update

well i must really getting hormonal or something because things that usually don't bother me are making life very difficult... one of them being visiting my grandmother. I understand that they are at home, lonely with nothing to do but they honestly bring it upon themselves. they are (to them) too old to do anything, yet their friends volunteer, go out, come visit them despite their old age.

pathetic.

well i've been caught in the middle of this pity party and I go visit them at least three times a week - which according to people I know is too much. which I agree with. first, there is the hypocritical BS. my grandmother thinks I have a condition called 'pregnancy' and that I should be home ridden EXCEPT when it comes to visiting her (duh, right?). second of all, every time i visit they don't acknowledge me when I come in. its all about jake. which gets under my skin. I am the one who drove there, brings him to their house because i 'feel bad' for them... well fuck that i guess. thirdly, they hover over jake which mentally drains me the most. I was raised that way and for sure I am NOT going to raise my son that way! last of all when I can't stand it anymore and I announce that I am leaving, they try their best to keep me there. they give me guilt trips even if i have been regularly visiting every other fucking day for the past three weeks. It simply makes me not want to come back. I've mentioned to my grandmother about this. she just said that it makes me happy when you come visit... well I fucking know that but you make my stay hell (well i said that in a nicer way of course)! then she said, well come when you are less stressed. wtf? you are the one who stresses me out. well, whatever i guess. I am going to try to cut down on visiting them. I figure I just cut down the length of time I stay.

other than that, things are doing ok. we have stayed busy mostly with la leche, meeting up old friends, practicing retail therapy, and crafting (don't tell my grandma that! lol). I just sent along the first few care packages packed with snacks. I haven't made yarn in a while. i'm itching to but i'm all out of fiber. I sm waiting till next month to buy any, since I had to buy glasses thanks to a certain 2 year old. i've been able to talk to paul for about 30 minutes once a day from the MWR. i get pretty good updates from the squadron chaplain on facebook too. he says its ok out there but its certainly not the hilton. lol. of course its not, silly man!

normalcy

I went to the art zone yesterday. I loved it. it is the coolest place ever for a kid. it has a wet room where kids can play with water and mud, art projects galore, and a cool play room with costumes and a hanging bridge.

there as i saw the other moms with the slings, moms nursing in the play room (4 of them at once - all ages), and the organic snacks served towards the end, i realized that i'm just 'that mom'.

i never saw my parenting methods as an identity (i just do it because its just the way it is to me), but being around mothers who parent the same way i guess is starting to shape me as who I AM. i can't really explain it well. its not a feeling of relief or anything, but maybe the feeling that simply doing what i feel is right is alright. maybe a sense of normalcy.

i remember now when monica said about how she wanted to move to california and i never really understood it. i hate living here. i hate how people were generally cold, out for themselves, smooshed in such itty bitty space with no where to move but always on the go and downright rude... but in that two hours at the art zone, i kind of understood what she was trying to convey. i was kind of surrounded in a pocket of air - a pocket of normalcy. it felt good to breath, breath in who i have become as a mother. i thought about monica quite often yesterday. i wish she, scotty and mimi had been there with me, i know they would have enjoyed it so much.

that mom.

still a work in progress...

i'm that mom that slings her child,
you're that mom who wonders if i have to sling him off to college.

i'm that mom that nurses her toddler at night,
you're that mom who wonders how I get any sleep.

i'm that mom that never spanks her child,
you're that mom who wonders how I'll ever discipline my child.

i'm that mom who bedshares with her child.
you're that mom who wonders how my child hasn't died of suffocation.

handspun, handknit.

just finished my first handspun handknit project and I am in love. I don't really know what compelled me to actually finish the project but I did!

now I am moving on to spinning some more yarn and knitting.

i will be 14 weeks on tuesday. i am thinking about getting the gender ultrasound soon. my sister has agreed too go with me. :)

deployment.

so it has officially begun. paul left for afganistan a few days ago. i've gotten a phone call already. thank goodness for technology. poor jake sometimes remembers dada especially when we are about to go somewhere. he'll remind me that dada is missing from the equation. when i tell him he is at work it seems to calm him. we are adjusting pretty well.

I will be 13 weeks tomorrow. i seem to be having an aversion to meats, notably chicken. I constantly wonder if this one is a girl... this pregnancy is so different from jake's.

more silly kennel drama.

you'd think that the kennel drama we had with delts in fayetteville was enough, but we had kennel drama with alaska air in fairbanks with the kennel we flew kitty kat in (wtf is my question here). our AIRLINE APPROVED (with a sticker that had a thumbs up and a plane on it) kennel which flew on an alaska flight to fairbanks, was not good enough. BUT I will have to give them props. while delta stranded us and delayed us for a whole day with their 'we can't do anything about it so fuck off attitude', alaska air had extra kennels available and they sold it to us at retail price. they also washed the bowls for your furbabies so it'll be clean for them. i'd choose to fly alaska again.