Category Archives: adulthood

Living safely versus living bigger

28 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by in adulthood, Baby, Having Faith, Kids, Marriage, My Family, Parenting

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My husband came home last night and looked defeated.  We sat and discussed what was going on with his job.  The issues that have come up.  A normal ebb and flow to a  company but sometimes it wears you down and this is what is happening to him.  He is loyal to his boss but at what point do take a leap for yourself?

We are finally at this place in our life where things are good.  Settled.  Calm.  We have a nice home, a good marriage, a healthy baby, a house full of love and laughter, supportive family, our bills get paid each month, we vacation a bit each year and we each have job security.  We don’t have much to complain about honestly and are very grateful to be at this place in our life.

So as I looked at him last night I thought about what it meant to be comfortable and living versus getting out of our comfort zone and living greater.  I’m not saying going sky-diving or moving to India but what is next for us?  Are we the type that are totally fine just coasting now or are we ready for our next adventure?

We have been moving fast since the day we met and we made this decision to slow down once we had Cora.  We wanted to enjoy this time with her but the baby phase is quickly giving way to the toddler phase and we are suddenly faced with a new reality.  What does the next several years of our life look like?  What is next on our list?  His busy season at work is already starting and he never saw Cora last week during the week.  That will happen again this week.  His body slows down a little more each year from the physical demands and the grueling schedule leaves me taking care of everything else.  Do we just stay with this because it works?  Because it pays the bills?  Because he is good at it?

or…..

Well, we don’t know what the alternative is.  Over the years he has thrown around ideas for other career possibilities. We know we may or may not want another kid.  We know we want to build on more land.  We know our list of places to travel grows each day.  We know we may not stay in the Midwest for forever.  We know we want to keep things exciting instead of complacent.  We know we don’t want to miss out on something great because we have fear.  We know we don’t want to get in the habit of just getting through each week instead of living more in each day.

In the quiet of our peaceful kitchen, where I could just say leave things as they are, I told my husband to shake it up a bit if he wants.  I told him we should start thinking outside the box and if we have to take a leap of faith to do that then I feel like now is a good time to do that.

Basically we don’t feel like this is it. If that makes sense.

We feel ready for a new chapter that seems to be a blank page staring back at us.  It may not be written in the next month or even in this year but we plan on starting it.

 

I do not always have my shit together

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in adulthood, My Family, Parenting

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I was up all night with Cora, again.

We rocked in the rocker for a couple of hours, again.

She would scream hysterically when I laid her down, again.

Teething has reared its ugly head, again.

I’m tired, again.

Recently someone asked me how I always had my shit together.  I laughed.  I don’t.

There are days I’m too exhausted to care.  I come home from work and put on last nights dirty workout clothes. Some nights it is a frozen pizza instead of whatever was planned out earlier in the week.  I run on a large latte from the drive thru in the mornings.  I snap at my husband for not hearing the hysterical screaming through the baby monitor the night before. I want to cry at my desk.  I feel guilt for being happy to drop the baby off at daycare and then miss her during the day.

I do not always have my shit together.

I wish my sister could put her water glass in the dishwasher at night.  I wish my husband would pick his pajamas up off the floor and at least toss them on the bed.  Why am I the only one to put a new Kleenex box out? I have meals to think about, lunches to pack, floors to scrub, dog food to stop and buy, a dog to walk, a workout to shove in at night for my sanity and books that pile up to read.  My Mom calls to tell me that Rebecca is having a boy. I don’t know what to do with the information so I shove it to the side like other things.

I do not always have my shit together.

I work at a job that means nothing to me but I give it 100%. I work to increase my sales, market and tend to our current customers.  I also look for new jobs occasionally in case I am missing the perfect opportunity.  I remind myself that my career is on the back burning and that was part of the deal to only working part-time.  Raising Cora comes first.  I stop looking at jobs and accept what I am doing, again.

I do not always have my shit together.

A few weeks ago my husband tells me he feels as though I do not appreciate how hard he works for this family.  I do tell him this often but in that moment he didn’t feel valued.  I had a hard time validating his feelings, I won’t lie.  He is a good Dad, a good provider, he works his ass off for us BUT then bad mornings happen and bad days happen and mamma over here is doing everything else.  And suddenly I’m having days where my shit is not together because I have a lot on my plate that a lot of other women have.  As women we are still managing a house, a family, a career, meals, oil changes, bills, babysitters and back-up babysitters, and, and, and…..a mounting list of other things.

So on the days where you feel like you don’t have your shit together, that is okay.  Remind yourself you are doing the best that you can and then support another woman.

Tomorrow I will probably have my shit back together and you will too.  Tomorrow I will get out the door on time, bags packed, house picked up, dinner set out to make when I get home, and I will be happy to see my husband walk through the door. The baby will sleep through the night, I will get in a good workout and happily go to bed.  It will feel as if my shit is back together.  It does happen.  Those days do out weigh the bad days.

As for today, I need a nap. Cheers to all the hard working women out there today.

 

 

My World Has Been Broken and Few Understand

07 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by in adulthood, Kids, My Family, Parenting, Rebecca, Uncategorized

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I have struggled to write this post.  Starting, stopping, deleting, and walking away.  I have words I want to say but I just don’t know how to say them or where to start.  With Rebecca I have never known where to start.  She is my own messy story and for those who don’t know how the story goes, well, they ask a lot of questions and I don’t always want the questions or the judgement.  I just don’t have anything left in me for the judgment.

I want to write though because I find myself, once again, going through something in my life at a time when no one else is.  I was very young when I started raising Rebecca.  None of my friends had a baby yet.  I married when my friends didn’t, divorced and remarried when none of them did, went through infertility and was pregnant at a time when they all had grown kids. I was always going through a major milestone when they were at a different point in their lives and I have really struggled with that. It has left me struggling with who to lean on, who to turn to, talk to, and find common ground with.  Perhaps some of that is for a different post though.

I have realized in the past year that as I struggle with a 14 year old, none of my friends have that issue.  Their kids are all in the 5ish-10ish year old range for the most part.  In a way, an easy age.  They forget the sleepless nights of teething, the need for an early bedtime and they don’t quite have the worry of a full blown teenager on their hands.  They think they have time yet. Time to not worry about the sex talk, drugs, rebellion and the other things that will haunt our dreams as our kids start turning into mini adults.  It just so happens my household holds one extreme to the next.  A teething baby and a 14 year old girl.

(If you would like the rundown on Rebecca please go to this page and read through.)

Last Memorial Day weekend Rebecca was with us.  We sat down and we planned out her schedule for the Summer.  When she would be with us and then with my ex.  The other time spent with her biological Mom, who still does not retain guardianship over her.  Yet, the person who does and has held that guardianship has lacked in the parenting department.  That in itself is a long story but not part of this post either.  We dropped her off with not a care in the world.  I literally remember thinking to myself we might be okay.  We might just make it with her. We might have just been doing this right the whole time.  We might just get her to 18 and to her high school graduation. The next weekend we ran into her and my ex at the town carnival.  We all chatted and she cooed at Cora in the front pack.  Big hugs all the way around as we walked to our car and she went to enjoy some rides with the only person she has known as a father.

If I knew right in that moment that that would be the last hug.  That would be the last good moment.  If I knew that life would never be the same for us…..well…I’m sure many people have moments like that ingrained in their head and wished they didn’t.  Instead we walked away thinking everything was okay, normal and we would see her in two weeks.  Only, we didn’t.

The excuses came over the summer.  The flu.  Wanting to hang out with friends.  Just plain not showing up. She missed family vacations, trips and simple summer weekends.  My ex received the same treatment.  Her texting to us slowed.  She started ignoring us.  The person who carries guardianship over her (We shall call him Bruce) told us she was acting out.  He didn’t want to push her. Then again he never pushed her for much because he has been too busy with his life.  He has lacked in a lot of areas with her.  Once again, a post for another time.

Some nights she would text my ex or I.  Never a phone call though.  Long conversations would start and we would just soak up what we could.  Figure out what was going on in that head of hers. We knew she had slipped through our fingers and we were back to the beginning.  We were back in a place of no control. For the first time since we went through court, when she was three years old, her room sat empty, collecting dust.  A bag still packed in her closet for a trip that came and went that she never showed up for.  Those emotions from 11 years ago were starting to boil up.

We eventually received a few updates from Bruce here and there.  I knew he was hiding the truth from us.  School had started  She is now an eighth grade and they had to pull her out of her private Catholic school.  She has been acting out, refusing to go to school, and is sneaking out of her bio mom’s house in the middle of the night.  She is moved to an alternative school.  She is going through therapists like toilet paper.  She refuses to talk to anyone.  Her bio Mom has never been any help (obviously why she doesn’t have guardianship) and is letting her run rampant.  Bruce won’t move her back in his house because that would ruin his own life.

She missed family pictures.  She missed the festival.  She missed Cora turning one.  She missed putting up the Christmas tree.  She missed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.  Things she has always been there for.

The New Year started and I was driving home from the city with Cora sleeping soundly in the back seat.  My cell phone rang. I just knew, looking at the caller ID, that I didn’t want to answer it.  That life was going to change.  We all know that feeling.

It was Bruce.  The News- As an eighth grader and at 14 years old, Rebecca is pregnant.  I pulled over before I drove off the road, tears welling in my eyes.  How could this happen?  How could he let this happen?  It is his fault. But I scream none of it and I listen to him lie to me, give me pieces of information.  I can tell that because we have been at this for years and I’m not stupid.  He says she will give the baby up for adoption and move her to a school that has a high pregnancy rate so she won’t be the only pregnant girl.  She has been dabbling in drugs.  They want to hold her back in school again but they won’t.  Oh and the father.  The father is someone he has been telling her for a year, A YEAR, to stay away from.  I know his tactics though.  He told her in some passing conversation and never brought it up again.  The father is her cousin.  OH, but not a cousin by blood but by marriage.  So apparently that makes it okay.

I hang up and drive through tears.  The hysteria starting to boil up.  Years of everything flashing through my brain.  This is one of those top five things we really never wanted to hear.  We talked with her about sex.  She just watched both me and my ex’s wife have a baby.  We did not make it out to be glamorous.  She knew.  Fuck, she knew.

I call my ex.  A phone call I never wanted to make. I can’t breathe.  I can’t answer.  I can’t tell him.  He runs through the list of the top five things we worry about and it comes out of his own mouth.  He chokes back tears because he is at work.  He tries to compose himself.  The rug has been pulled out from under us.  We are the only two in the world who understand this feeling right now.  The hell we currently feel.  The gut punch.

And in the days that followed, we realize Rebecca damn well did know.  We find out this was her third “pregnancy scare” even though she was taking birth control.  I don’t know what that means exactly.  Who I have thought about, multiple times, since hearing this, is everyone I follow in the blog world and real world that can’t conceive.  They have tried, they have battled, they have loss, they mourn and they try again.  Yet a 14 year old girl with no care in the world of consequences, on birth control, can get knocked up.  By her cousin. That isn’t technically a blood relative.

I drank a lot.

I cried a lot.

I yelled a lot.

For multiple reasons I did all of those things a lot.

Days later we find out she isn’t going to give the baby up for adoption.  I think that was just something they told us to cushion the blow.  In fact, she will keep it and the family is making it out to be great because that is how fucking white trash they are.  In their trailer, living off the government, with no future. In the same cycle as her mother and grandmother.  She is now a statistic. A statistic we worked so hard to make sure she wouldn’t become.  She will have a reveal party on her 15th birthday.  Isn’t that fucking precious.

I text her our support because that is what we do.  Should do. She won’t talk to us.

We hear things that make my stomach turn.

Like how the father’s family will fight for custody because they don’t want the baby in the same house as Rebecca’s bio mom.  The same people who didn’t back me years ago.  The same people who haven’t spoken to me in years.  Our court case will be pulled into it.  Our names written on papers, probably subpoenaed. It makes me vomit.

I send out an email to close friends and family because I don’t know what else to say and I can’t repeat the words over and over to explain to each of them.  Also, I’m suppose to meet one of them for dinner and can’t pull myself together for that.

Thousands of words are said.  Heard.

A friend calls to tell me she is sorry to hear the news but isn’t it great that she, herself, has found out she too is “accidentally pregnant” and due a few weeks before Rebecca.  Well, 33 versus 14 and pregnant.  She wants sympathy because she isn’t married or living with the man.  I hang up.  I don’t care.

A week after hearing the news my Husband and I boarded a plane for Jamaica.  If there was ever a time for a trip, it was in that moment because 2017 has not been kind to us so far.

 

 

Investing in our Marriage

21 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by in adulthood, Baby, Marriage, My Family, Parenting, The Husband

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Thirty days from today, the Hubs and I will board a plane, alone, and head to Jamaica.  We will leave behind our child for the first time and not just for a few days but for 6 nights and 7 days. My sister will be in charge of the baby and the dog.  Managing themselves to get to and from daycare and work.  Tackling a way to get everyone fed, bathed and to bed at a reasonable time.  Fingers crossed the baby will try sleeping through the night for her…..

I mean, my anxiety level over this is a bit high right now.

People have asked how I could possibly leave my child for that long for the first time.  Out of country, no less.  I bite my tongue.

Because what is waiting on that island is what I need right now.  What my husband needs right now is there.  What our marriage needs right now is there.  Nights where I can drink and not worry about how much.  I can pass out in bed and no worry about the baby monitor.  Not worry about when she will wake. I will not be tethered to her schedule but merely to my own.  I can eat as I please.  We can turn off our phones.  Unplug.  Someone else will make my bed and food.  We can have all the sex, whenever we want. Did I mention the sleep? Oh, and the warmth is an added bonus too.

Before baby arrived the Hubs and I always took Rebecca on one family vacation a year and then him and I took one tropical vaca a year.  We love to travel.  Cora has messed up that schedule a bit and we are determined to get back on schedule.  We need this time to invest in our marriage.  Sure, we could do that in a hotel room a few cities over for a night or two but that isn’t enough.  Life is going faster.  A baby kinda takes up space and time.  Sure, we do date nights but sometimes you need more than that to reconnect.

No, our marriage is not in trouble but as the winter has settled on us, we find ourselves not carving out as much time together.  There are no evenings on the back porch talking or long walks with the baby and dog to chat.  Instead we are huddled on the couch discussing schedules for the holidays.  Time slides, things slide, and we are two ships passing in the night as plow season has started as well.

So while people turn their noses up to our travel arrangements, we call it investing in our marriage.  Time away to unplug and focus on just us.  We are firm believers that the better our marriage is the better we are as parents.  We will miss our little one and I will worry about her endlessly but there is a beach, with a drink, and a lounge chair waiting for each of us.  Count me in.

What do you do to invest in your marriage?

beach

Triggers

17 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by in adulthood, Divorce, Friends, Marriage, My Family, The Husband, Work

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When I went through my divorce 6 (6!) years ago, I fully dealt with it.  I can say that I look back now and I just don’t know that person.  I don’t know that wife, that person who signed divorce papers, the person that cried a lot of tears and went through a lot of ups and downs.  Not that I am embarrassed (well, a little) but I have completely changed, as we all do in general and my life is different.  I dealt with it heavily by writing about it, going to therapy, changing my life, changing my attitude, changing my perspective, learning and growing.

I’m proud of that.

However, there are times, when the past never seems far away.  A co-worker of mine has found herself in the midst of her own divorce.  A divorce she knew to be coming at some point as her and her husband have been living separately, two hours apart, for two years.  She finds herself at my desk, almost daily, venting her frustration.  I offer her words of encouragement, advice when she asks, and support. It quickly has taken a turn into the pity party zone though.  The heaviness she brings in each day is suffocating.  To make it worse, it is also affecting another co-worker of mine, a good friend, who still has issues she still hasn’t fully worked through from her divorce. She then starts rehashing from the beginning as well.

I remember clearly the amount of people who were there for me in my divorce days.  I have always returned the favor to each person I have come across in the same situation.  BUT you can’t live in pity party world.  I don’t know how to support you but when you are literally doing nothing for yourself, I just can’t.  Worse though, this is happening at work, not in my home with a glass of wine as friends do.  No, at my desk, while I’m trying to get shit done.

Rehashing the same divorce topics over and over, daily, for me is a trigger.  I suddenly remember these details like it was yesterday and it makes me sick to my stomach.  I fully understand where she is coming from when she talks about the unknown future for herself.  I fully hear her words and nod in agreement when she tears up.  I feel the pain.  But that is just it, I feel the pain come from that scar deep down in myself and I then carry it home. That weight I shed a long time ago is suddenly on my shoulders for no reason because it is hers to carry, not mine.

I went home last week and explained it to my husband.  I suddenly just wanted a date night with him.  I needed the safety net of him, which was stupid and I realized I had to put an end to helping a divorcee in need.

I felt horrible.

I couldn’t walk into work everyday and have two people needing to talk this all out.  With a fresh week, I have ignored the co-worker when she pushes her chair to my desk.  I chirp happily about other things, don’t offer advice, and don’t ask her how she is doing when she offers me the saddest face ever.  Call me horrible.  The other co-worker, my dear friend, we resumed that talk over normal wine drinking hours.  And she also resumed that conversation with her therapist because she is doing something about it.

I’ve been there.  I did my time.  Suffered my pain.  I have supported many friends but the line has to be drawn somewhere.

 

Get a Mole Check. Trust Me.

08 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in adulthood

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I’m pretty good about my health and my body.

I see my gyno yearly.

Monthly I check for lumps or bumps that shouldn’t be there.

I have heart issues, I see my cardiologist yearly.

I go monthly to my chiropractor to keep aligned.

For the most part, I eat healthy.

I only drink coffee, water and wine.  Normally in that order.

I workout.

I wear sunscreen.

And for the first time, last week, I went to see a dermatologist to do a full body mole check.  I have them.  None of them concern me.  It doesn’t run in my family. But hey, I see things and read things and keep thinking that it is something I should schedule.  Something I should take care of.  You know, just in case.

A friend of mine recently went, so that promoted me to just make the damn phone call.

Got the appointment.

Went to said appointment with concern over what I assumed was a cyst, being inflamed, by Cora’s love of beating her head on my chest while in her Ergo.  Suspicion confirmed and a large steroid needle was jabbed into my chest that caused me to curse like hell at that doctor.

Moving on.

She looked at the moles here, there and everywhere with a microscope, declaring them no big deal and then fell upon one.  That one caused her great concern she said.  I stared at the mole on my stomach that I just knew to always be there.  One that had changed a bit while I was pregnant but I assumed that was because I was pregnant.  There were others I figured she would call me out on but no, this was the one.  This one didn’t look like the gross pictures they show you in magazines.  So they dug the sucker out and sent me on my way.

I didn’t give it a second thought.

Until today, when my phone rang.  A nurse simply stating that the biopsy came back and it was melanoma.  But no big deal she says.  And also, they are certain they got it all.  Come back in a year for another check.  Have a great day.

I’m sorry, what? I didn’t have time to ask a question or process what was said.  No big deal.  It apparently is the total norm in their world but obviously not in mine.  I was just going to go because that is what you are supposed to do.  Now I have questions and would like to be educated but the bitch hung up before I could say WHAT THE WHAT?

I’ll have to call back.

First, I made my husband call and schedule an appointment.  Which he did.

So ladies and gentleman, make the phone call.  Get naked.  Let them look you over with a microscope.  It was 20 minutes out of my day that was one of the most important things I could have done.  It seems the older we get the more we need to add to our list of things to check over.

Who else has gotten naked lately and was so glad they did?

 

 

Halloween in the books

02 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in adulthood, Baby, Friends, My Family, Parenting, Uncategorized

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We can officially say we have another Halloween stuffed in the books! It was a whirlwind of a week celebrating because that is how we celebrate things, a full week at a time.  Plus, it is the best way to end my favorite month and we got to do so with unseasonably warm weather in the 80’s.  Score!

We have an annual costume party every year, adults only.  Full of boos, food and baseball on the TV.  This year was a Peter Pan theme which stems from the theme of Cora’s nursery.  Hubby was Captain Hook, I was Peter Pan, Cora was Tinkerbell, Fenway was the crocodile and my sister was a mermaid from the lagoon.  We pretty much nailed it if I do say so myself.  Now don’t go thinking I made those myself.  Nope, not that crafty.  But I can order online with the best of them!

I let Tinkerbell spend one day in her costume running around outside because it was 80 in the Midwest.  Bare feet, wand waving, dog chasing, fairy wings flapping and a big, fat, pumpkin bucket in the other hand.  I could not get enough of it.  She eventually plopped down in her favorite spot, in the mulch, and started digging.  Moments I just ate up.

Another day we took her to the city, downtown, to trick-or-treat amongst the businesses. This is where she managed to sneak her first sucker.  Once she figured out what was under the wrapper it was game on.  It was honestly a bit of a flop but we got out, walked around and made the best of it.

The next day she kept up with us during our party.  Happily turning in circles, in the middle of the living room, till she fell down.  She lasted until 9pm and crashed while we kept going till we were all having costume malfunctions.

Then came the actual day of Halloween. The Husband didn’t have time to change into his costume and my sister could barely mange hers during our party so she opted for a simplified back-up of the devil. We loaded up the truck, with a game plan and headed out.  Obviously, going after the treats at this age is more for the adults than for the wee one.  I get it.  For us, it was fun to get her out and see her reaction.  We took her to places that did a couple of different things such as the fire stations, nursing homes and a few churches.  There was so much going on at each that we killed time, took pictures, ran into friends and didn’t have to get in and out of the car seat a million times.  She chased dogs, stared at costumes, screamed at strangers and climbed fire trucks.  Again, I ate up every moment.  We finished up our night at a bar to grab beers and grub.  Our costumes, tattered and stained, were happily tossed to the side when we got home.

This is what Halloween is now.  These memories.  What you make of it with your family, in your little town, on an extra warm October night.  Nothing spooky, just a lot of candy to over eat, more pictures than what may be necessary, a lot of laughter, and the comfort that we get to do it all over again next year.

 

 

 

This is where we are at today

05 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by in adulthood, Baby, Ex-Husband, Kids, Marriage, My Family, Parenting, Rebecca, The Husband

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We haven’t seen Rebecca since the last week of May.  This week things that have been spiraling out of control with her and have hit an all time low. I fear they will go lower though.  There is so much going on that I can’t write about it, I don’t know how to explain it and quite honestly I don’t want to.  How do you start from the beginning?

It plagues my mind at all hours, I fear my worst nightmares are coming true.  I have no control.

7:30pm- I walked, on the treadmill, at a fierce incline, while I spoke on the phone, getting the latest updates.  Hearing how, once again, people seem to have their own story of what happened years ago.  They still blame me.  Whatever happens today, they blame me.  Even though I was not given that control.

Sweat it out. Keep climbing that hill, huffing and puffing into the phone. Chugged water.

I spent a lot in therapy for this.  Well, this and my divorce.  It was worth it, right?

Later I spent an hour sobbing on the phone with my ex-husband. He reassured me.  He gave me a pep talk.  He reiterated how we fought hard in court when she was younger.  We can fight again.  We will fight again.  We will go day by day.  He reminded me how we knew this was going to happen and that time has come.  He is literally the only one who knows exactly how I feel in this moment.

I said I don’t know if I have it in me all over again.  Maybe I should start going back to my therapist.

]I thanked God for an ex-husband who I do not hate.  A man who is a good man.  I thanked God he married a woman, who may struggle with this situation, but wants to support our decisions.

I poured a glass of wine.

I cried to my husband. I thanked God for a husband who lets me sit and sob in the phone to my ex-husband and then lets me cry on his shoulder.   A man who supports us in our decisions as well and loves that little girl.

I checked the baby monitor.  Thanked God for a safe, sleeping baby in the next room.  I packed the diaper bag for the next day.  No matter what she does as a teenager, it won’t hit this level so I have that going for me.

I poured another glass of wine and took it to the bathroom with me, to take a shower. I blasted the hot water and stepped in, closing my eyes, feeling the exhaustion come over me as it does every night.  The quicker the shower, the quicker I can fall asleep.  Why haven’t they made a way to just sleep in the shower because seriously, I could fall asleep here.

I mentally run through my check list for the next day.  My brain goes right back to Rebecca.  Horrible scenarios creep back in.  I need to remember to order Cora’s 1st birthday cupcakes.  What if Rebecca fails 8th grade? What will the lawyer say when I call him after all these years?  What will I say?  Do we need to do that yet?  I need tights for under Cora’s birthday tutu.  I wonder if I can run to Target at lunch tomorrow?  The old me, pre-second marriage, pre-baby, would be pounding away into my computer, blogging my frustration.  All I can do is write this in my head.

I click off the shower.  I sit on the edge of the bathtub, in my towel and breathe.  I take a sip of wine.  And breathe.  I need to remember to breathe.  Why am I hungry?  Did I finish my dinner?  No, Cora was crying at my feet.  I put her to bed. I forgot about my plate of food.  I should grab a quick snack.  First I need pajamas.

I fall into bed with no snack.  My mind runs.  I swear the only thing that baby wakes to is my head hitting the pillow.  I watch, on the monitor, as she rolls around whining on and off for 30 minutes.  I fight the urge to go in there with a bottle.  I fight the urge to fall asleep because I know I’ll give in.  I wonder ways to break the middle of the night bottle while I wonder how to get through to the 14 year old falling apart at the seams.  I wonder when I should call the nurse back on the diaper rash and I wonder what to text the teenager the next day.  I thank God we have made it till she is 14. I don’t know how we have.  The next 4 years could kill me though.

Tears slide down my face.  I don’t know if I can do it all again.  I worry it will take away from Cora.  I feel the weight of it all.  How did this become my life?  This thing that no one seems to understand.  The few that do understand shake their heads at me, I feel their sympathy because they too know how fucked up the system is for kids.  They don’t have the answers either.  None of my friends have asked how Rebecca is.  They haven’t asked where she has been.  We are an island. At least I’m not on it completely alone.

I give in, get a bottle, and go get Cora out of her crib.  The sooner she gets back to sleep the sooner I can go to sleep.  We snuggle up in the rocking chair and I breathe her in.  I think about all of the things parents worry about with their babies.  When they walk, what they eat, what diapers are the best, formula vs the breast, when to start preschool, the best developmental toys and oh yes, this damn middle of the night bottle we can’t get rid of.   All those things, sometimes make me shake my head.  Do you know how much harder it gets?  How much harder it could be.

I stop and make myself breathe in this quiet moment in her room.  Her sleepy body, curled up against mine.  But then she breaks that moment by screaming as she has emptied that 2oz bottle quicker than what she wanted.  I give her the binky, she throws it across the room, throws herself backwards, screams at the top of her lungs and I just move her back to the crib.  By the time I’m back to my room she has rolled over and fell asleep.

We can always try again tomorrow night with that bottle situation.  Tomorrow is another day.  Maybe it will be better.  Maybe it will be worse.  Where was I at in my checklist?  I’m still hungry.  I should take tomorrow off.  No, I’ll get up in 3 1/2 hours and do it all over again.  Because that is where we are at right now.  1:34am.

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