Puh-lease!

I don't know about everyone else out there but there are a few things that are going on in our state and country that I am SOOOO sick of hearing about.  Now, I will always be sick to my stomach when there are stories about child abuse and murders and drunk drivers and whatnot.  But, that is not what I am talking about today.  While those things are horrible, unfortunately since we are a free country people are probably always going to think that they have a right to make bad decisions.  Plus, I feel so strongly about child abuse and drunk drivers that if I decided to blog about those topics today I would totally get off of my subject at hand.  So, here it goes....

First-I really, really, really I mean really don't want to hear about the NFL and their trade negoitations anymore.  And while we're talking about it I don't care about the NBA either.  Unfortunately I probably hear more than the average person because of my husband's obsession with ESPN and Sports Center.  It is SO frustrating to hear a bunch of grown men (and a few women, I am sure) whine and complain about how they are going to divide up billions of dollars.  I actually hope that they don't sign the agreement that is front of them right now.  Make them feel some pain from this stupid, asinine argument they are having.  Because the fact is, they SHOULDN'T have billions of dollars to divide up.  They play a sport.  A child's game. And make obscene amounts of money to do so. And yet have some of the worst behavior in our society.  Their franchises contain murderers, women and children abusers, repeat drug offenders, animal killers, drunk drivers, illegal gun carriers.  And what does our society do?  We reward this above the law behavior with more money and clout.  And the NBA players?  Kobe Bryant refused a $500,000 a month contract because he is worth a minimum of one million dollars a month.  $500,000 A  MONTH!??????  He refused that?  Something is wrong with our world if a man refuses that much money to play a game.  Get over yourself.  (For full disclosure I really don't care for him as a person-pretty sure he is a rapist that got away with it my smearing his victim, at the very least he is a cheater).  So, to all these so-called grown-ups I say SHUT UP!  I don't want to hear anymore about it.  If they sign a deal, okay, I guess it should be reported on in the news, but give it the attention it deserves-a 30 second spiel and move on to MUCH MORE important things.

Now, onto our fabulous, wonderful political system.  WTF!  Seriously, people. This is how our country is ran?  These are the people we vote for?  Do they really, seriously believe that when the citizens of this country went out and voted that we were hoping for this kind of behavior?  All I have heard about in these last few months is how the Democrats and Republicans have been fighting and arguing about budgets and money and taxes and debt ceilings.  Blah. My personal opinion on the whole Minnesota budget is that while I don't object to raising taxes on the richest people in this state, I don't believe that we should do so just to generate new income.  We spend too much money as it is as a government.  I think that was evident when the state shut down and we actually saw how many different programs and businesses depend on the government.  Now, some of those businesses were at the mercy of the government because of licensing and other issues along those lines.  But, I truly believe that a smaller government is better.  And the fact is that we give away a lot of money all the time to people and businesses who don't need it.  Who could be taking care of themselves but choose, CHOOSE not to.  For some reason we reward people who make poor and bad decisions in their lives.  But, I am seriously not going to go there in this post. And why is it that this politicians continued to get paid for their inactivity?  In any other job, if the work didn't get done you would be fired and not paid.  But, not when you work at the capital.  Such a joke.  And as for the national debt ceiling and budget debate....I have purposefully tried to not listen to much of this simply because it is so frustrating to even think about.  My take-away from this is-it's very similar to an individual who has a credit card.  They call the credit card company and ask for a credit limit increase based on the fact that if they don't get more money they won't be able to continue to pay their bills.  And people in this country and around the world wonder why Americans deal with money and finances in the way that they do.  Spend money we don't have, expect it to always work out for the best-not plan for the worst and live for today not the future.  Well, duh!  Look at how our government is ran?  What other behavior would you expect?  It's very similar to parenting.  You tell and preach to your kids to not hit, but then they see dad smack mom and they think it's okay-based on the behavior.  I think that we need to do away with these stupid politician parties.  That way there are no "political lines" to adhere to or not to cross.   

 

I really need to stop watching so much darn TV, it can not be helping my poor blood pressure!

Preggo Obsessions

I don't know if it's just me, but when I am pregnant I get obsessed with certain....things, products, items.  I think it has to do with the fact that I get so limited in the things I can do that I look for comfort in new and different ways.  I wonder if other mommies-to-be do this......

Here is just a sampling of the things I am in love with

1.  Bath and Body Works-As I started to make my list this darn store came up numerous times:)  So I am just going to combine it all into one.  I love, love, love their lotions.  Now, I should probably be using some special no stretch mark lotion that you apply 5 times a day, but I think I am in denial about how bad those darn things are going to get.  So, I just use my delicious lotions.  Oh, they are soooo yummy.  Plus they also go along with one of my other favorites-their shower cream.  Now, their shower gel is good too, but the cream-you feel like you just bathed in lotion.  In every single pregnancy I have had, I have dealt with skin issues.  To start with I have really sensitive skin, it goes over the top when I am with baby.  So, it is always great when I find something that helps keep me moisturized.  They also have the most wonderful shampoo and conditioners.  Now, if they could only make a whole line in the same scent.....then I would be in heaven.  One more thing I am in love with?  Their wallflowers.  This entire pregnancy I have been super sensitive to smells.  So, their wallflowers have really saved me!!!  And they smell AMAZING! Try them!  (I should send this darn blog to Bath and Body Works-see if I can't get some free stuff!!:))

2. Nightgowns-Honestly, if I could wear these things every day, all day long....well I would.  But, running to Cub in a nightgown, it may be frowned on. And if I dropped the girls off at school in my nightgown....their teachers may sit me down and check me over before they let me leave.  But, oh my gosh, what a wonderful creation.  No waist band on my belly, they keep me cool, and I can get comfortable way faster in one of those versus shorts. 

3. My bellyband-I am calling it a belly band, like the ones they sell in Motherhood Maternity.  But, its not.  My physical therapist gave it to me.  It actually kind of looks like a torture device.  There are metal loops on each side-that dig into my hips.  And pieces of velcro that are always getting caught on me and my undies and my clothes.  But, I seriously don't know what I would do without that darn thing. I keep it on my bench at the end of my bed, so I can put it on immediately upon waking up.  Otherwise, I swear to god, these boys are trying to fall right out of me.  That's right-I said they want to fall out of me.  And that is a medical problem.  I know this for sure because I am a nurse, so don't you question me:)

4.  V-8 Fusion.  Seriously, you have to try this stuff!  It is a juice made by V-8 that has servings of fruits and veggies in one glass.  And it is really, really delicious.  I started obsessing over this stuff when I was first pregnant and was having problems keeping food down. I started drinking this stuff every day to try and get as any good vitamins and minerals into my body as possible in the little bit of food I was able to keep down.

5. TUMS-Can you say heartburn?  Ugh.  The one downside to my "belly band" is that it pushes everything up, including my actual stomach.  So, heartburn and I have been battling for about a month now.  Thank the stars for tums.  I really don't know what I would do without them.  And just for note, they have to be the real deal tums.  No going generic in this category.  I am always buying generic, don't get me wrong-but not here.  They are not the same.  Trust me.

6.  Air Conditioning-Joe can attest to this.  He tells everyone the one good thing about me being preggo is that he can keep the house as cold as he would like and I don't complain.  If I am not pregnant, I am constantly turning it up on him.  I want to be able to wear shorts and dresses and not get goose bumps.  But, when I am pregnant I am constantly hot and uncomfortable.  As a kid we lived in a 2nd story duplex with no air.  We lived at the neighborhood pool because of this.  But, also I can take the heat.  Not, when I am pregnant though.  Crank that stuff up.  Point the vents on me.  And get out of my way. 

Now, there are few of my favorites that I have mentioned before-shutterfly, bejeweled, cragislist.....all things that I need to use/view in a day to feel complete:) But, there it is-some of the wonderful things that I have used to bring pleasure into my life.  I am hoping that by the end of this weekend I will have pictures of the completed nursery that I can post for you.....this is another one of the things that I am in love with!  Now, only if I can talk Joe into hanging up the pictures!

Viability

Viability.....it's such a technical word. A word that I appreciate but also kind of despise at this point.  When you first get pregnant you worry so much that the baby is going to be okay.  Then you get to hear the heartbeat, or in this case heartbeats and your worries start to change to different things.  Like, buying car seats and finding decent childcare.  For the last few months though one of my biggest concerns has been that all of my suffering to keep my boys healthy would be all for not.  That something would happen-either my doctors would say they need to deliver the babies to keep me healthy or my body would decide it is time for them to come into this world.  I have had friends who have suffered miscarriages and stillbirths, I always understood their pain.  I never fully understood their fear if there was a next time around.  I do now. It's horrible, completely, overwhelmingly horrible. You feel so helpless.  Because you are.  There is nothing more I could do to keep them safe inside of me.  I can only have faith that all of the hardships that have come our way these last few months is going to end with the birth of two beautiful, healthy baby boys. 

But, my baby boys are viable.  They have reached the point that they could survive outside of my body if that (god forbid) needed to happen.  It is still a could, at 24 weeks babies have a 90% chance of survival.  And that would be with intense, constant medical intervention.  Interventions that could actually cause more problems, but would/could keep them alive.  It would mean months and months in the hospital.  People keep telling me that time is flying by.  No is it not.  It is creeping by, it has come down to getting through each day.  By the end of the day I am so exhausted and tired and in so much pain and ready to sleep. I am so worried that the next day is going to be a continuation of this day.  Luckily, sleeping helps bring on a new day!  When I reach Sunday of each week a little bit more weight comes off my shoulders.  I am one week closer to my boys being able to have a good start to their lives. 

And that's another worry.  What is the start of their lives going to be like?  I have been blessed with my two beautiful girls.  Both of their births were great and I was able to have it go the way I wanted it to.  Now, I am not a fool.  I work with oodles of women and have lots of mommy friends, so I have heard hundreds of birth stories.  I know that things don't always go as planned.  This is not a situation where rigidity or stubbornness is going to help, you have to be flexible for yourself and your baby.  But, with the girls things did go pretty much as planned.  I was able to go drug-free.  Labor was fairly short, pushing even shorter.  I was able to hold them immediately after birth and attempt breast-feeding before they went off to the nursery.  Joey was able to be with them and hold their little hands and speak softly to them to help them feel okay after such a crazy event.  I want the same for my boys.  I want the first touch they feel to be me. The first voice they hear to be mine.  I want them to sleep next to me while we recover and adjust to our new lives together.  I REALLY, REALLY don't want them to be so little that they can't stand the stimulation of me touching them and marveling in the wonders that I helped create.  I don't want their lives to start off in some cold, medical nursery.  I want them home, surrounded by love and noise and the craziness that is our lives.  I don't want to have to visit them and split my time between two worlds.  Between by kids.  I don't want to miss my girls because I have to be somewhere else with my boys. I don't want to "visit" my own kids in the hospital.  I want Grace and Megan to be able to hold them when they are born, not be forbidden from them because they are too young to visit the NICU.  And the truth is, until the time comes we won't know what the beginning of their lives will be. 

I hate the unknown...........

My two cents, which is actually worth even less than that

I am going to weigh in on this whole Casey Anthony trial and verdict.  I have read many an opinion on this trial and what happened, what people think/know and what they don't.  The truth is I watched a lot of the trial.  Let me preface this by saying this isn't the first trial I have watched on TV.  Way back in the day I wanted to be a lawyer and so the judicial process interests me.  Usually Court TV (or now True TV....which actually is stupid because most of their shows are staged...don't get me started) covers the big, sensational stories.  And they are the ones that suck people....okay, me....in.  But, with the change in my working and moving around status, this trial gave me something "to do". 

Ok, here's how I see it.  Those jurors got it all wrong.  But, its not really their fault.  It is our system's fault.  After the verdict was read  I was listening to some "experts" about what went wrong.  And there was a guy on there that made a good point.  Our judicial system is set-up so that innocent people have a very good shot of staying that way, but in the process guilty people walk away without punishment a good portion of the time.  It doesn't help that the idea of "reasonable doubt" has been used by defense lawyers to their and their client's benefits.  How did one person put it....it has changed from reasonable doubt to a reason to doubt. 

Casey Anthony is guilty of her daughter's death.  I don't need someone to lay out exactly what happened step-by-step.  And  I don't understand why that is needed.  She (and other criminals) are rewarded for being a good criminal.  They don't leave enough or decent evidence, they walk away unpunished.  But, how does a mom live her life for 31 days, one whole month without thinking to say something about her daughter missing.  The way I see it, EVEN if things went down the way she and her defense team say they did, she is guilty.  That is, if poor Caylee drowned accidentally and then she covered it up....she needs to rot in jail.  Her baby deserved better than that.  But, I think that most people would agree that is not what happened.  Because Casey Anthony is socio-pathic.  She lies, lies to protect herself.  She only cried during her trial when people on the stand were speaking sympathetically of her and her situation.  Not when Caylee was discussed, not when her alleged sexual abuse was brought up, not when every single member of her immediate family was sobbing.  Nope, nothing.  Actually she could be seen smirking or looking irritated by them.  If she was so grief-stricken, why did her team have to put a grief expert on the stand that had NEVER EVEN interviewed her? 

Our judicial system isn't set-up to reap justice for the victims of horrible, heinous crimes such as these.  Poor Caylee was totally forgotten in most of this.  Lawyers agruing over whether jurors should be able to smell the can that held the "death smell" or whether scientists and specialists had marked evidence in correctly.  That's what the trial came down to.  There was nothing about Caylee in there. 

So, a mother who caused her daughter to not be on this earth any more walks free.  Again, I don't need someone to do a play-by-play of how she died.  But, I have a great belief in  common sense and common sense says her mother caused that death.  Otherwise her mother would have been out of her mind trying to find her and make sure she was okay.  Not lying about a nanny or her job or out getting a tattoo or dancing at night clubs.  I can say this with the utmost certainty because I too am a mom.  And, the very idea of one of my kids being  "taken by the nanny", of not being exactly where they are suppose to be, makes my heart stop and my breath go away.  I would be ravaged with pain and guilt and sorrow.  My whole life would become focused on them and trying to get them back to me.  That's how I know Casey Anthony is guilty. 

Testing Fate

Testing fate....this is a theory or thought that I live by.  Meaning don't do it! It's kind of like don't count your eggs til they're hatched.  At work don't you dare say the Q word  (look, I am so serious about that one that I won't even it say it now).  Ask anyone who works a hospital for sure, maybe any time of health care.  This is like doomsday.  You are almost willing for 6 admits at once or a code or something horrible happening. No joke. I have seen too many free throws missed or a batter strike out just as soon as the announcer proclaims "They have made 100 million free throws in a row" or "They have NEVER struck out against this pitcher".   Minnesota announcers are really, really good at that! 

I have been having many, many worries floating through my head.  Many that I needed to get out in some way or another.  I kept writing blogs in my head about these things but was so terrified that I would be testing fate that I couldn't do it.  The moment I address those worries out loud, my solutions were going to disappear, I was sure of it.  Last night, though I couldn't take it any more.  I was so overwhelmed by worry that I had to write it down, but again I couldn't do it in blog form.  Because part of my theory is that talking or sharing with others only make it worse.  You tell someone something and then all the sudden everything changes-you either look like a liar or have to take back what you have said.  I just couldn't do it.  But, I wrote.  I wrote on my phone (if that makes any sense) at midnight when I couldn't sleep.  I put my concerns down and then prayed.  Now, where I sit with my religious beliefs is something that I continue to question and have done so since been confirmed back in high school.  So, I won't get into all of that here and now.  But, at the end of the day I do believe in a Higher Power and having to give up control of life to be at peace.  And, especially at this point in my life, I have to give over that control.  I am slowly losing more and more control every single day.  It's hard to have a say let alone control from the corner spot of the couch!  While, getting it out of my head and down in hard copy and praying helped me feel less anxious and worried, it was still there.  That pit in my stomach.  Ugh, I hate that feeling.  The combination of my perfectionism and problems with anxiety make it an all to common problem for me. 

So, today when I work up I ran towards my problems and concerns instead of away.  One lesson I have learned in my life is that you HAVE to address your problems head-on.  They never go away and ignoring them just makes them worse.  My two big, main concerns have been finances and my baby boys.  I have been out of work since April pretty much with on-going, ever-changing medical problems and poor Joe has been left to take care of us completely financially.  While that does work for the most part, we had planned on a couple more months of my income so it did throw me (who does all the bills and money) for a loop.  I have short-term disability, but it was taking forever to get my claim processed.  I was so sure that it was going to get denied for one reason or another.  The more time that passed the more sure I was of that denial.  But, today I called them again.  Addressed it head-on and had a very productive conversation with my claims manager.  We went over what was still needed and I put that stuff on my list of things to do on Tuesday, as it information from my employer they were waiting for and the HR manager she needed to get a hold of is out of the office til then.  But, then the sun shined down on me.  My claims manager called back and said she was worried that I had been out of work so long with no pay and was going to take my word about my last day of work and cut me a check for nine weeks of back disability pay.  I couldn't help it, the damn hormones kicked in.  I hung up the phone and cried.  We were driving downtown and the girls became concerned "Mama, are you ok? Do you have heartburn again":)  So, we had a talk about happy tears and how sometimes you are just so happy (and relieved) that you can cry.  I am still blaming the pregnancy hormones.  I also spoke with my manager and while there isn't much they can do with the restrictions my doctor has placed on me, she didn't fire me on the spot or threaten me or make me feel guilty about not being there. (If you can't tell, this was another big concern of mine).  Being out of work for 9-10 months due to being pregnant and having babies is alot and I was very worried that they wouldn't want to, I don't know, keep me around for a lack of better wording.  But, she was very sweet and concerned about all of our health.  Two HUGE concerns lifted off my shoulders. 

Now, like I said, another concern I have is the boys.  And since my theory of not testing fate is going so well for me as of late, I WILL NOT be addressing these concerns until I reach 24 weeks-which is tomorrow.  24 weeks is the earliest that they start to consider fetuses viable (I hate that term, but it is what it is).  So, this weekend I will get all those concerns out of my head and heart, until then I feel pretty good about holding on to them.  Why mess up a good thing?!?