I Think About My Husband Too Much

Well, Joe and I have been married for over a year now, which seems weird. It doesn't seem that long ago. I'm still finishing my recaps on weddingbee and I don't feel like an ass about it because it doesn't seem all that long ago. But, we have created another human being in that time, so I guess it should feel different. But adding Ruby to the mix hasn't changed things as drastically as I thought it would. It wasn't half as difficult as I imagined. She fits right in our family in a way that makes it feel funny that she wasn't there before.

Getting married didn't change things either. I mean, it did in a way, but not in a real way. We were already a family, and I don't feel different about that now. I'm still childishly in love with Joe the same way I have been for a long time that feels like my whole life even though I know it isn't. I miss him a lot. I miss him when I'm at work or he's at work. I want to be with him pretty much all the time. I never get tired of him. I do get annoyed by him sometimes. It's not that I never need my space. I just need that space to be adjacent to his space. I enjoy times without him. But the best times are with him. And that is the very childish part of our relationship-the longing to be together. We are messy and silly and spend too much time playing and making each other laugh.

There is a mature part of our relationship as well. We talk about serious things and don't play games with each other's feelings. There's so much trust and little to no jealousy. We want to help each other and support each other and do things we don't really want to in order to make the other's life a little bit happier. We sacrifice and reflect and apologize.

We work together. We are a team.

Is it any wonder that I want to be with him all the time then? It's funny because I don't think anyone knows how great we are together. We aren't one of those couples you look at and think, "Jeez, they are so happy, that is such a perfect couple. I want THAT relationship." But we are so lucky and so happy and it's almost more special that no one gets to see how perfectly we work together. We are like the little cogs of a machine that fit together perfectly. It doesn't seem that miraculous but it kind of is.

This is cheesy and sentimental, but that is what anniversaries are for. If every year of marriage is this simple and beautiful, the rest of our lives will be easy. I doubt it will always be this easy, but you know I'd like to think it will be. It's only the first anniversary; I retain the right to remain optimistic.

Ruby

I will do a long post with a birth story and all that when I have the energy to do so, but I feel that I should acknowledge that Ruby Erin was born June 16. She is sweet and tiny and quite possibly the easiest baby ever born. She hardly cries and already sleeps better than Ramona.

Baby Plans

I met with my midwife this morning and came up with my plan for this baby having.

Friday I have an appointment at the hospital to have some monitoring and fluid checks done. If everything looks good, then I can wait until the next week to do another monitoring and fluid check (probably on Tuesday.) I meet with my midwife on Wednesday morning as usual. Then monitor again on Friday. If the baby is not here by that Sunday, then I have an induction.

So, somewhere between now and June 24th, there will be a new baby. I'm trying to be patient. I'm doing okay. I'm just tired and sore. And ready to be tired and sore in a different way.

We're trying to make these last few days with one child "special days" for Ramona. This past weekend we asked her what she wanted to do and we ended up going to the beach again and going to the zoo. She had a lot of fun.

I've been doing a lot of walking. My first class for the summer wraps up next Friday, but I'm trying to get it done early so I don't have to worry as much about when the new baby decides to show up.

Way to Rub It In, Babycenter

Um, because I AM still pregnant?

Graduation Time

The other thing that happened this weekend was that my youngest sister graduated high school. She's going to go to college here in Toledo, so I'm pretty excited to have her nearby this fall.

We had her graduation and her graduation party on Sunday. My parents, sisters, grandparents, and I went to the actual graduation while everyone else just did the party. It was one of the fastest graduations I've ever been to. There was no commencement guest speaker and they ran through everything quickly. Not that I'm complaining. Graduations aren't exactly super fun events, especially since the high school always has them in the stupid gym where it's hot and uncomfortable. Luckily, I got there early and reserved us some seats in the back row of bleachers so we had the wall as a backrest. But even with that, my 39 weeks pregnant ass was incredibly uncomfortable by the end of the ceremony.

I took lots of pictures, and they're all terrible. I was messing with the stupid settings on my camera trying to find the best settings for the location, and none of them really turned out very well. Also, my camera likes to not take pictures when I push the button. It's really annoying and I was pretty pissed at it by the end of the ceremony. But I got pictures of her with Mom & Dad, Grandma, & Sam, and me & Kathleen. They're not the best pictures, but whatever. A little red eye and blur never killed anyone.

 We had the graduation party at the same park we had my and Kathleen's graduation party when I finished college and she finished high school. It was fun. There was a ton of great food; a lot of people showed up. Kathleen insisted on taking a picture of her leaning on my pregnant belly because she thought it was hilarious. Judge for yourself.

Anyway, it's kind of weird that it's been ten years since I had my own high school graduation. So much has changed and so much has stayed the same. At one point, I was talking about how it's kind of creepy how Kathleen can't wait until the new baby comes and wants me to have the baby in the early afternoon so she can stop by the hospital and see it after work. Erin said she was excited because it would be her first niece/nephew born nearby so she could come see the baby right away. It made me realize that it's not that creepy. I mean, I get excited about other people's babies. And it's not like people just want to see me in the hospital, they want to see the new baby ASAP.

And since it was Erin that said it, it made me think of how badly I wanted to go see her in the hospital when she was born. I was SO excited about Erin. I wanted another little sibling so badly. My parents didn't find out if she was a boy or a girl before she was born, so we had no clue, but there were names picked out for both. *Fun fact* Erin's name would be Jason Tecumseh if she was a boy. Anyway, when Dad called to tell us Erin was born, he wouldn't tell us whether she was a boy or a girl, so I was desperate to get to the hospital to find out which she was. I remember running into the hospital room and asking mom if it was a boy or a girl, and my mom just giving my dad a look like he was a total ass because she didn't realize he hadn't told us yet. And I remember just falling in love with her the moment I saw her. And now that little baby I loved so much from the first moment in the hospital graduated high school and can't wait to see my little baby in the hospital.

Ah, the circle of life. Time to watch Lion King.

OWEfest

I'm making a dumb fat face, but Ramona is making an awesome face. We shared a shaved ice with lemon and cherry.

And Ramona got popcorn, her favorite treat, and did an interpretive dance while she ate it to share her joy.

We pretty much walked about and looked at the booths. There was a lawn ornament for sale shaped like a spider that I liked, but didn't buy since we don't have a lawn. Ramona kept calling it the itsy bitsy spider even though it was like half her size.

I was going to buy some air plants to replace my ones I killed, but they didn't have any that would fit my pods by the time I was planning on buying them.

Memorial Day Parade

So, last time I wrote, I said we were going to see my sister's last high school marching band parade. We did, and it was a fun day.

 Some lady sitting near us gave Ramona a flag. She was pretty excited about flags the whole time. I told her the night before that we were going to go see a parade and there would be a marching band and flags, and for some reason she really fixated on the flag idea.

My sister did a nice job marching along, and the band director let them wear these hideously unflattering outfits instead of their usual band uniforms. Seriously, and with those shoes and black socks? Yeesh.

Ramona was also excited about the fire trucks. She was pretty well behaved until we got to the cemetery portion of the show and then she got bored and kept saying things like, "I want ice cream!" So I took her around to look at grave stones, which went pretty well except she kept trying to take the flowers off of them.

It was also crazy hot, and she was starting to get pretty red and looked pretty warm after the ceremony, so we went to Drown's and got ice cream to cool down. Then we headed back to my parents' house to cool down in the air conditioning before we went to Joe's parents for a barbeque. We ate way too much there and had a pretty great time.

All around, it was a really fun Memorial Day.