leigh49137

this does and doesn’t have anything to do with keeping my house clean…. read on and you will understand…

esterday afternoon janie came down with the stomach virus. yes, THE stomach virus. because it was the kind that caused projectile vomiting and head spinning in a 360° circle.

when i picked her up from daycare, we went straight to nana and pop’s house. i went to the back of the car to scoop her up out of her car seat and told her, “let’s go tell nana what happened.” to which her reply was, “tell nana that i bad?”

i about cried. this child seriously thought that because she was sick and throwing up, that she was being bad. it took some explaining, but i made sure that she understood that being sick did not make her bad. she was a sweet, sick little girl.

pout

so janie and i stayed nana and pop last night—which was an event within itself. i haven’t spent the night at my parents’ house in a VERY long time. and now i remember why. my sister’s old bed (which is where janie and i sleep when we do stay there) IS HORRIBLE!!!! it feels like you are laying on a piece of plywood and covering up with sandpaper.

yeah, it’s that bad.

not to mention, i was sleeping next to someone who had to vomit after drinking ANYHTING and who thought she was dying of thirst—because she could not hold anything down. poor chld. she was in tears over not being able to drink. because there came a point that i just had to tell her, “darlin’ i can’t let you keep throwing up like this… no more gingerale.”

you would have thought i put her big toe in a vice grip and pinched it to death from the screams and crys that came out of that child’s mouth.

after 3 different shirts for me, 4 different shirts for her, and 2 sets of pajama bottoms each, we made it through the night.

and i have to finish off with this:

STOMACH VIRUSESSUCK!!

hospital time! we got to mobile infirmary WAY before we were scheduled to be there, but i figured it was better to be early than late. right? the first thing i remember is being taken back to the labor and delivery ward of the hospital. they kept asking me if i needed a wheelchair (with which i eventually got VERY annoyed because i hadn’t been treated like an invalid so far during my pregnancy – so why start now?). when we got to my room it looked like a hotel room. there was a huge television set and a couch and a couple of chairs. the only thing different was the bed (of course it was a hospital-style bed) and the bathroom didn’t have a tub – only a strange looking shower with a chair in it.

anyway. i had to change into one of those beautiful hospital gowns and take my place on the bed. the nurse inserted cervidil to ripen my cervix (because at this point i was not dilated AT ALL). the contractions started IMMEDIATELY thereafter. at first they were only mildly uncomfortable. but it did not take long for them to become harshly unbearable. for the first twelve hours, i went without any pain medication. about every hour the nurse would come in a check me. i was in too much pain to sleep. chris couldn’t sleep because i couldn’t sleep.

around six in the morning on the 19th i was started on pitocin through my IV. the contractions became so strong that i relented and asked for nubain. this helped me for the next 6 hours or so. the contractions were getting stronger and stronger, but i wasn’t dilating hardly at all. i ended up only getting to 2 centimeters in 18 hours of labor. at 11:30 that morning, my nurse (who had spent the past 10 hours with me and was becoming my best friend at that moment) took my hand and said, “darlyn…i know you want to put off having the epidural as long as possible….but you really need to have it done. your contractions are getting harder and harder because of the pitocin and seeing your eyes roll back in your head like that every minute or so is really starting to freak out your husband.”

so i relented again and said okay to the epidural. it took about 20 minutes for the anesthesiologist to get to my room and perform the epidural. it didn’t hurt. amazingly. but i think i was in so much paid with the contractions that it didn’t matter i was having a 20 gauge needle stuck into my spine. it took within minutes and it made ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD. no more pain. i could actually have conversations with people that lasted longer than 30 seconds. it was WONDERFUL.

there was a fetal monitor on janie’s head the whole time i was in labor and delivery. they were keeping track of her heart rate, during labor, a baby’s heart rate drops during contractions and then recovers back to the normal rate. at 12:26 the fetal heart monitor showed that janie was in distress. i had a contraction (which i couldn’t even feel then because of the epidural) and janie’s heart rate dropped, but did not recover. (by recover, i mean come back all the way up – her heart was still beating, but at a much slower rate). by the next contraction, her heart rate dropped even lower.

in that moment, i was told that it was time for an emergency c-section.

tears started to flood my eyes. even chris was crying – because he knew how scared i was. i was so glad that i had already had the epidural. because it took about 10 minutes for it to take effect, and now we didn’t have to wait that extra time. janie needed to come out AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. chris and i decided that my mom could be in the operating room with us – for which i am very grateful. because of my mom, i have some wonderful candid photos of janie’s birth (not the surgery) and they turned out beautifully.

janie ann marie was born at 12:36 p.m. on january 19, 2004. she weighed exactly 8 pounds and was 21 inches long. her eyes were dark blue and she didn’t really have that much hair. she mostly looked like a cute little sumo wrestler (i’m sure she will really appreciate that one day). her head was perfectly shaped (since she was born by a c-section, there was no need for forceps or that vacuum-thingy).

because of my gestational diabetes and the insulin dependency, she was born with very low blood sugar. she was kept in the nicu for the first 12 hours of her life on a glucose-iv. that was the ONLY problem with her. actually, that wasn’t even a problem. she was PERFECT.

and most times, she still is.

p.s. the recovery from the c-section wasn’t as bad as i had thought it would be. it wasn’t exactly FUN, but if i have another child, i plan on having another c-section. i promise.

for the next two days, chris and i cleaned house. and i mean CLEANED. we scrubbed the bathroom, did some finishing touches on the nursery, washed the curtains throughout the house. you name it, we cleaned it. we even thought about ripping up the carpet in the nursery because it had been down for so long. but we didn’t end up going that far. i finished packing my bag for the hospital (actually i packed two…one for a regular delivery and one for a c-section – because we would have to stay in the hospital longer with a c-section) by saturday night, i was so exhausted that i fell asleep at about half past seven. the next day was almost BORING. because we were so jittery the day before we had done EVERYTHING we could think of to be ready for the new baby.

we had to be at the hospital on the 18th at 6 o’clock in the evening. we spent the whole day waiting for 4:30 (which is when we decided to leave for the hospital – it’s about an hours drive). i have never watched so much television in one day as i did that day. i was sore from the day before (from over-exerting myself while cleaning) and all i wanted to do was lay in my new recliner that my parents had bought me for Christmas.

janie ann marie was born on monday, january 19th of 2004 which was twenty-five days before her first due date of february 12th. she weighed exactly 8 pounds and was 21 inches long. her eyes were dark blue and she didn’t really have that much hair. she mostly looked like a cute little sumo wrestler (i’m sure she will really appreciate that one day). her head was perfectly shaped (since she was born by a c-section, there was no need for forceps or that vacuum-thingy). i don’t know if i ever stated this before, but i was DEATHLY afraid of having a c-section. because i had always heard that it was so much more horrid for plus size women than it was for thinner women. and that made sense in my mind because a larger woman would have a larger stomach…right? right. and there would be more pressure on her incision, right? right. so here is my account of what happened between january 16th (day of decision) and january 19th (janie’s birthday)...

i had an appointment with dr. cool-as-anything dawkins on the 16th at around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. chris went with me (thank GOD). i had been having problems with my blood sugar for a while by then and my weight had dropped about 30 pounds or so, but we figured everything was okay. i had gestational diabetes and was on insulin (had been for about two months by this point) and between the insulin and my diet, janie was getting bigger and bigger and i was shrinking. what was so gut-wrenching was that i was always trying to lose weight before i was pregnant. weight watchers, l.a. weightloss, atkins, you name it, i had tried it. and i had never lost more than 10 or 12 pounds either. THEN came pregnancy. the one time in a woman’s life that she doesn’t need to lose an excessive amount of weight and there i was losing by the day. (when i went to dr. dawkins for my checkup AFTER janie was born, i had lost a total of 42 pounds). what has really scary was when i was spilling an enormous amount of ketones. it was alarming, but the doc said that it was okay, as long as it didn’t get too out of hand.

i was working at the bank close to home. i can’t remember where chris was working, but i know it was some place close (and by that, i mean within 90 miles of our house – it’s odd how relative the word close can be…) chris and i were expecting to have a minimum of two more weeks before we would actually be having a baby. but the doc decided that maybe we shouldn’t wait that long.

“according to the ultra-sound, your little girl weighs in at almost 11 pounds,” she said. she had a concerned look on her face. i felt as though i was going to vomit all over her. then she said…”but ultrasounds can be up to 2 pounds off. so we are probably looking at a very healthy 9 pound baby girl.” to which i replied, “or we could be looking at a very HUGE 13 pound baby girl!?”

i am sure my face showed the fear that was welling inside of me. the first thing that came to my mind was how large my precious baby was going to be. i was worried for her. was she going to be okay? had i done enough and tried hard enough with the gestational diabetes to make sure that she would enter this world healthy? would she be so big that i wouldn’t be able to give birth to her vaginally? and then came my real fear.

A C-SECTION.

there are not enough adjectives in the all the languages of all the world to express my terror of having to have a caesarian. the stories i had heard and the ones that i had dreamt up on my own were beginning to spin in my mind like a tornado. the infections, the breast feeding problems, the incision problems, the hideous scars, the bed-rest after delivery, every horrific thing i had ever heard was reverberating in my head.

when we left the doc’s office, chris and i decided to go out to eat to celebrate (and because we had to drive all the way to mobile to go see the doc, we might as well go on and make a date of it anyway). this would be the last time we went out to eat as husband and wife before our beautiful baby girl was born. we went to outback steakhouse in mobile (which is TOTALLY our restaurant of choice – more on that later). we talked. we cried. we talked some more. we were ready.

or so we thought.

;)

because i remember having so much fun at my southern baptist church when i was a child. i grew up knowing that no matter what happened on earth, everything would be alright. i want my daughter to experience the joy of having not only a earthly family but a spiritual one as well.

i have thought having another baby. i have frequently thought about this. and i have always come to the same conclusion. later on. when we have a bigger house. after janie is potty trained. when i KNOW that chris’s job isn’t going to take him to tim-buck-too.

yesterday i was telling a friend of mine about my sister’s recent engagement. it seemed like every other sentence started with “my sister…” i immensely enjoy telling people about my sister. she’s my sister, what more can i say? i love her.

and i want janie to have that same feeling when she grows up. to be a big sister. to know that there is at least one other person who understands. (because there are MANY times in my life that i feel ONLY my sister understands). to help her little sister learn from janie’s mistakes so that she doesn’t have to make as many of her own (or at east not the same one’s janie is bound to make). to be there to argue with over who is the smart one, the pretty one, the better one…

i remember fighting with my sister when we were growing up. but i also remember us playing together constantly. we had such a good time. even though at the time i didn’t think i really wanted a little sister. she was SUCH an annoyance. (remember, i was 4 when she was born…so i thought she was a nuisance for about 10 years). i actually remember being afraid of the drain in our bathtub as a child and putting a little water in the tub and getting her to sit in it. then i pulled the plug. when she didn’t get washed down with the bath water, i was like, “okay, if she doesn’t get sucked down the drain there is no way i can get sucked down there…” and i promise…i’m NOT making that up. :)

it’s sad that you don’t really appreciate your siblings until you grow up.

but it warms my heart to know that i have her.

am really glad she didn’t get sucked down the drain. that would have been horrible, not to mention that my momma would have KILLED me. and what do i say now about having another baby?

later on….

because she wants to so badly….

because she could theoretically DRIVE US ALL INSANE if she doesn’t…

because she deserves to be able to…

because i love her…

i had a conversation with a co-worker last week, and this is what he told me…”i think you are one of the luckiest people i know…actually i don’t really think luck has anything to do with it… not lucky, more like you have been blessed by God and you are perceptive enough to be aware of it.”

what people don’t realize is that i remember times like this when my husband was ALWAYS gone working or just about to leave for A WHOLE FRIGGIN’ MONTH to work in some God-awful place and this when chris was just a plain poo-poo head. everything is relative. if you have nothing to compare the good times to (meaning bad times, and i mean BAD BAD times) then it is extremely simple to take the little things for granted.

and I PROMISE, i do take things for granted. everyone does at some point. but that is one reason i love having a blog. it gives me (as well as my husband) perspective on how things are now verses how things were then and allows me to be thankful for what i have. and, if there weren’t times like those, would i be so happy now?

the conundrum is: i wasn’t happy then. i am happy now. if i was happy then, would i be happy now?

or, does it matter?

...

i do know that no matter how happy i am now, i do not ever want to feel any way other than the way i feel now. safe. happy. complete. LOVED.

this past weekend was filled to the brim.

saturday (even though i had a VERY bad cold) i decided to take my little precious bundle of joy to 42 miles north so that i could go shopping. i had heard that there was a store having a HUGE sale, and i am all about saving a few $$$ whenever i can. i called my mother and asked her if she wanted to ride with us.

and off we went. janie was fine on the way up. partly because she was asleep 25 out of the 30 minutes it took to get there. when we got to hudson’s, things changed. she started pulling everything off the shelves she could get her little hands on. after only ten minutes in the dry goods section, she had demolished more than three boxes of cereal. i was about to cry. literally.

she didn’t want to stay in the buggy. she would scream and cry every time i picked her up. so we finally left. (after, i might add, the cashier overcharged me for three items…but don’t worry, my mom being the bargain shopper she is, promptly brought this to the cashier’s attention and after a bit of arguing, i got my money back).

then it was on to walmart. there is a walmart in the town where i work, but it does not measure up to to the walmart that is 42 miles north of my home. i’m telling you, THERE IS NO COMPARISON. it’s got to be a minimum of three times larger. apparently, my sinuses had taken over my BRAIN because i actually thought she would be better once we got to walmart. WHY DID I THINK THAT??? it started out with her kicking me in the lower abdomen (right in my c-section scar). she wasn’t meaning to be mean…she was just swinging her feet back and forth. but after being kicked about 37 times, i about lost it. i started feeling like i was going to be sick right there in the middle of the frozen food section.

i kept picking up random things to occupy her. i picked up a wire whisk, a pair of yellow gardening gloves, a aluminum muffin tin, a blue and yellow polka-dotted scarf (which was VERY ugly), and a noise maker from the holiday section (it would make a very LOUD scary sound when you moved it…of course she LOVED it and we had to buy it…..confounded thing…). by the time we were checking out i felt like crawling on my hands and knees to the door screaming.

on the way home, what do you think she did? SHE SLEPT. oh. my. goodness. she must have been totally worn out from MAKING MY LIFE ALMOST TO THE POINT OF UNBEARABLE FOR THE PAST 3 AND A HALF HOURS.

unbelievable.

this past week of my life was spent shopping, playing with janie, going out with chris, cleaning and rearranging the house, decorating for Christmas, and spending time with friends.

IT WAS WONDERFUL!

chris was off from work for FOUR ENTIRE DAYS IN A ROW! i’m not sure that has ever happened before…save for when he’s between jobs…and that’s never fun…

s h o p p i n g

i finished up most of our Christmas shopping over the thanksgiving break, but BEFORE thanksgiving day. i’m not one to go shopping on black friday. running through the front doors of wal-mart at five o’clock in the morning and diving into a pile of people then fighting tooth and nail over a pixel chix is NOT my idea of a enjoyable shopping experience. but there are those who thrive on it. i just don’t understand. to each his own, i guess.

janie was an absolute angel over thanksgiving. i couldn’t have asked for a sweeter child (note to self: remember this tonight when she is throwing her spaghetti on the carpet after she has used the sauce as hair-gel while screaming – or singing…sometimes i can’t tell – at the top of her lungs because, well, just because.) she’s started talking more and more lately. her toddler vocabulary now includes…

shoos—shoes
titty-titty—kitty kitty
nooooo—no
jooooce—juice

these are the words that she says SO PRECIOUSLY! she’s getting better and better at talking. she’s even speaking in whole sentences now, but only at random intervals. we can hardly ever get her to say what we want her to say when we want her to say it. she gets shy around groups of people. but every now and then, she will walk up to me and say something that i doubt i will ever be able to understand, but it is like music to my ears. simply beautiful…

since chris had so many days OFF IN A ROW for thanksgiving, we decided to get a sitter TWICE IN A ROW! don’t worry, it was my 1st cousin who loves janie almost as much as i do and she needs the money. we went to my best friend’s house on friday night. sometimes, sitting outside around a fire and roasting marsh mallows is SO MUCH FRIGGIN’ FUN! on saturday night we went to another friend’s house and played cards until about eleven o’clock or so. we learned a new game called 2-22 red which turned out to be easier and more entertaining than i thought it would be at first.

i spent the monday before thanksgiving cleaning house in preparation for the annual decorating of the Christmas tree which we try to do the day after thanksgiving. on friday morning, chris and i moved our kitchen table (which i loathe) to his new office (the room that use to have the deep-freeze in it) so that he would have a desk. this made room for our Christmas tree. i ADORE decorating for Christmas…it’s the taking all the crap down after Christmas that i disgust.

this year is going to be so much fun with janie! i can hardly wait this year! i haven’t felt like this about the holidays since i was a teenager. it amazes me everyday how much janie has changed my life. not only my life, but my perception on life.

and now, i realize…my life totally sucked before her.

thanksgiving is almost here. i don’t know if i HIGHLY doubt that i will be making any entries next week, because I HATE DIAL-UP internet and that’s all i have at my house. i live too far out up in dim dar hills to get dsl or cable and i REFUSE to pay the exorbitant price for satellite internet. —i want to be able to send my child to college one day. i DON’T want to have to tell her, “well honey, we had planned on helping send you to college, but your daddy and i just HAD to have that super fast satellite internet connection. sorry. now go get a job.”

this is the last day before thanksgiving break. can you believe that we get a WHOLE FRIGGIN’ WEEK off for thanksgiving? this is just one more reason to say,

i remember when i got this job. i was so excited! but i didn’t know 99% of what this job would entail. I AM NOT COMPLAINING, I PROMISE. i am stating fact. people think that teaching is just that – teaching. but it’s not.

lordy, lordy, it’s not. it’s SO much more. sometimes i feel like a momma to the 60 students i have throughout the day. and by the end of the term (and for some, much sooner than that) i end up loving them like they are mine anyway. they have problems and issues just like i do, and even if their problems seem minute to adults, they are colossal to teenagers.

and they make me laugh. every day. almost every hour. this is a perfect example of that. someone once told me that laughing adds length to your life.

well, if that’s true, i just might live forever.

;)

my little sister is now engaged!!! her boyfriend has asked for her hand in marriage. i am so excited for her! she deserves this. she deserves so much more in addition to this, but she minimally deserves this. she is beautiful AND she’s an inherently good person. there aren’t many people who can boast of such an excellent combination as that. i’m certainly not one of them. and i truly believe that he is one of them as well.

i have only met him once (long story) but within five minutes of laying eyes on him i fell in love with his infectious personality and his beautiful smile. he played with my daughter as if she was his own daughter (and no, he doesn’t have any children). any young man who will pick up a toddler and play like he did is a keeper. he wasn’t nervous. he was genuine. he comes from a good family and he appreciates my sister for the good person that she is. the latter being far superiorly important to the former.

i have had the opportunity to talk with him on the phone a few times and the conversation is never boring. i am incredibly pleased to say that he doesn’t get his feelings hurt by my earthy and acerbic sense of humor. i just can’t express how (excuse me for showing my age here) AWESOME he is! and i am so happy for my little sister that she found him.

congratulations, jami and daniel. may you always be as happy as you are beautiful.

i have thought having another baby. i have frequently thought about this. and i have always come to the same conclusion. later on. when we have a bigger house. after janie is potty trained. when i KNOW that chris’s job isn’t going to take him to tim-buck-too.

yesterday i was telling a friend of mine about jami’s recent engagement. it seemed like every other sentence started with “my sister…” i immensely enjoy telling people about my sister. she’s my sister, what more can i say? i love her.

and i want janie to have that same feeling when she grows up. to be a big sister. to know that there is at least one other person who understands. (because there are MANY times in my life that i feel ONLY jami understands). to help her little sister learn from janie’s mistakes so that she doesn’t have to make as many of her own (or at east not the same one’s janie is bound to make). to be there to argue with over who is the smart one, the pretty one, the better one…

i remember fighting with jami when we were growing up. but i also remember us playing together constantly. we had such a good time. even though at the time i didn’t think i really wanted a little sister. she was SUCH an annoyance. (remember, i was 4 when she was born…so i thought she was a nuisance for about 10 years). i actually remember being afraid of the drain in our bathtub as a child and putting a little water in the tub and getting jami to sit in it. then i pulled the plug. when she didn’t get washed down with the bath water, i was like, “okay, if she doesn’t get sucked down the drain there is no way i can get sucked down there…” and i promise…i’m NOT making that up. :)

it’s sad that you don’t really appreciate your siblings until you grow up.

but it warms my heart to know that i have her.

i am really glad she didn’t get sucked down the drain. that would have been horrible, not to mention that my momma would have KILLED me. and what do i say now about having another baby?

later on….

janie is learning to be defiant. every afternoon she climbs up onto the couch (which she knows she is not suppose to be on) and smooshes her face up against the huge glass picture window in our living room. it’s not that we don’t want our child on our furniture. but if she was to break that picture window, by falling through it, pushing her hand through it….whatever….it would kill her. it’s that old-timey glass that doesn’t shatter when it breaks. it shards. there is a big difference. if it was to shatter, we would still have a cut – up little girl, but if it was to shard….....well….i’m just not going to think about that right now.

my point is that janie KNOWS not to get up there and hit the glass. SHE KNOWS. but she does it anyway. and there is apparently no reasoning with a 19 month old that can’t (or won’t, i should say) even talk back.

“don’t hit the glass,” i say sternly with my brow furrowed and my finger pointing at the window.

“uhhh…” is her only reply. this has got to get better. chuckle or i guess it could get worse.

this is an old picture of janie….probably from when she had just turned a year old (i say that because i remember those pajamas….) anyway, i am posting it, not because of it’s great digital quality, but because this is what i feel she is thinking every time she gets on top of that couch and slaps the front glass window.

sigh

every weekday morning i wake janie up from her slumber and she lifts her arms above her head to stretch. i pick her up from inside her crib and carry her to my bedroom where i give her a sippy cup full of milk just before i lay her down to change her diaper (yes, she’s still wears diapers…the potty-training thing hasn’t happened as of yet) and change her clothes for daycare.

sometimes she decides that she doesn’t want to change clothes, and sometimes she’s excited. i haven’t figured out why yet, but there are days when i don’t want to get out of bed for no particular reason other than SLEEP IS GOOD. maybe that is her reasoning as well. this morning it was particularly warm outside (especially for November) so i dressed her in shorts one last time this season. then i put her hair up in pig-tails (because i LOVE her hair in pig-tails, and i don’t care if people say it will pull the curl out of her hair – how STUPID is that anyway? if you’re hair is going to be curly, IT’S GOING TO BE CURLY and a ponytail holder ISN’T GOING TO CHANGE THAT!) with pink bows. SHE WAS PRECIOUS!

i scooped her up into my arms so i could lower her to the floor. she took off running down the hall into the living room and picked up the remote control to the television (because i am sure she wanted to watch dora) but we didn’t have time this morning. i went to the front door to walk to the car and she followed, with milk cup in hand. when we got to the steps that go down the front porch, i lowered my hand so that she could grasp my finger as she walked down the steps.

SHE BATTED MY HAND AWAY and said “no!”

i looked down at my precious daughter who is already becoming an independent little person. she held onto the handrail and walked down the steps ALL BY HERSELF. i relented and walked on to the car (backwards, watching her every step). when she got to the ground she ran towards me and dove into my arms while she giggled that hearty laugh i love to hear.

she’s growing up.

sniffle

for the entirety of our lives together (save the past few months) my husband has worked away from home. he is truly enjoying working so close to home. so far this week he has worked at three different plants doing electrical work for them. and i have actually been cooking! yes, i said COOKING!!! monday night i cooked supper for us and some friends came over to eat too. my best friend made sure her husband knew that i didn’t cook very much (if at all) and she didn’t care what my hamburger steak tasted like, but she told him he had to swallow it and say it was delicious.

how much better of a best fried can you have than that? and it ended up that he didn’t even have to lie about it. it tasted fine.

it’s fun having chris home. getting to talk to him in person every night is almost strange. waking up next to him is even stranger still. but it is a good strange, you know? i looked back through my diary at some of the times i pined for him to be home like he is now because i knew it would be so wonderful.

and i was damn right, too.

two days ago on my biweekly excursion to walmart, i pushed my buggy (yeah, down south they are called buggies, not shopping carts) down the kiddy bath isle. there was all kinds of cool toys for the bathtub for mommies and daddies to spend their hard-earned $dinero$ on.

i found some frog shaped glitter soaps that were utterly adorable. and at only 92 cents a piece, why not buy four? or heck, even five?? and so i did. i was thinking stocking stuffers for Christmas for my nieces and janie and my best-friend’s daughter. (actually i was thinking, “oh how cute! they are so precious! i HAVE to buy these!”)

after i gently placed my absolutely adorable froggy-shaped glitter soaps into my buggy (if you say buggy over and over again….you start to wonder what IDIOT made up that word to begin with) i came across a container of Crayola ® Bathtub Tints. According to the website, Crayola Bath Tub Tints provide children of all ages with a world of colorful fun in the tub. Crayola Bath Tub Tints are fizzing water color tablets that turn ordinary bath water into colorful, fizzy water. This jar makes up to 30 baths! Mix and match the tints to create all the colors of the rainbow. it sounded like fun. i had never bathed in purple water before, and i thought janie would be intrigued by it. so into the buggy (giggle) they went.

next to the Crayola Bathtub Tints were the Crayola Bathtub Crayons. The Crayola Bath product line brings the color, fun, creativity and imagination of the Crayola brand to bath time. Bathtub Crayons bring out the artist in your child and all the color of Crayola to bath. janie LOVES to draw. whether it be on a piece of paper, on the concrete in the carport, on the walls in her room, or even on the television set in the living room (the latter two of which, i promise, i TRY to dissuade her from doing). so it would be perfectly logical for her to also LOVE to draw in the bathtub, right? and into the buggy (okay…i agree, it is a stupid word) they went.

a little down the way, i found a can of something called Funny Colored Foam (very generic name, but it serves the purpose). it came in a two pack, one can of purple colored foam and one can of blue. here’s what the website has to say, Good, clean fun for kids and parents. Mild shampoo and bath foam that bounces, floats, sculpts, and cleans while kids play. Fresh baby-powder fragrance with skin conditioners and lanolin. i remembered playing with bath-foam when i was little. it wasn’t something that i played with all the time, but i do remember it. it was pretty cool, so i bought some of that too.

i was so proud of myself! i had just accumulated enough CRAP to turn bath time into a fun-filled experience for both janie AND me!

boy, was i wrong.

first, i put the bathtub tints in janie’s bathwater while it was still running. i had just stripped her naked and we were both kneeling beside the bathtub watching the red and blue discs fizzle and turn the water a lavender color. she started pointing and said, “ooo!!!” with her eyes wide and her mouth shaped like an ‘o’ ... it was precious! she was totally intrigued. i decided to let the tint disc completely finish fizzing so that when i put janie into the tub, she wouldn’t be able to pick up the disc and eat it or smear it all over my walls.

when they were finally finished, i looked at janie and said, “bath time?” to which i usually get a cheerful smile and her remark of “bath?!?” but this time it was different.

i picked her up and started to lower her into the water. suddenly her legs shot up above her shoulders and a blood curdling cry came out of her mouth. it was HORRID! i had not even let go of her by this point, so i picked her back up out of the water and placed her beside me on the rug. i then let the lavendar colored water out of the tub.

after all of the lavender water had gone down the drain, i started to put clear water back into the bathtub. i let the water cover the bottom of the tub and picked her up again to place her inside. she protested, but nothing like she had before with the colored water. so i told her that we HAD to bathe and wash our hair. she calmed down and began to play with her usual bathtub toys. i gave her one of the bath crayons, and she looked at it for a minute BEFORE SHE THREW IT AT MY HEAD. so i figured, okay. she doesn’t like the colored bath water or the bath crayons. so i just absolutely wasted $8.

after lathering her hair and washing most (if not all) of her body, i opened up a can of Funny Color Foam. she looked at me with a look of bewilderment and reached her hand out, as if to hold the can. then i squirted some out of the can, and it seemed pretty stiff because it just hung there from the spout. i pressed the button again and the string of foam became longer…about a foot and a half or so. at this point janie was screaming AND shaking. not only was she deathly afraid of the lavender colored bath water, she was also terrified of the bath foam as well. i dropped the can of foam into the water because she was screaming so hard that her face has turning a dark shade of red and she was then trying to climb out of the tub. i have NEVER seen her so afraid.

i grabbed a towel and picked her up out of the water and away from the strip of foam that was by then floating in the water. she looked down into the water and shook her head at the can suspended in the tub. she then turned her head to me and looked at me with the most pitiful look on her sweet little face. she really couldn’t stop crying. she was gasping for air and shaking all over.

it took about ten minutes for her to get over her scared-spell. i rinsed her off in the kitchen sink with the sprayer (which she didn’t really appreciate, but it was better than getting in the bath tub with the devil-foam) and dressed her for bed in her new mickey & minnie mouse pajamas.

i spend every afternoon wondering what new little thing i can teach my daughter. but last night, she reinforced a lesson i learned long ago.

NEVER assume anything.

this wasn’t my first mistake with janie, but it was probably my most memorable…

i was on insulin.

30 units in the morning before breakfast and 10 units in the evening before dinner.

i never thought i would be able to actually give myself a shot. but this is the kicker…

it doesn’t hurt to stick the needle in. it only hurts to pull it out. can you believe that??

i can’t even feel the needle going in. but anyway…enough about that for a while.

my blood sugar didn’t take long to improve. usually after lunch it runs around 108 (give or take 5 points) and y first day on insulin it was 78. it had never measured that low since i started testing it. so at least the insulin was doing its job.

the ups man attempted to deliver my computer to my grandmother’s house. but since i never told my granny to be expecting a package for me, she rejected it.

sigh

so i spent 45 minutes on the phone with 3 different ups people last night trying to track down my laptop and get it re-delivered.

finally i got the actual guy that had my package on the phone. he said he would re-deliver it for me. i hope all goes well this time.

:)

granny, i do love you. no hard feelings. i promise. ;)

why am i so proud that i stuck to my stick to a diabetic diet and my insulin regimen? because i have a healthy beautiful daughter. and i feel that i appreciate her health and mine much more because of what i had to do to get her here.

PLUS, i lost over 40 pounds while i was pregnant and she STILL weighed 8 pounds when she was born (3 weeks early, might i add!) this was the only time in my entire life that i have stuck to a diet. and it was all for her. everything is for her.

;)

he’s back.

the man i married is back.

he wasn’t ever really gone, but he wasn’t behaving in the same manner. his whole demeanor changed. his temper was something that i had never experienced. not to this degree. not for this long of a time. he became someone i didn’t know. someone i didn’t want to know. someone i was scared of. he wasn’t my husband. he wasn’t my chris.

but now everything is back to perfect. back to sweetness and love. back to long talks and lazy sunday afternoons. back to kisses and giggles. back to us the way i always want to remember us.

life always has ups and downs. this was our first down. we spent the first year and a half of our marriage in an up. in comes to reason that we would experience a down sooner or later. though, it worried me that this down that we were experiencing was to become our norm. and i shuddered at that thought.

i am very superstitious when it comes to the old adage of “don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” that axiom has seemingly had free reign over my life since i was old enough to know what it meant. i pray that my happiness isn’t shattered by another trial.

all relationships have their own trials to deal with. for some they stem from money. others, sex. and still others stem from insecurities.

in this realm lay our trials.

we both have insecurities. mine are a bit more evident than his. but we both have them.

we love each other so much. more than i could ever express into words. but we are both so scared.

we want so much out of life. we have our own feelings and work incredibly hard for the things we have. our time alone together is precious and scarce. we are constantly being pulled in different directions. which makes this all the more wonderful.

he’s back.

i never stopped loving him, and i know i never will.

he is my chris.

my chris is amazing.

and there we sat. on the back porch of their house. the breeze slightly blowing. just enough to take the humid air away.

the grill was already hot and the tin foil wrapped potatoes cooked as the steaks still lay in their marinade.

“a little garlic, a little lemon pepper. no salt. that’s all you need,” said my father-in-law.

it was nice. to sit and converse with him. i’ve always loved my father-in-law. he’s a great man with a wonderful sense of humor. he never fails to make me smile. he has an infectious personality. one which rubs off on you anyway it possibly can. if he is in a good mood, chances are, that who ever is around him will be as well. but if he is sad (which, by the way, doesn’t happen very often) you can’t help but be sad too. if for no other reason than you miss his boisterous laugh.

he stands at about 6’3” in height. and he must weigh 350 lbs., if not more. as i said before, he is a ‘great’ man. but of course, in more ways than one. his full beard covers half of his face and most of his neck. his hands are twice as large as mine. and he always wears a cap covering his brown curly hair.

in contrast, my mother-in-law is a quite small lady. she is petite with a short pixie-like hair cut. she has a sweetly shy demeanor and she only speaks when she really has something to contribute to the conversation. she works hard and is able to put up with many things that i know i would not be strong enough to.

at first glance, they look like two people who would never be together.

but they are.

they are perfect for each other.

he grabs her and pulls her close to him as he sits at the kitchen table, knocking the paper plate out of her hands. and at first she protests. but then, as always, she gives in to him. and hugs him close and he lays his head on her shoulder.

by then it was time for us to go home.

after we walked in the front door, chris reached for my arm.

“i love you, leigh’” he said as his arms enveloped me.

“i love you too, chris. i’m so glad you’re back,” i replied. i wondered if he knew what i meant by that.

“i’m glad i am too,” and with that i knew. maybe he really did understand.

his embrace tightened around me and i couldn’t help but to close my eyes and just hold him. i wanted to hold him forever. i felt his chin rest on the top of my head. our breathing became simultaneous and our slight swaying slowed to virtually a stop.

i could hear as well as feel his heart beating. i could feel his chest expanding with each breath he took.

he is back. he really is back.

the days turned into weeks. and the weeks turned into months. the months turned into a year. and now the years total 2.

two years. we have been married two breathtaking years. (well, if you actually want to know the exact date, it was two years on april 28, so now it is two years, one week and 3 days, but whose counting?)

there have been so many changes that have gone on in our lives in the past two years. we have made new friends. we have lost some people dear to our hearts. we have been to many family gatherings. we have added a new niece to our family. we have seen my sister start college. we have started new jobs. we have moved into a new house. we have bought a couple of vehicles. and this is only the beginning. we have done a lot in our two years as husband and wife.

but there is one thing we haven’t done. one thing that random people ask me about in some form or fashion on a regular basis…

“when are you going to have children?”

when i say random people, i do not just mean random people in my family. i mean totally random people. like people i haven’t seen since our wedding, or since high school.

do they not realize how gut-wrenching it is to hear that question over and over and over again? do they not think that the decision to bear a child is a private one? how do they expect me to answer that question?

here i have come up with a couple of possible answers:

- “well, we are trying to get pregnant. we had sex 68 times last month. it would have been more, but chris was having to stay out of town on weekdays.”

- “pregnant? and ruin my lovely figure? i don’t think so, darlyn.”

granted, you wouldn’t understand that last statement fully unless you had an idea of what i look like. let me give you big a hint…

i’m a bbw. otherwise known as a big beautiful woman.

so, does my answer seem witty now? i thought it would. l

but alas, there will always be those dim few who bring it upon themselves to try and delve into every aspect of your personal life. asking someone if they are trying to get pregnant is almost like asking them, “hey, are you getting banged by your husband any lately?”

i don’t know about them, but i don’t relish the thought of being asked about my sex life by a sixty year old woman in the grocery store. i can’t even buy groceries after something like that. and goodness gracious, please don’t let me be looking at the cucumbers when someone asks me this. i feel all dirty holding a big huge cucumber in the middle of the grocery store while inadvertently being asked about my sex life.

does that make me peculiar?

but for the record, i will state our present position on having a baby…

we do not use any form of birth control. but, we are not actively trying either.

for those of you who are going to say, “not using any birth control is actively trying in my book!” this is what i mean by that statement: we haven’t changed our pattern of having sex. not that there was much of a pattern before, but the only thing that has changed is that i no longer take that little white pill in the morning.

so, if we get pregnant, and we are asked, “were you trying to get pregnant?” our answer will probably be yes.

but while we aren’t pregnant, and we are asked, “are you trying to get pregnant?” our answer will be no.

ahh…. the power of perception. in lies the answers to many of life’s questions…

and yes, it was very much worth it. janie was born on january 19, 2004 (so she will be 2 soon) and she is our lives. without her we would wither away and live empty soiled lives!