Laughter is the best medicine for worry. I was worried this morning about what to do about my postpartum healing and now I’m not giving it another thought. Instead I’m gonna buy my sister’s plane ticket and just cross my fingers that everything else smooths itself out. And it will. God always takes care of me, and my family…
These kids make me laugh all day long. They are a riot! Bella means to be, which I find to be awesome. She’s got a great sense of humor and really knows how to crack me up (thus, she is my very best friend). Noah doesn’t mean to be funny, but is all the same. He gets mad at us for laughing at him. Even if he doesn’t have the intentional sense of humor Bella, well, he’s so gorgeous people won’t be able to help but pay attention to him. And Austin is great fun, always saying the goofiest things or helping me to laugh at myself when I want to take it all too seriously.
We’re watching more television these days– I’m only 34 weeks along but am starting to feel overwhelmed by the little domestics, let alone the old excursions we used to enjoy. For instance, I love going to the thrift store once a week and we all pick out a little something. Yesterday I found a $100 NEW Banana Republic dress in a size 6 for $5. I’ll be wearing that next summer. If you’re NOT shopping at the Thrift Store, you should be. Anyhow, I took the kids thrift storing yesterday and after 3 potty trips, (you have to go to the counter to get and drop off the key every time you use the potty) I was over it. I wish we could figure out how to do simultaneous peeing, but it doesn’t work that way, as you know. First Bella needed to pee. Noah and I didn’t. Five minutes later, Noah had to pee but I didn’t. Five minutes after that the sweet tea I drank hit my bladder. We spent more time picking and dropping the key off clear across the store than we spent looking at goodies. Geez. I even accidentally dropped MY KEYS off at the counter and when it was FINALLY time to leave the store, I was in a panic, “Where are my keys, OMG, what did I do with them, they could be anywhere, oh shit.” Geez, Louise… So yeah, we’re watching more television these days and staying home. Home is safe.
I ordered a swing for Caleb just like the one above. We’re keeping it real simple with him– we only have 4 bedrooms, so there’s no nursery to decorate (he’ll share a room with Noah next year). I have a bassinet (was Bella’s) next to the bed. And the rest is easy– a few burp cloths, outfits, my old breast pump, a baby sling, and we’re done! I made him a quilt because I felt guilty for not having made him something yet. But even then I just used fabrics from my scrap box, so it was no cost. Caleb is my bargain baby! The more kids I have back to back, the less I need and the more I realize that buying a bunch of cute fluff is unnecessary because babies don’t need that crap. Babies are easy. Much easier and more simple than their materialistic parents. 
For instance, babies are so easy that Caleb will love his new quilt even though his daddy says it looks like an “African Kwanzaa quilt”. Lol! (even though he would have fussed at me for spending money on the fabrics I really wanted to buy, lol!)
It’s jungle themed, y’all. Not Kwanzaa. Lol. As you can see, Jeremy makes me laugh too. A house full of regular comedians I’ve got around here.
Lastly, my ultrasound last week said that Caleb weighs 5 pounds already! He’s a biggun. And he’s still breech. Not that its a big deal, because I’m having a c-section anyways, but it does make me feel better to know there’s now 2 reasons for the section, not just me electing for one. In case you’re new, I have big babies. Big babies tear on their way out. After living through a 4th degree tear with my 10.5 pound Bella, I am choosing to have a c-section. Yeah, it was THAT bad. I would very much like not to have to wear Depends Diapers when I’m 40.
And, did I mention? My sister and her baby are coming! It’s going to be a busy house in September!
I’m a little beside myself with worry and I’m trying to just relax but this is a pretty substantial worry. We’re in a pickle suddenly and I’m not sure the solution…
Ok, so Jeremy is approaching the end of one job and has a bid in on another. It’s a pivotal important time. Basically he will be starting this new job right when Caleb is due. So missing work is really a bad thing. I mean, in construction things have to be timed. And the timing is really bad. But if he gets this other job, we’ll be grateful and he needs to go because building is scarse right now. We had hoped that the job he’s on would last longer (until October), which would have meant Jeremy would miss a couple of weeks of work at the end of this job, not the beginning of the new one. Ugh.
Jeremy’s mom has offered to watch the kids for a few days when Caleb is born. But she’s not been feeling well lately and we’re thinking it might be bad idea not to have another plan. Her watching the kids for a few days is going to be very helpful and we’re grateful, but we’re needing help for a few weeks (from what the doc says). I know I’m tough and will do what I have to do, but assuming that I can take care of Noah’s high needs and a newborn after a few days after a c-section is a little presumptive. I don’t want to delay healing because I’m over-doing it.
Doc is saying that I’ll need help for 2 weeks and I can’t drive or lift for even longer. I’m assuming he knows what he’s talking about. I’ve never had a section, so I don’t know what the healing is like. But it could also be that the doc doesn’t understand that we don’t HAVE HELP. You know, most of my pregnant friends in my Yahoo Discussion Group have some family support. But we’ve never had that. They have mothers, sisters, or mother-in-laws that are coming to stay with them for awhile or will come get the older kids pretty often. But we don’t have that kind of support system. This is going to be interesting…
Soooo, I could fly my sister out here. Problem being that she’d have to miss work and I’d have to pay her for that missed work plus her plane ticket. I’d love to have her here, for sure. But even if she were REALLY helpful, which is debatable, I’m worried that it would be more of a distraction from our bonding time as a family since I haven’t seen my sister in 2 years. Make sense? Ok, then there’s the ticket issue. If I buy a ticket for the day the section is scheduled, Caleb will end up coming early. Then I’ll be stuck with tickets that aren’t timed right. If I wait until I know when Caleb is coming then I will have to buy a last minute ticket which is twice the price…
I can try to get them into daycare for a few weeks but that’s really iffy. Daycares are super full around here and there may not be a spot open when we need it.
Sooo, I’m trying to figure it all out. Pray for us. I mean, I guess the ONLY concern I have is how bad a c-section really is. I think I’m tough and will be fine after 1 week. But I hear women talk about feeling like their insides might pop out and how painful it is just to go from laying to sitting position. And then I heard you aren’t even supposed to drive for the first month. Is that because it’s sooooo painful that you shouldn’t drive? I’m just not wanting to assume I’ll be super woman and be ready to take on the world after 1 week if other women were still in bed from the surgery after 1 week. Catch what I’m saying?
So tell me, if you’ve had a section, how did you feel after a week? Any other encouragment or advice you guys have is welcome!
Thanks y’all!
We got rid of our Direct TV over a year ago because we wanted to try being more creative. We wanted to waste less lime staring mindlessly at a television. But I’m pretty sure that I’ve missed some great Chelsea Handler episodes and I think with the upcoming 8 month long winter, the slight isolation that comes with a new baby, and the need to keep entertained… We’re going to be getting our dish going again! That’s why I visited mytvoptions.com!
Every good business is a satellite directv business. Don’t you love going to the gym or the laundry mat and being able to watch the Food Channel while you’re doing those monotonous crunches or folding those boring socks? Yeah, every good business knows Commercial Direct TV or Discount DirecTV is smart business.
If you have a business or are starting one, make sure you keep those customers happy. They won’t notice their wait times and generally are in better spirits if they are able to keep their brains preoccupied with some tely. Making your business a DirectTV business is smart business!
I thought I’d sit down and have a nice hot mug of chamomile while I wrote this blog post. I can’t sleep so great sometimes, and I like to think the chamomile helps. When I was little, my mom would make me a warm cup of honey milk before bed if I was especially anxious about something. Sometimes she would bring it to me in bed in this same mug:
She got the mug for her 28th birthday. And now it’s my favorite. It’s faded and has a pretty bad chip in it right above the handle. It makes the coffee spill all over me if I am not mindful. But I don’t really mind the chips. It was moms and has sentiment. Jeremy keeps trying to get me to throw it away because he insists I could find another just like it. But considering I only have a handful of things left that my mom actually touched, I’m not in a hurry to throw the mug away. And, well, her sense of humor is written all over the mug. Too special to toss…
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I want to just be positive about my dad because we’ve truly come a long way. I mean, sort of. We talk on the phone and exchange cards and all that. We didn’t do that for 14 years, so it’s progress. But I guess I still have some hurt feelings. That will never go away because it was never dealt with and never will be. You take an emotional creature like me, and a creature like him that is violently resistent to feelings and put them into the same gene pool? You get a whole lotta nuthin. OR you get something but it’s far from closeness or communication.
Somewhere along the way I quit giving a flying fuck about whether or not we had the closeness part. I mean, emotionally the only people that ever fullfilled me were my mom and Jeremy. And that’s alright because some people don’t even get that. My dad is just real simple. And I’m anything but.
I’m still mad though. I’m mad because he didn’t give a rat’s ass about me when I needed it most. He took care of my step brother, Sean, who was 4 years older than me. He put him through college, let him live in his home until mid to late 20’s, and then GAVE him a home when Sean was finally mature enough to move out. My dad isn’t lacking money, ohhhhhh no. Not at all. So even if he couldn’t be there for me emotionally, I sure would have loved a little monetary support.
But he kicked me out of his home 6 montsh before high school graduation. Stupid me. I should have just gotten my GED and gone off to college. But I wanted to finish high school (even thought I hated it and that whole Chemistry teacher thing was going down at the same time). So I lived in my car and toughed it out until I graduated. I winged it from there. The rumor that I was pregnant with a little black baby didn’t go over so well for him either.
I settled on Beauty School instead of college. I didn’t have a lot of confidence and certainly not the imagination to go to a real college. I could be in and out of Beauty School in one year rather than four, so it was a no brainer.I figured that since Dad had paid for Sean’s college degree (and a lot of failed classed too), he surely wouldn’t mind paying my way through a cheap little ghetto Beauty School. I asked him, he said yes, I was so grateful. We set up payment plans and he recieved a bill every month… But he never paid. And 3 months into school they told me they needed a large payment because my dad hadn’t made the payments. I was floored. And hurt. I should have called him. But I was so humbled by asking him in the first place that I didn’t want to have to BEG him to remember me. I’m just not that kind of gal. I lived in my CAR my senior year, for God’s sake, I don’t need anyone to do anything for me! So I packed up my manequin head, books, and supplies, and headed for the closest stripper pole. I needed money to feed my child, not false promises and a run around or some silly small shot dream of having a career. I needed money.
So I’d hear about the jobs my dad and his wife would get my step-brother, about the house he was able to buy because of the free house they gave him. And then he just bought another house recently because, well, when someone gives you a head start like that you’re gonna do well. I finally put myself through college and have the loans to show for it. Sean has no school loans to pay off and that’s a $25,000 head start all by iteself! And you wanna know something? It makes me jealous. And I’m not the kind that gets jealous. But I am jealous of him. Because he is my dad’s chosen one. And me? Despite that I’m dad’s real blood and Sean isn’t, I’m nothing more than some bastard with nigro babies to him. Fuck them! What else am I supposed to say!? I’m bitter about it. And I’m sad that I didn’t get 1/10th of the care or support Sean did. What did I do wrong!?
Jeremy tells me, “Fuck ‘em, we have way more than any of them.” Yes, ohhh yes. We doooo! I’m so grateful that I have him and my babies and I wouldn’t trade that for their support and acceptance. No way. But I just wonder… Why couldn’t I have had both? Wasn’t losing my mom enough? I couldn’t have gotten a dad out of the whole deal, one that used all of his many resources to help ALL of his children, not just the ones that utterly complied?
And there’s this little part of me that wonders if I’m his daughter at all… Mom was not the most loyal creature. Maybe my dad knew that. Maybe he never connected to me because he too wondered… I guess we’ll never really know. Doesn’t matter really. It wouldn’t change anything, you know? It wouldn’t have made us closer just because I carried his DNA. It wouldn’t have made us more distant if I failed the test. Because I have failed his tests. Miserably. I guess it helps me sort through the rejection by imagining that he’s not my father.
And the truth is, seriously, what could this man possibly have to offer me now? None of it matters now. I am all grown up. I don’t need anyone to wipe my nose or kiss my boo-boo. I do the boo-boo kissing now. And no one handed me shit. No one gave me even a $5 loan along the way. Jeremy either. No one gave us nuthin. We built our empire all by ourselves– no head starts, no pats on the back, no nothing. And that’s alright, you know? It’s just that way for some.
I spent less than 24 hours with my dad. He spent more time on a tour bus checking out the scenes in my town than he did hanging out with my family. He hardly even spoke to my children. You can’t change the nature of things though, you know? Some things just are what they are. I’m grateful, I guess, that we are pleasant with one another. That if either of us goes on to the next place, we at least had peace and a bit of forgiveness between us. But he will never fill the void of my mom. And maybe I’ve spent too much time wishing he could be nearly as loving and accepting of me as she was.
Ughhh, I could go on and on about it. But really, I guess the visit served no other purpose but to remind me of why I feel hurt. I mean, in every conversation we had I heard Sean’s name or how successful Sean is or how cute Sean’s kid is. Yayyy Sean!
I’ll sort through it and probably settle back into my comfort and closure I had about it before the visit. But right this second, I’m just kind of bummed out… And that’s the end of that…
