Northern California Trip Part One

This past weekend I drove just over 900 miles. And none of it had anything to do with car rallies! I went to visit my cousin Cindy in Windsor, California. She is probably the person in my family I most relate to - she’s a little crazy like me. Well, ok, she’s a lot crazy - just like me. It used to be about 6-7 hours to drive there, now It’s a whole day’s drive to get there because of traveling with a kid. I can only hope it doesn’t get too much longer with another kid. Thank goodness Eddie loves traveling in the car.

I try to get up there as often as I can. It ends up being about once a year, although I missed 2011. I went in July 2010, 4 months before my wedding. Cindy was in my wedding and so I wanted to do some wedding stuff with her. I ended up getting my dress while I was there at a little boutique in town. Packing back then meant throwing a few clothes in a bag and bringing some snacks for the drive.

Last September when Eddie was 14 months old I headed up there again. This time packing was a bit more complicated. In addition to my clothes, I had to pack Eddie’s clothes plus a portable crib and bedding, high chair, stroller, food and milk for the drive up, Eddie’s plates and cups, diapers, toys, and books. My car was full. This was my first experience driving a long distance from home with Eddie. I had written a car rally with him when he was only a few months old, but if he happened to get cranky we could always just head home. On this trip, we were far from home. He could not be a better car kid, I don’t know how I got so lucky. Back then, Eddie would only poop at home. No really, I’m serious. So I was a bit concerned about that. He didn’t go in the car or once we got there in the evening. The next day, however, was a poopapalooza. Three poops, one right after another. He was clearly holding it in for a while and I was happy to know he felt like he was at home at my cousin’s house.

There are two main routes through Central California, Interstate 5 and California Hwy 99. I used to take I-5 assuming the Interstate would be faster. But after talking to my dad (who goes up and down the state somewhat often) I decided to try CA-99. It is so much better. I-5 is two lanes and has few stops. CA-99 is often 3 lanes, sometimes 4, and goes through more cities and therefore has more places available to stop. Plus I think going through cities is much more pleasant than miles and miles of nothingness. The main factor in choosing my route from the center of the state west to Windsor is that I hate going over bridges. I really hate being charged a toll to be terrified. And since I have to go through or around the Bay Area, bridges are a concern. The Bay Area also has really bad traffic. When it was just me I would plan the time through the Bay Area to coincide with traffic patterns, but now since it takes longer and I have to travel on the kid’s timeline and not just mine I can’t do that as easily. So last visit and this visit I started looking at alternatives. I now go over the top of the San Francisco Bay (which is surprisingly large) and only have to go over a couple of tiny bridges. The bridge I avoid by doing this is 5.5 miles long. That’s 5.5 miles of white knuckle terror I don’t have to go through. CA-12 to I-80 to CA-37 is much more scenic. There are protected wetlands with hills in the background. And I avoid more of US-101 coming out of San Francisco which is a traffic disaster pretty much always.

I considered taking even more back roads to get there this time, but I didn’t mostly because I’m pregnant. I know how often there are available bathrooms on the route I took because I also took the same one last time. Once I get off CA-99, bathrooms are a bit more scarce but often enough that I wouldn’t pee my pants in the car. Maybe next time on the way home, when it’s at the beginning of the trip and not at the end, I’ll take some back roads through Sonoma and Napa counties. The nice thing about having kids is that you can use the carpool lanes. This comes in handy when I finally get on US-101 and can zip by most of the traffic for the last 20 miles or so going up there and the first 20 miles coming home.

One of the apps I have on my phone is for In ‘N Out. If you aren’t from California, you may not be familiar with this little piece of heaven. It’s a burger place. And that’s pretty much all they make. Burgers, fries, shakes, sodas, and in varying combinations.  I like my cheeseburger Animal Style, which means they cook the patty with mustard and then they put dill pickles, extra thousand island dressing, and grilled onions on the burger in addition to the usual tomato and lettuce. Their fries are made fresh, you can actually watch them cut up the potatoes and put them into the frying oil. Eddie will usually fall asleep after about an hour of driving and stay asleep until almost lunch time. So when he wakes up I check the app to see where the next In ‘N Out is, and stop there for lunch. There are more locations on CA-99 than I-5, another reason to pick that route. The old ones are drive thru only with a few tables outside, the newer ones have indoor seating (high chairs available). This is preferable if you are traveling with a toddler, but part of me still loves the old ones the best.

I only had to make two other stops after that, one for gas and one for the bathroom. I need three tanks of gas to make the round trip, so I fill up before I go, fill up once on the way there, and once on the way back. I waited a bit too long to go to the bathroom and ended up having to go really bad by the time I stopped. At least I probably won’t have to deal with that next time I go. Gotta love the third trimester of pregnancy, right?

I decided to make a detailed packing list this time so I didn’t forget anything. When I say detailed, I mean detailed. Every single item of clothing, toys, books, food, even the big items were on the list. It was 4 pages long. It helped immensely. I could see what needed to be done and what was all ready to go. I worked on it for a week or two and started packing a few days before I left. I have never felt more organized before leaving for a trip ever. It didn’t seem to change the fact that I didn’t feel like I had enough time to get everything done, however.

I had a special delivery to take up with me. On Cindy’s dad’s side of her family a relative owns a British pub style restaurant in Burbank called The Buchanan Arms. They make bangers and mash with gravy, but they deep fry their bangers in the same batter as the fish and chips. It’s not far from me, but Cindy laments the distance because she loves the bangers and mash so much. She called me a few days before I left and wanted to know if I could stop there and bring some. So I picked up some bangers, gravy, and the batter mix to bring with me. We had that the night I got there. Wow. It was amazing. Yum, yum, and more yum. Probably the longest takeout delivery I’ve ever been involved with.

More about the trip next post. It was a fun filled busy weekend!

Pictures from Northern California trip

This past weekend I drove up to my cousin's house in Windsor, CA. It's about 460 miles from my house to hers. And once again I did not get enough pictures. And almost all my pictures are of Eddie. Here are some of my favorites from this weekend. I'll be posting about all the fun stuff we did in more detail in the posts later this week, and what it's like to drive that far with the kid. Spoiler alert: he's awesome.

I left my house early Thursday morning with my car packed full of stuff. When it was just me, I could throw a bag with some clothes in the trunk and bring a small bag of snacks with me and I'd be good to go. Now, not so much. Also a lot more stops. Here we are at the last bathroom/diaper stop before we got to our destination. Eddie found a large stick and a small "park" to entertain himself in for a few minutes before getting back into the car.

 My cousin's kids are now adults, but two of them still live at home. They all adore Eddie. 

Friday we did a lot of hanging around the house. I had brought some leftover cooked carrots with me. Eddie surprised me by eating them cold like they were little orange pieces of candy. My kid loves the veggies!

The nearest Del Taco is an hour away from my cousin's house, and she is a big fan of DT. On Saturday we thought it would be fun to take a mini road trip just to get some. The nearest one to my house is less than 5 minutes, so this was all for my cousin! Eddie enjoyed himself.

Sunday we went to a birthday party for a brother and sister. The boy is eight and the girl is three. There were a ton of kids there and Eddie had a great time playing with them. So much so he never seemed to stand still enough to get some pictures. The birthday boy has quite a collection of toy trucks, which Eddie loved. They have an adorable "time out" bench that Eddie kept voluntarily sitting on.

My other cousin was at the party as well and we got a picture of the three of us. By the end of the day Eddie was tired enough to cuddle up with my cousin and her husband.

Yesterday was the long drive back home. It went too quickly and it's going to be a while until I can get back up there with the baby on the way. Maybe in about a year. I can't wait.

The Struggle of Childbirth

Warning: This post will use fun words like vagina, cervix, uterus, placenta, catheter, and other things that may not be for the easily grossed out. It’s about a baby being ripped out of someone else’s body. You have been thusly warned.

Childbirth is not for the weak. No matter what the situation it is a struggle. It’s kind of amazing that the human race has lasted as long as it has considering this is what we need to do to reproduce. I read everything I could and envisioned what I would do in different situations. Let me tell you, I did not run enough scenarios to prepare me for what actually happened.

My due date was Friday, July 15. My baby shower was on Sunday, July 17. What can I say, I live on the edge. I had an appointment on July 21, if nothing happened by then they were going to schedule an induction. I went to that appointment still pregnant, still no signs of labor. I wanted to put off the induction as long as they would let me to see if I went into labor naturally. I knew my husband had some work appointments over the weekend so I talked them into waiting until Monday night, July 25. I got to the hospital around 9pm. They did an ultrasound to make sure the baby was facing the right way and things like the placenta and umbilical cord were in the right place. Or at least not the wrong place. Baby looked great, everything was great. About 10pm they gave me the first drugs to jump start labor. It would take about 12 hours to gage if it was starting to work. My husband went home and I slept. Next morning: nothing. So they gave me another dose. Another 12 hours, only a slight dilation of the cervix. This entire time they had me on an IV drip and were carefully measuring my urine output. I kind of felt like a toddler being toilet trained. They gave me different drugs, and something started to happen. Enough that they were able to insert a tube through the vagina and blow up two balloons, one on either side of the cervix. The idea is that it would put pressure on the cervix to encourage it to open up.

This was NOT comfortable in any way. Also, I had the end of the tube taped to the inside of my thigh. Ug. I was so happy when it fell out while I was peeing. My water broke or at least partially broke at that time as well. Conveniently, I was sitting on the toilet when that happened. Less mess to clean up. Now they started the good drugs in earnest. This somewhere around Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. I was dilated 4 centimeters and it was starting to look promising.

The contractions started really coming at this point. They were bad. Worse than I imagined. Worse than I could have ever imagined. I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. I was able to handle the pain, but I couldn’t have followed any kind of directions or tried to push. My poor husband was freaking out seeing me in that much pain. I know he wished he could have taken it all away. Love him so much! The worst thing was that the contractions were coming but the cervix was stubbornly not dilating. Finally I couldn’t take the pain anymore and had the epidural. I think if things had been progressing faster I would have done it without drugs like I intended, but I didn’t see an end in sight. And I can tell you, I do NOT look forward to ever getting one of those again. It does not feel good. The worst part of the whole thing was the anesthesiologist asking me if he had the right location on my back. Um, dude, you’re the one looking at it, and you’re the professional. How should I know? Got the catheter put in at this point as well. At least I no longer have to get up to go to the bathroom, right?

So now the contractions are still coming but I am in little to no pain. I have still only dilated 6 centimeters. It’s Wednesday night, July 27. I came in and they started the drugs 48 hours ago. I have heard women screaming from down the hall followed by baby cries at least three times, if not more. I am ready for this kid to be out. If the contractions are allowed to go on much longer the constant squeezing of the uterus will start to put the baby into serious distress. I also was starting to run a low fever and they had ice packs all over me. They finally gently suggest that maybe they should do a C-Section.

My worst nightmare has just come true.

C-Section. The words ring out in my brain. C-Section. No. No. C-section. Nononononononono. No. C-section. NO! NO! NO!

At this point, I have quite a crowd in my room as earlier in the day when there was the big jump in cervix opening everyone thought it was going to happen soon. My dad was there as well as two good friends of mine, and of course my husband. My first thought when they suggested a Caesarean was to just flat out tell them no, this kid is coming out of the hole that is already in my uterus, thank you very much, you don’t need to make another one. But then I thought about the fact that the hole nature had provided was not getting big enough for the kid. So I shooed everyone except the husband out of the room so we could talk about it.

Thank God I am blessed with the most amazing, supportive husband on the planet. Who also isn’t afraid to admit he was just as scared as I was.

We decided about 11:20 to do the C-section. They didn’t seem like they were in a complete rush at that point so the freaking out husband and dad-to-be asked if he had time to go outside and collect his thoughts (I wished I could have done that too!). All of the sudden they are wheeling me into the operating room. I kept saying, “You are not cutting me open until my husband gets back! Where is he? Wait!!!” They kept assuring me he was right outside. Good thing he came in before they started doing anything or they would have had a crazy woman on their hands. It seems that something on the baby monitor made them move with a bit more urgency. Getting the epidural turned out to be a good thing as that was already set up. At this point, it is about 11:45pm. So... will the kid be “born” on the 27th or the 28th? I can see the big clock on the wall even without my glasses on. It inches ever closer to midnight and they are starting to work on me. I can hear the doctors and nurses talking but I’m tuning them out because if I listen to what they are saying I’ll get grossed out knowing they are talking about me. I am just concentrating on my husband and trying to talk to him as much as possible. Then the clock hits 12:01 and I at least know the birthdate, even if I still don’t know the gender yet. 4 minutes later, they announce it’s a boy and I can hear him crying. My husband was convinced it was going to be a girl, and I can still hear him say, a little unbelievingly, “I have a son?” Finally, I could put a name to this thing that had been kicking me for so many months. Meanwhile, I’m still strapped to the table as they continue to put everything back together and staple me up. And thus the clueless journey began. Little Edward Russell had come into the world.

Edward Russell shortly after
being yanked out of me

Next time: the switch from labor and delivery to the maternity ward.

Pictures from my Santa Barbara trip

Bonus post! I went to Santa Barbara yesterday to visit my mom and here are some pictures from the trip. More about the trip coming on Tuesday.

On the 101 to Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara Cemetery

Eddie

Our lunch spot

My mom's gravestone

The mountains in the background

I'm going to go over there, Mom

Lots of room to run

Eddie was excited about the boats

Going for a walk after lunch

 There are some really neat old gravestones and family mausoleums, including a pyramid!

After the visit to the cemetery, I went to see the house my mom grew up in.

We ended the day by going to In 'N Out. Yum.

Eddie is very serious about his fries

Yum, Mama!

Going to the doctor

Olive View Medical Center

I had a doctor’s appointment this week. I think I have had more doctor’s appointments in my two combined pregnancies than I had in the rest of my life. If you remember from my pregnancy post last week, I don’t have health insurance. But I’m not complaining, because in Los Angeles County there is a pretty good system for residents that don’t have insurance and don’t qualify for Medi-Cal if you got to the county-run hospitals/clinics. I go to Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar. It’s not the closest county hospital to my house but it is the nicest. For prenatal care, I pay $60 for doctor visits and ultrasounds which also includes any lab work that is ordered. After seven visits it’s free, kind of like using a customer loyalty card. For delivery of the baby, it’s $2000. That includes if it is a natural birth, induced labor, C-section, everything. When Eddie was born I was there a week. Labor was induced, after 50 hours they did a C-section, then I was there for another 4 days. Eddie was in NICU for 48 hours. The entire bill was $2000. I’ve known people with insurance that have paid more. And what’s even better is the prenatal care is really good. Not that it doesn’t have it’s drawbacks.

Going to a government run health care facility means you are going to wait. It doesn’t matter what time your appointment is. I’ve been the first appointment of the morning and still waited. It’s seems to be a different amount of time always. Sometimes I don’t have to wait in the waiting room at all, but then I wait in the patient room. Sometimes I’ve had to wait over an hour in the waiting room. When I have to get blood drawn it usually means taking a number, waiting in the lobby, then when my number is called I go in the lab and give them my info and then I have to sit and wait some more. If you have to get something from the pharmacy, that’s just a nightmare. It’s usually about a three hour process. So I always bring some kind of entertainment, usually a book. Now that I have to bring Eddie along I have to make sure he is entertained as well. It also means that if I have to wait long enough it’s going to overlap with lunch as well, so I pack a lunch to eat in the cafeteria. It seems like a lot of work just to go to the doctor.

However, because it’s a teaching hospital (connected with UCLA), the doctors you see are knowledgeable and up on all the latest information. In other departments you often see a resident first and then a follow up with the doctor. In prenatal you only see the doctor. They take time to answer all your questions no matter how mundane or silly they may seem. I don’t feel like they are just seeing a number, most of the time when I see a doctor or a nurse several visits in a row they remember me.

Of course, this week’s visit was completely abnormal in the wait time department. I was in and out of the office within an hour. That is unheard of. They always want a urine sample when you get there, and I walked out of the bathroom and the nurse was already looking for me to put me in a patient room. The doctor I saw actually read my file from Eddie’s delivery, and we talked about different options for this time around. I’ll detail my childbirth experience later, it was an ordeal. Because it ended in a C-section as a result of, among other things, not dilating after attempting to induce labor, they are recommending another C-section. I’d rather avoid that if at all humanly possible. But I’d also like to not have to induce labor again if possible as well. So it’s a tough decision that we have to make about what the plan will be. But despite the quick visit, I didn’t feel rushed. Plenty of opportunities to ask questions. All my vitals are normal, all lab tests are normal, fundal measurement was fine, and baby’s heartbeat was around 150, and baby movements are good. It’s always nice when there isn’t anything that the doctor is concerned about.

I’ve had several doctors tell me my pregnancies, both the first one and this one, are almost too normal. Man, it feels good to be normal. Now if I can just have a normal delivery.

The Wonder of WonderCon

As I’m sure you know, this past Sunday was Easter. My husband and I are both pretty active in our church and rarely miss a Sunday. I help teach Sunday School and he works the sound board two Sundays a month. So you would expect us to be in church on Easter morning, right? Not this year! WonderCon was in Anaheim this weekend. For those of you non-geeks, WonderCon is an annual comic book convention held in the spring. It’s usually held in San Francisco, but due to construction and scheduling conflicts it has been in Anaheim for the past two years. Now, I was a little annoyed they planned it for Easter weekend, and even more annoyed that the one thing I really, really wanted to go to was a panel at 11am on Sunday. But since WonderCon may move back to Northern California, this was even more of a one time opportunity and we decided to play hooky from church and go get our geek on.

The 2013 eggs

My husband Sam got the afternoon off work on Friday to go. I decided not to go as dragging Eddie out of the house on an extended trip with lots of unpredictability can be stressful. He’s an easy going kid so I probably normally over worry about things like that. Plus a lot of walking around while pregnant, not exactly the most fun thing. I did use the opportunity to get the Easter Eggs dyed, however. I love hard boiled eggs and dying eggs is just plain old fun. I usually seem to get around to it about two weeks after Easter. Sam had a great time at the convention. He got a page and a sketch from a favorite artist. He also met up with some friends to go to a panel and dinner afterwards.

Panel for Much Ado

We got up early Sunday morning to get ready to go. We didn’t have to pay for Eddie but we did need to stop by registration and get him a child badge. We then got in line for the Much Ado About Nothing panel. In case you don’t know, Joss Whedon filmed Much Ado last year with a pretty amazing cast. It is due to come out in June of this year. And if you don’t know who Joss Whedon is, shame on you. Nathan Fillion was slated to be on the panel but couldn’t make it. That was a bummer, but I still wanted to go to the panel as I tend to like Whedon and I love Much Ado About Nothing. Eddie was getting pretty fussy as the panel went on. It was near his lunch time and he was also getting pretty tired by then. I fed him as much as I could while sitting in our seats. Eventually we got out of our seats and put him in the stroller and then went off to the side to try and get him to sleep, which he did.

Convention floor

After that we wandered around the convention floor. It was a lot bigger and a lot more crowded than I thought it would be. Lots of neat stuff for sale. I could have spent a fortune if I had let myself. We ended up buying a really cute Batman kid’s cup since clueless mom forgot to pack the sippy cup. After a few hours, Sam met up with a friend and went to another panel. I took Eddie outside to eat some more and then and wandered around some more. I made it over to Artist’s Alley. I really could have spent a small fortune here, or maybe even a large fortune. I did pick up the card of one artist that had some amazing dragon paintings. I would love to get some prints for the kid’s room. We also headed over to the large T-shirt seller to get some shirts for Eddie. Ended up with a cool X-Men shirt and a Hot Wheels shirt. We then headed up to the panel Sam went to, Spotlight on Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti. It was a little strange that almost all the lights were off, and the darkest part of the room was right over Amanda and Jimmy. As a result, I didn't get a very good picture of the panel. Eddie got a little fussy near the end of this panel too, but not as bad. Remember how I said he is always an easy going kid and I was probably worrying too much? Yeah, not really. At least if he is in the stroller and we are moving, he is quiet and seems to be happy. Eddie loves Batman, it was one of his early words, so one thing we came home with is a Mr. Potato Head Batman. Too much awesomeness. We convinced ourselves we were “buying it for Eddie”. After a half hour more of wandering the floor, I was ready to drop so we headed back to the car.

Eddie as Batman

Convention floor eating area

The Anaheim Convention Center bathrooms definitely do not get Joanna’s Parent Seal of Approval. The one I was in was pretty big. There was a large area right as you enter that was pretty much useless. There was a mirror all along one wall with a narrow ledge. The other wall had absolutely nothing on it. As you got to the back of the room there was about 6 stalls and 3 sinks. No handicapped restroom, no baby changing table, and dinky little stalls. I had to leave Eddie in the stroller outside the stall because there was no way the two of us could fit in there with or without the stroller. I had to change him on the narrow ledge and was afraid he was going to squirm and fall to the tile floor. Thank goodness he must have been tired enough to just sit there. There is so much wasted, non-useful space in this restroom with no amenities. It was ridiculous. There is also a general lack of places to sit around the lobby of the convention center that are not the floor. I think twice before sitting on the floor since it’s much harder to get up when you’re six months pregnant. There was seating in the convention floor near the refreshment stand, but not enough to accommodate the crowd. I took a picture of the only empty seats I saw all day. The elevators were not well marked and there was only one of them. Escalators are great... if you don’t have a stroller. 

Other than the lack of parent friendly facilities, the convention was a lot of fun. It’s always comforting to attend an event geared toward us geeks. There is always someone that is even weirder than you at a comic book convention. Always.

Name that baby!

Naming a baby is one of the most fun things about being a parent. There are literally endless possibilities. I have two rules: I won’t name a kid after a non-dead relative and first names should use standard spellings. Both of these rules save a lot of heartache. The first for your family members that might feel slighted and the second for your kid having to constantly explain and correct people. But I, as well as my husband, love the idea of using names from our families.

So about a week after I found out I was pregnant the first time, we were driving to Las Vegas to visit some friends of ours. It’s about a four hour drive from Los Angeles. I thought this would be a good time to talk about baby names to give us something to talk about on the drive. The whole conversation took all of 2 minutes. Maybe less.

Me: We should think about names for the baby.

Sam: I want to name a boy Edward after my grandfather.

Me: Ok, sounds good. I want to name a girl Jean after my mom.

Sam: Ok, sounds good.

Me: How about middle names? Edward Russell, after my grandfather?

Sam: Russell is a little weird, but ok.

Me: Yeah, but it’s a middle name.

Sam: How about Caryl for a girl’s middle name after my grandmother?

Me: Sure. So Edward Russell for a boy and Jean Caryl for a girl?

Sam: Yeah, sounds good.

I don’t remember what we talked about during the other three hours and 58 minutes.

So now I am pregnant again. The names for the new baby weren’t as easy or obvious. Well, the girl’s name was since we didn’t use it. If we have a girl it will be Jean Caryl. But for a boy’s name? My other grandfather was named Otis and Sam’s other grandfather is Sylvester. Sylvester is ok for a middle name and I don’t like Otis at all. Neither did my grandfather, he went by Bob. If you go farther back, my family is nothing but James and John (for generations they had no originality AT ALL). Both of those names violate my “no non-dead relatives names”. Sam’s dad is John and my dad is James. The rest of Sam’s family has VERY German names that didn’t excite me at all. Yes, including Adolf. We talked about other names but didn’t come up with one that we could both agree on.

My uncle has done quite a bit of genealogical research of our family and put it all on line in a searchable database (check it out here). I was playing around with it and started going back through my direct line and eventually got to the first family that came over from Scotland around 1770. The first one of my family that was born on what became American soil was born in 1771 and named Benjamin. I love it. It’s a Biblical name and a family name.

So if we have a boy it will be Benjamin Sylvester and a girl will be Jean Caryl. The difference in the length of the two names cracks me up. We don’t know the gender of the baby to be yet, but we are prepared either way.

It’s nice to have one thing I’m not clueless about.

I Miss My Mom

One of the reasons I am clueless in this parenting journey is I no longer have a mom to ask all my stupid questions to and ask her what I was like as a baby. I’m not looking for sympathy, it’s just a fact of life.

I’m an only child. Well, sort of. I have a sister who was born four years before me and died at age 3. I never knew her. I was born almost exactly a year later. Yes, that makes me a replacement baby. In 2000, my mom, dad, and I went up to Santa Rosa to my aunt’s wedding. Her fourth one, as a matter of fact. Thank goodness she finally figured it out and married the right guy. The day after the wedding we were driving the back roads of Sonoma County to visit a few wineries we liked and get a bottle or two from each. It was quite a pleasant day. Right up until the car crash that changed my life forever. My dad was fairly seriously injured and didn’t get out of the hospital until a month later. My mom was killed instantly. I had a bump on the head. Yes, a bump on the head. That was it. Not even a concussion. I walked out of the car to the amazement of the paramedics.

So I always knew that it was going to be difficult if I had kids because the only family I have anywhere near me is my dad. He’s great, but not for advice on baby care and definitely not for babysitting newborns. My mother-in-law lives in Michigan (blessing? curse? both?) so that’s not  lot of help. I don’t have any siblings. I have quite a few cousins, but none nearby. The one I’m closest to is a 7 hour car ride away. Most live out of state. If you are a parent and have your parents or siblings living nearby and they help you out all the time - don’t ever, ever take it for granted. Even if they drive you crazy some of the time. Or all of the time. I am lucky enough to have a few friends that are like family that are almost always willing to babysit and help if need be, but it’s just not the same as family. I don’t feel weird about asking family, but with friends it’s a whole other story. Bottom line - none of them are my mom. There is just a different connection you have with your mom than you have with anyone else, especially after you have become a mom yourself.

After the accident I missed my mom terribly. But when Eddie was born it was a whole new level of intensity. No one to call at midnight to ask stupid first-time parent questions. No one to come over at the drop of a hat because I couldn’t take the pressure. No one to ask what I was like when I was a baby. My dad, in typical male fashion, kept telling me over and over that he didn’t remember me when I was a newborn. Gee, thanks Dad. Just because you’re thinking it doesn’t mean you have to come out and say it point blank. It is hard to have kids, but it even harder, SUPER hard if you don’t have the family support near you. And even if they aren’t near you, just knowing that they would be on the other end of a phone in a matter of seconds is comforting. I know that as Eddie and Baby TBD get older my dad will be willing and able to take them for the day or possibly more, but those first few weeks you bring a newborn home that are so intense and scary... that’s when I missed my mom the most. And I know there will be new hurdles once the kids get older and they won't have grandma around. I don't know what that's going to be like for either me or them, but I bet it's going to be hard.

But, you get through it. There is a saying that God never gives you more than you can handle. I don’t think that’s exactly right. God just knows he made us so resilient that we can handle just about anything that’s put before us because we have to. We don’t always have a choice. Of course, God did give my husband and me the world’s most awesome baby. I mean, he slept through the night for the first time at two weeks old. That did make getting through it easier. After a while you realize you can't screw it up too badly and start to relax. Every decision is not a life or death one. Not everything you fear is going to happen. Being clueless is actually ok.

But I still miss my mom.  A lot.

Commence blogging... GO!

So I have to confess. I know next to nothing about blogging, computers/Internet, or parenting. I'm hoping to learn as I go with the first two as I have so far with the last one. First, a little about my family. I married my high school sweetheart Sam after knowing him for 20 years. Yeah, I know, that's a bit odd. We have an 18 month old boy named Edward, or Eddie, who is the light of my life. Seriously, this kid is the happiest kid on the planet. It's not just me who thinks so. I have strangers stop me all the time and tell me this. He makes it incredibly fun and easy to be a stay at home mom. We sure got lucky with this one. I mean, yes, he does get cranky and sometimes throws a fit, but for the most part he is embarrassingly well behaved. Flirty, even. Sam and I are expecting kid number 2 in 4 months (July 1). Hopefully the second child is half as good as the first, although everyone tells me I'm bound to have a devil child to make up for how awesome Eddie is. Our family is rounded out by a cat Jada. Eddie loves Jada. Jada tolerates Eddie. Their relationship is quite cute.

Besides being a mom, which takes up a surprising amount of time, I'm also into car rallying and have been since... well... forever. Literally. My parents were rallying when I was born. No, not at the moment I was born, but I spent a good amount of my childhood in the back seat of a car driving back roads. So what is rallying? A time-speed-distance car rally is not anything like racing. It's on public streets with regular every day cars. The basic idea is you get a set of instructions of where to turn and what speeds to average between certain points. Occasionally you come across checkpoints that record your arrival time and give you at departure time. Your time between these checkpoints is compared to a mathematically calculated time and you receive points depending on how off you are. Like golf, low score wins. Like golf, when you're doing good it's great and when you're doing badly, it's torture. But it's always enjoyable, a nearly perfect mix of math and fun driving. Eddie is going to grow up as I did spending a lot of time in the back of a car driving around on car rallies. I wrote an 8 hour car rally when Eddie was 2 months old. It took three days and he was a perfect angel the entire time. Well, until about the last 40 minutes, he just wanted to get out and feel the wind on his face.

I'm active in my church and teach Sunday School and play in our bell choir. Teaching Sunday School is something I just kind of fell into (it seems like most if not all of the parents get sucked into volunteering at one point or another) and I'm as clueless at that as I am at everything else. Music, on the other hand, is a passion I'm had all my life. I grew up playing the violin until I realized I really didn't like it, then played trumpet and trombone. But it's no fun playing an instrument unless you have the opportunity to play with other people. That's what makes bell choir so amazing. You can't do it without every single member of the choir. When one person is missing, you can hear the hole that is left. It's really fun to be a part of something that becomes larger than the sum of it's parts. Plus it's nice to get out of the house without the kid and interact with adults at least once a week.

I also like to read, although I don't seem to get nearly enough time these days to do so. Well, let me take that back. I read a ton, but all the books have a pictures and a limited amount of words. And I often read the same book over and over and over and over and over. And then read it again.

So this blog is mostly a journal for me so I can look back with my kids when they are annoying teenagers and remember what they were like when they were cute and adorable. But if you'd like to come along for the ride, please do. I'm sure it will be a lot of bragging about my kids. Or complaining about my kids. Or random stuff I'm into. Or rants about life in general. After all, I am clueless and making this up as I go along.