Blogger Awards

18 Monday Mar 2013

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Thank you all of those who have given me blogger awards over the last several days. Please understand it may be several days to come yet before I have time to get around to doing the posts about them. Between grumpy baby, appointments and being a little under the weather the last couple of days, I am not getting much done lately. Over the next couple of weeks I have a novel to plan and a lot of work to do for an online graphics project I am working on with my husband. I will try to squeeze the posts in around those. You might even find em squeezed in an abbreviated post all together.

Please don’t mistake my not hopping right to it for lack of appreciation. I at least wanted to make a short post to thank you all, and at least let you all know that I do truly appreciate the gesture, even if I don’t have time at the moment to post accordingly.

Hearing myself think

17 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by Aurora in Complaint Department, Rants, Taterbug

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

babies, family, kids, life, mom, motherhood, parenting

The after shot crabbiness is still in full swing. The swelling on his leg from the shot is going down, and all the other symptoms seem to have vanished but this fussiness. He was like this for awhile after last time, and I can’t remember how long it took to clear up then. I just hope it goes away soon. My nerves are frazzled.

It seems any little thing can send him into a crying spell, putting him down for even a second, walking out of the room, me trying to eat anything, all of them seem to induce tantrums. It’s all John and I can do to keep him in a good mood even for a few minutes at a time. We can’t even have a conversation when he is fussing because John’s hearing is too bad for him to hear anything over him. cartoon_baby

I know as much as we parents love our kids to pieces, it’s days like these last few days that really put our patience and sanity to the test. Sometimes nothing you do seems to work, or only works for a minute and you are back to square one all over again. His diaper is clean and dry, he’s been fed, he’s being held, what more could he want? We seem to keep going in the same circles over and over again trying to figure it out.

I can’t even come close to pretending I am one of those people with those perfect looking lives you see on a lot of parenting blogs, I won’t even pretend to be. I get frustrated and frazzled with the best of people with motherhood on days like today. But I also love my son more than anything, and that alone, is what makes all this worth it.

I know better days are coming…please come soon…

Tomorrow would be nice…

Unhappy Campers

12 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by Aurora in In Hindsight, Taterbug

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

babies, family, kids, life, parenting

It’s been a very long day today. The day started off nice enough, the weather was somewhat warm, and it was nice and dry at least the first half of the day. Unfortunately today happened to be Thor’s four month checkup at the doctor’s, and that means, you guessed it, more shots.

He did ok with them at the time, he cried a bit in the office afterward, but promptly fell asleep as soon as we put him back into the stoller to leave. He seemed mostly okay until mid evening just about the time the tylenol was starting to wear off, and then he started getting really grumpy. I am not sure if it’s the shots, or just his usual evening fussiness with the not feeling well from shots on top of it. I am thinking both.

I think getting him his shots is almost as rough on me as it is on him. I know they are necessary, but I always feel so awful having to put him through things that I know hurt and are scary for him. I worry, my husband says, far too much. Maybe I do. All I want is a healthy happy baby. I just really hate to see him cry that way. You’d think it would get easier with him being the fourth baby, but it doesn’t. It’s still hard.

Thor is going to grow up in a completely different world than my older kids did. There are family members my older kids loved that he will never get to see. Sometimes it’s sad to think about it, but he is never going to know what it is like to have a grandpa. He won’t have siblings or even cousins close to his age to grow up with. Sometimes I worry things will be too lonely for him. Part of me doesn’t know if I want any more children, but there’s a small part of me that doesn’t want Thor to grow up all by himself. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have another baby, but the thought of going through yet another pregnancy in my forties really scares me.

I know I can’t always fix everything for him. I can’t shield him from every hurt and disappointment he will face in life, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t some small part of me that wants to. I think all parents have that desire inside them. I just hope that I can balance my need to protect him, with giving him the room he is going to need to grow. I want to be loving and not smothering. I want to help him grow strong and not hold him back from the hard things he will need to do for himself, on his own, to help him grow.

You’d think I’d have the answers by now but I don’t. My past mistakes have taught me more of what not to do, than what I should do now. There’s not magic book of instructions to give us all the answers. I guess we all just have to do the best we can, and hope in the end it’s enough.

A captive audience

11 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by Aurora in Boredom, Complaint Department, Evil Wizard, Music, Rants, Taterbug

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family, marriage, Music, parenting, rants

Oh dear lord, someone give me earplugs…

No, seriously…

It’s time for my husband’s weekly internet radio broadcast. While I usually like a lot of what he plays, this week is a definite stinkbomb. I don’t know who this band or singer is but I wish this droning, off key, monotone, barritone would stop already. Ick! Someone make it stop. But nope I still have another hour left to listen to it.

Help!..

On a lighter note, the weather here was beautiful today. We put the baby in the stroller and took a nice long walk. We did discover that short of the Giant Eagle here, absolutely nothing seems to be open on a Sunday afternoon. Then again they tend to roll up the sidewalks on our and of town around 6 or 7 in the evening during the week, so I really shouldn’t be surprised.

John insisted on hanging a bunch of tapestries on the wall of the bedroom today. The longer we are married, the more I realize I’ve married a hippie. John is anything but normal, but really that’s one of the things I like about him, even if parts of his not so normalness do kinda get to me sometimes. I am sure I am no picnic to be married to on some days either. I think one of the reasons we do get along so well, is that we both are willing to just let each other be our weird little selves. Even if some things about him drive me batty, I’m still really really happy that my hubby is anything but normal.

If the men from my past were normal, I will gladly take my weirdo hippie any day of the week..!

And the music drones on, and here I sit a captive audience…

*Headdesk*

Hot Diggity Dog

10 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by Aurora in Creative Writing, My Writing, NaNoWriMo, Writing

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NaNoWriMo, writing

It’s almost April…and that means, you guessed it, Camp NaNoWriMo!!!

No need to wait for November!

I am especially excited since I had to skip all the festivities last year, since I was kinda busy having a baby and all. I really really hope I can get some writing done. I might have something resembling a shred of a plan, but we will see. I may change my mind on what I wanna write a million times before then.

Busy days

10 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by Aurora in Daily Drivel, Evil Wizard, Random Tangents, Taterbug, Writing

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Tags

family, kids, life, motherhood, NaNoWriMo, parenting, pittsburgh, writing

Finally Smiling

Sorry for the little disappearing act, I seem to be good at those. This week was full of appointments and places to go. The good news is my insurance is letting me have the treatments for my back again, at least for a little while, so I am in a lot less pain now. I also finally got the correct lenses for my new glasses. They are taking some getting used to compared to the old pair, but so far they aren’t too bad.

We also went to the first meeting for our new writer’s group and amazingly there were three other people that came. The group is only going to meet once a month for now, on the first Thursday of the month at the Avalon library, but it’s a start. In other writing related news I signed up for the Camp NaNoWriMo for April, and hopefully will get some writing done. I am crossing my fingers but not holding my breath on that one.

Today we got a lot of housework done, and we rearranged our bedroom. My hubby did most of the heavy lifting part, but organizing is gonna take a little longer. There is at least a lot more room to move around in there now, and hopefully having the shelves of the changing table to arrange baby clothes on until we can get him his own dresser will help us out a little as far as storage space goes, seeing as he has definitely outgrown the little plastic drawer sets we were keeping them in before.

The hardest part of having roommates, is not really having enough room for everyone’s things in this house. John, Thor, and I share one small bedroom here, and somehow we have crammed into it, our queen sized bed, the crib, two book shelves, a changing table we are using as a dresser, a file cabinet that doubles as a nightstand and a laundry hamper.

Clutter annoys me to no end, but with a roommate that is a borderline hoarder, it’s staring me in the face no matter where I look here. I try really hard to make sure at least the areas I have control of stay as organized as they can be under the circumstances. I guess it’s just a side effect of coming from a family of packrats who rarely throw anything away. I can only look at the mess and clutter so long and it starts to drive me crazy anymore. I was an adult before I knew a house looking like that wasn’t normal, and now I get really embarrassed when anyone comes over and the house isn’t in order. Don’t get me wrong, the place doesn’t have to be spotless, just somewhat remotely clean and put together.

For a long time after the baby was born I wasn’t feeling well enough to do much of anything around here. If things are getting to me this much, I must be starting to feel better. I am tired of sitting around, I want to go places and do things. I want to talk to people, and see what there is to do around here. Maybe it’s just cabin fever talking, and I’m ready for it to warm up and winter to finally be over. I wanna get out of the house, take the baby with me and put some serious miles on that stroller.

I’ve apparently been nominated

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by Aurora in Daily Drivel, Fun Stuff

≈ 3 Comments

Apparently I’ve been nominated for a Liebster Award by Gavmomof2 at:

http://littlebitsandpiecesoflife.com

Thank you very much for thinking of me!

This came as a bit of a surprise to me this morning, since I only recently started posting in my blog again after a year long hiatus. I finally feel like I have something worthwhile to write about again now that my son is here, after being lost for words for so long so to speak.

What is a Leibster Award you ask?

The Liebster Blog Award is given to up and coming bloggers with less than 200 followers, and it is nominated by fellow bloggers.

Here are the rules:

– Publicly thank the person that nominated you
– Tell 11 things about yourself
– Answer the 11 questions asked of you, and, in turn, make 11 questions for your own 11 nominees.
– Link to those 11 nominees, and tell them about it at their blogs.

DON’T FORGET to Copy and paste the award button to your blog. Here’s How:

right-click on the Liebster label from my page

save it to your computer

upload to your blog

Eleven facts about me:

1. My husband says I make good sloppy joes (don’t tell him the sauce comes from a can)

2. The only thing I hate worse than elevators are escalators.

3. I once stopped talking to everyone I knew offline to see how long it would take someone to notice (3 1/2 weeks)

4. My children all have animal based nicknames (Turtle,Frog,Chipmunk and Taterbug)

5. There is a 19 year age gap between my oldest and youngest child.

6. I eat hamburgers in circles instead of eating them straight across. (because all the good stuff is always in the middle)

7. I met my husband in an online chat through a mutual friend, and we only ended up hooking up in real life because our mutual friend was late to work one night. (After a month of being afraid to talk to one another)

8. I love to write, but no one would ever know it by my typos.

9. I once put myself in the emergency room from eating hot salsa.

10. I think the coolest sound in the world is that of ice scattering after being thrown onto a frozen pond.

11. I frequently spend most of the day in my pajamas unless I have to go somewhere, or company is coming over.

Here are the questions I was asked:

1. What is your ideal vacation spot?

I would like to visit Europe again, and maybe even live there for a little while. Finland would be my first choice of destination. Wales and Switzerland are both a close second.

2. Do you have a Vice? What is it?

Sweets, mostly chocolate anything, though I have to be careful which ones due to allergies.

3. What is your favorite TV show right now?

We don’t really watch tv around here seeing as we don’t have cable, but we do always purchase all the new seasons of Mythbusters off itunes.

4. What is your least favorite food?

I absolutely can’t stand beets or pickled eggs

5. Why did you start blogging?

I originally started blogging because I was living far away from my hometown and didn’t have much of anyone to talk to at the time.

6. Do you have a favorite motto, quote or saying? Please share…

There are some lyrics from the song “Anybody Listening?” by the band Queensryche I use frequently as my tagline on message forums. “Think for yourself, and feel the walls, become sand beneath your feet.”

7. You are stranded on an island – what are the 3 things you could not live without?

My family, a way to play music and lots of food.

8. If money were no object, what would you treat yourself to?

That’s an easy one, I’d buy a house so we would never have to worry about where we are going to live again.

9. Do you have a pet peeve?

I have several of them. The two I can think of off the top of my head are having to write with blue ink pens, and hearing the sound of people chewing on ice cubes.

10. List three things on your “bucket list”

Getting to visit Finland, owning my own home someday, and getting a novel published

11. Are you a coffee or tea drinker?

Tea definitely, I can’t stand plain coffee

And Now to nominate 11 Blogs