Incubation Nation

So, the baby will be 2 in just over a month, which basically renders her not a baby anymore. I’m at a loss as to what to do with this development. When Lucy turned 2, I knew for certain there were more children on the horizon, so it was easy to take. I became pregnant a few months after her second birthday.

I’ve felt kind of like “now what!?” for the better part of the last 2 weeks as it has really hit me that soon my baby will be 2. I really just don’t know. Hub is pretty firmly in the no more kids camp. Some days I am there too, but others, like today when I saw a hugely pregnant woman in Target, I swoon. *I* want to be hugely pregnant and feel a baby rolling around in there one more time. *I* want to snuggle on the couch with a teeny baby who is mine all mine. In so many ways I am not ready for the childbearing part of my life to be over with. It doesn’t seem right.

But in other ways, I am so good with what we have. The big kids are so self sufficient now; Bud can (aside from getting the water to the right temperature) take his entire shower on his own. He can get a stool and pour himself (or his sisters) a drink. Lucy isn’t too far behind. Liv has slept through the night for a few months now. We’ve finally gotten her off the bottle. She knows how to work the TV and the remote! They are all so big! In a few weeks, we will be down to one child in daycare for the first time in 5 years. That is a great feeling.

And I’ve really enjoyed Liv as “my baby”. I mean really—I think I have done a better job of that with her than with the other 2. So, what exactly is my problem?

I’m not eager to have morning sickness, sciatica, varicose veins or to go through labor. I’m not eager to have sore cracked nipples. I’m not eager to spend sleepless night after sleepless night. I’m not eager to spend my days calming a fussy baby. Or to start the whole daycare routine over again. To go through the struggle of leaving to go to work when I’d rather be home. Honestly, none of it sounds appealing.

But still, there is this voice going “baby….baby….baby” (It’s not Justin Bieber) Will it ever go away. Even if I had 4 more babies…would it be gone?

Last week I attempted to barter with Hub for one more baby. I won’t tell you what I offered him, but he was willing to work out the details. Later that day though, while sitting at Kindergarten graduation, Liv was a terror; the screaming, throwing herself on the floor obnoxious terror that only a 2-year-old can be, and Hub looked at me. “Do you really want one more of these?”, he asked.

I don’t think I do.

Today anyway.

I’ve seen this guy outside of my office every day this week

We harassed Bud all week last week to practice his Tae Kwon Do form. All week he gave us a hard time about it. Whined that he had forgotten it. That his stomach hurt. That he just didn’t feel like it. He wouldn’t do it in front of anyone. I was more than a little bit nervous when we arrived for his tournament on Saturday; worried that he would just phone it in.

(Ok, I was on the verge of throwing up, but only because I had to drive in to the city by myself—which I HATE—and my GPS signal crapped out on the way there, so I had to wing it. It took me a long time to recover. Aaaaaanyway…)

His teacher had told me that he would be one of the first to go, so I figured we’d be in and out. His teacher was wrong though, and we ended up being there for almost 2 hours. He was in a competitive division (where you get real number scores, i.e. 9.45 instead of the baby scores of “super awesome!”) but there was nobody from his age division (age 4-6) there, so they put him up against the older kids—two 7-year-olds.

When it was finally his turn, Hub, who had come a little later me, Lucy and I joined him on the competition floor. Bud is sort of famous among the schools because, well, he’s Bud, so many people came by to watch. The other children, one being a belt lower and the other a belt higher than Bud, went first and were nervous through their forms. When Bud came up, I held my breath. He was loud and confident as he announced himself and his form. He was right on as he went through his moves. Hub and I were kind of blown away. We should have known though; he’s been doing this since he was 4. He turned around while the judges tallied their scores. He got mid and high 9’s. Hub and I knew he had won, but he did not.

After sparring, the children lined up. The judges announced 3rd place, and then 2nd place. You could see the look on his face as he realized he had come in first. I couldn’t have been more proud. He was ridiculously proud of himself. He also got a first place medal for his sparring.

He has them displayed at home now, with the participation trophies he got from his non-competitive tournaments, and with the 2nd place medal he got in his first competitive tournament a few months back. We had various company this weekend, and he proudly showed them all.

My son, who will graduate from Kindergarten tomorrow btw, is a superstar.

I feel all panicky today, probably for no good reasons, except for they feel like good reasons to me.

• Reason #1- today was donuts with dad at Bud’s school and after the donuts, the children were to wait in the auditorium until school began at which point they walked to their classrooms. When I was there for muffins with mom, the same program was in effect, only there was no chaperone and it was very chaotic. I ended up driving Bud home so he could get on the bus rather than not know WTF was going on in the school. But Hub left him there today, said it was no problem; he’s a good kid. Which is generally true, but today is also field day and I feel like he could easily just get lost in the shuffle and nobody would know. And I don’t know, I’ve just been so involved in reading about poor Kyron Horman and how he just disappeared from his elementary school. And his sunny smile just reminds me so much of my Buddy. And so….I panic.
• Reason #2- My mother has the girls today and it is sunny and gorgeous out, so she is letting them swim in her little blow up pool. The teeny tiny blow up pool. But I am so nervous about something going wrong, and she is there alone with no car (or a drivers license to be honest with you) and well, what if there is an emergency?
• Reason #3- Among having something like 12 jobs scheduled for today, Hub has a long awaited appointment with a dermatologist. He’s had this bump on his back for as long as I can remember and his doctor, something like 10 years ago, told him it was a sebaceous cyst. I get them and have them removed all the time, so no biggie. But it has grown recently. And is hard. And remember when he went to see that holistic chiropractor type dude? He told him he didn’t think it was a cyst at all and could be something awful. And well—what if it is?

Do you have these days sometimes? Where you realize you could lose your whole family in the blink of an eye? It’s horrifying. They don’t tell you about this when you fall in love and have babies. You hear about the good—the love and family and fun and you hear about bad too—tempers, bullies, and broken hearts, but nobody tells you about the fear. It lingers there, usually in the quiet distance, but sometimes blaringly visible as it is to me today. If something happened and I lost my husband, or even worse, one of my children, I don’t know how I could possibly go on. I know for certain that I would never be the same. The thought alone is almost too much to bear.

So I’m pushing it down. It’s really all I can do. Well that and hope that they all outlive me so I’ll never have to know.

Last week I celebrated (well, if by celebration you mean nothing was said and I still don’t have my 10-year brick) my 10 year anniversary with my company. 10 years—Holy Cow. It still seems like such a short time span, but no, it really has been 10 years since June 5, 2000. Many things are different, and here are a few:

• I was 21 years old. It felt like I had my whole life ahead of me. I remember that I worked 12-9 when I first started, and I would find myself out until all hours of the night and still be able to sleep in until 10:30 before I had to get up and get ready for work.
• Hub and I had been together for 6 years at that point. We got engaged that summer (August 14th to be exact, at Cedar Point)
• I had many friends, and none of us had children
• I weighed about 60lbs less than I do now
• My hair was looooong—like down to my butt long.
• Our house was “the place”. Everyone hung out there and we all came and went. Aside from Hub, I spent the majority of my time with my 2 girlfriends, J and M. And with my brother, who was 18 or 19 at the time.

Now of course, I’ve moved way up in my job, I’m married, and the majority of my time is spent with my children. Hub and I don’t go out, but we work around the house. A good time for us is cooking a good meal, watching some good TV and going to bed early. I think the reason that 10 years ago doesn’t seem so long ago, is that we settled in to these routines soon after we were married in 2002. Our lives have been very much the same for the better part of 8 years. Sometimes I wonder if I should regret getting married, settling in a career and having kids young. I don’t in the very least.

Another thing that happened 10 years ago was my very first foray in to blogging. I still keep tabs on that blog and update it occasionally. I thought that in honor of the 10-year anniversary, I’d share some excerpts with you all over the next few weeks. Sometimes, I sound incredibly douchey. It is evident how young I was. I’m glad to have it though. Here is something from my very first entry. I will first point out that I was still young enough to round up my age. And that I was pretty careless with the spell check. And also- Prime example of douchey 21-year-old me (though I still think Sweetest Day is stupid). Ok, here it is; don’t judge me:

Ah…Americana Wednesday, July 05, 2000 I celebrated Fourth of July like a real American, on a blanket at the state university, Starbucks coffee in hand. I was just sitting there remembering how simple things used to be. We used to watch the fireworks from Uncle Phil’s deck every year for christ’s sake, and now hear I am 22 years old, at a totally commercial event, watching a major fireworks display. Now don’t get me wrong, the fireworks were damn cool; it’s just amazing how much things have progressed in the past 10 years. I feel so old!! Nothing is just simple anymore, everything has to be made in to an event. I wonder if it’s because people are so money hungry??? Take Sweetest Day for instance……..WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?? It’s the holiday created in october because there are know holidays for gift-giving between Father’s Day and Christmas, that’s what it is. It’s completely dumb and made up, and has no sentimental value. Ed and I have never celebrated Sweetest Day….how freaking dumb.
Well, now i’m going of on a tangent, so I’m gonna go get some Starbucks…..MMMMMM Mocha-Brownie Freeze…..Until next time~sara~

I am swamped at work, so naturally I am blogging.

I was so pleased with all the compliments I got on our garden and house, from the pictures I posted last week. It has come a long way, let me tell you. Hub and I have been in the house for 11 years now, and it was as bare bones as they come for the longest time. We did remodel the bathroom almost immediately after moving in, but Hub’s dad financed it for us. We started painting a few years ago though after we officially bought the house from FIL and it seems to have been project after project from there. The biggest by far, was the kitchen, where the brunt of work was completed while I was pregnant with Liv. Aside from hanging the cupboards and installing the counters, Hub did it all from tearing down the old plaster walls and hanging drywall, to plumbing and painting. We still have only a super cheap linoleum floor, and haven’t done the molding or the backsplash. Mostly because I hadn’t made up my mind as to what I wanted. I have a pretty good idea though, and we’re looking forward to getting it finished soon.

We’ve put substantial work in to our yard, and it has become one of our favorite places to spend time in the nice weather—especially at night when we make a fire. To me, there isn’t much more that is as relaxing as sitting and watching a fire. We talk a bit, and listen to the radio and basically just chill. It’s nice. Yes. We’ve got the play set out there for the kiddos now too. In the next year or 2 we’d like to build a small deck out there, but right now, we’re looking at doing a small patio to get the picnic table out of the grass. We can do it for very little money, so that’s a big win.

We want to redo our driveway as well, which is a bigger expense than I would have thought. It’s old black top now, and it crumbles, and tons of dirt gets tracked in to the house. We’d like to make it nice smooth cement.

And even with all we’ve done, there is much more to be done inside. We’ve been talking for years about building bedrooms upstairs and expanding our living room in to what is our bedroom now. Hub wants to move the front door and windows. We’d like a bay window in the kitchen.

I don’t think it ever ends when you’re a homeowner. It’s nice though to take pride in your work, and be happy with the way your home looks to others.

If only I could keep up on the housework…

We had the best kind of holiday weekend I could imagine. We spent the majority of our time outside, cooking, gardening, and working in the yard. I skipped the gym in favor of pulling the baby on long wagon rides. To say it was glorious would be an understatement.

I left work early on Friday, by about an hour, to try and beat some of the traffic. My route home is the basic route southbound out of town, so I knew it would be busy. And of course it was, so I got home at the same time I would have on a normal day leaving on time. My goal was to get all the housework done Friday night so we wouldn’t have to think about it over the weekend, so the kids and I did that while waiting for Hub to get home from work. I fed them, and when Hub came home we ordered calzones, and then we had a fire out back with my BIL and niece. It was the perfect way to kick off the weekend.

We were up early on Saturday, and drove around for a bit after breakfast to find this garden center that we knew existed, but we weren’t sure of the exact name or the exact location. We wanted to go to Wal-Mart anyway to pick up some canvas chairs, so we left and hoped that we were heading in the right direction. As it turned out, the Wal-Mart we were heading to had closed and relocated and reopened as a super center a few miles away. On our way there, we came upon the garden center. It was a pretty fabulous place, and the prices were decent. We got all the vegetables we wanted to plant for around $20 (Hopefully we’ll save at least that much over what we would buy). I’m really excited about it. We let the kids pick some things out that I’m not expecting to grow: cantaloupe(for Liv), pumpkins and corn. We got regular and cherry tomatoes, garlic, sweet onions, carrots, peppers, cucumbers, beans and eggplant. We ate lunch at the hotdog stand that was there, and Hub left us for a few minutes to go pick up a yard of dirt from the back. We did go to Wal-Mart from there and picked up what we were looking for. And once home, we set to work on getting the garden ready.

I was pleasantly surprised with how fast the work went. I was equally surprised and pleased to find that my chives from last year had grown back. Hub built the bed way out from where it was last year since we were planting so much more. By dinner time, we were done in back and after eating, we went out front and started shoveling dirt on to the flower beds. Suffice it to say, we were quite exhausted by bedtime.

Still though, I got up early on Sunday morning and made the kids (oh who am I kidding—we all ate them) cinnamon muffins and we watched CBS Sunday Morning, which is our average Sunday tradition, and I don’t really remember how we spent the rest of the afternoon, save for a wonderful 45 minute nap before heading to Hub’s cousin’s place for a birthday/Memorial Day party. Our 3 children are almost equal in age to her 3 children, and we always have a nice time over there; read: Our Kids Have Entertainment other than Each Other. We left pretty early though, in the way of leaving parties, because Liv was horrendously overtired and had scraped her knees 687 times, and it was just time to get her home and to bed.

And then there was yesterday. We all slept in until nearly 9am, and got right up and out of the house. We stopped and bought the kids donuts and chocolate milk, and Hub and I grabbed Starbucks. Then we headed to our very favorite park, which is about 30 minutes away—though we were deterred by 3 separate parades, which brought the time in the car up to around an hour. It was about 11 when we got there, and not too busy yet. What we forgot though, was the veterans park that resides inside this park, and there were at least 500 motorcycles lined up on either side of the road and tons of people converged on the memorial. We turned around and hightailed it out of there. We stopped at the creek on the way out and the kids strapped on their water shoes and had a fantastic time. Liv enjoyed it as well, so long as I was right in the water with her. I got myself a pretty good sunburn being in the water, but it was worth it to spend the time with the kids. We spent about an hour, did some shopping and bought the kids a sprinkler on the way home, and then we were done. Hub did a little more work in the garden and I camped out in a chair on the front lawn while Bud and Lucy ran through the sprinkler. The weather had been great all weekend, and by dinner time, storms loomed in the distance. We had thick steaks, baked potatoes and roasted broccoli from the grill, but ate in the living room in front of the TV instead of outside. All 3 kids were in bed before 8, and Hub and I followed soon after.

It was ridiculously hard to get back to reality today; it was such a lovely 3 days. 4-day work weeks are nice though, and before we know it, the weekend (full of plans) will be here again. I can tell you this though: I’m now totally jonesing for a real vacation. It can’t come soon enough!

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