New Years Eve

This year is ending, and I can say that I'm glad to see it go, especially this last half.

I'm also ready to let quite a few things go at the turn of the year. This is actually one of my resolutions. I want to be at peace at the start of a new year. I don't want to carry around the anger of things that I cannot control. So, I'm letting go of all the bad things. Aaron losing his job, friends with big fat mouths, etc.

I plan on exercising again as well. I'm still working on formulating a workout, but I'll have it figured out by the end of tomorrow.

On the more serious side, I'm gonna try and make sure that I take better care of my health. Yes, I am only 23, but I do need to make sure that I'm going to the doctor and dentist when I'm suppose to. Which leads into me going to the doctor on Friday. I have a gyno appointment because I've been on my period for 16 days. Yes... I have been bleeding for 16 DAYS. It's driving me crazy, and I've finally been talked into going to the doctor to get it checked out. I'll make sure I update on that after the appointment.

Alrighty, I have to wrap this up. I need to get home and spend the last few hours of this year with my wonderful fiance and son.

Counting down the days until the new year. The new year will bring us something that is desperately needed... money. We're waiting for my paycheck, and Aaron's first pay check. Can't wait...

On the note of Aaron's first paycheck. We've gotten some pretty good news, and some so-so news. Aaron has worked at his new job for one whole week, and his boss told him that he's going to start training him to be the lead cook! That really is wonderful! The so-so news.. he's working day shift, at least my mom is able and willing to watch AJ when I work.

Update on AJ...
I can't remember if I had put it down here or not, but AJ now has his eighth tooth, he's crawling like a pro, and he can stand without any support for a few seconds. I think he could actually stand longer, but he wants to move, so he lunges forward and falls. He tried to take his first step today. I think he was surprised because before he completed it... he plopped down on his booty. He'll walk with help as long as both of his hands are held. We tried to walk only holding onto one hand, but after a few steps he wouldn't budge until he had a hold of my leg. He's having conversations with us, but of course everything he says is in baby talk. I get a kick out of him talking to me though.

I'm working on crocheting some blankets just to keep me busy during the winter break. I started one, but ran out of yarn. So I started another with some different yarn. Once I run out of the yarn for that one I'll probably go out and buy some more to finish them.

Anyway... I'm off to go play with AJ. He's standing by my side talking to me.

Today... so far

Well, I'm sitting here, at my mom's house. AJ is sleeping, and I'm getting ready to run home and do a little bit of cleaning. AJ and I have a playdate with Laura, and I can't wait. We're gonna make some cookies, and have an early dinner... then we are going to go to Movie in the Park. This movie is going to be a little hit or miss with the three young ones... it "A Christmas Story" but while it is family friendly, I am not too sure it is kid friendly.
So why am I at my mom's? I was bored. I don't like being home alone... even when I have the baby. Yes, that's right... Aaron is at work today. I'm so excited for him, but I'm also so nervous for him. I asked him if he was excited, and he said no, but I think secretly his is. I think he's glad to finally be out of the house. I also asked him if he was nervous, and he also said no. Maybe it is just because he's comfortable in that kind of environment, but I still worry. Is he going to do a good job? Are they going to like him? Blah blah blah....
Anyway, something else on my list to get done today before the playdate... send out Christmas cards with Christmas letters, and pictures of AJ. Also, while I have a few days off of work, I'm going to work on my New Years Resolutions. I'll have to get back with you on what exactly it is because I want to have it all thought out in my mind. I think a lot of people fail their New Years resolutions because they make one big resolution, like "I'm going to stop smoking". And then they just stop midnight of January 1st, and by 10 am they already broke it. That's the problem... they decide on their resolution with in seconds, but don't think how they are going to follow through with it, or they make it too big.
As I was getting ready to write my closing my mother just asked me to run out and get a few Christmas gift, just add something else to my list for today. Alrighty, I have to run...

Blah

I guess I have a bit of catching up to do. I haven't really been in the mood to blog.

Things have gotten really hard financially. Luckily, Aaron did get a job, and he should be starting soon, although that is bittersweet in itself. The thought of having to work really hard the next couple of months to get back to where we were two months ago is exhausting, and I'm not talking about going to work, but actually working on the situation. Aaron getting a job is bittersweet because the excitement of it was dampered pretty quickly when everyone from his previous employment (people he doesn't not like) found out about his job and how much he's getting paid within 24 hours of me telling one person.

I talked to my mom acouple of day ago about Christmas. Aaron and I have decided that we are probably going to do Christmas in February when we should start to have some extra cash. I have to be honest and say that I am disappointed, but all I can say is... what can ya do?
AJ birthday is coming up quite fast, and it's scary. I've had a lot of people tell me not to worry about his first birthday, he won't remember it, but I don't care. It's his FIRST birthday... and I want a nice one. He'll never have another 1st birthday and it's big for me. He's my first child, and I want to be able to celebrate it. At least Aaron will be working, and we should be able to celebrate it just fine. I just have to start planning it.

Work for me has been going pretty well. Actually the last couple of elementary jobs have made wish that I stuck with my elementary education degree. FCAT teaching is not as bad as I had thought, although I wish that the FCAT wasn't as pressured as it is. Anyway, I took a 4th grade job on Friday. The kids were great, actually being able to teach is great, and grading papers is great. Who knows maybe when I get into USF I'll go for teaching and art, so that I can teach until an art position opens up. I have heard that it is hard to get an art position in schools. Anyway, I find that I've always liked to do paperwork. If I'm in an office, I enjoy filing papers, and data entry type stuff, but I don't necessarily like to work with the general public because people are cranky. In teaching, I usually like the kids expecially in the 3 to 6 grade range, and I like the paperwork that goes with it.

AJ is doing well. He went to busch gardens for the first time on Black Friday. He had a lot of fun. I have a few pictures of that. I'll put some pictures of him up soon.

Other than all that, school is ending soon for me. I have one exam that I have to do before tomorrow night, and I'll get started on that soon. And me and my little family will be just scraping by for the next few weeks, so I hope everyone has a wonderful night.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

For me, we celebrated yesterday. Aaron was the cook, and our dinner was awesome. Normally, I don't eat too much of our Thanksgiving dinner because I typically don't like what my mom cooks, but Aaron had tons of stuff. We had a turkey, of course, stuffing, home-made mashed potatoes, home-made gravy, from scratch macaroni and cheese, green beans, green bean casserole (both of which I did not eat), corn on the cob, rolls, home-made corn bread muffins, deviled eggs, 3 homemade pumpkin pies, 1 homemade apple caramel pie, and 1 homemade apple cinnamon pie. I still feel like I forgot something, but it doesn't matter. It was all sooo good.

I took a few pictures of AJ's first Thanksgiving, but I haven't taken them off of my camera yet. I'll have to do that later.

I'm off to make Broccoli-Cheddar Quiche.

Movie

AJ and I went to Movie in the Park last night with Laura, Thomas, and Joe. It was Kung Fu Panda, which we have been watching all week lol. Oh well. It was nice when we left, a little chilly when we got there, and COLD by the end of the movie. I had brought three blankets to wrap up in, but next time I'll make sure that we at least have one for each, depending on if it is actually going to be cold in December. Last year it did not get cold until right after AJ was born. It is really nice that it is cold now, thought, and I really do want a cold Christmas.
Anyway, back to the movie... the concession prices were very good, and I actually ate a hotdog and liked it. The babies fell asleep a little into the movie, and they were all swaddled up in their blankets, and we laid them down next to each other. It totally made me feel like he was a newborn again, I miss the newborn stage ALOT.
Alrighty, I do have to get going. I have a little boy in the next room who seems to be smelling up the house.

Poundage

Brrrr... I'm chilly right now. And... I'm very tired.

So, I was reading Sgt and Mrs Hub's blog tonight. She was talking about her struggle with weight, which if you read back some posts, I was working on too. It got me thinking about something that I've been thinking about for awhile.

I am not happy with my post pregnant flabby body. To be honest, I wasn't happy with it before either, but ya don't know how good ya got it til it's gone, right? But... I do have to give myself some credit, which I wasn't doing. I would get very disappointed with myself if I missed a day of exercising, but I've stopped for alittle while because of the anxiety I was having. I'm actually going to start formulating a new routine soon. Anyway, onto why I give myself some credit. It took me 39 weeks to gain 32 pounds (remember: pregnant). I got those 32 pounds off before AJ was 10 months old. It took me about the same about of time to lose it as to gain it. That is an accomplishment! I just forget to let myself know that because I forget how much I actually weighed at the end of my pregnancy.

I definitely don't think that I could lose another 30 pounds in 10 months. I mean it's only 3 pounds a month, and I guess I could do it, but it's too scary to think of it in a big number. Although, if I did lose that much I would be pretty damn close to where I was at the end of high school, and 15 more would be where I was at the beginning of high school.

I'm going to leave you with a scary question though.... if I lost 45 pounds... how saggy would my boobs and belly be? EEEEWWWWW...

Boo

Boy oh boy, am I tired? I was up at 5:50 this morning to get ready for work. I went to work in the music class that I've worked in before with the emotionally disturbed kids. I like going to that school. I have seen other teachers trying to control a kid in the hallway there, and it is scary, but I have not had an issue yet. I even feel that a lot of these kids are much better behaved than in the "regular" schools that I go to.

I had to stop blogging for a few minutes to give my boy some smooches. His slimey, dirty face needed some smooches. I have lived through four younger brothers, but it never ceases to amaze me how a baby can get so dirty doing nothing. The worse part is, the floor was just mopped and vacuumed the other day... just goes to show you can't always get all of the dirt. Oh, AJ has another tooth! Grand total: 5 He's just popping them out.

I also want to add in here, Aaron is a WONDERFUL cook. He made me lunch when he got home. Chicken tenders and potato wedges. Exactly what I wanted, and he made them. It was yummy.

I don't have too much going on in my life right now. It's just working, doing schoolwork, and being a mommy.

A story

Acouple of nights ago, Aaron made a ziti type pasta dish. He made alot! A lot more than we could eat lol. I had to go to my mom's to scan some drawings for school, and I brought the left overs with me. My brothers are sure to eat practically anything, expecially if it is a homecooked meal. I left to go to the bookstore, and my mom calls me alittle while later. She thanks me for the food (she was sleeping when I was there) and said all the boys loved it, except Michael. He had walked into her room, and freaked out. Here is the convo: Michael - Blue Mom - Red
Are they TRYING to poinson me???
What are you talking about?
They are trying to poison me, there was a leaf in my food!
There wasn't a leaf in your food, you're imagining it.
There was a leave, I'll show you.
Michael shows her his food.
Oh Michael, that's seasoning, it's a bay leaf.
Gross! He throws it in the trash.

Quicky

Just a short blog before I'm off to work. I took an art class at a middle school today. This school hadn't been one of my favorite schools in the past, so we'll see how it goes.

In the wedding news... I'm not really closer to a decision yet, but I'm leaning back to the original plan, but still don't want to give up the new idea. Can you say frustrating!

In AJ news... I don't know how that boy doesn't freeze to death at night. We don't have any footed sleepers for him. I went in to check on him this morning... no socks, pants rolled up on his legs... and he didn't have a shirt on. I put his blankets on him, and he kicks them off in his sleep. I won though! He was sleeping on his belly, and a very carefully, and slowly layed a blanket on him, and then I did it again with another blanket... just to be sure.

Alright, well I have to go. I need to get lunch ready for me.. and then off I go. I feel like I don't have any time today though. I have to go to work. I have an exam, and two art projects due, along with some stupid postings. I really hate having to use a discussion board for school. They want you to reply, but it's always stupid.... "Yeah I agree" cause there really isn't anything to disagree about. Whatever! And, I need to pick my classes for next semester...

Anywhoooooo.... Have a good day!

Wedding Uncertainties

No... it's not pre wedding butterflies telling me not to get married.

It's the fact that I thought that Aaron and I had pretty much hammered out the major details of when and where... but now I'm changing my mind. I feel stuck in between my two options, and I just don't know what to choose. I know which one Aaron wants, but I'm not to certain that I really want that. I know this is all so confusing, it's confusing for me to write, because I'm not ready to give out details just yet. I have to work tomorrow, I think when I'm on my planning period I'm going to make some phone calls. Maybe that will help me decide.

I'm happy to say that we know what we are doing for the honeymoon. We're going to go to Las Vegas. So, either way there is hope in that just one detail is hammered out.

My November so far

I've spent the past couple of days doing absolutely nothing, mostly anyway. I haven't really had school work to do, so we've spent the past couple days watching movies, sleeping, and last night after AJ went to be we had a few drinks.
I have come to realize that my emotions can be bipolar sometimes. I love my life, really I do. I love my beautiful boy, and Aaron to no end, but while I'm telling myself I love my life, I'm also thinking of things that I HAVE to change. It makes no sense really!
I'm going to get mushy, really mushy right now.
AJ is my life. I love him so much. Seriously, I never knew that you could love like this. This love is so overwhelming sometimes that it makes me tear up. I look at my boy, and he is just the most beautiful person I have ever seen. When he's playing and I'm watching him, he turns to make sure I'm there and gives me the biggest smile. He calls me mama (more like mammammam, but he does it only when I am there) and I can't even express how I feel. My baby is turning into a toddler, and I can't believe that in two short months and a few days he will be 1 year old. I still can't believe I am a mom. AJ now has his fourth tooth, it popped through three days ago. So, now he has two on bottom, and two on top. He doesn't have both his front teeth though, he has one front tooth and a tooth to the side of that. The other front tooth should be popping though very soon, I can see it under the gum.
I watched Thomas, Laura's almost 8 month old, for two days this week while she was gone at a conferance. I will say it was very difficult to take care of both boys at such a close age. It actually wasn't this difficult when both of them couldn't move around. This may surprise you, but the difficulty was not in them getting into things, but them fighting. They pushed and pulled each other over, they fought to sit in my lap, and they did yell at each other. At one point it looked like they were trying to hit each other but it ended up being a gentle touch to the face, lol. It made it alot easier when we came back to my house rather than staying at Laura's house because AJ was not happy being there, and Thomas seemed more easy going about being in a different house. AJ does not seem to like sharing his mommy. The second day was harder for Thomas, I think he missed his mommy, and that made him very cranky. He cried a lot of the day, which caused a problem with AJ because AJ did not want me to spend time with Thomas, and when I did AJ would start crying.
So, that was Wednesday and Friday. Thursday, I went to work. OMG!! lol. Anyway, it was a rough day there too. I substituted for a middle school reading class. These kids really tested me, but there was a substitute across the hall that had it worse. Her first period the kids started chanting BITCH. I felt bad for her, I wouldn't have known what to do except for to call administrators at that point. I actually just had to send out a bunch of referalls. My second class I sent out two referrals, one because a boy was throwing text books across the room, and the other because the boy that I sent the referral with didn't take it to the office. Obviously I was in middle school once, and yes I did think that adults were on the slow side when it came to some things.. like computers, and such, but what I don't get is why these kids think that I'm stupid enough not to know what is going on in the classroom. Yes, I can see you throwing a book across the room, yes I do know that there is a chance you won't take the referal to the office and that is why I check, yes I can see that you just minimized a website that you are not suppose to be on, and yes I did just see you grab a bunch of pencils and shove them in your jacket sleeve. The last one sounds wierd, but it did happen lol. The next class I sent out 5 referrals, yes 5! Just a group of kids got together, and egged each other on to make the class a disaster. I truely did lose control of the classroom, the worse part was, when I called the administrators they sent someone down, and they did nothing. They told me to start sending kids out, but I would send a kid out only to have them be sent back to me, lovely. Oh, and the other classroom kept sending their bad kids to my room, which made it worse. It was a horrible horrible day.
Onto the movies that I have watched so far. We watched a movie called Factory Girl, I thought it was pretty good. It's about a Edie Sedwhick, she was made famous by Andy Warhol. We also watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, this was a good movie too. Very funny. I've seen bits and pieces so far of Journey to the Center of the Earth, it looks good so far. There is one more movie, I think it is call Get Smart. I haven't watched it yet, it was a movie that Aaron wanted, but it has the guy that was in Bruce Almighty, and he also was in the movie just like Bruce Almight but it was about Noah, and I think it was call Evan Almighty or something. I don't know, anyway, I'll probably what Get Smart later tonight if I don't crash soon. I'm starting to get very tired.
Ok, and I'm going to let you in on something that I learned last night, and if you don't want to read some extremely personal about an intimacy issue then don't continue reading. I'll just say bye to you know because I'm not going to say anymore after this..

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Ok here goes...




No matter how much you have to drink, Anal sex is still not a good idea!

Weekend Away

AJ got his third tooth yesterday! So, now he has his two front bottom teeth, and his front upper left tooth. My poor cranky baby has two more top teeth working their way through. I think they should pop through with in the next day or two.

AJ spent the weekend with grandma, and Aaron and I spent the weekend in Tampa. We went to Howloscream. It was fun. I'm a big scaredy cat so I was freaked out through most of the haunted houses. I think the first one freaked me out the most. It had strobe lights so I couldn't see at all, and that was way freaky. The other ones had very few strobe lights so I could still see, and ended up seeing people coming or jumping out from the corners. It makes me wonder how many of them get punched in the face :-) There was one that had body bag type things hanging from the ceiling, and I started thinking about this scary clown movie I saw when I was younger, I think it was called something like The Killer Clowns or something, I think they came from outerspace. My memory is a little fuzzy, but if I remember right they would kill humans and like wrap them in cotton candy or something, I'm thinking spiderwebs, but it was probably cotton candy. Anyway, anytime one of the body bags touched me I screamed, lol. It was fun. By the way, everyone knows I love rollercoasters, they are even better at night!
We stayed in a hotel in tampa, and it had a two person jacuzzi in the room. It was soo nice, it took a long time to fill up though. The price wasn't bad at all, and it had a king size very comfy bed. I hate that you have to check out of hotels so eary. 11 isn't early on a weekday, but on a weekend without the monster... I want to sleep in way late. Plus, we were up really late the night before. I think I finally went to bed about three.
We were going to go to Adventure Island the next day because it was the last day it was open this year, but I Aunt Flo came that morning and so did the cool front. We ended up going to clearwater beach and eat lunch at a restaurant there. I got all you can eat crab, yum! Then we came home and took a nap before I had to go get AJ.
AJ had fun with grandma. He ate, he slept, he played, all the stuff babies do. My mom loves taking AJ, which is really good because then I don't feel as guilty when I want to get out for a date.
Anyway, I talked to my friend Laura today about her three year old son. She just found out he has some hearing loss, because doctors are stupid and don't listen when Mommy knows something isn't right. She's got a lot of doctors appointments coming for him, and he's going to have to have surgery they just need to figure out what exactly needs to be operated on. I got the impression that it's probably going to be putting tubes in his ears, but it might have to be surgery on something else. I'm really hoping all goes well. I asked if he might get his hearing back after the surgery, but I'm not sure what her answer was. I think we started talking about the different surgeries. Oh, well keep her and her little one in your thoughts.
Okie Dokie, it is late. I gotsta go. Night.

I got my last filling today, yay! My jaw is very sore from the novicaine injection, to the point where it was hard to open my mouth to eat dinner. Slowly, the pain is going away which is good. I have a job to go to tomorrow, and I'm happy about it. I also have tons of stuff that I MUST get done tomorrow. I need to clean my car out, I need to get all of AJ's stuff ready for a weekend with grandma, I need to get Aaron's and my things together for a weekend away, and I need to finish my school work. Saturday it might rain, and that sucks, but it doesn't mean we can't go anyway.
So, off to bed with me!

It's been acouple of days since my last post. We've been up to a lot. A lot of things needed to happen, and changes need to be made, and we're still working on some of them.

I've been working a lot more, and I have mixed feelings about it. I like my job. It has it's challenges, like kindergarteners, and it has its rewards, like little kids running up to you after school saying they had so much fun in your class. It gets me out of the house, and I get to substitute for some of the subjects that I love, like music and art. I actually got my first request to substitute. A teacher requested that I substitute for their class! I think I actually blogged about this class, but I'm not sure. It's for Friday, and for a school with emotional challenged students. It's a music class, and I really did enjoy spending time with those students. They were all very interesting, and had a lot of curiousity about the different musical instruments. The downfall to for me, is that working so much and trying to get school work done takes me away from AJ, and from Aaron. I'm dealing with it though, and I'm sure soon I'll be able to stay at home with AJ again.

On to AJ, he's crawling forward, standing up with the assistance of furniture, walking with parental assistance, he has another tooth, and two more working their way through. He is starting to have issues with his night time sleeping. He wakes up screaming and crying a couple hours in, and take a little bit to calm down. The other night I noticed he had a diaper rash, and I think once it is completely gone he'll sleep much easier.

Monday, Laura took some pictures of AJ and some of AJ and I together. We are working on scheduling a time where we can get some full family pictures. She's an amazing photographer:

There are more picture on my myspace, and all of the pictures are on winkflash.

The rest of my week is jam packed full of fun! I have a dentist appointment tomorrow, I have that job on Friday, AJ's Kindermusik class on Saturday morning, and Aaron and I are going away for the weekend. That means I have A LOT of school work to get done before then.

Some serious stuff with me: I'm having anixiety/panic attacks/nervous breakdowns what ever you want to call it quite often. I talked to Mrs. Kelley about it, and she thinks that I need to get in with a doctor to see if I'm having some hormonal imbalances that could be causing me to have them more than usual. Hopefully they'll go away before I have to call the doctor.

I'm off to do some school work now. Have a good night!

Time

Where does time go when it's run away from you?

I had someone ask me to meet them sometime this week between I think it was 2 - 5 and I normally would have been able to do it. I'm not thinking it's going to happen this week. We'll see about next week. All my time is now going to working whenever I can, going to school full time, and appointment after appointment after appointment.

I have a dentist appointment tomorrow, I have to go to WIC, I have to babysit Laura's kids, Friday AJ has a doctor's appointment, and I'm sure that tomorrow I'm going to have to make yet another appointment for dental work. We also have to fit going clothes shopping for Aaron and visiting my Papa into the mix. I'm probably going to call AJ's doctor to reschedule for next Thursday anyway. Thursdays I'm not going to be working because I babysit, but Fridays I can work as long as I don't schedule an appointment.

I substituted for two teachers this week. The first was a music class for emotionally disturbed students. I've never had such an easy day of work my whole life. Each class, except for one, had no more than two kids in it, and the teacher said to let them to what they want to do. Usually one played on the computer while the other one played an instrument. I was even able to go around the class room with them and help them try out different instruments. The little classes were all highschool students, the bigger class of no more than 10 kids was an elementary school class which watched a movie, which reminds me that I wanted to add a movie to my myspace page. The other class this week was two days of art classes for one teacher. She's an itinerant teacher, which just means that she goes from school to school teaching art classes when the school is too big for just one art teacher. Most of my classes were Kindergarten and 1st grade classes. Today the majority of my day was with "special" students. They tend to be the students with autism and other disabilities that require a very small classroom, and lots of teacher time. I do like to teach these classes. The students tend to be very sweet, and very willing to listen and try. Depending on their disability some are extreme perfectionists, and I've been through some tantrums but overall it isn't as hard as I would have thought.

So thats really what I've been up to. I need to measure and weigh myself tonight, and I need to work on some school work.

A TOOTH!

AJ's first tooth has broken through! It is not out of the gum or even showing really. You can see the very tip of it if you look closely and you can feel the tip of a very sharp little tooth. If you're facing him it's the bottom right. I'm so excited! I can't wait for it to come out all the way. What a big week for my little man.

Perdy Perdy

I got my new bras in the mail!!! They are awesome! Nice fit, nice support, and very pretty.

Obviously, that is not me lol. I also got a black one. I believed I paid like $60 bucks for both at Lane Bryant, while I just paid $90 for one bra at a specialty store. My only complaint... I had to wait to get it in the mail because they don't care my size in stores. But it was soo worth the wait.

Aaron is in love with my new bras too!

Wedding

I've known for awhile now that Aaron and I are going to get married. Not in the way where I knew and he just hadn't asked. Aaron doesn't have to ask, we both know this, and for awhile we have been discussing it.
I've kept it quiet because I'm still not giving out details about it. Just now, most of the details are are agreed upon and set. I will say, it will most likely be sometime in March.
No, I don't have an engagement ring, and I won't be getting one. This is something that I've known for awhile too. Aaron doesn't believe in engagement rings, but not to worry we'll have a wedding bands.
As for no details, what is the fun of sending out announcements when everyone already knows all the details. Also, many people are not going to happy with our plans.
Enough said about that....

I wonder if I can become supermodel skinny in 5 months......

Crawling

One week and and two days before my baby turns 9 months and he's crawling backwards. It's quite funny because he was trying to get daddy's shoes which were in front of him, but he was moving backward, and he didn't seem too happy about it, lol. Maybe he'll crawl the other way soon.

Edit to add: AJ can now sit up by himself. Before I had to put him into the sitting position. Tonight, he woke up crying and Aaron and I went in to see him. He was sitting up crying. We both laughed at him, just because it was so wierd to see him sitting up in his crib.

What else is my son going to do tonight?!?!

The World Keeps Turning Upside Down

Every time I think that I've gotten my feet set, and I'm starting to head in the right direction to getting my life to where I want it to be... the world decides to turn upside down on me.

It really started with leaving Kevin. I was *mostly* financially stable with Kevin. It doesn't really mean that I knew I was going to always have money, but I knew when we were going to have rough patches, and when we were going to be fine. I knew when we spent the bulk of our money, and when we were going to scrounge for pennies. Then I left Kevin. I left the majority of my stuff, because it wasn't worth fighting with him to get it back. I also left my money in our bank account. I started fresh. I was working, and I was getting a little bit of money, I was staying at a friends house where I didn't have to pay any bills until I got back on my feet.

I met Aaron, and I moved in with my mom, and I was slowly getting back up on my feet. Before I could even get a foothold with one foot, I found out I was pregnant. That put a big dent in our already not so good financial situation, seeing as Aaron had just bought his home, and I didn't really have a job. Being a substitute I don't have work, and I was helping a friend with her kid but getting next to nothing moneywise.

We started to do a little better with money and bills around the end of my pregnancy, but oops, lets just turn the world over again and put her big pregnant ass on bedrest, with no hopes of any money at all.

So, after I had AJ, and struggling through the summer, and beginning of school. I recieved my financial aid. Aaron had regular hours at work, our bills were caught up. TURN THE FUCKING WORLD ALL THE WAY AROUND!!!!!

Today, Aaron is fired. Our sole income is gone, without notice. And Heather knew and didn't even call me to tell me. I was shopping and having a good time, and Aaron calls to tell me. I left the cart where it was because now I can't afford to buy what I was buying. Actually, I was buying some Christmas gifts for family and clothes for AJ. Now, I can't afford it. We are going to go back to going weeks without being able to food shop, to the point where I was going to my mom's house to take food from her freezer. For God's sake, Laura if you are reading this I'm sorry, but I even stole diapers from her so I could go one more day without having to buy diapers, because money might just magically appear the next day.

WHY CAN'T I BE HAPPY?!?!? WHY CAN'T THINGS WORK OUT IN MY FAVOR?!?!

What's Up?

What's up with me? Everything and nothing at the same time. I'm up way early for who knows what reason, and AJ is as well. We'll both probably need a nap soon and it's only 7:30 lol.
So, here is what I've been up to: cleaning my house, going to work, doing my schoolwork, being a mom, being a girlfriend, working on halloween invitations... just whatever comes my way.

School is going very well. I'm keeping up quite well, even with a baby. I'm very proud of myself. I'm actually going to work when I can. I didn't go yesterday, but that was because the baby was sick on Monday and Aaron stayed up all night with him. I didn't want to go to work and have him stay up with him all day as well, Daddy needs sleep too!!!

Yes, I did say Halloween invitations! Heather and I are going to throw a Halloween party. There are actually two seperate parties in one. There is Thomas' Boo Bash for 4+ and AJ's Pumpkin Patch for 3 and under. The Halloween invitations are nice. I'll make sure I post a picture of them once they are done. If anyone does read this, and wants some halloween invitations, I did make one that I'm selling on ebay.

Two Weeks Left!

Walk Your Butt Off - Week 5

Sept 17 - 30 min easy walk
Sept 18 - 25 min - 3 min mod/easy walk, 2 min speed walk
Sept 19 - 30 min easy walk
Sept 20 - 20 min - 3 min mod/easy walk, 2 min speed walk
Sept 21 - 30 min mod/easy walk
Sept 22 - Off
Sept 23 - Off

Time to Complain

I need to complain. I need a post just for complaining.

I want to start out by saying that I love my family. I love my little family consisting of AJ, me, and Aaron, and I love my family consisting of my four younger brothers and my mom. I want everyone to be healthy, safe, happy, and comfortable financially. The problem is, while I'm healthy, safe, and happy, I'm not comfortable financially. This causes problems when my family calls me to do something.

Lately, I get phone calls at least every other day to drive someone somewhere. I don't have the money to buy gas to do this all the time, but yet I still try to do it, and then I end up shorting myself and worrying about overdrafting my bank account. Normally, the calls are always to take Robert to or pick him up from work. The huge issue is that my mom, who he lives with, lives literally five minutes from his work, while I live 15 minutes away. To take him to work I have to drive past his work to pick him up. A round trip to and from is 10 miles... times that by two for taking to work and then later picking him up from work and I've burned probably an eighth of a tank of gas. I get called to do this three, four times a week.
Now, add in the fact that I recently got a call to pick him up from high school because he had a tummy ache, at 8:30 in the morning while AJ was still asleep. The fact that AJ and I hadn't woken up for the day didn't matter to my mom, she started in on the guilt trip. I went and did it.
Yesterday, Bryan's car broke down. He asked me if I would take him to an important meeting at his work. If he didn't go he would be fired. I of course said yes. I don't want my brother to get fired, he rarely asks me for anything, and I understand the frustration of a broken car. The issue now is that he said his meeting was from 9:30 to 10:30, Aaron had to be at work at 11:00. I'm taking Bryan to work and I asked him when his meeting gets out just to be sure and he tells me 11:30. So Bryan lives nere me, and he works past my mom's house, 15 min away. Lets put this in a rough estimate of miles: I take Bryan to work, and come home to take Aaron to work - 10 miles. I go pick up Bryan from work to take him home - 10 miles. I go back to my mom's house to drop AJ off so I can go to school - 5 miles. I go to school and drive back to my mom's house - 15 miles. I drive home - 5 miles. Grand total for today - 45 miles, 1/4 of a tank of gas.
Now, this may not seem like a big deal to some, but imagine having all of 75 cents to last you until Friday, and only having just a little less than 1/2 a tank of gas.
The question that is probably burning some of you away is why don't I ask for money. Well, I do ask all the time, but it makes me feel extremely guilty. I also can't ask Bryan because I know he doesn't have any money. To make matters worse for my guilt, my mom tells me that Bryan's car is beyond repair. I want to help him, I don't want him to worry. Why? Because he's my little brother and I love him dearly. Reality sets in, I can't help him. I can't even help myself at this point.
I guess my point is that right now without any money at all, I can't help anyone, but yet they don't seem to understand this. I've explained it again and again that I can't afford any gas but I still get calls to do it. It's like they think that I pee gasoline or something and I can magically fill up my car whenever I want. If I had the money it wouldn't be a problem.... or.... would it???

My time... since I've had a child, I don't have any time. Sleep is precious. If AJ feels the need to sleep in, I'm more than happy to oblige. Getting a phone call that wakes both of us up to go somewhere makes me angry. With the small amount of time that I seem to have during the day, I'm taking care of AJ, cleaning, or doing school work. Sometimes we get the rare option of spending time together with Aaron as a family. I think that my family thinks I'm just sitting around all day watching tv. They expect when they call me that I'll just stop whatever I am doing to meet their every needs.
I do work sometime, I'm a mom all the time, I clean sometimes, I use to take care of myself rarely. Now, I'm trying to exercise, which I have had to find time for amidst all of my other chaos, and whenever I try to get my exercise done.... I get a phone call, or the baby wakes up, or I have too much school work, or it's to late and I have to work in the morning.

WHEN WILL PEOPLE LET ME TAKE CARE OF ME!!!!

Walk Your Butt Off - Week 3 and 4

Week 3 -

Sept 3 - 25 min easy walk
Sept 4 - Off
Sept 5 - 20 min easy walk
Sept 6 - 15 min - 4 min mod easy walk, 1 min speed walk, repeat
Sept 7 - Off
Sept 8 - Off
Sept 9 - Off


Week 4

Sept 10 - 30 min easy walk
Sept 11 - 25 min mod easy walk
Sept 12 - 25 min easy walk
Sept 13 - 20 min - 4 min mod easy walk, 1 min speek walk, repeat
Sept 14 - 25 min mod easy walk
Sept 15 - Off
Sept 16 - Off

Clean Clean Clean

Today I started to deep clean my house. I'm going to try and take it a room a day, but I don't think it will actually be one room everyday. I have to go to school and I try to work as well so there will be days when I won't actually get to do a room. I started with the bathroom today. I picked that room because it is actually one of my favorite rooms to clean. I know what you're thinking, yuck! I seriously prefer cleaning bathrooms over any other room in the house. It's a small room, at least mine is, and everything can be cleaned and organized, and come on admit it! Everyone loves how nice a bathroom looks when it is clean.

I don't have much money right now so Ididn't have all the cleaning supplies that I needed but I found a wonderful can clean almost anything solution. Some of you probably already know this but 1 cup water 1 cup rubbing alcohol and 1 tablespoon vinegar. I love the smell of lysol but I know a few people who can't stand it, the vinegar solution cleans just as well and the smell is gone once whatever you are cleaning is dry. I cleaned the mirror with it and I didn't have any paper towels so I used a rag, and my mirror is spotless and dried very fast.

I started by sweeping the ceiling and walls. The people who lived here before never really cleaned and we haven't cleaned the creavases in the walls so there was a ton of dust. I cleaned the sink and counter and the toilet. Next I need to clean the shower and bathtub, and then I'm going to organize the alcove. Last, I'll sweep and mop the floor. The best thing, the vinegar solution can be used on everything except the grout and I have bathroom cleaner for that. Yes, you can use the vinegar solution on the floor.

So, I just took a little break to blog this very very interesting blog (can't you smell the sarcasm!)

Back to work, hope all is well with everyone.

6 Week Walking Program - Week 2

August 27 - 20 min easy walk
August 28 - 15 min moderately easy walk
August 29 - 20 min easy walk
August 30 - 20 min moderately easy walk
August 31 - Off
September 1 - Off
September 2 - Off

A full Week

Alrighty! I haven't posted for about a week. So, I'm going to start with last weekend.

Last Sunday:
Grandma took AJ over night and they had a ton of fun. Daddy and I had a lot of fun too. We went to the bar and played some pool, and we both got very very drunk, but me probably more than Aaron. Lets see, I started out with a Tequila Sunrise, which was ok. I had the choice between that or a Long Island Ice Tea, but that one was gross, so Aaron drank it. Then the bartender made me something that looked like the Tequila Sunrise, but it was made with Vodka. After some searching online I believe it was a Vodka Sunrise. Anyway, I had a couple of those. I also had a Red Headed Slut, and tried an apple flavored shot, but I do not remember what it was called. I didn't like it though. Oh boy was I smashed.
Acouple days before one of the drivers at Aaron's work had gotten a tip from the porn shop next to the bar that included 20% off of any purchase. So, of course since I was good and drunk we went next door to use it. Aaron stayed at the front while I was taken around the store with the cashier lady just handing me stuff. I think we got like 3 toys and a video all for about $40. I have to say though, if I were not drunk I would not have gotten the toys she gave me. To me the toys that I got were boring. I also was too drunk to actually watch the video when I got home, and still have not watched it lol.
Anyway, after my trip into and around the porn store, we sat out from to wait for the taxi. We got home, and I threw up everything, which is a definite first for me.

Monday:
Complete, horrible, nasty hangover. I swear when I woke up I was still drunk. I was dizzy and shakey, but I had to go pick up AJ. I brought AJ home, and sad to say... I turned on the tv and gave him a ton of toys and I layed down. Daddy, AJ, and I actually napped together most of the day.

Wednesday:
This was a very busy day for me. Since I have been out of work for a couple of weeks, I literally have no money to my name. I decided to take a substituting job. It was a three day job, and Aaron works Wednesday and Friday mornings, so I had to get a babysitter. Normally, I won't be working on the days that Aaron works all day, but I'm in desperate need of income at this point. My cousin Shawn watched AJ for me. I substituted at a middle school for a business ed class that had no teacher yet. Since I wasn't prepared to not have to teach, I stuck to watch the previous substitute had been doing. I showed two 15 min movies on entry level careers. I gave them a quiz on both movies, and then had them write a short essay. My God, these kids should not be in the seventh grade. Amazingly, half these kids did not know how to spell True. As I was grading the papers, a lot put down yes or no or Ture and False. This is sad. I knew how to spell true in grade school.
This was also my first day of school. I got out of my job at 4:20 and drove all the way home to get AJ, which took 30 minutes. I took Aaron to work, and dropped AJ off at my mom's house, this took another 15 minutes. I still had to get some art supplies for my class, took 10 min. Then it took 30 min to get to school. My class started at 5:30. If you do the math, I was late for my first day of school.
Class went pretty well, a lot of people did not have their art supplies so we couldn't do the work. We did get to leave early. I went to pick AJ up from my mom's and then drove over to Heather's house. It was time to start our second week of Walk Your Butt Off, which I believe I'll have to post the second week's schedule even though it's already over. We also weighed, measured, and took pictures of ourselves. I'm so proud: I've lost two pounds, and some places have lost about 1/4 inch but we'll probably chalk that up to mismeasurement.

Thursday:
Went to work again. I taught each class how to make a monthly budget. Of course quite a few students let me know that they were not in math class and shouldn't have to do this. I rushed home so Aaron could get to work on time.
AJ and I went to Heather's and we Walked Our Butt Off.

Friday:
Yet again, I went to work. Shawn watched AJ again. About two periods into the day, Heather called me and told me that she took Thomas to the doctor, and he has Impetigo. It's a contagious skin rash. I needed to get AJ checked out. It is not common over age 6, but Thomas is 6 and AJ isn't even a year, so it was better to be safe. I left work early, and drove AJ to the doctor. He does have a sore on his nose, but there was no way to tell if it was infected until it spread. So, he was prescribed an antibiotic ointment just in case.
I also tried to go to my school because me financial aid has not been configured and my it was my due date. Turns out they were not open as late as I thought they were, and needless to say... I was dropped from my classes, and now I need to wait until Tuesday to get it figured out.
I went to my mom's house to spend some time over there because I had borrowed her car and she needed it back. AJ was sitting next to Uncle Jonathan when he reached over and pulled the cheese out of Uncle Jonathan's fresh out of the oven pizza. AJ immediately started to scream. It took me a second before I realized what happened and then started pulling the cheese off of his hand, and I ran him to the sink to run cold water on it. AJ was screaming still and I was trying to calm him down. His hand was beet red. Jonathan was very upset, almost crying. I was then trying to comfort both him and the baby. I tried to call Aaron at work, but he didn't answer his phone, and when I called his work number they wouldn't let me talk to him. I was fuming... angry... I wanted to beat his face in.
I put AJ in the car and was on my way to the walk in clinic when I remember I didn't have his insurance card. My house was just down the street. I got to my house looked at AJ's hand, it wasn't red anymore, just pinkish. I went back to the walk in clinic, and found out they didn't take AJ's insurance but that there was an emergency pediatrician down the street that did. I put AJ back in the car, looked at his hand, and it wasn't pink anymore.. it was just baby colored skin. I felt his skin, it wasn't hot, and he wasn't upset when I touched it. So, I took him home, loved on him, fed him, played with him, gave him a bath, loved on him some more, and put my very tired boy to bed.

Saturday:
Yesterday... Had a fight with my mom.... I did two days worth of walking because friday was too stressful and busy to walk.
I made homemade fishstick and corn on the cob... mmmm it was yummy.
My brother spent the night, and was very helpful. One of Aaron's coworkers offered to close the store for him, so Jonathan watched AJ (he was already asleep for the night) so Aaron and I could go play pool. I suck at pool, and I didn't drink, but it was still really fun. We played two games of pool and two games of this sack throwing video game thing. Aaron beat me at pool, and once at the sack game. I beat him the other time. I really enjoy spending time with Aaron. He's my love, and I am still amazed at how much you could love someone and still be in love with someone after living with them for over a year, expecially being pregnant for the first half of that.
I guess sometimes its hard to forget that your past experiences will not always be what it will be like in the future. I have to remember that Aaron is not at all like Kevin, and he will never be like Kevin, so I don't have to worry.

Well, that's it for today. I'm going to do some school work. I'm going to design some cards for my hopefully new crafting idea. I'm going to take care of my son, probably do an exercise video, and clean my house, WOOHOO!

Exercising Continues

I'm finished with week one's exercises, and now I have four days off from exercising. Today was my first day off, but I really still wanted to do something. So, I pulled out an exercise dvd and did it. I'm very proud of myself for continueing with the program.

Today I did:
Walk the Walk wih Leslie Sansone's 1 mile workout.

6 Week Walking Program - Week 1

Here is what I'm doing this week. Maybe if I'm feeling good about myself after the next six weeks, I'll post up my measurements. I know I won't see anything too soon, but we'll see. Heather's doing this program with me, and we are both keeping journals, including pictures... YUCK!!!

Week 1:

August 20 - 15 minutes of easy walking
August 21 - 15 minutes of moderately easy walking
August 22 - 20 minutes of easy walking
August 23 - Off
August 24 - Off
August 25 - Off
August 26 - Off

I'm going to do some workout videos for at least one of the days off, even though its not included in the workout routine. Just remember that even though it seems really easy, it starting at the beginning, getting you into walking and it will eventually work its way into running. I seriously believe this is perfect for me and anyone who wants to work out but finds themself way out of shape.

Updates

A few things for today:

AJ's room:
It's been put on hold. Aaron really doesn't want me to paint it. He wants to redo the walls altogether. I'm still a little iffy on that because I'm afraid it won't work out. I'll give him another month or two before I just start to paint while he's at work and when my mom can take AJ so he doesn't have to sleep in a paint filled house.

Yucky:
We've started to have problems with mice. Yuck, and I'm a screamer. I had my brother and his friends look for this mouse and at one point I think that they didn't believe that I actually saw this mouse run all over my living room, luckily while AJ was sleeping. So, after one of AJ's bottle nipples had a hole chewed in it, I went to the store to look for some mouse friendly traps, but didn't have luck in find any. I ended up finding a mouse trap that functions like the old style mouse traps, except, that it is shaped that one of those claw hair clips.
I put them out last night with some peanut butter smeared on the top like it said. Went to bed hoping it would work. It did work. The poor mouse was caught in the trap but still alive I felt so bad. Walking by the other mouse trap I saw that it had triggered that one as well. I called my brother to have him come take care of the mouse. He got here, I showed him where it was. He didn't understand how to open it up to let the mouse out, so I went to get the other one to show him. I picked it up to find....
another mouse, dead this time. I dropped it and screamed. Bryan took the mice to the front of our park and let them out. He said the alive one would probably die anyway because his skull was crushed. So... as much as I really don't want to. I'm going to have to put the traps up again tonight. If I keep catching mice I'm going to call pest control cause this is disgusting.

Me:
I'm finally going to start getting back into shape. I'm not that far from my pre-pregnancy weight. 5 pounds, sometimes 3. I have never really liked my body, but I was started to become ok with it. I was trying to do little things here or there to make it better, like not drinking real soda, just diet. I'll be honest, I was having a hard time sticking to it because diet soda was not always available while regular was. I was just under the mindset, oh well I'll try again tomorrow.
Then, someone asked me the dreaded question.... Are you pregnant, AGAIN? Of course I was upset, I tried not to look like it, but I just patted my belly and said, "Nope, just FAT". I even had someone a couple of days later tell me I looked wonderful, they didn't even recognize me. It didn't help, my feelings were still hurt.
So, I've started to exercise. Now, I've learned from myself. If I just jump into some hardcore exercise I won't stick with it. I found this 6 week program, and yes, it is free, on Shape.com. If you are like me and haven't exercised and are completely out of shape, you start with the walking program. It's six weeks of walking, followed by six weeks of walking and running, and then followed by six weeks of running. Obviously, I'm doing the walking program. I'll put up another post with myy first weeks schedule. I'm going to try to eat a little healthier, but I might just have to put that off until I have more money to really go grocery shopping.
In other news, my financial aid sucks. It hasn't been done, and I'm afraid it won't be done before school starts. My school needs to get on the ball about this stuff.

There is sooo much to do around this god forsaken house. It's falling apart, completely cluttered, and very ugly. So, NOW is the time that I am going to start to put this house back into order, put it back together, and make it beautiful.

The first room that I am going to do is AJ's. He is in desperate need of a little boy room. Right now it's just... blah. He's got his crib, stuffed animals, a clothing organizer, and nothing else that really is his own in there. The rest of the stuff is just stuff that takes up space: a piano, boxes of his old clothes, stuffed animals (hehehe), and odds and ends.
My goal for tomorrow is to clean up the room. I want to run a wet rag over the walls, and pull out the numerous nails in the walls. For some reason, and I am not sure I will ever figure this out, there are a ton of nails in the walls. It doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason, some are really close together, some are really far apart, and they are like zig zagged all over the place. I'm also going to plug up the nail holes.
I think then for next week, hopefully I can get Aaron to move the piano out of the room. Then I'm going to prime the walls. Since we can't really affort to get rid of the horrendous panneling, I've learned from my step-mother that it can be painted over, but you have to get the right kind of primer first. I do know that this method works, because she did it in her new house, and her walls look wonderful.
After that I'm going to paint the walls. I'm leaning toward a darker shade of blue. The theme that I'm going to go with his based on his favorite movie, Cars. I don't want to paint his room red because if I change his theme later and don't feel like painting I don't want him stuck with red. Plus, most of the decor has a lot of red in it. I don't want the room overwhelmed with red.
So, obviously, the next step after painting is decorating, which might take some time. I have to save and buy pieces bit by bit because if I bought everything out right it would be soo expensive and I couldn't afford that right now.
I also want to put down those big rubber puzzle pieces for flooring. I'm a little on the fence about it though. I don't like the carpet we have. It's gross, the people who lived here before us were gross. So, if I put down the rubber puzzle pieces, the floor would be more baby comfortable to crawl around on, not so dirty. BUT... I would have to wash those puzzle pieces a lot because we would be walking on them. I think it would be hard to keep them clean, and if I wasn't careful the water would drip in the cracks and form yucky stuff. It's something I'll have to keep thinking about.

Anyway, I told Heather that I would also help her redo Thomas' room. I'm not too sure she'll actually go through with it though. We talked about it today. The plan so far is to do a Spongebob Theme. She already has some things up that go with that theme. I actually wish that I was better at drawing and such. I love planning little kids bedrooms. It's something I get excited about, and I have a ton of really good ideas.
I actually got into this when I was dating my first long term boyfriend. His parents were getting ready to become foster parents, and they had a ton of rooms in their house. So, I started to help her with getting the rooms ready. I helped turn an ordinary room into the most beautiful room a little girl could hope for. It was awesome. The top half of the wall had light and dark yellow stripes, and a green canopy like design. The bottom half was peach, with dark peach waves. The middle that seperated the two had light and dark pink checkerboard. We made an ant trail all around the room. She decorated with glass birdhouse that looked like hats. We also sponged on different shapes: ladybugs, flowers, little girls. It was gorgeous when it was done.
I hope my next child is a little girl. I would love to decorate a little girls room again. For now, though, I'm decorating my little boys room. AND, instead of being beautiful and gorgeous.. it's going to be awesome. All the other little baby boys are going to be jealous... that is if he knew any other ones around here... but still my point was made.

Another Nanny Nightmare

Okie Dokie. Currently at the moment... AJ is sleeping. YAY!!! He's been so cranky the last couple of days... hopefully some teeth will pop through soon. I am also watching a five year old. He's a very shy, very sweet, little boy. He's entralled with spiders, and sharks. I think the sharks have something to do with his father being a boat captain. :-) I only have four more hours here, but I wish that he was the kid I normally watch instead of the hooligans that I am right now.

On that topic, the eldest (11 years old) and I got into a physical altercation yesterday. We were at the park, and he was sitting with a group of teenagers. And of course Thomas has to join the big kids. The teenagers start yelling and get up to leave, one of them comes over and tells us that he was picking on Thomas. So he gets up and starts saying things like he's giong to kill them and throws a pinecone at them, but they were already gone. He starts cursing and both Heather and I asked him to stop numerous times. He keeps going, and adds in threats to hurt/kill us. I called his mom, and tried to have her talk to him but he kept hanging up on her. So the third time I called her back, I grab his arm so he could hang up again and he starts to flail and punch at me. I wasn't really expecting it so he almost got away, but I grabbed the hood to his sweatshirt. He started claiming I was choking him. (BTW: Who the hell wheres a black hooded sweatshirt in Florida in July????) He tried to bite me, and Heather got up to help. As soon as I saw that he was trying to bite me, I kicked him in the leg. His mom then said to get him home.

I'm sure that his parents hate me now, but what was I suppose to do? It was never my intention to physically harm him, but my god... if this happens again (next week is my last week) I'm calling the cops. I can't even have AJ in the house for fear that he is yet again going to threaten my baby.

So, anyway... I've got to get back to my babysitting job and check on AJ. I was offered some extra money if I clean the house, so I've done most of it already, just got to get alittle more done. It's just waiting until other things are done like once AJ is awake I'll vaccuum, once the dishes are done in the washer I'll put them away and clean the oven and counters. Besides that I'm all done.

Oh... I think I hear my son now...

Post from 7/18

I had to make some baby food today. I actually love making AJ’s baby food. It makes me feel like a mom. I had to stop breastfeeding so early because of my stupid milk supply, that I think making the baby food myself helps me feel better about that. I go onto my baby fit.com message board, and there are posts (actually not so much anymore) about nursing and it makes me think what it would be like if I were still nursing. In many ways I feel jealous. When I started to realize that I had to give it up, I started doing everything I could possibly think of to change it. I tried feeding him every hour, I tried herbal supplements, I tried feeding and then pumping. It was no use. For a couple days after I stopped I would cry and cry, I honestly felt like a horrible, incompetent mother.
So, anyway now I make baby food which makes me feel all the better. I had planned to make my own baby food since before AJ was born, and I am very happy that I stuck through it. He still gets store bought baby food, like the different cereals. I also buy banana baby food because I find it very hard to make. I know it sounds weird but the consistency doesn’t come out right for me. Also, if I find that I am out and about and not going to make it home when he needs to eat, I’ll buy a can of baby food. I have to look at the ingredients because if it has any type of citrus in it, it upsets AJ’s tummy.
I made breakfast baby foods tonight. I have a ton of food for him to eat at dinner, and I’m kinda weird, I don’t like to give him vegetables at breakfast, and I try to leave the fruits out of dinner, unless it’s part of the recipe. He is a list of foods AJ has already “mastered”: Carrots, Apples, Pears, Sweet Potato, Broccoli, Butternut Squash, Banana, Corn, Peach, Prune, Chicken, and Fish. We are still sort of working on the chicken and fish. He’s past the marker for waiting on introducing new foods, but he still really hasn’t gotten down the texture/taste of it. I’m also introducing two new foods this week: strawberries and blueberries. I’m not too worried about an allergy to strawberries because there are no known cases in either family, but my little brother was allergic to blueberries when he was a baby. He’s since out grown that allergy, but I believe he still won’t eat them.
I skipped ahead in my book to the next stage, which is 9 months and up. I can’t believe it’s getting close. I know three months doesn’t seem that close, but it is to me. The book is going to have me start introducing rice and pastas without pureeing it, and there are even some recipes that don’t need to be pureed at all. He’ll be eating whole foods. It feels so overwhelming. It’s like reality is kicking me in the butt, my baby isn’t my newborn anymore.
That last sentence brings up something else that happened today. AJ is sitting in the grocery cart by himself now.

He’s still a little wobbly, and he doesn’t like to sit the right way. He likes to put his feet up on top of the bar and lean back. This almost always makes him tip over and hit his head, and then of course he freaks out. He only did that once today, for the most part I would stop him, I talked to him about it, and I put his foot back where it belonged. Of course he doesn’t understand, and would do it again shortly after. So anyway, he finally fell over and was crying. I stopped by the toy section and picked out a toy fire truck for infants and bought it for him. He played with it a long time today. He would smack it and make it flip over. Then he would laugh. It dawned on me that my baby was making himself laugh. It was the first time that it wasn’t me making him laugh. Hehe, I’m starting to tear up. Anyway, it just goes to show that he’s starting to entertain himself… he’s growing up.

Nanny Troubles

I just knew that I was going to get screwed over by the family I nanny for. When I started there I was told that I would get my minimum 25 hours a week that I specified in my ad. I was going to watch the two kids for the inbetween time that one is going to work and the other is coming home from work. I was also told that the old child is on medication. This is what I wasn't told:
The parents were seperating and the children were not handling it very well
The child on medication is not on medication for ADD, but antipsychotic medication AND he is very violent

I found all this out very quickly of course, like the second night there. I have stuck through it and have been there for over a month. It is very obvious to me that this family can not afford me, but the fact that they have very difficult kids makes it hard for me to justify taking anything less.
So, three and a half weeks in the mother comes home crying. I can be very compasionate to people I know when they are upset, but people I'm not really close to just makes a wierd situation for me. She explains to me that she is taking a huge paycut ($3/hour) and now she'll only be work for 50 cents and hour after paying me. I honestly felt bad, but I could not give her a discount considering her kids. If these were normal children, I could have done it.
Anyway, I finish up the week. I start to actively look for a new family to nanny, I just had a bad feeling about this. Not to mention, my patience was becoming very thin. I do not have the capasity to handle these children anymore, and I have to live with the guilt of taking my child into an environment that is not very safe. The medicated child has actually threatened AJ twice.
Well, I start this week. I find out the parents are back together... that honestly is a great thing. The younger child was having a lot of anxiety over his dad leaving, and he needs his family together again. BUT... calculating my hours out, I'm not going to get my minimum of 25 hours. It just isn't acceptable.

When I screened the phone calls for nanny jobs, I didn't want to take this job. It wasn't what I wanted, but the job started right away and I felt bad for these people. They needed a nanny and didn't have anyone.
Why don't I listen to my gut? I knew I wasn't going to be happy here, and I just knew I was going to be screwed over.

Six Months

AJ went to the doctor today. My little man is 17 pound, 26.5 inches, and his big head is 43 cm around. He is in the 50th percentile for all of his measurements!
We talked about his reflux issue. The doctor has changed his formula to Similac Alimentum, and I am happy to say that as of today there has been a major difference in the amound of spitup. Just in case the formula change does not work, he wrote a prescription for Zantac, which I pray I never have to fill. I just don't see why he would need medication if he is capable of keeping everything but formula down.
I can't believe that he is six months old today. My beautiful little man is half a year old, where oh where has the time gone. He has started sitting up on his own for little bits of time, he is rolling over a lot more now, and he is in 9 month clothing. It feels like I'm going to turn around and he'll be a year old.
Aaron Elvis Jr., I command you to stop growing up so fast!

It's Real Life - Momentous Occasions

Well today's post is about momentous occasions. I haven't had that many, but I'll let you in on a few.







Graduating from college was one of my momentous occasions, even though I'm not done yet. This was May of 2006, and I had already graduated and was a lunch with my family. The ear and arm that are in the picture are from an ex boyfriend, more than likely trying to show everyone he's my property beca... never mind I'm not talking about it.









This is one of the loves of my life, but at the time this picture was taken he was sort of the only love of my life. This was our very first vacation together, and the only good picture we took. I was five months pregnant, so we didn't go to theme parks, but stayed in a hotel, ate a lot, and did some low key attractions. I had so much fun, I was laughing the whole time.






This is the biggest Momentous Occasion of my life, the other love of my life. My beautiful, wonderful, baby boy AJ. He was born at 3:50, January 11, 2008. This is our first family portrait. I don't look very flattering, but I think it's one of the most beautiful pictures I have. This was a true "Real Life" moment. My mom snapped a picture, there was no setting up involved, and too me its just an amazing picture.




I wish wish wish that this picture had turned out. My mom was working the camera, she chose a wonderful time to learn how to work a digital camera huh? Needless to say half of our pictures came out blurry, but I'll deal with it because this one is so sweet.
This picture was taken while Aaron was holding AJ for the first time. I don't remember much for acouple hours after having AJ, but I do remember watching him hold AJ and walk around talking to him. Blah, I feel tears in my
eyes just typing this up, lol.


And... this is my beautiful little boy. 8 pounds 8 ounces, 22 inches long. Aaron Elvis Jr.
It is so hard to believe that tomorrow he will be 6 months old, half a year... time has flown.

So much to do, so little time

Well, it might just turn out that I'll have quite a bit of time in the near future, which would not be good. I'll explain in a minute. So, anyway, I have to clean the house, seriously! Horrible, horrible mess everywhere. AJ has to go to the doctor on friday, and I have go to the female doctor in acouple days, ack I hate her. Today I have to go pick up another pack of birth control, get the diaper bag from my mom. She took it out of my car yesterday and didn't tell me, luckily I didn't have to take AJ to work with me. I have to start calling gynos, to find a new one.
See, I am on my last week of pills, and called the gyno for some more. Her nurse called me back and told me that they would not renew my prescription unless I come in for the procedure, or schedule a pap. I had a pap when I first was pregnant, and it came back abnormal. So they did a procedure called a colposcopy, and ended up take acouple punch biopsies. Since I was pregnant there wasn't too much that they could do, but told me I would have to have another one done after I had AJ. So in, February they did another colposcopy, and took more biopsies, and now what me to let them freeze off my cervix. OR I could come back every three months for a pap. I don't want to go back to this doctor at all. I hate her, so I made them happy and scheduled an appointment and they told me to come today to pick up the pack of pills. I'm going to go pick them up, and then cancel my appointment, and I'll find a new doctor and make an appointment with them.
Now, onto the reason why I said that I might have plenty of time to deal with all of this. As a lot of you know, I nanny two boys. Both are difficult in their own ways, but one of them is literally psychotic, so I have my handsful all the time when I am over there. I did not know about the older ones issues when they hired me or I would have actually charged them more. My rate as a nanny is $7 an hour for the first child and $2 an hour per added child. So all in all there is two of them and I get $9 an hour. I would have been willing to make exceptions, but not for this family. They are just too difficult. So, last night there mom comes home late, she did call me, but she didn't get home until 12:00 am. She is in tears, and I honestly have always felt bad for this woman. She has marraige problems, has problems with her kids, and now her pay is going to be cut. I cannot give her a discount. Her kids are just too difficult. I know in the end that this job isn't going to work out, even without the pay cut. Their home is not babyproof, and the floors are dirty. The kids run everywhere and I'm afraid to put AJ on the floor, they run and jump over him. So, now is the perfect time for me to find a child closer to AJ's age.
Gotta go though, AJ is ready for breakfast.

Nothing Much

So, I'm just sitting here. I was going to write that I was hoping AJ was sleeping now, but I just heard him kicking his mattress. It's something he does right before he falls asleep. It's not like a tantrum, but just like tapping his heel against the mattress. But since babies can't really tap it's a full blown kick.

So anyway, the other night Aaron and I were finding songs on youtube and listening to them, when he "dedicated" one of them too me. I actually can't even remember what that song was, but then I pulled up another song (I'm not telling which) and said that I wanted it to be in my wedding. So, we started talking about wedding music, hehehe. I know nothing is going to happen on that end until he gets everything straightened out with the courts. Oh, crap, I just remembered that he has to get up and go to the bail bonds. TTFN

Eventful July 4th

Oh boy oh boy was yesterday a day from hell.

We all started out the day very cranky. AJ was just being cranky and clingy since the moment he woke up, a I was still very tired when AJ woke me up. I fed AJ his bottle, and let his sit in his swing to watch "Cars" while I laid down for a little longer on the couch behind him. As I said he was being clingy so I wasn't able to lay down for very long. I fed him breakfast, which was applesauce and put him in the exercauser to play while I started to make the dessert I was bringing to the party. AJ whined and cried the whole time I was trying to make the dessert, and then I ran out of yogurt and was close to running out of strawberries and blueberries. So I put AJ down for a nap, and ran out to the store.

I went to one store and they didn't have anything that I needed on sale. So, I left and went to another store where I had coupons for anyway. All in all I spent $2.00 on two cartons of strawberries, a bag of frozen blueberries, three cartons on vanilla yogurt, oil for my car, and two sandwhiches. Yay me for being a great shopper and using coupons!

Anyway, when I had to deposit some checks in the bank and of all things I forgot my pin number, so I went home irritated trying to think of it. As soon as I walk through the door, AJ wakes up and is still cranky and clingy. I try to get him to watch the movie again, so I could take a shower and finish the dessert. As I'm turning the shower off, I hear AJ screaming. Aaron slept right through it. So, I'm completely irritated. I make AJ a bottle and feed him, it seemed to calm him down. Then I finish the desserts.

I go into the room to wake Aaron up. He absolutely refused to get out of bed. I kept bugging him and he kept saying he didn't want to go, even though he took the day of too go. He finally got out of bed, and got dressed but was just giving me a hard time about it. We left late, and I had to put my own oil in my car!

We got to the party, and everything went pretty well. We swam, we ate, we lounged, and just had a pretty good time. So, at one point, the party every year always moves from my Aunt's house to my Uncle's house for fireworks. We got all of our stuff, except for our pans which we didn't realize until later that we forgot them, and we left.

It was an absolute nightmare from this point out.

We are getting into the car when Aaron tells me that he is hungry. I was telling him that I didn't have any cash on me, and my mom heard and gave me some money to go get Aaron some food. We pull out of the drive way argueing because Aaron never tells me what he wants to eat. He always tells me to decide, but I wasn't hungry. I ate waaaayy too much food! So, I decide that I'll just stop at the first place that I see on the way, instead of turning at Main St. where there are a ton of fast food places.

We're just driving and talking, and the guy in front of me is pissing me off because its 45mph and he's only going 35. I see a cop behind us and I tell Aaron to put on his seat belt so we don't get pulled over. Well guess what..... the cop shines his lights. I start freaking out... WHAT DID I DO WRONG?!?!?! The cop walks over to me and tells me that my tags are expired.... stupid me, my birthday was over a week ago, and I completely forgot to renew them. He tells me he's just giving me a warning. He asks me for all the usual and Aaron for his name, because he didn't have his id. The cop walks away and I start to freak out even more.

Not only was this my first time ever being pulled over, but Aaron had a bench warrant because of some miscommunication with the court system, AND I could not find my insurance information. So, we knew Aaron was going to jail. Guilt..... that's all I felt. Well, I also felt scared, but mostly guilty.

I called my mom and Aaron called his work. The cop did arrest Aaron. While he was feeling him up, Aaron explained what had happened, and they talked about the baby. I'm just sitting there in tears while all of this is going on. He takes Aaron to the car, and then comes back with the bond amount and a phone number. He asked to search my car, I think he was trying to make a joke when he said he just needed to make sure that there wasn't a kilo of cocaine and a gun in the car, but if it was a joke I didn't think it was too funny. Not to mention I wouldn't have the slightest clue what a kilo of cocaine looks like.

He goes back to his car, pulls it up to my car rolls down Aaron's window, and I'm hysterically crying. I looked at Aaron and then looked away. Later, all I could think about was how stupid I was for not telling Aaron I loved him. My mom pulled up, just as they were getting ready to pull away. I made a million and a half phone calls, all the while hysterically crying, and then asked my mom to take AJ with her.

I was told that all I could do was wait from every single person I called. Heather ended up coming over to calm me down, and I went back with her to pick Thomas up from her dad's house. I called my mom to see how AJ was, and my cousin Logan, he's 2 or 3, was burned badly by a firework that fell out of the sky. When we got to Heather's dad's house, there was a lady who had just had a piece of a firework removed from her leg after it had fallen over and shot under her chair where it blew up. I didn't watch the fireworks, one because they do scare me, and two because I was sitting at the computer waiting for Aaron's arrest to be posted on the internet, which would tell me he was done processing.

I ended up having to wait until 10:45 (he was arrested at about 7:30) for Aaron to be finished processing, and then he called me. I was referred by a "friend" to call a certain bail bond, which was completely rude to me, but I ended up going to another one that was nicer. I met with her at 11:45, she posted bail at 12:30, and I went to the jail to wait at 1:00(am). Aaron was not let out until about 3:15.

We came home and talked about our nights, we both ate since we both really didn't have much to eat since he was arrested, and then we turned on a movie and went to bed. Such an anticlimatic, well nevermind cause that's not all too true, end to my nightmare of a fourth of July.

The infamous first post

So, I'm starting a blog. I have started them before but never kept up with it. I will bet more than anything not too many people, if any, will read this, but I want to start it so there.

First, a little bit about AJ:
AJ is 5 months old, soon to be 6 months in one week. He's a big boy and has been from his birth at 8 pounds 8 ounces and 22 inches long on January 11, 2008. Maybe I'll make a seperate post later about his actual birth and all of the wonderfully gross details. AJ is a sweetheart, and a flirt. His favorite movie is Cars, and his favorite toy is his exersaucer. His favorite food is bananas, and he loves it when Daddy give him sweets. He goes to work with mommy and complains about it practically the whole time. His bedtime is around 9:30 and most often than not falls to sleep by himself and sleeps the whole night, promtly waking up at 7:30 on the dot. He has a multitude of facial expressions, and he gets that a long with his looks from his daddy. He can wiggle his ears like Mommy, and seems to have her sense of humor too.

Alittle about Mommy:
I am 23 and currently working on my bachelors degree in banking, but it wasn't my first choice and I'm sure at one point I might end up changing my mind before its up. My passion first is AJ, but second is music. I was trying to major in music but I am unable to because of the time demands the curriculum has. I work as a nanny for two boys, a five year old and an eleven year old. I hate this job. I want to still nanny, but find that the family I work for drains me emotionally and physically. I could write a whole post on this, and probably will later. I am a neat person at work, but my own house is always messy with AJ's toys and "equipment" everywhere, and there always seems to be a never ending pile of dishes and laundry to be done. I vow all the time that I will become neater at home, but always fall short at the end of the night.
I am dating a wonderful man, and we have been together for abour a year and a half. He tries to give me everything I want, and he happens to be the one that cooks and cleans. He's a wonderful daddy, and AJ adores him. I couldn't have asked for a better man to have a child with. I hope to marry him very soon, and then shortly after have another child.


So that's a little bit about us. Maybe some pictures to follow soon.