I did it!

I bit the bullet and I sent a message (via myspace) to my best friend from high school. There's a long story/history there that I won't bore you all with, but I'm really proud of myself for having the guts to do it. Maybe I won't hear back from her, but at least the ball is in her court now. And I won't have to wonder "what if . . . " the rest of my life. And sometimes not knowing is worse that knowing the truth. . . . right? ;)

Always in a hurry . . .

I remember hearing many, many, many people tell me that I shouldn't be in such a hurry to grow up. When I wanted to start shaving my legs, my mom told me not to rush things because "once you start, you can't stop!". Too true ~ about many things! I wanted to start wearing a bra in 4th grade, I think. I didn't have anything "bra worthy" until well into 6th grade. But my best friend had a full sized rack at age 10 (which she hated by the way) and I wanted to be just like her. I took college credit classes in high school because I loved the idea of getting through college in 3 1/2 years. A couple months after I turned 21, when the highlight of my life "should" have been staying out until all hours and hitting bar after bar, I bought a house with Adam. I was married at 22, had my first child at 24, and now at 26, I realize that I'm almost "done" with my life.

My goals were:

Go to college ~ check
Get married ~ check
Buy a house ~ check (twice)
Have kids ~ check (one and a half)

Okay, so I want to do more with my life, but those were the big ones.

Even motherhood seems to be something that I rushed through. When Alyssa was 7 months old, we "upgraded" to the mommy-mobile. When Alyssa turned 1, I stopped taking the pill and we started "not-not" trying to get pregnant again.

Why the rush? Why do I have to have everything done RIGHT NOW? I've started realizing lately that part of me wishes that I would have taken my time with things. I'm still glad that I finished college in 3 1/2 years, but part of that is that I'm glad that I saved my parents a semester's worth of private college tuition money and part of it was that I had a 45 minute commute my senior year each way. But now that I'm older, 22 seems like SOOO young to get married. And as much as I love Alyssa and being a mommy, I don't know why I felt like we had to have kids so soon. I could have waited until my later 20s. But then there's the whole "I want to be a young mom" thing. And I certainly didn't HAVE to have the mommy-mobile, as nice as it is to have sometimes. I miss my grand am! I miss not having a car payment!

Basically, in a nutshell I never thought of people being in a hurry to get through the major life changing moments of adulthood, but now that I think about it, I think I have on some level. I hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the arse. I'm afraid of having a midlife crisis at 28. :P

Another place for rejection . . .

Several months ago, Eric sent me a link to sign up for a myspace account. Because he wanted to be my "friend". (And since he paid me a quarter last Wednesday, he is my friend for at least another 2 days and 7 hours, but that's another story). So I signed up, but never did anything with it. Until I heard about Boomer and Jennifer finding each other on myspace and how Eric is completely hooked on it like something that someone is majorly hooked on, so I started updating my page and surfing around. And I was pleasantly surprised that 3 of my really good friends from college that I had kind of lost touch with were on there and were very happy to welcome me back into their lives via myspace. Ahhh, bliss.

But then this afternoon I did some more "random" searching. I found people that I would love to talk to again . . . but I'm afraid of rejection. I haven't invited anyone to be my friend yet. I haven't put myself out there. These people I found just kind of drifted away. I wouldn't say that we parted on bad terms, but its more like our lives were forced into different directions. I don't know what I'm so afraid of. I'm so stinkin' insecure. Its not like I have to go up to them in person and ask them to be my friend again. Its over the INTERNET. Its FUN. Its "safe". So why is it so scary?

Lessons Learned

A topic on my October mom's board today was to name 10 lessons you want to teach your child. Thought it might make for a fun blog topic, too . . .

I hope Alyssa will learn from me ~

1. Always say please and thank you and show respect no matter how important you think the person you are interacting with is.
2. How to handle money responsibly
3. Get out of town . . . travel as much as you can. It may be scary, but its an invaluable experience.
4. Its okay (and encouraged!) to make mistakes and bad choices; recongonize that you've done so and learn from them.
5. Let your guard down and just be silly once in awhile.
6. Don't judge people solely on first impressions . . . many of the important people in my life wouldn't have been in my life if I had.
7. Take time to enjoy the little things in life; in the end they are what matter most.
8. Don't let other people tell you who you should be or what you should do; follow your own heart because it knows best.
9. Listen to your gut and don't be afraid to do what you know is right deep down regardless of the "popular" vote.
10. Know that no matter how harshly the world tosses you around, you always, always, always have a safe haven at home (with your mommmy :) ).

Got Parenting Skills?

Which of us is the lesser of the parents?

Adam: Hey, Alyssa's having Twizzlers for dinner, okay?
Me: Okay.

Is it me for agreeing that its okay for her to have twizzlers or Adam for not wanting to find something more healthy than twizzlers or is it me again for not going downstairs and finding her something else to eat?

Recurring Nightmare

I think this is maybe the mommy equivalent to the "naked high school" dream . . .

Ever since Alyssa was born I've had this dream where I put her down for her nap, and then I just leave the house. I go to the grocery store, go to the mall, ect, but I leave her completely alone at home figuring that she'll nap, I can run errands without having to lug her along, and I'll be home before she wakes up. Sometimes I end up running late or losing track of time and then I start freaking out because Adam is going to be home before I am and I wonder how I'm going to explain that I left Alyssa completely by herself. Its sounds so silly, but I'll wake up absolutely horrified at the idea of Alyssa being alone and me leaving her.

Back in the swing of things

Alyssa and I started back at jazzercise this week. I'm trying to ease into things by doing M,W,F classes for a few weeks and then hopefully adding a fourth one into the mix sometime. Maybe on the weekend to give Alyssa and Daddy some alone time. I'm amazed at how much I missed my classes. Not just hanging out with other adults, but I actually feel so nice and stretched out and not so tense all of the time. But the best part of it was today . . . watching Alyssa come running out of the childcare room absolutely beaming from cheek to cheek. And I don't think it was happiness at seeing me . . . it was happiness at being back around her friends, being able to run around with the other kids, and just have her own little "me time". I never thought when I started doing jazzercise as my ticket to get healthier both physcially and emotionally/mentally it would have such a huge impact on Alyssa's well being, too, but I think its turned her into a really well-adjusted and outgoing toddler. Maybe I'm not such a sucky mom after all. :P

Lookit!

Look at what my wonderful, fabulous, spectacular handsome hubby surprised me with yesterday! YAY! I'm torn between loving it and hating it, but I think we'll learn to co-exsist peacefully as soon as I can learn to work the thing. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! :) That totally made my Tuesday.

I feel like such a sucky mom today

The day started out good . . . we went to jazzercise, stopped by McD's for lunch to get Alyssa "nunnets", played a little "hide in the closet" and then happily went down for a nap. Fast forward to about 3 PM. Within about 20 minutes she insisted her DVD be changed about 7 times. She drives me NUTS when she toddles up to the entertainment center, pulls open the glass front, and pushes the "open" button on the DVD player, pulls the DVD out, brings it to me and says "Done", then freaks out until I let her pick out another one. So I had finally had it, told her no more TV/DVDs for the rest of the day and decided to go outside. Normally a favorite activity of hers and its actually not insanely humid out. We were outside for 30-40 minutes and I think she cried for about 90% of that time. She cried because I wouldn't let her keep going up and down the next door neighbors slide (its a BIG slide and makes me nervous when there aren't two of us there to watch her AND I feel weird having her play in their yard when they aren't out, even though I know they don't care). She cried because on our walk around the block I wouldn't let her wander up the side street and play with some other kids that we've never met and were a lot older than her and their Barbie jeep. She cried because I tried to make her play in the front yard instead of the back yard because we have no flipping trees in the backyard and it gets HOT with the sun beating down on me and I have no tolerance for heat in my pregnant condition. I moved all the toys she was playing with to the front AND pulled out the chalk. The only time she stopped crying was when the garbage man was picked up Robb and Crystal's yard waste and I think she only stopped crying then because she was too scared to cry. She cried when I suggested walking around the block. She cried when I picked her up to carry her inside.

I finally broke down and put in another DVD (actually 2, because one is never good enough) to get about 20 minutes of peace while I made supper. And now I'm watching her and Adam walk down the street together and she seems so happy and I feel like a fat, frumpy, funless mom. And I'm not sure if I'm cut out for the SAHM gig.

Paranoid, much?

Alyssa and I got home about 30 minutes ago from the inlaws for a "Congrats Ben Dinner" (oldest bil got his MBA today, woo hoo!). Anyway, I quickly let the dogs out, hit the bathroom myself, and then went upstairs to get Alyssa ready for bed. As we were getting ready to sit down to read books I heard Joey start barking furiously. Which isn't that big of a shocker, but when Lexi started in too, I had to go check things out. I could see that someone was at the door, so I left Alyssa at the top of the steps and ran down to see who was there.

There was a good looking "kid" (I'm guessing around 18ish) standing there. I opened the door, but kept the screen door shut and he explained that he lives a couple blocks away, goes to UNL, was on the dean's list and just got selected to go study in France and Italy for a semester with 12 other students (off topic ~ how cool would that be?!). He said his mom had paid for 1/2 the trip, but he had to come up with the other half, so he was doing some fundraising. I told him that I was just getting ready to put Alyssa to bed and asked if he could come back tomorrow. He got this kind of shifty look on his face and said something along the line of "I've only got 2 more packages of kids books left, so I'm not going to be doing this much longer". I considered checking out what he had to offer, but insisted that I needed to get Alyssa to bed, so he left.

Halfway through his "speech" I realized that I unconsciously locked the screen door since my hand was on the handle. And as I went back upstairs to read to Alyssa I felt really uneasy for some reason. Almost like he was casing the joint. I hope Adam gets home soon because my tummy is all sorts of topsy turvy. I kinda wish we had an alarm/security system (besides a 100 lb golden retriever and a 11 lb pomeranian, that is).

Hog Update

4 very serious looking guys are currently carving up the hog. So I can put to rest my fears of them just dropping the poor thing on the drive way and yelling "COME AND GET IT" to which 100 people run forward to start ripping pieces of flesh from the bones.

Can I get an "ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!"? I'm being such a baby about this, but it is providing for some good entertainment for Alyssa and I today.

Ewwww to the 10th degree

Our next door neighbors are hosting a pig roast tonight for neighbors, friends, family, people who happen to wander by, ect. I'm always up for a fun neighborhood party, but after seeing "the hog" slapped up on the bed of a pick up and sliced down the middle this morning, I'm not sure I can handle this. I've been apprehensive about the whole thought of eating a roasted pig (for some reason the thought of eating unprocessed pork really gets to me) and then add the nothing sounds good/the thought of everything, including ice cream, makes me want to yack lately . . . not a good situation.

His CRAP machine . . .

Adam did a sleep study a couple weeks ago because he hadn't been sleeping well/feeling really tired lately and they couldn't find anything wrong with him from his physical/blood tests that his doctor did. (I know ladies, you're totally impressed that I have a husband that voluntarily goes to the doctor, aren't you? ;) ) Anyway, we haven't heard his results for sure, but we're expecting to hear that he has some variation of sleep apnea and will need to wear a CPAP machine at night.

I'm having WAAAAY too much fun with this. First of all, when I was reading his blog where it mentioned different things about the CPAP machine, I immediately read "CRAP machine". So now I tease Adam about being an old geezer and having to wear his CRAP machine. Then after we turn out the lights at night we take turns humming loudly and blowing on each other's faces to prepare ourselves for what life will be like when CRAP-py comes to stay. We're how old? I suppose we laugh so we don't cry, right?

Welcome to my world

its almost taken on an "Alice in Wonderland" kind of feel. Nothing is as it should be!