Big Kids

Anyone who has kids knows that the younger they are the easier it is. Honestly, people make such a damn stink about the infant phase and in retrospect that shiz was a walk in the park. Gone are the days you can lay that blob on the floor and walk to the kitchen for some coffee. HELLS no! Now, we’ve entered the toddler phase and let me just tell you… she’s effing quick. Like bend down to pickup the cat food she just threw in the air and made it rain with and then look up to see her playing toss the iPhone, quick.

Another thing that sucks about my beautiful baby growing is Tarjay runs have gotten exponentially more difficult. I remember when I thought carting that GINORMOUS infant car seat into the store and then trying to saddle it “just-right” onto my cart was the worst.thing.ever. Oh wah… then I’d have to push my sleeping baby around as I shopped for hours. WTF was I thinking … Seriously W.T.F?! Now I get to play “what do I really want/need the most from Tarjay because odds are she will flip her shit after 10 minutes, so this has got to be quick” and then usually we spend the duration of the shopping trip throwing crap from the cart and bending over 9,672 times to pick it up. So yeah, there’s that.

I plan on never lying to my friends with newborns. I wont say any BS like “well this is the hard part” or “once you get through the first months … it gets easier.” EFFFFFF NO! I am gonna say “Savor every sweet second of that non-talking, non-walking little nugget.” I am gonna let them know straight up that it only gets harder and it will never be this easy again. So soak it up and drink it in my friend. “The bigger they get, the harder they are.”

Which brings me to the latest happenings in our household. Last Tuesday Bobby had surgery on his right shoulder. It was actually the second time he’s had this exact same surgery… clearly we’re hoping for better results this go-round. It’s a pretty intense recovery and he has to wear a sling for a month and then he cant lift anything for 3 months. Let me repeat that. HE.CANT.LIFT.ANYTHING! This includes our 14 month old daughter, so it outta be reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally fun around here come February.

Since we’ve been through this surgery before this time wasn’t quite as bad as last. We knew what all we were getting into beforehand. Meaning, what all would require assistance. The first few days are the worst and I literally had to bathe him. Since it’s his right arm and he’s right-handed it complicates a lot of day-to-day things you wouldn’t think of. Like say … putting on deodorant and socks. Yep, that happened.

So, I will say it again … “The bigger they get, the harder they are.”

EYE love you

So last week was New Year’s Eve and Bobby and I’s anniversary. When I picked that date for our wedding day I knew it was going to be two things … 1.) easy for him to remember and 2.) one hell of a kickass party. I succeeded on both fronts, the night was perfect and he has yet to miss an anniversary. One thing I didn’t take into account though was the anniversary letdown that comes with throwing a kickass wedding on the biggest party night of the year. New Year’s is one of those nights that you scramble around to find something halfway decent to do so you don’t feel like a complete lame-ass and the pressure is so stressful that you end up not wanting to do anything. Well I thought by having my wedding that night I was going to never have to deal with that shiz again… WRONG! I actually amplified the stress. You see, now instead of it just being one of those nights that you scramble around to find something halfway decent to do so you don’t feel like a complete lame-ass its also our EFFING anniversary, so staying in and sitting on the couch eating takeout isn’t exactly the most romantic idea. Yeah, reeeeeeeeeeaally screwed myself over on this one.

Our first anniversary was lovely, we went down to DC and stayed at the Willard in a huge suite. You know real swanky shit. Then last year we had a 1 1/2 month old so we laid-low and hung in with Em. It was great, no stress or pressure just a nice Anniversary at home with my family. Well that only works every few years so this year we knew we had to plan something. My parents agreed to babysit so we could go out and we tried desperately to find something that was worthy of both a New Year’s Eve and Anniversary celebration. That’s the tricky part, no one wants to be surrounded by 1,000 drunk 21 year olds in a bar on their Anniversary but that’s usually whats going on that night. So we opted for a private night out at the National Harbor. We booked a suite at the Gaylord and made reservations at McCormick & Schmick’s. All and all it sounded like a lovely night.

I went over to drop Em off at my parents around 2:00pm and as I was getting ready to leave my mom looked at me really strangely and said “Annie, you don’t look right! What’s going on with your eye?” I went and looked in the mirror and my right pupil was dilated to the point it was as large as my entire eye. I looked like Marilyn Manson. My mom started freaking out and made me promise to stop at the Optometrist on my way home, just to make sure it was ok. I ran in and told them I didn’t have an appointment but I was wondering if someone could look at my eye, the receptionist without looking at me said that they were all booked up. I told her I understood but I wasn’t sure what was going on with my eye. Just then she looked up at me and made a face like she had seen a ghost then gasped. That was reassuring. She literally RAN back to talk to the doctor and then he came out to look at me. He told me that it could be a number of things and some of which were “VERY SERIOUS” he told me I had to go straight to the ER now. Ummmmm…. what?! It’s my anniversary, this isn’t going to work.

As I was walking out the receptionist yelled that she wanted me to call and let her know how I was doing because she was “VERY CONCERENED!” Okay lady, you really need to chill before I shit my pants here. At this point I started running to my car, sobbing as I called Bobby. This is how the conversation went:

Bobby: “Hello”

Me: (screaming and crying) “MY PUPIL’S DIALATED AND THEY SAID I HAVE TO GO THE EMERGENCY ROOM AND THE RECEPTIONIST THINKS ITS LIKE A BRAIN TUMOR. I DONT WANNA DIE ON OUR ANNIVERSARY!”

Bobby: “Huh?”

Me: “WHY ARENT YOU LISTENING TO ME?”

Bobby: “You really need to calm down. What’s going on?”

Me: “I’M GOING TO THE ER. MY PUPIL IS DIALTED AND IT’S SERIOUS.”

Bobby: “I’ll come get you, don’t drive if your eye is messed up.”

Me: “Oh yeah, good point.”

So we go to the ER and they run a ton of tests… they literally have NO idea what is wrong with me. They keep saying things like “This is bizarre, I’ve never seen a pupil THIS dilated, and let me call an Ophthalmologist and see what they think.”  I felt like I was one of those super weird patients from House. After 3 hours of CT scans and an IV they ruled out the serious stuff. Because I have a long history of migraines they are pretty sure it was an ocular migraine. I typically get a migraine every month or two so I was pretty confused by the fact that I had zero discomfort. Normally my migraines knock me out and hurt like hell but this didn’t hurt at all. They treated me with some migraine medications and discharged me.

At this point it was 7:00pm and while we were sitting in the ER, Bobby had called and cancelled our room and dinner reservations. I was really upset at the thought of him and EYE (see what I did there?) going home to sit on the couch so I started pouting. Bobby said he was gonna go pull the car up and when I got in he had called and gotten the last room at the Gaylord. It wasn’t the suite we had originally but it was a room and I was ecstatic. As we drove down the highway I called every restaurant at the National Harbor looking for open reservations. We finally found one. It wasn’t the fancy dinner we had originally planned but it was a reservation and it was good enough for me.

Bobby, me and my giant pupil ended up having an awesome night celebrating 3 fun, amazing, crazy, difficult, eventful, wonderful years of marriage. We rang in the new year and enjoyed our plan B. It may not have been perfect but EYE am certain we’ll never forget it. 😉

 

PS…

This is what was going down at Yaya and Poppa’s while we were out:

Oh Daddy-o

Sunday was Bobby’s first Fathers Day. It’s been amazing to see how much this little girl has changed him. In just 7 short months she’s managed to take all 6 feet, 4 inches of this man and strategically wrap him around her tiny little finger. This girl is good. Really, really good.

He’s the fun and games part of her day and it so much fun to see her light up when Daddy walks through the door. She’s my partner in crime and we run around town all day long but her Daddy, well he’s her airplane rides and her playtime partner. She knows that when she sees his face that fun is about to follow.

I love this and I also hate this. I love watching them interact and I love to hear her giggling from the other room. I love that she adores her Daddy with every ounce of her tiny little nugget body. But I also hate this playtime Daddy act we’ve got going on.

A couple of nights during the week Bobby will give Em her bath so that mommy can get a little break. He also then attempts to put her to bed. The same thing happens every time. After about 30 minutes he comes out of the room holding a baby that is wide effing awake and says he doesn’t know why but she just won’t go to sleep for him. This same thing happens on the weekends when he gets up for the early morning feedings and tries to get her back to sleep. He comes walking into the bedroom holding her over me, she’s got a huge smile on her face and she’s ready to party. And again he’s puzzled by the whole situation.

The common theme is that I always end up having to get up and finish the job that he started. So while yes, it was nice to have a little break, it’s always short-lived. I have to double back and try to get a rowdy baby back to sleep because now she wants to play. Emmie sees Bobby as the fun one and gets so excited that she won’t go to sleep whenever he’s around. Of course he totally uses this to his advantage and he’s working me big time. He usually tries to say something really clever like “you’re just so much better at it than me.”

Apparently it turns out Emmie learned that whole finger wrapping trick from her Daddy.

Em-ageddon

The other weekend we had one of the absolute worst sleeping nights since Emerson was born. Let me repeat that. THE WORST EFFING NIGHT IN THE LAST 7 MONTHS OF HER LIFE.

It started when she woke up screaming at 11:30pm. I had agreed to the first shift so I got up and let Bobby sleep. I changed her, gave her the paci and rocked her back to sleep. After about 45 minutes she was out cold and I put her back in her crib and crawled back in my bed. About 20 minutes passed and I was juuuuuust about back to sleep when I heard her start moaning and crying. I waited to see if maybe, just maybe she’d just magically fall back asleep but no such luck. She started going bat shit crazy. I thought about waking Bobby since technically it was his turn but I figured I was already up so I would just use this as a double shift and he could do the morning feeding session and I’d get to sleep in. This could work in my favor. Psssshhhh! I had no idea how bad shit was about to get.

For the next FOUR hours that girl wailed and wailed and then when I didn’t think she had anything left in her …. she wailed some more. She was inconsolable. She wasn’t hungry, she wasn’t wet, I gave her Tylenol for her teeth. Nothing worked. Nada. For the first hour of the shitstorm Bobby was out cold. This angered me. I was waging a war in the other room and he was snoring away. Screw “my shift” I was drowning and I needed all men on deck. So when he finally came in to check on me I greeted him with some pretty harsh words. I feel badly now but at the time I was pissed. He quickly tagged in and sent me to the bench to rest up. But the mom in me wouldn’t let up and I hovered. I hovered the shit outta him. I followed him from room to room asking if he tried feeding and burping, or rocking, or maybe he should lower her more because she doesn’t like to be that high up. I told him not to bounce her so much and that he should sit in the chair, I told him how she likes the blankie on her face and how she can only go back to sleep if its really dark. Annnnnnd then he snapped. Rightfully so, I mean if i wasn’t going to let the man be a parent and do it his way then why the hell was he awake?!?

So then on top of Em wailing and crying and screaming now Bobby and I are passively aggressively barking at each other and rudely snapping back and forth. We have a rule that we don’t raise our voices in front of her so as not to break that rule we just started flinging a lot of smart ass remarks at each other in some pretty stern voices. He was mad that I was mad and I was mad that he friggin sucked so bad at getting her to sleep. Baaaaaasically it was a complete shit show. By the time Em threw in the towel (at 4:36am) we were exhausted. Emotionally & physically.

When they tell you that having kids is hard … they aren’t lying. Some parts are going to be amazing, like when they first smile or look up at you and laugh. But the first all night shitstorm that turns into a full on F5 with your husband… Well that just plain sucks! Two days later Em had her first tooth break through so I’m assuming that was the culprit. Teething.is.no.joke.

But I’ve decided if we can survive Em-ageddon then our marriage is basically rock-effin-solid. I’ve already started looking up 10 year wedding anniversary photo plaques on shutterfly I’m so confident. I’m pretty sure that there will be plenty more Saturday nights like that and I know they won’t be pretty but I also know there will be plenty more Sunday mornings all snuggled in our bed to make up for it.

And sometimes you just gotta make it through the crapstorms to see the rainbow.

Bobby’s world

Sorry for the blatant disregard to the blog lately … it’s been a bit of a shit show around here. Emmie’s teething has hit full-blown status, Bobby isn’t feeling well and I am stuck juggling Baby and Bobby. Anyone with a child AND a husband knows the struggle is real.

When I decided to start the blog I got a lot of positive feedback from my family but one member that was less than thrilled was the old ball and chain. I believe his first words after I told him that I had officially launched it were: “You better not post dumb things I say on there.” Before I could counter with the obvious, “Then don’t say dumb stuff.” He threw in a threat. A very, very real and terrifying threat. He vowed that he would post the unseen hospital photos from Emerson’s birth to (wait for it) FACEBOOK. I mean you think you know someone.

Now, you’re probably sitting there saying,  “So what, you had a baby, everyone looks bad after that.” Well you clearly have never seen those bad boys and I intend on keeping it that way. You see, not too many people know the whole dramatic story of how my little nugget got here but Em’s entrance into the world was a little “complicated” (that’s an entirely different blog post I will get to someday). As a result of all the chaos, they pumped my ass with so many fluids, antibiotics, and bags of blood (ick) that my face was about 7 times the size it should be. I looked like Mamma June from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. I can’t even get myself to print any of those suckers out to put them into her baby book … it’s THAT effing bad.

That being said, we all know there is no way that I am going to be able to refrain from blogging about my husband on here. So, I will just have to hope and pray that his love for me is enough to keep him from doing the unthinkable. That, and I am 99.9% sure he hasn’t even looked at this blog yet.

So, I am pretty sure I can safely tell you this little gem … while Emmie was doing her usual acrobatic moves with her legs the other day. My adorable hubs looked at me and said: “Is she gonna tear her ACL?”

Until the coast is clear … please DON’T follow me on Facebook. 😉

Baby Steps

So, I’m still trying to figure out this whole blog thing and while I have had some super awesome people reach out to me in the last few days and offer some much needed assistance, I’ll be honest I’m still working my way through the teaching curve. It’s always hard to just dive right into something, so instead my plan is to start off slowly with some short little posts and dip my toe into the blogosphere. Baby steps.

In the same way, Ginger has been slowly getting adjusted to her new life as a big sis. The first few months she played it cool and totally ignored Emerson in an effort to make her disappear. When that didn’t pan out and she realized that she is, in fact here to stay, she slowly started to test the boundaries of Em’s reach. Yesterday, while Ging was doing a few exploratory sniffs of her sister, Em decided to …

let.

one.

rip.

Right in Ginger’s face.

I’m guessing its going to take a while for Ginger’s trust to be rebuilt.

Like I said, baby steps Ging. Baby steps.