Hi. Yes, I’m alive, and you can guess by some of the subtle changes on the site, I’m pretty damn preoccupied and busy.
I might as well just get this out of the way: yes, I’m pregnant, hosting a new parasite, this one more resilient than the last. I’m due April 13th. Very exciting. Everyone here is thrilled.
Preparation for the second baby doesn’t seem nearly as important or thought-consuming as it did the first time. Last time, I was getting anxious by now that no one had mentioned BABY SHOWERS or buying us diaper warmers and a crib. Everyone seemed so concerned with us getting married and finding a place to live, and we were LOSING VALUABLE TIME. This time, we’re too busy with the other things going on, like work, school, and the child that lives outside of my body, that we’re just all “this baby is just going to have to WAIT for us to be ready.” Right I’m worried about 2 things: money to pay for the Doctor, and pants that fit. I am quickly running out of BOTH.
Yes, it’s a hard reality that having your baby delivered by a Dr counts as a service, and you have to pay for said services. I don’t mind because a) My Doctor kicks ass. I threw the whole birthing center idea out the door when this doctor took on my prenatal care. She is worth every penny. B) Our insurance is covering 90% of the cost, so that means we’ll owe $657 spread out over 7 payments. Easy. Not as cheap as last time, but this dr is worth the extra money. (Oh, and C: services SHOULD cost money, especially ones people need.) That’s enough of that.
We were really worried about being able to pay this additional cost, because despite Vance’s raise earlier this year, we’re still not really making ends meet. So there was really only one solution: I had to get a job. I had to get a job doing something both degrading and familiar, but totally worth the effort. That’s right! I’m slinging pies again. I felt pretty awful about it until I watched Mystic Pizza the other night. I have goals, and sometimes you do what you have to do to achieve them. Besides, it’s not THAT bad. Is it? At least I’m not pole dancing or collecting carts at Wal-Mart.
And then there is Deven. He turns 3 next week on the 16th. Just yesterday he was cutting his first two teeth, now he can count and sing songs from the Sound of Music. He knows his colors. He loves Yo! Gabba Gabba, and he freakin LOVES music. He can almost play chopsticks on the piano. Almost. Now he’s going to be a big brother next year. He was the sweetest, calmest, happiest baby you have ever seen. He is what has made us decide to have another baby. If he hadn’t been such an amazing kid these three years, we wouldn’t be going through having another.
Now I’m getting all weepy thinking about tiny diapers and onesies, and moving on from one baby stage to another.
Looking forward
Today turned out to be such a good day. It was looking as though things were quickly heading south for Vance at work, and that he was going to be grouchier than usual when he got home. Oh man, these surprises and how they pop up both when you least expect them and most need them.
Vance got a promotion! He is now the “Fulfillment Supervisor!” That looks good a resume, though it doesn’t seem like he’s going to have to fill one out for a while. He also got a raise and some of the icky stuff that it looked like he was going to have to do have been officially delegated elsewhere. The relief is tremendous. He’s finally being given what he deserves for all of his hard work. They realize that he is truly an important member of their staff. He’s not only very smart, but he’s also incredibly efficient. They would have been stupid to let him go. Oh, and we would have been screwed.
If only this meant that all of our troubles are taken care of. He got a raise, but not a huge raise. He still doesn’t make enough to afford our extravagant lifestyle (Which includes no cable, and ground meat that comes packed in a tube.) I still need to look for a job. The only difference now is I can take a job for slightly less money if it means I can get necessary experience from it, or if it’s something I would actually enjoy. Since I’m going into the medical field as an Ultrasound Tech, it seems like a clinical job would be the best option. I need a Nurse’s Aid certification, which I can get if I am hired as one, or I can do reception or clerical work in a Doctor’s office or something. Let me think, cleaning bed pans and dodging punches from old ladies in nursing homes, or filling out paperwork and taking calls… Tough call.
Of course, this means we’ll have to find a daycare for Deven. That’s been the hardest part of all of this. I haven’t been in a huge hurry to find a job because I know it’ll mean my baby boy and I won’t get to play during the day. We won’t be able to go to play in the sprinklers at Brushy Creek Lake Park, or watch the Office, or play with his “blops.” He needs to go to daycare though. He needs to become more socialized and learn the skills necessary for preschool. He’s going to flourish in daycare; he’s going to learn how to share, and his vocabulary is going to expand exponentially because he’ll be listening to other kids, and he’ll learn to use scissors. He’ll love the crap out of it, but I can’t deny that I’ll be sad. He’s my BFF.
I’m grateful that I’ve been able to be home with him for the last 2, almost 3 years. Not very many parents get that opportunity these days.
Boys will be…your worst nightmare.
Life with Deven, the 2 1/2 year old we currently host in our home and hearts, has been rather eventful lately. More eventful than most people would want things to be. Deven is turning into a messy, defiant, DESTRUCTIVE little boy.
For a while, things were looking up. He was eating his dinner quietly at the table, as long as there was plenty of ketchup. He was letting us brush his teeth with little resistance, and he was even being quiet and sluggish in the mornings, you know, LIKE A HUMAN BEING. We were thinking maybe this terrible two’s thing was beginning to fade, that maybe he’d be a perfect little angel by his third birthday, and in that case, we’d be HAPPY to keep him!
This must be one of those cases in which things get worse before they get better. It just HAS to be.
So, Deven went right back to immediately jumping out of bed in the mornings and ripping everything in his room to shreds. Okay, that is an exaggeration, but he does make an effort to misplace every single thing in his room. We no longer keep his clothes in his dresser because we got tired of gathering them off of the floor and then folding them twice a day. We keep them in a hamper in our bedroom. I had started giving him juice in a little cup with a straw, as a way of preparing him for drinking it straight out of the cup. It worked great at first. He would take breaks from playing to go sit at the table and drink his juice or milk. I recently had to switch back to sippy cups, because on a whim he would pour his drink out onto the floor. The sippies STILL aren’t fool-proof; he likes to take sips out of the cup and spit them out onto the floor.It doesn’t end there, my god, I WISH IT ENDED THERE. After every meal, the parts he doesn’t want go onto the floor by the table. The vast majority of our blinds needs replacing. Every diaper change involves a chase. He locked me out of the house AGAIN last week. Every day is full of NO’S! And SCREAMING FITS! And TEARS! And KICKS AND PUNCHES! Time-outs are completely ineffective. He laughs at our attempts at shame and intimidation. He feels no pain on his backside, I am convinced.
Just yesterday his reign of terror hit a new high:
This is his bedroom window. The little shit broke his bedroom window.
Amazingly, I resisted the urge to so much as YELL at him, though I did consider hurling him through the hole in the glass. I was in too much shock. How? Why? What? I had been listening to him on the baby monitor and I didn’t hear glass shatter at any point. I would like to think I would awoken by the sound of glass breaking.
Every time I tell someone about some new horrible thing my son has started doing, their answer is always something along the lines of “he is definitely a little boy…” People tell me their stories about their sons locking them out of the house, or unintentionally keying their cars. When I was a kid, I certainly don’t recall being this destructive. The worst thing I ever did was drink a bottle of my mom’s perfume when I was 2. Explains a lot, eh?
Little girls do seem a little more calm than little boys. I’m not saying there aren’t cases of little girls who trample through mud, or smear poo on the walls, or shove potatoes in exhaust pipes, but you definitely of those behaviors coming more frequently from little boys.
My cousin Samantha just found out she is pregnant with her second daughter. She comes from a family of ALL GIRLS. She has 2 two sisters, and she and her older sister both have girls. If any member of their family had a boy, I don’t know what they would do with it. They should count their lucky stars.
I’m not saying I regret having a son, because he can be adorable and sweet. He’s very gentle with other little kids, and he’s very smart and observant. He’s musical and loves to sing and bang on his little toy drum. He knows the words to the national anthem. He is a typical little boy, but he is also very much an individual.
And after yesterday, he’s damn lucky he’s so cute.