The week that football preseason starts is always a tough week for me.  I get pretty used to having Craig around in the evenings and weekends throughout the year and the second week of August everything changes.  For a few weeks, until the routine of the regular season starts, he puts in obscenely long hours.

(although, side note – for the six years that we dated he put in obscenely long hours and late nights all. season. long.  By obscenely long, I mean most of the time it was rare for him to be home before 11PM, and he started every day at 5:30.  Dedicated is not the right word.  Then, last fall, when C was born and stole her father’s heart right before my very eyes, he started coming home early in the evening.  Did he all of a sudden get more time efficient?  I think not.   But anyway… I digress.) 

What I was saying, is that this week is always a little bit of a shock to my system as I wonder what to do with myself now that my husband’s not around to entertain me.  So, instead of whining about football season, especially since I know this one is harder on Craig than it is on me, I thought I’d write about the things I love about fall. 

1. Jeans & sweatshirts
2. Football games - I’m partial to high school & college.  Something about the crowds, the bands, the “they are just kids and not paid professionals” of it.   And as much as I complain about football season sometimes, I really love going to Craig’s games.  I love getting to know the kids on his teams, watching them on the field, jumping up and down when they make good plays and joining in the disappointment of the “team family” when they lose. 
3. Cool mornings, warm afternoons and chilly evenings
4. C’s birthday
5. Back to school shopping sales (no, it does not matter that I’m not in school.)
6. Pulling out the boots and not having to paint my toes anymore
7. MY BIRTHDAY!!!
8. Turning on the fireplace
9. The color of the changing leaves
10. Fall festivals with their apple dumplings & pumpkin rolls & hot chocolate

For me, fall is the best time of year.  Summer, with the hot, humid, sticky weather and the mile-long list of things to do makes me want to run inside and curl up under a soft blanket in the air conditioning.  Winter, just sucks.  And we don’t get much of a spring.  So, while I hate going to bed before my husband gets home, in just a few weeks, I’ll be in my jeans & sweatshirt, at one of games, drinking hot chocolate and introducing C to the excitement of high school football.  And in that moment, all will be right with the world.

Updated for the Way Back Wednesday post from Stephanie…  If you didn’t have enough wedding fun last week, check out these posts! 

- – -  (original post) – - -

Can I just say that I love twitter blog hops.  A) It gives me something to write about.  Because some days, I’m just not sure which part of my life to bore bless you with.  B) I get to know more about people whose parenting blogs I read.  So? Win win. 

Anyway… jumping into the wedding. 

July 4, 2008. 

I waited six years for this day.  Six years to stand in a church in front of all the people I love and who love me and promise to spend the rest of my life with a man I adored.  Adore.  And, I really wish I had been blogging then.  Because I remember the months leading up to it as a whirlwind of dress shopping, meetings about flowers, budgetting and rebudgetting, browsing travel magazines and stalking my wedding registry. 

And I loved every second of it.  I loved the planning, stress included.  I thrive on excitement and details.  I sort of like being the center of attention, ahem.  But also, I loved the security and comfort of knowing that once that day was over, my life, my family would begin. 

A few weeks of searching led me to the dress.   It was simple and classic.  And it still makes me sad that I’ll never wear it again.  Perhaps some day, after a few glasses of wine, I’ll trek up the steps, pull it out of the special perservation box, slip back into it and flip through my wedding album.  Or not.

The day of the wedding started with a workout and breakfast with my best friend.  Followed by hours, yes hours, of primping, makeup and hair. Until it was time to zip up the dress and put on the jewelry. 

And then I waited.  FOR AN HOUR.  In my dress, in the hotel room with my brother and my maid of honor.  Trying not to wrinkle the dress and ignoring the rumbling of my belly. 

The nerves hit me on the way to the church.  I was caught up in the details and trapped in the back of a limo on a windy road.  The looming dark clouds were threatening to rain on my wedding day, I was wondering how the flowers looked and hoping that I had left enough time for pictures.  As I was waiting by the corner of the church, watching the last few people walk in, it was all I could do to not hurry them along, so I could have my turn to walk down the aisle. 

Once I got to the front of the church and saw him.  Everything got very calm. 

During the ceremony, we stood together and looked out at our family and friends.  Pointing out faces of people we hadn’t seen in a while, waving at young cousins and grinning at each other.   We laughed at the jokes that our priest made, hugged the families, said our vows, lit the candle and walked out as Mr. & Mrs. 

Then… we got our party on.  With traditional dances between husband and wife, father and daughter, mother and son.  My grandparents were the last couple standing at the end of the anniversary dance.  We made people who wanted to see us kiss stand up and sing a song to get it – no clinking glasses, thankyouverymuch. Craig and I served the cake to all of our guests, our way of making sure we spent a few minutes with everyone who spent the day with us.  We danced to YMCA, We Are Family and all the traditional Central PA wedding dances.   We drank champagne… and beer… and wine.. and oh my aching head the next day.  We didn’t eat enough, but we laughed, accepted hugs and well-wishes and caught up with old friends. 

At some point during the reception, the rain that had been threatening all day finally came.  At the time that our reception was over, it was POURING.  Craig and I walked to the door and then it hit me.  The one detail I forgot.  To arrange our transportation from the conference center to the hotel.  It was only a few blocks, so maybe I thought we’d walk it. But the sheets of water falling from the sky meant that we needed a Plan B.  So we waited while my mom and aunts cleared the centerpieces, we helped the DJ tear down, loaded gifts into the car and piled in the back of my aunt’s SUV. 

:: sigh ::  A girl can’t get it all right, can she? 

So that’s it.  That’s my wedding day in a five-minute blog post.  The day I joined Craig’s family and he joined mine.  The only day I’ve had just about every person I cared about in one room. 

The day I learned that some things are worth waiting for. 

**are you new here?  do you know about Joanna and her #Karing4Keegan fundraiser?  She is doing a really good thing, raising money for a family who needs the financial help as they focus on helping their baby boy fight cancer.  I count my blessing every day, every hour, that I have a healthy baby. I wish I could do more.  But maybe? If we all do a little, it will add up.  Go read about Keegan, help if you’re so inclined, say a prayer if it’s what you do and hug your child a little tighter tonight. ** 

He makes me laugh & holds my hand.

He kills spiders and gets dead mice out of the pool. 

He loved me in Punta Cana will my face swelled up from sun poisoning and in Mexico when food posioning landed us both in a hospital in a foriegn country. 

He holds me up when I can’t stand on my own, and lets go at exactly the right moment. 

He painted the nursery … twice.  

He drove me, at 7.5 months pregnant, 12 hours to see my best friend get married. 

He shops with me.

He grocery shops so I can avoid WalMart on the weekends. 

He lets me pick the movie and the restaurant.

He forgives me when I sleep 80% of the way to the beach (OK, 90%)

His love for ice cream matches mine.

He makes a mean pasta sauce. 

He doesn’t give up. 

He adores our daughter. 

And, although he’s not as much of a fan of birthdays as I am, I want to remind him today, that my life is better because he is in it.  Happy Birthday, Craig! 

Remember the Twitter Home Tour from a few weeks back?  Where I posted pictures of the house we built?  Construction, interior and finally, photos of the completed exterior.  Well, after I posted it, my husband told me that I should have waited until the landscaping was done because the house looked naked. 

::Sigh:: I explained that the internet was doing it that day and I HAD to do it when the internet did.  He asked if the internet jumped off a bridge, would I?  (He’s going to be such a good dad when C is a teenager.)  I huffed and said “probably” under my breath and promised that when the landscaping was done, I would update the post. 

So, this past weekend was “our” landscaping weekend.  And by “our”?  I mean his.  He went and purchased all the plants, shrubs, mulch and those little pins that hold down that sheet of stuff that goes under the mulch.  (Do you all see why this is his project, not mine?)  He was the one (with a little help from his father, our neighbor, a friend and brother-in-law) that spent the majority of two days digging up sod, mapping out where the plants would go, blah, blah, blah. 

I was responsible for supplying food, entertaining the baby and delivering beer.  (WHAT!? Those are important jobs!) Finally, when the weekend was over and the work was done, Craig recalled the conversation from a few weeks back and said, “I would like you to update those pictures on your blog now.” 

So, hi, honey.  Consider it done.  Nice work!

Love,
Your grateful (but green-thumbless) wife

Disclaimer:  My husband is extremely hard to buy for.  Like, high school calculus hard.  But he gives really good, thoughtful gifts and is a good man who deserves a day where I take a breath to show him that I appreciate the husband that he is to me and the father that he is to our daughter. 

January 12:  Thinks to self:  Oh, I should get Craig something really good for Valentines Day.  He’s gone out of his way to get me thoughtful, nice gifts, I should do the same.  Oh, and I should get him something cute from the little one, since it’s her first Valentines Day and all.  I have a month and I used to be really good at this, I can come up with something.

January 26:  Thinks to self:  Only a couple weeks until Valentine’s Day.  I wonder if I should see if Craig wants to go out or stay in.  Oh, and I still need to get him something.  Maybe I’ll do something sentimental like a calendar with photos of our family or a nice frame for his desk at work.  Nothing expensive and elaborate just something sweet. 

February 1:  Sends text to the go to friend for advice: what should I give Craig for Vday?  She answers:  “From you, sex.  From the baby, the I Love You pictures are always a hit.”  She is so helpful.  Make mental note to charge the camera.

February 3:  Little brother calls me to find out where he should take his girlfriend for Valentine’s Day.  I make suggestions and think that it’s sweet that little brother is thinking ahead.  I make a mental note to ask husband if he wants to go out. 

February 5:  Finds out that Craig has games both Friday and Saturday night on Valentines Day weekend.  No big deal that we’re not going out.  Restaurants are always overcrowded anyway. 

February 6:  Look outside and see 12″ of snow.  Will not be leaving the house to drive 25 minutes to the nearest mall.  That’s OK.  I still have time to order something online. 

February 8:  Go to work and Google “Valentines Day gifts for him.”  Spend 4.2 seconds browsing before someone comes into my office with a fire for me to put out. 

February 10:  Ask Twitter for gift recommendations for a hard to buy for husband.   Think about running out a lunch to get a card but decide against it because I still have time. Besides, I want to get him a gift too. 

February 11:  Craig surprises me with diamond earrings (to replaces ones that I lost before our wedding) for me and a card for the baby.  I tear up reading C the card her daddy bought for her.  Fuck.  Now I really have to come up with something good for him.  I wish I had an idea.  Any idea will do at this point. 

February 13:  Wake up, make plans with friend to meet for lunch and shopping with our kids.  Decide I will find Craig’s gift at the mall.  Probably a cool picture frame and something electronic.  At 1:00PM, it starts to snow and as the snow falls so do my hopes of leaving the house.  I cry and think about how I used to be so much better at all of this stuff.  Before there was a job that consumed every second of my time between 8am and 5pm and a baby that consumed every second after that. 

February 14:  Beg Craig to let me make the grocery store run.  Buy him a card, two bags of Swedish Fish and a book. 

Wife Fail!

Please tell me you did better than me!  And give me some hints or tips for next year.

OK.  So my entrance into this (public) Mommy blogging thing is a little cautious.  I’m still a little unsure about my ability to entertain or inform readers; outside of my mother who tells me I’m fabulous at everything. 

Since deciding to change URL’s and “go public” two weeks ago, I’ve spent the time between the baby’s bedtime and my own perusing the interwebs finding and reading other Mommy bloggers for inspiration.   There are blogs that make me laugh, blogs that make me cry, blogs whose titles or layout make me wish I had a teensy little bit of creative ability and blogs that give me an idea of what might be in store as C grows.  One of my brand-new favorites is ThetaMom and I’ve decided to join in on her Time Out Thursday blog posts. 

Instructions are to take one hour per month for yourself and then write about it.  That’s easy right?  The only rule is that the one hour must be something you enjoy and sans child.  “OK,” I think to myself.  “What have I done in the last month that did not include my baby girl and could be categorized as fun.”  I thought back over the last week and my mind went…. work, home, work, bath the baby, play on the internet, work, shave my legs, hair cut, work, home, bottle, diaper.  I’m not even sure there was a bubble bath in there.  So I went back in my mind a little further.  Same pattern except it includes a dinner out with my baby, my husband and my mom. 

So, then I think.  Holy shit.  I may not be able to play this game after all.  BUT WAIT!  Hold on…  let’s go back a little itty bit further.  There were a few blissful hours when we traveled to DC that my MIL stayed with C, while Craig and I went for dinner and drinks.  That, my friends, was on December 29th.  Almost an entire month ago. 

I have a dear friend who is full of fabulous parenting, relationship and style advice.  And she preaches about date nights.  PREACHES I tell you.  “Once a month,” she says.  “Once a month you must ditch your kid and go out with your husband.”  How did I miss this?  How did I let an entire month go by without any time out with my husband but without our daughter.  The three of us had a wonderful day last week shopping and going to lunch, but there were three of us in the car.  Therefore it does not count. 

I hear my friend in my head again, her voice is getting louder as she says, “Date Night, Krista.  DATE NIGHT.”  Okay.  Message received.  So, on this Time Out Thursday I am committing that by the time it comes around a month from now I will have a date night with my husband to blog about.  Or maybe drinks and shopping with previously mentioned fabulous friend.

>

May the sun shine, all day long,
everything go right, and nothing wrong.
May those you love bring love back to you,
and may all the wishes you wish come true!
~Irish Blessing
 
I love making wishes.  I make wishes on stars.  I make wishes when the clock says 2:22 or 11:11 or 3:33. When I find an eyelash on my cheek, I make a wish before blowing it off of my finger.  And, the wishbone of a turkey? Oh yeah.  I’m all over that. 


Or, I was.  Until all of my wishes came true.  Now I’m trying to get better at being grateful for my blessings.  Today (even though it should have been yesterday) I count them:

• I have a husband who I love with all of my heart
• A baby I love more than that and who brightens every moment of every day
• Parents who are not only loving and helpful but who are a source of inspiration in my marriage and in parenthood
• In-laws who live close and are supportive enough to babysit when I need to work, shop or go for the occassional drink – thus allowing me to feel like the person I was before I became a mom
• Girlfriends who were mothers before me and now provide me with an unending source of advice on sleep schedules, product reviews and date nights.
• Siblings I would do anything for, especially now that I see them as an aunt and uncle to my daughter
• Friends who over the years have offered me their shoulders to cry on, phone lines to burn up with phone calls or texting, or a seat next to them when having a drink became the obvious solution
• A job that challenges me and has given me an opportunity for professional growth.

So, when I realize that I have all of that in my life, what’s left to wish for? 

2 years ago today, he wanted to decorate his Charlie Brown of a Christmas tree. She thought it was too early for that kind of nonsense and wanted to go out for wings and beer. But he convinced her that they should mark the end of football season by preparing for the beginning of the holiday season. “Fine,” she said begrudgingly, partly because she felt bad that the season had ended so soon. “We can decorate the tree quick, but then can we go for wings?”


The final ornament that he handed to her was a gazebo with two miniature people ice skating. She can still remember the music it played. He made a promise that some day they would be decorating a bigger tree. She smiled and as she placed the gazebo on the tree and then noticed the hidden drawer. Inside the drawer she found a ring. With the ring, came the declaration that she had been waiting for and the question she thought she’d never hear. She said yes.2 years ago, I promised to spend the rest of my life with this man. This man who had always had sort of a wall around him, who never made plans for the future and who professed his belief in letting things happen. This man has since become my rock and my support. He encourages my dreams and ambitions. He fights for what he wants and what we deserve. He is the one who literally held me up when we said goodbye to my pap. He is the one who wiped my tears when I cried during the second ultrasound, worried that something might be wrong with our baby. He is the one who stayed calm when I nervously checked into the hospital to be induced seven weeks ago. And, he is the one who melts when our daughter cries and lights up when she smiles.

My daughter is a lucky girl to have this man in her life. I only hope that she grows up to realize that a person who doesn’t look at her with this much adoration,

or make her feel safe and secure

, 

or snuggle with her on demand,

is not worth her time. If she grows up and finds a man just like her daddy, she will have everything she needs.

Before I forget the details, I wanted to get my labor story documented…
First of all anyone who knows me knows that I did not want to be induced. Remember the post where I laid out my labor plan… To go into labor on my own – on or before the 23rd of September; go without an epidural and not have a c-section. Well one out of four isn’t bad, I guess.
At our 40-week and 1 day appointment, the doctor scheduled an induction for September 30th, which would have made me one full week over due. I never thought I would actually be that late or need that appointment, but apparently the baby had another opinion. So at 7:45 on September 30th, Craig and a very pregnant me walked into the hospital and knew we would be leaving for a baby. On the way to the hospital Craig talked to the baby about putting me into labor right-this-very-second and I joked that I would be OK with it if they checked things out and discovered that I was in the early stages of labor and sent us home with instructions to come back later. Neither of those two things happened and at 8:30 I was still barely 1cm dilated, not effaced enough to break my water and hooked up to pitocin to start contractions.
For the first hour or so, the contractions weren’t that bad. They just felt like good old fashioned cramps. Then they started getting a little stronger and were a little harder to breathe through. I asked for some pain medicine around 10:00 and before the nurse gave it to me she checked to see how I was progressing. I was 2cm. Barely 2 cm. She gave me some pain medicine to take the edge off, which it absolutely did not, and increased the pitocin. A little while later, the contractions were really, really painful. Craig tried to help by telling me to breathe deeper – (thanks honey!) and I realized there was no way I was getting through labor without the epidural. When the nurse came back in to tell me the woman in the room next to me was getting an epidural, I told her to send the doctor to me when he was done with her.

They put the epidural in around 11:00. That was probably the most uncomfortable and awkward part of labor. Trying to hold still, sort of curled up in a ball, with a nurse standing between my legs holding onto me to make sure I didn’t move while having contractions that felt like like the baby was having her own version of ultimate kickboxing. I was surprised at how long it took to put the epidural in and that it didn’t take effect right away. After they finally got it all in and I laid back down on the bed, I did start feeling some relief… on my right side. On my left side, however, I was still feeling each contraction. They had me lay on my side for a while and that helped the numbness work its way over.
At 12:30 the doctor came back to check my progress, break my water and (after making fun of me for having the epidural when I had said for weeks that I didn’t want it) announced that I was fully dilated. I politely asked her if the drugs they gave me went to my head or hers. I didn’t quite believe her. This wasn’t the way I thought it was going to go. It was early afternoon, not late at night or mid-morning. I remember thinking that I wasn’t quite ready for this yet. She told me that I could start pushing when I was ready.
A nurse came in and turned the warming lights on for the baby and said that we could start pushing. Because I was still so numb from the epidural, she had to brace one leg and Craig took the other – breaking the strict “stay shoulders up and don’t look down there” orders. I tried pushing for about half an hour but it wasn’t really working. I couldn’t feel anything and was almost falling asleep between contractions and pushes. The nurse turned the epidural down and told me to relax for a while. I fell asleep for about an hour.

When I woke up, I started pushing again – this time with a roomful of doctors and nurses. Besides my OB, there were two nurses helping me push (Craig was on camera & phone duty), a nurse for the baby and a doctor from the neonatal ICU to make sure the baby was OK because there was meconium in the water when they broke it and they were afraid she had swallowed some. So, with the team of medical professionals talking me through the pushes – I could feel pressure but not pain – I pushed for about 20 minutes and at 3:33, my baby girl was born.

She cried her little head off while they wiped her off and laid her on my belly. Craig cut the umbilical cord and then they took her, cleaned her off and pronounced her healthy. When they wrapped her up and handed her to Craig to hold, I thought my heart would break from happiness. I will never forget the moment of seeing him fall in love with his baby girl.

All in all, I really couldn’t have asked for a better labor experience. I had a doctor that I trusted completely and who acted like a real person, a nurse who was comforting and walked us through the whole process, and a husband that didn’t do or say anything stupid. That being said, I have discovered that the reason the pain of labor is quickly forgotten has less to do with the love for your child and more to do with the fact that it’s replaced by the pain of recovering from labor – sore boobs, a crotch that feels like someone took a baseball bat to it and cramps from a shrinking uterus that are worse than any PMS I ever had. As I type this and look at my now 2-week old little girl who I love more than I ever thought possible I can say with conviction that it’s all worth it. Maybe someday, I’ll even think about doing it again!

We had our regular 34-week check up yesterday. I joked with Craig on the way there that hopefully we would get right in and right out… I had things to do at work, he wanted to get in some pool time and I was hungry and was planning on a milkshake after the appointment. The getting right in part worked out… we got called back pretty quickly and then we waited… and waited. Finally we heard Dr. Sterlin’s voice in the hallway and knew that we’d be back to our regularly scheduled days in a matter of minutes.

…Or not… When listening to the heartbeat she got a bit of a concerned look on her face and listened and listened and listened – longer than she normally does. When she put the Doppler down she told us that she was getting an irregularity in the heartbeat and she wanted me to go for an echocardiogram. That it was probably nothing and would heal itself but to go get it checked out. The receptionist tried to make us an appointment for sometime in the next week, but the ultrasound folks didn’t have any openings so they told us just to go right away.

Craig, practicing his night of labor driving skills, gets us to the doctor’s office in record time where we sit in the ultrasound office and wait… and wait… (Really, we could have stopped to get something that milkshake and still had time to spare.) For the record, I’m doing pretty good at this point… A little bit excited that we get to see the baby again, joking that maybe he or she would reveal his or her gender to us after all, playing with my phone – looking at Facebook and returning emails. All in an effort to stay distracted. Finally we go back and the ultrasound tech measures Munchkin’s head, shows us the face – the baby’s mouth was moving like he or she was talking to us, and then starts looking at the heart. At which point I think the fear kicked in. To just be laying there knowing that there could be a problem, not knowing what it was, what she was looking at, whether she saw something… Wanting so desperately for everything to be OK. Wanting to take back every time I complained about my back hurting or getting up four times a night to pee. Wondering if the chocolate I ate, the sugar in the lemonade or the beers I had before I knew I was pregnant was causing this. Thinking about our family histories of heart disease and missing Pap. Wondering how it was possible to love someone that I never met so much and feeling helpless to protect her. Turned out that while everything isn’t “OK”, it’s not terrible either. The baby has an irregular heartbeat caused by premature atrial contraction – a fancy way of saying that one side of the heart ‘fires’ before the other side is ready which causes an irregular beat every now and then. Apparently it’s pretty common and usually clears itself up on its own before birth or within the first few months. I have to be careful not to drink caffeine (not a problem) or eat chocolate (slightly more challenging, but totally worth it), make sure to count kicks and movements and the doctor will monitor the heartbeat a little more closely.

All in all, it’s the best news we could have gotten after discovering the irregular beat. Craig is convinced that the baby’s OK and I’m choosing to believe him. His or her kicks not only get my attention they give me a bigger feeling of security, we have new pictures of our little one now and we did still make it out of the room without discovering the gender. That’s good too… I suppose!