Spinning my wheels.

I keep repeating the phrase, "I don't know what to do."

If you keep repeating something, eventually you just dig a hole and go nowhere. But I am tired of being stuck in my own patterns, so it is time to dig out. I may not know what I am going to do, but I am going to start doing something.

The day my heart broke

I woke up this morning nauseous, tired, and with an upset stomach. A common occurrence in this pregnancy, as I have been sick way too often this year.

We went about business as normal, but once I got in to work and noticed the date, I realized - it's the two-year anniversary of my miscarriage. The day I lost my first son.

The first year was the hardest. But I can't say that loss really gets easier, or less prevalent. He's always in my heart and on my mind. I have three babies. (1 in heaven, 1 still cooking, 1 running around in a diaper).

Anyways, today is going to be a silent, quiet day of introspection and trying to just let the emotions hit me, and experience them fully. Feel the love and loss and beauty of life.

My heart flies free on the notes

Part of parenthood is a submersive lesson into giving 100% of yourself to another living being. You think you know what that means owning a dog, being married, having a sibling, or a job. But it's entirely different.

I like to think of it like your brain is an onion (go with me, here). But an onion that can just keep growing, and growing. And at the core is your little heart with the strongest of emotions. It's full of your interests, passions, drive, motivations, desires. All you. When you have a kid, it's like, that's still there, but the layer next to it is replaced. And it's all-consuming. And you start growing new layers upon layers and they're all about your new little mini-me.

This analogy is getting weird.

Anyways, my point is, that heart, or core, of you, it's still there. It's buried, and it will never be separated from your other love peels, but it's there. And I'm finding that as the months fly by (literally, my baby turns one next month... what?) you start reaching inward and finding that heart again. YOu start feeling like you again. Or I am starting to feel like me. I turned on music. Like, my music. For me. Not just as background noise, but with nice headphones, to get lost in my songs. Songs that make me feel things. I haven't felt much lately. If I'm entirely honest. It's all go, go, go. Organize. Pay bills, Make sure everyone is fed/in the right place/sleeping/breathing. So, having even a glimmer of FEELING is just.... intense.

Yesterday I drove. I just... drove. And turned up music, and watched the terrain pass by, and it's like a little tiny bit of my onion-heart came back to me, and I found myself again.

The same thing kind of happens to relationships, by the way. You lose track of time, and you lose track of each other. And as you crawl out of the first year, you can send out little lifelines again. Little strands to help repair what might have been broken. I am sending out my ropes to those in my life who I have lost touch with. I am ready to be me again. Oh, how I miss that old me. And yet, I wouldn't go back. Not ever. I love the new layers around my heart, full of sloppy kisses, and drool, and poop, and dirty diapers, and so, so many bottles. It's just... a piece of me now. That new life. And beneath that, the crazy, funny, fun, lighthearted me, she's there. She just needs to come out occasionally and see fresh air.

What I'm saying is, at some point, you have to play the music again. You have to get lost in the notes, and even let yourself FEEL the past, so you can build your new future the way you want it. The only person who gets to decide what that is is you. And me. And every other new parent out there.

Demotion.

Sometimes, it takes an outside negative force to entice you to make changes.

While it hurts to be told you're not good enough, it certainly makes you want to work harder.

Lifedate.

It's like an update, but just about life. I don't know, my brain is fuzzy and lacking in creative juices on this toasty Wednesday morning.

Yesterday was the Summer Solstice. The longest day of the year. Onlookers gathered at Stonehenge to watch the sun's rays fall across the heel stone. And like that, we're into full-on summer. Barbecues, parties, pools, lakes, rivers, vacations, no school! Hallelujah. For me personally, I like to start my countdown to fall right about now. I am a cold weather person, and sweaters and pumpkins suit me better than bikinis and martinis. Just kidding, martinis suit me year round.

This year we also have a new baby to look forward to - due on Thanksgiving! So that is kind of fun. With my past experience with second trimester miscarriage, I am hesitant to accept this as fact. But July 3rd I get my anatomy scan we will be officially "halfway" cooked.

So while I write down on my board "weeks until Christmas" or "weeks until Halloween", I am trying to make a conscious effort this year to appreciate each day. Hot, humid, cold, rainy, stormy, windy, dry. I want to feel each day. I am doing this by going outside and taking 10 minute walks around the park. Planning activities that are outdoor. Last weekend I just took my shoes off and stood in the grass while my baby played around my feet.

Sometimes, I think it's too easy to wish away our current lives. We look to the future so often that we forget to live in the now. Hell, I've been doing that so long that I don't honestly know what to do with myself when I have no thing to do. It's that awkward feeling of "what do I do with my hands?". For years, I surrounded myself with music, podcasts, movies, tv, anything to drown out the quiet. But as I (quickly) approach my 30th year here on planet Earth, I'm realizing that I've never actually had any time with myself. I don't know who I am, or what I like. And now that we've added in the titles of "wife" and "mother", that seems to be lost even deeper in the shuffle.

The goal for 2017 is to sort out who I am, what I want, and how I want to be a better human. Seriously. It's a little overwhelming to start with such giant questions, but they have to be asked, or i fear I'll spin out into non-existence without ever truly knowing my own heart.

Who am I? And who are you?

Illness Abounds

I don't know about your family, but this winter has been kicking ours in the butt. I think I've been sick at least every two weeks. If not me, then my baby, or my husband. And I know that it's our first year in daycare, so this will happen, but... it hits me SO hard.

It always starts with the baby, then moves to me (and wipes me out) and then my husband gets a modified, shorter version (lucky him). And thanks to the most recent round, I can officially say LO has never been healthy on a major holiday.

Such is the life of a FTM in the first year of daycare life!

We are also just about out of my freezer stash of milk, so while I don't think it's done that much to ward off germs, I am sad that it's the end of an era. I am happy we made it 8 months (with the help of some donor milk too) with partial breastmilk, so for that, I will be happy. But I will miss having a little storage built up.

Anyways, I hope your family is not as ill as ours has been, but if it is, how do you cope with it?

Well, hello there!

I am back, and I am super pumped to get writing. It has been far too long!


In case we haven't met, I'm a  9-5, cube-dwelling, über nerd mama of one (for now) tackling the daily life of raising a tiny monkey and trying to make a smaller carbon footprint on this big old blue ball we survive on.

I like cloth diapers, riding horses, and trying to present myself as an adult at work.

And Dr. Who, I love Dr. Who.

I'm going to share my experiences of cloth diapering as a mama with a 9-5 job, and share in my experiences.

Full disclosure? I have joined up with GroVia as an advocate. They are one of my favorite brands of cloth diapers, so I am going to be sharing my experiences about them as well.

2017 is going to be a crazy, exciting year. I can't wait to get started!

(She said in March, knowing full well we're now 1/6 of the way through the year.)

#momlife

-Em