What is a family?

I just want to start this off by saying I hope I never forget about this post and accidentally give my family members this blog address. As of now I've only told a few friends. Anyway....

I'm going to vent about my family for a bit. My parents are the type that never really cared about having kids but did it because it was the next step in their lives. They had me when they were 25 and my brother almost 9 years later. My dad has told me on numerous occassions that the only reason they had me is because my Grandpa was dying and my mom wanted him to meet me before he did. Well, he didn't make it that long and I've always felt like they wished they would've waited. My parents loved me in the best way they knew how- considering they didn't enjoy being parents. Eventually they had my brother because my dad wanted a boy. He wasn't willing to have another child until he realized that I would be old enough to help out. (He's told both my brother and I-and strangers- this many times.) By the time I was 12 years old I was babysitting my brother for 10 hours every Saturday while my parents took a day to themselves. I was also the house gardener, grass cutter(by the age of 9!), and any other odd job you can think of. My Dad would call me upstairs from downstairs to bring me the remote that he'd left on top of the t.v. 5 feet from him. He has always been lazy and saw his children as a means of making his life easier.

I'm prefacing my story with all of this to give you some background on my past. In recent years things have gotten both better and worse with my parents (mostly my dad). We went an 8 month stretch with no communication at all after they kicked me out of their house when I was 17. Then another 4 month stretch during my sophmore year of college after I asked my dad to cosign on my student loan. (He told me that I was an adult and could figure it out myself and that he didn't need the extra debt weighing down his credit score.) We started talking after this incident only because my grandma called me in tears one day telling me my dad was in the hospital. The most recent stretch was a year and a half ago after I had Melanie. I was in labor and on my way to the hospital and it pissed my dad off that I didn't meet up with him on my way to the hospital and instead told him to meet us there. He was so enraged by this that he left town and flew to Antigua for 2 weeks, not even leaving a note behind to tell my mom where he'd gone. No one heard from him the entire 2 weeks. The last thing he said to my mom before he left was that she was a bitch and he wanted nothing to do with me. When he came back he was rude and never apologized for anything. He expected to see Melanie whenever he wanted and told me I was selfish for wanting an apology and said that I actually owed him one. I got over it because I wanted Melanie to know her grandpa. Lately, I've evidently been making choices that my parents don't agree with (the specific ones they listed were: getting married, having Melanie, having Deklan). They said that I was an idiot for getting pregnant and wanted to know why I ever thought I would be able to raise a child. Mind you, getting married and having children have been the best decisions I've ever made- in my opinion. Basically, any thing I do is never good enough. My parents and I got in a HUGE argument the other night that lasted about 3 hours. It was horrible and they said some things to me that I don't think I'll ever get over. My dad blamed me for ruining his marriage with my mom by all the stress I've brought them (wondering exactly how he came to that conclusion?... also wondering how my mom feels about that comment since she was in the room when he said it and they're still together...)... wondering alot of things.

Basically I'm at the point now where I dont know where to go with this. I've been putting up with their emotional (and physical) abuse for my whole life and it's destroying me. I've been in tears constantly since this latest run-in with them that occurred 5 days ago. I'm at the point where I think having them in my life is causing more harm than good. On the other hand, cutting them out of my life means not having communication with my younger brother who still lives with them and is in high school or with my gma or any of my cousins (I know how my parents are and cutting them off means no contact with anyone... remember- I've already done this 3 times)...It's a lose lose situation. I just don't know where to go from here.... All I know is I have to do something because this is eating me up inside... :-(

Busy Busy Busy...

Oh my, where to start?...

Well, it's been a while since I last wrote. It's been REALLY hectic around here lately. We were supposed to take a 3.5 day trip to Evansville to visit relatives, which turned into a 5.5 day trip because our car broke down while we were out of town. Turns out my car needed a new engine, which totaled the car. It kinda worked out though because now we got a new car! :-) I suppose we could've done that while we still had the other one, and spared us the headache of trying to figure out what to do with this pile of crap.... oh well, I couldn't be happier with my new car!! I'll try and figure out how to add a photo on here from my new phone (exciting thing #2 to happen since I last posted!) We got a Newport Blue Pearl colored 2010 Subaru Forester! It is soooo nice! I've never owned a new car before so this was quite a treat!

Once we got back John and I started the search for our wonderful new piece of automotive machinery. :-) That took up most of Tuesday night and Wednesday. We purchased the car Thursday and took it to a drive-in movie to celebrate! (I fell asleep 45 minutes in to the movie but shhhh that's ok, right?) Then John worked Friday morning while I spent a few hours on the phone trying to figure out our insurance, pay some other bills and some other odds and ends. Once John got home we left to go to my Aunt and Uncle's house for our monthly family game night. Once a month my parents and my Aunt and Uncle and my Grandma (and hopefully other family members soon) all get together to play games. It's really fun because otherwise we'd never see eachother. We're all busy with work and other stuff that we rarely saw each other even though we live so close to each other! We've been doing it for about 6 months now and it's worked out great! Well, we left really late last night and didn't get home until after midnight and by the time we got both kids to bed, did those few things that need to get done at the end of every day (mostly washing baby bottles), and got ourselves to bed it was well after 1am. We both really paid for it this morning because both kids decided to get up at the crack ass of dawn! :-( lol. I get grumpy when I'm tired.

Today has been a very productive day! I got the house (mostly) cleaned, put Deklan's swing together (which of course is out of batteries after Melanie used it last-and we are out of the kind of batteries it takes), spent alot of time playing with Melanie, and am now actually sitting down to write this! My friend Kacyn is coming to visit tonight and we're going to have a girls' night out (one of the last ones for a while since she's moving to Charlotte in a few weeks!) Then tomorrow John's parents are hosting a BBQ in honor of Deklan since we weren't able to have a babyshower before his premature arrival. Monday is full of doctor's appointments and studying since my make-up Anatomy final is Tuesday at 1pm! YIKES!! I hope I'll be ready in time. It's amazing how much you can forget in just a few short weeks. After the final Tuesday John and I are heading back down to Evansville to clean out our car of all our worldly possessions and meet with the charity we are donating it to. Then we'll spend the night at my Grandma's house and drive halfway back to Bloomington, which is where Kacyn lives. We're gonna spend the day visiting with her and enjoying the Bloomington culture before finally heading back home. *Sigh*.... what a LOT of stuff to do in just a few short days!

Then, unfortunately (or fortunately), school starts August 24th. But before it does, we still have the Kelly Clarkson concert and the Kathy Griffin concert to look forward to!! Both gifts from John for our anniversary!

Well, both of my kids are screaming so I suppose now is a good time to end this. Looking forward to getting back into this now that things have slowed down.. haha. yeah right!

Big Plans for the Future!

Somedays I have so many great plans that I can't keep them all straight in my head. It's like excitement ADD. Today is one of those days. I keep thinking about all the fun things we're going to do this summer and in the next few months. Next week we're going to Evansville to visit relatives (some of whom John will meet for the first time). Then the week after we're having a BBQ at John's parent's house as a Welcome to the World party for Deklan. Then one of my best friends in the whole wide world Kacyn is moving to North Carolina so we're gonna go to Bloomington to visit her one last time before she leaves :-( We're planning a trip to Chicago (pretty much our favorite place!) the first week of August and in October we're going to Hawaii for a week on our honeymoon! And those are just the bigger things. I keep thinking about going to drive in movies, and the racetrack, and the riverboat casino, and concerts, and the state fair, and swimming, etc. Like I feel like for the first time we're finally going to get to do the things we've always talked and dreamed about doing.

I've also been thinking about Christmas gift ideas. lol. Really early right? I know. But I have a really good idea and I think it's gonna take some time to put it together. So I gotta get started now. I'm not gonna say what it is on here in case I decide to give some of those people the address to our blog. As of right now I think Tara is the only one who's reading this. lol. Hey Tara! Good luck with your labor by the way! Can't believe your baby boy is gonna be here tomorrow! I'm so happy for you! I didn't wanna write this on facebook for fear of offending anyone but don't be surprised if you start having some negative feelings toward Aurora at first after the baby comes. I was so annoyed with Melanie all the time at first and another friend of mine just had a baby and said the same thing about her 2 year old son. I think it's normal to feel as if the older baby is just getting in the way of your bonding time with your youngest. It goes away after a week or two though and you shoudn't feel bad if you do feel that way about it. Anyway, can't wait to see pictures of him and find out his name!

Ok I DEFINITELY just went off on a tangent. lol. Anyway, the basic idea here is that I have so many ideas and aspirations of things to do and so little time to do them in. Plus I start back to school August 24th. I can't WAIT! I'm really only taking one class that will count toward my degree because of the way the timing of everything worked out. I'm taking 4 classes total but my Anatomy class is the only one that counts toward my degree. If I'd been able to take Anatomy this summer it wouldn't have been like that but since I didn't it puts me a whole semester behind so I have to take stupid blow off classes to get myself up to full time so I don't send my loans into repayment and because there's alot more grant and loan money available if you're full time. And since I'm not working the loan and grant money is something we're depending on. I wish I could work but between the kids and school I think it would be stretching me pretty thin. Having 2 kids under 2 is a full time job in itself! Well either way, I can't wait until Anatomy starts. Even though it's ridiculously hard and not fun all the time it's so interesting! And I can see how it directly applies to what I'm gonna be doing every day at work. My first semester of Anatomy was hard but once I got the hang of it and figured out what kind of things were important and which ones weren't it wasn't too bad. If all goes as planned I'll apply for nursing school in April and start clinicals a year from this August! I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

Well, we're going to Ashley's house today to have a little playdate (meaning me and Ashley-not the kids. lol). Melanie has been talking about it all morning and is so excited. I need to get the diaper bags packed and get Deklan in his carseat, wake Melanie up and get her dressed, and get dressed myself all in the next half hour. lol. That means I gotta go. More to come another day. Thanks for reading. :-)

Lunch Time and Missing Naps...

So.... it's 1:30 in the afternoon and it already feels like 9pm. Fortunately or unfortunately I stayed up until 1:30am talking to a friend that I hardly get to talk to anymore. It was definitely worth it, but I'm paying for it today. I'm exhausted! We had to be out the door fairly early this morning for an appt. and nothing went as planned. Melanie was fussy, Deklan was fussy, both of their diaper bags were empty which meant I couldn't just throw in whatever we were running low on- I had to start over, I couldn't find anything to wear that didn't either torture my sunburn or look too scrubby, John was running late leaving so I didn't have his help to remedy any of this and above all else, I just don't feel well today. Cramps should be illegal. I had forgotten how bad these cramps can be sometimes! All I want to do is curl up in bed and wait them out. Unfortunately I had to drag a fussy, screaming baby and an overly-dramatic one and a half year old to the WIC office today to get our fingers pricked for hemoglobin levels. Then... one of the WIC ladies didn't come to work today so all of the appointments were overbooked which meant we waited in a teeny tiny waiting room for over an hour BEFORE we could go get pricked. *sigh* It was an eventful morning. Melanie who is normally very well behaved (or at least most of the time) decided it was a good time to THROW herself down into a screaming crying fit in the middle of the waiting room when it was FINALLY our time to go in. Another lady told her son not to watch Melanie because she didn't want him to pick up any of her bad habits. It's always nice to hear that coming from a stranger's mouth. And so nice of her to whisper so I wouldn't overhear... lol.

On the way home Melanie fell asleep in the car- but not until the last 5 minutes of the drive. It was about lunch time so I couldn't decide whether or not to feed her before I put her down for a nap or not. I tried to go ahead and lay her down and she went willingly at first. It wasn't until I'd just finished feeding Deklan and had JUST fallen asleep myself that she decided maybe nap time wasn't such a good idea. So... I got her up and made her lunch (and some for myself too). She actually did a good job of eating, which hasn't always been the case lately. However, she's now sitting next to me screaming her head off as I type this because she wants to watch a "MOOOOVVVIIIIIEEEEE". lol I swear when did my precious little Melanie turn in to the Devil? haha. She must know that I'm having one of those days where I need her to be good.... that's why she's having one of those days where she HAS to be bad. :0) I love my life. haha.

Anyway, suppose I better go play mother for a while. How many more hours until John gets home from work tonight? oh yea... 9 more hours. Can't wait! :-)

Getting Started...

Well, a friend of mine keeps telling me how great these blog things are so I figured I'd give it a shot. I have no idea what to talk about though and wonder if anyone else even cares what's going on in this head of mine. I suppose it's a journal of sorts that others have access to. Not sure how much I'll actually check and update this thing but I guess we'll see huh?

Things have been starting to get a little more normal around here lately. Although, at times I’d even call it boring. I don’t love having 2 kids yet, but I don’t hate it anymore either. Lol. That might sound bad but anyone who’s ever been through it would understand. Besides, this is my blog to say what I want anyway. If you don’t agree, make your own blog :-)

Melanie has almost all of her teeth in now. All 4 of her incisors are making their way down right now, but she's had all 4 of her molars for months now. I wonder if this is normal? She looks so grown up lately, especially when we put her hair in a cute little ponytail on the top of her head. I wish she would sit still long enough to let me to it to her more often. It takes 1 person holding her down and 1 person gathering the hair to try and get it in. And she's a squirmy little thing too! It's so worth it though because it's so cute!

Deklan is getting bigger everyday. As of June 15th he was 8lbs 8oz. Almost 3lbs more than his birthweight in just 6 weeks! I think he's leveled off a bit now but he's doing great! 50-60% for his age. He will be 2 months on the 6th. Can't believe so much time has gone by... It's unreal! He holds his own head up almost completely and is showing an amazing amount of strenght in his legs and back. He HAS gotten a bit colicky the last week or so but I'm wondering if he isn't teething or something?...He's had 2 teeth buds that were broken through since he was born. Maybe he's just an early teether?... Guess we'll find out.

That's all for tonight. More to come!