What Do You Call Baby Crack?

A paci. 

When my little addict has her paci taken away, she starts to have withdrawal symptoms.  Erratic behavior, loss of attention, defiance, you get the point.  If there's a paci in eyesight, she has got to have it.  STAT.  She seriously thinks she needs a paci like she needs water, food, oxygen.  

We are about 11 months past due for tossing out all paci's.  I thought we might be able to do a "bait and switch" kind of thing and take away the paci and give her the blankie.  FAIL.  There is a blanket that we took to the hospital when she was born, and it has been her faithful comfort next to the paci since the day she was born.  So now we are addicted to the paci AND the blankie.  I'm pretty certain my child will be that 5 year old going to kindergarten sucking on a paci and toting a ratty, polka dot blanket. Speaking of which, I should try to find that blanket and buy another one in case we lose the current one or it gets ruined.  I don't know if she could function on a daily basis without it either.

I typically only let Elise have a paci for naps and bed time.  Actually, at bed time she has one in her mouth or her hand and then I throw another one in the crib just in case.  If she wakes up in the middle of the night and doesn't have one within reach, sheer panic ensues.  I have actually seen her feel around for one, grab it, and put it in her mouth without even opening her eyes.

The last couple of days I have been letting her have one for the majority of the day.  She takes off walking down the hall towards her room, pointing, and saying "unh unh unh."  She points to her crib for her blankie and then to the top of the dresser for her paci.  I haven't felt too guilty about letting her have one since she has another tooth coming in.  I think it helps soothe her gums.  I could possibly be addicted too.

Sometime in the next couple of years months I'm going to consider rehab. For her.  I may have to attend the Betty Ford Center for being an enabler.

Spending Sunday Outside

We all went outside to play yesterday afternoon.  Well, some of us "played" and others "worked."  It's funny that I took a lot of pictures of Elise playing, Jason working, and Elise helping Jason.  But, no one wanted to take any pictures of all the work I was doing.  I mean, really.  I pushed Elise in her swing, I held my beer, cell phone, AND camera all at the same time, I documented important moments via a digital camera.  It's not as easy as it looks being a high profile photo journalist and all.  The proof is in the pudding.

My Little Darlin Is A Firecracker

If you ever watch Bethany Getting Married or Bethany Ever After on the Bravo network, you know that she is a neurotic control freak.  She says anything she wants and makes no excuses for her opinions.  I have seen a few similarities between her and myself.  Not the same in the sense that she's a successful business woman building a "Bethany Empire", but that we are both neurotic, opinionated control freaks.  I'm pretty much an open book.  I say what's on my mind, express my opinions whether good or bad, and don't worry too much (but a little) if people don't like it.  I have tried to be a little more sensitive since my kind husband has been teaching me his ways.  I have told him a couple of times, three to be exact, that "I'm going to turn my life around."  I'm not always going to say what I think and I'm going to try to quit wearing my opinion on my face... since my facial expressions can't lie (but usually ignorance makes me return to my ways).  I think he and I both thought that would a good thing to try, but it a sense, I would be changing who I am.  I wouldn't be that girl that he met that had something to say about everything.  I would be conforming to other people's expectations and what they thought is appropriate or acceptable rather than just being comfortable with who I really am.  There is a guy, Ryan, on a near-by volunteer fire department who is the same age as Jason and also my Facebook friend.  We joke around and exchange friendly banter almost daily on Facebook.  Jason told me the other night that Ryan had come up to the station and told him, "your wife is a firecracker!"  Then another guy interjected and said "yeah, I always can't wait to read what she's going to say!"  Jason's response was "she's a feisty one."  Well, I'd much rather be thought of as feisty or a firecracker instead of a pushover with no thoughts about anything.  I asked Jason, "isn't that why you love me?  Never a dull moment with me around!"

After last week's episode, of Bethany Ever After, I think she and I were made from the same mold.  She is married to man named Jason.  He is relaxed, goes with the flow, and level headed.  They balance each other out, just like me and Jason.  Because he is like him, and I am like her. 

This was one of their conversations on the last episode:

Jason:  Why is it that when you ask me to do something, I just go.  But, when I ask you to do something, we have to have a conversation about it?

Bethany:  Because, I.AM.A.DIFFICULT.HUMAN.BEING.

As am I.  But, I have never thought that I wasn't.  I have always told Jason that I am difficult, but I appreciate his patience with me.  The good thing is that I realize that I am difficult, Jason realizes it, and I realize that he is patient and understanding.  That's what makes our relationship work.

As Seen From My Palm Pre

Elise is always making us laugh.  Thankfully my cell phone takes pretty good pictures.  I can take one quickly since my phone is often times more handy than the digital camera. Here's a few of my favorites....

  When Elise is REALLY bad, we punish her by putting her in the laundry basket.  Someone better call CPS, because as you can see, she is horribly mistreated!

 Elise may be like her Daddy when it comes to loving Oreos, but she is her Momma's girl when it comes to these two things:

1. A love for dental hygiene

2.  Sitting in the sink

 A little girl and her dog.

It makes my heart smile.

100% Daddy's Girl

 "A Fruit Loop for you, a Fruit Loop for me."

Picnic on the kitchen floor.

 Just relaxing and putting her feet up.

 "This is my best side..."

"Look Momma!  No hands!!!"

A Week of Frustration

Let me first start out by saying two things.

1.  That I have been this emotional train wreck for awhile now.  I'm going to contribute it to stress(?) and that my hormones are still completely out of whack from trying to adjust from nursing, or lack there of.  Even though I quit nursing in November, I still have milk.  Complete surprise to me too.  So, I'm going to blame hormones for my horrible skin and uncontrollable outbursts of tears.  I know that it has to be something like that to cause me to start bawling my eyes out at the doctor's office.... twice.  To the receptionist and my OB/GYN (whom I'm surprised didn't offer me any depression meds).

2.  I have OCD.  Well, it hasn't been diagnosed, but I'm fairly certain it could be.  I do NOT, repeat do NOT like change.  It causes me anxiety and I don't adapt very well.  There for I like to keep a schedule, keep track of time, follow the same routine daily.  Like for going to sleep every night, etc.  It makes me feel comfortable.


Keep those two things in mind as I explain...

This week (starting last Sunday) has been a little nightmarish for me.  We had really high winds with gusts up to 60-70mph.  Combine that with being under a Burn Ban and super dry conditions, we had a really high risk for grass fires.  Jason was called up to the station to stand by in case a serious situation were to a rise.  Around 2pm I was driving up to Amarillo to run a quick errand when I drove through a lot of heavy smoke.  It made me a little worried, so I called Jason.  He didn't answer so I figured they were out there on the fire.  I talked to another girl who's husband is a volunteer, and she told me they were on a grass fire and were evacuating the people living in that area.  That made me really worried.  Anyway, I talked to Jason a couple of times from 5pm-9ish.  I took him some clean clothes up the station since he was filthy.  He briefly told me that it was a serious fire and there were some hit & miss circumstances.  He finally came home at 1:30 Monday morning.  I don't usually go to sleep until he gets home.  I worry about him when it's really late, so I was still awake when he got in.  He was back up at work at 8am.  They were working on getting their trucks back in service, sending more crews out to the fire scene to cover the hot spots, and were possibly going to send additional personnel to help relieve other departments that were still working at other fires.  One area lost 20 something homes.

He had to go to the eye doctor Monday morning to have the dirt and debris cleaned out of his eyes. I waited most of the day to hear if he was going to be back out on scene or out helping the other departments out. By the afternoon, he had let me know that he wasn't going back out.  That was a relief for me.  I made dinner that night while he passed out in his chair.  Elise was up from 3am-4am for no good reason... laughing, bouncing on our bed, and saying "doggie."  She finally went back to sleep around 4:30ish.  I thought we would soon resume our normal weekly routine after all of that.

Tuesday morning I had a message on Facebook from one of the wives of another volunteer on the department.  It said:

"Everyone out there yesterday risked their lives. We happen to think your husband is without a doubt, one of the biggest HEROS of them all." 

I responded back thanking her very much and that it really meant a lot to me.  I was proud to read that, but I couldn't help but think that maybe something "bad" had happened out there that I didn't know about.  So, I had another bawling episode.  After I had regained me composure,  I called Jason and just asked him if anything serious had happened I didn't know about.  I didn't want him to know I was crying over all of this, so I didn't elaborate on the message or anything.


Tuesday night as we were just about to head to bed, Jason's radio went off for a structure fire.  And as he was throwing on his clothes to run out the door again, I start crying again.  At that point, I was beginning to wonder if God hated me (not really, but STILL!).  This was only Tuesday but it felt like I had been living this week of misery in slow motion.  When he got home, he slept on the couch so I could try to get some good sleep... well that didn't happen that night either.  At 3am I woke up with tremendous stomach pain.  I couldn't even stand or walk without being bent over.  I went into the living room after laying in bed in the fetal position for 30 minutes and told Jason that something was wrong.  Wrong as in, I might have to drive myself to the Urgent Care here in town.  Since the internet knows everything, Jason pulled up the laptop and did some research.  He thought it might be my appendix.  I just laid on the couch and moaned in the fetal position for awhile.  I started to feel a little better and thought I'd just wait until the morning.  I woke up when Jason got up for work.  I wasn't hurting like I had been, but I was still very sore.  Whatever it was finally went away as the day went on.  The week was just getting better and better!!!!

Wednesday night Jason had drill.  Elise woke up that morning sick.  Now, we're on the fourth day of hell.  I'm tired, Jason's at work (and exhausted I'm sure), and now I have a sick baby.  He came home for dinner, and was gone again.  He came home around 11pm from drill and we finally headed to bed.

Yesterday morning, I woke up sick.  Now it's the sick caring for the sick.  I felt like crap all day and so did Elise.  I think she's starting to feel better today, so hopefully we both will be well soon!

I thought my little week from hell was drawing to a close, with it being Friday and all.  Nope.  As we were all sitting down to relax for the night after dinner and bath time, they paged for another structure fire.  REALLY?!?!?!  What did I do to deserve this?!  I guess Jason sensed my frustration and feared another crying spell, so he waited a bit to see if a truck was going to be in route soon.  Luckily they had several units responding and it actually turned out not to be a fire.

Now that it's Friday and I'm emotionally and physically exhausted, I can just hope that this weekend proves to be a calm one.  I'm not really sure that I can handle much more with my erratic hormones, plus the anxiety over worrying about my husband, and all of the disruptions of my schedule and routines (which wouldn't matter to a normal person without OCD).  The last 6 days have had me in a tailspin, so I'm desperate for some tranquility.