An Impatient Woman

I have a feeling the next year of my life will feel the longest. There are many things I want to happen that require patience and/or work.

I want a lot of things. I want to be DONE with my Master's degree. It is really killing me. It is so much work and I am pretty permanently unhappy about it. There was a time when I would think, "Oh I'm going to be so proud of myself when I finish! This is a million times harder than my undergrad, what with all the technical work and having kids." Now, I just think, "I want it to be over." I don't think I'll be proud of myself when I'm done, I will just be relieved it's over.

I've thought a lot about cutting down and only taking one class a semester instead of two to make myself less crazy and stressed out. But honestly, the idea of graduating in two years instead of one makes me want to kill myself. I want to be done, and dragging it out another year just doesn't feel like a real option.

We're also working on saving money and raising our credit scores so we can buy a house next year, which is equally unpleasant. I've budgeted us pretty tight until March at least to get the credit cards down to nothing and the savings up higher, so we don't have much fun money.

My job has been kind of frustrating lately. I feel like I need to throw some new energy into it and make it more exciting for myself. Just kind of make things happen instead of wait for them to happen. I need to focus and make it happen.

I feel like I don't get to spend enough time with Ruby. She goes to bed pretty soon after I get home from work. It makes me sad.

I still have 25 pounds of weight to lose from my pregnancy and I just don't have the energy to deal with it.

This post is kind of a bummer, but I've been kind of bummed out lately. Usually if I'm unhappy with my present situation, I'm scheming of a happier future one, but with things as they are right now, a happier future is probably a year away. It's hard to get excited for something that far in the future.

I just want to fast forward. 

I Will Write More Someday. Promise.

School is just REEEEALLY killing me lately. I wake up early, pump milk, go to work, go to lunch, go back to work, pump more milk, work more, come home, make dinner, feed children, put Ruby to bed, do homework, bathe Ramona, do homework, put Ramona to bed, do homework, and go to sleep. Feed Ruby once or twice in the wee hours of the morning in sleep-walk mode. Get up and do it again. So, there is little time for things I actually enjoy in life now. Except seeing my kids be cute, of course.

Ruby is just the sweetest baby in the world. She is so happy to see me. And pretty much anyone, really. She makes eye contact and gets this big goofy toothless grin. I brought up the jumper the other day ago and she LOVES it. She bounces around and spins the toys. She is growing so fast and I feel like I barely get to spend any time with her, which makes me sad.

Ramona turned three and this has been a great time. Turning three was fun. It was the first birthday that she really understood what was going on. Halloween has been the same. She actually gets it which is really fun. We've gone trick or treating twice now. Once at the zoo, and once at our church's trunk or treat. Tomorrow we're trick or treating in Oak Harbor. It should be fun.

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.