Family - Pocketful of Joules

Let’s Just Be Awesome

Do you guys watch How I Met Your Mother (or HIMYM for the cool kids)? I got into it a few years ago and did that thing where you rent all the old seasons on DVD and watch them back-to-back. Then, once you catch up with real time you get all angry that the episodes only come on one at a time. Yeah, I did that and became totally addicted.

Travis and I are totally a version of Lily and Marshall. Travis is Marshall and I’m Lily, of course, even though I typed it the other way. For some reason saying it in the order of “Marshall and Lily” sounds weird to me. I actually do have a lot of Marshall qualities, especially the singing about everything as you do it. I’m going to blame that on Jack though because it’s helping with his word development. Yeah. But there I go again, wandering off another path…

Back on track – I love me some HIMYM* and we usually have a few episodes waiting on our TiVo at all times. One of my favorite characters is Barney, the male slut who has a very super-high opinion of himself. Much like me on a good day, Barney likes to use the word “AWESOME” way too much, which makes me like him even more.

Which is why I’d like someone to buy me this poster:

We all have crappy days. Yesterday was a pretty bad one for me because I had to take Jack to the emergency room (third trip in 10 ½ months if you’re keeping track) for yet another case of croup and stridor. I’m hoping that he grows out of this phase soon, because frankly it’s hard on all of us.

Each time when I leave the hospital, I’m covered in a thin and sticky coat of gloominess for the rest of the day. I have a mini freakout over the fact that we sat in a germ-filled hospital room for hours and pretty much strip everyone down for baths as soon as we enter the house. I then mark another hospital bill in my expense book, which makes me thank the university gods for providing me with awesome health insurance.

I shouldn’t be gloomy though because most of the time Jack is a healthy, incredibly happy and bright little baby/almost toddler. For a baby born at 31 ½ weeks, it’s incredible that he has hardly had any issues at all. A couple trips to the hospital and needing to wrestle him to the ground to use his dreaded inhaler isn’t that bad in the scheme of things.

So, sometimes I just need to suck it up and… well, BE AWESOME.

*For those of you who are poo-pooing this season in their head while reading this post, I agree that this season has not been the best. But even a crappy episode of HIMYM is better than a lot of the stupid TV out there!

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Strangers in my Business*

I’ve been thinking about writing this blog post for a while now, probably at least a year or so. But every time I start imagining the post in my head, I decide not to open the can of worms and move on to something else.

And then, inevitably, the issue comes up again.
And again.
And again.

So, let’s do this. Are you ready? Because I’m totally about to drop a bomb on you…

My husband and I are only planning to have one child.

BOOM! Did the world just explode?

Are you freaking the frack out, trying to scroll down to the comments so that you can tell me what a horrible person I am?

It may sound like I’m over exaggerating, but you would not BELIEVE the reactions I’ve gotten from people.

It always starts the same way, a well-meaning stranger or acquaintance smiles at my little boy, turns to me and asks, “Is he your first?” If I were smart, I would just say yes and shut the poop up. But no, I just cannot help myself from proudly blurting out, “Yes, my first and ONLY.”

The conversation NEVER ends at this point with a smile and nod. No, apparently my response is code for GAME ON for people to tell me how wrong and stupid I am for making this decision.

Here are some of my favorite responses I’ve had to politely listen to:

You don’t know what you want.
You’re just scared because the pain of pregnancy and labor are still fresh in your mind.
OH NO. No. No.
You’ll change your mind.
You owe it to your son to give him a sibling.
Your kid will be a spoiled brat.
Only children are odd with no social skills.
You will have nobody to take care of you when you’re old.
But he’s so cute!
When you die, your son won’t have anyone to share the experience with.
(laughs) That’s what you think; you’ll probably have an accident.
That’s terrible! Don’t you want to try for a little girl?
You’d better change your mind before you’re too old to make that choice.

YES, these are actual things that STRANGERS have said to me. I usually just smile and laugh their comments off, but frankly I’m sick of hearing it.

This is Jack, my amazing and wonderful ONLY child — This is Jack, my amazing, wonderful and adorable ONLY child

What’s funny is that I was actually starting to type up a list of reasons that we have for only wanting one child, but then decided to just delete the whole thing. You know why?

Because it’s nobody’s damn business.

What it comes down to is the fact that we are happy with our one child. We love him more than we could have ever imagined and truly revel in the way that he fits into our lives.

I don’t have anything against big families – both my husband and I come from 4 kid families. If you have a larger family I fully admire and respect you for that decision, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right decision for me.

Much like I wouldn’t be presumptuous and ask if ALL those kids are YOURS, I would hope you’d give me the same respect in the choices I make in MY life.

When it comes down to it, my uterus is none of your concern. Unless you’re my doctor, of course. But I really doubt my GYN is one of my blog followers. But if she is, “Hey girl, can you call in a refill of my prescription? I kind of feel like I’m going to accidently get pregnant now that I’ve said how much I love having my only child…”

*I almost named this blog post, “Talking about my Hooha with Strangers” but then thought I might get a bunch of random blog hits from pervs.

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You Make It Look So Easy

A friend of mine who I’ve known for almost exactly 18 years came to visit me a couple weekends ago. And yes, I totally used a calculator to figure out how long we have known each other. We met when I was just 17 and a freshman in college and now I’ve just had my 35^th birthday.

I’ve known her through multiple long term boyfriends, even more short term boyfriends, 5 jobs, 5 cars, 4 moves, 2 tattoos, a ton of home improvement projects, 1 wedding and now 1 baby.

Any which way, my friend came for a visit. We decided to attend a wine festival, which is always a super fun outing. However, this was the first time she had attended one with me in the role of mommy. So all day she watched me juggle Jack’s needs – feeding him, changing him, entertaining him, snuggling him – while also having a conversation with her and tasting yummy wine.

Hey mommy – is that a glass of wine in your hand? Can I spill it for you?

Do you have a visual there? Is it a totally frazzled mommy who actually has a few minutes to hang out with a friend and sip some wine in between kid wrangling? Okay, that’s exactly what was going on.

At the end of the day after discussing pretty much everything under the sun, she says to me, “You make it look so easy.”

I’m pretty sure my reaction was to pull Jack’s foot out of his mouth (for some reason he’s been totally into sucking on his socks…) while shoving my sweaty hair from my face and laugh at her.

She said that the only time she’s ever seen me falter is when I lost my job last fall. She said again that everything just comes so easy to me.

I laughed it off at the time, but that thought has just been echoing through my mind and refuses to leave.

I’ve had crappy relationships where I was terribly unhappy. I thought I might end up alone with nobody to love me. But I make it look so easy?

I’ve had jobs where I was totally miserable. I’ve worked my butt off doing the most menial work in order to slowly crawl my way up the ladder. Only to be kicked down again. But I make it look so easy?

I’ve had health scares with lumps in places that they shouldn’t be, pre-cancerous spots that needed to be hacked off my skin, and an autoimmune skin disease that will last my entire life. But I make it look so easy?

I was stuck in a townhouse that I was aching to sell for so long that I started despising it. There were scary drug dealers a few houses down from me and one night we had to call the cops because someone was getting their butt kicked on my front lawn. But I make it look so easy?

I had scary pregnancy complications that could have resulted in Jack not being born. As it turned out, I had a preemie 2 months early who had to stay in the hospital for 3 weeks with all sorts of wires sticking out of him. But I make it look so easy?

There is never enough money in savings for me to truly relax. I’m unhappy with my current weight and never actually have the time or energy to do anything about it. I can’t even remember that last time I had a full night of sleep, but if I had to give my best guess it would be over a year ago.

But I somehow make it look so easy.

Part of me is offended by that statement. Like my hard work at keeping everything under control is being overlooked or belittled.

When I really thought about it though, I’ve decided that I’m going to take it as a compliment (which I’m pretty sure my friend intended).

Yeah, life is hard sometimes. That is no reason to sit there and whine and moan about how hard it is. If you have a problem, figure out a way to overcome it. If something is getting you down, try to fix it.

My “secret” to making things look so easy…?

I focus on the positive and I sure as heck appreciate what I have.

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