Cold Hearted

So I'm sure some of you may have noticed that I've been cryptic and oh-so emo with my social media posts lately.  I've been flying under the radar a lot these days.

I've told a handful of friends and family that I felt needed to know what was happening right now...  As for the rest of you, I've deflected the questions and ignored numerous calls and texts.


The Husband and I have agreed to separate for the time being.

I have officially moved out of our home and am temporarily shacking up with my best friend until I can figure out how I want to proceed.

This wasn't an easy decision...  for any of us.

Even though it was ultimately my decision to leave, that doesn't mean it's been all fun, puppy kisses and unicorn farts.  It's been a hard, hard thing to stomach.

The "why" of it is complicated to say the very least...  and you'd probably only understand my reasoning if you were extremely close to me, or spent a substantial amount of time at our house with us.  I've never been one to openly share private details of my relationship struggles with people I wasn't extremely close to.

- That being said, I'm not going to air out all of our issues.

But here's what I feel you all do need to know:

- My kids are both doing well and adjusting.

- The Husband and I are very dedicated to our kids and have been able to remain very amicable, patient and understanding of one another.

- We had issues from the beginning.  I spent much of the last 5 years trying to be very communicative about my feelings on those issues and  tried to offer up many viable solutions.  I have a lot of peace right now knowing that no one (the Husband included) can say that I didn't try.

- I'm not ready to talk about it.  I'm still figuring this whole thing out right now.  There are so many bits and pieces and I'm just trying to find that one crucial piece that will help the whole picture come back into focus.

- I appreciate every call, email, text and prayer from those that have reached out to me privately.  Please continue to pray for me and my family as we search for the right answers. Thank you. 

Love Yourself

Confession: I struggle with self love EVERY SINGLE DAY.  

I'm 37.  Most times, I'm the oldest of the girls I work with. 

All of my colleagues are trendy, beautiful, vibrant and young looking -- and seem to have a matching girl squad of besties who always make time to hang and have fun.

I have too many gray hairs.  I now have to color my hair every 8 weeks.

I am not tee-tiny - I have never been small or uber-skinny.  But, I'm the heaviest I've ever been right now.  I hate getting dressed.  I loathe looking at myself in a full length mirror.

My arms are flabby and make me very self conscious because they jiggle when I have to tease clients' hair.

I have always been busty and have never been able to go braless.  The majority of my wardrobe consists of flowy black tops. 

I have age spots, droopy eyelids and forehead wrinkles and more chins than a Chinese phone book now.

I share all of this because I know many beautiful women struggle with the same self-love issues.

I was venting to my husband the other day about my frustrations and he said to me, "I wish you could see yourself the way I see you."

Just for one day, I wish I were able to see myself through everyone else's eyes.  I bet if all of us women could see just how our peers see us, we'd all have a good laugh over how much time we spent worrying about our appearances.

I decided this weekend to sign up for a gym membership.  I'm tired of not liking what I see in the mirror.  

I want to get healthy... Not for anyone else... Just for myself.  

I want to look better.  I want to feel better.  I don't want to be skinny... I just want to be healthy and fit.  I want to be strong and have some muscles.

I want to be a good example to my kids.  I want to like myself and be proud of the changes that will happen to my body over the next few weeks, months, and years. Changes that I earned. 

I'm finally ready.  Enough is enough.

Tomorrow marks the start of a new journey.  

New day.  

New goals.

Storms

Some days are easier than others.

•••

I'm a mom.  I run a household full-time - I clean, I cook, I handle the family budget and finances, I go to the grocery, I make sure the pets have food, water and keep up with when they need to go to the vet. I juggle co-parenting of one of my children with her father.  I juggle several schedules.  I try to accommodate sleepovers.  I volunteer to chaperone field trips.  

•••

I have voluntarily taken on the responsibility of caring for my 19 year old nephew who has lived with us for a year now.  In turn, this has opened my eyes to how everyone in my family has fallen short in regard to his life.  

I have 2 young children -- who have had pretty normal and stable lives.  I wasn't at all prepared to deal with all the issues that come with being a stand-in parent for a child who has had a harder life - emotionally and mentally - than most adults I know - at the mere age of 18.  

In taking him into our home, it's added to the stress I imagine most parents feel  - in the sense that they are influencing and shaping this human into the person they are going to be for the rest of their life. You hope and pray every single day that you're not messing them up any further.  You try to instill values and personality traits that will help them succeed in life.  You hope that your help will help them to forge a new path that's completely different from the one he's lived for the past 18 years.

With him has come the job of having to act as liaison between him and my mother.  As strained as my relationship with my mother has been, having to turn to her for advice when dealing with my nephew hasn't been a cake walk to say the least.  It's been bittersweet - especially if she feels my parenting style is lacking and isn't "right" per her standards.  

The word "struggle" doesn't even begin to describe the daily internal fight I have with myself.  

•••

I run a business that I started 9 years ago - completely on my own.  I maintain professional relationships.  I try to encourage and positively impact every client of mine.  I try to mentor and help every colleague or coworker to succeed.  I tell everyone to not give up and to never stop chasing their dreams.

•••

I try to maintain and invest in the personal relationships I have.  I pray for my family and friends everyday.  I help plan parties, run errands, move furniture, send care packages and randomly call or text message to let people know I'm here and thinking of them as often as I can.

•••

I say all this not to toot my own horn.

More often than not, I fall short.

I don't handle situations as best as I can.  

My feelings get hurt.  

I get overwhelmed.  

I spread myself too thin and then snap when the load gets too heavy.  

I have days where I feel it's me against the world - where I've tried my hardest to make everyone else happy - and in turn have made myself so, so sad.  

I struggle everyday to find balance. 

•••

The world has morphed into this ridiculously busy place where no one has time to spare.  

I miss the days when I had so many friends that wanted to spend time with each other that we'd have dinner and movie nights almost every other weekend and would always have a house FULL of people who came over just to eat and laugh together.

I miss the days when I tried to do something to make the people closest to me smile -- just because I wanted to hear them laugh.

I miss the days when I didn't beat myself up so much for not being perfect at everything I do or tried to do.

•••

Today wasn't the easiest of days.  I failed to handle my trials with grace.  I feel incredibly sad and overwhelmed.

But I find peace in knowing that tomorrow is a new day and I get to start all over with a prayer and a happy song (probably one by Prince) in my heart. 💜

One Year

Well, Xander is a year old!  

I can't believe a whole year has gone by!

It was a good year, but it was definitely one of major adjustments and re-prioritizing.  

I remember talking to the lactation consultant at the hospital the day after Xander was born.  She asked me how long I planned to breastfeed.  I told her I was going to TRY to make it a year.  She was very happy by my answer and told me that was an excellent and very realistic goal.

And here we are!  - A year later.  - Still going strong -- even after the many, MANY times I cried (and screamed), "I want to quit!"

Breastfeeding is, by far, one of the most difficult, most challenging things I've ever done in my entire LIFE. 

I am so thankful I was able to master it this go around.  

I am proud of myself for sticking with it even when it was a HUGE inconvenience, especially considering all the out of town work I had over the course of this past year.

Pumping several times a day to keep your supply up, storing expressed milk in tiny hotel room freezers, making special trips to special grocery stores to buy dry ice so I could get all of my expressed milk home safely in a small cooler without it spoiling and going to waste -- Ugh!  What a royal pain in the butt!  - Just a small part of all the stuff no one tells you about nursing children!!

I can see why a lot of moms choose to nurse past the 1 year mark.  I understand it more now than I did ever before.  Even though I don't believe my personal choice will be to nurse much longer, I completely understand and support other moms in their wishes to continue on past a year.

As nursing moms, we've worked SO hard to master the art of nursing and just when it starts to get easy and has almost become second nature, it's time to wean your little boob monster.  It's really kind of sad.  

Anyhow, a year of literally sharing my body...  On top of the 9 months prior that the baby was IN my body.  That wasn't easy.

But I did it.  And I'm so grateful.  

Xander is such a blessing.  He is the sweetest little soul.

He is crawling, standing, cruising, climbing and taking wobbly little steps!  He says "Please" and knows how to sign the word for "Milk".  

He has 8 teeth.  Sucks his thumb.  Loves sweet potatoes, green beans and bananas.  

Smiles, laughs and gives sweet, slobbery kisses often.  

He is a total momma's boy, but has started to cry if dad leaves the room without cuddling him first. 

And he LOVES his big sister SOOOO much.  She's such a good Big Sis!

Lost

There's been an inner struggle happening lately.

I knew it was only a matter of time before it presented itself.  - After all, this isn't my first go-round raising a baby.

It's no big secret that I was super indecisive about choosing to have another child.

I went back and forth.  - Yes, then no; then no, then yes again.  

I guess I was a realist of some sort.  I knew how hard it is to be a full-time parent to a helpless baby.  I was painfully aware of all the obstacles that come along with having a new baby: sleep-deprivation, ZERO time for yourself and very little energy for / time with your spouse.  I never forgot about those things like I've heard other parents say.

The struggle was real.

I am super career-driven.  I work all the time and LOVE what I do.  My career has only managed to get more and more busy with each passing year and I feel super grateful and blessed for that considering there are makeup artists everywhere in Nashville now.

In addition to being a workaholic, I'm also admittedly pretty selfish of my personal down time.

I knew having another baby would make me rethink my priorities in both respects and I happily chose to do it.

With Emily's dad and I sharing custody, I was able to have a "break" from parenting a couple days a week and every other weekend - granted, that didn't start till she was almost a year old.  It wasn't easy to be away from her at first, but as she got older, it was nice to just have a day or evening - or sometimes both - all to myself.

Ultimately, those kid-free days allowed me to make friends, have somewhat of a social life and work at making my business successful.

Xander is 7 months now.  

I wanted to enjoy this year of being a mom again.  I had very strong feelings about being a part-time stay-at-home mom and not putting him in daycare.  I didn't have a choice with Emily and once she started daycare she was sick all the time.  I wanted different for Xander.

I knew going into this that we wouldn't have reliable help with childcare during the week from family and I'm super thankful my career allows me so much flexibility and the CHOICE to stay home with my son.  I'm also thankful my husband has loads of flexibility in his work too.  I believe if those last 2 statements weren't true, we wouldn't have chose to try for another baby.

But despite my flexible work schedule, it seems that most days I just end up feeling super lonely and starved for adult conversation and interaction and ultimately longing to be working.

In the last few months especially, I've realized that I have spent the last 7 years of my life hyper-focused on my career.  I chose work instead of devoting time and energy into cultivating lasting friendships.

Now I only have a handful of close friends - none of which have small children, if any children at all.  - And the few friends who do have babies, all live 45 minutes away.  - Furthermore, the few friends who live close to me all work day jobs during the week and are off on weekends.  I'm off during the week and work most weekends -- especially during wedding season.

I have even tried to reach out of my "comfort zone" and join a couple of local mom groups in the hopes to make some new mommy friends and participate in some play dates... BUT...

1) I just don't feel like I fit the "cookie-cutter" mold for moms in these particular groups. (It's probably all in my head, but I've never felt like I blossomed into motherhood like most women do.)

2) All the play dates / meetups are at 9 in the freaking morning!?!  - My son is a night owl who doesn't go to bed till after midnight and then likes to nurse alllll night long, so we sleep in.  - Surely I'm not the only mom in Nashville whose baby does this, am I?  - And if I am, that just further supports point #1.

- So now let's talk about personal time and time with my husband.  

Xander is SEVEN months... I mentioned that already, right? 

In 7 months, the Husband and I have had ONE date night.  - And that only happened because Dianne and Heather are awesome and so graciously offered to come to our house to babysit our kids just so we could go do something.

We went to dinner.  Mexican.  I was able to order whatever I wanted to eat and utilize BOTH of my hands while eating it!  So I ordered FAJITAS.  - Then we went to Starbucks and Books-A-Million. Nothing extravagant or special.  Just a nice kid-free night out.  We were home before 10pm.

When you have a child that co-sleeps AND wants to nurse constantly into the wee hours of the morn, you can pretty much toss intimacy out the window.  My body no longer feels like my own to share with my husband...  Most days it feels more like a life support machine or a cow on a high producing dairy farm.  It's not that the desire isn't there to be close to my husband, but considering the lack of sleep / energy paired with being completely "touched-out" from having a baby attached (literally) to me all day, then throw some leaky boobs, spit-up, baby pee &/or poop in the mix, and there you have it.  Every reason (or excuse) in the book to not want to be intimate with your spouse all rolled into one: I just don't ever FEEL sexy anymore.

- And while we're on the subject of being "touched-out" - let's talk about alone time.  

I've had ONE pedicure - mid-May, I think - since before Xander was born.  Keep in mind he was born in December, so my last pedicure was probably towards the end of Summer or beginning of Fall.

I lucked out and was able to score a $10 massage because my BF had extra massages on her membership that needed to be used by a certain date.  So this past Sunday, we went.

It's the first thing I've done for myself that I scheduled on a day where I was off from work all day.  

- Usually, I schedule my hair appointments (cuts only) - or the one pedicure I had - for days where I'm already going to be out of the house for work, so tacking an extra hour on to my time away from home really isn't that big of a deal.  

So yeah, I scheduled a massage with my best friend and left the kids with my husband for a couple of hours.  Guilt-free.

- Except it wasn't guilt-free.

It's NEVER guilt-free - but not because my husband makes me feel guilty, because he doesn't.

It's because I'm a mom.

- And spending "unnecessary" time (that's not work-related) away from my kids makes me feel like the worst mom EVER.  

- And spending money on myself for fancy extras like hair cuts, pedicures and massages takes away from the money I should be spending on taking care of my family.  

I know this is all in my head.  I know other moms feel this kind of guilt when clearly we shouldn't, but no one talks about it.  Why do we do this?

I'm not trying to complain.

I KNOW I am SUPER blessed with my sweet little family.

I have so much to be thankful for, and I AM thankful!  

Both my kids are GORGEOUS and HEALTY.

My husband loves me and is always happy to see me regardless of how I look, smell or act after a long day of solo parenting with a fussy baby and a sometimes overly sassy, smart-mouthed tween.  

But ultimately both my kids are extremely good kids.  - And Xander is a really GOOD baby.  He's amazing.  - And I'm so glad for that. 

But I guess even the easiest of babies aren't easy all of the time.  - Raising babies just isn't an easy thing to do.  - Especially if you have little help.

They don't say "It takes a village to raise a child" for nothing, and I believe that more now than I ever did before.

I'm not going to lie, I'm not-so-secretly jealous of all my friends who have their moms and sisters and friends around all of the time to help.  I wish I had that.  Every single day.  But I don't, and I know I won't.  

So I resign myself to accepting that it's just us.  - And we just have to do the best we can for each other.

My prayer is that God puts some awesome moms in my life that I can be "just me" around and if He wants to do me a real SOLID, He will help me find a church where I feel at home in. - Also praying for an abundance of patience for others FROM ME and FOR ME from others.  - And for peace, strength and courage to keep on keepin' on with a more positive attitude and with kindness in my head as well as my heart.  Amen.

Gratitude

There are literally YEARS of my life that I remember so little of...  And it's not that I really want to remember them -- after all, they were awful, to say the very least, and consequently, I wasn't too great of a human being back then either.

Whether all the craziness was from depression, alcohol or drugs -- or a nice combination of all three, I don't know for sure.  - But it still amazes me that I actually survived my early twenties.  

I know that I'm truly thankful for God's grace and forgiveness.  - For His divine calculation of bringing Emily into my life when He did.  - For His unconditional love.  - And for the never faltering love and support from my family and friends.  

- Without all of those things, I know I probably wouldn't even be ALIVE today.

I surely wouldn't be the person I am, nor would I have ever been able to LOVE myself for who I've become.  

- And for that I give thanks... Every single day.

The New Norm - 3 Months - Postpartum

Xander is 3 months now.  He's officially graduated the "newborn" stage and entered "infant" status.

Our lives have started to reach a new sense of "normalcy" now that he's adjusted better to life outside the womb.

The nursing has finally gotten a lot easier - not second nature yet, but it's getting there. 

I'm still on modified maternity leave... Meaning I'm only trying to work every other weekend right now.  That's proving to be a challenge for my workaholic nature.

I had tubal surgery at the end of February and am very confident that I made the right decision for me.  I love my kids sooo much, but don't think I'm cut out to be a mom 3 or 4 times over.  Two is definitely enough!

I don't know how moms of multiples (twins / triplets) do it.  I'm envious of their strength, patience and perseverance!

I only have one helpless one and one that is a big help and I still feel like a crazy person sometimes!

- And I now remember why I was late to everything for about 3 years after Em was born.  It's so hard to get out of the house!

Most days when I'm leaving for work, I feel like Eryka Badu is singing her song "Bag Lady" just for - and about - me.  

I've got my makeup kit, my hair kit, my freelance kit for in-store visits, plus my purse and my breast pump.  

I did finally break down and retired the over-sized "Mom" purse I carried for so many years and bought a small purse to carry my wallet, keys and phone.  (Huge step!  My friends are proud.)  But I figure anything else I need can just go in the diaper bag for now.

It's all be an adjustment, but it's definitely getting easier.

In other news, I celebrated my 35th birthday this month.  I'm officially in my mid-30's!  Gah!

Here's some 3 Month Xander Facts: 

He was almost 16lbs at his 2 month check up - but I'm quite sure he's gained more since then.  He's a big, healthy boy.

No surprise, but he's kind of a night owl (he gets it honest) so he doesn't go completely down to sleep till late - but once he does, he sleeps for a stretch of 4-6 hours -- which is nice.

He still LOVES the bath -- or to grab a quick shower with mommy -- and still isn't so fond of the getting out and drying off part... but he's getting better about that too. 

He loves music... Especially when daddy plays guitar and sings to him -- but only the fast, upbeat songs.

He:

• is getting more control of his head and neck. 

• is almost able to sit up unassisted.

• has started to grasp objects and bring them up to his mouth.

• is drooling a whole lot and the spitting up has peaked.

-- We do a whole lot of laundry around here these days!

He's almost too big for Big Sis to hold!

Baby-Wearing is the only way I can get stuff done.

I am super blessed.  ❤️