On the Edge of a Cliff and Ready to Fly

I need to be studying for my API 28 exam tomorrow, but I just needed to blog quickly first.

Joshua is with his Grandma tonight, and I just feel sad, and homesick. I am so grateful that she’s watching him – I was able to get some dishes done easily and then I will be able to study. However, when I don’t get to see him, I get anxious and upset about it. Donald took Joshua yesterday to Lawrence, KS to see Donald’s Great Aunt Gloria and Gary that were visiting from California. I was very concerned about Joshua being home from the visit when I got home so I could see him because I missed him!

One time when Donald’s Aunt Delaina watched Joshua due to a Toastmasters leadership training, I left the training as early as I could so I could get Joshua. I had already spent 1 evening without him and I couldn’t stand being apart from him anymore.

I know he’s okay when others are babysitting him, and I don’t mind the break to get some other things done. I just get very sad when I don’t get to see him at night because he’s spending the night with family or we have a late event one night and I don’t get to spend very much time with him.

Donald and I have had to work hard on spending time together – we both enjoy Joshua so much, we have to purposely make date nights and try to at least talk to one another during the day. I can see how married couples can lose sight of one another with the busyness of working full time and trying to raise a child. However, I keep reminding myself that once our kids grow up it will just be the two of us. I am trying to enjoy every minute with Joshua because he’s grown up so fast already – and I know the rest of his time as a child will fly by as well!

I need to study, but I miss him so much, hopefully I can concentrate enough and pass this test tomorrow!

Josh has been asserting independence lately and showing strong dislike when you don’t give him what he wants in a quick fashion. (I am trying to frame this as positively as possible)

Josh has been throwing full out, screaming, throwing himself on the floor tantrums.

Just today, while at Uncle Drew’s house, Josh was hungry. I gave him a mum-mum. When the mum-mum was half done, he spotted a cup of carrots in his diaper bag. He grabbed the carrots and handed them to me. I told him to finish his mum-mum first.

He threw the mum-mum on the floor, pointed vigorously at the cup of carrots, and thew himself down on the floor, hitting is head in the process, while I was trying to open the container and take it to the sink to drain!!

Tonight, he was crying and his face was beet red. I had given him tylenol earlier, and was working on giving him some orajel. He was laying on our bed and wailing just as loud as he could. I picked him up, carried him into the kitchen, and started to warm up a sippy of milk. When Joshua saw the sippy of milk, he started reaching for it and crying. I had to set him down so I could get the lid on the cup.

He folded himself over on the floor, placed his forehead down and started wailing loudly. I decided to take the sippy cup and walk away from him because he was so upset, telling him, “if you want your milk, you need to calm down and follow me.” When he saw me walking away with the sippy cup, he followed me into our bedroom, then threw himself on the floor again. I waited a bit till he calmed down some, then got him into our bed, and Donald fed him the milk.

I am not sure what is going on – I guess it’s normal (I should get out my parenting book and see.) I think his cousin Jaxon has had some terrible two type fits as well…. need to start reading all the parenting magazines and books that have been recommended to me over the years for ideas!!

Joshua’s first birthday party was a blast! It was fun to pack the house full of family and friends. Josh wasn’t really into opening presents, but he kept clapping and wandering around the living room. He knew it was his special day. One of his favorite gifts is a plastic, rubber ball that he loves to kick and bounce on (I didn’t even realize he knew how to kick a ball!) He got some cute clothes and lots of toys.

It’s been so slow, yet so fast, how this year has gone by. Sometimes, when I was up at 2, 4, and 6 in the morning and had to go to work the next day, it felt very long and slow. I have felt strangely about this – I am happy that Josh is growing up: eating more and more on his own, talking, responding to us, giving hugs to us and his cousin, smiling and jumping up and down when daddy comes home, smiling and trying to climb into the computer when we skype with Grandma and Grandpa. He knows people, and I just love that he knows that Donald and I are mom and dad, and how much he responds whenever kids come onto the scene.

I loved him as a little bundle of baby – but I am loving getting to know him more and more. He’s a sweet child and loves to meet new people. When we went on a walk tonight (Josh was in his stroller) he was pointing to things and talking. He noticed a group of kids playing with a ball and was saying “UP” (unsure why.) I took him to a small park by our house and held him while he went down the slide. He was grinning so big and laughing when he slid down it, and he jumped up and down to get me to pick him up and slide down again. He saw some dogs barking in back yards as we walked around the neighborhood “Dog.” When I called Donald to let him know we were on the way home, I told Joshua “that was daddy on the phone.” He replied “daddy.”

On the stroller there is a little “window” That you can see through the cover of the stroller to the baby inside. Joshua kept turning around, grinning, and waving at me as I was walking him along. He would tap the tray in front of him and continue to bounce up and down, turn around, smile at me, and continue.

I know he’s going to keep getting bigger and older every day, and I do miss him being a baby sometimes. Most times, I am so happy that he knows who I am and he talks (small words) to us. I love him so very much I can’t believe it. So many times Donald and I will just, even still, start to cry thinking about how much we love him.

We had talked about starting the adoption process for our second one when Josh turned a year, but I think we’re going to wait a little bit. I am starting training for a new job (I will still be a supervisor) but in a different department. I am hopeful that I’ll be able to move up a little quicker since I have some more expertise in that new department. My goal is to move up and make enough someday so Donald can stay home with the kids and work on websites from home.

1 year ago today Donald told me we were chosen to adopt a baby boy!

Our social worker, Susan, had called and emailed us about 4:30pm on year ago today, advising we were going to adopt a boy set to be induced on April 16th. This sent us into crazy 12 days of waiting, registering, calling our social worker and attorney almost daily, moving items out of our spare bedroom and turning it into a nursery.

I can’t believe it’s been a year!

On another note: Octomom. Everyone at work talks about her and her kids. Well, I think it’s interesting, because if she applied to adopt, I don’t think a social worker would have approved her. No job, living at home with her parents, I can’t see how she would have been approved to adopt 8 children when she already had 7 children already at home. Now, I’m not saying what she did was wrong, but I just want to draw attention to the difference between trying to adopt and having infertility/fertility treatment. For her to have 8 babies naturally, a social worker did not have to be involved, she did not have to disclose how much money she made (other than paying for the treatment), and she did not have to have friends and family write recommendation letters advising that she was a good mother.

Again, I am not saying getting infertility treatments over adoption is wrong. I just am drawing attention to the fact that adoptive parents have to go through a lot more “certification” than parents who chose infertility treatments. I feel badly for the kids, because they don’t care about my opinions or what anyone else thinks; they just want to be fed, and loved, and cared for. I just hope that she is up to the task and there are others in her life that can help support these children.

I also am finding it strange about Madonna trying to adopt a second child from (I cannot remember which African country). Why did they let her adopt her first child from there without staying in the country the mandatory 9-18 months but now they won’t let her adopt a 2nd child? Is it because she is now a single parent?

This always makes me laugh – Whenever there is applause on TV, Josh will start to clap as well. Josh will wave if you wave to him, normally he works his arm in a big up and down motion. When I tell him “no”, he will shake his head back and forth.

He will take his toys and hold them out to you to take, and he gets a big giggle out of taking the toy back and holding it to his chest. During the academy awards when Drew, Andrea, and Jaxon were over, Drew, Josh and Jaxon made up a new game. Donald had bought these little “Sonic tot” toys a long time ago, before Josh, but Josh just loves them because they’re the perfect size to hold. Jaxon was passing the tot toy to Drew, who would give it to Josh, then Josh would pass it to Jaxon. It was very cute and hilarious to watch them interact and play with each other.

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve posted!

We just got back from a family vacation to see Kent & Wynona in Muskogee, OK (Donald’s aunt and uncle) and Dan & Michelle & their kids in Rogers, AR (Donald’s cousins.) It was fun visiting everyone, and it was a blast seeing Josh react to everyone. He really started walking. Before this long weekend, he would take 4 or 5 steps at a time and stop. Well, this weekend, he began walking everywhere. He loves being chased and chasing others. Kent & Wynona had a set of old cracker tins that Joshy loved taking the lids off, banging around, scooting across the floor, and carrying around. At Dan & Michelle’s house, Josh loved riding on Gabe (he’s 8 years old) like he was a horse – Josh even clapped on Monday when Gabe came home from school.

Monday was my 32nd birthday while we were at Dan and Michelle’s – it’s funny, this is the 2nd year I’ve been there for my birthday. Last time I was there was in March of 07. I remember we were telling them at that time we were starting the adoption research and process. It was so neat to see Josh play with their kids – Alexis and Brennan would carry Josh around and help us watch him. Gabe shared his bath toys with him and made Josh laugh.

When we were with Kent & Wynona, Wynona loved carrying Josh around and their son Brian (who doesn’t have kids) even thanked Donald for us bringing Josh to visit.

There is something special about kids, and babies, in particular, that just make you happy. Even though it was pretty stressful trying to take care of Josh and keep him in a schedule, it was worth it to watch him play with Kent & Wynona and Dan & Michelle and their kids.

Ever since we brought Josh home (and even in the hospital) we would feed him, change him, lay him in his bassinet and he would just fall asleep.

When we moved to our house in Gardner, we graduated Josh to his crib. Again, we could easily keep to a routine of bottle, dry diaper, bed, and he would go right to sleep. From June on he would sleep all the way through the night in his crib, which was AWESOME.

Lately, he has been crying and fussing and we get so tired we end up keeping him in bed with us. He sleeps great laying in between us. However, he will toss and turn, flop on us, bang his head on my side, turn himself around and nearly push me off the side. I have been tired from dealing with this the past couple weeks. (Donald I think sleeps through all this.) Work has been stressful, and not having good sleep is making me irritable.

It got to a terrible point this week of being stressed and tired and almost near a breakdown.

I needed to do something to feel better. I decided to join a gym last Thursday- my friend Jamie from work goes there and they have yoga. I arranged for my other work friend Natalie to watch Josh every Thursday night so I can go to a relaxation yoga class Thursday nights. They have a pretty extensive child care area, and everyone has background checks, so I’m going to try out taking Josh there to see how it works. I’ve gone and done arm weights, and I even felt better even after just doing that. I think this is going to be good to get away from everything at work and home and work out by myself. I just need to carve time out for it. A few years ago I went to the gym almost every day before work, and I felt awesome mentally and physically. I am really looking forward to having some “me” time at the gym!!

Yesterday and the day before have been a challenge.

Josh has started this new scream. Those of you that have heard Josh cry know how loud and extended his cry is. Well, the little one has kicked it up a notch by wailing in a very high pitched, blood curdling yell. He has also taken to throwing a fit – pitching himself backwards and throwing himself on the floor if I tell him no or try to take something away from him that isn’t safe. Just a moment ago I took away the computer cord and he jumped up and down and whined – luckily this time he didn’t pitch himself on the floor as a fit.

Yesterday was especially rough because nothing seemed to help. If I held him, he threw a fit, pitched back, and even hit his head twice on the floor in the midst of his fit. If I left him alone for a minute to go to the restroom, he would pull out his blood curdling high pitched wail. Finally, at 8pm last night, after dealing with this from 5:00 – 8:00, Josh and I sat on the couch and cried together. Donald came home at 10:30p or so when Josh had finally started to sleep in his crib. Josh woke up at 11pm, with another blood curdling wail, but Donald brought him into the bed and he slept with us the rest of the night until 7am this morning. This is the first time in a long time he’s slept the whole night with us in our bed. Usually when he’s grumpy, we can hold him for a while and lay him in his crib, but I didn’t want to risk listening to his superpowered wailing anymore. Yesterday was one of the worst days as a mommy ever, I just wanted to run away and not come back.

We think he might be grumpy because of his teeth, so I stocked up on tylenol, ibuprofen, orajel, and another teether. I’m going to track and see if making sure he has medicine at regular intervals helps us out today.

I love Facebook. I am afraid I have neglected my little blog here because I spend my free time trolling around seeing what old and new friends are doing in Facebook world…

…everything is the same here. Josh took a few steps tonight! (It was probably more like a shuffle, but Donald and I were both here to watch him, so we’re calling it his first step!) He is so much fun and he’s so happy…most of the time. He just cracks us both up and makes up laugh.

My friend at work is having a hard time because one of the manager’s wives is pregnant, so all the time he and the office staff are talking about pregnancy and babies in front of her…she had to leave a meeting today because of it. It’s hard watching someone else go through the same struggles. Infertility just hurts, and you feel alone, especially when other people have happy news they keep talking about in front of you.

Just two more sleeps until my sister Julie gets here! We can’t wait. I think Josh is going to have a ton of fun with her. She loves coffee as much as I do…it will be fun to have someone to have coffee with!

Claims volume was high this week – and I had to deal with quite a few upset people…wow. Made my brain hurt.
Tomorrow night is our work Christmas party, which should be fun, but I hope it doesn’t make me think about work more. I have had nightmares and dreams all night about work and stressful family things.

Just a week full of worries.