Summers End

I must admit that I am a bit Jealous of my Mr.'s blog. He has a tendency to be much more well spoken, or written as it were, than I. People who dig my seen should dig on his as well. Lord knows I dig on it pretty damn hard.

The past week started off with a bit of an emotional hiccup on my part but is rounding out nicely and I can say I feel quite happy. There have been a couple sunny day adventures outside to keep me content. Bringing little man with me makes an ordinary day in the park feel like an epic journey.

Jim and I took in a great lunch at County Line after his P.T on Monday. We discovered the back "patio" was a thing of great beauty. It had a boat launch, lots of big shady trees and a river stocked with turtles and fish eager to be fed. The 3 of us sat on the water snapping pictures and playing with turtles while I sipped a delicious and rarely consumed margarita. I love the fact that the majority of things I do with Llewellyn are still "firsts" at this point, this was the first time he has seen a turtle outside of his onesies.

Tuesday night Jim dug a big hole in our yard and sunk a giant terra-cotta pot into it, firepit! It's been a long time since I have been able to have a fire in my backyard. Even though I long to move out of this house, out of Austin and further into the hill country, having a backyard is a savior.

Wednesday Alana, Llewellyn and myself went to the afternoon triangle farmers market. Something I have been meaning to do for almost a yr. The stands set up there left something to be desired but I was able to get some locally raised pork and lamb along with a variety of veggies and fruits. There just wasn't a lot of variety and everyone was out of eggs, chicken and ground beef. We had lamb steaks for dinner that night and they were pretty delicious. After our shopping we sat in the grass eating peaches and watching kids and dogs of all ages run around like maniacs. There was a large area where fountains randomly shot up out of the ground that the children were playing in. It's intriguing for me to watch children of different ages play. I guess at how old they are and envision how soon my little baby will be doing those things. It excites me to see all the learning that is going to take place between now and then.

I've also been able to get a good amount of crafting done this past week. Little man has been a bit more content to hang out in his rocker and take a nap freeing up some mommy only time for me. Our friend Tony gave us a swing this week and from what i've heard they are a god send so maybe we are in the transition to me being able to get back on top of little things that need to be done around the house, assuming I was ever really on top of them.

I don't really have too much more to say for now, i'd like to take advantage of beeba sleeping and bind a quilt. My next entry on here should have some little pictures of some projects i've been working on. What fun.

Still searching for my stride

Sweet lord I got up at 8am today. That's probably funny to most people, especially those of you with children. I guess I had gotten lucky thus far that Llewellyn was totally down to kick it with his mommys schedule. That's pretty much go to bed at 5am and wake up around 2pm. I have been bartending, or at the least working in bars for about 10 years so my sleeping schedule seemed to take a permanent shift to nocturnal. Truth be told I was always a night person.

I thought that I would start to crack down on a sleeping routine for he and I when he is about 6 months old, at that point there should be more activities to keep us busy during the day, the weather will be less brutal and maybe he'd be keen for a schedule that isn't mostly dictated by him.....well he has decided to crack down for us. The last 2 weeks he has gotten up earlier and earlier everyday, I give some cuddle time and beg him for more sleepies but he isn't having it. I hope that 8am is as early as we're going to get here.

This all has caused me to be one tired mommy and as much as my pre-prego body is back(sweet) my pre-prego energy is not. I find it nearly impossible to get anything, I mean anything, done around the house. I manage the load of laundry everyday(fully necessary when you cloth diaper and have a little vomit machine around) and possibly making dinner. The rest of my time is pretty much spent lying on the couch playing or cuddling with Llewellyn while the worst selection of t.v that exists plays. I think pregnancy has caused an adult onset of A.D.D, i'm not kidding. All this I feel like a TOTAL piece of shit about. I can't tell you the tears I cry over my lack of activity. I feel like im slacking on what I should be doing and that i'm such a shitty homemaker. I think i'm a super loving mother, fully interacting with my baby constantly but I have stopped interacting with the rest of life. Every time Jim tells me how tired he is I fume inside. "How can he be so insensitive, he wasn't up every hour with a baby kicking, pinching, grabbing, cooing, crying, sucking, at/on him". I feel like I am not allowed to mention how worn out this has me and when I do it's mr. me too. I shouldn't feel like that but I do, I can't help it. I don't have anyone around going through what I am and i'm lonely.

The little man isn't even 3 months old yet and there is not a whole hell of a lot that I have found to do with him that brings me out and about. I never really got around to making friends so much as acquaintances in Austin because a: I was pregnant and miserably sick and b: this doesn't feel like a permanent home to me. Jim is gone from about 11am until 9pm so I figure the more I sleep during that block the less time that is spent missing him and being bored. I've looked up a lot of local baby friendly activities and they all seem to start around 6 months. There are a good amount of mommy and me groups but I fear that the women in them might not take so well to the site of me. I'd have guessed that a city like Austin would have modified mom groups....then again I dislike most people who lump themselves into something like the "mod community". I'm not even fully comfortable with resigning myself to mommy only oriented activities. It's hot as balls out and even walking him in the park is a no go because with the Moby on we would probably fuse together permanently and even in a stroller he may burst into flames. There is also the fact we do not have a single penny to our names to do much with.

How the fuck am I suppose to amuse us all day!? I'm sure he will get sick of me doing baby aerobics on the couch and singing to him after a while. There's a big world I want him to experience.

I have such a beautiful idea in mind of what I want his childhood to be like and I feel like I am off to a bad start. I'm sure there are a lot of people that will argue all your baby needs is love but I don't want him to grow up to a be a total dumbass and there is a whole lot of adventuring I want to go on with him. I'm eager to see wonderment at the world through his eyes and he isn't going to get a lot of that laying on the couch with me cuddling and kissing him.

We just spent a half hour or so sitting outside so I could have a tea, get some sun, and let his butt finally wake up for a morning poop but the sun started to get warmer and I didn't want his supple little baby skin to burn off as it went from 80 to 95 within 20 minutes. I guess that's something.

I know this sounds like a very negative post and I really did not intend for it to be, it is however honest and I wouldn't be surprised to hear a lot of new moms experience the same thing. I AM happy, I love this little man so much I could explode, so much it causes me crippling panic attacks some nights(maybe that isn't good). He is the absolute sunshine of my everyday and I would die without him. I am just having a tough little go of transitioning into being a mother, i'm confused about my identity, my sexuality and role in the world now. I'm not used to spending all my time chatting with someone who cannot do anything but coo and smile at me, as satisfying and beautiful as those coos and smiles may be.

Ahhhh

That's a scream, not a sigh.

It has begun. My sweet little baby man Llewellyn(yah I really named him that) has arrived albeit a few weeks early, June 14th as opposed to June 30th. I don't blame him for making a break for it though, i'm sure it was no fun at all in there and he needed to get the fuck out.

I definitely had a picture in mind of what my pregnancy would be like. I was going to be one of those women who was glowing all the time and was excited for all the strange new sensations of having a little life grow inside me. My actual pregnancy was nothing at all like that.

I was truly miserable, probably the most miserable I have been in my entire life for almost 9 months. From the very beginning I was incredibly ill and had a horrible time keeping food down. This eventually caused me to lose a lot of the pregnancy weight I had gained and ultimately I only ended up gaining about 17 pounds from my pre-prego weight. On top of feeling physically ill I was emotionally devastated. Here I was accomplishing everything I had dreamed of in life and I couldn't control my sadness and stress....so that just added me feeling like a failure on top of everything else. I started to question my ability to be a mother. I was terrified of not bonding with my baby and having horrible post partum depression. These are all fears I was afraid to vocalize to myself or anyone else but i'm sure I wore them on my sleeve. Add to this having a shitty midwife who did absolutely nothing to figure out why I was having such a terrible time and offered no information on what to expect out of pregnancy, labor, birth or being a mom. I'm sure someday i'll write about my midwife and birth experience.

Ultimately when the time came I hadn't really kept food down in a couple weeks and I ended up transferring from the birth center to a hospital to give birth. At the time this was crushing and scary to me, but in retrospect probably worked out for the best and the information I was given in the hospital was invaluable and made me feel a bit more prepared to take my little man home.

As it ultimately turned out all my fears were unfounded. The first second I looked at him I fell in love. I know it sounds cliche and not everyone has that experience but I just count myself very lucky. Since the birth things have been wonderful. Of course I was initially completely overwhelmed by the idea of having something so precious and fragile totally dependent on me, but I also felt overwhelmed with inspiration and love. It really is an emotion and side of me I never knew existed. I don't think that it did exist until he was born. I haven't had a day where I don't find myself caught up in how amazing he is at some point and I wonder if that day will ever come.

Beyond all the mushy greeting card sentiment having a little baby is just awesome. He is so much fun and it totally balances out the exhaustion and stress. I find myself getting excited about all the little things i'll be able to do with him when he gets older as well as knowing how much i'll miss him being this little and helpless.

It took me about 5 hours to write this....I suppose that says a lot.

Doomed enterprises divide lives forever into the then and now.

It's hard to imagine everything that can change in two years and when I look back it makes me dizzy.

I had at one point resigned myself to believing everything I dreamed of doing was nothing more that just that, dreaming. When you sit somewhere for five years spinning your wheels it's easy to become discouraged with yourself, everyone around you, life. I'd always been told that if you want to do or change something in life you just do it, just make the change. I never understood how to do that and I can't really explain what happened in my brain when everything just clicked and I made a decision that has changed everything.

My decision to reject the small selfish destructive girl I was has brought me the love of my life, taken me across the country and put a baby in my belly.

My life was easily consumed with bartending, working in a tattoo shop, roller derby, a grand pursuit of getting fucked up and destroying everything while basically pursuing nothing real. I spend my days in a bit more simple of fashions now. House chores, gardening, puppy walking, cooking a healthy dinner every night. No job, no night life, no real social circle to speak of and while that all may sound quite boring, it really is just the start of the life I want to live.

A year and a half ago Jim and I decided what our lives were going to be. I packed my bags for Philadelphia to be with him, leaving everything and everyone behind. We planned to move to Texas, start our family and live a life that seems long lost by societal standards. I can't believe how quickly we have accomplished all that. Hopefully this blog will chronicle our pursuit of dropping out, becoming self sufficient and making life our land and family.

I've never been a huge fan of sharing your life with an internet world but the idea of chronicling such a huge change in life is too appealing. At the end of June I become a mother for the first time, Jim a father. Nothing in the world seems more exciting and strange than this, no matter how commonplace it may be.

Sometimes the decisions in life you make bring you to a place where you feel like you have royally fucked up everything beyond repair. In retrospect I realize I was just thickening my skin and freeing up my life for infinite possibilities. I'm not entirely what my future holds but i've never been so excited about it.