Passions

His voice punches through the noises in the gym while coaching his wrestler to "get hand control." The gym is bouncing with energy. Four teams are going at each other with full force. He loves this. The energy and the drama. He remembers that boy was the state runner up last year at such and such school and wrestled so and so. He needs this to keep him young and sane and connected.
When Tommy coaches he channels his love and experience of wrestling into sweet rewarding victories and comradery that comes with being a model for athletic teen boys.
I want that.
I want to go somewhere to scream and sweat and jump or run and passionately spill over with energy and calorie burning to do what I love.
There is something about being a mother that holds one back. It's not the child or the need to be with her, it's the availability of me.
I am not that available.
Bella will not sit in a nursery while Mommy does (fill in the blank.)

(For the record this is not where I thought this post would go.)

The mommy that I am feels guilty having someone babysit her child while she goes to get her daily sweat. The few hours I get with her during the day are sweet but packed full enough that there is little breathing room in our "schedule."
But, Tommy's schedule is what it is and I am expected, though by no fault of Tommy, to handle it and unless there is a dire emergency there is no need to change. Right?
Wrong.
I need something.
Something to get out the anger built up from some dysfunctions in my life, the job that I choose, the daily aggravation with driving in Charlotte and waiting for everyone to take their time while I rush to please everyone else but me.
Boy am I ranting or what?
That's all.
That's enough for me to get out of my system for now.
Don't worry I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is to all this.
Just renew the dang membership and sit the baby in the nursery for as long as she will put up with it and work it out.
Stationary biking and elliptical riding are my fantasy lately because I feel like my muscles are one by one deflating and dying.
All that work at Funky Fit last Spring and Summer down the drain.
FYI... Funky Fit is the best thing since the juice bar at my gym. The instructors teach you to boogie to hip hop music while you sweat your ___ off. It's not great for preggy people though.

My pregnant body #2

Every day I slash through another day finished in my pregnancy with a blue highlighter. It's been approximately 70 days according to the calender. It feels like 700. The pregnancy calender provides details of the baby's development and sometimes tidbits about my "development." Development is actually a good word. It envelops the weight gain, the mood changes, the skin issues, the fatigue and all the other things I am forgetting since I also have pregnancy amnesia. The calender told me I might be experiencing that. Lovely.

I have been feeling less sick. After a good month of colds, stomach bug, nausea and fatigue. I think I may have a grip on the strategies to keep me sane. According to my calender, if I eat small meals all day long the nausea will back off. Only problem, I don't carry a refrigerator with me everywhere I go so I am eating crappy food. I totally intended to keep only fruit for snacks and flavored water or juice to drink...but it's not working. I also wanted to have "me" time every evening and walk my stress of work and pregnancy away. So far all I have done is some resistance band work for my back and a lot of good sleeping. I know this is temporary and that I should be enjoying all of this. One day I am going to long for another pregnancy and the feelings of maternal business. But, today I am wondering why women are wired so insanely to long for this and to FORGET how damn hard it is.

All-in-all I am happy to not be sick. I can't wait to get back to the gym with some of my old energy (when it returns) and put some kick into my step again.

Energy

Feeling zapped, sick, sore and run down has taken over. I could sleep forever. I fight the urge to throw up, skip showers, sleep late and give into my hormonal rages. Work is mentally exhausting on it's own paired with parenting the tired factor is through the roof. But, I manage to make it all happen. Hell, I'm even blogging. Who knew I could keep up with that? That may not last long though. I've run out of words.

Overdue pics

She's the cutest Pooh Bear I've ever seen.

My two favorite people being really cute on Halloween night.

This is my favorite pic of the trip we took to the mountains. It's an outdoor patio of the Inn where we stayed.

Happy Halloween!!

Have you ever seen a ghost?
I have.
It was in the early morning at an old house in the Chantilly neighborhood of Charlotte. I was sleeping in the bed with my father and stepmother. (I sneaked in during the night.) And I awoke because of some noises in the house and the light of the morning was beginning to flow through the windows. My eyes slowly opened and there stood an apparition in the right corner of the door way. He was not beaming with grayish white light.He wore knickerbockers, what we would call a golf hat, and a white button down shirt. He said nothing and his expression did not change. He was indifferent. We think he was about 10 years old, from the 1920's and he probably lived in that house or neighborhood. I say we because I was not the only one he revealed himself to. Charleen ( my Stepmother) saw him at the foot of her bed one night watching her as she slept. She was not afraid but alarmed and knew the boy was neither alive nor threatening. The Elizabeth neighborhood is the most haunted part of Charlotte. It's also one of the oldest and Chantilly is not far from there.
How did I know I was not dreaming?
That morning we had visitors. My aunt and cousin from Maryland were in the living room and I was not aware of their plans to be there in that part of the morning. I saw them there as I watched the ghost turn around and exit the doorway. This is one of the most amazing memories of my life. Imagine living your whole life, since you were 5 or 6 years old, knowing for a fact that ghosts were real and that you had seen one. I knew. I was neither scared nor turned off. As a matter of fact I was intrigued. I burned it into my memory forever and share it with whomever will listen.

Only 247 more days to go

There is a part of being pregnant that I forgot about. There is so much information on the Internet and so many ways to log or view logs of embryos at every stage. It can become an obsession. I signed up to receive e-mails about it. I started a pregnancy "ticker" and I signed up for anything that I could find with free samples and free magazines. I loved getting that stuff when I was pregnant with Bella. I was prepared a little more because of it. I didn't know what kind of formula to use, or what to do for a colicky baby or when the stage of the most weight gain would be. Before the info overload I just thought that I would figure it all out with my common sense. My baby wasn't going to be hard and I would nurse her until I ran out of milk. HA! I wish. I definitely had a colicky baby and I barely had any milk for a while. The support I get from reading those is far better than racking my brain trying to remember things that happened to my body almost 2 and a half years ago. On the flip side it does make for a long pregnancy. It may be an enlightened long pregnancy but 247 days is a bit of a stretch. I prefer to know the weeks and when I will be the most nauseous and gain the abundance of my weight-15 to 35 pounds- here I come. (I hope it's 15...HA!)

My pregnant body

Well, I should have saved all the money on those home preg tests, I think the random gagging would have tipped me off. I don't remember the symptoms of pregnancy hitting me so fast the last time. I am very hungry in between my dry heaving. I think my eyes are changing because things look a little fuzzy sometimes. I know the changes are temporary so they are wonderful to me right now.
I have been so crabby that I will be lucky if my husband can put up with me through this.
With the recommendation of a friend I have chosen an OB. He is supposedly very nice, gentle and caring. All very good qualities of an OB! I have to go to a different OB than the one that delivered Bella as he no longer works with the group I saw last time.
Oh yeah, I have a cold again. That's not unusual though. I have had about 10 colds since Bella was born. I think it's stress. I obviously have a problem with it.
We are still flying on the high from the novelty and excitement. Later that will wane, I remember the feeling that pregnancy would never end. I was so ready to have Bella at the end that I thought I would never get into that delivery room.
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We did go to the mountains and I have some great pics that I will post as soon as I can. I will not be writing an article about the Inn we visited since the promise of publication became far out of reach over the weekend. It's a long story so lets just say my Mom ruined it for me.
She was dating a guy who had friends in the magazine business in Boone. I thought I was a shoe-in. She showed out and lost that boyfriend. Oh well.
I want so badly to get an easy break. The promise of publication has to be in place to get me to write well. I have come to that conclusion. Sad.
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Over the Summer I wanted to go back to school. I picked 3 things that I thought that I would enjoy doing and I decided to research them. I came to the conclusion that I would go back to school to be an English teacher and apply to CMS since they allow you to be in training while teaching. This would help me out 3 ways. I could brush up my skills while teaching children have my Summers off and eventually write more, possibly for a publication. So, I applied for 9 teaching jobs and prepared to get the call to interview as well as register for school. None of that happened so we decided add to our family instead. I am so happy with this choice. I can still do those things if the desires persists and I have a feeling they will.