Don't Shake the Baby

I have to repeat this to myself.  Not because there is any risk that I would in fact shake my son but because it has become a kind of mantra for me when he is getting just wee bit out of hand.  It is one of those sayings for when you are airing parenting grievances to your bestie and you end it with an exasperated "but really motherhood is awesome, just don't shake the baby".

My monster child at this moment is pant-crying.  It's not a real cry. It comes out in a rhythm like a pant. Short and loud for no reason at all.  He has been doing it every day, throughout the day for about 3 weeks now.  I have a hard time with the crying because for the first 8-9 months of his life he only really cried when he was tired, hungry, or upset.  You know the normals. Lately though we have ventured into the frustrated cries, the "where's mom oh no where did she go" cries and the bodily harm cries.  Oh and lets not forget the new favourite tantrum cry.  I don't know how, but my lovely husband can tune all of these cries out.  I however cannot and after about 4 hours of it I am about to lose my mind.  Thus, don't shake the baby.  I am trying not to pick him up or comfort him every time he cries since in 50 days I go back to work and I really do not want to subject some poor unsuspecting daycare worker to the array of cries.  Time to toughen up kid!

The monster is so mischievous, which I guess we should be glad about because I suppose it means he is smart?  I worry he is going to be one of those horrible destroyer kids.  You know the ones.  We have all experienced a destroyer child.  They are the ones that run around restaurants or scream in the grocery store and when they are on play dates they just destroy everything in their path.  Throwing toys, banging on everything, climbing cabinets etc.  The worry is real.  In the course of 10 minutes my child has escaped his living room barricade and climbed up the stairs, wiggled his way under his playpen and gotten stuck and used his push car walker as a step stool to get up on top of the coffee table.  On the upside he is smart enough to see the weak spots of the barricade to escape, to use toys as ladders and at 10 months old is walking about like a boss. 

A month ago I dreaded the thought of going back to work but at this point I am looking forward to someone else chasing after him while I escape to adult land for 8 hours a day. Until then Lord give me the patience to not shake my baby.

Busted!

Judgment in Pregnancy

I’m tired.  I’m tired physically.  I’m tired emotionally.  I’m tired psychologically.

Mostly I’m tired of feeling judged.  When we found out I was pregnant I was elated.  You couldn’t find a woman more excited than me to know after years of doubting my fertility that in a few months I would get to be a mother.  Something I had thought about and planned for for years.  When you meet the person you know you are going to spend the better part of your life with and I mean that literally because my husband is 100% the better part of my days, you can’t help but begin planning your life and for some that includes having children.  Because I am a planner and I like to have goals and I like to know I am working towards something instead of just treading water I have had an idea of when Aaron and I would have kids from the very beginning.  Some may call this controlling others call it organized.  I call it goal orientated.  Also, being a step-mother really has a way of enhancing that desire; because even though you impact their life greatly, the bottom line is you’re not their mom.  And whether they mean to or not, they will remind you of this technicality regularly.  

I will be honest.  As prepared as I was to become pregnant I was by no means prepared for pregnancy.  I was also not prepared for the judgment that comes with pregnancy.  I could really do without this part. 

I was aware of the morning sickness, I was told about the lack of sleep, the sore everything and the peeing.  I was educated about the cravings and the weight gain as well as the diet limitations, however despite all of this knowledge I must have used my desire to be a mom to delude myself into thinking that I was tougher than I am because most of this has been way more challenging than expected. 

The morning sickness was rough which I have documented in a previous post but I survived that and now that it is over I realize it was a short duration in contrast to the rest of pregnancy.  I was in a car accident a few years ago where a city bus rear-ended me.  I was back at school immediately and was also back at work within two weeks.  How hard could pregnancy be?  For the most part it’s not that bad and at 6 months I know it’s just going to get worse.  So yeah my feet go from normal to hobbit in 2 minutes flat and I wake up in the middle of the night with shooting pains up my calves and in my hips, I’m constantly in a zombie like trance because I haven’t had more than an hour and a half of consecutive sleep.  I get back pain sitting or standing, there is no in between.  Oh and the irritability which creates conflict at home where I would prefer to be most. Other than that it really isn’t that bad.  

I think all of this would be manageable if I didn’t feel like I was somehow failing at pregnancy.  I know that some of the judgment I feel is most certainly perceived but I also am fully aware when it is blatant.  I have the unfortunate position at work of being the temporary replacement for a woman who sailed through her pregnancy.  This woman was as fit as you can be pre-pregnancy.  A former body builder and fitness trainer this woman at 8 months pregnant looked 6 months pregnant.  She is one of those tall beautiful women who only carry right in their tummy and don’t even look pregnant at most angles.  She was still training clients up until she went on leave a week before her due date and apparently wasn’t even sick.  She is your poster girl for an easy pregnancy.  Unfortunately because she had such a marvelous time no one I work with has any idea what I have been experiencing.  When they ask me how I am feeling I feel like I need to lie because when I am honest they look at me blankly and I can tell it makes them uncomfortable.  I’m sure they would really just prefer if I said “Fine!” all up beat and just left it at that.  I have sick days because I am union so I use them when I am feeling particularly in-human or worn out but then I feel guilty for using them because is pregnancy a sickness?  

The judgment began early in my pregnancy though.  As early as 8 weeks I was made to feel like I was doing something wrong because either we told people too early in some people’s opinions or because I was still drinking coffee or because I wasn’t being a complete control freak over foods to limit like medium rare steak.  It has just progressed from there.  If I decide not to take per-natal classes does that make me a bad parent?  We haven’t started buying anything for the baby and the nursery isn’t ready does that mean we are uncaring and unprepared?  If I’m having a tough time with the new and exotic changes to my body should I have known better and thus should not voice my complaints?  Should I just keep my mouth shut because just wait it gets worse, or just wait until baby comes?  Should I not have hurt feelings when complete strangers tell me I am big for how far along I am?  I feel like I need to walk around with a sign on my bump that says “Everyone handles pregnancy different.  I am allowed to feel like this sucks sometimes without being made to feel like a wuss”.  

Maybe a lot of this is me feeling like I should be handling all these changes better and I really should just give myself a break.  Maybe I am insecure and feel like having the opportunity to even have a baby is a blessing and all the stuff that goes with it is just the cost of the miracle.  But then the other voice in my head says anyone who hasn’t been through this can suck it because they have no idea and the ones who have done it can have a bit of compassion and remember how they felt during the first time and how they felt when they woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat with stabbing pains in their hip unreasonably fearing that something bad was happening before a more conscious self realized it was just a muscle spasm. 

Being pregnant can make you feel like part of a community but it can also make you feel very alone. 

Things that might go wrong at your wedding:

I’m not being negative I am being realistic.  If you are planning your own wedding; things will go wrong and you will know it.  If you have hired a planner or a friend; things will go wrong and you might not know it!

I spent just shy of twelve months planning our wedding.  I thought I had thought of EVERYTHING! I was wrong.  Ok Aaron, it’s in writing.  Yes I admit I was wrong about something.  Planning and executing a wedding takes a team of people to help with the most minute but incredibly important tasks.  If you are like me, many people will offer you help but you decline because “you’ve got it all covered” and you are a control freak so really deep down you don’t believe anyone will do it quite like you would.  Advice: let go of the reins!  I also had a few moments when people offered me help “anytime” but when you call on them for some reason they just can’t seem to get it together to get there and lend a hand.  Every bride has these people in their lives.  These will be the same people that call you friend but then seem to miss every important event like bachelorette parties, bridal showers, birthdays and other events. 

So these are the things that went wrong at our wedding that I was aware of but by no means affected how great our wedding was!  I think I really need to state that being aware of what went wrong by no means implies that our wedding was not the most amazing day of my life so far!  We put in a ton of work and had the help of so many people and it was a beautiful day and I have been the calmest and happiest since that moment forward.  I can’t say there aren’t things I would change if I could do it again but I also look at every moment as a learning experience.  So I hope you can learn from my flubs!

1.      It rained.  We had planned to have our ceremony in the most beautiful out door venue.  In a clearing of a walkway in a public park with a view of the inlet.  There were three trees that made a natural arch where we had planned to hang a beautiful chandelier.  We made white washed garden benches for our guests to sit on and we made our oun simple flower arrangements to line the “isle”.  But it rained and everything needed to be re-imagined.  My husband and our families did a fantastic job at re-locating the ceremony onto the deck that spanned the back of our hall and it was beautiful looking over the trees to the inlet behind.  It would have been nice if the daycare below us had brought the screaming children indoors for our 20 minute ceremony but at least it is a funny memory.  You can ask any one of my bridesmaids and they will swear to you they all thought I was going to have my bridezilla moment screaming at those children.  I was too happy I wouldn’t let anything ruin our moment.

2.      Because the ceremony was in the hall, it didn’t give my bartender the peace or privacy to set up cocktail hour or prepare his bar in time.  People began to pester him while he was still trying to stock.

3.      I/my helpers forgot to put the drink tickets on the tables.

4.      I forgot to give the bartender a float so my poor MC had to run out to the bank while we had our pictures taken.

5.      We ran out of Strongbow.  We had a huge selection of beer hard liquor and ciders so we weren’t concerned.  Apparently this would not do according to my family and I watched my brother walk in with a flat of Strongbow 40 minutes later.  Why?  Love him for it though!

6.      The cake was wrong.  The bakery put our decorations on someone elses cake and the flavours were all wrong.  We had a cake to cut as well as a slab cake and everything was wrong.  The first picture of us cutting cake is me telling my husband it was wrong.  It still tasted amazing but it was not what we ordered.

7.      My bridesmaid didn’t try on her dress when she had it altered and they had forgotten to take in the top of the straps so they had to pin it.  You can tell in every picture that her dress is not quite right.  It’s a good thing she is gorgeous because I am the only one that noticed because I knew what to look for. 

8.      The freezer in the kitchen broke so we had to send the dads out for more ice.  Good thing we had all those coolers and tubs to store al the booze!

So that’s it.  Not bad right.  Not even ten things.  The only reason I am aware that any of this happened is because I had a hand in planning everything.  If I had had a planner I would not have known anything had happened.  That being said almost every item that went wrong my good friend Jenny dealt with it all like a pro.  I wish she had been a bridesmaid but I am so glad she was my MC because I would not have trusted anyone else more than I did her to make sure everything was taken care of!  I have made some questionable decisions in my life but I will never regret choosing the man I married or the women who stood up with me on the most important day of my life. 

So to all those control freaks out there.  Be prepared!  Things might go wrong, but it ends up being perfect anyway!

What do you think this is? Charity??

Craigslist is a joke.  I prepare you this is going to get all ranty up in here.

When I am looking to buy used items on craigslist I am just astonished by how much colossal crap people are selling and then how much they think their crap is worth.  Over the past 12 months I have scoured craigslist for décor items for the wedding and at one point even did a search for cheap wedding dresses.  What I found was a whole lot of ugly junk!  Okay, I’m not being fair.  Some of it was reasonably priced and decent stuff….. but that stuff disappears very quickly!

So now I am on the other end of the craigslist ad.  I have become the seller.  Here is what I have discovered as a seller.  Even if you price your merchandise for less than what you paid, people are still going to come at you with some ridiculous offers.  I understand that as a seller I need to be prepared to come down on my prices and be able to bundle things together to save the seller some cash.  What I don’t understand is someone offering me $60 for three items totally $150.  Come on! 

I put the hard work in.  I searched for months!  I ordered things from the states, had them shipped to my parents American shipping address, paid to pick them up and then had to drive there and back to pick it all up.  I did the online research.  I found the best prices and then to re-sell these items I posted the prices minus the shipping minus the exchange rate minus the taxes and less than ticket price and I’m still being low balled!

Here’s the thing.  We didn’t go into debt to pay for our wedding.  We did everything on a budget and we stayed pretty darn close to that budget.  I made branch centre pieces. I made my own garters.  I killed myself for 12 months to make sure we didn’t spend a penny over what anything was worth.  Do you know how much it cost to buy tree branch centerpieces?  I did the research: $20-40 bucks a piece (just branches) and to rent them its cost around the same.  I made ours for $22 each including the vase and the filler stones.  That’s all the paint to coat them so they weren’t dirty, the sparkles, the plaster base to weigh them down in the vase.  All of it!  And some lazy bride thinks I’m just going ot give them all away for $3 a piece?!! This is not a charity! 

Here is my insight people.  Make me be the schmuck who paid full price.  Then buy my stuff at the discounted price and then sell it after your wedding for the same price you bought it for.  Wedding decor is the biggest rip off there is.  Women lose their minds when it comes to executing their vision for their wedding.  Let’s be honest.  This stuff is going to sit in my garage for a year until my husband puts it on craigslist again for 20% less than I posted it for!  Oh well.  It would be nice to just see all the stuff I collected go to good use. 

I love you more than time alone!

I had one of those moments on Saturday where you immediately wish you could take back the words as they are spilling out of your mouth or in the very least have said them in a different way.   The problem is I meant some of the things I was saying, I probably just didn’t need to say them the way I did.

Let’s be honest.  I can be mean sometimes.  I think everyone can.  Sometimes I know I’m being mean and I do it anyway…. Then I feel really guilty about it.  Then other times I’m mean and I think I’m being conversational but really I’m just being hurtful.  Then there is the odd time I am just frustrated and I am trying to express that frustration but I just come of… yup you guessed it… mean. 

On Saturday I told my wonderful amazing future husband that there were times I wished he just wasn’t there.  WOW! I know harsh right.  Let me explain.  I used to be a server (waitress), and then I was/still am a youth worker.  Now I work full time as a recreation coordinator but I moonlight as a youth worker two nights a week.  I used to have the whole of the afternoon to myself to do as I pleased to sit in silence and just have me to contend with.  Now, the only moment I have alone is the hour I have in the morning to get myself ready, fed and out the door for work.  The evenings I am not working my second job someone is always home…ALWAYS!

This would not be so trying if I weren’t also planning our wedding.  And also if as a couple we were those people who reside in the same house but have our own spaces.  We live in a 750sq/ft basement suite and there is no private space.  Aaron often comes into the bathroom as I’m showering to ask me questions like “Babe, where did you put the remote?” or “can you come and make the potatoes? I don’t know what you put on them” and “Where does this dish go?”.  On the one hand I can’t complain because he asks questions for things he is helping with, like making dinner or doing the dishes.  The problem with that however is that it’s not really lessening my burden by making dinner if you are asking me how to do everything every 8 minutes!

So now I feel horrible because I have allowed my frustration to get the better of me. I love spending time with Aaron.  I get terribly blue when I go long periods of time without seeing him.  I have annoyed friends countless times by skipping events due to not seeing enough of my partner that week.  But then there are times when I urge him to go out with the boys.  Go tie one on, I’ll pick you up!  Go out and play poker with your friends, go snowboarding, go play racquetball! Just GO!! Every once and a while just to get some space.  I go out with the girls, I make plans without Aaron, but sometimes you want to be the one that gets to stay home in your PJ’s and watch bad movies all night.  It’s my turn gosh darn it!

To save-the-date or not to save-the-date

That was the question but now it seems a bit irrelevant.  In my last post I mentioned that our save the dates were and sometimes still are a topic of contention between me and the future husband.  I had a plan, and it was a pretty cute one too.  But now that plan is, well in the same place most of my plans end up.  Sometimes I’m resolved with the decision we made and sometimes I’m down right resentful.

You see I happen to be the proud sister of an immensely (IMO) talented artist.  Using my sweetest politest suck holing voice I was able to convince my bother to design a picture for our invitations.  Not only did he oblige us with what is exactly the dead on the vision I had in my head but he also provided us with a beautiful water colour picture to use for our save the dates!  This was perfect! Totally original art for both the save the date and the invitation.  My plan was to collect all of our addresses and have the save the dates printed on magnets and send them out in January followed by the invites in May… 

… Has anyone received our save the date?  NO???? Oh right that’s because my plan got scrapped.  Why? You ask.  Well I asked Aaron to email and call everyone on his side of the family in November for their addresses.  I reminded him again in January.  I begged him in February.  It is now March and he received the last of his addresses last week.  So needless to say it is a bit late to send out save the dates.  Aaron and I discussed it and we decided that the word of our wedding has already spread to all of his and my family and everyone knows the date of the wedding so we would save the money on printing and postage and just send out our invitations a month earlier.  

On the one hand I am sad about not using the beautiful art my brother created, but on the other hand I am okay with saving the money and putting it towards something else like the food or the booze.  It is getting a little tiresome being asked constantly when we are planning on sending out the invites but I guess that goes with the territory of planning a wedding.  It is actually a compliment since everyone is excited to receive our invitation.  

This is a screen shot of a mock up save-the-date from vistaprint.

I’m curious when it became so common place to send out a save the date.  I don’t remember it being so main stream.  I think it is just another “must have” item invented by the wedding retail industry to spend more unnecessary money on.  Well you can’t have my money cause my fiancé is a procrastinator, so there!