The other night Sawyer woke up crying after only sleeping for approximately 30 minutes. I went in and picked him up. He looked at me and started babbling. He talked for the next 30 minutes. We sat in the chair in his room and he told me whatever it was that was on his mind. After he got it all out, he began to relax and rest comfortably, so I placed him back in his crib, and he went peacefully back to sleep.

I love that little boy so much. While I'm in no hurry for him to grow up too fast, I do look forward to the days when I will have the opportunity to have conversations with him. He has much to say already, and I just can't wait to understand every word.

JT Goes to the Ball

A few months ago, a young female marine put out a youtube video asking Justin Timberlake to the Marine Corps Ball. He, being the incredibly awesome person that he is, accepted.  Oh how I wish he had gone to the same ball I did, but alas, he did not. In any case, he did write a little something on his website about his experience at the ball, so I thought I would share the link on my blog.

http://www.justintimberlake.com/news/my_night_at_the_marine_corps_ball

If you're interested in viewing the video that he references, you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I79UW6-NAAU

Every year the Commandant of the Marine Corps puts out video that we watch at the ball. It generally provokes tears and is always greeted with absolute silence and reverence. As Justin notes, it is incredible.

I love that he was so in awe of the ceremony, just as I am every single year. I love that he has so much respect for his military community. I love love love him.

I do, however, need to clear up a few mistakes he made in his writing. First of all, he continually refers to the marines at the ball as soldiers. Marines are not soldiers. Marines are marines. Men and women serving in the army are soldiers. Also, while we're on the topic (though JT did not make this particular mistake) the generic term for everyone in the armed forces is MILITARY not ARMY. So many people I encounter refer to my husband as being in the army when they mean military. Believe me, The Army and the Marine Corps are very different.

Also, marines say, "Ooh Rah" with great stress on the second syllable. The army says "Hooah" or however it is spelled. JT makes reference to marines calling out Hooah at the ball when in fact I am absolutely certain they were saying Ooh Rah. It's their raucous form of agreement. Also heard coming from my husband's mouth when speaking with fellow marines is "YUT" - apparently another common form of marine agreement.

Someday I will write a post called Military Speak Translated. However, this concludes our lesson for today.

Despite the fact that he made a few key vocabulary mistakes, I respect Justin Timberlake very much for taking the time to learn about the very honorable Marine Corps Community.
:)

Saying Goodbye to My 20's

In a few hours, I will officially say goodbye to my 20's.

I don't feel like I'm 30. I don't feel like I look like I'm 30 (I choose not to acknowledge that I get carded less and less these days when purchasing alcohol...). I am, however, going to be 30 in almost exactly 2.5 hours.

Today even though it's a national holiday and all, I checked our mailbox and whatdoyouknow it was full of mail for me. I guess that's what happens when you don't check your mail every day. Then this evening as we were watching Sawyer toddle around our living room in his adorable new pj's that say, "I've been good all year. Just ask mom." We got a knock on the door. It was UPS delivering a present from my good friend in San Diego -- a package with two bottles of my favorite red wine from a Temecula winery, luscious lips.

We cracked open one of the bottles immediately, and I remembered how much I love it and immediately got a craving for thai food and suddenly the decision on what restaurant we will go to for my birthday dinner was decidedly made - the only Thai restaurant in our small South Carolina town. (San Diego was overflowing with excellent Thai food, and it was our go-to cuisine while we were there.)

Then I started thinking about all that has occurred in my life just this last year -- and then all that has happened in the last 10 years. Adventurous life-lesson-packed college years that landed me a fiance. A beautiful wedding. A marriage that took me to Texas, Florida, North Carolina, California, and now South Carolina. 4 years of teaching the most incredible students at the most disfunctional school. 3 long and arduous deployments followed by 3 joyous reunions. A baby boy who makes my heart explode with love every time I lay eyes on him. I couldn't ask for a better 10 years.

Here's to 10 more years of adventures and surprises.
Happy 30th birthday to me.
:)

I Got This

Lately, I've been feeling kind of like "I got this" when it comes to being a mom. As a reader of this blog, I'm sure you realize, I have not always felt this way.

After failure to thrive, Sawyer's hospital stay, the trip x-country from hell, FLEAS, I was feeling exactly the opposite of "I got this". I was feeling like I didn't get/have anything. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.

Soon after we arrived here in SC things seemed to get extra hard. Sawyer was eating but every meal was an experiment in how creative I could be to get him to open his mouth for bite after bite. Every diaper change was a wrestling match. Every bed time was a screaming affair. I did not handle it well.

Mike would come home during meal time, and I would say, "YOU TRY. HE WON'T EAT." and angrily stomp away from the table. I would get ANGRY with Sawyer when he wanted to do anything but sit still during a diaper change thus getting poop all over himself and me and the entire process taking 10 minutes instead of 30 seconds. I would feel like my head was going to explode when no matter what I did I just couldn't get Sawyer to go to sleep at night without an hour of screaming! (him, not me, I can understand how you could make the mistake).

I had a serious case of the why me's.

One day Mike and I had an argument. He was frustrated with my attitude. This is what you want, he reminded me. You want to be home with Sawyer. You could work. There's always daycare, but this is your choice.

But it's so hard. I whined  explained.

I know it's hard. He said. But I bet your mom never acted like you are acting when she was raising you.

hmm.

I am not sure why  he chose to throw my mom in there, and it wasn't necesserily the addition of her to the conversation, but rather the introduction of the idea that others have gone before me that got me. Many others. Many with much harder challenges to deal with. Many who did not approach their day with the terrible attitude I had begun to turn to more and more often.

hmm.

These days, diaper changes are still a wrestlig match. Mealtimes continue to be a true test of my patience and creativity. Nothing has changed. Except me. I'm blessed to be able to have my choice and stay home with my little love of my life. I know that. I don't get angry. My head doesn't feel like it's going to explode. I practice deep breaths. Smiles. Firm expressions of disapproval when Sawyer does something he shouldn't. And somewhere along the line bedtime became peaceful put little baby in crib and he will play for 10 minutes until he passes out time.

I got this.

.....
So confident have I been feeling lately, that when motherhood threw a wrench in its plans, I broke. Sawyer got sick last week. For real sick. Fever, lots of crying, lots of sleeping, no eating, lying around quite pathetically all day. My heart broke for the little guy. The only problem was, he would not take his tylenol. He fought the tylenol. He is strong and persistent and good. In the middle of the night one night he awoke crying and a quick check of his temperature told me it had spiked way up again. Tylenol. During the day I had Mike's help. At night, in the dark house, with a screaming baby, I just wanted to get that tylenol in as fast as possible. He fought with all his might. When I finally got that tube inside of his tightly clenched jaw, I accidently squeezed all of the medicine in much too quickly and he choked. and gagged. and screamed. and made noises that no baby should ever ever make. He cried and cried and cried and  coughed and hacked. Then he threw up a little phlegm. I held him in my arms apologizing over and over and over again, my heart beating as fast as its ever gone. My eyes brimming with tears. Finally, after several minutes where I thought I might have just killed my child he did one more hack and puked all over me.

Then he smiled and sat contentedly as if nothing had just happened as I shook and cried and told myself over and over that I am the worst mother ever created in the history of the world and apologized over and over to my now perfectly happy little man.

I woke Michael up and explained what happened. I was deathly afraid that the medicine had gone into Sawyer's lungs. Mike wasn't worried and went back to sleep. I was still worried, so I called my mom for extra assurance.

I felt terrible dialing that phone in the middle of the night, waking her up mid-peaceful-slumber, but I knew she wouldn't be mad. I just needed to feel completely confident that my son wasn't slowly drowning in tylenol and that I wasn't, in fact, the most incompetent parent ever. 

In the end, all was well. One thing I can guarantee you is that for the rest of my life I will probably be the slowest-tylenol-giver you have ever laid eyes on.

I had almost completely forgotten about that terrible incident until today when I was running around writing this blog post in my head about how I totally have my mommy groove on these days, when I was like,  oh yeah. That happened. Last week.

I guess it's all just one big learning experience. I suppose I can expect that won't be my first middle-of-the-night phone call to my mom. It probably won't be the last time I do something completely and utterly clumsy and stupid. There will probably be a few more nights when I will lie awake long after Sawyer is fast asleep hating myself for being such an idiot.

Most of the time, though, I expect days like today. Days when I forget those mess-ups and walk around with my head held high saying to myself, "I got this".

marriage

Unless you've been living under a rock the past couple of days, you have probably heard about the latest Hollywood scandal.  After only 72 days of marriage, Kim Kardashian is filing for divorce. Ugh.

I'm pretty much disgusted (along with everyone else), and I'm so perturbed by this that despite my love of reality tv I just might have to boycott anything Kardashian from here on out.

I think one of the hosts of The Chew made a really great point today that I hadn't even considered. There are people in this country fighting for the right to get married, and if nothing else, this is a slap in the face to them.

Honestly, though, it's a slap in the face to anyone who actually believes in the sanctity of marriage. It's a slap in the face to me.

I got married young... very young for today's standards... at only 22-years-old. Fresh out of college. Young, stupid, and in love. I imagine that there are many who didn't think our marriage would survive, but here we are. 7 years have gone by, and we're still kicking. It has not been easy. There have been struggles. Deployments. Misunderstandings. Disagreements. Communication problems. The list goes on. But we love each other, and we're married. When the going gets tough, we don't simply sigh with resignation and throw up our hands, oh well - we tried. No. We work on it. Fix it. Talk it out. Fight it out. Whatever we need to do. Most importantly, we stay married. Because we believe in marriage and in what we have together.

I have friends who quiz me on a regular basis about how I knew Mike was the right one - the one I wanted to marry. These same friends are afraid to get married because they don't want to get divorced. In some ways, I think that's so strange, but really, I get it. Everywhere you turn you see marriages that don't make it. The military has its own startling divorce statistics. Gosh. Mike just told me that something like 80% of the marines stationed here on Parris Island get divorced. I mean it's a tough duty station that requires a lot of time from its marines, but holy crap!

It's just all very upsetting.... that something so incredible can be treated with such irreverance. 72 days! And to think I actually cried when I watched that wedding special - a waste of my precious time and energy.

I do believe that the ability to cultivate a healthy marriage has everything to do with how marriage has been modeled to you. We both are very lucky to have parents who believe in marriage and who truly love each other through thick and thin. I pray that we can model the positive side of marriage for our kids so that they don't end up being another devastating statistic.

9/4/2004

Proof

Sawyer started walking this week. The cool thing for me was that it was completely his own decision. I remember my mom teaching my younger cousin to walk by leading him and then letting go of his hands, so I kind of thought that's how it usually went.

Not my boy, though. No, this guy is determined. He just decided one day to take a few steps. He left the safety of the couch he was clinging to and just went for it. He fell after only two steps and ever since then he has progressed very rapidly. The next day he was taking 5 steps before landing on his butt and the next he was taking 10. He falls, gets up, tries again. He is no quitter, my little guy.

In fact, today he decided that he also wants to master pulling himself into a standing position without holding onto anything. He hasn't figured that one out yet, but he keeps trying. That's a tough skill, you know.

I thought I would be sad to see these milestones come and go, and maybe one day I will look back on these days with tears. For now, though, I am brimming with joy. Maybe it has something to do with the worries that sometimes grip me in the heart and take my breath away - the ones that tell me he's still too skinny and he isn't eating enough - the ones that gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when babies 2 months younger than him started crawling before he did. Maybe it's so much relief and joy that LOOK!  HE'S FINE! HERE'S PROOF! Or, maybe the experience of watching the little love of my life growing, learning, thriving, and becoming his own incredible person would have caused my heart to expand to ten times its size even if he hadn't gone through the tough times. Whatever the reason, it is totally awesome, and I am loving every second.

LOOK! HE'S FINE AMAZING! HERE'S PROOF!

favorite?

Recently, there has been some buzz in the media about parents having favorite kids. Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos recently admitted that they have a favorite child. Jeffrey Kluger was featured on Anderson Cooper's new show last week discussing his article for Time Magazine called "Playing Favorites". He claims that not only do a huge majority of parents have a favorite child but they should talk openly about it.  On Anderson's show, a couple of moms actually got on the show and spoke about which child they favored and why.

I was appalled.

While I personally think that Kelly Ripa and hubby were likely joking, the parents on Anderson's show definitely were not.

I must say, this troubles me.

All along, Mike and I said that we wanted to have our kids close together for a few reasons. Mostly, we hope our kids will be close and we think the closer they are in age the more likely they will grow up friends. Also, my career is on hold for this baby rearing stuff so it really just makes sense to get it all "over with" in one fell swoop.

Now that the time for putting our money where are mouthes are is approaching, I find myself feeling a bit of trepdiation about it. I just love Sawyer soooooooo much and have truly cherished all of the time I have been able to spend with him. I spend a large majority of time in awe of this little guy. I worry about bringing another baby into the mix and in doing so losing some of that special time Sawyer and I have together and also not being able to spend as much time cherishing those special moments with a new little one.  I worry about my ability to juggle the demands of two very young kids at one time. It's scary.

And now the media is telling me I have to worry about loving one of my kids more than the other?

Great.

Honestly, though, I call bullshit.

I only have one kid, so I can't speak with 100% certainty, but I really just cannot imagine loving one of my precious, amazing, beautiful, flesh-and-blood children more than the other. In fact, it sickens me that some parents not only claim to have a favorite but are willing to go on national tv to announce which child that is. Hopefully these parents are getting a lot of money for these tv appearances, because I predict hefty therapy bills in their children's future.

The only true frame of reference I have is my dogs. Mike and I have actually had discussions about and tried to decide on a favorite before, and we can never do it. The conversation goes something like this:

Copper pros: he will comfort you when you are sad and spend endless amounts of time cuddling, he is so be-au-ti-ful, and is a great traveler in the car, he likes Sawyer

Copper cons: he sheds like crazy and it is terrible! he is afraid of his own shadow so cannot be taken too many places, he pulls and bucks the whole time on a walk making it very unpleasant

Ramsey pros: he is very obedient and greatly dislikes displeasing anyone, he is super friendly and wants to make best friends with everyone over the age of 7, he is good on a leash

Ramsey cons: he is incredibly neurotic and will not leave you alone if there is a ball in his presence, he barks at anyone who walks past him when he is in the yard, he is terrible in the car, he's afraid of Sawyer.

Their pros together would make the perfect dog. Their cons together would make the world's worst dog. Individually they are both awesome and terrible in their own ways. We cannot decide on a favorite.

I can only imagine that when we have more than one child, a conversation about who is the favorite would go similiarly. (though as Sawyer has a list of mostly pros and very few cons, I imagine our future/fictional child will be the same).

I am still anxious about juggling the demands of two little ones at once, though, but since I'm not pregnant yet (my sister actually thought my last blog post was a pregnancy announcement. Ha!) I guess I don't have to worry about that too much just yet.