Adventures in Motherhood

Welcome to your mortality, Mrs. Bray...welcome!

2010-01-25T11:50:00.000-08:00

I am my father's daughter. It's no big surprise that I'm obsessed with taking pictures...filming everything Corbin and Hudson do...or that I need to have "something" going on at all times. It's no big shocker that I create projects for no apparent reason...roll hard candy in my mouth when I eat it...or that every time we go to leave the house..I suddenly have to go to the bathroom. I swear it's not on purpose. But best of all...I inherited those ears and that nose. Got to love that those are the only two things on your body that never stop growing! Thanks Papa Shah...thanks a lot ;)

After I had Hudson, I started having chest pains. Not sharp shooting ones that radiate down my left arm, just a "tightening" in my chest. Mostly uncomfortable and annoying, but alarming none the less to a 28 year old mom with two very small children. I chalked it up to hormones for a while, but when it carried on for a few weeks, I thought it might be time to contact someone before I lay unconscious on the floor with two small people who have no idea how to distinguish between the numbers 9 and 1 on a telephone. So I call up my OB...I know..not sure why I thought calling a "privates" doc about chest pains was a good idea..but I guess I had just been dealing with them for so long (seeing as I apparently "like" to get pregnant) and thought it might be hormonal that I really didn't have any other choices. Of course, the nurse tells me that I need to call someone else. She was very nice about it and didn't blatantly call me an idiot or ask when the last time I saw them use a stethoscope was...so I nicely asked for a referral, which she kindly gave me.

So I call up the Family Practice one floor below the OB. I explained my symptoms to the nurse on the other line and she tells me to come in immediately...I mean within 15 minutes. If you are ever in a hurry at any doctor's office, just use the words chest and pain in the same sentence...well, in the same paragraph...ok, if you ever use those two words to a doctor...the same doctor... you're golden. I don't encourage it..I'm just saying. Corbin insisted on going to see "mommy's doctor" with me...probably so he could finally be on the other side of the table. The nurse was awesome with him..she even tore off part of the paper on the table for him to draw on while she was checking my vitals. Complete with my very first EKG, might I add...not sure if I should cash in my bragging rights on that one..but whatever. I had an EKG ;) It came back normal and when the nurse was finally done, she said the doctor would be in shortly...right after she made a chicken out of a glove for Corbs...she really was awesome! So the doc comes in and asks about my symptoms...he makes some comments and based on my low blood pressure..he determines that I'm dehydrated. PHEW!! I'm not going down today...thank god! But he continues on to ask about my family history...the fact that my dad has had 3 heart attacks..2 of which, were in his 50s...and my mom has had TIAs. Plain as day he says...wow, your family history sucks! Thanks, dude...like I didn't notice. Anyway, just for precautionary reasons...he orders a stress echo.

After several weeks of anticipation and a few hours of shear panic, I go to the cardiologist. Have I mentioned that I'm only 28 yet? Yes..I have a cardiologist. I was definitely feeling closer to 68 at this moment, but I have two new people to think about, so I was just following orders. The nurse explains the process, she puts me in a gown, uses an emory board to scrape me up, and adds all those fashionable white sticky squares all over my chest. I suddenly felt like I had forgotten my oxygen tank somewhere..urgh! She explained this elaborate way to get on and off the treadmill fast enough for her to take pictures of my heart with an ultrasound and then we began. Trust me..an ultrasound is WAY more fun when you a listening to a smaller someone's heart...this, not so fun! First level....seriously....the treadmill was so inclined, I already had to hold onto the bar to not fall off. The goal was to get my heart rate to at least 160 and as close to 190 as possible. AKA...as close to death without dying...oh joy, sign me up! Bring on the stress, lady. Every 3 minutes...the incline got higher and the treadmill sped up. I was doing well up until 9 minutes. At about 9 1/2 minutes I finally hit 160 and she took my blood pressure for the 500th time...bad news, ladies and gentlemen...bad news. She asked me if I was ok and if I could keep going. I said I was fine, but right after my blood pressure flashed on her little machine..she stopped the treadmill immediately and had me lie down on the table in this strange horizontal yoga like pose, she dropped the middle of the table out, and was frantically trying to get a picture of my heart. I had no idea what the hell was going on and they just kept asking if I was ok. Um...I would feel better if you stopped acting like I was going to be lying unconscious on the floor at any second, but at least these two people could actually dial the correct numbers to get me help. One nurse left the room to ask the cardiologist if it was ok for me to LEAVE?!?! While the other nurse explained that my blood pressure peaked at 164/107 and I had extra heartbeats the entire time I was walking. Lovely! Well, the nurse came back and said the doc said I could leave....and just like that..they sent me on my way to wait for my GP to call with the results. Welcome to your mortality, Mrs. Bray..hope you don't die on the way home...

Two days doesn't seem like a long time, but in the purgatory type limbo I was currently living in..it was an eternity. It took TWO freakin' days for that doctor to call me with the results. TWO DAYS! I didn't speak for two days...horrible images of my children growing up without a mother flashing before my eyes...TWO DAYS! I know I'm dramatic..but seriously...I moped around for two days. Richard constantly asking if I was ok..if I wanted to talk about it. What was there to talk about...28, cardiologist, 164/107, and the image of some psycho bimbo teaching my babies the proper way to blow a smoke ring as ol' papa Bray revs up his brand new Harley...I think the uncomfortable silence was legit!

Finally, my GP calls with the results. He tells me after I answer the phone that he has them and I say..uh oh. He says No uh oh..they are great. Um...WTF...I ask him if he's sure he called the right person. I'm beyond confused. He goes on to say the cardiologist's report states that I have normal heart function with no signs of ischemia. English please....aka...my heart is not failing. Well, that I could have told him. So I ask about the crazy a*# nurses that made me think I would die if I even lifted my right pinky toe and after several minutes of going back and forth, it turns out that...you ready for this....wait for it....I'm out of shape. Yes. You heard me..the 28 year old that just had 2 children in 2 years...was only a good 10 weeks out of actually giving birth at this point...is "out of shape". TWO DAYS! I could have killed and kissed that man all at the same time!

So it turns out that if I'm ever offered an envelope carrying the day I will die in it...I should politely decline. My father had his third heart attack when Corbin was 6 weeks old. He coded right in front of us while the nurse was trying to take an ultrasound of his heart. In the crazy yoga pose. It's all I could picture as this nurse frantically dropped the middle out of the table and ran the same type machine over my chest. I can't imagine my life if something had happened to Papa Shah that day. If Corbin never got to jump on the bed with his Bapu or have Bapu come play in his makeshift tent....if he never got to see Hudson's smile or make him laugh. So I wonder who they would become if something happened to me. I tend to get lost in the details (have you noticed?? Ha ha). In the day to day...did Hudson nap at the right time..did I feed him when I was supposed to...is Corbin watching too much tv? But that's not what their stories will be. Not the things that will really shape who they become. Richard and I plan on moving to a better school district before Corbin starts kindergarten. I wonder if he'll remember this house. If he loves it as much as I do. My story is here. We got engaged in front of the "sold" sign...we slaved over the beadboard in the nursery...I took my hormones out on the artist that painted the mural. Will Corbin ever say...I lived in that house for X years and then we moved to the place where I grew up? I'm sure. That will be his story. Bapu is part of his story. I am part of his story and my father is very much a part of mine. I can't imagine my life without him, but I can't imagine who I would be without standing there as they took an ultrasound of his heart..then 2 years later of mine. How much I would take for granted. I recently jumped on a treadmill..hardcore...to get "in shape". Not only because it's what you are supposed to do, but because I have a responsibility to my children to be a part of their story. To help shape that story into one that they will love looking back on. My father did the same...works out everyday...it's the reason he's still here and I am who I am. He'll never know how much that was appreciated and someday, I hope my children will feel the same way.

Younger now than we were before...

2009-12-27T16:29:00.000-08:00

All good things must come to an end. Take a vacation for instance....you spend all that time planning, packing, driving there...and in what seems like a matter of seconds...you are driving home, unpacking, and back to the daily grind! Then there's that fantastic chocolate fondue at the Melting Pot. You "save room" during the cheese (unless you are me..man I love cheese), "hold off" on the last bit of the main course (unless you are Richard...or any man for that matter), then before you know it..you have a crazy amount of cheesecake, a few Oreo covered marshmallows, but no gooey goodness. Boo! I'm sure the proverb isn't referring to my desperate annual need to put my toes in the sand or add a few inches to my waistline....I'm pretty sure it is referring to life, death...and possibly the 30 year marriage wrecked by that skanky 20 something secretary who can't keep her eyes off the large dollar signs on her bosses back pocket, but as 2009 comes to an end so does an era. It's not quite the end of my 20s, but definitely the end of my youth!

So we have hit the six week mark in Hudson's short life. I have to admit that it has been HUGELY different than the first six of Corbin's. We are definitely waiting for the other shoe to drop, but trying to enjoy what has been our "easy" baby so far (knock on wood). He is eating us out of house and home, but it's the "cheap" stuff, not the golden milk! Who could possibly ask for more than that. Not me, that's for sure. Corbin has gotten a little more jealous in recent days, but still kisses on his baby brother ALL.THE.TIME...aka...putting all his weight on poor Hudson's belly and practically eating his face. Other than that, there isn't much to report.

It's such a weird feeling to make the last decision of your youth. To bring the string of milestones left in your life to a complete end. No I didn't plan on anymore kids. No I don't ever want to be pregnant again. But no I don't want this to be done. You wait your entire life for these things to happen. You imagine what it will be like. And then it's over. You find the love of your life. You fall in love. You get engaged. You plan a wedding, buy a house, and start a family. It's exciting. It's unpredictable. It's the things you pretend when you are 5 years old. Now I'm standing on the other side. Looking back on what has happened in the past 6 years. It happened so fast. I feel like I'm on this runaway train and I've got my hands out the window desperately trying to grab onto something to slow it down. Like nails on a chalkboard. 5 seconds ago I was lying in bed watching these small little kicks from inside my belly, laughing about what our baby boy would sound like when he said daddy, what his name would be, and where he would go to school (definitely UGA!). 10 seconds later I was singing "You are my sunshine" to Corbin and 5 seconds after that his face changed to Hudson. This can't be it. Sure...if we never had anymore kids..we would get our lives back, get back to us. I could find what it is I've always wanted to do...my next definition. I could go to the bathroom without any visitors. Drink my morning tea before it got cold. Watch a channel that doesn't sing about wanting a candy cane for Christmas. But what if you hesitate when you go to summon someone to "fix" it ;) (Richard that is). It sounds like the perfect idea until there's no going back.

I truly believe that your gut tells you which direction your life should take you. What you'll be and who you will love. And apparently when it's time to throw in the towel on procreating ;) Is this a defining moment in my life? A defining decision? Or just another moment in a string of best days in my life? I'm beginning to understand what it means to just let your life happen. You can't anticipate the next number you land on in this game of Life. Having children is seeing the steps you take in life from the other perspective, from an adult perspective....wisdom is like watching your child's life from the top of the Empire State Building...you can see a little further into their future than they can. Being a parent is constantly trying to stop that crash on 5th street from happening while the car your kid is driving is still down on Main. It's in that instant that your baby will bring back that element...that innocence you lose when you experience all the events that make you "wise". My type A mind craves the perspective you find from the top of that building. The answer to questions we don't get answers to. The ability to suck the shock out of the best surprises...no pun intended, Mom ;) To change the inevitable. But does that mean I want to miss out on the joy or the lessons in the unexpected? Plan out every minute of the rest of my life? Sounds pretty boring. So here's my New Year's resolution...to let go of those reins. To give into unpredictable. To come down off the ledge of that building. To truly be young. Will we have another baby? Not today. Will we bounce around the living room with our boys the next time Ellen dances up her stairs? Go to Monticello's on the anniversary of the day we started dating? Plan a trip to put my toes in the sand? Without a doubt. So many people get lost in the details of things that are out of our control. I can be one of them. Worry more about the outcome rather than the steps it takes to get there. So here's to reinventing my youth.. but let's be honest..here's to the first step in fulfilling my resolution... do something about the things I can "control" today...a birth ;) So Dr. Morris..let's order that up! Ha ha!

Here comes Hurricane Hudson!

2009-11-22T09:34:00.000-08:00

And so it begins...my life as a mother of TWO!! Somewhere around 33 weeks pregnant, my new sweet bundle of joy decided to make his mother's life a living hell ;) That's his job right?!?!? The first born is forever trying to please his parents, while the baby tries to stir it up. Well he's off to a pretty good start..ha ha! Man, it's a good thing they make kids cute ;)

So on the Sunday morning that started it all, Richard took Corbin to Starbucks to get some coffee. No Corbin doesn't get coffee..he just plays with the sugar ;) When he got back, I was complaining that I had cramps and that the Braxton Hicks I had been having were coming more frequently than they had been. After a little while, I decided it was time to start timing them because they wouldn't go away. I was 32 weeks and 5 days pregnant. After an hour or two of BH every 3-8 minutes...I decided to call the after hours nurse line. I told her my story and she told me to head to the hospital to be checked out. We got there, headed to triage, and was hooked up to the monitor. After confirming that the contractions were 3-8 minutes apart and picking up, they decided to try a shot of terbutaline to get them to stop and checked to see if my cervix was dilated...1.5cm. One shot didn't work, so we moved on. Next step was to move me to a room where they administered a total of 3 bags of IV fluids, 3 more shots of terbutaline, another med called Nubain, yet another med called Percardia, and an overnight stay at the hospital. Sadly, none of it worked, but by the morning, my cervix hadn't changed and the contractions weren't stressing the baby out....so I was sent home with a prescription for Percardia and told to take it until my next appt, but to come back if the contractions became regular again. It wasn't even 48 hours before we were back, but still no change, so we were sent home.

I got the joy of contracting for 3.5 weeks. Everyday. Sometimes just at night and other lovely times..all.freakin.day.long! They were never really painful...annoying at best. Don't worry....I complained a lot. ;) Anyway, if you are wondering what this has to do with actually having the child...it does. On Tuesday, the contractions became painful. Not regular, just painful. All day I would have to stop every now and again because I would have this shooting pain from my back and through my hips. I had an appt with my OB that morning and I was still 3cm, as I had been the week before, so it still didn't seem like they were really doing anything. I didn't really think anything of them until they became REALLY painful and very regular around 7pm. Again, we started timing them...every 2-4 minutes. I tried taking a bath to make them stop with no luck, so I decided to call the nurse line...as expected...go to the hospital. So we go in...go to triage...get hooked up...this was old hat by now. They checked my cervix and I was still 3cm, but on a scale of 1-10..the pain was about an 8. They checked me into a room and kept me for 2 hours for observation. They gave me Nubain again for the pain and let me sleep a bit, but as expected I was still 3cm at the end of 2 hours. Over the course of the day, I had become more effaced and the pain was still at an "8" level, but the nurse said they were going to discharge me anyway...because it wasn't "real labor". She told me to take a bath if I wanted them to go away. I cried the whole way home. We got home around 1am...I walked straight upstairs..and went to bed, but couldn't sleep because the pain got progressively worse and the contractions continued to come every few minutes. I tried not to wake Richard, but after 3 hours of trying to endure..it was too much. I woke him up and he ran a bath. While I was in the bath, I told him he needed to call the emergency nurse because on a scale of 1-10...my pain was probably a 25. Maybe I have a low tolerance, but seriously...I was basically freaking out...in the bathtub. The emergency nurse told Richard to give me Benedryl and to go back to sleep...I freaked and she told him that if my pain was unbearable to go back to the hospital. At this point, I couldn't get up....couldn't get dressed...and told Richard he needed to call an ambulance. He thought we could get there faster ourselves and after calling my mom to get there fast to watch Corbin, we left before she got there. Yes, I left my child home alone (for all of 5 minutes at most), but it was an emergency.

It was straight out of the movies...he ran red lights...I screamed the whole way there...I'm glad no one videotaped it ;) We finally got there around 5am after what felt like the longest car ride in the world..and I couldn't get out. They came and got me with a wheelchair and rushed me to a room. Of course, I was still screaming and I'm pretty sure I yelled at someone wanting to know why they sent me home...right after I begged and pleaded for an epidural ;) They checked my cervix and I was 8 cm, had a bulging bag, and Hudson was sunny side up...yay..fun! Of course, they had to do paperwork, then give me a bag of fluid, then they would call and wake up the anesthesiologist, so he could come put me out of my misery. I'm sure 45 minutes to one hour to do all those things was seriously fast in a hospital, but it felt like a lifetime! That god of a man showed up and tried to introduce himself..of course, didn't go over well...then said he would explain what he was doing...again, not well. Seriously, just DO IT! 15 minutes later....I was a pleasant person :) Well, as pleasant as I get :)

After the epidural...I was happy. Sad that we only needed to make it another day for our OB to be on call, but my least favorite doctor was no where to be found, so whatever. The doctor on call was nice enough and when she came into our room, she mentioned in passing that she was off to do a C-section with our doctor and left. We thought maybe she would stop by, but it was just our luck that she stopped by to deliver Hudson :) :) She walked in 15 minutes before her C-section and just as I was ready to push! It worked out perfectly...she moved her surgery back 30 minutes and it was a big party....singing Arms Wide Open and Air Supply. Gotta love a second baby deliver..ha ha! As Hudson was about to be born, she asked Richard if he wanted to help deliver him and with her "spotting him"... he got to see everything first hand. Not sure if it was a good thing, but after that traumatizing event....there will be no more births in our family, so he might as well grab the opportunity when it presents itself ;)

So Hudson Pierce Bray was born November 18 at 9:25 am, weighing in at 6lbs 9oz and measuring 18.5 inches long. After a very miserable 36 weeks and 1 day...I was glowing....to not be pregnant..woot, woot! And now my life as a mother of two boys begins. I'm not going to lie, I know that the insane times are coming, but it has been pretty awesome so far. I'm not nearly as high strung this time around. I'm taking it one day at a time and today is a great day. I'm enjoying the days when the world disappears....where we enjoy just being with each other for a few weeks...where you realize what's important. At the end of the day, I would do it all over again, but am sure glad that hormones make you forget almost every painful piece ;)

Identity theft

2009-09-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

Who remembers that stupid question the guidance counselor asked everyone in high school? If money did not matter, what would you do with your life? Ok, unless we live in a communist country...money matters. Hence, I became an accountant...money was my life. But seriously, if money did not matter, what would I do? Is get a cleaning lady, chef, and night nurse on that list...how about take fancy trips to Tahiti with a nanny on hand to sit there with Corbin while I take long walks on the beach with my husband....but best of all....how about pay someone else to carry this baby, so I could "have" him without the stretch marks, mood swings, and extra weight that was "ok" to gain since I was eating for two. That reminds me...where did I put that Butterfinger? ;)

We've hit a pretty big milestone in our house recently. Corbin started his first day of preschool yesterday. Yup, my puking, non-stop screaming baby is now a tantrum throwing, non-stop screaming toddler...and best of all...someone else's responsibility for 4 hours a day, two days a week..woot, woot.....PARTY AT THE BRAY HOUSE! Oh, sorry..what I really meant was....tear :'( Ha ha. In all seriousness, I was anxious about it. Trying to make sure his new nap time was right for when I would pick him up and setting up a playdate with a new friend from school, so he would have a familiar face on the first day. I wanted to make this transition as easy as possible for him. And what seemed like a blink of an eye....6.5 months flew by (since the time we registered him)...as did 1.5 years....and it was time for orientation. His orientation was in a private room at the Chik-Fil-A right by our house and after playing with play dough and painting his tote bag...daddy came to play on the playground and eat lunch. He did well for the most part, but was slightly anxious when it was his turn to paint. I figured it would take some time for him to warm up to the teacher and after lunch..he gave her a hug right before he bolted out the door. Typical man ;)

His first day came and he actually slept in a little bit. We had been talking about school the whole day before and continued all morning. Seriously...to the point where Richard was like "I think he gets the point", but I wanted him to remember where we were going, so he didn't feel ambushed when we got there. We brought "green bear" with us and talked about how if he got scared or wanted to cry, he could just hug "green bear" to feel better. When we got there, he told me he was scared :( , but he was ready (he seriously said this). So we got out of the car and headed towards the door. When Miss Shelley answered, we made a big fuss...yay for school...I walked in, but Corby didn't. He just stood there, hugging "green bear" and then told us he was scared again. It was so sad. But once the kids started to arrive, he got excited, and then his new buddy, Fletcher, got there and he was downright happy :) He even gave me my 3 kisses (our family's tradition..they stand for "I love you") and said "love you" as I was leaving. He loved it. Not a tear from my big kid. I was so proud. Unfortunately, mommy was not so lucky and was very sad picturing him all wrapped up in his swaddle as he ran back to read a book with Miss Shelley. :( Tear....

I spent so much time concentrating on trying to make it easier on Corbin that I never even thought that it would be tough on me. The pregnancy hormones are wreaking havoc on my emotions lately and poor Richard is left to pick up the pieces. My current breakdown was about how no one understands how hard it is to be a stay at home mom. How people think that there is this abundance of freedom that comes with raising your children on a 24/7 basis. I listed off all the sacrifices made the day I quit my job....from going to the bathroom alone...to driving with the windows down and radio up....to showering while a lil' one stares at your privates (only to later announce that Mommy's wee-wee has fur..sorry for the TMI, but seriously..already??). It's not easy. But with motherhood...whether you work or whether you stay home...you face a huge identity crisis. If money didn't matter, who am I? If I'm not defined by my work...if all the years I spent defining who I will be (without the knowledge of how much it will be changed by a baby), meant nothing....who am I? I've taken baby steps in realizing who I am as a mother and since I stay home, it is a struggle I face on a daily basis...with no real break. What choices I make and how well I do this job...define me. Just like it did when I was an accountant. All of a sudden, I had to let go and walk away. Be who I was when Corbin was not attached to my hip. Who I was when I could just go to the store without a bribe to get in the seat..get out of the seat...sit nicely in the cart...don't touch that...get back in the seat...crap its time for lunch...what am I going to make for lunch...crap its nap time...damn...I have to sit here until he gets up. And as I stood outside that preschool door. I had no idea what to do or where to go.

I could never help anyone without kids understand what this is like. How lost you feel most of the time...how every part of your comfort zone is ripped away...how it feels like every time you get to a point where it feels "normal", you start from scratch one more time. I know this isn't the last time this will happen. I know that in 3 months, my world will be turned upside down one more time...then Hudson will start preschool...they will both start kindergarten...and each time, I will be left to figure out who I am in this new phase of my life. I had a constant when I worked...things in my life might have changed...I might have bought a house...I might have gotten married....I might have gotten pregnant, but every Monday morning..I got up at the same time, I walked through the same office door, and I went home at the same time. It's easy to go back to your constant...hold onto something. This is my challenge. As a SAHM. But its also what I love. I have learned more about who I am in the past 2 years than in the previous 26. Stripped away what wasn't important and embraced what was. I don't think you ever really know who you are, but who you are in that moment...that circumstance...that "job". I showed up, with Richard, to pick up Corbin just a little early. I had been counting down the minutes. I didn't want to drive with the windows down and the radio up...don't really mind the visitor in the bathroom. I couldn't wait for that moment when he ran around the corner, saw us, and started jumping up and down yelling "mommy". Maybe freedom means something different to everyone, but my freedom is knowing that at the end of the day...no matter what life has handed me...we play outside until bath time...make daddy "coffee" with cups and the running water...we sing a "put on your jammies, so you don't get cold" song...and give 3 kisses before daddy reads a bedtime story. It may not sound like much....it may not be super exciting to some....it may not be a corner office with my name on the door....but its who I am....right now :) And I think I'll take it.

Free fallin'

2009-08-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

So Richard and I were driving in the car today...I say...so when you met me, did you think you would end up married to me and I'd be pregnant with your second kid? Such a girl question, but my ever so patient husband answers with....no way, you were way too stuck up. This I have to agree with, but my ever so thoughtful response was...hey, you were the one with the "lines and swoosh". Poor Richard really liked his hair gel back in those days and...yes...add the lovely comb through when he was done. It was awful...I banned it shortly after we started dating. I then added...see we have made each other better people...which he says...so you aren't stuck up anymore? And what can I say, but...well, not as stuck up as I was ;)

It is totally not my fault. Other recent conversations have included this very topic...Gen Y. Yup, I'm a part of it..go ahead make your comments. Yes I want to make a ton of money and no I don't want to work for it. Yes I want to do what I want when I want and no I don't want to answer to anyone for it. Blah, blah, freakin' blah. I've heard it all...including a lovely pamphlet that Deloitte circulated while I worked there, so that people would know how to "manage" people like me. How this sounded like a good idea at the time is still beyond me, but I guess "insulting" is a characteristic that I'll add to that generation. But in all seriousness, is it really my fault? Can you point your finger at an entire generation and just say that they were "bad eggs"...spoiled maybe...but can you spoil yourself??? Um, I think not. I point the finger at my parents! :) Yes, I'm sure this is what a therapist will do someday when I realize that I need drugs or some sort of psychoanalysis. So why not start now. It is totally THEIR fault. I didn't shelter myself or spoil myself...until I made way too much money for my age...so can you blame someone for their upbringing? And not just theirs, but an ENTIRE generation's upbringing.

It took me a long time to appreciate what I have. I think it comes with age, but it also comes with parenthood. I never had to keep a job in high school or pay for my own insurance. I never got an allowance and pretty much just heard "just don't tell your father" any time I asked for something. But I never learned what a dollar really meant. Never learned how much $150K could really buy you. Never realized how long it was going to take to pay off $20K in student loans (which I would like to remind everyone got me a Master's I used for 2 years and then decided to have babies and stay home..smart). Looking back on it...it was when all the fluff was taken away that I really figured out what you need in life and how to get it when you are struggling to get by....referencing my "blink of an eye" part-time job to pay for Corbin's prescription formula. My real question is how do I avoid letting Corbin hit these same speed bumps in life? How do I teach him appreciation?

With that being said, what kind of pitfalls are we setting our kids up for...with our "natural" parenting, no TV, no junk food, preshool at 6 months (really 2 years, but still). We recently finished Corbin's "big boy room". Like the nursery...it is way over the top. If you know me personally, you really can't be all that surprised. The theme is planes, trains, and automobiles. New paint, new bed, new train table...he loves it. Everytime he wakes up from his crib...he asks to go to his room. We just got the mattress today, so the transition from crib to bed will start any day now. In this new phase of his life, he has also taken on a new best friend, Sunshine. Sunshine is a bear that Richard and I bought from a bed and breakfast in Sonoma, CA and named Sonny (obviously after Sonoma)....Corbin decided it should be Sunshine instead. It has been sitting on our bathroom floor since Corbin was born and he hasn't even taken a second look at him. Now all of a sudden, he can't leave his crib, room, or the house without Sunshine. All I have to say is...do you want to go take a nap with Sunshine?....and he's up the stairs trying to climb in his crib. Seriously...it's insane. I recently looked at Sunshine's tag to see if I could get a duplicate for the inevitable day where he is left on a park bench, soaked by an afternoon rain, or eaten by a neighborhood dog. No such luck....simply stated on the tag...made exclusively for the Four Sister's Inn. Damn!

The funny thing is.....every mother I know has told me to do this. It was my first instinct to find another Sonny to avoid the meltdown that will come the day he is gone forever. Is that sheltering him? I know that's an extreme...its a freakin' lovey for god's sake, not the war in Iraq. But in these first few years, a mother always wants to catch their baby when they fall, but it is impossible to teach them to walk without letting them fall down. This carries forward. I feel like I'm watching Corbin's life from a high rise building and can see the bumps he'll find in his road, but he can't see them. I could obviously warn him, but will he actually listen? Will he avoid the wall he's run into 700 times? Will he study hard or choose to party? Will he save that extra dollar or buy a beer? I made all the choices my mother told me not to. Went against anything my father told me to do. And I learned appreciation the "hard" way...or should I say the "only" way. You can't teach someone how to appreciate. One of the hardest things in life is to watch your child make the mistakes you made and not being able to help them avoid the pain that comes along with them. My job as a parent is to pick him back up again when he trips over the hose :) To make sure he keeps trying when he doesn't make the team the first time. To grab a tissue the first time the stuck up chick snubs him for having "lines and swoosh". :) There are so many life lessons that can't be taught, but must be learned, must be seen for yourself. Sheltering your child is only robbing them of the experience. We all learn to appreciate what we have on our own time and in our own way. I have Richard and Corbin to thank for it. You realize that you have exactly what you need and are exactly where you are supposed to be....when you wake up every morning thinking...Oh my god, I am so lucky :)

Keeping the faith

2009-07-20T17:19:00.000-07:00

Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.

If life is a long distance road trip, I'm currently sailing through Nebraska (on my way to Las Vegas..ha ha)...ok, that might be a bit of a stretch...but at least you get the point. Don't get me wrong...we're playing by the "no news is good news" rule in our house. A boring pregnancy is the best kind to have, so I'll take it. But with that comes zero inspiration for my "adventures" to report. Do you really care that I actually made dinner tonight or that I'm directing all my obsessive tendencies towards Corbin's big kid room at the moment? Yeah I didn't think so....

I'm sure we can all agree that if you've read one of my pregnancy posts, you've read them all and this one won't be much different. I've craved everything from sweet tea (which I usually hate) to pepperoni and cheese on crackers (which I find quite random). I've done my fair share of yelling at Richard, Corbin, and the occasional four year old at the playground...even though I have no regrets for that last one...snotty lil' girl made Corbin cry after smacking him in the face for no apparent reason. I should have knocked her block off ;) All in all, I am pretty typical...pretty hormonal...and pretty ready to never be pregnant again..ha ha!!

So I recently asked our pediatrician if the chances of the next baby having the same tummy issues that Corbin had were high. His response was vague, of course. Basically just confirming what I already knew...that since it's genetic, probably in combination with the fact that he was early, that there is always a chance. Thanks...that was helpful...so with that, all the fun of our first year came flooding back. Only the next time around...I'll be screaming.."NO TOUCH" from the dark bathroom or be wearing a backpack complete with a Corbin as I circle our downstairs..bouncing and buzzing. Oh joy, why haven't I done this sooner ;) It seems like such a small issue now...one that left as soon as it came.. but I can't deny that it definitely felt like the end of the world at the time. Looking back on it..I actually feel lucky that it happened to us. I know, I know..it sounds ridiculous..but hear me out. I like who I am WAY more today than I did two years ago. As any Type A bloggy friend will agree, I needed to have my arms wrapped around every detail of my life to feel like I had some sort of say in how it all went down. To feel like I wasn't spiraling out of control. I learned the hard way. I spent every waking moment, well not every waking moment, but more time than I should have....researching what could be wrong with him. What foods I should avoid...what diseases he could have...what I was doing wrong. I was on an island...just me and Corbs...desperately searching for sticks to make my S.O.S sign. I felt like no one would explain to me why he was reacting this way...he fell into a grey area. No one understood. Everyone looked at us as a reason to be thankful for their own lives. I hate that! I hated my doctors for being so nonchalant about what was my life. The only doctor I liked turned out to be looking for his next big case and convinced us that Corbin had this lifelong illness, which only led to one of the worst days of my life. And at the end of it, I felt like I had just put my child through all of this for my own peace of mind. Was it all necessary? Was it worth it? In the end, the doctors were right and Corbin woke up one day..completely fine. Off the meds at 13 months and off the Neocate at 16 months. It seemed like an eternity, but it wasn't. With all that behind us, it is now clear that the best part of the whole situation was that I am a better mother for it. A more calm mother. A less controlling mother. Hopefully a less smothering mother. And above all, a happier mother.

I'm hoping this lesson changes the way I deal with our next baby...I was convinced it was a girl...possibly because I thought if I said it out loud enough times (how Richard cannot produce "X" chromosomes) that somehow the universe would prove me wrong. Put me in my place. This idea seemed to hold true for the past 18 weeks. We went in to our first ultrasound at 8 weeks singing that same song to the OB..her response..."how many times have you tried?" ;) She's awesome! So we play the guessing game with her and according to her predicting method...she said girl. Something to do with the yolk sac (sorry sounds gross) touching the baby or not touching the baby. At the next appt, we heard the heartbeat. (So awesome) According to Dr. Morris...160 bpm equals girl. This had me convinced. It was in my head that it was a girl, but how in the hell is that possible?!?!? Richard's father produced 3 boys who have 4 boys between them. I was fully prepared to get peed on multiple times a day again. But it didn't seem like I was going to have to deal with it. So we picked out names... Jillian Greer or Hudson Pierce. Needless to say, my belly was called Jilly, sometimes Chilly Jilly, sometimes Jilly bean all the time. And one day it hit me. If this is a girl, I know that Karen (my good friend who passed in Feb) had something to do with it. There was no other way in my mind. I know it sounds romantic, but if you haven't figured it out yet....that would be me. I got pregnant less than a month after she passed away. This is what helped me sleep at night. I hung my hat on it.

So last Thursday...I dressed Corbin in his "Big Brother" shirt and we headed to see the baby. I feel like you know way too much the second time around, so I really didn't care the gender. A girl would be nice since we have 3 boys between myself and my sister, but a boy would nice because I love watching Corbin and Emmett play together. So sweet! Corbin was all excited and on the way there we practiced what he was going to say to the baby..."hi". So we get there, they call my name, and she rubs that nasty jelly all over my belly....there it was....the face of our next lil' one. Perfect...you could see every detail. Corbin immediately blurted out..."hi"! "Baby"...and finally the best of all..."COOL"! He loved it...even started singing "You are my sunshine" What a good big brother :) Unfortunately, the baby was lazy...which I am not going to cry about in about 20 weeks...so they couldn't see everything they needed to on the heart. It took forever and Richard kept saying...can you tell, can you tell? All of a sudden , she tried to move him and swept across his lap. There was no denying what this baby was....you guessed it...no "X"s coming from my husband....a sweet baby boy :) Here comes Hudson!!

I had a dream the night before the ultrasound that we were having a boy. In my dream, I felt disappointed. I want to state very clearly that from the beginning, we really wanted another boy. Not only because we know how to deal with and love having a little boy, but also for Corbin's sake. Don't get me wrong, we would have been thrilled with a girl too, but I think I had connected having a girl with something it wasn't. An idea that I get proof that the people we love never leave us. A hope that a baby girl would be confirm what I really already know. But isn't that why they call it faith? Who do I think I am? And how unfair would it have been to Corbin and "Jilly". To have these unreasonable expectations. I found myself falling back into the same thinking I had when Corbin's belly hated us...that I could control it. I got to know things that aren't meant to be known. I realize that letting go of this way of thinking..of letting go of the need...of having faith in myself as a parent, our doctors, and in fate, itself...will always be a struggle for me. But isn't that what being a good parent is? Consciously letting go of your own needs and feelings to focus fully on what is best for your child. Everything will always work out the way it should...sometimes in my favor and sometimes not, but the only thing I can really control is my reaction. I can't always wait for the other shoe to drop because I feel so lucky to have certain people in my life, so lucky to have lived the experiences I have, and so excited for what is to come next. What will be will be. I can't change it. I have faith my life isn't my own to shape, faith in the idea that in the end it all works out, faith that Karen is still here. I don't want to know anything else. Don't need to know anything else. And if sweet Hudson comes out kicking and screaming like the last one...make sure someone sends me a backpack for the baby shower ;)

The wheels on the bus....

2009-06-07T17:50:00.000-07:00

It's official. I'm old. Age isn't actually counted in years, but by the number of feet that lie behind the driver's seat in the car you drive...or in our case..the bus you drive. I think this puts me at approximately 65....only to be outdone by that monster Dodge Sprinter on the reality show currently making all the headlines. The only thing left to make the transformation complete....is a really bad mommy haircut. The kind where from the back....people question your gender, but you think the best thing about it is that you can just get out of the shower and go....not to mention the grown out highlights due to the fact that all your money goes to diapers, formula, and soccer uniforms. That's when you know all the sexiness has seeped from your body and your youth is totally gone.

Don't worry...I definitely went down kicking and screaming. Man, I loved my CR-V. Corbin and I would zip around town like we were...ok, I was....still in high school. Don't lie...you identify with your car. It says something about you. When I turned 17, my parents surprised me with a Civic Coupe....much to my sisters' dismay...but I loved that car. I didn't even have my license yet...only because we moved on my 16th birthday and in GA you have to hold a permit for a year...so I used to spend HOURS just sitting in it listening to the radio. Every now and then, my mother would open the garage door to tell me not to kill the battery, but I know her soooo well....that it was probably to make sure I didn't turn the sucker on and die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Me and my baby Civic survived a lot...a lot of boyfriends, apartments, cities, and just one accident (that I swear was not my fault). Finally...when that sweet girl wouldn't pass inspection any longer due to a completely rusted out exhaust system...we traded her in...I'm sure to be sold for spare parts :( So seeing as the CR-V is basically a Civic in the shape of a box. I loved her almost as much. She didn't come with the sentiment, but definitely my identity.

For a couple of weeks now..yes I break easily...Richard has been talking about how when the new baby comes...my sweet baby CR-V was just going to be too cramped. Especially after loading that puppy down for a 3 person 4 hour trip to the beach. I agreed, but resisted the thought of driving...the mini-bus. He suggested a bigger SUV, so we entertained this for all of 5 seconds. Yes it would hold more...yes I could still hold onto my dignity for a few more years, but in the end, between the safety issue of the third row seat and the non-existence of the trunk space when that third row is up....we realized in two years...I'd be listening to this same speech again. So I agreed to "just go look." "Let's just go drive them and see what you think." Richard's famous last words.

So we drop the munchkin off at Nanny's and head south to Rock Hill..thinking they would be cheaper...but seeing as it was South Carolina (sorry for my stereotype, but I was annoyed)...nothing was open on Sunday. To appease the preggo, we broke for lunch. After the rise in blood sugar, I was down to keep on trucking. So back to Charlotte we went and our first stop was a Toyota dealership. And the first car we drove...at the Toyota dealership...was a Honda Odyssey. Go figure. 2005 with 17K miles on it. Hardly a scratch on it...seriously, it was like brand new with $15K knocked off the price. As you can imagine, my husband's anxiety started to rise...like he was on the Amazing Race and he struck gold, like he had to cover it with his shirt to hide it from the other competitors. I was basically screwed from the get go. So we drive it. I'm not going to lie...I started to get slightly excited...if I didn't look in the rearview mirror, of course. So they take the sweet baby CR-V to appraise her. So we go inside to talk numbers. I'm laughing hysterically by now because this is just like us. We had this whole plan to sell the car on our own, get outside financing, to do the opposite of everything that is usually Bray in this department. So we talk numbers, they suck, we walk out. I think I dodged a bullet...NOPE. We go to several other places, realize it was an awesome deal, and end up at home on the phone with the dealer. URGH. We got our outside financing...used it to get a cheaper rate with the dealership...got cheap payments and now I'm the proud owner of a mini-bus. I know...I could barely keep up too.

So 5 minutes ago, I was a young girl.....windows down, zipping around in my sassy lil' car and now I'm old, having a mid-life crisis in the middle of a Honda dealership in South Carolina. Buying a mini-van was the equivalent to turning 30 to me...possibly 40. This huge hump from my youth to the inevitable dark hole of age. How did this happen...I'm only freakin' 27...as Richard so nicely pointed out is not middle age as I hyperventilated in the middle of the dealership's parking lot (good thing they weren't open). Then all of a sudden it dawned on me. I hated high school. I hated dating. I hated the insecurities of my teens and twenties. Maybe this hump..is actually the gateway to the best years of my life...with plenty of room to fill in ;) Maybe when I peer into that special "conversation mirror" and see my two sweeties smiling (probably screaming) in the backseat...I won't miss zipping, but will be glad they can't actually touch (possibly punch) each other :) Maybe my mini-bus is my new identity. Not an old frompy soccer mom, but just a mom. It's who I am. I bust my ass. I dry up tears in the matter of seconds. I speak a language that is not taught in any ivy league school...toddler. I am the professor of all of life's most vital skills. I am a superhero...to someone. My mini-bus is just my Batmobile..... in disguise. So take the sweet baby CR-V...it's been a fun ride....but there are definitely greener pastures on this side of the fence :)

Richard and Alissa plus 1...and a half ;)

2009-05-26T06:15:00.000-07:00

If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylum would be filled with mothers."

-- Edgar Watson Howe

I did it...I'm not proud...it really is a guilty pleasure. I hate to admit it, but I watched the season premiere of Jon and Kate Plus 8. I know, I know...not quite as bad as Flavor of love, but definitely up there with the Hills. Come on...does anyone else get queasy at the sight of Speidi??? I also have to admit that I might have gotten a little misty at the end when Kate started crying. I know, I know...gotta be the hormones. ;)

So it got me thinking...how are any of us different from them? Ok, seriously..I get that people aren't chasing me down to get a photo of my latest haircut and Corbin is just one child..not 32, but in all honesty, how are their fundamental problems any different from the ones any married couple faces at some point in their marriage? We haven't hit these bumps yet (knock on wood), but I'm assuming after 10 years...every marriage feels a bump now and then. I think the media is just amplifying their issues..probably making them a little harder to get over, but if you listened hard enough...it came across loud and clear...that man is TOTALLY having a mid-life crisis (and crazy whiney!). Floundering...trying to figure out what comes next and I see myself there not too long from now. Not that I don't love my life...I wouldn't trade it for the world (seriously...there is no other husband like Richard)...but sometimes the issues you face are inevitable and have nothing to do with your spouse.

I always said I would have kids and stay home. Until I started working at TWC...then I paused for a minute, thought maybe I could have both, but in the end...Corbin put his foot down and I quit ;) I don't regret that decision..not for a second, but that doesn't mean it isn't hard. People have this perception of stay-at-home parents....playdates, lunches with friends, soap operas and chocolate ice cream. I just want to shed a little light on the truth. You always hear people say they know its the hardest job out there, but do they really understand what that actually entails? I spent six years of my life becoming an accountant and a few more becoming a CPA and the most complex decision I make on a daily basis is what to feed everyone for lunch and dinner. That's a hard pill to swallow when you are used to calculating bonuses for the executives in a Fortune 500 company. The most adult conversation I have during the day is trying to figure out what "ba ba" means in the instance Corbin is using it...bottle? bubbles? ..... who the hell knows until he throws himself on the floor because I haven't figured it out in the 5 second timeframe he is allowing. The most flexibility I get is whether I should wake up before him and take a shower or be lazy and wait until he goes down for his first "nap". Hence...I haven't showered yet ;) My day does usually consist of playdates, lunches with friends, and Dr. Phil (if Corbin isn't glued to something on Noggin), but it is all on Corbin's call. We have a 4 hour period between his first nap and second nap that we can leave the house to do anything. If I miss either by even a few minutes..I pay the price. And yes, he naps for 2.5 hours in the afternoon, but its not like I can go to a movie or spend the afternoon shopping at the Gap unless you mean online. How many times can you watch a Baby Story? Or surf www.allrecipes.com for something new to make for dinner. And let's not mention if I don't get it started while he's sleeping...dinner doesn't get made. After a few months...these things can wear on someone who is used to just going with the flow...taking a break when you feel like it...having a set purpose for each day with something important that has to get done or the boss is in your face.

I took those days for granted. I know that now, but I'm no more an accountant than I am a circus performer. No more a Corporate girl than I am a movie star (although the paycheck of that last one would definitely come in handy). But that doesn't mean I shouldn't get something of my own (hence the blog..ha ha). That doesn't mean that my 24 hour job doesn't come with a few perks of its own. I may sit on a Sunday night wondering what the hell I'm going to do with Corbin for five days, but the funny thing is...everyday I wake up...we get to do something new. We have the freedom, in that 4 hour slot ;), to go where the wind takes us. Some days we meet people for lunch...some days we go shopping...most days we play outside with sidewalk chalk, toys, and Rocky. It's not the most exciting thing I've ever done, but it is the most rewarding. My boss does care about me. My boss does show instant gratification every time I get him a cup of juice or rewind the Jump Arounds for the 8th time in 15 minutes. My boss is my best friend...besides Richard. I gladly give up my life for him because I truly believe he will be a better person for it. And I truly believe its a small price to pay.

I made a sacrifice the day I decided to stay home and I didn't even realize it. It was such an easy decision for me. It's not for everyone. Some families are better off with two working parents, not only financially, but emotionally. Giving up your life for however long you choose should be commended. In 5 years, my children will be in school and I will finally have my life back. But will it be "my" life. I walked into motherhood a career-oriented, headstrong woman...and I'll be making the next step in the journey, someone who has no clue what comes next. My degree led me to Richard, but it won't lead me back to where I came from. So where do you go from here? Sure there are a thousand things I love to do, but do I have the drive and the ambition to turn them into who I am next and still be able to be home when Corbin gets off the bus? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that when the time comes I have a family who will support me no matter what choice I make because it will include them. I find it so sad that this family, who put their lives on tv, are being scrutinized for things that everyone goes through. Yes, they have made choices I would not make, but who am I to say that when I'm not in their shoes. I hope they find their ways and that someone steps up and realizes the complaints they have are petty. Mean nothing in the scheme of things. And when the time comes...and I'm sitting at that door of "what's next"...I hope Showtime buys my blog and makes it into a mini-series! Ha ha!!! Cha-ching ;)

Monsters vs. aliens

2009-05-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

This sucks. The alien has taken hold. My life as I know it has come to a screeching halt and standing in front of me is a mountain of buffalo chicken dip. I love buffalo chicken dip, but do I really want to eat an entire mountain of it. Ummm, yes...who doesn't. But the aftermath of the mountain is just depressing. Seriously depressing. So depressing that I might wash it down with a frosted sugar cookie ;)

Yes...this mama is 10 weeks pregnant. Feels like 45 weeks, but only 10 rather long weeks. I don't remember half this crap. Corbin was such an easy pregnancy. I hate me pregnant with Corbin. You suck! I was nauseous for one week. Week 7. Then perfectly fine, slightly larger, Alissa. Not this time. New lil' bean alien is screaming "I hate you" from the inside out and I thought I had at least 16 years until I would hear those sweet words uttered from my offspring. Not a chance. Loud and clear...pure hate coming from this belly. In the form of nausea, mood swings, headaches, fatigue...let's just say..you name it..lil' bean is throwing it my way. How could the presence of such an innocent being morph someone into this hormonal fear inducing monster. I'll tell you how. It's simple actually....they mess (I would rather use a very vulgar word, but I'm trying to curb my language..haha) with your mind..that's exactly how. I'm telling you...this one HAS to be a girl ;)

The plague is spreading through our house. At around 6 weeks the nausea kicked in. No vomiting, which is thoughtful of "her", but a constant car sickness feeling..like I've been riding in a car going through the mountains with my eyes closed for about 3 days. Pleasant. The only thing that seems to help...besides tons of vitamin B6 and a prescription for Zofran

(every pregnant woman's miracle drug)...is EXACTLY what I want when I want it. How is this different from normal Alissa you ask?? Your guess is as good as mine ;) This unfortunately is at the cost of dear Richard's sanity and evenings...poor guy has seriously made more runs to the grocery store and to every fast food restaurant known to man in the past 4 weeks. The best was a Zaxby's run at 9:30pm one night. I'm sorry, but when you need a Wings and Things combo..you need a Wings and Things combo. I'm not going to lie...a Cherry Limeade slushie from Sonic sounds pretty freakin' awesome right now :) (please note that by 7pm this evening..one was waiting in the freezer for me) All movies and tv shows make these cravings look all cute and funny...oh honey, have you had some pickles and ice cream. Screw that..it BLOWS. We have a monthly budget for eating out of $80. Seems like plenty right? NOT THIS MONTH...I blew that joker in the first week of May...you guessed it, we broke the $300 mark this month! Insane...she's evil I tell you..EVIL. Don't think Richard hasn't jumped in on the action. It is definitely true that men get sympathy pains. While we were at the beach, Mr. Bray made himself a nice afternoon snack. Not quite pickles and ice cream, but definitely close. He mixed potato salad and mac and cheese together to create what came to be known as potato-roni and cheese. He nuked it in the microwave and basically licked the mayo and cheese covered bowl clean. Even I thought it was nasty. That's saying a lot.

All this binging is not free for me either. Every morning when I'm getting ready and every night when I'm brushing my teeth. Richard points at my belly and laughs. Sweet, huh? There is already this ever so subtle "bump". Oh yes....not even 3 months in and she's "showing". What the hell? I will say this is what Richard thinks...its the baby. Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and put it out there that the 12,000 calories I'm probably consuming on a daily basis can't be helping my cause. And I'm pretty sure the baby isn't making that bulge....it's definitely fat. ;) Needless to say..I've already graduated into my "fat" pants that I wore for the weeks after having Corbin and it is.... oh, so depressing. I won't even mention that people couldn't even tell I was pregnant with Corbin until I was 7 months. We took pics at 6 months when I felt huge and looking at them now....yeah, I look like a do now. Damn it! I'm going to be a whale! And although, I might have promised not to say anything about this...Richard totally split his pants down the butt while bending down to pick up Corbin yesterday. It was freakin' hilarious....to me...not really to him. Hence...sympathy came to bite him right in the a*@....literally :)

The one thing that never changes from pregnancy to pregnancy is the wonderful fits of rage. I'm starting to wonder if there is a secret rage management class out there just for women who are growing people. Like a temporarily insane group. If everyone remembers correctly....these lovely fits did not occur until around 20 weeks when I was pregnant... and still lovely...with Corbin. Practically bum rushing a woman in the bagel line and spearing a man in the sausage biscuit line with the tongs...to this day, I still stand by the fact that that crazy man took the sausage biscuit from my side of the tray...HELLO, I WAS FEEDING TWO FREAKIN' PEOPLE!!! (am I making my case about rage, by any chance :) ) This all leads into my latest incident with the Indian food man. One warm Sunday morning...let's say I was 8 weeks pregnant (not 20)...probably around 10:30am...I decide that I have..yes HAVE..to have chicken biryani. So Richard calls the restaurant that helped cater our wedding to place a to-go order. The man says they don't open until noon..to call back. Fine. So I wait and wait..tummy starting to hurt..and wait. Finally at noon..possibly 11:59...I call back. The man informs me that on the weekends, they don't take to-go orders because they serve a buffet. Sorry. Um yeah...I'm pretty sure I don't have to tell you that I went ape sh*t. Seriously...I could be quoted saying something the effect of...then why the hell did you tell me to call back at noon, etc. and so forth. Finally I get done screaming and hang up. Poor guy. Then Corbin starts whining..for some unknown reason... even to him I assume...I scream. He shuts up. Richard has chicken byriani sitting on the counter 20 minutes later from who knows where..but I'm pretty convinced he's learned to pull things out of his butt when faced with an adverse situation like this one :) Totally why I married him! Then all things were right in the world...for about an hour or so ;)

I do find it humorous that in the span of 10 weeks...most of the rage centers around food. Like its an animal instinct to hoard as much as you can...hence the fact that I've already gained 8 pounds. (For those fortunate enough to avoid this lovely life altering event in your lives....you should gain 1-2 lbs a month...starting much later than this) Oh well...I have this hope that if the pregnancy is bad this time around I will be spared the agony of the big red ball. I know its a pipe dream...but at least give me the hope. Corbin has recently gone off all his medicines and is eating anything and everything. The only hurdle still left to jump is getting him to drink real milk instead of the prescription formula. We have put about an ounce in his sippy so far with no problem, so I'm confident it won't be long.

It's funny how you are a different person the second time around. The same person..just with a different idea of what you are going through. I'm not glued to What to Expect When You are Expecting....or taking numerous pictures of my belly's progress. I haven't bought 17 newborn outfits that I now know...the baby will NEVER wear. I'm not constantly analyzing every single symptom I have or don't have thinking that only the worst has happened. I've already paved the way. Know what is to come. I'm more relaxed. Not a naive young girl.....anymore. I know it doesn't sound like it, but it's almost as if you learn to let go of what you can't control through the first baby. What will be will be. You just deal with the things as they come instead of anticipating what they will be. Sometimes you get that happy ending and sometimes you don't. That's life. At the end of the day, it's not the not so happy endings that you count...it's your blessings...and some of mine, I count twice :)

Here we grow again!

2009-05-11T16:50:00.001-07:00

So here I am. Standing in a dark room barely lit by a Winnie the Pooh nightlight that sits just as you open the door. Right next to a cherry crib with the mattress inches above the floor and a very big boy stretched more than halfway across it. I remember decorating this room. Putting up the bead board. Having to paint that crap 17 times because Richard's brilliant idea was to paint it before we put it on the wall...it warped. Yelling at the guy who painted the mural..partially because I was insanely hormonal and mostly because Winnie and Piglet looked hypothermic. Standing on a ladder...7 months pregnant...and lining up each individual letter in each word for the border and surprising Richard with the ending since the entire quote didn't fit. (You must always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think, and..here's my part...loved more than you know). All of this seems like it was just yesterday....but seriously...here we go again!

So I'm not going to lie and say this was a big surprise...oh my, how did this happen?!?!? Please.....everyone knows how this happens and with a small getaway by ourselves for the first time since Corbin was born...it ain't no surprise. We actually decided to start trying shortly before we left. Yes..I said it..the forbidden word..."trying". I don't get it. Why are people so embarrassed to admit they actually want a baby??? I understand not wanting to tell people during the process. There is that whole image you put in people's heads and of course, if it doesn't happen for a long time..you have everyone constantly asking if you've had sex and completed the task at hand. Talk about awkward. ;) But after the deed is done..who cares. We were trying and it happened a little faster than I thought it was going to. Since I'm insanely Type A, over the top, and a gigantic planner..I took my temp with Corbs for 6 months and then he decided to join this crazy family the second month we were "trying". Not this lil' guy...HELLO...ready or not, here s/he comes!!

So there I was. Two weeks after the "trip"...the dreaded two week wait. The WORST part about "trying". I took a test..negative. Boo! A few days later..still waiting. I took a test..negative. Boo! A week later..still waiting. Convinced it would be negative..not only because of said tests, but I also didn't feel the way I did with Corbin. The funny thing was that Avery would not leave my side. This being our (my) cat that I've had 10 years and pretty much does her own thing..aka..sleeps all day and never really bothers anyone. She would even sit outside of the shower the entire time I was in it and when I would open the door..would.not.budge...even though she would get soaked by the dripping water. It was weird and we knew something was up..who knew whether it was a large tumor on one of her organs (god forbid) or there was a small "tumor" (my mom swore I was a tumor..aka "surprise" or as my sister's liked to remind me..accident) growing arms and legs in my tummy. Anyway...after taking my last two boring tests..all I had left was a sample digital test. I took the test. And waited. It took 3 minutes to get any results.... no watching to see what appears.... lines, a plus sign, or any other image pee and paper can form. So I'm waiting. And waiting. Seriously..3 minutes feels like a lifetime in testing and in...well, labor. All of a sudden. The answer popped up... Yes+ . Shock, disbelief, panic, excitement, joy....you name it...I felt it. SH@T! It crossed my mind to keep it a secret and find a fun way to tell Richard, but as always..it was written all over my face when I walked out of the bathroom. So I just handed him the test. At least he didn't throw his back out this time ;)

So now the journey begins for one..and takes a sharp turn for the other. We got to see our sweet lil' bean today for the first time. I was amazed at how it already looked like a baby...Corbin just looked like a seahorse on his first ultrasound (but was a week or so earlier). It all became very real very quickly. The memories that had been masked by time and that wonderful hormone drug that wipes your mind clean of all remnants of any reason to never have children again...were suddenly in the forefront of my mind. I felt nauseous. What the hell was I thinking?!?!? Two under two? Seriously??? Richard is soooo taking the fall for this one...damn wine ;) I just got my sense of normalcy back. I actually eat meals again. Use the bathroom when I actually have to go. Can form a complete sentence. This very large solid brick wall is standing before me and I'm headed straight for it in a car doing well over 100 mph. Two kids...I feel nauseous. And then the doc says.....and there's the baby's heartbeat. This tiny little blinking light in the middle of the screen. And it became very real. The look on Richard's face when he cut the cord. The warmth of a tiny baby sleeping on my chest. The tiny little legs that curl up when they hit the cool air. And that first baby smile. Only this time....I will get to see my big boy meet the new baby. Give his new sibling kisses in the hospital room. Curl up in bed to watch cartoons as a family of 4...instead of 3. He already points to my belly (and randomly to my boobs..ha ha) when you ask him where the baby is and then he kisses the tiny bump. I'm not naive this time around. I know what I'm headed for. I know it won't be all fun and games, especially the first few months, but I also know what comes after the storm. The rainbow you get for bouncing on a big red ball in a dark bathroom. I know those days pass. And so will these. The reason for I'm standing in a dark room watching my big boy sleep. This will soon be someone else's crib. This will no longer be Corbin's room. Our lives are about to get a little bigger, a little more chaotic, and a lot harder. I can't stop the car. I can't slam on the brakes. But I can find the tunnel that is slightly to the right..the one that has that light waiting for me at the end of it. The one that may be dark for a few seconds, but then opens up to two sweet kids running around in the backyard. My big boy teaching his baby sister or brother how to run through the sprinkler. To pour sand all over the patio. To discover a lady bug. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen....here we grow again :)

Not your average Joe....

2009-04-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

I always said that I would never be an accountant. I have a Master's in it...After I got there, I swore I would never marry an accountant. Ummm, we are both CPAs...I said I could never stay home with my child because I couldn't see myself changing diapers all day...enough said ;) Never say never..ha ha! I will NEVER win a million dollars....yeah, I'm still waiting!

My lil' man is seriously pure genius...advanced...like ten miles ahead of the rest...ok, really he's just average, but I'm still amazed at EVERYTHING he does. We recently installed a DVD player in the car. I was majorly against this. On top of the fact that he really watches enough Wow, Wow, Wubzi, Yo Gabba Gabba, and Blue's Clues at home..I didn't want him to freak any time he was in a car and couldn't watch the latest video. Until he just started freaking in the car....no matter what. Hence the DVD player. I swear its magical! The silence and sweet smiles and giggles I see in the rear view mirror as he watches his video happily strapped in. It's a beautiful thing. When we got it in the mail, Richard was trying to see if it worked and threw in a Baby Einstein Signs DVD. We used the DVD when Corbin started throwing tantrums around 11 months and once he realized he could communicate with me...in some sense...he calmed down..a little ;) Anyway, he used to watch the video once a morning while he ate breakfast and recognized it right away. Rich forgot to take it out of the player when he put it in the car, so I just figured any video would do. So sweet Corbin smiled at Marlee Matlin for at least 15 minutes every time we got in the car. He seriously wore those first 15 minutes out because most of the places we go aren't that far from home. But on occasion, he got to witness "repeat play" like on the way to Miss Holly's house :)

So one day on the way home from my mom's house...who lives like 5 minutes away...he's watching those first lovable 15 minutes..and I peer into the backseat to witness my lil' guy rocking his arms (the sign) and all of a sudden, he spouts out "baby"! OMG...he had the biggest grin on his face as I went crazy! YAY!! He then continued on with the video and did the signs along with the words for mommy, daddy, baby, more, please, and thank you (no words..just sign)! WTF!! I was soooo impressed. My little man is sooo grown up. The only sign he really uses correctly is please (if you tell him no, he says "eeeeee" as he rubs his chest and one day when he couldn't get something out of the cabinet, he did the same thing..no clue who he was asking..ha ha), but still...I'm not even that polite at 27 let alone 14 months! I thought giggling was the best milestone, but these first words are definitely right up there :)

So here's the funny thing...we blame everything on BabyPlus ;) ( www.babyplus.com ) Oh yes..my mom bought me this system when I first found out I was pregnant. I keep telling myself that's why I used it..because I didn't want all that money to go to waste, but if I stop lying to myself for about 5 seconds to avoid accepting the psychoticness that is Alissa Bray..I would realize that even if she didn't buy it..I would have been one of those mom's that squeezed headphones round that large lump and played classical music to my unborn child.... just because. ;) Anyway, so twice a day starting at 18 weeks..I strapped that annoying thing around my stomach. Once while I was getting ready for work and once while we watched tv at night. Thuuuuuump, thuuuuuuump, thuuuuuuump is how it started off and eventually was thump, thump, thump...in psycho hyper speed. So annoying and it made my belly itch, but religiously...thump, thump, thump. I'm SHOCKED that Corbin doesn't bang his head against any non-moving object he can get his hands on! ;) But the website says your baby will calm easy, cry less, and reach milestones sooner. Let's see...cry less, calm easier...I'm going to go with no. How about you? :) Trust me..I ran over this thing in my mind NUMEROUS times...and then backed back over it ;)

But milestones sooner? Sh*t, I can practically have a conversation on the downfall of the economy with my 14 month old..ha ha. In all seriousness, he did hit gross milestones (except walking) pretty quickly. He rolled from belly to back at ONE MONTH...twice...made me a liar..then finally got the hang of it a few months later. But his fine motor skills came a little slower. I swear he didn't wave or clap until after 10 months and I already had my conversation mapped out for the doc at 12 months because he couldn't feed himself. He eventually figured it all out. And I'm sure that his words are the product of WAY too much tv..ha ha..or the fact that everything he picks up is "pencil", "spoon", "ball". When he can finally talk, his first sentence will be "Mom, SHUT THE HELL UP!" I won't blame him, but will still probably put him in time out....and laugh for the entire 90 seconds (since this will most definitely occur in the next 6 months, thanks to Baby Plus...ha ha). The great thing about kids is that they all end up in the same spot. One may mouth off way sooner than the next, but in the end..they all do it! I laugh sometimes because I catch myself feeling competitive. Well, John is doing that..why isn't Corbin?? The first rule of motherhood is .... DON'T COMPARE! It's so hard, but makes your life so much easier. Every kid finds their way at their own pace, but the real problem lies in watching it. Being the first time for me, as well as Corbin, means I'm hitting milestones as well...they just aren't advertised (or applauded, damn it). How am I supposed to know the difference between advanced, average, and delayed? First off, there is no such thing as advanced! (My mother, for sure, will tell you different about her 3 grandsons...even if all they do is pick their nose!) Secondly....every mother is a first time mom at some point. It sucks...uncharted territory causes more stress than its worth...and your big milestone will be accepting your ignorance. Although, it encompasses everything I said I would "never" do.....You will have NO idea what to do. Just go with it. You can call the doc's office 30 times a day...you are allowed. Give your kid Tylenol anytime he makes the slightest noise because you swear he's teething at 4 months. I'm sure it helps something. And you can be astounded by your son's first real word. And his second...and his third. Talking about your child nonstop to people who don't have kids is forgiven (by other moms..ha ha..probably not the non-kid people..but who cares). And best of all....you can think your kid is advanced...even if he's just average :)

A "BC" Bray weekend

2009-03-23T11:39:00.000-07:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm not who I was. The funny thing about staying close to the people you grew up with...close in proximity that is...is that they never allow you to change. This, of course, is my opinion. I believe this for any stage in the game. Childhood friends don't really count...your true personality shows without being tainted by experience when you are a kid..but high school friends, college friends, first job friends. It's like that whole time period when you are trying to discover who you are is who you will always be to them. I was crazy in high school and college. More so if I was single and luckily, I was a serial monogamer. I'm pretty certain my high school friends wouldn't even know what to do if they saw me now or if I actually showed up to our 10 year reunion this year (so not gonna happen). I was opinionated, loud, outspoken, and strong willed. Let's just say...I've toned down a bit ;)

We decided about a month ago that it was time to take a trip back in time...to when it was just the two of us. For several reasons....one, we had barely been alone for more than a couple of hours at a time since Corbin was born and two, we had always promised we would do this once a year and it was time to cash in.....so I booked a mini-vacation for this past weekend in a small 2 person log cabin (built by hand..might I add) in Boone. It was awesome ... minus the lovely carpet that looked like the pot holders I made in Brownies when I was...let's say 8... www.blueridgerentals.com .... called the Dog House because apparently their dog, Rubberdog, was run over by a car and didn't have a scratch on him. Yeah.. Rocky would have definitely been called..Splatterdog! Anyway...very cozy, hot tub, and these awesome adirondack chairs with a fire pit right along side the stream running behind the house. I highly recommend it ... especially if you need a little breathing room from a child that has only learned one pitch in the range of sounds his voice can make.... oh, wait...that's me...ok, check!

So Grandma and Grandpa drove up from Georgia to stay the weekend with our little terror..I mean sweetheart ;) They arrived around 11am on Friday morning and we had hightailed it outta there by noon...ha ha! And you thought I was going to say I had a hard time leaving. Nope. A quick run through of the Corbin Instruction Manual and..... Peace out, Corbs! We got to the cabin around 3pm after stopping for lunch, grabbing the keys, and going to the grocery store for extra munchies (possibly called Cabernet) ...that first bottle of wine was consumed by 5:20pm :) Guess we haven't lost our touch....so we pretty much just spent some much overdue time together the entire weekend. Except for an emergency trip to Old Navy due to the fact that we forgot bathing suits..which wouldn't have been a problem in the summer, but having the trees bare...we thought the neighbors might appreciate it ;) ...and a little shopping downtown, but other than that..it was just us. I hadn't realized how much I missed just us...it was so nice. No schedule, no whining, or entertaining.....no snaps at each other about not moving fast enough or being too snappy (ha ha).... no internet, Facebook, or blogs...no TV, DVR, or movies...no worries, just us.

It's funny how you find the strength in your relationship that way...like we hadn't seen each other for years (caught up in the daily madness that consumes every minute until you fall on the couch hungry and tired at 8pm bedtime), but were just the same after all that time...you throw a colicky, sensitive baby into the mix and you don't even have time to realize you miss who you were.

Of course, by Saturday night around 6pm, we were both really missing Corbin. The piece that makes us who we are now. Sometimes he may throw a kink in our perfect little package... needing a small reminder to get us back on track..but we aren't "us" without him anymore. We've changed...for better, for worse...a little older, a little wiser....we've grown. Our relationship has a whole new depth. It brings the good and the bad...the little spaces you never knew about the person you hold most dear. Without Corbin, I would never have known how insanely, irrationally clean the kitchen needs to be at all times for my husband...it drives me nuts. Without Corbin, Richard would have never known that I need him to move at the speed of light to make milk, change a diaper, or even shower, for that matter..I like to refer to it as "mommy speed"..something a daddy can never do ;) But without Corbin, I would have never heard Richard sing "You are my sunshine" to help him fall asleep...never witnessed the best made-up game ever...brought to you by daddy (finding the "love buggie" in the book and then tickling him when he does). He may have never seen the way only a mommy can kiss that boo boo all better...if it wasn't for Corbin. It's true that we would be the same people to each other...love each other just as much...be just as perfect for one another...if Corbin had never come along. But we wouldn't be "us"...who we are meant to be together. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I found who I was through Richard..I am a better person with him than I was without him. I never lost myself, but just became someone I respect more than I did before. I've changed...those people from high school or college wouldn't recognize me because they know "BR" Alissa (Before Richard)...the same goes for us. "BC" Brays. We still are the same family...only better...thanks to Corbin.

13 months going on 30

2009-03-13T06:50:00.000-07:00

So, we have been growing up in this house. Our first baby steps have turned into full out running in a matter of seconds. Sometimes his little legs get going faster than the rest of his body can keep up with....causing a very nasty spill at the park where the sidewalk basically ate his cute lil' face. Most of the time he just looks like he's had 5 too many beers. He's talking a mile a minute. He repeats EVERYTHING you say. Sometimes it just sounds like some strange form of Mandarin, but others...you can definitely tell he's telling

you something. He even said Thank you in the bathtub the other night. And uno yesterday. Yeah, what's up world...my 13 month old is already bilingual ;) He can tell you what a cow, sheep, lion, and kitty say. And just last night...he sat at the table like a big boy for the first time! Strapped into his booster seat and ate out of the plate suction cupped to the table (Because we all know where it would end up if it wasn't attached to something!) ALL.BY.HIMSELF! It's insane. Soon I'll be hanging onto his pants leg, the way he does mine now, as he boards the school bus to kindergarten. Ok, who are we kidding..I'm so going to be a carpool mom! And by the time I actually make it to the building, I'll be throwing all those kids out of our car myself...as they sing "the wheels on the bus" for the 14th time ;)

Speaking of school, we signed Corbin up for preschool (tear!) Yup, my big boy will be attending Creative Minds starting in September. Two mornings a week, I will drop him off and get 4 glorious hours to myself...oh wait, I'm supposed to be sad about this ;) Take two...oh boo hoo, what am I going to do without him..whaaaaa, whaaaa, whaaaa. Better? Yeah right, I can actually go to the bathroom alone, eat breakfast (and maybe even LUNCH!), and let's not forget that I might even be able to sit in silence for more than 3.5 seconds. I'm sorry, I think I might have been jumping up and down a little too high. Ha ha! Don't get me wrong..I think this will be really hard (at first), but probably really good for him. He'll get to socialize with other kiddos, learn to take instructions from another adult..one he doesn't know...and he'll learn that when mommy leaves, she will always come back (probably..just kidding). I know a lot of moms think 2 is too soon, but not this mom ;)

So one of the rules for him to attend at 20 months (just shy of 2) is that he has to be able to walk by himself (check..make that double check) and no separation anxiety (hmmm, not so check). Since Nanny (my mom) and Bapu (my dad...short for Bapugi...grandfather in my dad's language) live down the street...sweet lil' Corbin has never stayed with anyone he doesn't know. This might cause a problem when it comes to rule #2. I'm assuming a big problem, especially now that he recognizes when Richard or I aren't there. In order to alleviate the possibility of getting kicked out of his first school, we joined the YMCA to take advantage of the child watch program.

This was actually my "spin" on why we should join the Y, so I could expedite the whole bathroom by myself process :) Anyway, so we sign up for the Y and I head on over for my first morning of "me" time. Well, not exactly just me...me, a treadmill, and about 50 other people. Ipod, please...ok, "me" time. I'm not going to lie, I was actually really anxious about dropping him off. I didn't want him to be around sick kids..and the obvious, be all scared and sad. But it's a necessary evil we must face eventually and sooner is better than later. So through the doors of the child watch we go only to be greeted by a very nice looking "older" woman. I tell her that this was our first time dropping him off and she hands me a sticker to label him. Ha ha..too funny. So I fill out his "label" and slap it on his back while sticking my corresponding label on my shirt. Then comes the obligatory question for this mama..."Do you allow food in the kid's area?" She responds with sure, he can have anything in there....dammit! So I explain that my only concern is that he has food sensitivities and I wouldn't want him to eat any of the other kids' snacks. Then she hit me with it..."Oh hun, that's just going to be way to hard. That means they would always have to be watching him" Ummmmmm....yeah. Seriously..am I the only mom that finds several concerning points in that statement. Let's start with A) Richard doesn't even call me "hun".... B) Corbin is about to find the milk haven that he's been dreaming of since birth....but worst of all C) they would "have" to actually watch him????? Too much to process for lil' Miss Type A over here.

So I take a deep breath and decide to talk to the people who are actually "having" to watch him...not grandma at the front desk. They slap another bright orange label on poor Corbin...announcing to everyone that the "special" kid can't have any of the good stuff and they open the half door for Mr. Corbin to enter. I bring him in and also tell them he's never been with people he doesn't know, so lil' Miss 20 something starts yanking him off me. Big smile..no problem she says. The more she yanks the harder Corbin's death grip gets. "Don't leave me with crazy Joker lady, mommy." I swear that's what he would have said. So I suggest I just walk him over to this awesome train table before I leave. So I do and he barely notices I'm gone. I go run. Well, let's be honest...walk...for 15 minutes. I swear I thought if I walked faster the time would go just the same, but it didn't. And 15 minutes felt like hours. I even tried to watch the View on the TV attached to the machine to distract myself. But in the end, I barely made it 15 minutes before running (yes, this time I was running) downstairs to make sure Corbin was alright. And of course, he was. Sitting in a bean bag chair (like the big boy he is) watching the Wiggles. Big smile when he saw mommy...she came back :) We've been one other time since....still no tears have been shed...and the second time there was a nice lady's lap to curl up on and when I came back for him...this time 40 minutes later...he was laughing as she made him flap his arms like a duck. He's such a good boy (tear!)

So it turned out that I might be the one with the problem. Doesn't that suck ;) I was all stoked to have my "me" time and when it came down to it....I just wanted to be with Corbin. Of course, he's still going to preschool...especially after I saw how excited he was to play with all the other kiddos at child watch. But maybe I won't be jumping quite as high as I had imagined. Maybe I'll just skip a little...go to Starbucks and watch the second hand on the clock until I get to speed over to relieve him from joys of "freeze dancing" and puppet making. I'm sure he's going to leave kicking and screaming...so we might add a little Jack to my coffee ;) It's just the fundamentals of motherhood...you get used to one stage and here comes the next one. You get one schedule down and they decide to drop a nap..you finally get a good meal prepared to perfection and they decide to go on strike for hot dogs or chicken nuggets. I've come to learn that the key to survival is to just roll with the punches. Another gift we've been given with my new grown up boy is his grown up messes. Wow, our house looks like a tornado within 5 minutes of him waking up in the morning. In all honesty, it really doesn't bother me. I couldn't say that a year ago. It's not really a mess to me anymore. He could sit for a good 30 minutes and try to figure out how to put all the plastic forks back into the bag. Of course, they end up all over the kitchen, but to just see him discover this is amazing. To see him open a cabinet door and yank everything out because he sees his old bottle liners in the back is incredible. He actually remembers them! If you look at it that way, can you really rob him of the mess? I know I can't...and then there is the obvious. The day will come when I will wish there were plastic forks and bottle liners all over the floor. The day I will have to rediscover who I was before he was here. Unfortunately, the transition is coming in just a few short months. The transistion from child watch to preschool, from chaos to a little structure, from big kid to bigger kid, from mommy to me. But who are we kidding...maybe its just time to have another..ha ha!!

Same sh*t, different day...

2009-03-01T12:26:00.000-08:00

I love baby feet. There is something about baby feet...I don't know if it's that they are pudgy or that all the toes seem to be the same length...but I love baby feet. I hate adult feet..they totally gross me out, but man...Corbin has the cutest feet. His diaper butt is pretty sweet too, but I have to experience the not so sweet on that end, so I'll stick with those feet :)

So our saga continues....Corbin is still gassy...and still has trouble with any kind of food it seems. The poor kid has to be starving. The other day...I say other day, but it was probably 2-3 weeks ago. Our friend, Sally, brought her ultrasound picture over to show off her sweet baby boy. Georgia, Corbin's girlfriend, came along in tow. We were gabbing and the kids were playing..when I went to tickle Georgia. OMG..her belly was sooooo squishy!!! Is this normal...I had become numb to the beautiful squishiness that is a baby belly! Corbin's is always the size of a basketball and hard as a rock. It took me back to when I worked in a daycare..oh yes..me plus daycare equals...well is just not good. I LOVED this little girl in the 4 year old room. Morgan...she would come up and giggle before I could even grab her belly..so sweet! I had totally forgotten....until sweet G reminded me. So of course I go off the deep end. No sticking my toes in to test the waters...full on cannon ball, tidal wave...tsunami style. We took away everything..stripped our poor child of all his favorites...green beans, apples, peaches, pears, squash (pretty much any veggie or fruit the internet proclaimed to cause gas)...no more pasta, bread...anything with a remote amount of flavor..leaving him with bananas, avocados, sweet potatoes, and that blasted golden milkies. Within TWO days...he was a new kid. He still had gas and by the end of the day, his tummy started to form a rounded dome resembling a deflated basketball (but a basketball none the less), but he was SO happy. Didn't want me to hold him non-stop. Laughed. Talked a mile a minute..started just spouting out words he had never said before (yeah, my kid's a prodigy)...it was incredible.

So we moved on up a level of psychotic-ness and incorporated the infamous "gluten-free" diet. I was bound determined to make my kid happy...who knew the price it would cost me..literally. We stroll on in to Earthfare to recover all the necessary ingredients of the Orzma mix on Wogglebug.com. The usual suspects I had never heard of...being a gourmet chef and all...but we found them (most of them)...tapioca flour, xanthum gum, baking powder, etc. But we could not find sorghum flour (we ended up finding it in an indian grocery store as jowar flour for future reference). It was in every recipe, but because I couldn't find it....I opted for quinoa flour, since it was in the gluten-free pasta he had already and seemed to sit well. So we go home and I whip up the first batch. The moment I opened that quinoa flour..I almost THREW UP..blah! It smelled like pure cement. I'm not exaggerating....ok, maybe a little, but it smelled like sh@t! But I thought after the $75 grocery bill on less than 10 things and no coupons to save my wallet...Corbin was gonna eat it! So I decided to make pizza dough. Only because it didn't call for any milk subsitute or eggs (being careful after those freakin' chickens ruined our day)...and made little balls..thinking they would be like biscuits. So I cooked them for the 10 minutes they called for as the smell of cement filled our house and the images of hurling into the trash can started creeping into my mind. I, of course, wasn't even going to come close to tasting them...so I pawned them off on Richard...who wasn't completely unsuspecting due to the lovely odor that had invaded our house, but he ate them. He wasn't jumping for joy, but wasn't on the same puking page as I was. Next came poor Corbin. My sweet baby boy that will eat anything you put in front of him and can now spot things on the counter...would not go near those pizza rocks with a ten foot pole. I even drown them in grape jelly and NO WAY.... I wish I had a camera for that face. URGH! I think I'll deal with the gas ;) (And major props to the moms whose kids are on the gluten-free diet..I have another level of compassion for you and another level of respect if you can make that stuff edible!! I, obviously, cannot!)

Don't think the story ends there...you have to know by now that the story....never...ends! But what the hell would I write about if it did?!?!? So Richard's back is crap....evident by the episode when I told him I was pregnant (just seeing if you are paying attention..ha ha)...anyway, so he goes to a chiropractor. After he was adjusted, he explains Corbin's tummy issues to the doc. The doc says that Corbin is a prime candidate for an adjustment. So we take him...as you can imagine..Corbin was all too thrilled and basically screamed the entire time. I think we are pretty numb to it because it didn't phase either one of us. And to be completely honest, neither of us thought it was going to do any good, but figured it was worth a shot since so many other mommies claim it has worked wonders on their child. All I kept thinking was...they obviously didn't give birth to Corbin.

Well, it's been almost a week (he has another adjustment on Friday) and the basketball belly is GONE!! (knock on wood) We've given him bread (homemade) with peanut butter and yesterday he had cheddar cheese (made with goat's milk)...who knows if it was the adjustment (he said he found 3 restrictions and fixed them) or if it's the fact that I took most things away, but I'm happy. He's happy. Isn't that what matters most?? It's funny because I'm constantly worried that people think I'm crazy. I mean I know I'm crazy, but in terms of Corbin's belly. They don't see it on a daily basis and maybe I AM a new mom that doesn't know how to deal with the unknown. The uncontrollable...Type A meets....chaos. I think the lesson of the day was a hard one for me. Not everyone is the same. It seems so obvious, but so overlooked at the same time. And can you really compare apples to apples anyway..no one's circumstances are ever really the same....When people go through rough times, I jump...I go off the deep end ;) And it is sooo hard to realize that not everyone reacts the same way. When Corbin had his procedure, I was so hurt by some people's reactions and it took a long time for me to see that it didn't mean their intentions weren't good or weren't there at all. Just because they didn't jump. They are just different than I am. And who's to say how someone would react when confronted with a baby like Corbin...if they would jump or just let nature take its course. Listen to a doctor who prescribes meds or try a more unconventional route (we are trying them all!) Who's to say which is best? Coming through this..I know that I am doing what I know how to. Maybe one of these things will work or maybe its just a way to feel useful in a situation that makes me feel so helpless most of the time. Finding a new perspective...learning to see things from a different light...getting outside of your own box. It's makes life easier..may be met with slight resistance...but eventually easier. I may love baby feet. But that doesn't mean I want to miss out on the squishy belly, the sweet diaper butt, or the smell of his hair after a bath. It just means that I've found my foundation and discovering who I am and can be from there is just the next step in my journey.

Life or something like it

2009-02-17T12:04:00.000-08:00

I feel like someone just slammed on the breaks and veered right, but my mind is still stuck on the road we were just on trying to catch up. I've been lucky enough in my life to only be able to count the worst days on one hand. Yesterday ranks right up on top.

One year ago tomorrow, my father almost died. Corbin was only six weeks old, had just started colic and was just through his six week growth spurt (insert me bouncing on big red ball in bathroom here). He had a heart attack at the YMCA..no one stopped him from driving home (long story)..and then coded twice in the ER. Once in front of my mother and once in front of both of us, while Richard sat with Corbin in the waiting room. He describes it as all of a sudden being in some unfamiliar place, where he couldn't get his bearings. With something bright and blurry in the distance. He suddenly felt pain and woke up. Three months ago today, I took Corbin to Levine's Children's Hospital. I had to hold a mask on his face and watch him scream as he went limp. And yesterday...I buried a great friend. These are the worst days of my life. Just three and by chance...all within the same year (yes...we bought a lottery ticket for Wed night in hopes of ending the year on a really high note!). I miss being sheltered, I miss feeling invincible, and some days I miss those five seconds when you wake up...before you remember the troubles from the day before.

Most people, including me, wish these days would never come. Don't know what to say or do when the loss comes with the love. When the happy ending seems too far off in the distance. When your "normal" transforms one more time. But if those times never came, what would balance out the incredibly happy times? Five years ago last Friday, Feb. 13...Richard and I went on our first date. What was he thinking ;) I had said no when he asked, but at the last minute called and agreed to go "just as friends". He picked me up and we went to PF Chang's for dinner. I insisted on paying for myself...adamantly. Poor guy! After having a few drinks at the bar, they took us to this two person booth in a corner. By the end of the night, we were both talking and laughing so hard that neither of us realized that we were the only ones left in the restaurant and they had put all the chairs around us up on the tables. The next day, I told my mother that he was the man that I was going to marry. Every time we go to that restaurant, he still points out "our booth". And just four years ago this Sunday...we got engaged. He had a limo pick us up from my apartment (I had never been in a limo before) and take us to PF Chang's. We didn't get "our booth", but we did have the lettuce wraps..yuummmmmm-O! Then the limo took us to an empty lot with just a sold sign on it. Although, it would have been awesome if I didn't..but I already knew about the house ;) I'm sure our neighbors were like..what the hell! He got down on one knee and said...I wanted to ask you this where we are going to start our lives together...it was perfect!

It's so funny how life balances out. How we experience the high highs and the low lows. How fast one can come right after the other. Corbin started walking a few weeks ago. He hadn't really got it down until just recently. I was getting dressed yesterday morning and he woke up. I was trying to be fast so we wouldn't be late, so I changed his diaper and left him in his room to play. I could hear him looking for me, so I called to him that I was in my room. And right on cue..here came Corbin, not crawling as I expected, but on his two little legs, grinning from ear to ear...as if to say "look at me"!! He walked over to me, put his arms up, and gave me a big hug as I made a fuss about what a big boy he was. It was incredible.

I know that the low lows are here to remind us not to take those instants for granted. Not to miss the little light that shines through in our darkest moments. To stop and appreciate the smile of my son learning how to be just a little more independent. I know that, but I also know that you don't live each day to the fullest by doing grand, extravagant things. By taking big vacations, buying yourself something nice, by going bungee jumping....like I would ever do that anyway ;) If you knew it was your last day, what would you do? That's usually what people say in times like these....but in all honesty, I would get up each day, tell my husband I loved him, hug my son when he falls down. I would tell my friends that I can't wait to see them and plan dinner parties to make sure we don't lose touch. I would call my mom almost (ha ha) everyday and email Richard's mom. I would text message my sister (because we are sooo Gen Y..no wait..I am..she's not) and call Auntie Mimi on Skype. These are the things I would do because it is how my life is the fullest. Life doesn't give you a chance to stop and "live"....you just do it. The last thing I ever said to Karen was that I couldn't wait to see her this weekend. She passed away two days later. Life gives you opportunities to make your life full..you just have to take them. I believe that when I hit a low, life is reminding me to never have regrets, never second guess, and to live each moment. Just live it. It's not about changing what you would do on that last day, it's about not needing to.

2009-02-14T10:57:00.000-08:00

I lost a very dear friend on Thursday, Karen Byrd. You have no idea how much it pains me to even type that sentence. She was my first friend in Charlotte and has been there through all the monumental events in my life. She was who I turned to the day Richard walked into the bar...I said there was no way I would ever date him (sorry babe, I was wrong..and she always reminded me of this), she is who I called when we got engaged, who I broke it down with on the dance floor at our wedding, she went to see Knocked Up with me the day after I found out I was pregnant (yes, I hyperventilated in the parking lot afterwards...she told me I would be an amazing mother), and she came to meet Corbin the day after he was born. I should get to do the same for her.

At the risk of sounding crazy...Corbin and I were playing outside on Friday morning. It was beautiful out and the sky was completely clear. For some reason, I looked up and saw this single bird circling over the house we were in front of. It followed us down the street and circled over head, moving slowly as Corbin pushed his car. I couldn't take my eyes off it. Finally, I picked Corbin up and pointed out the bird to him. As soon as I did this, the bird began to fly away. We walked up the street to where the houses were not blocking our view and watched it fly off..never once stopping to circle anything else. We stayed there for as long as we could see the small black image disappear into the distance. This moment was so comforting to me, so peaceful. I will never forget that instant. That small black "Byrd".

Words can not describe her. She was what everyone should be..simple. Simply kind, simply generous, simply Karen. She has changed me into a better person, kept me grounded during my (many) psychotic moments and I am eternally grateful that I was privileged enough to have her in my life for the past 5 years. I pray that the grief her family feels now will lessen with each passing day and that the imprint she left on this world will be as deep as the one she left on me.

Have you hugged your Lysol today?

2009-01-31T12:09:00.000-08:00

Sure God created man before woman. But then you always make a rough draft before the final masterpeice.

I hope my head is a nice shape..because I'm seriously going to tear ALL.MY.HAIR.OUT! Watch out Britney...you ain't got nothin' on this mama (except for alleged mental issues, which I may also rival these days..jk)! I don't know how you do it....I will never be my mother. The sound of a vacuum and the smell of Clorox reminds me of being home, sick from school, laid out on a recliner, watching tv. I'm not sure Corbin will ever recognize the smell of Clorox except from the school cafeteria. God, I hate that smell. And having dinner on the table when Richard gets home from work..A) Is never going to happen even if I was Super Woman or a 1950s housewife and B) I'm sooooo not Super Woman....and ladies...this is sooooo not 1950 (where's my freakin' dinner)!

So Corbin is doing pretty well these days..hmmm, he's being Corbin these days ;) Besides getting 3 teeth at the same time, mastering the art of tantrums, and getting over the 7 year cough...he just had a minor blip in his diet..yes, you know you have developed a serious complex when you recognize you should call the egg company to find out what they are feeding their birds. Yup, you guessed it.."a diet rich in soy protein". Bastard birds! Corbin had been clingy and screaming for 2 weeks and I was at the end of my rope going through what could be the possible culprit. From sippies, to juice, to those bastard birds..urgh..those freakin' birds and their eggs! Anyway, we found the enemy..brown eggs...and have banished them. But even without the eggs...today might have been enough to strip away every last strand of my womanly identity. At least it would take less time to get ready in the morning...and just think...no need for "product" ;)

So I get up at 6:30...technically I couldn't sleep, but either way..to get ready. Corbin and I have been climbing the walls lately..seriously CLIMBING.THE.WALLS! The kid is bored with me...he sees me day in and day out..and he's sick of me. So I start hunting for things for us to do. I have a nice line up...Gymboree on Tues, Toddle time at the library on Wed...and our playgroup on Friday. That leaves Mondays for the park with Miss Jennifer and who doesn't love the afternoon playtime with Emmett and Eli :) We're good, right? Negative! Turns out..our next big delight is dropping down to one nap and do you really think Corbin is going to do it the conventional way..OH NO..we have to do it the Corbin way! Don't drop the morning nap like normal babies..bye, bye, afternoon nap and hello to day o'hell! Oh yes...he gets up at 7:30 this morning and by the time we make it to our 9:15am Gymboree class..he's yawning. Now the NORMAL child would see how fun this is and would push through that initial inkling of fatigue...urgh..not my sweet baby boy. 15 minutes into it...he's screaming..thumb in mouth..and asking to be picked up. Good grief. The teacher looks at me and is all...why is your child screaming, this is Disneyland for babies (not her exact words, but might as well have been). I chuckle and pat him on the back...cursing her in the back of my mind. It's not like there wasn't 10 other 1 year olds in the room, whom I'm sure had screamed at some point. So we leave. And although you would think this would make Corbin happy..OH NO...my kid doesn't sleep in the car..are you crazy???? He screams the whole.way.home. This combined with PMS is seriously lethal and to avoid being arrested for some out of body experience...I call to take it out on Richard. So Corbin's screaming in the backseat, I'm screaming, on the phone, in the front seat, the radio is on full blast because Corbin's favorite song "usually" soothes him, and we hit DEAD STOP traffic on 485. Are you freakin' kidding me????

Don't worry...we made it home..in one (sort of) piece. Corbin continued his lovely, inviting mood for the rest of the day and I couldn't tell you what the hell is wrong with him. Sadly, I think it was the BBQ sauce I've given him the past few days (can you believe there is milk in caramel coloring..who knew)..on top of the list I mentioned earlier..ha ha! So now you think I'm going to clean the house and make dinner..you have to be mad! I'm so exhausted that I can't believe I'm typing right now...and don't even think I'm going to feel bad about it. I haven't gotten there yet. To the place where I feel like I have control over my life again. The way I did before I decided to grow someone. This new normal is really hard to get used it...don't get me wrong I love it (sans screaming days in the middle of Gymboree)...but I just can't seem to find a system to get EVERYTHING done. All while chasing a 12 month old up and down the stairs. We still stand around at 8pm wondering what we are going to have for dinner and pick up Solo cups, popsicle sticks, or anything else Corbin has decided to turn into a toy off the floor at 8pm. And then I'm probably passed out on the couch...somewhere around 8:15pm. So how do you do it? How does everything get done?

It doesn't! So my house isn't spotless...so we eat frozen pizzas more often than one person should allow...is it really going to matter in 5 years that there is dust on the coffee table? So where I sit right now...my next step as a mother is to let go of the guilt. Cashing in a vacation day. A day away from the guilt of not keeping an immaculate house, not dishin' out a nutritious meal at the same time everyday, from missing things on the label (freakin' caramel coloring). From not knowing why my child is crying, from getting frustrated because of it. We're not perfect and being a mother just adds more pressure. More pressure to do everything right. Those 1950s wives used to make me feel inadequate...like I should know what I'm doing...sh*t, I think I'm being productive if I dry my hair at some point during the day! I wish there were more real examples out there..that depict the effort that goes into getting through a day with a munchkin attached to your pants leg. So here's to us..pat yourself on the back today. Who cares how much TV your kid watches! Who cares if you are eating chinese takeout for the 3rd day in a row! Who cares if the bathroom is in some serious need of TLC! I may not be able to keep up with those crazy ol' timey chicks, but I do go to bed smiling every night. Motherhood isn't as black and white as my previous career...some things go wrong..some things get pushed to the back burner, but its the end of the day that matters. We all wake up the next morning with the troubles of the day before behind us and a smiling, happy baby in front of us...that makes us super women. He's not smiling because his diaper is clean..that's for sure..he's smiling because he thinks I'm super at my job :)

Walkin' in Corbs Winter ONE-derland

2009-01-25T18:21:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Mitchell from Lost....gotta love Lost.... said in an interview recently that as a mother you become the maker of your child's magic. This has become my new motto in recent weeks. Just seeing the look on his face the first time he sees something is AWESOME...he even looks back at me as if to say "Did you see that?!?!" As always, it will come as no surprise that his birthday party was no different...and as always, I went way overboard to ensure this sweet lil' look.

So Corbin's Winter ONE-derland was a huge success. I got an insane amount of decorations (hello, on sale) and there was barely an inch of our downstairs left untouched. We hung snowflakes all over..down the foyer hall, all over the living room, in the kitchen, and in the doorway leading into the dining room. We put snowflakes all over the window in the dinette and let blue, silver, and white balloons float all over the living room. I left the Christmas tree up for what felt like decades and put pine cones randomly on the branches. I sprayed the entire ONE side with fake snow much to Richard's dismay, but if he doesn't like it next year..I'll just turn in around ;) I used snowman picture frames to put a picture from each month of his first year on his new magnetic chalkboard wall in the kitchen and wrote "Happy Birthday King Corbin" on it. To top it off..we are still picking up tiny sparkly snowflake confetti :) It was strategically placed around all the food, drinks, and fake snowmen adorning our house!

We served a "chilly" bar with beef and chicken chili, along with any topping we could think of...onions, cheese, olives, cilantro (my favorite!), etc. Richard's mom helped me make a cheese (ball) igloo..there were supposed to be olive penguins, but we got tired....chocolate covered strawberries, a veggie tray, snowman cookies, muddy buddies, and baked brie. I made him a special cake (non-dairy, non-soy, no eggs..for good measure) that looked similar to the cheese igloo. We'll just say it started off square and after a few hours of "almost peeing my pants" laughter with the in-laws...we made his igloo. He ate the entire thing! Shocker..not! Of course, I wasn't about to leave out a cake for everyone else, so I ordered a cupcake cake from Target in the shape of a snowman. We still have 22 cupcakes left..ha ha!

I showed my video right before serving the cake and got a pull string pinata in the shape of a one for little kid fun. It was actually a huge hit and Emmett had plenty of time to steal all the cotton candy Dum-Dums...seeing as all the other kids kept filling their bags then dumping them over to start again. I think he was quite thrilled about that..more for him :)

I know this party was more for me than him..but you should have seen the look on his face when he saw those snowflakes. Magic. The kind he creates for me. Its funny how raw your emotions become after giving birth to your child...like he hit a switch on the way down (sorry for the visual..ha ha). I tear up at the smallest things these days and I used to pride myself on being such a hard a**. I don't know why. My sensitive side must have matured along with me through the pregnancy. I even cried at Monster-in-law...seriously..Jennifer Lopez meets Jane Fonda...that's the one! Any song that comes on the radio that even has a inkling of mom meets baby..dad loves baby..baby grows up...I'm gone! What the hell happened??? I'm a softy! Or maybe its that I didn't really see things before Corbin..just skimmed the surface. I didn't notice the look on a baby's face when he learned how to pick up a Puff out of mom's hand and put it in his mouth. I didn't notice the excitement in his eyes when daddy came home from work. I didn't know the feeling of a baby kiss or what we like to call a drive-by cuddle. These things are what I now consider life. I don't miss the days I slept in because I would miss watching Blue's Clues in bed with Corbin and Richard. I don't miss buying $200 jeans because now they just hang in my closet and anytime I see them..I think..that could have been a night in the mountains with my husband. I don't hide my tears when I watch Corbin's first year video for the 800th time (yes, I hid in the kitchen while it played at his party) because it means I'm feeling the importance and the purpose of those moments...the joy, the sadness, the frustration, the love. They are my magic and I owe them all to Corbin....so the least I could do, is try to create them for him. :)

The King and I

2009-01-11T15:35:00.000-08:00

Go Corbin..It's your birthday..not a holiday..go, go! (He even does the white man dance while I'm singing to him). Yup..my baby turned one today. A pretty exciting milestone..which I was particularly sentimental about given the circumstances of the past year. This one, of course, was no different than any other expected event in Corbin's life. Urgh!

I have a very defined...let's call it..passion for details. I like to refer to it as things done "Alissa" style. So don't think for one minute that Corbin's first birthday party would slip through the fine cracks that have become apparent in the throws of raising the king of our castle. After researching..oh yes..researching...ideas for his party, I settled on a Winter ONE-derland BRRR-thday party. It was perfect seeing as I could get all the decorations, presents, etc. on crazy sale right after Christmas (to keep in line with our coupon/savings fetish)...which I did again "Alissa" style;) I collected this stuff and stored it on our dining room table until there was fake snow, bags of bouncy balls, and snowman cookies pouring off the edges...and now, there is also crap all over the floor :) Hey..it was 75% off, so shoot me! Anyway..the week before his party our king threw (and trust me..literally) a tiny kink into my passionate plans.

So Corbin started puking his brains out..pretty fitting I would say. Tuesday morning, we discovered he had gotten sick in his crib and continued this disgusting trend any time I fed him for the next 24 hours. On top of this wonderful birthday gift to himself, he also gave it to Richard. So by Tuesday night...both boys were laid out with tummy aches while I ran around like Richard looking for our hospital bag the night I went into labor....may I remind everyone, I had packed it a month earlier and it was sitting next to the door...so it will come as no surprise that I ended up preying to the porcelain god by Wednesday night. Our pediatrician assured us that Corbin would tragically fail at his attempt to derail my birthday extravaganza. His stomach bug would be long gone by then. Do I really need to tell you that he was BIG.FAT.WRONG? Yeah, I didn't think so..freakin' kid puked all over me on Friday morning and the illness moved south in his poor lil' body by Saturday morning. Needless to say..it was a fun week in the Bray house.

We postponed his party and almost everyone will still be able to make it, so he will get to be my baby for just a few more weeks. In reality, he's already become a toddler..good grief that kid is everywhere. We have to admit that he actually couldn't have rung in his first year in any better way than throwing up. I had almost forgotten what it was like to flinch every time he coughed or burped..ha ha! ;) With the flashback, I made a few pit stops along the way. The few weeks he spent in between our pillows with a small nightlight on top of his bed..how Rocky would squeeze up next to it, so we were barely hanging on..let alone sleeping. The time Richard learned the hard way to cover up lil' boy goods after you take him out of the bath...yup, the entire right side of his pants were a casualty in that one. All the times our sweet baby boy hung off the front of me..passed out..as we came to the end of our morning walks. It just seems so funny how these things had completely erased the days we spent bouncing on our exercise ball in the bathroom and the complex he gave us anytime a baby burped (to all my mommy-to-be friends..make sure you have a burp cloth..or receiving blanket in our case..handy!). So this friendly reminder of what once was is also our closure...of what WAS. I'm feeling particularly sentimental about his birthday..the day our lives really began... because this feels like the end of a challenging time in our lives....and the continuation of the best ones. Here's to you, King Corbin...Happy Birthday!!

I don't think cookies will be enough...

2008-12-28T12:14:00.000-08:00

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we cannot foresee. ~Marian Wright Edelman

When is the last time you saw a movie? I love the movies, but am never motivated to go anymore. It always seems like there are so many things to do and they are so much easier without a lil' one in the backseat...whining because he's bored out of his gourd, so I usually choose the boring stuff over the movies when we can get away for a small moment. We haven't seen a movie since the week after Corbin was born..almost to the minute to be exact. I had the baby blues and was upstairs crying, reading What to Expect the First Year, when Richard decided it was time to step away ;) Pretty funny looking back on it now, but that was the best movie I've ever seen...Juno...I liked it, but with the reminder that the world still exists outside these four walls...there was a special touch added to the experience. Well, we decided it was time again last night..almost an entire year later...to venture down to our local theater and spend two glorious hours in someone else's world. Will Smith's to be exact.

Seven Pounds. Not exactly the Christmas delight you would hope for on the weekend after this glorious holiday, but we thought it looked worth the $17 it cost for the freakin' matinee and it was. I won't spoil it for you, but it was sad in the same weird sense as the Bucket List. A necessary "too bad the world is the way it is" way. It was sad that Will Smith's circumstances were what they were, but it was beautiful what he could do, and was willing to do, for other people. Good people. While sitting in the theater, it hit me like a ton of bricks...I think someone did this for us. No, no one gave us an organ, but possibly did something incredible for us...maybe without knowing it.

So I'm almost sick of writing about this, but we are going to beat this dead horse one more time. Drum role please....Oh yes..you guessed it..Corbin's infamous "procedure"...oi vey! So here goes..I promise, this is the last time, but trust me...its a good one. So on a financial note..it really sucked. Since Richard changed jobs in September, our insurance changed for the third time since Corbin was born. First, we added him to TWC, then I quit, so we went onto Richard's old job's insurance, and finally, we are now on Richard's new job's insurance...and although it's not crazy expensive...we have acquired quite a deductible. $4K quite a deductible..those insurance bastards. We are even arguing with Cigna (the old job's insurance) at the moment because they are claiming Corbin had a pre-existing condition..yes..a four month old..with a pre-existing condition..insurance bastards! Soooo, the cost was an obvious and unavoidable detail in our quest to feed Corbin something other than his golden milkies. The sucky part was that we saved a good amount of money while I was pregnant as a security blanket in case anything happened and I had to be on bed rest...trust me, I asked every time I went to the doctor..in hopes of slightly high blood pressure or a little protein in my pee. Nothing life threatening, just a little break from hauling a small whale around all day ;) I'm sure my fellow mommy-to-bes would concur. Well, Corbin didn't follow through on giving this mommy a break, so we used a good portion of the money to pay off our car, so I could stay home. I guess that was a pretty decent consolation prize. :) We still had some in our account to save for a rainy day that our beautiful baby boy decided to eat..literally. After his milk addiction hit an all time high around 6-7 months, we were able to start inflating that baby back up. This is like Zoloft to an accountant...until someone swiped my drug supply somewhere around "$4k deductible"..those insurance bastards. So while I was on my way to a MacBook, Corbin's belly took precedence. We figured everything would work out, so we just took a deep breath and made the call to make the appointment.

Now let me tell you about my favorite nurse...we'll call her Nurse Nancy (this one goes to Richard..for some reason he finds this fake name very amusing). She has answered the 700 calls I've made to Corbin's GI office. It even got to the point that when I said "This is Alissa"..she would say "Corbin, right?" I responded with "Wow, I must call a lot." :) She claimed that it was just that since they were still trying to diagnose him...she was familiar with his case. I, personally, think it was cause I call too much ;) New mom with a screaming baby syndrome. Nurse Nancy even bumped us up in line when it came to doing the biopsy. We were supposed to wait two weeks and she called on the Friday morning before with a cancellation for Monday....she had booked us early :) We heart Nurse Nancy. Out of curiosity and planning purposes (like it even mattered at this point), I asked if she could let me know how much it would cost us..because of those insurance bastards and their deductible. Of my bloggy friends who know me..I must add that for the first time..these weren't my exact words. She called back with better news than I was expecting, but still quite a hit to our poor sad "Zoloft" account. But it was worth it, so I'd just have to wait on my MacBook.

So we got through that day, then Thanksgiving, and now Christmas. A couple of weeks ago we received our medical bills. Much to our surprise...there was a big fat ZERO next to the "you owe this amount" line. There was a small bill for the laboratory...well smaller than the total we were expecting..but all the other bills equaled NADA. Definitely thinking it was a mistake, Richard contacted BCBS to find out what was going on. It turned out that the procedure and the anesthesia were supposed to be approved prior to the actual event. This never happened, so by law, they had to eat the cost! Oh yes...eat like almost $5K for the anesthesia (it took 15 minutes..possibly just 5) and almost $7K for the actual endoscopy (for 30 minutes of work and 30 minutes of making us feel like sh*t)...leaving us with a measly $480 for the lab work :) WTF...not that I'm complaining..but seriously...WTF!

So I'm sitting there watching Seven Pounds and the last conversation I had with Nurse Nancy dawned on me. After she called to move up our day and I asked her the price of the therapy inducing day o' fun, I said..and I quote...if my son can have birthday cake for his first birthday, I will pay you a million dollars...not that I have a million dollars, crap, I have no idea how we're going to pay for this. Nurse Nancy already knew about the $4K deductible (and the insurance bastards) plus she had already confirmed that she got the fax of our new insurance that Richard had sent over when she gave us the quote on how much it would end up being. So what do you think happened? I know what I think. Maybe she accidentally forgot to get it approved or maybe it was someone else in the office. Maybe the 72 hours it takes to get insurance approval was a moot point because she called on Friday and the procedure would be Monday...maybe she moved us up for that purpose. Or maybe we slipped through the cracks and got a special gift from the universe that could see that these two struggling parents needed to catch a break...needed a small pat on the back for whatever it is that we had done...good or bad. All I know is that I like to believe that there are people like Will Smith in this world. And I'm choosing to believe that Nurse Nancy was ours.

I started bawling in the car after the movie. Thinking that this is what could have happened. That someone could have seen what we were going through..what people go through everyday...and decided to give us a little light at the end of a hard year. We have seen a lot in the past 12 months. We've hit some rough times..I'm sure there will be worse in our future (like the day Corbin steals our car and wrecks it into a State Trooper..oi) and we have seen the beauty that is the simplest and most precious gifts someone can receive. The worst in people and the best. I have spent the past year focused on my own issues...reforming who I am and deciding who I need to become. It has been a rich journey and I have accidentally documented the entire thing. Just another gift I didn't know I was giving myself. I know this is a defining time in my life and what started out as just the pure love of writing, has become the reminder of the best and hardest things we face in life. With this, my New Year's resolution is the stop looking inward and start looking outward. This life isn't all about what I have done for my own family, but what I can also do for others. Nurse Nancy helped me see that. So in the next year, I hope I can help someone else see what she has shown me and give them the gift of a light at the end of their tunnel.

Peek-a-boo

2008-12-12T13:10:00.000-08:00

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss

Life goes on. Sometimes on and on and on. Other times it seems like the end of the world, but in the end...life goes on. I'm sitting in my living room. Everything is sooo still and all I can hear is the sound of Corbin's white noise machine through the monitor. I don't get very many moments like this and due to my type A personality...very few urges to enjoy them. There are toys everywhere...and I mean EVERYWHERE, dishes all in the sink, and dust on the hardwood floor under the foyer table...along with slober handprints next to it. But I'm just sitting in my living room. It's so peaceful in my one small moment.

We got the results to Corbin's biopsy and as predicted, they were normal. This, of course,fantastic news...although, it's almost a reminder that some people were right and I was..I'll say it...wrong. I could hear them thinking "I told ya so"..even though they wouldn't dare say it. The really good thing that is came out of the procedure was that we know Corbin is just fine. I know now that it was a series of necessary events to come to the current place where we are...a way of molding me into this mother I have become. Even though, I truly believe this..and love how Sally rolls her eyes everytime I say this next bit (Exactly why I love her) along with my husband's complete annoyance by it...I still struggle with the guilt of thinking I put my family through something completely unnecessary and very difficult. I used to be this girl who was SO opinionated...still am to an extent...but I've learned that you shouldn't really have an opinion if you've never felt what you are judging. I was going to put Corbin in daycare and keep my career, I wasn't going to be that first time mom that called the pediatrican at the first sight of a runny nose, I was going to know exactly what I was supposed to do. It's a humbling thing when you find out that you have no idea what you are talking about. ;) And a very adult thing to admit it. So...so far we've given Corbin white meat and he did awesome. Chows down on some chicken...one step closer to only having to make one meal. And we heard from the dietician, as promised. She told me that it could possibly be the fiber that Corbin's body is having a hard time with and, as the doc mentioned, we would have to train it to digest the cereal grain. So I started trying...he had oat teething biscuits and although he got pretty gassy, he didn't scream or stop eating like before. I'm elated by this!

I just can't get over how we all grow up so fast. Just a few weeks ago, I looked at Corbin and realized he was a little boy. Yes I know that I am stating the obvious, but he wasn't a baby anymore. He no longer needs me to do certain things and at times makes that quite clear! I can tell him things and he actually does them (give him a few years...I mean months..... and I could be singing a different song)...it's insane to me to think that just 11 short months ago, he could barely open his eyes. Now if I tell him he can't go up the stairs without mommy..he comes BACK DOWN! Talk about development. He has also started to fight growing up! Can you even imagine that this lil' guy already knows that we forever just want to be young again???? Always looking back at what once was! He refuses to feed himself and drink from a sippy. Just wants mommy to do it. And I don't mean with a utensil..I mean with his freakin' fingers. Nope not having it. Richard finally got him to do it and we went CRAZY..YAY, YAY, YAY...he immediately got hysterical. As if to say...this is all happening too fast :( I agree, Corbin.

Sometimes he stops playing to crawl over and give me a hug or a kiss then returns to his curiosity. I must be doing something right. We all grow up way too fast. Just 11 months ago....I was a baby too. And now, especially after his procedure...I'm not a baby anymore. I see things through different eyes. Through grown-up eyes. 11 months ago I was someone who had it all figured out. And now, I don't have a clue. All I know..all I need to know..... is that I love my son and my husband. Do you really have to figure anything else out? Does everything have to have a rhyme or reason...a logical order? I've learned to keep it simple. People are who they are...only our circumstances change...we control how we react to them. My circumstances felt like the end of the world to me, but they weren't. They were just another step in my growing process. And at the other side, I grew A LOT. But I've noticed something else in this "process"..I get to be young again. I was sitting in my living room yesterday watching Corbin. He was ecstatic that I let him play with the paper towels in our closet. Such a small thing. I just watched him for at least 20 minutes thinking that I am so lucky to have these minutes, not only to be with him, but to enjoy the little things that I took for granted just 11 months ago. I had lost this girl that I once was. Free spirited, passionate, strong. I grew up and forgot all of those things..replaced them with the responsibilities of Corporate America and through Corbin...I found her again!

2008-11-18T07:19:00.000-08:00

Click...I unsnapped Corbin's car seat and he quickly swooped his arms around to play with the red button on the buckle. He was completely starving, tired, and oblivious. I wrapped him in Big Blue so he wouldn't catch a cold and we headed towards the hospital. It was so different, but exactly the same. As the doors parted to allow us into the bright lobby, I noticed a volunteer getting a tour....the irony was definitely not lost on me. We made our way under the waves of iron cascading from the ceiling with tiny crystals...dreamcatchers...dangling in the light. "Last name"...Bray..."First name"...Corbin..."Has he ever been here before?"....no.

But we had. Just before I got pregnant, Richard and I began volunteering at this very hospital. I rocked the babies in the PACU and he helped cheer up the sick kids. We wanted to give back some of our time and also share in an experience we believed would bring us closer together...help us appreciate all the gifts we had. I remember going in one Friday night and comforting a very tiny newborn. He was covered from head to toe in Vaseline. There was a stack of Vaseline containers against the wall next to his bassinet with a sign instructing the nurses to only use them on him. He had a congenital skin disorder that caused his skin to just flake off. Without the Vaseline, it would be painful. No one was allowed to use his Vaseline because the parents could not afford it and were frantically taking donations so that they could care for their new baby. I can't remember his name, but I'll never forget his face. On the other side of the hospital, Richard had seen a little girl, around 2, sitting on a nurse's lap at the station. Katie Bug. She was playing with the screen in front of her...helping the nurse take her white blood cell count. She knew exactly what to do...all she wanted to do was play with the other kids in the toy room, but unfortunately, her count wasn't high enough.

By no means am I trying to compare our situation to these, but it just felt ironic that I could suddenly understand the worry these parents must have felt. We checked Corbin in and waited. He cruised around the lobby...kissing the stuffed animals in the gift shop and banging on the glass at the cars outside. Finally they took us up. We walked and walked and walked...went through several doors with keypad locks...and made our way to a door with a sign reading "endoscopy" on the outside. I didn't expect to walk into THE room. But we did..machines everywhere, nurses everywhere, and a tiny TV playing cartoons to distract Corbin. We soon found out that we had to stay while they put him to sleep and then we would be escorted back to the waiting area while the procedure was performed. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I won't describe it..I'll spare you the details..but I will say that we both cried the entire time...words can't describe the image, especially when its your child. The procedure took about 45 minutes and then the doc came to talk to us. He was anything, but sensitive. Probing on why we saw an allergist, why we thought there was a problem. I left feeling as though I might just be imagining Corbin's issues. Gotta love doctors with great bedside manner. Turns out that everything was normal, no tissue damage and no sign of anything out of place...but we are still waiting on the biopsy results. He was confident it would come back normal and we should just keep giving him different foods to see if he has a reaction...and if he does, just keep giving that particular food to him to see if he gets used to it. Must be easy to say when he's not your child.

We went to recovery, where Corbin was understandably screaming and fed him. He ate just like normal and once he was all dressed in his favorite PJs, he was a happy boy. We took him home and it was as if it never happened. He was happy, took naps, ate like a champ...he was a lil' trooper. Seeing us now, you would never know. Seeing Katie Bug's parents...you would have no idea. I've become so aware of the people around me...wondering what their personal struggles are. Could they have a baby at Levine's? Could they have just lost their job and worried about how to feed their family? I saw a woman yell at a cashier yesterday at our grocery store because she wasn't moving fast enough. What if that cashier went to see her sick child before her shift? Would that have ever crossed this woman's mind? Probably not. I wish that woman had seen Katie Bug. It's funny how the smallest thing you say to someone could make or break them...people you don't even know. As we walked out of that hospital that day, we both needed a small pat on the back. We came home to a nice meal from my mom and a good friend's company that night. She'll never know it, but her words will stay with me for a very long time. Life's funny like that. No one is aware of their true impact. I try to tell people when they look nice....when they've said something funny...when they've helped me through another day. Actions may speak louder than words, but sometimes the words are what help us get back up the next day.

I do

2008-11-13T07:45:00.000-08:00

I promise to laugh with you and cry with you, To stand by your side and sleep in your arms... ~From our wedding vows :)

So yesterday was our 3 year anniversary...Yup, 3 years ago today I was opening envelopes full of free cash and packing to head off to Maui tomorrow...urgh, those were the days. Just a short 3 years later...I'm sitting in front of a computer, not showered, haven't brushed my teeth, dreaming about noon so I can down the leftover fries in the fridge. Shit...hold on..I'm gonna eat them now ;) Oh what time will change. We had an awesome day planned...nope, not going to a fancy dinner..nope, not going on a fancy trip...hello, do you people not keep up...those were things the old, fancy Alissa and Richard did...so you guessed it, we were going to order in and catch up on DVR. I don't think I've ever been so excited in my life to ship the bambino off to Grandma's and bunker in with the hubby. And Chinese...And Brothers and Sisters, Eli Stone, Lipstick Jungle..basically anything that comes on after 9pm. Have a kid..you'll understand. So we woke up and I called Grandma to tell her that we'd be dropping the lil' one off after Richard picked up Chik-Fil-A and Starbucks..only to find out my nephew had a bad virus complete with fever and vomitting! Boo..don't get me wrong, poor Emmett and Erica, but boo! We obviously couldn't risk a stomach bug with the upcoming biopsy, so we were forced to come up with Plan B. Grandma came over for a fun filled day of Corbin sans vomiting and fever...and we set out on a day of whatever we could find to do.

So we started out at Cracker Barrel...a nice consolation prize to Chik-Fil-A I might add..but we got Starbucks anyway. I have to say...CB added a new breakfast skillet to their menu that I wish was in our fridge right now. Yummm...fries and eggs...I swear I'm not pregnant. (God that would suck at this point). After breakfast, we headed to Concord Mills. I HATE Concord Mills. It reminds me of this HORRIBLE job I had for a short time. Seriously, it was like a stop light in a small town...if you blinked (is blinked a word?), you would have probably missed it. Anyway, a friend of mine and I used to head to Concord Mills to escape the insanity of this place at lunch and it makes me want to vomit anytime I think of those bright yellow floors. BUT seeing as we are in money saving mode..we thought we would try it out..give the ol' girl another shot. Man, we hit the mother load! We were supposed to be Christmas shopping, but of course, just shopped for Corbin the entire day...yes..have kids..you'll understand. We found t-shirts for $1.99 and polos for $.99 at Children's Place and we stocked up for next summer. Richard and I, all along, arguing about what size to get. He, of course, thinks Corbin will be a baby forever, so would have had him in 6 months clothes when he was 2 ;) We also got him this awesome turtle costume for next Halloween for $5.99!! What a great day! Thanks for puking, Emmett!! As a splurge, we bought Corbin his favorite bubbles from Gymboree and headed home to show him. He was ecstatic and Grandma said she would stay so we could go to Chili's since those Buffalo Chicken Bites had been calling my name from inside the tv. They are like sliders, but AWESOME...hold on..I have to go grab them from the fridge ;) Yummmm-o! So all in all, it turned out to be a nice day even though it wasn't exactly what we had planned. Happy Anniversary, Dickey!

When we stopped at Starbucks yesterday morning, there were news crews and a helicopter flying overhead. We asked what was going on, but no one seemed to know. We figured it was an armed robbery, but someone said there was an ambulance that took someone away. Sad that we just assumed robbery, like we are totally numb to the crime that's happening in Charlotte, but it turned out that a man had run into the ladies restroom and left a newborn baby!! Just a few hours old. That poor baby boy...it makes me want to go and get him. While everyone feels so sorry for that sweet lil' baby, I can't help but feel sorry for his mother too. It's obvious that people will worry for him, but what kind of situation must you be in to think your best solution is to leave him in a bathroom in McDonald's. Giving birth..no post-natal care..I couldn't pee for 3 days after having Corbin (TMI sorry)...I can't imagine the pain she must be in. My hope is that that sweet boy will use this as his strength and someday you'll see him again...maybe even as president :) Life is never what we picture it to be. If it was, it wouldn't be fun. Sad at times, difficult at others, but making it through those times is what makes the easy times so much sweeter. So much more worth it. I scheduled Corbin's biopsy this morning. Dec. 1 at 11am....he'll be snoozin' in dreamland while they check out his belly. We are still trying to get over the reaction he had to the one bowl of oatmeal and two Cheerios I gave him. Poor lil' guy even got a yeast rash from it. The new horror is that whenever he hurts he calls "mama"..god it was awful. Richard was holding him and he was just reaching for me crying "mama"..there was nothing I could do...nothing but time makes it better.

I've gotten a little more perspective on the situation lately. While focusing on the struggle of Corbin's mysterious ailment, I realized that its actually a compliment. What if, the universe was waiting for us. Knew we were the best thing for Corbin...the people who would give Corbin everything he needed and would be able to help him more than anyone else. What if you get what you can handle in life? You get what you need to find your true meaning. I always knew I was supposed to be a mother. I even took hell for it at my first job...like it was a flaw I had..to want to be a mother and stay at home with them. What if this characteristic..this drive...this passion is my gift to give back? Make Corbin's life better than anyone else could. I believe this. What if that sweet baby boy ended up with the wrong parents...or his true parents couldn't have him for some unfortunate reason...they are just waiting for him....his unique journey is how he finds those people who will help him find his true meaning. Life isn't as we planned...there will always be a Plan B, C, D, .....Z. I love that...I love that my joy will always be based on my struggle...will always make me stronger, happier, a more beautiful person. Time will heal the pain of the journey ...and with time, you'll find your true "plan" :)

Sit, Rocky, Sit...F*@#in' SIT!!!!

2008-11-06T12:38:00.000-08:00

Babies control and bring up their families as much as they are controlled by them; in fact ... the family brings up baby by being brought up by him.-- Erik H. Erikson

So I'm standing in the front yard, Corbin on one hip. "Come"..no response..."Come here"...no response..."Come here, NOW"..small step forward..."Do you want a treat?"...I've never seen that fat dog run so freakin' fast. My fake alpha male voice doesn't even work a bit...just makes me sound like an amateur imitation of Darth Vader..I mean come on..its a dog. Aren't dogs man's best friend? Would your best friend make you look like an ass in front of all your neighbors? Hmm, that's questionable, but seriously..I think I've ruined the dog. He listened GREAT when Rich and I started dating. Now he's ruined. I'm hoping this isn't foreshadowing my future as a crappy mother. We always tell friends we HATE it when people claim they have dogs as practice for kids. Do you wipe your dog's butt? Do you hand feed your dog? Do you rock your dog to sleep at 2am? Yeah, my point exactly...but do you think that it's discipline training? Is Corbin going to be hell on wheels because I've ruined the dog proving that I can't discipline ANYTHING?? I swear..I'm a good mother.

Our life has gotten a little tougher lately. Corbin has come to the end of the fruits and veggies train and is now seriously eating us out of house and home. I'm assuming that thin nasty formula and veggies just aren't cutting it and you should see his poor lil' face when his little friends get to eat cheesecake while I offer him mushy sweet potatoes. In an effort to make all our lives a little easier, I called the GI and asked for an allergist recommendation. Along with a specific doc's name from a woman on CM, I found Dr. Gray Norris. I set up an appointment with my future savior for a consultation and a skin test. You would think that if most women dread vaccinations, having your child's back pricked over 2 dozen times would strike a small amount of anxiety in you, but at this point, I would take a day of hell over what we have been through in the past 10 months, so let's just get it over with. So we go. Lil' Corby was in heaven. A new place with a big shiny box (aka..the TV) and steps to climb on. That waiting room was his next Gymboree. So we wait..and wait..and wait. Finally after they haul someone off in an ambulance (very encouraging might I add), they call us back. The doc comes in and asks Corbin's history..so I start my list of reactions...milk, soy, rice, and his six month shots. He decides that a skin test would help us out, so he leaves, we strip Corbs, pop in Baby Einstein into the lap top, and we're good to go. They do the test, with just a few tears from our lil' trooper, and the results are in. HE ISN'T ALLERGIC TO ANYTHING! "You are freakin' kidding me?!?!?!?" Those were my exact words. "Yes, 9 times out of 10, the GIs are right, but this happens to be the one time they are wrong." His exact words!!! He tells us that our son has no allergies and does not have acid reflux. Might I remind everyone that a certain someone got a part-time job to pay for formula that this man is telling us we didn't need. (This is where I pick my jaw up off the floor) Deep breath....so the next part of the tale....

Apparently, you can have another type of allergy called Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EE). It's a good thing I'm typing because I can't pronounce it. It's where white blood cells get trapped in your belly, throat, and small intestine and attack certain foods when you eat them..causing the blood and severe pain. Does anyone else think its a good thing that kids don't remember anything before the age of 3? Yeah, me too. Too bad I have to remember it....Anyway, So we have to do a blood test to see if this is what is wrong with Corbin. If it is, then he just takes a med and he's good to go on even REGULAR formula. "I'm sending our GI a bill." My exact words. Next trauma of the day...holding our child down, so they can take blood out of his arm like a big boy. As you can imagine..red face, gagging, hyperventilating...and Corbin didn't do much better..jk! So he screamed, cried, turned red, gagged, and by the end, Richard and I needed a serious cocktail..or possibly 3. So the wait was on...he promised we'd know by Monday, but one week later, we got the results yesterday. NEGATIVE...urgh! The nurse says to just expand his diet slowly..thanks for calling. I went through the roof! Yup, the doc called us personally.....turns out that the blood test just lowers the chance, but isn't absolute. We are currently challenging him with foods he has shown a reaction to..if he has another reaction, they will have to biopsy tissue from his belly to see if the white blood cells are in there. He made it sound simple, but it just sounds scary.

So I gave Corbin oatmeal this morning. I'm not usually an emotional person, but I cried through the entire thing. He, of course, laughed and gobbled it up because he loves anything that he "can" eat. This just made it worse because in the back of my mind I was imagining him screaming 24 hours later. I guess that's not for me to know right now. I guess it's just one more thing you can't control in someone else's life. It's funny how connected you are to your child. I know there is something wrong and no one would listen to me. I just want my baby to have a birthday cake. Isn't that sad. Somehow smashing your face into a milk-free, soy-free, gluten-free "cake" just doesn't have the same effect..shit..even icing has butter in it. It's like my "he's ok" moment...if he gets his cake. I don't care about the money we've spent or the time and effort worrying, getting frustrated about something I don't understand. Just let it be over..just give him his cake. I don't think you should be judged on the demeanor of your child..whether he sits nicely in a restaurant or whether he learned to walk before he got teeth. How about to watch tv or not watch tv? To cry it out or not cry it out? Who cares??? Who gives a shit if he sleeps through the night because guess what..there will always be something that keeps you up. I want my baby to make the same mistakes I made in life, to have the same fun I have in life. I don't want to read labels anymore, I don't want to be sad when he watches me eat pizza then run through the list in my head of all the things in it that would hurt him. Just give him his cake. So as Rocky manipulates me in the front yard...I don't feel like someday I will be a failure as a parent because he is so resistant until I give him what he wants. I've already succeeded. I bitched at my ped and GI for 10 months that something was wrong..that it was more than a milk allergy. I researched anything from milk allergies to being allergic to DHA (for cryin' out loud) to what order I should test food and guess what, my mommy intuition was right...within 30 minutes of seeing Dr. Norris we got more answers than 10 months worth of questions and unnecessary meds from two other people. No one can "train" to know all the right answers, to do all the right things, to be a good parent...it just comes with the territory. So you just wait...Corbin will have that cake AND eat it too!!

Like a bra...support the girls :)

2008-10-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass. ~Maya Angelou

Its no secret that women are not nice to other women. It's crazy...we are supposed to unite, band together, be one with each other, blah, blah, blah dee freakin' blah! It doesn't work that way...it must be in our nature to be manipulative, nasty, and down right mean at times. Guys just kick the sh*t out of each other and then shake hands. I'm not sure which one is more bizarre. This fact never really registered with me...it rubbed me the wrong way from time to time, but never really registered until I became a stay-at-home mom. I guess I had more to focus on when I was working and life was all about me, but I'm not gonna lie...it's lonely down here. I had this naive vision of play dates and Gymboree....lovely story time at the local library...before Mr. Corbin took over my world and social life..but reality, schedules, and interfering nap times set in REAL fast once he showed up. So here I sit..typing away..just waiting for a little peep coming from the room next door...

I can remember two weeks after Corbin was born..yes, in the middle of January...taking him for a walk around the block. My neighbor actually stopped her car and asked what the hell I was doing..I HAD TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE..AHHHHHH! My obvious response..because two weeks doesn't sound that long until you are stuck in the house with a screaming baby, barely able to walk up or down the stairs, and have seen enough Dr. Phil to start charging by the hour anytime the phone rang. Yes, that short-lived walk was just the beginning. Not long after my "bad mother" walk of shame back home....I spotted another mother in our neighborhood as I drove home from the grocery store. It was like a dog salivating at his food dish after being denied sustenance for 3 days. I pretended to check the mail at least 3 times hoping she would walk down our street...no go! It sounds so pathetic, but I'm a pretty social person and it was killing me. When Corbin was about 3 months old, I started meeting other mothers through http://www.charlottemommies.com/ and eventually we organized a "Hump Day" play date. Every Wednesday morning, my new 4 friends came over and we would discuss every new milestone, new challenge, and the next thing our husbands had done to piss us off :) 4 boys and a girl all around the same age. It was exactly what I needed and we still meet weekly now. It's so nice to know that someone else is on the same page as I am...going through the same ups and downs as I am. Someone who understands the depth of love you can have for your child and still have those days where you wonder where the hell you went wrong in life ;) Those women have made a WORLD of difference in my experience as a mother and of course, my sanity. We have become so close and have the occasional mommy's night out...going out for drinks or even to a funny show (thanks to Jenn)! I can't stress this enough..you can't be a mother without the support of other mothers.

This leads us to my new discovery! Once you are married, have kids, and are in the swing of this new life....getting picked up brings on a whole new meaning. SO....I was in Lowes foods one morning with my mom participating in their triples (surprise, surprise)! We were in the baked goods aisle as I instructed my mother on how many of Martha White's muffin mixes and Warm Delights to buy, when this woman was coming down the aisle and asked my mom, politely, to let her through. As she came up, she stopped next to us to let her daughter and Corbin "talk" to each other. We struck up a conversation and it turned out that Lila Kate and Corbin had something in common...they were both allergic to milk! As we continued through the grocery store, we kept running into Mille and Lila Kate...we discussed how they had just moved here from New Orleans, our pediatricians, and immunizations....in the end, I gave Mille my email address (I didn't want to seem to easy by giving her my number)...and we went our separate ways, promising to talk again soon. I was totally picked up in the grocery store..it was great!! This meeting new mommies thing had become a breeze..I had it down pat! Watch out or you might be next....I told my Hump Day mommies about it and they, of course, made jokes and all was right in the world. Well, it's been a week and a half and no email! I've been rejected by my first pick up at the grocery store by another mommy..WTF. Oh well, maybe she was intimidated by this rocking mommy ;)

It's hilarious how this exclusive mommy club changes your life. How the one thing I figured would remain constant in my life has been the first to go. I know its not easy for my childless friends to get all excited about how he crinkles his nose when he's super excited or how I finally figured out how to get him on a good, 2 nap, schedule. I get that. I also get that you probably don't think that Pinky Dinky Doo is as funny as I do...hello, Mr. Guinea Pig was rockin' out to an electric guitar..that's funny ;) And to be completely honest, its unfair for me to expect for you to understand. It's almost as if you give up your good friends for a short time until they have kids because it just seems impossible to stay the same. Nothing stays the same. I recently met that mommy I was pretty much stalking way back when. It turns out that her son is 2 weeks older than Corbin and they played together in the front yard. It was too sweet. Hopefully someday, I can just open the door as Corbin runs out to go play at Cameron's house...or "Mom, Can Cameron stay for dinner?" :) You have to surround yourself with women who understand you. Whether that is at work, at school, or in your local grocery store. You can have differences in opinion, you can disagree on life choices, but the truth is no man will ever get what its like to be us...so come on...support the girls!

Curb your enthusiasm

2008-09-23T06:20:00.000-07:00

It was only a matter of time. This seems to be my path....I think I've hit a coupon brick wall :) I do this all the time..find a "hobby" and go crazy with it, but before you know it, I've gotten bored with it and the paraphernalia is lying somewhere in a corner. You name it...knitting, scrap booking, painting, writing, the list goes on and on....my latest venture, coupons, seems to be running its course and I'm sure I'll be wasting money on full priced groceries before you know it. Sad.

So I attempted my very first "prepared" triples at Harris Teeter a couple of weeks ago and I think it went rather well. I spent $27.40 on $382.31 worth of groceries!! I started clipping coupons the last week in July and I just calculated my total savings..you ready for this...$1,106.82! Yeah, baby!! What's up now, biatch!! So I figured I would pass on the knowledge before it became just one of the next casualties in my quest to find my real purpose in life ;) So first things first...it might sound obvious, but start buying the newspaper. I started getting the Sunday newspaper and figuring out if there was some good crap in there..then I would go..aka send Richard...to buy several more if there were lots of coupons I knew I would use. Here is a rookie mistake...don't just clip the things you "use". I did that at first and then found that when I went through the sales list..I had thrown out coupons that I could have used for free stuff or for things they would have to pay me for. So just clip, clip, clip away. You can also buy coupons..yes I know it sounds counterproductive...but you can buy coupons on http://www.thecouponclippers.com/, ebay, or http://www.couponsandforms.com/ there are several others, but these are the ones I visit. Think of it this way...if you were going to buy Colgate and it was 2 for $3, but you had a .75 coupon that tripled to $2.25...wouldn't you pay 5 cents a coupon to purchase 20 of them...Yeah, I would (and did). Next, organize....picture this...sweet Alissa just skipping along through your local grocery store with sweet Corbin strapped to her chest....cute purple accordion organizer in hand. What happens when you see that beautiful box of Hamburger Helper on sale that you must have (because you are too lazy to make that crap from scratch)....you pull out your purple organizer and SLAM...sweet Corbin throws it to the ground..coupons fly everywhere, no organization...OH THE MADNESS! Yes, it only took 2-3 trips of this for me to shape up and get real about my coupon organization ;) (I'm laughing at myself now)...its all about binders and baseball card holders, people. Get through that Mr. Sweet Corbin..yeah, I didn't think so :)

Now comes the good stuff...finding out what you can get free or super cheap. Thanks to the Domestic Goddesses on http://www.charlottemommies.com/ I have found the perfect website for ya..no I didn't name it, but am considering changing the name of my blog now that I have found it.. haha..ok seriously... http://www.hotcouponworld.com/ ....you can actually go on this website, click on Grocery Stores, find your store, and find posts of sales near you. I showed my friend, Alison, this weekend the sales for Kroger and there was even a post of free or almost free stuff you can get there this week. Yes, those women are pure genius. Who knew that all of us were so brilliantly frugal!

So this is what I did for my first triples...not only did I find the sales, but made an excel spreadsheet that told me to the penny how much I would spend, save, and buy (including tax)!! Trip for trip! (You can only triple 20 coupons at a time) So this only called for 8 trips in 2 days before the coupon burnout truly started setting in. It was like pure crack until then. So I've come to a conclusion on this hobby...meeting myself somewhere in the middle will probably be key. I still had to grocery shop for other stuff..like produce, meat, etc. So I'm going to use my overages for those instead of 20 packs of Starkist tuna..ha ha! This hobby actually makes sense as long as I curb my enthusiasm!! Happy shopping!!

Catching my breath

2008-09-21T06:36:00.001-07:00

A good friend will come bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying...'Damn, that was fun!

They say "A baby changes everything" and I say "Ya freakin' think?!?!?" I guess thinking back on it, you really only acknowledge the changes "they" point out (in the commercial). A mental picture of giving baby a bath while he coos or getting up in the middle of the night to nurse and cuddle him. Then you have veteran mothers tell you to catch up on your sleep before you have him or make sure you and your husband do everything you want to before you decide to have children (you don't realize they mean going out to dinner..not taking a trip to the vineyards in France)...like there's no life after baby. I currently lie somewhere in between. I remember being that naive 26 year old that knew she was meant to have a baby, lying in a bathtub in the hospital listening to her iPod (so Gen Y!), and a song came on that Corbin used to always kick to...."It's your song, Bubby"...and all of a sudden I realized he wasn't there anymore. Fast forward a couple of days..literally...waking up to a crying, hungry baby...and fast forward a few more months....splashing in a tub full of water with my giggling baby boy. Those veteran mothers...and the Johnson & Johnson people...don't lie, but then there are those tiny cracks that baby creeps into that slowly crack apart your old self...the changes that catch you off guard when you least expect it.

One of my very best friends is getting married in a few weeks (YAY!)..and as her last hoorah...she decided she wanted to celebrate in MIAMI..wahoo! I have to admit it was a pretty good choice..lying out on the beach and dancing it up like the good ol' days. Although, I would do anything for her and couldn't wait to dust off those bootylicious clothes in the closet, I was slightly apprehensive about leaving Corbin overnight for the first time. Plus, Richard hadn't been alone with Corbin for more than a couple of hours. Now, I realize it was only for two nights and that everyone would live, but he had become like an appendage. Seriously, if you forgot to pack your right arm, would you be able to survive? Probably so...but it might be rather difficult to function. I mean..how would you put on your pants??? Anyway, this is how I felt. On one hand, a weekend away at the beach with the girls sounded AWESOME and on the other...no pants for 3 days (that sounds dirty..oops..but also very Miami..ha ha). As the days approached, I became increasingly nervous about it. At the same time, things started happening. The Thursday before, Corbin got his first real cold..snotty nose..night wakings..etc. = no fun and insane clingyness (is that a word?) It sucked. He decided naps were for babies and even decided that one, one hour, nap was sufficient one day. Ummm for future reference, it's not. On Tuesday, I got into a big fight with my family and on Wednesday had an altercation with my now ex-boss. I was quitting and she didn't like that idea, but it just added to the weeks events. By Friday (the day I left), I was so OVER the whole no right arm thing, that I would have flown that damn plane myself. And to top it all off..as I went to leave, we discovered small, nasty, creepy, crawly bugs that are now the cause of an exterminator bill. EWWWWWW! So bye, bye Hubby..bye, bye bugs..and bye, bye baby!

I flew down there and met up with my 5 partners in crime (another arrived that afternoon)RIGHT as they were getting to baggage claim..it was perfect. We got to the hotel, grabbed some lunch, and headed to the beach. It was BEAUTIFUL! So relaxing and I had completely forgotten that there was even a baby whining somewhere in this world. I could only remember that cute giggly face in the bathtub. We went out that night and my old self started to come through. They dressed me in one of the sluttiest dresses I think I've ever worn, but let me tell you..for having an 8 month old..that ass was looking nice ;) It kind of felt like I was playing a part in someone else's life. I remember going out in college and dancing on bars, not caring who was there..just having fun with my girls. But it just didn't feel the same. Don't get me wrong..it was a blast..but it felt like something I had done in another life..if that makes sense. Like riding a bike...you can always do it again, but it could never be like it was when you and your childhood best friend went on adventures when you were twelve. Needless to say, I ran out of steam somewhere around 2am and PASSED OUT...my usual bedtime is on the couch somewhere around the time Grey's Anatomy starts (thank GOD for DVR). The next day we shopped, laid out on the beach, went to a fantastic dinner, and out to a club again. AND we totally saw Brooke Hogan..she cheesed it up for us...you know she loves that sh*t! In the end, it turned out to be exactly what I needed. A nice break to catch my breath from the chaos of everyday life with a baby. The break you don't even realize you need when you are caught in the middle of that daily rush to get a bottle made, get him to go down for a nap, to rush off to your weekly playdate. It also gave Richard a chance to really develop a bond with Corbin. The other day he came home from work and we were playing in the bonus room upstairs. I said "Daddy's home! Where's daddy?" Corbin immediately started looking around with this desperate look on his face. Richard slowly crawled up the stairs and through the doorway on his hands and knees. When Corbin saw him, he threw down his toy, fell on his belly, and crawled straight to him with his arms out wide and a huge smile on his face. It might have been the sweetest thing I've ever seen!

Everything changes, including your friends..sometimes. I feel so lucky to still have a person I can call up and meet in Miami to remind me of who I really am. Who I was before Corbin. It was so nice to be able to be her again. My mommy friends and I are constantly saying how hard it is to relate to our friends who haven't quite reached this stage of life yet. That after burying our heads in the throws of taking care of a child for so many months, we don't have anything to add to the conversation about the latest fashions and celebrity gossip. My perspective on all these things has changed. My appreciation for the small things in life has grown, but after this weekend, I have found that being who you are and always will be is just as important as nuturing that mother instinct. I deserved this break and am so glad that I had the opportunity to take it. I am a better mother because of it and hopefully a better freind. Here's to you R Vo and of course, Macky too! :)

Won one for the Brays

2008-09-08T12:31:00.001-07:00

I've learned that maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them, and less to do with how many years you have lived. ~Anonymous

I'm not a religious person. I'm sure that probably sounds bad, but let me explain.....I consider myself much more spiritual than religious. I think church is great if you are the type of person that gets something out of it, but I'm not. Maybe its because my father is Hindu and my mother is Catholic. The three of us were raised Catholic..my two sisters went to Catholic school...but I fell astray somewhere after my first communion..yes, I might have been 6 or something. But seriously, I truly think that whatever you believe in is what is true for your life...I, personally, took pieces from each of my parent's religions and made it my own. If you believe in heaven, you will go. If you believe in reincarnation, have fun the next time around....and if you believe that the party's over when the lights go out, make sure you make it worth it ;)

Recently..well not so much...I posted a blog about couponing and a part-time job I had taken up to help support Corbin's golden milk habit. Just for the record..he's still got it. Yup, his intake has decreased slightly, but that Morton's milk is still being ordered via Ebay and he's still sucking us dry. I'm not going to lie....the job is not my favorite. It feels so wrong, but when you have babies and grow up..sometimes the things in life that suck the most are the most rewarding. My weekly paycheck has helped us off Ramen noodles and my couponing addiction has filled our pantry with the bare necessities..such as Oreos, Pop Tarts, and about 18 hundred boxes of cereal. (Why won't anyone agree that if the store pays you to take them...it is SO worth it?????) Check out my latest deal...guess the price...nope, nope, need a hint....$18 (including 4 pears, 2 sweet potatoes, and 2 peaches for Corbin's food)!!! Oh yeah baby, I saved $78...that's 81%..don't hate, I'll teach you the system ;) I've even had to clear out Corbin's baby cabinet to make room for my loot. I figured I'd give him credit for introducing me to the wonderful world of free crap by taking away his rights to a full cabinet. It only seems fair in my mind. Anyway, here's our story on faith.

Back in March, Richard became truly fed up with his job. He's been with the company for about 3.5 years and got a huge promotion last year that turned out to be more for the company than for him. It's sad, but I guess that's business. He made a jump from a Financial Reporting Analyst to a Corporate Accounting Manager. We were psyched until Richard took over payroll for the company and realized that they got a steal by promoting him. From that day forward, the chip on his shoulder kept getting heavier. So like most people who feel slighted by their employer...he started looking for a job. I kept saying I hope you get this one..I hope you get that one, but for some reason September sticks out in my mind (I've also posted about how psychic I am..so please forward your questions to me). He went on interviews galore, but the problem was that he was competing with people who had more experience and were older in order to make an upward move. It sucked! Next I quit my job to stay home and we switched insurance...turned out that his company had done a lock in/lock out of dental on January 1. Yes, Corbin was born on the 11th...and by the way...my teeth are crap. It totally felt like it was one thing after another with Richard's job and Corbin's belly. Next the freakin' dog has high liver enzymes....he's going to have to wait. (For the PETA people out there..he's not in any pain, I promise)

So finally, Richard's recruiter called with a Controller position at a company, literally, three minutes from our house. It definitely seemed way too good to be true, so neither of us had our hopes up. He went, interviewed, and got a second interview...YAY! At this point, I had started forgetting when he had interviews. He went to the second interview last Wednesday and it ended up being "informative" just to let him know about what he would be doing!! It was crazy!! Long story short...after 6-7 months of looking for a job and not giving in when everyone told him he'd never find anything, he got the salary he wanted, a 20% bonus, and DENTAL INSURANCE (this is very exciting to me)...wahoo!!

It almost feels like the universe is rewarding us. The past 8 months have truly been challenging for our family. Not in this unbearable, I can't believe this is happening to us, sort of way, but in a way that felt like a huge transformation for all of us. We graduated college and both got jobs where we made decent money. We didn't have any children, so we got into this habit of just buying whatever we wanted and not having to think about it...in a semi-reasonable way. Then came Corbin and we became the stereotypical, white picket fence family, but were naive to what it truly means to make it. Mostly because we were spoiled...more me than him I hate to admit. I love staying home with Corbin, but there came a time when what I wanted was not what was important. I needed to help our family through a tough time and in turn, came upon this perfect job to fill the gap while we were figuring things out. We made it through Corbin's colic and learned how to lean on each other for support. We have now come through the next phase of babies...the whole sucking us dry thing....and have learned the true value of money and material possessions. In the end, neither of us really have any desire for those things we bought without concern. With this lesson, Richard found a job that will allow me to keep the stinky part-time job if I want or leave it and do what I really love. I truly believe that when it comes down to it, you don't have to believe in a certain god or set of beliefs to find your way...you just have to believe in something..anything. Then just live it and everything has a way of working itself out. :)

I was meant for Ramen Noodles!

2008-08-04T13:29:00.001-07:00

What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us. ~Julia Cameron

I'm psychic! You think I'm kidding? Yeah, you are probably right..but I'm going to enjoy being psychic. I knew Corbin was a boy, knew my sister was having a boy, and just the other day, I told Richard we needed a new tape in the video camera practically a milli-second before it cut off...I'm totally psychic :) Anyway, while I was pregnant, Richard and I were banking money for a rainy day or "just in case I decided to stay home with the new baby". We'll say I was "psychic" or at least that's what I tell him..ha ha! Anyway, that "rainy day" has come and gone, along with some of our savings. I was told babies were expensive, but no one told me about Corbin. In recent months, he is eating us out of house and home...clocking in at practically a car payment a month just for food and meds. Thanks Corbs, you'll get my invoice when you turn 18!

He has hit his peak recently, taking close to 34oz on some days and we are just up to two solid meals. You would think the kid was starving, but..oh how he sleeps :) I'll definitely keep paying for that one. Since his tummy is such an issue, we had put off starting him on solids until about 2-3 weeks ago. So far, so good. He had an allergic reaction to rice cereal, but loves sweet potatoes and avocado. But with the expense of his formula and his new bottom-less belly, things are a little tight. We figured during this transition to cheaper food, it would be. So to alleviate any financial stress in our house...I have made my trip to the dark side...yup, the coupon dark side. Now it is pretty stereotypical for a stay-at-home mom to cut coupons. Every new thing I take on that seems so common sense to most women has just been a new surprise to this new mom. I don't know what fantasy world I was living in..but the thrill of coupons is both fabulous and a little hilarious all at the same time. Now that I'm in this money saving state...I ask myself why I ever bought ANYTHING at full price. I'll tell you my story of how I became the "Coupon Queen" in the Bray/Shah households!

So Corbin started eating us out of house and home..skip forward to all the mommies on Charlotte Mommies going mad over "triples". Yes, I was just as lost on it as you may be. My first thought was that I really didn't need all that cleaning crap and a bunch of condiments, so I would skip out on the whole confusing adventure. But as "triples" started and I got sucked into these women's results...I had to try it. I've been cutting coupons for a while now and had a reserve that we used twice a month when we went grocery shopping. I was stoked the first time I saved $20. Amateur! Yeah, some of these women were cutting 98% of their grocery costs...how you ask? You better believe I did! Oh yes, there is a huge strategy to coupons that had fallen on deaf ears if anyone had told me before, but if I had to eat Ramen noodles any time after I graduated from college..it would have been too soon. So off I went...to Google... to find my own method to the madness. Turns out that you can get all kinds of stuff for crazy cheap and even free...not to mention some of these women were leaving Harris Teeter with groceries and MORE money in their pocket! It's insane! So Richard and I found all the stuff we needed and I made a late night trip to Harris Teeter for my first shot at triples. Mistake number one...you don't pick which coupons you want to use..you follow the sales to determine that..duh! So I go through the store and get my coupons as I'm looking at sales and figure out that it will cost me $11 for all the stuff I had....cereal, yogart, Balmex, deodarant, etc. So she rings it up and much to my disappointment..it was $40! What the hell!! I ask why she didn't triple all my coupons...much to my surprise, I didn't research enough. The only coupons that triple are .99 or less...well that's some shit! But I did save 50% on my first trip..not bad for a rookie. And I was soooo hooked! Yes, Richard makes a weekly trip to my parents house to steal their Sunday coupons and then a stop to buy an extra paper. I clip, categorize, and file them away for the optimal time to use each one. I think I'm going to need to go get some sort of therapy, but in the past two weeks since my first shot at triples, I have saved $124 on $243 worth of stuff...so I'm pretty much averaging 50%. It's hilarious! I'm in heaven when I see a killer coupon and have had several dreams about what deals I may find. :)

So here are the rules for any of you wanna-be Queens out there...Bi-Lo, Lowes Foods, and Harris Teeter double any coupons under .99 every day. Harris Teeter triples coupons for three days once a quarter and the trick is to use a double/triple coupon on something that is already on sale. For instance, I made my first FREE transaction the other day. I got a box of brownie mix, a box of rice, and three boxes of cereal...guess how much...they OWED ME 40 cents! WAHOO!! I, of course, called and bragged to everyone I knew. Who probably weren't as impressed as I was...I've even landed 4 boxes of toothpaste from Target for free because you can use a Target coupon and a mfg coupon on the same product...can you hear the excitement in my voice???? I know its sad, but you better believe that $123 has me laughing all the way to the bank!

I've also recently landed a part-time, stay-at-home gig..paying a nice salary! I'll be working 12 hours a week in the office until the end of Sept and then I will be doing her books for the same amount of time from home. It's pretty sweet! A litte extra cash, something to do when Corbs is napping, and all in my PJs! This I also found on Charlotte Mommies...so this post is for you lovely ladies who are keeping me from eating Ramen noodles while my son eats "Morton's" milk :)

I just find it so funny how you always get what you need when you need it...turns out that my new salary, after-tax, is the EXACT amount a month that we have been spending on Corbin. Someone is definitely looking out for us. The extra money I'm saving with my new passion can easily go towards putting our savings back to where it was and even give us an occasional date night while Corbin gets some much needed "Grandma" time. Most people find any financial woes to be so depressing, but the challenge makes staying home with Corbin that much sweeter. I can't imagine doing anything else and I would definitely eat Ramen noodles, three meals a day, until the day I die to get to see him all day long. Its so hard to explain how you never feel "full" off the time you have with your baby. He started saying mama and dada recently, plus he has started reaching out to you when he wants you to hold him. So, this is what I say to that....Pass me the bowl because I'm not going anywhere anytime soon :)

Don't lie..you'd say the same thing ;)

2008-07-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others. ~Anonymous *

"I'd rather my kid be dumb and blind!" Oh yes, this I say to our pediatrician who just personally called us to check on my son. Taken out of context, this statement might make me sound like a horrible mother..well, yes it makes me sound terrible. But in the midst of the conversation..doctor laughing on the other end...it is, in fact, a mother who is completely worried and at the end of her rope with what seems to be the never ending allergy! URGH!

So under the instruction of our doctor and no excitement of my own, we attempted to switch Corbin to a new formula..slightly less expensive and contains microscopic broken down milk protein. Oh, goodie. I believe his exact words were..its time for a challenge. Little did he know how right he was. For days before this "challenge", I could not sleep, eat, or do any other necessary events you learn to go without when you become a mother. So the day we appointed as the right one arrives and our adventure begins. We had planned to make the switch over 3 weeks..slowly but surely...and just like that, my pipe dream was shot down with a new reality of...wait for it, wait for it...TWO days. You heard me..make the switch in TWO days...incase you didn't get it...TWO DAYS. We were to start with a teaspoon of the new stuff mixed in the old..double it at every bottle..to end the second day with 7oz of the "new" liquid gold. So we start. Tsp in...2 tsps...4 tsps...etc. We got through the first day without a hitch...I'm thinking this is going to be a breeze and I was clinging to that inevitable mommy worry just for the thrill of it. Second day, we've got this under control. Get to the full bottle with no problem. YAY!! So here's where the fun begins...two more full bottles in and we've got colic. I don't mean..I'm a new mommy and I think my baby's belly hurts...I mean straight up..what the f*ck happened to my happy baby. Corbin's screaming..I'm trying to talk to the GI...and Richard, formula in fist..is ready to pitch that (bleep) out the window. Moral of the story..we are still on the expensive formula. Boo!

Of course, I hit google. Google is like your best friend when you have all the time in the world and a mole hill worry, you just have to make into a mountain. Needless to say, I've been banned by my husband. So, I'm searching EVERYTHING I can possibly find on milk protein allergies because we were assured this would be "outgrown" by now. When I come across, my new enemy...DHA/ARA! Now, this could be perfectly fine, but I'm pissed and looking for something other than what we know is the issue. I think its a woman thing. Anyway, DHA/ARA, for those of you who don't know, is a manufactured fatty acid that is added to formula to make it closer to breastmilk. It's supposed to make your baby smarter and have 20/20. With an entire family of pretty blind people, glasses are in Corbin's future, so I've come to accept it. Back to the point...the first case of Neocate I gave Corbin had this acid in it..did I mention it comes from algae....no go with the Neocate at that point. We thought it was his acid reflux peaking (which is probably true), but when I bought the second case..off ebay for less than half the cost...it didn't have it and Corbin was fine. Sooo, I find this website on Google of mothers who have filed complaints against the formula people for putting this in the formula and thier babies don't tolerate. Yup, one sounded JUST like Corbin.

“My son has been having serious problems with formulas that contain DHA/ARA. From the time he was 2 weeks old he was on formula that contained DHA/ARA and from the time he went on this he became extremely gassy and fussy. He would scream at each bottle. Under the doctor’s advice we tried him on the hypoallergenic formula and he still had the problems. We were on the verge of putting him on medication for reflux when I decided to try a formula that does not contain DHA/ARA and I now have a new baby. He is content and eating without pain. I completely believe that the DHA/ARA was the cause of my son’s problem. I truly believe that the DHA/ARA should be studied more and these issues made more public as I know that I am not alone after talking with other mothers.”

So this leads me to the conversation with Dr. Glass....I mentioned this and said that I can only find ONE formula besides Neocate that gives you the choice of whether you want to put this fake fatty acid in your child's body..which he nicely responds with, well if they find something that will make your child smarter and make him see better..they are going to use it. Hence the "I'd rather have a dumb, blind kid" See, I'm not so bad :)

Since this lovely event, we've tried rice cereal with no luck and had a serious reaction to a round of 6 month shots...does it seem like it never ends to anyone else? My sensitive lil' boy requires just a little more care than most, but I'm happy to do it because this is what I've learned so far from the situation. When you aren't a parent, its so easy to buy into the cliche of being a mom...especially a stay-at-home mom...is the hardest job in the world. That you don't care if you have a boy or a girl..you just want them to be healthy. It's not until you are in the middle of the storm that you realize the truth in these words. No one can possibly begin to understand what its like in your shoes. But I'm here to tell you that it is the hardest, but best, job in the world and you will never care about anything else as long as your baby is healthy. So yes, I'll take the dumb, blind kid..thanks! He just might have to hear about it later :)

Check us out...

2008-06-28T14:35:00.001-07:00

Thanks Critsey! www.urbanchildrensphotography.com

Murphy strikes again

2008-06-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

A perfect example of minority rule is a baby in the house.-- Milwaukee Journal

As luck would have it, Corbin woke up in a GREAT mood this morning. Yup...didn't get up until 6:30AM..you heard me...6:30!! If you had asked me 6 months ago if I would be excited about this time of morning..I would have laughed in your face. Well, I probably would have been snoring, but I hit the snooze button at least 3 times at this specific hour every weekday morning. Not anymore..and I can't believe he actually slept in! He finally woke me up by talking to this small aquarium at the bottom of his mobile. He just discovered it THIS morning...I walked in his room, rolled him over, and he laughed, laughed, laughed.......That little shit!

So before we had children, I considered myself a pretty lucky person. Everything, well..most everything, in life just fell into place. I followed my gut and things just went my way. Until we had a baby. It seems that Murphy's law seems to ramp up right as the universe realizes that you have way more at stake. I'm thinking it's called Mother's Law, not Murphy..because Murphy doesn't screw everything up..it's those freakin' kids. When becoming a mother, just know that if something will go wrong, they..no...Corbin..has a way of figuring it out just as you think you have it all figured out!

Our sweetie has set himself on a pretty strict schedule for the past month to two months. I could time it perfectly..what time he would get sleepy, what time he would wake up, and he had not disappointed me yet. He wakes up religiously between 6:00-6:15am laughing away and his best time of day is between 11:00am-12:30pm. Judging on this fact, I booked our wedding photographer to do our first family photo as a gift for Richard for Father's day. (He had the choice of stocking his wine fridge, going to the Whitewater rafting park in Charlotte, or a family photo..he chose the photo..what a guy!) So I told her to be there at 11:30am originally, but then changed it to 11am since he was doing so well. So yesterday came...and of course, Corbin wakes up SCREAMING at 5am. URGH!

We got almost exactly one month off from the screaming...he's currently teething, so many a days, he's just in a lovely mood. I can't say I blame him, but seriously, its my sanity at stake,not his. So 5am..screaming...we tried to let him put himself to sleep, but it just kept getting worse. Of course, Richard was all "what's the big deal, it's only an hour". ONLY AN HOUR!!! Oh..he'll find out about "only an hour". Finally, we went to try and calm him down..no go..and we just went ahead and fed him. Our next course of action was to try and keep him up until his next scheduled nap time...we tried a walk..not in a stroller, but in the Bjourn...no go. He passed out hanging off the front of me around 8am. CRAP! Soooo, maybe he'll surprise us and just sleep through since he was up an hour early..no go. Up at 9:30am and still cranky as all hell. Who would have thought this would be easy..teething and of course, his first cold. So we slam him down in front of the tv..aka..baby crack! Baby Einstein blaring.."jump, jump"...always puts him in a good mood. AND it worked..wahoo! I thought perhaps we had just pulled off the stunt of a lifetime UNTIL...our lady showed up at 11:30am instead of our revised 11am. So the combo of Corbin's early nap and her late arrival did not make for a pretty picture. Long story short..she had to stay through a 30 minute snoozer and he was nice enough to shell out a few smiles afterwards right before the close of his show and back to the order of the day...screaming.

This display of untimely sweetness..on the day after our snapshot of our current lives...has me thinking. I truly thought, complete with conversation with Sally, that I had suddenly become a natural. I woke up one morning to find this young woman who had blossomed into a mother. Honestly, I was rocking Corbin to sleep one night...yup screaming..and when he puked all down the front of me..I lifted, wiped, set back down, and back to rocking without any hesitation to the nasty feeling of drool/milk running down the inside of my shirt. I had this thing down. So I thought. Then he threw me a curve ball. I think this is just how it goes and I'm still on the learning curve. It's not like a job as a financial analyst, where every 23rd or so of the month, you pull the P&Ls, analyze them, correct them, and predict future expenses. Pretty predictable..easy to master...not much to it after you figure out your niche. Now, I've been thrown into the deep end of a job much less glamorous, but with way more reward.

So as I walked into Corbin's room on this happy baby day...he had somehow learned to cross the crib and was staring into his lil' aquarium, telling his dreams to the fishies. I couldn't help, but smile. I rolled him over to whisper good morning and when I came into focus, he shot me a grin as big as his face would allow. He chatted me up for a minute then started playing with the fishies again as I got his breakfast ready. He let me change his diaper and onesie with no fuss, which never happens..even giggled as I pulled his arms out since I was tickling him by accident. He took his bottle with no problem, burped with no argument, not a drop of spit up to follow each one....and finished by reading I love you, Stinky Face with his mommy. And there we were, 24 hours later and all right in the world, thinking about how wonderful it was....just to be followed by his usual Niagara Falls gush...and OH, the universe was back to normal!

My inspiration

2008-06-03T05:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the inspiration of my friend, Emily, I made this video to show all the good things that have happened in the past 5 months. Hers was for her son's 1 year and was way cooler, but I'm sure I'll make another. At first, I claimed it would be a Father's Day present, but seriously..who am I kidding. It was all for me :) I feel like all I do is b*tch about motherhood on this thing. I don't mean to, but I guess its partially for therapy and partially to give an accurate picture of what its really like to be a mother. There really is no way I could ever describe to you what it is truly like to become a parent. Its something you have to feel on your own time and in your own way. Starting with having a child ;) But all though the past five months have been a huge transition for us, this video represents what I feel it is like to be a mother. I'm sure in 20 years all Corbin will hear about is how he cried for what felt like 4 months straight, but in all honesty...this is what really mattered. :) So here's to you Corbs..making me the happiest woman in the world for 5 months and for 5 million to come. :) :)

P.S. - To a "parent" eye, these pictures don't all look the same...but to the normal naked eye, they might..ha ha! It's a mommy thing..Enjoy!!

Picture perfect..

2008-05-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

It's not easy being a mother. If it were easy, fathers would do it. ~From the television show The Golden Girls

So last April..Friday the 13Th to be exact...a group of friends and I decided to celebrate what most people consider to be a very unlucky day and a very unlucky number. This, like most things in my life, has proven to be the opposite. The number 13 is my lucky number..the day I went on my first date with Richard, the day we moved into our brand new house, and our first full day as Man and Wife (we were married on November 12 at 5pm). In order to celebrate this "lucky" day, we invited an astrologer over to our house to give us our "readings". After sending her our birthday, time of birth, and place of birth, she came up with the universe's master plan for the rest of our lives. I have to admit that I buy into this crap even though that sheet of paper looked like a circle with a bunch of dots on it..partially because my father's culture does the same thing when a baby is born...yet my sister didn't marry a rock star at the age of 21...hmmm, I may need to reconsider. Still it was fun and interesting to find out where the universe had me plotted on the map of life. Well after a few glasses of wine and way too many Freddy jokes later...I found out. She pretty much hit the nail on the head...I went to school because I thought I had to....hated what I did in life...would end up being an interior designer, but not until I gave birth to "all" my children and they made their triumphant leap into kindergarten. Unfortunately, I asked what "all" meant and she told me that I would have SIX children starting last fall. A month later...I was preggo! Trust me..Richard has a very important snip in his future to avoid that scary devil six she was mentioning. ;) She did mention that I wouldn't ever have to worry about money, so maybe I should start pimping Corbin out after that commercial we did..blah, we were blurry extras in the background..but still, can you say your child was in a commercial?? I didn't think so ;)

So since she really had me going..I decided to check my yearly horoscope on her website..too freakin' funny our truth teller has her own ".com"...but anyway..this is what it said...

Virgo: No doubt you have read this before: Now is the time to redefine yourself and your life direction. You've known it for over a year, but in the late summer of '07 it became starkly clear. It may be lonely on the path for a couple of years, but the effort will give you new life, so stay with it. Let the past go. Keep only what and who is truly important to you. Between now and the 3rd quarter of '09, the main project is to blend what is at your core and unchangeable with what is nontraditional for you. If this is not immediately apparent, it will be so in March. This undertaking will be a test of confidence and creativity, but it is timely now. If your wish is to have children or encounter a new lover, it likely will be granted this year. Take especially good care of yourself in Jan-Feb. Your energy and reflexes are lower at that time. You will be fuzzy-minded in latter April. In May-June you will likely travel to someplace you have been in the past. Sep-Oct is a time to pause and think carefully about the next steps. In Nov-Dec you will begin the new project in earnest.

It's funny because we found out we were having a boy in Aug '07 and I decided to be a stay-at-home mom in March of this year. Don't you love how you..maybe its just me..can turn any horoscope into what's REALLY going to happen or has happened in your life. I think I have too much time on my hands ;) But anyone who knows me, knows that I'm not really the quintessential soccer mom. At this point in my life, I don't ever plan on having a mini-van or an oversized SUV. Sadly, after our afternoon outing with Max and Heather...this might just be a pipe dream on my part and I will more than likely take my riteful seat as a bus driver to six screaming children...can I make some kind of team with that many?

Recently, I've hit the stay-at-home mom plateau...my initial drive to fill my life with playdates and lunches out..has scaled down and I'm left to find myself obsessing over a mommy website that seems to be one of my only outlets to the "outside" world. I was so naive when I was pregnant with Corbin...I may be alone on this, but at least have the loving support of our friend, Sally, who also traveled the walk of shame afterwards... in apologizing for being so opinionated about motherhood when we really had NO idea what we were talking about. One of those very opinions was how if I were a stay-at-home mom I could never just sit in the house all day...I would join mommy groups and have Corbin immersed in all kinds of activities to socialize him and make sure he was learning while he played..its a wonder someone didn't take me out before I even got going :) The truth of the matter is that being a stay-at-home mom can be very lonely...Mrs. Astrology herself predicted I would feel this way and yet again, she knows me best. All babies find different schedules..and coordinating those schedules is more pain than its worth..I've learned this the hard way. Most new mommies picture their lives with their newborn..from the day he's born to the day he learns to walk to the day he leaves for college. What he'll be, who he'll marry, and of course, how much he'll thank you for being that perfect mother..if there is such a thing..ha ha!! This perfect picture you paint is never what it seems to be..never what really happens..kind of like a horoscope. If everything worked out the way you had planned, life wouldn't be any fun. If I knew where the universe had me mapped, where's the element of surprise. The surprises come in the best places.

Corbin started teething just a few weeks ago. Oh the joys! At least I got about a month off from the chaos ;) His spit up has gotten itself semi-under control only to be replaced by this faucet of drool he conveniently broke the nob to. He chews on anything and everything, including my face when I'm rocking him to sleep. He's always flush with a little baby fever and hasn't stopped sucking on his hand long enough to shove a bottle in his mouth. The other morning was especially rough and Corbin couldn't manage to put himself to sleep for his first nap. Richard was home from work with a sore throat and I was exhausted. I opted to go get him and just bring him back to bed...he hasn't allowed this since he was four weeks old. He must have been really tired because after settling under the covers, he lied his head on my chest...thumb in mouth..and fell fast asleep. I woke up about an hour and a half later to find the Bray family snuggled up and happily dreaming. I found my perfect picture. It's not the vision of you walking your toddler into school on the first day..its the feeling. The warm feeling that comes through the lonely times when you are staring at a computer screen. When everyone is sick and you wake up to find your family huddled up under the covers just being together. No one gets that easy ride you have in your mind when your pregnant..if you say you did, you are lying or that awesome drug your brain gives you to forget has already kicked in...but I just decided to steal this quote from one of my good friends to describe motherhood perfectly....."I'm not telling you it is going to be easy - I'm telling you it's going to be worth it" -- Art Williams

Lost in translation

2008-05-12T18:35:00.000-07:00

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

Webster's defines Mother's day as the second Sunday in May appointed for the honoring of mothers. Sounds like a pretty sad definition to me, but my first Mother's day has come and gone, not without the typical "Alissa" drama. My dear sweet husband tried to plan a surprise for his wife and mother of his first born. Of course, Corbin's four month doctor's appointment got in the way and he was "forced" to tell me, so we could reschedule, of course. He reserved an oceanfront suite in the Isle of Palms, just north of Charleston, and we were going to have our first family vacation together. Corbin's first beach experience. It seemed so sweet at the time.

Well, Mother's day weekend rolled around and after a day full of shopping with the 'rents...we headed home to start the process of getting things prepared. For those future parents out there...being prepared is definitely the name of the game....it may seem like common sense now, but it is an acquired taste! Anyway, we basically packed our entire house. From the pack-n-play to his bouncy to at least 15 bibs and 15 burp cloths for our spitting child to THREE swim trunks. Yes..we were going overnight ;) Much to our surprise, it all fit in the CRV with enough room to spare for our cooler and kid. We woke up at Corbin's first feeding on Sunday at around 6am to the sound of pouring rain. We figured it was a good thing we were leaving all the crappy weather..urgh! I showered while Richard fed him and we were in the car around 7:30am. We dropped off the dog at my parents house and hit the road. It poured the entire way. We decided to stop at my sister's house to see Eli and Emmett..and my sister, I guess ;) While we were there, the rain stopped and the sun started to peak around all the clouds. We were pretty sure that it was clearing out and the weather would be beautiful by the time we got there. After feeding Corbin again, we continued our trek down to the coast. We got there at around 1:30 and although at first glance, the weather was beautiful...horrible winds with gusts up to 45 mph had replaced the rain. Poor Corbin hasn't learned how to breathe in the wind yet...so death by suffocation was his worst nightmare. By the time we got in our room, Corbin needed to eat and take a nap. We fed him and thought we might be able to get him to doze off in the Bjourn. Boy was that a pipe dream! We strapped him in and headed to the waves. Between the sleepiness and the hurricane force "breeze" barrelling at his face, Corbin was not a huge fan of the beach.

He swallowed a ton of air and started screaming...that ear-piercing colic scream we have come to know so well. We took him back up to the room just in time to put him down for a nap. He basically passed out...thank god..and we found ourselves enjoying some cheap "Harris Teeter" Sangria in plastic cups while we lounged on plastic lawn furniture. But HEY we were overlooking the ocean. Corbin slept for about an hour and woke up screaming again. When he does this, it is because he usually has to burp and due to the large quantities of air shoved down his throat..we had a hard time getting it out. After some Gripe Water...a freakin' lifesaver in our house...and a few thousand pats on the back, it finally came up, but since Corbin had been crying for so long he didn't know how to stop. We fed him again and decided to just head home because the weather was supposed to be the same the next day, which meant we couldn't leave the hotel room. As I fed Corbin his last meal for the day..Richard started packing up the hotel room....just in time for another storm to add more humor to our already "not so funny" day. Right when we shut the hotel door with a cart full of crap we never used, the hotel lost power. You might think this was a good thing..the last straw to prove we should just leave and go home..but our room was on the third floor and an elevator doesn't work without power. ;)By this point..Richard is DONE..he starts carrying everything down the three flights of steps to our car..I'm sure cursing the entire way..while sweet mom (me)..laughs and chats to her sister on the phone. This might be the story of poor Richard's life...just kidding. So Richard carries..a suitcase, pack-n-play, bathroom bag, bag of toys, a beach umbrella, a bouncy seat, bags of groceries, a changing table pad (Corbin sleeps on it), a boppy, a cooler, and a camera bag down those steps..AND got our money back. (He's quite the guy) Then it was off we go...to start up that first bridge to clear skies and a beautiful sunset. Not a cloud in the sky or drop of rain in our sight...WTF! We ended the night by stopping at Zaxby's and eating Zensation Zalads in the parking lot because Corbin woke up and was crying again. Only to stop when mom got in the back seat to play with him.

Yesterday, Richard wanted to buy me something to make up for it..sadly, all I really wanted was a jumperoo for Corbin...and now I'm thinking I might want a Miracle Blanket too..this is how you know you are truly a mother..ha ha! It's funny how there is one day a year when we are supposed to "honor" our mothers. Ditto on the dads. I don't even really know what that means. Does a card and a box of chocolates really "honor" anyone? Elisabeth on the View said yesterday that if we didn't have the structure of a given day..no one would remember to do it. This might be a little more sad than the three hour drive home Sunday night. I think the day is to stop and actually take a breath from your everyday life to soak in the meaning of family. I think honoring me comes in those small moments when Corbin accidentally grabs around my neck and I pretend he's actually hugging me :) or when I'm rushing to put Corbin's bottle together and when I get downstairs...Richard did it for me before he went to work. I don't need a huge day at the beach...I don't even really need a card. It's in those moments that I realize how loved I really am and feel so grateful to be riding this rollercoaster or running this marathon with the two greatest people I'm sure I will ever know.

We welcome with joy...

2008-05-09T06:09:00.000-07:00

Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts. ~Author Unknown

...another sweet little boy! :) Introducing Eli Tate Lashbrook..Corbin's cousin #2. He came into the world on April 29th at 5:39am, weighing in at 8lbs 8oz and 21 inches long. We drove down to Sumter, SC to greet our new nephew and just shy of four months after Corbin was born, he reminded us of our own birth story. Surprisingly, it seemed like a distant memory.

It's so crazy how your body literally forgets everything you went through. I can't even remember what it felt like to feel him kick when I was pregnant. Every now and then, my stomach will grumble and I'll feel something roll. I'll think..oh yeah..that's it. The first six weeks of Corbin's life are a complete blur and I'm pretty sure that this happens to ensure that humanity continues to exist. ;) It blows my mind that just four short months ago...we were just a two person family. I wasn't a mother. I feel like we've come a million miles in a blink of an eye. A guy I worked with at TWC once told me that after his daughter was born (his first child) that he couldn't remember what it was like without her. I understand now what he meant. Since my last post, Corbin has taken an incredible turn for the best! I've been told to make anything a habit..just do it for three weeks...(unfortunately, my workout routine hasn't gotten that memo. :) As of tomorrow, it will be three weeks since he started feeling better and I'm hoping that it has become a habit. Motherhood has gotten so much more enjoyable, so much less stressful. There are days when I don't want to put him down for a nap, but know that I will deeply regret it in 30 minutes if I do something selfish. So when we went to celebrate Eli's birth, just one little look and I'm hooked on having another...CRAP!!

Of course, we don't plan on having another for at least 2 years and have taken the necessary steps to make sure there are no surprises in our near future (sorry for the TMI). I feel the need to document everything I can recall as of right now, so that when I get this sudden itch to bring another Bray into this world...I'll snap back into reality and just enjoy the sweet ride that is Corbin's life right now. So in case you would like to compare notes or add a little comment with your own experience..here is my stamp on child birth "Bray" style (i.e. what they don't tell you!):

Don't let anyone tell you that getting an epidural cures all pain...it works for contractions, but not for pressure, so pushing..WHOLE different story
Contractions don't feel like cramps..I'll leave it at that
People say pushing is exhausting because it is. I had this lovely picture of it taking just a few pushes to get him out...wrong-O.
If you push for longer than 15-30 minutes...a month or so later, a nice little consolation prize may pop up...not pleasant..and they never go away. :-\
The baby blues are inevitable. Don't feel guilty...drink lots of wine ;)...mourning the life you used to have is just a rite of passage.
It takes 3 weeks for a baby to recover from birth..in that time s/he will sleep a lot. There is a growth spurt at 3 weeks..after that...watch out.
Know your growth spurts...6 weeks is the worst..be prepared!
Sleep deprivation feels A LOT like depression..it's not post-partum...get a good nights rest.
"Sleeping when the baby sleeps" is A LOT harder than it sounds...never worked in our house..hence the sleep deprivation.
Babies settle into the world between 3-4 months..it gets much easier after that.
Babies run in 90 minute cycles. From birth-four months, only let them stay awake for 1-2 hours before putting them down for a nap, even if they don't look tired. This helped Corbin sleep 10 hours straight at 10 weeks and take 3-4 one hour naps during the day. LIFE SAVER!!
Every baby has some sort of issue...Corbin had acid reflux and a milk allergy, our friend Max had lazy baby syndrome, we have two friends who have kidney reflux, etc. Be thankful for your own issue, but never wish it on someone else.
I swear you get a good eater or a good sleeper..never both..if you do, stop having kids immediately because you have used up all your "good" points :)
Your marriage will be strained..I dreaded this when I was pregnant...but your "new" marriage includes someone who thinks you both are everything.
You will cry if you go back to work...some people get over it, some don't...don't feel guilty either way.
Totally losing your mind...like not being to remember a word and using the word "thing" in its place four times in one sentence

And that is my small recollection of the things that will keep me on the one baby track for the next year...they are my story and probably very different for others, but I need to remind myself of the good too...because that I definitely don't want to forget!!

Feeling Corbin move when I was pregnant and then getting to see what he was actually doing in real life...no one else has that connection!
Watching every milestone from finding his voice, to finding his smile, to laughing out loud, and learning to hold and EAT his toys...all just as good as the next
Playing the "he looks like you, no he looks like me" game..he has my eyes, but is a spitting image of Richard
Being the one person that can really soothe him..I know, it's selfish, but very gratifying
Seeing him light up when I come to get him from his crib
Watching him laugh for 45 minutes at a Baby Einstein movie (what he's doing right now)
Dressing him up in clothes that are too expensive for how long he'll wear them...the kid actually has three bathing suits
He's so ticklish and laughs so hard that he gets the hiccups..its so sweet
Seeing Richard light up when he laughs or smiles at him
Still rocking my arms even when I'm not holding him..ha ha
Doing what I've always wanted :)

I have to admit that the good definitely out weighs the bad...sorry Richard..you are sooooo screwed :)

April showers bring May flowers

2008-04-20T14:10:00.001-07:00

Having a baby is one of the most wonderful things in your life, as well as the hardest thing in your life. ~ Nuno Bettencourt

Some weeks are harder than others. Some weeks, taking care of Corbin seems like this vacation from work on the Cayman Islands. The sun is shining and all is right in the world. Except for if that was true..I'd be using PAID time off...so it's not exactly like that ;) But those weeks are few and far between when your baby has colic. The weeks that fill in the gaps consist of these constant battles against yourself. Against your frustration, against your guilt, against your jealousy, and against your kicking, screaming, wailing baby.

I can't really complain. Our baby could be much worse off and things have been worse, but I might just be coming to the end of my rope. Might just be sick of this charade we put on everytime we feed our child. It's kind of like a marathon and you have no idea how many miles you are running. It's for a good cause, so you don't bother to ask because that would just be inappropriate. In fact, most people would think it was completely insane that any related thought had or will cross my mind. It's extremely hard to stay on course in the midst of a screaming baby that has run the gamut of soothing techniques with no relief. Standing in a dark bathroom, fan and water on full blast, covered in baby spit-up and bouncing on a large red exercise ball for what appears, at the time, to be for no reason...just might start to chip away at that perfect mommy exterior. The frustration, I'm assuming..is pretty self-explanatory. But then he flashes this sincere glimpse of his true temperament, this sweet little personality, and I forget that he was ever even crying. I remember why I'm running with no end in sight.

The colic isn't a disease he has, just a thing he does. His way of communicating that something is wrong. I hate it when people tell me that "he'll grow out of it" or that "he's just a baby and this is what babies do." A) I'm sure most of the people who make these lovely comments...have never had a baby with colic and B) Some of them don't have babies at all! I'm tempted to leave Corbin at their house for 48 hours and have them report back afterwards. Don't get me wrong..I love my child more than anything, but if this is what babies do...why the HELL would anyone have children?!?!?!? I'm not going to lie. The pregnancy was exciting for about 5 minutes and then I felt nauseous..literally. Then it was exciting again..then it got boring..then it got majorly uncomfortable. Not to mention the birth....when your epidural wears off just in time for the pushing. No one told me it didn't work for pressure. Thanks for that! Then he was cute for a few weeks during which I was nursing..some women love it, I was not one of those women..then after a few weeks, he started wailing. Now we are at the present.

Through all this rain, I can still see the reason for my endurance. No..I don't believe we are ingrained with a gene that makes us coo at babies even if we don't like them...this is from an article a coworker gave me on one of my last days at work..I'm not completely sure why. It's all the sweet, innocent moments you have in between all the chaos. Like these moments of clarity that come a little less often than the ones that make you feel like you might snap...but drown out all that white noise. In the past three months, Corbin has had jaundice, puked through his nose, puked on my face, pooped in the bathtub, cried what seems like at least 45 days straight, taken 2 hours to burp, caused 6 trips to the pediatrician and 1 to a gastrointerologist, made me sit in a car for an hour and a half just so he wouldn't wake up if I took him in the house, and let's not talk about what happens after you are done nursing ;) .....But GOD you should see him laugh :)

Richard and I were semi-obnoxious to my sister when my nephew was really little. She showed us his new trick...he could pick up a puff with two fingers and put it in his mouth. Seeing as we had not had children and were not near the stage...we were the least bit impressed. What the hell did we know?!?! Now I'm sorry I didn't see the amazement in what a huge accomplishment that was. It seems the longer we endure the "April showers" we're experiencing, the sweeter those moments of clarity, our "flowers", become. Corbin has started to reach for his toys and if you could only see the intent on his face. He is trying so hard to sit up that it causes him to spit up more, but I don't care (as long as it doesn't hurt him). Because he is my challenge and my reward all at the same time. He lights up when I walk into the room. I would sit in a bathroom for eternity just to see him smile once. This is why we have children. This is the break in the marathon that gives you the strength to keep on running. When he is all bundled up and I'm rocking him to sleep, I wish you could see him laugh at his dreams and then get quiet again as he drifts further to sleep. Those people who choose not to have children because "that is what babies do" are truly missing out on the reason for having them in the first place.

This one's gonna be T-R-O-U-B-L-E!!

2008-04-14T05:37:00.000-07:00

Child rearing myth #1: Labor ends when the baby is born.-- Anonymous

I should have known!! His impatience sent him out 19 days early with a cord around his neck and a true knot right in the middle of it. The doctor claimed she had never seen one before. OHHH, he's gonna be trouble.

That was the beginning of three months of constant worry for this new mother. I was pretty calm throughout my pregnancy. I only obsessed over a few details and what was to come was definitely not one of them. I feel like when you are pregnant, you obsess over these devestating events that could happen to your baby because you really don't have anything to grasp onto. OMG, he's going to get Autism..OMG, he's going to come out with three arms, no hair, and a wonky eye. It's the small..realistic..things that you don't count on. Corbin started out great..and then..he threw us a curve ball.

It started with normal symptoms..spitting up, snoring, gasping noise..and of course, the classic poo problems. Then turned into projectile vomitting and constant screaming. Thank god he was cute when he was sleeping :) We had a system that worked like a charm...everytime he ate (I despised feeding my child!) we would take the bottle to burp him, sprint to the bathroom, throw on all lights, fans, and water to distract the screaming. He would burp..sometimes after TWO hours...and we would sprint back to finish the bottle. What a freakin' nightmare!!!! But the system worked. Finally, two and a half months hit. I was so sick of the show that I could have thrown up. I had pumped my brains out and had SIX HUNDRED ounces to use for a month, so I could stop pumping when I went back to work. Finally, my mom suggested that I try supplementing with soy because all three of us were allergic to milk. BAD MOVE! HUGE allergic reaction to the soy and the CONSTANT screaming began. It lasted for three weeks through four formulas and this depressing day when some woman came and picked up all my milk (disgusting, but if someone wanted..take it). Finally, we found this crazy expensive formula..$300 a month..Prevacid..and who knew not all bottles were the same. Drop-ins are a lifesaver! So here I sit, writing this while our newly found sweetie naps for the third time today! :)

Although I believe everyone faces some sort of difficulty when learning to be a parent (like just being responsible for someone else's life isn't enough), I see ours as somewhat significant to something greater. Our situation helped me see things from a different perspective. I have always said I wanted to be a mother. "Have babies and stay home" was a typical statement for me and even got me into a bit of trouble at my first job. But I didn't care..it was what I was meant to do. Until recently. I started working at TWC a little over a year ago and couldn't have imagined how it would change me. How the people I met would change me. Before that, I changed jobs pretty frequently...once to twice a year to be exact ;)....because I knew that I wasn't meant for Corporate America. It was just my means to the end. I'm not going to lie..the first month of my job at TWC was slightly rough..thanks to a very particular man ;)...but after that transition, I definitely saw the reason behind it (I'm not saying I liked it...ha ha). The job made me question my original purpose. I enjoyed going to work and figured I would find a way to manage both, when the time came. Well, that time came a little sooner than expected and 5 months into the job, I was faced with the dreaded conversation. It worked out fine and 8 months later...I was "enjoying" maternity leave. Then came the decision that seemed so easy just a year before. I talked myself into the fact that working was the best thing for me and Corbin. A very wise lady ;) told me one time that a happy mother was a good mother and that meant that no matter whether I worked or stayed home..if I was happy, Corbin would be happy. So I signed Corbin up for daycare and dropped him off at nanny's house on my first day back.

It was suddenly clear as day. I was wrong. Everyone finds their way differently and I have been known to completely believed in signs. The most obvious one being a voice that tells you where you should go and what you should do. I had ignored mine in going back to a job I loved. The more I ignored it, the sicker Corbin became. I believe in fate, but I also believe that when you chose to ignore your own fate..it finds a way of reminding you of your own direction. I believe Corbin is my reminder. The first day back was what I needed to remind myself that even though, I could be a good working mother...Corbin needed me more than that and the sacrifice I needed to make was one for him. To learn what it truly means to be a mother.

I know that every baby is different and some, Richard in fact, thrive on watching thier mothers do it ALL. My hopes in leaving TWC to stay at home with him is that in 20 years I will know that my sacrifice shaped him into who he will become. I know Richard looks at his mother that way. That she worked to prove to him that she was willing to do everything she could to provide for him. My mother always speaks of this job she LOVED when she met my father. She gave it up to move to India with him. To this day, she describes it as the best job she ever had. Not because the work was so thrilling, but because of the people she shared it with. I'm sure TWC will be that for me. I'm not the easiest person to understand and for the first time in my career, I felt proud of who I was. I even got to work with someone just like me :)! I am forever changed by each of them and in 20 years, Corby will be too.

"But it's SO rewarding".....

2008-03-16T15:43:00.000-07:00

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. ~Leo J. Burke

"Being a mother is so hard, but its soooo rewarding." Sound familiar? I think I heard this a total of one million, two hundred thousand, and three times while I was pregnant. One woman even told me that the days following the birth of our son would the best..AND WORST..of my life. I'm not sure I completely understood..until now.

The past nine weeks have gone by so quickly and so slowly all at the same time. I think I may have run the gamut on the emotional spectrum and surprisingly, I'm still standing. Don't get me wrong, but about 2 weeks into motherhood, it hit me...I'm a mother. You may think that might have been obvious as I lie on a hospital bed, legs in stirups, giving birth to him, but you just wait...it's not that obvious! It's like going through the motions. You won't ever understand until you get there..until you get here. Maybe it was because Richard went back to work after two weeks or maybe it was because the first days that followed January 11 were a blissful honeymoon where Corbin slept 72 hours a day, but the real "oh sh*t" moment came the day I had to take him to his one month appointment ALL by myself. Well, I say all by myself, but Richard was meeting me at the doctor's office. But getting him out of the house and there on time was the real work.

I woke up at 7:30am, thinking that would be plenty of time to get to his 11:30am appointment. I changed his diaper, gave him a bottle, and pumped (my least favorite!). After his bottle, he fell asleep. I went and got some breakfast and checked my email while I ate. Now up until this point, the world seems normal..right?...WRONG. I took a shower and had an unbelievable urge to look normal since I hadn't dried my hair or put on makeup in 4 weeks. BIG MISTAKE. By the time I got ready, it was feeding, diapering, pumping time again. It was also..10:30am. As I scrambled to get milk in his bottle (not prepared ahead of time), change his diaper, prepare a bag for him, feed him, and take the dog out, the phone kept ringing. First, it was my mother to see how I was doing...obviously, not very well. Then, it was Richard to see how I was doing....NOT VERY WELL. While trying to hang up the phone, I was multi-tasking by trying to burp the baby, figure out why the dog was barking at me, and put diapers, milk, and a bib in a freakin' bag. I threw the dog a treat, gave him his bowl, and thanked god as Corbin finally burped. But for some reason, Corbin was still crying! So I continued to scramble trying to make him another bottle with one hand while he's screaming in the other hand. By this point, I'm sweating...goodbye makeup and volumized hair. Long story short...I fed the kid an extra ounce, got the dog to stop barking with some extra food, got the bag in the car, and arrived at my final chore of getting the munchkin in the car. It's 11:15am. (I was supposed to arrive 15 minutes early..crap) I went to pick up Corbin and splat..the little guy spewed all over me! URGH!! By this point, I'm done..I wipe off the puke, battle a bucking baby into a carseat, and get him to the car. THEN, the passenger seat was back too far so I couldn't get the carseat to click into the base. For the love of god...after a few minutes of screaming, crying..by me, not Corbs ...and finally manuerving the carseat into place...we're on the road. Yup, we were late...after FOUR hours of preparation, but Richard took over when I got there and everything turned out nicely as I rewarded myself with a shopping spree afterwards.

The weeks that followed that lovely glimpse of our history proved to be just as big a challenge. They were filled with growth spurts, acid reflux, and a final transition into motherhood that took a total of six weeks of Corbin's life. I can only describe it as mourning a life before kids to fully accept and embrace a new life...a new person you become. I may still be sarcastic, I may still be outspoken, but I'm not who I was. I'm bigger than I was, I'm happier than I was, and I'm definitely more efficient than I was. Before Corbin, I always thought that the huge reward was seeing Corbin develop and grow when people said how rewarding parenthood is. But the truth is that reward comes from all facets of your life. It's so rewarding to see him smiling at me at 5am and to hear him laugh at a mobile hanging in his crib, but it's also rewarding to see how much Richard and I have grown in the past 9 weeks. He's become this man that sings at a poopey diaper and worries if Corbin's bottles aren't cleaned enough. He hurts when Corbin cries. I've become a woman who finds happiness in the small things in life, who doesn't need this big career and life to be happy. You wouldn't believe how big your life gets because of something so small. I sing to my baby every chance I get. And Richard and I may not be the same couple we were 9 weeks ago, but we've become better. The strength you find and the support you offer to someone else can only be found in the toughest of times and the when you finally reach the other side, you have become this sweet little family.

And baby makes three :)

2008-02-06T15:09:00.000-08:00

A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.

So my very short...but actually slightly long...pregnancy came to an end. Corbin was quite nice to me and only brought on a few typical conditions that plague most fetus toting females. Sadly, these included idiocracy to the nth degree and extreme butt pain that was only relieved by straddling an armless chair like a slightly overweight Playboy bunny. Luckily, my crazy comments and sluttly sitting position never got me fired and two and a half weeks before the blessed event was expected to occur, our sweet baby boy made his grand entrance into the world.

On the eve of January 10th, we did not have the slightest clue of what was to occur in the next 24 hours and let me tell you...ignorance is bliss. I arrived at work and gossiped with co-workers as normal, but unlike any other day, I began to "train"..ok, gossip with.. the lucky sole that gets to enjoy my job for the next 12 weeks. As I was leaving to go to my weekly doctor's appt, we joked that I wasn't allowed to have the baby that night because she was in desperate need of training for her to have any chance of survival....little did we know. Our appt was pretty routine and after a short exam, it was established that I was 1cm dilated...snoring...aka, really means nothing. Richard and I ventured home and began to remove Xmas decorations from the house. Yes, my husband insisted that these decorations stay in their designated place until after "Old Christmas"...whatever. After a little while, we decided to feed the hunger. I stood up from the couch and suddenly felt that much discussed rush...it was approximately 7pm! Not realizing what it was, I ran to the bathroom and shouted to Richard that we may need to make a call to the OB's office. He replied with..."Is it something?"....oh it was something. What they fail to tell you is that the infamous gush they portray in the movies is not quite true to life....reality is a small gush that keeps on giving until a small squealing child forces his way towards the light. So as I sat there dripping....Richard and I, deer in headlights, didn't move for what seemed like an eternity..wide eyes, hands covering mouths. When we both came to, I told Richard to call the doctor's office. Still slightly stunned, Richard turned and ran directly into the bathroom door. He seemed unphased by the blow and kept on trucking to the kitchen to grab the phone. A short call and a few reality checks later...we had determined that "it was time."

Richard sprinted upstairs to get our packed bag. It will come to no surprise that it had been packed for approximately four weeks and three days. Now at this point...Richard was a wreck and I was in complete denial. Convinced that they were just going to send us home due to a false alarm, I walked/wobbled up the stairs to find Richard running around in the hallway with no bag. "I don't know what to put in it"...He may have missed the "already packed" memo. We located the essentials and headed to the car. On the drive over to the hospital, sharp pains began to shoot around my hips and down my legs. You may think that I would start to believe we were going to have a baby within the next day or so, but my mind labeled these as Braxton Hicks. When we arrived and I slowly got out of the car, the gush occured..the "movie" gush...and my denial melted away, just to be replaced by serious freak out! Of course, Richard had switched places with me and was my calm before the storm. Needless to say, we were checked in...skipped triage..and settled into our blue room.

The contractions started immediately, registering over 100 and "camel backing". I totally couldn't handle the pain, call me a wimp, and had an epidural at about 2-3cm. WOW..talk about bliss. I am no one's hero and all about the drugs! I do NOT understand how any woman does it without and they are much stronger than I am. I passed out and a few hours later, I woke up 5cm and a happy little girl. Sadly, the happiness was short lived and within 45 minutes, I was 10cm and the epidural started to wear off. No amount of drugs could cover up the next 2 hours and after some serious pain and an hour and a half of pushing, our new bundle of joy was thrown on my lap. He was born January 11 (1/11 can only be good luck) at 4:02am, was 7lbs 1oz, 18.5 inches long, and absolutely perfect!

The next few weeks have become a blur and now sitting at a month out and a few labor aftershocks later, motherhood has definitely become a way of life. There are numerous things that no one tells you about childbirth and shortly after, I would have been the optimal person to discourage teens from ever engaging in extra curricular that could even remotely result in their spawn. I coudn't pinpoint the moment it happened, but that girl consumed in the uncomfortable experience of childbirth has faded and a new mother has been born. The long nights, short days, and hectic scream decoding can not come close to the cute little feet that appear when I go to change a diaper or the sweet sound of his snore when he's fast asleep. Words will never describe the pleasure you find in the tiny moments that are consumed with feeding, burping, and changing poopy diapers. Who would have thought that I would ever say that I would rather change a thousand poopy diapers and go through a million..maybe not a million...hours of labor than to miss out on a minute of Corbin's life. I am forever thankful for those 8 months, two weeks, three days...and 9 hours :)

My "official" bump

2007-10-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment. ~Dave Barry, Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn

The media lies! I'm sure this is nothing new to the average person, but can be very disheartening for a person doped up on hormones. They portray pregnant women as this beautiful existence, covered in an enlightening glow, floating on a cloud for 9 months until this sweet, perfect bundle is handed to you after one slight push..never even breaking a sweat. Are you freaking kidding me?!?!?!? They failed to mention that the glow is called acne-causing GREASE, 40 weeks ACTUALLY calculates to 10 months, and what they hand you is actually a sad bluish, grey hue, but by the time you get him, you are so tired, you couldn't care if it was a baby monkey (the words of my wise mother...who sometimes forgets that honesty isn't always the best policy).

I was lucky. These bad boys didn't kick in until recently and I have taken pride in the fact that I was a normal human being for 20 weeks. All of this has come to a screeching halt! To poor Richard's dismay, I have become a lunatic.

My first run in with the personality altering culprits was at the Grove Park Inn just 3 weeks ago...so if we are counting correctly, I was "a delight" for 21 weeks ;) This beautiful resort in the North Carolina mountains, outside of Asheville, where people go to get away, relax, and rejuvenate...just happened to be the sight where we had to receive Continuing Professional Education for our blasted CPA license. So while others were soaking at the spa in a cavern covered jacuzzi tub, I was stuck in a very large, very cold conference room, listening to Ben Stein from Ferris Bueller's Day Off ramble on about how the federal updates on Corporate Tax have affected our industry...... for NINE hours a day...YAWN. Obviously, it didn't take long for me to snap!

"WHERE ARE MY SOCKS?" I'm sure vacationers staying 15 rooms down heard me ranting about Richard putting my socks away after I purposely (or randomly) put them on the bed (not made) so I could wear them. "And why doesn't anything fit? I hate maternity clothes! This stupid band gets tangled every time I move. DAMN IT, I can't reach my shoes to tie them. GRRRRRR!" Any normal, sane, person might realize that when you get pregnant, it is common knowledge that your belly grows. This had not occurred to me during my outrage. It might also be the cause of things "not fitting" and me not being able to tie my shoes...which, may I add...to the normal, sane person may be common knowledge that this is only going to get progressively worse. (Good luck, Richard). My dear, sweet husband sat patiently, while I threw things like the crazed lunatic I had become, and waited for the right moment to interject. He found that moment, told me I was beautiful, and all seemed right in the world.

This peace lasted all of about 15 minutes..give or take 10 minutes...OK, it lasted 5 minutes. The next thing I know, I am waiting patiently in the bagel line while Richard found us somewhere to sit, since my tirade caused us to be late to the conference. Low and behold, this wench decides to take her life into her own hands and steps right in front of me in line....picks up a bagel....and drops it into the toaster when it became available. WHO DOES THIS?!?!? Not only did she cut someone off...she cut off a PREGNANT woman. And seeing as my clothes seemed to be suction cupped to my body...obviously pregnant! I felt steam bellowing out of my ears, nose, and eyes...slowly raised a fist to pummel this selfish, self-righteous biatch...when I realized having a child in prison could be slightly uncomfortable. I settled for walking around her, rubbing my belly, and slyly smiling at her as I waited for my bagel to toast. I think she got the message, but I, of course, fumed over it all day.

There have been a few psychotic moments since this fateful day when I became the stereotype of all child-bearing women everywhere. Some for good reason (like paying $175 for someone to make my hair look exactly the way it did when I walked into the salon) and some for no reason (like arguing with my wise mother about whether a man has the right to take the last sausage biscuit from me in a buffet line...ps - it was on my side of the tray!).

But I recently read a quote that helps me through these glimpses of insanity. Sadly, it is by Dolly Parton and while I'm sure she is a very intelligent woman, the triple D...possibly triple Z...breasts she's lugging around do not help her cause. She said..If you want to see the rainbow, sometimes you have to live through the rain. For some unknown reason, this struck a chord. Why would this transition be any different from the ones that came before it? And with that being said, this has to be the biggest transition I will ever face. But something keeps telling me that this is what I'm meant to do and where I'm supposed to be. It's the same reassuring feeling I got sitting across from Richard on our first date. No matter how big the fight or how hard the challenge, from that moment, it could never shake that foundation. I may give up my body and my SANITY for a relatively short amount of time, I may turn my life completely upside down, but this is my fate. These aren't my decisions. This is just the ride I get to take and the next turn is the best of all! :-)

Meet Corbin

2007-09-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Corbin in a baby carriage.

We don't stray from the norm. We met in a "meat market", a company where people work 70 hours a week. Just short of being married to your job, you might as well date a co-worker to pass the time. We dated for what was almost exactly 12 months. We bought a house, got engaged, and 8 months later found ourselves standing on an alter, in front of family and friends, reciting those fateful words that bound our lives together for all eternity (OH CRAP, just kidding). So what comes next....of course, "a little bundle of joy" to set up shop in my stomach and take total control of my body for FORTY weeks. Why wouldn't EVERYONE do this?!?!?

"We're pregnant!" I screamed from the hallway as I ran into our dark bedroom, EPT in hand, dancing around in my PJs. Unfortunately, I startled Richard, still half asleep, and as he sprung from our bed, he pulled a muscle in his back. So there we were, one lying on the floor in a fetal position and the other doing a bad reenactment of Julie Andrews, spinning on a hilltop, in the Sound of Music at 6 o'clock in the morning. Not exactly the romantic announcement I had in mind.

There have been few defining moments in my life and for some reason this has not become one of them. (As of yet..) I'm sure you may think this is particularly odd, but I'm not sure the whole nurturing mother, "kiss a boo boo", persona has exactly etched itself into my soul quite yet. Granted, we are only halfway through the pregnancy and I have been spared almost all the grueling symptoms that most women find while hovering over a toilet. I like to refer to this as my "karma" ;). Don't get me wrong..I've had my share of gorging on every Mexican, Japanese, and Indian buffet in town. And by 6 o'clock, I'm watching tv through the back of my eyelids, but those things aren't much different from before my sweet alien took over. So besides the fact that we have photographic evidence and a few little thumps from the human I'm currently growing, I have found it pretty easy to convince myself that we are just "remodeling" our office.

As for Richard, he could not be more ecstatic. I'm thinking there is a strange role reversal in our relationship. He cooks, cleans, and loves anything baby, while I lie on the couch engrossed in a raunchy tv show, just shy of scratching myself. I've also learned to tune out the many requests to "practice" changing a diaper on my TWO year old nephew. So I've never changed a diaper in my life....call me crazy, but somehow I'm thinking it's not exactly the same. Plus, if I can get a Master's and a CPA, but I can't figure out a diaper..there is something seriously wrong. (This is possible foreshadowing)

So while we ride our little roller coaster to parenthood, I become more aware of the many reasons you are pregnant for half the time an elephant carries its enormous baby. It takes time to become a mother. The process is gradual. So many times I've heard how I won't be a sarcastic, opinionated, independent woman anymore. I'm not saying that I plan on losing myself or my identity in the process, but in 20 short weeks, I will be someones everything, someone will need me to mold him into a man. I can't wait to watch cartoons again, play with play dough, create science fair projects, and kiss him on the day he binds his life to someone else. My goal is to let him live through me, not because of me, and show him how to be a man someone will aspire to be. Just like his father.