:(

Leaving Suzie every morning is absolutely killing me. This morning I dropped her at daycare and she stood in the window, silent and waving, with tears rolling down her cheeks, watching me leave. It's not right to leave her somewhere that makes her so unhappy, especially to go off to a job that is sucking the life out of me. It's not supposed to be like this. :(

Including our summer vacation and her daycare provider's summer vacation, she's really only got a month and a half left of this particular daycare and she's beyond excited to start at the Montessori school in the fall. I know she has a good time at Chris' house--she doesn't want to leave when I show up to take her home in the afternoons, but still, it feels horrible to leave her there; and every morning when she wakes up and asks "do I have to go to Chris' house today?" Often first thing upon opening her eyes, it's just not right.

It was a great weekend. To recap I ended up skipping out on the party but John took Suzie. They raged until 11! omg... Party animals, those two. The aforementioned child hating shrew was indeed in attendance (do you know who I'm referring to, Andrew :) ? ) and was indeed just as cold and horrible as I'd expected. John did his best to keep Suzie in different rooms but still had the feeling that this meanie was in the kitchen hating that she even had to hear Suzie's excited voice. I get that some people aren't into kids--I really do! And I don't begrudge them for it--to each their own and all that, really! But this woman, she seems to really, actively dislike the people, the human beings, that children ARE; regardless of personality or temperment. It's very ugly. Thank goodness I really only see her once a year, if that, at this particular birthday party.

The rest of the weekend was gorgeous! omg, Summer showed up! Yea! We played in the yard, went out to breakfast, took a short hike, watched part of an airshow, ate a ton of strawberries and ice cream...um, I know I'm forgetting something...Whatev, it was a busy, fun-filled weekend that also included a ton of sleep! Awesomeness!

Party Nervousness

Tonight is a non-kid party to which my entire family is invited. I'm feeling apprehensive. It's at 8, for one, I know--crazy right? But at 8 (make that 7) I'm generally brushing teeth and getting into bed with a book. Now Suz loves a party, even a non-kid party usually, but I have less fun when I feel like I'm shielding her from the few anti-kid types that usually attend this particular birthday party. To be fair, there are a few people there that honestly LOVE Suzie and can't wait to see her, AND I'm overly sensitive and still stinging from the one childless party attendee last year who was so cold and awful to her, but I'm still nervous. We'll see; if, at 7:30, I'm up for a party then I'll decide to go. If not, then John and Suz can go without me. They'll still have fun, possibly even more than if I DID attend...

I woke up at 5:30 this morning--on time!!!--with the intention of getting some "actual" writing done, as opposed to these mini-posts; Suz woke up at 5:40, instead of 7:15, as I was brushing my teeth and needed some snuggle time...it was nice.

omg...so seriously nesting.

I want to run away from here and scrub my house from top to bottom. I want to make Suzie's play areas magical and inviting. I want to organize my sweaters by color. I want to clean out my junk drawers.

I've started reading a few basic Montessori books; Suzie is starting in the fall and I know enough to know it's where I want her to be; but beyond that I don't feel comfortable answering the inevitable questions that arise when people find out where she will be attending. The books have been informative and inspiring; Suz and I had a great night making one of her play corners attractive and inviting. Tonight we'll work on her kitchen.

Last night we were discussing the upcoming end of her gymnastics lessons for the summer and she asked "after summer, when I go to the Montessori school, will I do gymnastics?" I told her no, that the new school was more about activities and games and learning, she responded "great! cause we don't do learning at Chris' house." So sweet but made me a little sad too, this girl is desperate to learn and perhaps I've been holding her back or not focused enough her needs. Live and learn I guess, we'll take it from here. I've been so scattered and exhausted and sick; I've been just barely getting by and she's definitely been getting the short end of the stick.

I sure wish we'd get some sun around here. My container garden is seriously sporting a thin layer of moss.

Inspired to blog? Perhaps?

No. Not at all. I need to blog about how I'm having a boy and all my many feelings about that. I need to blog about how things are going pretty well this week and how I'm excited and inspired. I need to blog about the incredibly dirty dreams I've been having the past few nights.

But I just don't want to. I'm so not interested in blogging right now. I actually want to get some work done. Weird.

Ok, I'm just gonna go with that.

:)

Back at work

Four days on the Oregon coast with my mom and daughter was far from relaxing but still a lovely time. 55 degree weather with driving wind and rain meant for a LOT of time in the pool. Or "the cool" rather as Suz refers to it. "The hotel has TWO cools! A cold cool and a hot cool!!!" She excitedly shared with us. We were in them for about 4 hours a day.

As the title suggests, I'm back, hard at work today. Work is bad. I'm unhappy here. However, my morning blog perusing has left me feeling inspired to give Suzie an amazing life; now I just need to figure out how to make that happen.

A better day.

I don't know why really--I guess I'll just chalk the whole thing up to hormones. :) I mean, it's far from a great day, I'm just so unhappy at my job. Four and a half months to go though, I'm SURE I can make it through that--right? I cannot believe I'm halfway through this pregnancy; on the other hand it's been such a tough one it feels like I've been pregnant forever! I wonder if I'll ever have a pregnancy that's not riddled with fears and bizarre afflictions.

I had a thought today, while driving into work; a pretty staggering one, actually; and that is that my life has turned out exactly how I wanted it to. And that sucks. From the time I could think for myself I was trying to figure out how to rebel and from the time I moved out of my parents' home and into my first college dorm I excelled at it. Now I'm 35; I have a masters' degree that I have no intention of using, I'm an alcoholic (recovering, but still...), I'm working at a dead end job; AND I have an amazing husband and a gorgeous daughter and a beautiful house on a quiet lake. It's not ALL bad, it's just so frustrating that it's what I made for myself. I wanted to go to Vassar or Sarah Lawrence, you know? I expected to have a real career that I loved. But it was so important to me to "prove myself" by drinking to excess and sleeping with as many people as I could. WTF? WTF was I thinking? How could I have done this to myself?

So here I am, trying to pick up the pieces. I'm trying not to mourn what I've lost for myself but to think positively about where to go from here. It's hard though, when my choices feel so limited. I feel like I'm stuck in this place of "I can't change my reality so I guess I'll just have to change how I feel about it." And right now that feels like a major downer. My husband makes like $16 an hour. When I'm working that's about what I make too. We're JUST making it. We have NO extra money. How do you build a life with that? What do you do when you're in your late 30s and you realize that you've both made absolutely terrible decisions up until now and that you're screwed? How do you deal with that?

How do people do it?

How do they live and support their families and have enough money to pay for the necessities and still manage to have a life and jobs that they enjoy? How did I fuck it up so much? Ok ok, so I'm stressed and tired and emotional right now but how in the world did I make such a mess out of what should have been so promising a life?

Drop Dead Tired

I keep meaning to post and update but I just keep on not getting around to it. I'm beat. I'm so tired. The pregnancy is exhausting. The palsy is exhausting. Now I'm coming down with a cold and that's pretty damn exhausting as well. By 6 p.m. every single night I'm looking like the walking dead, staggering around with my arms out for balance. I'm so tired. I've been working short days for the past week, when I've gone in at all. Today will be my first full day back at work in awhile. I've got today and tomorrow to struggle through and them my mom and Suzie and I are headed off for 4 days on the Oregon coast. The weather is supposed to be gray and 55 degrees but I'm so happy to be getting away for a few days. Mostly though I'm just really overwhelmed with the exhaustion right now.

The fam and I went to a party on Saturday, some good friends are moving to CA so this was kind of their send off. EVERYONE was drinking; I had three urges to go into the kitchen and sneak a quick pull of wine. This coming from the pregnant girl who hasn't had a drink in 6 months. I didn't do it and I'm so glad but it continues to amaze me how strong the urge is. Even though it felt so great to be sober at a party and totally present for Suzie the urge was undeniably still there. Even though I've come to realize how great life is without hangovers and regrets of bad behavior and the ever looming threat of a DUI or worse, the urge is still there. It's just so powerful. God, seeing all those drunk and tipsy parents smoking and drinking and saying stupid things to their kids; it really hit home how good it feels to be sober for Suzie. It's so important.