Sign Posts

From the time I was a little girl I've had this innate desire for something outside myself, a yearning that has made me realize that there's more to this life than just what I can see or touch. Sometimes it manifests itself through simple things like sunsets or being in a beautiful place. I think that's why I love traveling and nature so much. It reminds me of a greater story and makes me yearn to know the Author of this story. Literature, film, and music have always had this effect on me as well. Hence my reason for being an English teacher. All of these things are sign posts for me that point to the pursuing of a loving Creator.

Friday night we sat up in the nose-bleed section of a U2 concert, which was just an incredible event. Whether or not you like U2 I think it would be nearly impossible to attend their concert and not leave loving them. They just put on a fantastic show. I consider them a sign post band, and not only because of my love of all things Bono. Though I think his tinted-glasses and leather jacket are uber cool, I know his cool guy image can be annoying. I usually get annoyed by celebrities that use their status as a platform for whatever cause they choose to support because really, I don't care if their one-million-square-foot home is completely green and they own ten hybrid cars. It nauseates me. While I'm sure Bono is as big of a hypocrite as any other human, I do respect him for the work he has done on things such as the One campaign. From interviews I've read I think it's obvious where his passion for justice and unity come from. But, Bono is not why U2 is a sign post band for me. Yes, part of their sign post status does come from the plethora of biblical allusion and general themes of hope, redemption, and reconciliation that their lyrics offer. However, last night it wasn't about that. Sitting among thousands of people with music pounding throughout my body awakened that yearning for God and the reminder that He is working in our world. The reminder that He is a God that pursues us and sets us free. Maybe part of it was being in a stadium of over 70,000 people from all walks of life with all different stories, all singing "Amazing Grace." Did they all believe what they were singing? Nope. But someday. Someday, all will be made right. Someday there will be no injustice or hurt or pain or tears. Someday all knees will bow before my Jesus. Someday...

As I said, we were in the nose-bleed section of the stadium, so some of these pictures are taken by my friend, Rob Chestnut, who was lucky enough to be close enough to feel Bono's sweat drip from his leather jacket. Ridiculous.

Silver Bullets

Since I've never blogged about it before, I thought I'd share about getting pregnant with Emma (Don't worry, I'll spare you the details, haha). I ran out of birth control on a Saturday and wasn't supposed to get any refills without approval from the doctor's office, which unfortunately was closed on the weekend. So, Matt said, "Eh, why don't we just go off them." That was it. No big discussion. No anything because the next time my period came around, it didn't actually come.

Just. Like. That.

I mean, come on. Isn't it supposed to take a little effort at least? I had a dollar store pregnancy test that I had gotten from my bachelorette party two years previous that I decided to take. Imagine my surprise when there were two distinct lines. I remember freaking out a bit and calling my friend Nikki who was a new mother. I mean, what was I supposed to do?? Um, maybe call my husband. So, I called Matt at work and told him he should come home at lunch. I wanted to take a non-dollar store test, just to be sure. I bought a test and waited until Matt arrived home to take it. I did my business and promptly left the test on the bathroom counter. We were pretty sure it was going to be negative. I mean, a dollar store test gave me a positive, but there was no way we could actually be pregnant. Right? A couple minutes later I returned to check it out (Matt wouldn't). Sure enough, two distinct lines. That's when we had our "oh blankety blank" moment. We stared at each other for looong time. I seriously felt like a fifteen year old girl that had just found out that she was knocked up. I mean, I understood how it happened but just didn't really think it would happen. We were thrilled, eventually, but it took some time to get used to the idea. I mean, I had a little alien growing inside of me. At least that's how it initially felt. Of course, we can't imagine it any other way and were thrilled when Emma entered our lives.

Fast forward to now.

Matt and I had been toying with the idea of another kid. According to our timeline, it was prime-time. Was I ready? Nope. I love my life right now. I really have it made. I stay at home with Em and am surrounded by great friends that also stay home. We're literally always doing something fun. I'm finally at my pre-baby weight too. It feels so good to be back in shape and active. But, we knew we wanted a couple more kids, and a two year age difference seemed like a good idea. We decided to not-prevent. I knew what that meant, but at the same time I also knew that lots of people get pregnant right away the first time and then not so much the next time. Riiiiight. Two months ago we not-prevented (though I was out of town during the "window") and last month on the day of my period I counted out fourteen days. I told him during that ovulation window he'd get one try. Yup. One freaking try during ovulation.

This time I totally knew and started taking tests way too early, thinking that maybe I was off on when I was ovulating anyway. Nope. Saturday morning I was sitting around in D.C. with my girlfriends and took a test.

Two. Distinct. Lines.

Holy frickety-frick-frick. Once again, I was that fifteen year old girl, and again, I had to call my baby daddy to tell him I was preggo. Crraaazzzyy.

Yes, I realize that it is very early to announce this to the world, but that's okay with me. It's kind of one of those things that's our decision. So, as long as everything goes well, Baby #2 will make his/her grand entrance mid-June!!! Yeeaaayyy!

What a Day. What. A. Day....

I put up this elusive tweet (since I'm a twitterer) this afternoon and am just now getting the chance to explain it...

First, can I just explain how I love snooze alarms? I LOVE them, I mean, how great is it to be woken up by a severe beep followed by ten minutes of silence and then another horrible beep? So fantastic. Especially at 5:00 in the morning. Especially two days in a row, especially when it goes off at least five times and especially when each beep is followed by a panicked," I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. I turned it off." Really?? Because you've said this Every. Time. It. Goes. Off. For the love, my dear husband, just don't use the freaking snooze!

Phew, glad I got that off my chest. Moving right along...

Boot Camp this morning with Sergeant Senora Strange Sounds gave me sore muscles in places I didn't even know existed and left me dripping sweet sweat from my eyeballs. It's highly necessary for me to sweat a lot, you know, since I never do that as soon as I walk out my door. What gives FL?? We went over to a park after working out since the weather lady had promised a cold front coming through today. I about melted. But not really because I haven't jumped on board the FL plastic surgery train. Onto the highlight of my day...

So, I brought a couple extra kids with me to the park today (yes, I knew them) and after leaving we headed over to McDonald's to grab some lunch (don't judge me). One minute the kids were happily chanting screaming chicken nuggets, and the next there was a hissing sound like someone had slashed my tires and suddenly smoke was pouring in the window.

Oh dear.

Not good, not good at all.

Thankfully I was at the window, so there was no one in front of me, so I told the lady I wasn't going to get my food right now, thank you, but I would pull over. So, the smoke cleared quickly and I jumped out of the car to check things out. You know, with all my knowledge of cars. The McDonald's manager also came out to take a looksy with all his knolwedge of cars too. In the process I broke the stick thing that holds the hood up. Whoopsy.

I still had three kids in the car and since the car would longer turn on, it was pretty hot. Did I mention that I have not changed from my super sweaty clothes from this morning? We piled out to eat our lunch inside, but the kids were too distracted by the playland to eat, which worked to my advantage with the phone calls I had to make. Aaahhh, I love enclosed areas. Except at one point when Em was stuck in one of the tunnels and crying because she couldn't get out, and I had to crawl in after her and drag her through while on the phone with the AAA lady but whatev.

The kids eventually at least nibbled at their food and the dad of one of the kids came to get them. Phew, down to me and Em.

Enter Ricco Suave.

Yes, tow-truck man is actually quite the Casanova who lets me know several times that he is very good at his job. Perfect. He sees this all the time. Makes sense seeing as though he drives a tow-truck. My mother-in-law was coming to pick me up, so he could go ahead and get the car to the shop. But he didn't feel comfortable leaving me there. Um, thanks but I'm pretty sure my mother-in-law isn't going to ditch me and her granddaughter. But I need to go to the repair shop to do any paperwork that he couldn't do. Alright, it's on the way home so I'll give you that one, Mr Suave. He also told me that Emma was just "the purdiest lil thang he's ever see." Yup, I couldn't have scripted it better.

So, Ricco and I are chatting it up, waiting for my mother-in-law, and just as she arrives a friend pulls up, asking if we're okay. Whoa. Stop right there. This is NOT the thing to do in the Mickey D's parking lot. As she was taking pics of the incident on her phone, the not-so-gentleman behind her was getting pretty livid. He was probably at least eighty and the reason you do not stop and ask others if they need help in McDonald's parking lots. He gave her the best worst look ever and death stared her down as he passed by. I love this. Last time I was at McDonald's there was another old man yelling obsenities at the lady in front of me. He also told her she better be glad he didn't have his gun with him. I'm sure he totally had just cause to shoot her too. But, I digress...

That's my fun day in a nutshell. Emma never did get a nap in, and I'm still in my stinky, sweaty clothes. But, Matt's next to me and he's not coiling away so whatev. Just gotta roll with the punches.

She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis

After calling my girl a devil-child yesterday, I thought maybe it was necessary to post a little Emma cuteness because really, she's a sweet child, I swear. We've had great success with the transition from the crib to the toddler bed mattress on the floor. She generally stays in bed and yells, "Mooommmyyy," whenever she's ready to get up. She's at the point where she tries to distract us from bed time though. Right around when I tell her it's time to go night-night she gets very cuddly with her daddy, which probably buys her a good ten minutes. Then after our routine, as I'm kissing her goodnight, she takes my face in her little hands and strokes it saying, "Niiiice, niiiice." The girl knows how to lay it on thick. I tell her to close her eyes to which she squeezes them as tight as she can with this big goofy grin on her face. Ooooh Emma, she's a funny bird.

Around 3:00 this morning I heard her saying "uh-oh" over and over again. She wasn't crying, but she did it long enough for curiousity to get the best of me. I went into her room to find her sitting up on her bed with her eyes closed saying "uh-oh." Weeeiiiirrd. Matt and I have been known to do some strange things in our sleep, so I wonder if she will follow in our steps. One can only hope. Though it would be awful if she was one of those kids that walked out of her house in the middle of the night. Thank goodness for the alarm system. Oh geez, I'm already getting myself thinking of the worst possible scenarios. Deep breath. Phew, ok I'm over it. Anyway, I sat in front of her for a couple minutes without her even noticing, so I scooped her up and put her back down in a more comfortable position. I can't imagine her back would feel too good if she slept sitting up all night. Then the sweet angel slept through her daddy setting off the alarm at 5:00 by mistake (who btw just finished mowing the lawn without a shirt and is looking like one fine piece of hotness) and slept all the way to 8:15. Love that girl.

Seriously...what's a momma to do?

Emma's first few months of life were rather difficult, as I've said before. Nothing serious, but the child just had a bad case of acid reflux that she inherited from her daddy. It made for long nights and crying fits that would last for hours at a time. Enter Zantac. It changed our lives. I know a lot of people say in jest that certain products changed their lives, but this literally changed our lives. Emma turned into this sweet little girl that smiled and cooed. No longer were her little hands constantly clutched in two tight fists. To this day, I swear the girl has great abs because of all the time she spent tightening and loosening those muscles screaming her head off. Anywho, all of that to say she has been a very easy (ok, so maybe a little vivacious) toddler. However, these last couple weeks she has morphed into this little devil-child. Overall she's still my sweet little girl, but man does she have a temper.

She's been throwing the most ridiculous tantrums I've ever seen for no apparent reason. Now, maybe I'm just still in new-mom-to-toddler mode and can't read the signals, but sheesh, I'm not a mind reader. For instance, she fell asleep in the car around 11ish today, so I took her up to bed where she slept for another thirty minutes. She woke up happy as a lark, yelling, "Mooooommmyyy, MOoOOmMMy!!!" Always a good sign. As I was folding laundry, I had her come into my room and hang out. I asked if she wanted to eat. "Nooooo," was her reply. Ok. I continued to fold my laundry. A few minutes later I asked her if she wanted to read a book to which she nodded her little head fervently. I grabbed three books and had her pick one out for us to read together. Annnnd, for some reason, this made her terribly angry. I mean, she grabbed a book and started thrashing it around and threw herself to the floor kicking her legs and tossing her head from side to side, all the while screaming at the top of her lungs.

What the heck?? Where'd that come from?

Being the super even-tempered mom that I am (for the first three minutes of a temper tantrum), I sat on the floor and gently asked her again to bring the book to me. The tantrum continued...and continued. I tried to coax her out of it, but she would have none of my mommy-nurturing. So, I continued my laundry. After finishing it up, I brought the screaming child downstairs to attempt a nice lunch. She calmed down as I put on a DVD that my mom had made of her cousins set to music. As I made the sandwiches it looked like we were heading towards a better day.

Until she walked over to me in the kitchen.

I offered her a sandwich bite to which she threw herself down on the floor and started banging her head on the linoleum. Lucky for her we can't afford tile. Seriously, where did that come from?? What am I missing here? This continued on for way too long until I brought her up to flip out in the comfort of her own room.

During this time, I went to the source of all parenting knowledge, Google, and looked up toddler tempter tantrums. Um, the main points, stay calm (got it), know the triggers (uumm, reading books and eating lunch??), and bring to a safe location such as a bedroom (yes!) and stay there with her (really?). This is all you've got for me, Google?? I left the computer disappointed, and checked on her a couple times while she continued her fit. Finally, I got her to climb into my arms and take a bottle, which she never takes in the middle of the day. So, now she sleeps and I write, while I should clean.

Yesterday we had a similar tantrumific day, and Matt looked around the messy house and asked, "Huh...what'd you do all day?" Obviously I must have done something since the house was such a mess. But nope, I had nothing. Apart from a trip to the Y, I stayed in all day to clean. In fact, I actually did clean the house, but crazy girl had interrupted enough projects with her tantrums for me to only half-finish everything. Eeeeh.

So please, help a crazy motha out. Why has my child been such a psycho lately, and what can I do??

Eight Years

Someday I'm sure Emma will have to do a project for school where she asks her parents what they were doing on Sept. 11, 2001. It's a day I'll never forget as terrorism became more than just an obscurity that happened in distant lands.

I was home on summer break before my junior year of college. We were still on the quarter system and didn't go back until the following week. I was sleeping when my brother called and told me to go turn on the t.v., the WTC had just been hit by a plane. Of course at that point we had no idea of what was to come. I watched live as the second plane hit tower two. I remember a sinking feeling coming over me as it was quite apparent that this was no accident and thinking over and over, "What the heck is happening and why?" Pictures of the Pentagon flashed across the screen and newscasters speculated about other targets and how every flight in America had been grounded, but there were still planes unaccounted for. I spent the next several hours glued to the t.v. and watched the world change, live before my eyes. I remember my mom calling to tell me not to go anywhere, but where would I have gone? I don't think anyone felt like a trip to the mall at that point. I tried walking on the treadmill while watching t.v. but kept stopping as I watched in horror all the crazy images of things that were not supposed to happen in my country. I remember going to church that evening like so many others just to pray because really, what else could we do? I remember giggling once that night with my dad as Congress broke out in an ackward impromptu of "God Bless America" on the steps of the Capitol. The commentator saw it as a great show of unity, but for some reason we saw it as comic relief.

So many important and mundane things have happened in those eight years that have passed, but it's a day forever etched in my memory; no matter how many years pass I'll always remember it with clarity.

And We're Back...

I should be cleaning my house as Emma naps, but it's been way too long again since I've written. The last few weeks we've been going nonstop. My parents came to see us Emma for about a week, which was great! We actually got some painting done, and with the exception of the bathroom, everything downstairs is finally painted and decorated. Woo hoo! I don't anticipate ever finishing the upstairs. My parents also came to town to watch Emma for a weekend so Matt and I could head down to West Palm to celebrate a friend's 30th birthday. Seriously, when did we get so old?? Less than two years until I'm 30. Weird. Good thing I married such a young buck. :)

After West Palm, Matt was off to Chicago for a few days of work, and Em and I flew home to spend time with my whole family for a week. It's so fun watching Emma with all her cousins now that she can (sorta) communicate. She gets so excited to see them and jibber-jabs with them, holds their hands, and gives them lots of kisses. I treasure those moments that she has with my family; each time she sees them it's a little different. They change so much in such a short time. It's difficult not having day to day interaction, but I guess that makes it always exciting when they do see each other. I was hoping to spend some time by my parent's pool but only ended up being able to swim one day because of the weather. I really didn't mind trading in my swimsuit for my fleece jacket though. I'll take a break from FL summer heat any time, thank you.

We took the kids to Fantasy Island, which I haven't been to since Emma was a 1-2 week old fetus. Back then just my parents and I took Noah and Livvie because Isaiah wasn't big enough yet, and Abby (and obviously Josh) wasn't born yet. This time we had a whole slew of kids (and adults), and Emma got to ride rides outside the womb! We also went to the Fair a couple times. Not that it's so great (though it is the Great New York State Fair) but it's just a Syracuse staple. You know, like Wegman's and Hafner's and Dinosaur Barbeque and basically all those places that you'd never realize you'd miss until you're not around anymore.

So, anywho, I left home...to go back home. Strange how that works. Syracuse will always be home, but Lakeland is becoming more familiar. I mean, I'm not at the point where I would leave and say, oh man, I really miss Publix (it will never, ever compete with Wegman's duuuh), but it's definitely more home than when I wrote this post. I guess there's two ways of looking at it. Either I'm never truly home because I'm always missing the other place and people, (which is really inevitable but...) or I can take my aunt's advice and see myself as the luckiest girl because of the fact that I will always have two homes where I am welcomed and loved. I mean, there's people out there that don't have any place to call home...and I get two. I guess I'm a pretty blessed girl.

My How...Times Ten

This Saturday marks my ten year high school reunion. Although I can’t make the 1200 mile trip to attend, it did get me reminiscing about the old days. How in the world have ten years passed since high school? In some ways I feel like it was ages ago, but at the same time it seems impossible that so much time has gone by. I can’t say I remember a whole lot about high school, you know, since I was drunk as a skunk most of the time.

AHAhaHAHA!

Juuuust kidding. I had a pretty clean image in high school. I mean, squeaky clean. I mean, the only party (No, I wasn’t a wallflower- I went to parties- I just mean not THAT kind of party) I ever went to in high school was for about a half hour one night because some guy had made a deal with me that if I went he would come to church with me. Nice. He didn’t even hold up his end of the bargain.

I tried to think of anything from high school- I mean anything that actually took place at CNS- and my memories were pretty vague. This is about all I could come up with…

- Roaming the halls looking for cute senior boys.
- Senior year English didn't have an Honors level. Our teacher asked some girl if she could give an example of a pun. The girl’s response, “Like…the?”
- Accidently throwing a milk at the cute boy table. How does one accidently throw a carton of milk? Good question. Wink, wink.
- Bomb threats…all the time. They would herd us into the gym and auditorium. You know, so all the bodies could be in one place when it exploded.
- The creepy art teacher that always told me I looked pretty and took me aside one day to tell me how he had always wanted to have me in his class. Ew. I heard that he was fired a few years later for “having a picnic” with some female student. Fact or fiction? Who knows.
- Getting a 75 in math my sophomore year and telling my teacher I couldn’t get a C…so she gave me a B. Awesome.
- Getting Mr. F to sign a pass for me every day to skip homeroom, so I could have an hour lunch. - Talking about putting together a “fund” for my homeroom group to go to Darien Lake. We never did do it.
- Spending 3/4 of my day in the art wing senior year.
- Being yelled at by Ms. F in global studies for smiling at Anna across the room on the first day. She wouldn’t have wanted any of that in her classroom.

- Um, the class Tools for Change. Basically, it was the school system’s way of providing group therapy. Most worthless class ever. Oh, and we assigned our own grades. Seriously, they paid someone to teach this class??
- Standing around looking at everyone before graduation thinking, “Weird, this will be the last time I’ll ever see most of these people ever again.” And then there was Facebook.

What a strange time. I thought knew so much, but looking back I really knew nothing about life. Sometimes I wish it were still that way. Not that I know so much now, but there are things I wish I never had to learn about the way the world works. On the other hand, life is so much fuller now, and I would never, ever want to relive being a teenager. It’s nice to be able to look back and smile. I really have few regrets. As I looked through old pictures of faces that were so important in that part of my life, it's also nice to know that most of them are better off at this stage of the game too. Seriously, no one's really screwed up their lives too much. Then again, we're only twenty-eight. We've got tons of time left for that.

To Babyproof or Not to Babyproof...

That is the question- or was the question. I thought I had it all worked out in my mind that I would not baby proof my house. Matt and I were very big on the baby will not change the way we go about our lives idea and we continue to stand by that. The way we live our lives is similar to how we did pre-Emma. If we were to put up gates and locks and plug up every electrical outlet around our house it would mean that a) we were anal parents, b)we had no parental ability to control our kid or c) our child would surely wreak havoc if ever in an unbabyproofed home. Um, and before you throw darts at me, no, we don’t put parents that do babyproof into any of these categories. I promise.

For the first fifteen and a half months of Emma’s life it worked really well. She didn’t throw our breakables on the floor, and she was great about staying away from the stairs (except when her friends are around- peer pressure already). We had it all figured out.

Except...

I didn't realize that maybe there would be a choice “D” to add to our list of reasons people babyproof. Simply put, our child is a Wild Thing. When we were thinking through babyproofing we did not factor a wiiiild chiiiiild into the equation. My sweet little girl already marches to the beat of her own drummer. I swear she has a future spot on the U.S. gymnastics team. She flips, (yes, she did her first somersault the other day) she twists, she tumbles, she climbs. I mean, with unnatural abilities. Last month she started climbing out of her crib. I found the crib tent or toddler bed options unsuitable for my spidermonkey, but thought I’d give her Pack ‘n Play a try. She couldn’t jump out of that could she? It almost lasted two weeks. On the third night of escaping she ended up with a big enough bruise on her face for me to cave in and just put her in a toddler bed. Except our toddler bed didn’t come with rails and finding bed rails for anything smaller than a twin bed was almost impossible. So, my dear is now sleeping on a mattress on her bedroom floor...in a babyproofed room.

Oh how I babyproofed.

So much so that her room is almost as empty as a Madoff investor's bank account.

My nursing chair and ottoman are gone, her rocking chair is gone, her shelf is out of there. Every outlet that could be plugged is plugged. There's drawer locks and door locks and safety galore.

The carefree image I tried so hard to project has been shattered. Blast.

Run-Walk-Crawl

These past couple months I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but run. Literally, no, actually I stopped that right around the same time I picked up the figurative running. Crap. This summer has been a series of sprints from one thing to the next, and while most of it has been great, it’s wearing me out. We started the summer on a cruise. Then we were off to Long Boat Key to spend a week with Matt’s family. The following week a good friend from OH came to visit. We dropped him off at the airport and two days later were in our car for the trek up to NY to see my family. (I know, you’re really feeling sorry for me, aren’t you?) We’ve had such a fantastic summer that returning to real life seemed especially difficult.

Real life can be hard.

Back when I was running, there were times when I would go over to the lake during one of those pesky little “charity” runs (kidding, I love running for a cause, however…) going on. The problem with these events is that if you are actually at the lake to run, you better leave right away because there will be no running for you that day. Nope. The run/walkers take up the whole path. They don’t move, even when you yell, “On your left…on your left…ON YOUR LEFT!!!” So you nick their foot with your stroller and they give you a dirty look. The nerve.

It’s kind of the way with life. You’re out there running your own course, but really, it was never just your course to run alone anyway. There’s all these other people around you running (jogging, sprinting, walking, lollygagging- you feel me?) too. On my little jog through life things aren't going to happen as I want them to. Events and people are going to complicate the course. You know, like the run-walkers who don’t allow for passing on the left. But, if I don’t see it as my course in the first place, then this won't bother me so much. It's not about me. If I can just realize that and give up my own need for things to go as I planned, then maybe I can set aside my own pride and just run alongside the others...even when it’s not comfortable. I’ll still reach the finish line, though that's not necessarily what it's about anyway. How I get there is important. I mean, in a comparison of bulldozing the other runners or coming alongside them at least.

It’s been a heavy summer.

Turns out life doesn’t go as planned. Spouses hurt each other. Things don’t make sense. People get sick. Young people die. You get stuck in the rat race when it was always your goal to live above it.

The funny part is, personally, it’s been a drama free summer. Matt and I have had little hardship to contend with. It doesn’t feel like that though. There’s this strange ripple effect that comes with having relationships. The laugh with those that laugh and mourn with those that mourn effect. I suppose you could call it authentic community (or how about a runner’s club??). What happens to each member of the community impacts the whole- as it should. We don’t run alone, which is great for support, but it’s just hard at times. I want to be the kind of person that is humble and gentle, and bears with others in love, but I’m not there yet. I guess that’s the beauty of community and sharing life with others. It would be a whole heck of a lot easier sometimes to say screw it and just run alone, but in those moments where I’m tempted to do just that, I know that there are others beside me, willing to pick up my slack and keep me going, even when it’s the last thing they want to do.

On a lighter note, keeping with the whole running theme, I put together this little slideshow highlighting a few of our summer rompings, accompanied by my favorite song of the summer. :)