Surviving the Domestic Jungle

“Nature has got it all wrong. When you are younger, it should be harder to get pregnant, and as you get older it should be easier,” she notes. “When you are so ready, you can’t do it to save your life. And when you are 21, you are so not ready, but you are ripe as can be. That’s one thing God got wrong.”

Above is a quote from an article that was about Halle Berry and it got me thinking about the pros and cons to having children in your 20′s and in your 40′s. Both ages have a lot of pros and cons. First I’ll analyze having kids in your 20′s:

Pros:

You are physically up to the task.

Your body recovers and “bounces back” easily.

You still relativily young when they are grown ups

You can enjoy your 40′s because your kids will be pretty self sufficient by then!

Cons:

Financially you are most likely not where you would like to be.

You haven’t experienced a ton of “adult life”. You are an adult at 18 and say you had a child at 25 you would have only had 7 years to be irresponsible and spontaneous and be able to sleep when you want!

And I cannot think of any other reason……

And Having kids in your 40′s:

Pro’s:

You are most likely more financially stable

You have had years and years to get to know yourself and to “sow your oats” so to speak

You got to take trips and sleep in and be spontaneous

Con’s:

Everything is higher risk

If you wait, you might not be able to have children

Your body is not at its peek to deal with chasing after children

You will be pushing 60 by the time graduation comes around

So, each side has its ups and its downs. I only am experienced in having children in my 20′s and I do not plan on having them in my 40′s unless there should be a surprise. I enjoy being in my 20′s and knowing what I had to give up to become a mother and I also know that when I am in my 40′s, I will get to regain some freedom. So basically should you have kids young, you get to enjoy being older where as you have kids older, you get to enjoy your youth. Who’s to say which is better but I personally am happy with my choice because at this age it is exhausting and I can only imagine how hard it can be for some of those older moms. Especially the ones that have multiples because of getting “help” to conceive. Either way, being a mother is the most rewarding, terrifying, special experience no matter how old or how young!

Alright, I have bounced back from my emotional trauma and feel better! Sometimes you just need a day to wallow in your self pity. Or at least I do every now and again! On a different note, yesterday I took just my girls to lunch and had so much fun with them. We went to Chipotle which is a pretty good place and Avery and I enjoyed our lunch together because Hailey slept through the whole thing. We chit chatted and had a blast. I love doing things with my girls. I have so much fun with them and they make me laugh so much. They are seriously little comedians who are working on their stand up routine! I love them so much. Anyway, lunch was a blast then we took my wedding ring to be cleaned and I let Avery wear it into the store and hand it to the guy behind the counter and I let her wear it out of the store when it was cleaned. Well, you would have thought I put the queens crown on this child as she strutted out of there. Something tells me that I just created a diamond loving monster. I hope Avery becomes a lawyer or a doctor or something that makes a substantial amount of money because between her clothing obsession and now perhaps a diamond one, she is going to need all the money she can get! I swear she was royalty in her last life and her love of the “good life” has followed into this one. On another different note, its a friend of mines birthday today and she is a very special friend of mine that I have known for well over 20 years! So Happy Birthday to my dear friend!!

I didnt write yesterday because yesterday was also not a very good day. Ive had some rough days here recently. I would love to pour out my heart and speak of all the things that are hurting me right now but I just dont feel the time is right. Perhaps in the future when I am better in control of my feelings I will but for now I am just going to speak of how you are supposed to deal with hurt feelings. I don’t think there is any feeling more frustrating than when someone you love hurts you. The pain from that is a 1000 times worse than someone you kind of like hurts you. That’s why love is hard because you open yourself up to be hurt. You open your heart, give it to someone and hope that they don’t trample it. It is about trust ultimately I suppose. Well, sometimes it does get trampled and figuring out how to picked your wounded little soul up off the floor is the challenge for me. I keep thinking of this scene from the movie “As Good As It Gets” with Dianne Keaton and Jack Nickelson and he breaks her heart and it shows her busting out in tears randomly for a while and not just tears but that ugly cry and all the sounds that go along with it. I guess the best way to deal with sadness is to cry and release it. It seems like the healthiest way to deal. A lot of people get mad and a lot of people get vengeful. That doesn’t seem to help anything and in the end you may feel even worse. Ultimately people are going to hurt us. Some worse than others but people will be hurt. Feelings are so delicate and I think if you could take the hurt that you feel and let the person who hurt you feel it, no one would ever hurt anyone and if they did the remorse and guilt they would feel would be crazy. I HATE to hurt people. I hate when I upset anyone and do things that make people cry. There haven’t been too many things in my life that I have done but I have done things and for all of those things I am eternally sorry. As I get older, other people’s feelings are much higher on my list of priorities versus when I was 18 or 25. I care more than ever and maybe that comes from being a mother. Maybe it doesn’t but being a mother has changed me in so many other ways I cant imagine it wouldn’t play a part in that too. I guess for anyone out there who is hurting, just cry it out. Cry, cry, cry, cry until you feel better but always remember to drink a lot of water during those crying sessions!

Im done done done. Put a fork in me! I have had it with sweating and being home bound during the day.  I miss the outdoors and I am the only Texan that is winter white! I have a barely there tan and for good reason! It is insanely hot this summer. I took my kids to the park today….AT 8PM!! It was the only time it was light and not a scorcher. I could only handle an hour before I was drenched and the kids couldn’t even go down the slide because they were so sticky! It sucked! Then the forecast for tomorrow is no better. Its just never ending heat! I am so tired of it. I dont know if it is that I am aging and my patience is a thing of the past or maybe its just getting hotter. Either way, I am about to pack up and move to Alaska! You can always put on a sweater, light a fire and grab a cup of hot coco but you cant always take off all your clothes in public to try and cool down! At the park I just wanted to rip all my clothes off and jump in the pond that is probably riddled with snakes! Of course removing clothing after you have had children involves scaring the children and anyone else with eyeballs. I am not a celebrity and I did not have a 6 pack 20 minutes after giving birth! I have always lost my “baby weight’ but there are definite battle wounds left! Anyway, enough about me naked. The point is I do not understand how I have lived here for so long. Every summer I go through this anger about living here and hate the city and hate the people and hate my electric bill and hate everything!! The heat makes me so grouchy. Just walking to the car to get something is torture! Why not move you ask? Because it is not that easy. If I had my choice, I would be living in the north east enjoying the 4 seasons. Taking my children outside year round would be like a dream come true. If we go out during the day, we have to either be in the car, in a store or in water. I mean taking your kids to a packed park and it is 8pm at night is a problem. I guess the summer is winding down but the weather wont change until November or December so summer may be winding down but the heat is mid cycle. I am such a whiny baby on this topic but it just is just getting old…like me. Old and hot and not the good hot! Sweaty pig hot who is frying like a piece of old bacon!! Perhaps beef jerky because it is dehydrated like me. Crap, now Im hungry….

This is my blog and I feel like I should be able to talk about whatever I want whenever I want but I am in the midst of an internal struggle. I feel like writing is a very good outlet for releasing emotions and saying what you want to say without being interrupted but at the same time I also don’t want to reveal all my dirty laundry. Once you reveal your secrets, that means you have opened yourself up for people to judge you. Now I’m sure people judge me on the not so serious stuff so why do I fret the big stuff. I don’t know. Hence the internal struggle. I am at a loss for just how much to share of the things that make me sad or scare me or I find frustrating or what hurts my feeling when it comes to my personal, personal stuff. Things like my adventures with my girls is always something I want to share because it is pure and innocent. Struggles in my marriage is heavy emotional stuff that I just feel like if I share and try and talk about it that somehow it will backfire. In my experience, sharing too much of yourself always backfires but this is different. Its my blog! I suppose if people don’t want to read what I have to say, the just don’t have to read but at the same time, is it wrong to talk about personal issues. I kind of feel like this blog is my little part of the world. Its all mine and it should be freedom of speech. Obviously I am conflicted and obviously I have had an excruciatingly bad day and need an outlet. For now I chose silence but maybe in the future I wont feel so reserved and I will speak my deep thoughts. Maybe some feedback from someone would help. The question is, do you talk about the personal stuff on a blog? Discuss amongst yourselves and get back to me!

So today I had a brilliant idea to be resourceful and creative with this old kiddie pool we have. My mom got it for the girls at the beginning of summer and it just never was that much of a hit and then it got holes and then it just got balled up in left in the yard. Classy I know but I wasnt about to just throw it out (it is plastic and recyclable!) and it was too big to fit in my car and weeks go by and there you have it. So, my daughter went to her friends house yesterday and was ranting and raving about their slip and slide. I came up with the bright idea of cutting up the old pool and making the soft plastic part that is at the bottom of the pool a homemade slip and slide. Avery was game, Hailey is always game for anything and I grabbed the scissors! I went to work snipping away and while I snipped I cut up the sides so that I can roll them up and put them in a bag and drop them off at the recycling center. I finally got the bottom part free and Avery dumped a ton of my expensive pure and natural dish soap all over it and we turned on the sprinkler we have that sprays straight up and Avery was not impressed. Needless to say my bright idea did not impress the locals. Hailey was having fun just with the sprinkler but Avery was a little disappointed but we still had fun and I completely organized the backyard so we don’t have eyesores like old pool and it is looking pretty snazzy back there. I actually spent time outside and didn’t die from heat stroke thanks to that little sprinkler! I’m a little concerned that all the soap might kill the grass but it is pure and natural so we shall see! All in all, I thought I was being mom of the resourceful year only to be asked later for a toy story 3 slip and slide. I most likely will purchase this non homemade item just because I don’t want my kids to have memories of mom only giving them homemade pieces of junk! They deserve the real thing every now and again. It was a good day with my little ladies!

Today has been such a twisty turn of a day! It started with dropping my sister off at work only for her to call me 20 minutes later and tell me she was fired So sad for her. She really liked her job and really tried to be a good employee but I guess they didnt think she was qualified to make sandwiches. As of right now I am not going to eat at subway until Avery begs me! Its my little protest or support for my sister. After I picked her up we took the recycling to the recycling center (ALWAYS recycle!!) and then I dropped Avery off at her best buddies house so they could play for a couple of hours. I then took my sister to her soon to be college to sign her up for her placement test. Not all that exciting of a day but, later in the day, I watched Toy Story 3 with Avery which was really cute. Each of the Toy Story movies are so different and each one is enjoyable. I have to admit that because of Toy Story, when I go through the kids toys, I think of that movie and if the toy isn’t completely ruined I always donate it. Some child somewhere hopefully benefits and just in case those toys ever do come to life, they are all together in the bag that I put them in! My mom called me later in the evening and told me about my new niece and how well she was doing and how beautiful she is which is nice to hear. Any premature baby doing well is always a miracle!! I cant wait to meet both of my new nieces. I might be in a hazmat suit when I do but at least I will get to see them! You can never be too careful when it comes to germs with babies and especially premature babies!! On a little side note, I have a funny story about a pillow pet name. Avery had been asking me for weeks for a pillow pet and one day I saw them in Walgreens so I took her there and she picked out the one she wants. Now for those who dont know what a pillow pet is, it is basically a stuffed animal in the shape of an animal. So she proceeded to pick a purple unicorn and when we got it home, we were trying to pick a name. Lots of different names were thrown around but by far the best one Avery came up with was Awesome Horny. My husband and I were cracking up because how do you explain that the name is completely inappropriate without explaining what horny is??!! We just left it as is and keep giggling about it every now and again. Awesome horny…..HAHAHAHA! I love it! Anyway, it was a good day and even though there were downs, there were a lot of ups!

Im not all that sure of what to write about. Nothing fantastic or extra special happened today that was particularly thought provoking. It has been a pretty dull Sunday. One highlight of the day would have to be that I saw the 12 extra minutes of LOST that is about what happens after Hurley takes over the island. To all the non LOST fans reading this, go watch the series (It is so good I cant even explain) and to all the LOST fans, when you see this 12 minutes, so many questions are answered and you see a lot of Ben Linus who was one of my favorite characters. I actually found his dorky little evil self to be quite attractive from time to time I am hoping that they do a spin off. It would make me so happy! I loved all those characters and I loved that island so much and I bawled during the finale which I thought was beautiful. I really enjoyed that show so much and it is dearly missed. Well, if a 12 minute clip was the highlight of my day, you can obviously tell it was a tad dull. I did take the girls for ice cream at McDonald’s which was so delicious. Avery had hers but Hailey slept through the whole excursion and missed out on her treat so she got an Oreo when we got home! Ugh I feel so boring writing this. I really want to keep talking about LOST but if someone reads this who doesn’t know what the show is about they might fall asleep! On a kind of LOST note, Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan to all you who have no idea who Charlie is) is in a new video for eminem which shows a whole un Charlie Pace like character. It wasn’t exactly a role I was used to seeing him in and it was a great video. He really is an awkward looking man but he seems to be pretty talented. The video has a disturbing undertone but it’s always fun to see actors who you so closely identify with a certain personality in a different light. It would be like seeing Hurley skinny or Jack lazy or Sawyer with a British accent! It would take a minute for a girl to adjust. Anyway, I am going to end my blog which is a bit of a snore but nonetheless about my favorite show of all time!!!

Today is a bad day in the marriage. There are rough days and it got me thinking about how we all enter into love and relationship so blindly thinking that our “love” will be enough. BS! Its not enough and I feel so darn unprepared to deal with things sometimes. Obviously communication is the key but who actually can communicate effectively? Old stuff comes up, feelings get hurt and basically fights are called fights because they are no fun. Every normal couple fights is the rumor I have heard but honestly, I feel alone. I feel like I am the only person on earth who has days where the idea of packing up and moving to Alaska sounds like more fun than tackling a marriage issue. Marriage should be called work or even a lie! Im sure there are those happy marriages out there where every thing is cupcakes and lollipops all day but mine is not that way. I am here to say that any other person out there who has bad days in their marriages, you are not alone!! I want so badly sometimes to run away but then I remember I made a commitment and I have children and a responsibility to them to be an adult and work out my issues but boy there are days where I want to be the child. I want to just cry and have my mom comfort me and eat lots of ice cream. Its amazing how marriage can bring such opposite feelings in an instant. One moment you are happy and in love with your partner and feel content in knowing that is your “buddy” through thick and thin. You have confidence in the choice you made and feel like nothing could ever break your bond to them giving you a look or doing something or saying something that just hits the wrong button and BAM a fight happens and you are left questioning this person. How could you have been so cavalier with your choice in a spouse? How could you have actually thought this monster was your “buddy” for life? You make up, you move on and then something else happens. I really wish there had been some sort of class in high school to prepare you for marriage. Maybe a class dedicated to communicating effectively would help all of us. If my husband and I could learn to talk effectively, our marriage would be damn near a breeze. We dont have infidelity and we dont fight about money but the things we do fight about, just dont really get resolved because we just can’t talk. It is so frustrating. You feel like you are standing in a crowd screaming and no one is looking. Everybody wants to be heard and everybody wants some one to care about how they feel so why is it so hard to give that to someone when all we want is to feel that way? Blah. I could go on but there really is no point. I think the struggle in relationship knows no boundaries and if you picked a married couple out of 1432 they would probably have the same complaints as a couple now. Marriage is hard. No one is prepared for it and sometimes it can take your breath away.

Tiny niece number 2 has arrived and is doing well! Both my little nieces are going to have a lot in common! I was on pins and needles for quite sometime today but all is well and my step brother told me my sister in law was doing her hair and makeup before the c-section. If you knew her, you would know that is something she would do! She’s crazy and fun and obviously always looks fantastic! Either way there will be hospital time for the little one but so far so good. She is bigger than my other niece and had more time in the womb so my fingers are crossed. Its been a weird and wild ride these past couple of months with these girls who couldn’t wait to enter this world. I have accumulated 2 new wrinkles on my face because of them but I forgive them for aging me because they are both so darn cute! Its a good day today. A new miracle entering the world is always so special and makes me want to run out and buy a bunch of pink things! Our family is growing and growing and it is all girls! No grandson’s yet but who knows what the future holds. All these girls is going to be interesting when they are all teenagers. My girls will be especially expensive due to their love of clothes and shoes at such young ages. That and their stubborn personalities!