Debbie Downer has left the building

Sorry for the heavy post this morning- I'm feeling a tiny bit better about the day and I think I should give you all something positive to read, for a change.  :)

My girl Jess gave me an award, yay!  Jess, you rock!  And it's super-cute in black and silver, love it.  Here's the deal: I say seven facts about myself then award it to 15 people (which we all know I can't do, ha). 

1. I have year-round allergies (stole your topic, Jess).  I don't know what I'm allergic to, but I'm constantly stuffy... although, a heavy snow fall in NH makes them better.

2. My shoe size is a 10.  It was a 9 pre-kids.  I always thought shoes were great because your feet wouldn't grow.  I was wrong.  Now, I love wallets & purses- pretty sure my shoulders won't grow!

3. The Hubby is working late tonight, which means I get a full dose of E! News.  Wahoo!

4. On a related note, I don't get some things about pop culture... heels with spikes, Katy Perry's Fireworks song, the fascination with Teen Mom...  The things I do get: Anne Hathaway and tall boots.  Both are gorgeous and timeless.

5. I've fallen off the weight-loss wagon lately and have gone up to 155 lbs.  It's tough when the boys are driving me nuts and the only pleasing thing in the house is a big brownie.  But as the holiday season sneaks up on me, I'm not beating myself up about it.  After all, I'm not going to skip that pumpkin pie!

6. I can do my own car maintenance.  Hubby usually does it because he loves doing that stuff, but when he's gone, I can totally hold my own.

7. Hm, one more thing about myself?  I still mix up my right and left.  It drives Hubby absolutely nuts.

A strange day for me

Today would have been our first baby's 4th birthday. 

I can't really comprehend it.  It seems so long ago.  It's still hard for me to talk about it.

Hubby and I weren't planning on having kids at that point.  But one day I realized that I was a few weeks late.  I was so caught up in my teaching job that I wasn't paying attention to myself.  And sure enough, I found out that we were pregnant.

I cried.  I didn't think Hubby would be excited, since we hadn't planned on this and things were stressful enough with his dad going through chemo.  But he gave me a huge hug and said he was thrilled.

Everything was fine until the 12th week.  I figured that I was nearly out of the first trimester, so I began telling my students.  Literally two days later, I began to see that something wasn't quite right.  I called the doc and he brushed me off.  I waited.  A few days after that, things took a turn for the worse, in a very scary way.  I called the doc again, and he said it was normal and that I was overreacting.  I went to school, but ended up in the vice principal's office during lunch, sobbing.  She told me to go home, which I did.  When Hubby arrived home, I told him to take me to the local ER.  We spent the night there and they ran a lot of tests.  I knew something was wrong because they wouldn't talk to me about it.  Finally, at 4am on April 27, 2006, they said the words I had been dreading.

There's no heartbeat.  I'm sorry.

I don't remember much after that.  I was admitted to the naval hospital where they did a D&C.  They gave me a lot of vicodin.  Then I went back to work and had to tell my students.  That was just as hard as hearing that the baby had died.  They were middle schoolers and didn't understand why it had happened.  I had no answers because I myself didn't know why. 

There were lots of things wrong with this pregnancy.  I drank for the first six weeks because I didn't know I was preggers.  I was on 800 mg of ibuprophen three times a day, which is dangerous for babies.  I was on the pill.  A week before the loss, the school tore down my classroom and I had to move two pianos by myself.  I had an undiagnosed thyroid problem, which causes neurological problems in babies.  And most of all, I didn't have a doctor that took me seriously.  I think that bothered me the most.

The naval hospital is now defunct, in case you were wondering.  And personally, I learned from this experience to speak up when I don't think something is being done right.  Maybe it made me more of a bitch, but at least I didn't have to go through this again.

I always think of that baby on November 10th.  I put the blame partly on myself for being so out-of-touch with my body, but I also put a lot of blame on the fact that the naval hospital completely failed me & the baby.  Yeah, I'm bitter.  I guess people are supposed to get over that as part of the greiving process, but I don't think I ever will.

Happy Almost Birthday, little baby.

Random Tuesday Thoughts

Is it just me, or does the shop vac in Handy Manny sound very gay... especially when it suggests "Maybe I can suck it out?".......

I can't stand how cute our boys are when they throw their arms up in the air and yell "touchdown!".

WTH?  I have a pimple the size of Mexico.  Attractive.

If you are doing 35 mph (sometimes 30) in a 55 zone, then you will have a line of seven cars behind you.  Don't get pissed at me because I'm the one directly behind you.  Oh, and I think sticking out my tongue is a much better option than flipping the bird.  It definitely riled up Mr. Slowpoke and made me feel better.  :)

Butternut squash soup with dinner tonight, yummmm.

I'm sick of LB not listening to me- I've become that broken record that I used to hate as a child, but I don't know what else to do.  Oh and JC's screeching for the hell of it is getting on my nerves, too.

Speaking of that, some a-hole said that the perfect job for JC would be opera singing because he's loud.  I take offense to that because 1) almost every baby does that, but it doesn't mean they'll all be singers; 2) there is much more to opera singing than simply being loud; and 3) STFU and mind your own beeswax.

And speaking of stupid people, for the third time this month, someone asked if the boys were twins.... Let me say this loud and clear: They are 20 months apart.  One has blond hair and brown eyes, the other has light brown hair and blue eyes.  One is running, the other isn't even walking.  One can have a conversation with you, the other can say "daddy".  And one is nearly three, while the other is 14 months.  Get a clue.

I ordered Christmas cards.  They're the photo kind where I don't have to write anything if I don't want to (hooray!).  And they look so stinkin' adorable... mostly because the boys are totally decked out in Ralph Lauren.  (What?  We went to the outlets.  And I simply could not pass up those clothes because the boys look like friggin models in them)

It's getting cold here lately.  My snowflake symbol came on with a little *bing* while driving to the gym this morning.  And in related news, our energy bill has almost tripled.

Alrighty, I should wrap this up- I'm definitely Ms. CrankyPants today and it shows.  I have butternut squash soup going and need to work on the turkey before Hubby gets home.  Go to The Unmom to link up and have fun.

Lacking motivation

I don't know what is up with today, but I'm just feeling lazy today.  No reason, just because.  It doesn't help that I also ate a brownie (which had 285 calories and 13 grams of fat, holy sh!t) and have been letting the boys do whatever they want.  I didn't teach them anything today or do anything enriching. 

I did a few productive things, all of which occurred while sitting on my ass.  I talked to my mom for an hour, then removed some programs from my computer and defragged the hard drive (um, was that supposed to take over two hours??).  But other than that, I didn't even get to the laundry. 

Blech.  My mood is also compounded by the Mexico-sized pimple on my cheek.  WTF?

Also, I was reading a book about toddler development, and Hubby and I found that LB is a "high-intensity" toddler.  We figured, but to hear it put in words is something else.  I have more of an understanding of why he does what he does, which also gives me just a little bit more patience.  Not a lot, but a little is more than nothing.  :)

Sometimes when I have days like this, I fight it.  I try and try to make it a good, productive day, but today I'm just surrendering to the laziness.  I think it's beneficial.  What do you think?

Omg, this looks so friggin delish, I can't stand it.

My dinner tonight (please disregard how empty the wine bottle is, heehee):

Coupled with brie & crackers, holy crap... and yes, it's as delicious as it looks.

MilSpouse Friday Fill-in #20

1.A different twist on last week’s question. This week, the first question is: what’s the nicest thing a MILSPOUSE has ever done for you? (brought to you from navy_smurfette)
Wow, that's a tough one... a friend of mine would bring me Oreo milkshakes from Jack In The Box while our hubbies were deployed and I was preggers.  She also helped clean my house after the pigeon incident.  It's too bad we're not friends any more...

2.How often do you drive faster than the speed limit?
All the time.  Speed limits should be renamed speed suggestions, especially in the northeast.  At least around here, you can do 55 mph on a main road.  The same road in NH would be 35.... and I'd still do 55.  Of course, "speeding" with the kids in the car is just a few over, but by myself, I'm usually up to 10 over.

3.Did you have a nickname in school? If so, what was it?
In middle and high school, I had the nickname Larry.  It came about from a bowling game when the computer couldn't fit my entire name.  By college, it was shortened to just L.  I think for one summer, it was L7.

4.If your life was a book, what would the title be and how would it end?
It would probably be the same title as my blog, and I have no idea how it would end, because my life hasn't ended yet.  Although, I have been thinking about writing a book about Millie.  ;)

5.Look back (in your planner if you have one) to September 14th… what did you do that day?
No need to look back- that's my baby's first birthday!!

Go link up at Wife of a Sailor and check out other milspouse's blogs.  :)

What I am doing with my life

I recently friended two people on facebook- one was a student with me in college, the other was a professor.  The student is now an opera singer in Boston and the professor still teaches at my college.  It was pretty cool to see what they've been up to for the past few years, but then I started wondering if they looked at my profile.

Both of these people only knew me in college when I was studying music and we weren't close enough for them to know that I was dating my long-distance bf (now hubby), who I definitely saw a future with.  On the surface, it seems like I was just a music student, preparing to enter the world in the teaching profession.

There was more to that.  I knew that I'd end up marrying Hubby and that our lives together would mean giving up my career temporarily.  I knew that we'd have kids and I'd be a SAHM.  I knew that whatever person I appeared to be in college would not be the same person I am now (thankfully, I was right!).

I don't do anything with my degree.  I haven't taught music since 2006.  I haven't held a job since 2007.  My heart is still in music, and I performed with the Honolulu Concert Band until 2009, but on paper, it looks like I'm not the same person I was back then.  I am the same person, just with different priorities.  In college, I should have realized that my major wouldn't work for me in this lifestyle and I should have studied something else, but I had invested a lot of time and money into music and didn't want to give up on that so easily.  I'm glad I stuck with it- now I know for sure that it's not exactly the right fit for me and our life.

I'm also much different in other ways, too.  College was when my thyroid really started to get me down.  Literally.  Some days I barely had the energy to crawl out of bed, but didn't know what was wrong with me.  My eyebrows were falling out, I was wearing sweaters in the summer, and my whole digestive tract just stopped working (gastroparesis, I believe it was called).  It was depressing- I thought that maybe I was just being a lazy piece of shit and that brought my self-esteem down.  I was falling asleep in my classes and my memory was completely shot (not good when you're trying to memorize composers and dates and time periods).  The whole college experience has ended up to be a blurry, hazy time to me, and I'm afraid I was perceived the same way:  blurry, hazy, out-of-it.

I'm definitely more myself now.  I feel like I've really become the person I knew I was deep down and barely recognize my college self (although, Mother Nature, if you could please give me my early-twenties body back, kthxbai).  So, in case you're wondering, this is what my life is:

I'm a SAHM for now.  I plan on going back to school for a degree in accounting, and possibly studying music instrument repair.  Once the boys are in school full-time, I'll be going back to work, so my accounting degree will happen within the next few years.  I have no idea where we'll be living.  Hubby and I will both work, which hopefully will help with college tuition costs with the boys when they are 18 and will set us up for retirement.  I plan on staying involved in music, either fixing instruments or performing in a local band, but I don't see myself returning to the teaching profession, at least not in a public school setting.  Major details of my life are still to be decided, but my direction is set and I know what I want, and more importantly, I have the conviction to go out and get it.

So there you have it, my college acquaintences.  I'm not the head-in-the-clouds mediocre person I once was.  Sorry if you have to get to know me all over again.  :)