy.  I have learned how to use my role to be more of a consulting role which benefits me greatly since I am not emotionally vested in the projects.  I have learned to find my voice in almost every group and also how to stand up for myself, regardless of the title that may be the offender.  I have learned to let go of the competitveness (ok, probably not so much "let go" as tone it down into a normal range) and have gotten a lot of positive feedback from my teammates about how much they enjoy me teaching them new skills so they can do new tasks.  I have also learned that there are just some people that are toxic and dangerous and it is okay to not be involved in their drama.  Overall, I think it is safe to say that work is going well.  As long as I can meet all my deadlines in the next 30 days, all is well.  No pressure.
I have also been amazed at how much I have grown outside of work.  I figured that I would change after the divorce.  I knew there were parts of me that I wasn't happy with and I had hoped that I would be able to change those things.  But there have also been things that I didn't even realize needed to be changed until I looked back and saw how far I had come.  It has been a year since we split up and when I think about where I was then compared to now, I am proud of myself.  I have a lot of moments where I wonder how things are going to turn out in this life but in almost every version that I can come up with, my daughter and I are just fine.  That is a reassuring thought.  Some things I have learned over the last year:

• How to make a meal that is the right portion size for one grown-up and one toddler.
• How to talk myself out of a negative spot and address and issue head on.
• That nothing bad is going to happen if my walls are not painted perfectly and if someone doesn't like it, they can lose the privilege of coming over to my house and seeing them.
• I don't have to put up with crap.  From anyone. 
• I have the right to make my own decisions and I need to use that right.
• I do not have to make anyone happy other than my daughter and myself.  And the dog.
• Realizing that I am happy with who I am sets an entirely new tone for my life. 
• How strange it is at times to see my daughter walking around the house and knowing that she has my heart.
• How to forgive myself and move forward.
• How to be at peace with my decisions, even if they turn out to be less than the best ones.
• The world is not going to end if my house isn't spotless at the end of the day.
• I am strong.  I can do this.  At times it will suck, maybe suck a lot, but I can do this.

I don't feel like I said what I thought I was going to say when I decided to start writing earlier but I am tired now so I must have gotten something out of my head that needed to get out.  Last night I had a dream where everything I wanted (in my immediate world) came true.  Hoping for similar amazing dreams tonight.  :)

Catching up

While Alexis is finishing her Backyardigans movie, I am going to take a few minutes to catch up.  Hopefully I will get out pictures on tonight.  The last few weeks have been kind of crazy for us.  Work has been kind of busy and while I am finally getting to work on stuff I want to do, I have realized that this is not a position that I will have a career in.  I have been exploring areas that I really want to go into but it is hard to take a leap of faith with a career when I have a 2 year old counting on me to make her world okay, if not amazing, and I have a mortgage that I have to pay on my own.  My company is a good organization, it is stable even with the crazy markets and I have great benefits, with everything from health care to flexible schedules.  I just know that everything will change if I switch jobs and I am not sure how willing I am to take on such a big change.  I just know that it is closely becoming time to move on.
As for the rest of life..... Alexis just turned 2!  I can still remember being in the hospital for that ridiculously long day and the exact moment when I heard her cry for the first time.  I am still amazed at the feeling of love I have when I look at her. I love spending time with her and seeing the new things she learns every day. 
I have begun to embrace being a homeowner and have kept up on the painting, cut down a tree in the backyard with my very own chainsaw, and a few other projects that I am trying on my own.   I still have moments where I feel like owning a house by myself is super sucky but then I sit on the deck while Alexis is playing outside and I know that this is where I am meant to be.
As my birthday rolled around this year, I realized that I am getting old.  Not bad old, just grown-up old.  I don't have some horrible fear of growing older, it is just a strange feeling to realize that I am a grown-up.  I have also been faced with the realization that I may never have a chance to have another baby.  I know that most people understand how precious the gift of a child is but for a few of us that have faced infertility and had to wrap our brains around the fact that we may never actually have a baby, the gift of being able to carry a baby for a healthy pregnancy and hold this tiny gift in your arms is almost mindblowing.    (Of course at this moment, my gift has brought her step stoll down from upstairs for the first time and is now moving it along the kitchen counters saying "Look, I can reach mommy!!!"  Crap.)  Now relocated in the kitchen to supervise, I will continue.  I never wanted Alexis to be an only child.  I love having a brother and a sister.  I wonder how her life will be without that sibling to turn to when a parent just isn't enough.  I know her dad may have kids with someone else or either one of us could find someone that has their own children but it is just isnt the same.  It isn't what was supposed to happen in the version of life I thought I had.  I guess that is my downfall- sometimes I am just mad that my life didn't turn out the way I thought it was going to.  I am happier now and I know that I am a better mom for Alexis but sometimes being a single parent just sucks.  That is all on that.
I am dog sitting a friend's dog for 10 days.  He is the best dog, aside from the surprises he seems to be leaving for me, and him and Emma are almost getting along.  While this is going to be a very long 10 days, I am thankful that I offered to take him as I have realized that I do not want to get a second dog.  If I am this stressed with such a good puppy (he doesn't bark, he is great with Alexis and he is pretty calm), there is no way I can do it with a less than good puppy.  I have started having potty conversations with Alexis and she has gone a few times on the potty but I am still cleaning the carpet at least one time a week while we are learning how to do this potty training stuff.  There is absolutely no way that I want to housebreak a puppy at the same time I am trying do this with her.  I think that might be something that is part of the "Unanswered Prayers" song with Garth Brooks.  :)
Apparently I have a hard time just existing.  I keep thinking I need to get my PhD so I can do the online teaching thing for a second job.  I keep thinking about starting to date again.  I want to redo a bunch of things in the house.  What I am not good at is sitting and just being.  I am one of those people that likes songs to relate to when I am going through different things.  I had songs for breakups that I could play and eventually started making me feel better.  I had a song that I would sing when I was stressed while waiting tables.  For this point in my life, I listen to "You're Going to Miss This" by Trace Adkins.  It helps me remember to focus on this time in my life and njoy the simplicity (most of the time) of this time in my life.  My life really is pretty good.  Sometimes I need help to remember to be where I am and not trying to get to where I think I should be.  When I have those moments of clarity, I feel a little guilty about being so happy.  I have an amazing daughter, I have a great family, I have wonderful people in Colorado that are willing to help me with anything I need, and I have started rebuilding friendships that got lost along the way.  I am blessed.
That's all for now, time for lunch :)  (Hmmmm... I seem to have diverted from my original topic of the post.  Guess there will be more catching up when I post pictures!)

Lizards and snakes!

At the end of last year, I bought a membership to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  Some friends with small children recommended it over the zoo since it can be too hot to go to the zoo during the summer. The first time we went was when Brenda and family were out for Christmas.  We took the whole day and got to see the dinosaur exhibit that was there in addition to all the regular stuff.  I took the Monday off after Easter and Alexis and I went to the zoo so I didn't want to do that again this weekend so we decided to head to the museum and see the new Lizards and Snakes exhibit.  Best part of my pass- got in free for this visit (I am already ahead on the price I paid for the membership so now it really is free :) ) and then we went right up to the Lizards and Snakes, walked through the Prehistoric exhibit that we skipped last time and then went to the Discovery Zone where Alexis could play.  I think we were there around 2 hours, had a lot of fun and then came home without being annoyed with people.  Since it was free, I didn't feel like I had to see everything to make it count for the visit.  Alexis does so well when we are out and we have a lot of fun getting out of the house on the weekends :)

 There was a few fun kids things in addition to the lizards and snakes to look at.  This one had skulls and eggs and stuff that were hiding under the tiles.

 She only liked the snake when his head was up and he was looking at her.  As soon as he laid his head down, she was not interested.

 Not too sure about the giant fake anaconda on the ground.

 Getting a little closer....

 "Ok momma, I touched it."

 Trying to lift the 100lb anaconda like the other kids were doing :)

 Magnet animals at the Discovery Zone

 She really, really liked the dinosaurs.

 Making scarves fly in the air.

 She also really, really liked that all the stools were her height :)

 Digging for fossils...

 or watching the black sand stuff slowly fall out of her hand

Pretty proud of herself for burying the knee pads.

Silly green screen pictures they offer at the end of the main exhibit :)

Fun pics

 Zoo day with Mommy!

 Aren't I cuter than the baby orangatun?

 She wouldn't play the drum and look at me :)

 Yep, fun day at the zoo!

 Our first worm.  I put it in her hand and she said "Awwwww, cute!"

Our first caterpillar- she LOVES her bugs!