Feeling Helpless...

Z got sick last week. Like really sick, not just me being an over-worried Mama.

I was chatting with my sis on the phone when I hear him start to cry (it's 9:30 at night). Now Z has been a phenomenal sleeper lately but that hasn't been without some work, including us having to let him fall back asleep on his own so I didn't immediately run into his room. But then he just sounded so upset and it really isn't normal for him to wake up crying anymore so I decided to go check on him. What I found broke my heart (and made me feel like an awful mama). My poor little baby had thrown up, all over himself, his blankie and his crib. and he just looked so confused & upset. I jumped into action, picked him up and immediately brought him into the bathroom and started the bath. Thankfully it wasn't 2 a.m. and we were still up and Mike got all his bedding into the washer and changed the sheets. But poor Z, he looked so lost in the bathtub. He wasn't even crying, he was just sitting there not moving and would occasionally touch his tummy. I know my throat always hurts when I'm sick so I gave him some water to drink and he just cuddled on my lap and right at the moment we were getting comfy, he threw up all over me. And the poor kid, he doesn't understand leaning forward so he was throwing up sitting straight and would just cry and cry and gag a bit and then be so confused when I would push him forward. It was awful. He threw up every 20 mins for the next 2 hours. We called Mike's mom (the time difference meant it wasn't late there at all) and asked what to do and then we called Health Link (can you tell this is the first time Z's been sick?). We were told to just give him some amounts of liquids and just help him lean forward when he was vomiting. But seriously, it was the worst night of my life. I felt so helpless & inadequate. I had no idea what to do. Z would be throwing up and I would just cry along with him not knowing what else to do.

But we survived. It was short lived thankfully. He finally went about 45 minutes without throwing up and he was dozing in my arms so I put him back in his crib and attempted to fall asleep. I had little success since every time I heard him cry, I would run into his room. It was a long night. I had texted my dayhome and emailed my work right after he threw up so I didn't have to wake up for work which was nice. He woke up at around 7:30, having gone to bed around midnight and then waking up several times in the night (but thankfully not throwing up). That day he slept from 9:00-12:30, then from 2:30-5:00 and back to bed at 7:30. My heart just broke for my poor tired sick baby. I couldn't get him to eat anything but I managed to get him to drink quite a bit so I felt somewhat comforted. But Z's never been sick before! He's never not ate (this is the kid who regularly outeats me). I was once again feeling helpless & anxious. I had a lot of time on my hands since he was sleeping so much that I just had to really pray and ask for strength and wisdom and guidance.

I really tend to try to do everything myself. I'm always willing to ask Mike for help and I will call complete strangers on Health Link but I don't call out to my Heavenly Father for wisdom. Why is that? Why do I struggle with really seeking God when I'm struggling? Why do I think He's going to judge me? Or think I'm a failure. He knows everything anyways, not asking doesn't mean I'm hiding my inadequacies. I don't have any answers to these questions but I know it's something I really want to work at. I want to have that relationship with God where He is the first person I call out to, not the last.

Halloween Fun!

I didn't actually think I would enjoy Halloween as much as I did. I thought Z would look adorable in his costume and we'd go to our neighbours and he would get bored and we'd be done. But it ended up being such a fanastic night. Z, of course, looked adorable as a little pumpkin (is anyone surprised?) and he had so much fun. We took him out in our complex because then we could quit whenever he felt like he was done, plus I thought it would be fun to see our neighbours. Well Z did so good! The first house we went to he was a little uncertain. I knocked and he just stood there while the person gave him candy but then at the next house he tried to share his candy! So cute. Which of course made the person give him even more candy. Spoiled little kid. :) He figured out pretty quickly what he would need to do. He would pound his little hands on the door and wait patiently (not too patiently - if they didn't get to the door quickly he would just leave!) and hold his bucket up with a smile. He got SO much candy. He had the cute factor and the fact that no-one was out last night (which was crazy because it was gorgeous out - 8 degrees and clear skies!) so everyone just handed him 10 chocolate bars at each door. We actually had to empty his bucket into Mike's pockets in order to finish our complex. We hit every unit in our complex that had lights on, which was only about 20 out of 120, and Z was spoiled. He loved holding the bucket and loved being able to play with the smartie boxes :)

It was really one of those nights I will remember for a long time. It was the first really "parent-y" thing I feel like we've done. I mean we've done lots of parental things in the last 15 months but this was the first thing we've done for Z that I have clear memories of my parents doing for me. I'm not sure if that makes sense but this seemed like a big moment for us. Sometimes I don't really feel like a parent. I think it's because we are young and none of our friends have kids and Z often just kinda comes around with us. We don't do a lot of things just for him because well he's 1 and he doesn't really care what we do yet. But this was something that we obviously wouldn't do if he wasn't around and it was such a typical parent thing to do - dress your kid up and take him trick or treating. I don't know, I loved it. I felt like this was just a big moment in our lives. Maybe thats silly but I'm okay with that.

I'm happy - deal with it

I am so sick and tired of hearing people say "oh it must be so hard" when they hear about me going back to work. Yes, I love my child. Yes, I do struggle with leaving him in the care of someone else and yes, I wish I was there to see all his big firsts. However, I LOVE my job. I LOVE working and I honestly don't picture myself as a stay at home mom right now. I might be one day, but right now, I love working. But I feel like it's become this "thing" where stay at hom moms are seen as the best moms, the hardest working moms, the moms who truly love their kids and would do anything to be with them every day. Don't get me wrong, I respect moms who do choose to stay at home and I think thats great for them. But it's not for me and I'm not going to feel guilty because I enjoy working. I have a fantastic dayhome, I know my son is safe and happy there. I know she loves him and gives him constant affirmation and affection. He loves going there and loves it when I pick him up. I also hate hearing about how I must look forward to me being able to stay home, going on the assumption that the only reason I'm working is because I have to. Well I don't. Yes, financially it does make better sense for me to be working right now but technically, I think if I really wanted to, we could make it work. Or I could only work part-time or something. I am working because I want to. I am working because I enjoy my job. It's not easy. It is a lot of work to make sure I get enough time with my child and have a life and right now, I do sacifice a bit of my social life because if I'm away from Z all day, I don't really want to get a babysitter and lose more time with him. But thats okay. For me, this is the life I currently want. I don't believe that won't change. I'm sure that I might choose to stay home with my children one day. Maybe. But maybe I will keep working and I'm okay with that too. It's my choice and I absolutely love having that freedom.

But I'm happy and please stop assuming that I'm not.

Weird things my kid does

• child safety locks - no match for Z. I was taking a shower the other day and being the wonderful mother I am, I plopped my kid in front of a Veggie Tales episode and told him to sit still. 5 minutes later, this little hand pulls open my shower curtain and says "Hi!". I almost died of shock. When no-one over the age of one is home and you have a child proof lock on your door handle, you really dont expect company in the shower!
• Cleans my house. Really well in fact. He puts all the shoes in the hall closet, he puts the remote control on the TV cabinet, he puts his milk back in the fridge and his clothes in the hamper. I have no idea where he gets this desire to clean from, definiately not from me but I appreciate it.
• spins in circles when he's bored. And then falls on the ground giggling.
• Socks in the utensils drawer - I'm teaching Z to put his clothes away, so when I do laundry I hand him his clothes and he puts them in his drawers. He's figured this out really well, except now whenever I open one of the kitchen drawers, I find random articles of clothing in there. Usually it's a sock.
• When he babbles, it's full sentences and hand movements. And if we ignore him, he will push himself into our line of vision and babble really loud.
• Imitates a monkey - seriously this kid is such a climber. Yesterday he discovered that he could move his little chair into the kitchen, climb on it, use the drawer handles for support and grab stuff of the counter. He's also learned he can crawl onto the ottoman and couches. Nothing is out of reach in our house anymore
• Gets himself ready for going outside - he will hand me his socks, his shoes and his jacket. and if I'm taking too long, he brings me my shoes and then grabs the keys and tries to put them in the door.
• Wears a potty for his hat - he will take the top part of his little potty off and run around the house with it on his head. He also does this with buckets. I feel like perhaps I shouldn't encourage him to run around with things on his head but it's really hilarious.

I can post again!

For some reason my blog wouldn't let me publish any posts so I had all these posts saved but no way to publish them. But I got around the system by installing the Blogger app on my phone and then i could publish from there! So soon there will be a bunch of old posts up but for the time being I'll just post a picture of my growing little guy:

Sometimes I shouldn't open my mouth...

My husband wants to become a cop.

It was my idea…why? I suggested it mostly as a joke when we were thinking of new careers for him – he likes guns so it made sense in my mind. However, I didn’t expect him to be interested. Or to find out that he was considering it but didn’t want to say it because he thought I would freak out. Which I did. But then I stopped and thought about it. Mostly about how hot he would look in the uniform. But I also thought about my feelings on guns (before we got married, I told Mike – my gun loving American that he could never own a gun), on how I hate it when he’s gone more often than he’s home, how I worry needlessly about him getting in a car accident if he’s 10 minutes late so how would I be if he had a higher risk job, but mostly I just thought about how regardless of all that, I think he’ll be a great cop and he would actually enjoy his job.

I do think he would be a great police officer. He is calm, controlled, works well with people, dedicated, physically active and would love a diverse and changing job. I think he would enjoy it. Does that mean I want him to be a cop? Not 100% but I want him to have a job he loves, I want him to wake up and enjoy going to work. I hate watching him go to a job he hates because he wants to provide for us. I could picture him as a cop and I like that picture. I’m not a huge fan of the hours or the time away from us but I also know that EPS has pretty decent hours and I truly do believe that we could make it work. They do 4 days on and 4 days off so you actually do get a significant amount of time together but I’m also not naive enough to think that those 4 days on won’t be extremely difficult, especially if he’s working nights. I also know that cops have one of the highest divorce rates in a profession and I will not let that happen to us which means we are going to have to be intentional and really work on our marriage, a lot more than we do now if I’m being honest. I worry that with me working, it will make it a lot harder for me and for us to see each other. If he’s working weekends, then I’m home alone those days and even if he’s off for 4 days, if it’s during the week, I won’t see him because I’ll be at work. We’ll have evenings but with the little dude, that’s not always quiet or relaxing. The nice thing is that he will make more money and if I really wanted to, we could afford for me to stay home and then when he’s home for those 4 days, I will be there too! So we’ll see. I’ll also have to get used to holidays not being celebrated on the actual day (although bonus – holidays are paid @ triple time!) and Mike missing some of those big moments in our lives but I do believe we will be able to do it. There will be sacrifices but if my husband is able to have a job he loves and be able to provide for our family, I will support him. 100%. I know that if I ever said I can’t handle it, even if he’s been a cop for 20 years, he would quit that day. I know that. And I am comfortable with him going into this because I know that. I have no doubt that Mike would do absolutely anything for our family.

But as much as both Mike & I think this is what he should do, we are waiting. This is not a small decision. It’s more than a career, it’s a lifestyle and we can’t make this decision lightly. So we are working on getting all the documents ready for the application (which is no small feat) and we have to wait for some certificates to come (since Mike is American he has to get some extra documentation) and that will take 6 weeks so we are going to use that time to really pray about this and really make sure this is what God wants us to do as a family. Mike needs to train so he is ready for the physical fitness challenge and again, we are using that time to pray about this. We can’t apply for 6 weeks and I think that is a huge blessing because that gives us time to make sure we are not rushing into this and that we are going into this as informed as possible. We are meeting with a couple from church, he is a cop with EPS, and we want their insights and thoughts about becoming a police family.
And then, in about 6 weeks time, we hand in that 100 page application and start this journey (maybe!). And pray that we will continue to be directed by God and that we will seek his will in our lives.

I think we are going to do this but I know I need to open to the idea that this may not be what we should do, which I think will be hard to hear because I have spent a lot of time praying, researching and struggling to come to terms with the idea and I feel like I am there now and I am excited for Mike so if it ends up not being what we should do, I’m going to be honest – it will be a struggle. But we have been disappointed before and we still continue on and if we are disappointed again, we will continue on. Together.And that’s all that matters.

I'm still here!

I haven’t blogged in so long! It’s not that I have nothing
going in my life, I think it’s more that I feel like I have nothing worthy of
writing going on. I’m back at work, I love my job, love getting dressed in nice
clothes and having adult conversation every day. I love getting a paycheque and
knowing we do just fine because of the money I make. I love that Z does so well
in his dayhome. But I feel guilty. Should I be so happy that I leave my child
every single day in the care of someone else? Should I be happy that days like
today when Z is grumpy all morning, I’m just happy I’m not the one dealing with
him? Is it wrong that I almost start crying when Z gets so excited to go to the
dayhome each day and I’m happy that he’s happy but I kinda wish he would miss
me more? Our lives are so good right now. I love my job. I love Z’s day home
and I love that I feel energized and ready to handle Z in the evenings and
weekends. I wish I had time to cook more – it’s a little embarrassing to think
about how often we eat Costco hot dogs or frozen pizza simply because I’m
feeling lazy or blah. But beyond the cooking thing, I think we’re doing pretty
good! J

So that’s my update. It’s nothing exciting.

But hopefully there will be big news coming soon ;)

And no I’m not pregnant.