Approaching

I am having one of those nights. It started of great. Dinner with two of my best friends at Carrabbas we sat outside and had GREAT conversation. Then we all went to a movie and tears fell from all 3 of our cheeks and we walked out with black mascara eyes. Couldn’t have asked for a better cliché of a girl’s night out.

And now that I am home and in a quiet house, I’m sitting here overwhelmed with thoughts. It’s like the pop out of nowhere. There are so many going through my head and I’m not so sure where to start. And I can promise you the sad movie started it.

I think it may be the fact that this Mother’s Day is quickly approaching and it was suppose to be my first happy one. I was suppose to be relaxing and taking a break from the hussle and bussle of raising a child. Last year’s wasn’t so ideal, what was suppose to be an exciting day was a day spent on the couch in a dark living room crying. It was just days after we were told our unborn child would not live and he was sick. We were still waiting on the amniocentesis results and in all honestly I could not enjoy the moment like I should have.

Now on to this year, what do I celebrate? Will people even remember? I work that night so maybe sleeping all day and ignoring it will be the cure? NO! I should be enjoying the day with my Mom and celebrating the fact that I AM a Mom. So being at work on this particular day will be a hard one.  I just never expected my first Mother’s Day would be spent without my baby, never thought me. So while all the other Mom’s are relaxing away from their children at spas and hoity toity brunches, all I will be able to think about is how all I want is to be WITH my child for Mother’s Day. And I simply can’t be and it hurts.

Then shortly after that, is the fast approaching year. June. In one aspect I am excited to celebrate his life, but then in another way I am dreading June 11th. One year since we said good bye. It’s going to be hard to feel that same weather and replay that morning watching Nolan be worked on and having to give up on him and leaving the hospital empty armed just a few hours later when I was discharged.  Only to go home and start this journey of grief. The journey I never expected to take. The journey that made me a new person. The journey I lost best friends to and the journey that gave me a new normal. My style of writing changed. My personality changed, my smile changed.

Everything changed.

My world as I knew it was forever changed. I’ve been told my strength shines through in my writing, but I promise I don’t feel it. I just had the courage to feel it. I didn’t run from it. I couldn’t. As bad as I wanted to remain sleeping so I could dream a life that wasn’t mine. I couldn’t. I had to wake up and face the day when there was nothing there to break up the darkness. I knew I wasn’t alone but it felt like it. I grieved out loud, I shared my thoughts and for me it was therapy. It WAS my therapy. It was why I continued to write and continued to share our Nolan.

Now that it’s approaching a year, people that weren’t closely affected have moved on. They live their days with out this unbearable grief and I envy those. I miss how I used to feel, I call it a naive happiness.All while I have learned to deal with it, learned to accept it and cope with it best I can. It’s how I want to live. But I don’t live like that anymore. I do miss it.  But the farther it gets from Nolan actually being here I am so afraid people will forget. And that those dates are quickly approaching.

Night shift

Today, I got NO sleep. I tossed and turned to fall asleep.

When I finally did, the lawn guys came to do the lawn. The industrial mowers for our entire complex and blowers running at the same time- awesome. They leave, I fall back asleep. Oh wait, I had to leave my phone on because I was waiting on an important call from my Doctors. A little bit later, I get a friendly courteous call from my father in the Caribbean who just wanted to say “hi” from St Thomas. Bless his heart, but #1 I am still hating the fact I am not on that trip with them & #2 I’m half asleep and can’t barely comprehend what he was saying. He was too chipper for that hour of the day. LOL (sorry dad, but I felt half dead when you called and it was RIGHT after I feel back asleep for the 5th time)

Fall back asleep, text messages, Chris’ phone going off, dog barking, and then the office calls. Find out I have to wake up early to go stop by and there went my last 2 hours of sleep.

It’s days like this when I get no sleep that I hate working nightshift. 90% of the time, I love working nightshift, love my job and love the responsibility & the people make the nights 100% better. I really do love it. Just not today- not right now. I just want to crawl back into bed, back into my cave.

Your 2pm is my 2am. My 11am is your 11pm. It’s not rocket science although the delivery UPS man will look at you strange when you open the door half asleep and in your pajamas at 1pm and scare him away with your dragon breath. He always has the sarcastic tone when he asks for a signature. He asked for it, he needed a signature. I am not a lazy high school kid sleeping in, I just went to bed for your information. Thank god our room is a CAVE. It’s pitch black thank god to the layers of black out curtains I have up behind the blinds and in front of them too. You walk into our room and you would think it was 11:30 at night. That helps at least.

I eat a regular dinner when I wake up and eat breakfast when I get home. I love my fruit loops and apple jacks before I go to bed. This morning Chris and I went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast after I got off work and it was DELISH! I was hoping that plethora of food would put me fast asleep. I think it actually woke me up. I was DELERIOUS when we went to bed. I was trying to convince Chris my free card was Derek Sheppard and not Patrick Dempsey. Again, don’t ask.

 So if your ever wondering what I am up to just reverse everything, when your asleep I'm working when your working I'm asleep, it’s that easy. Nights I have off, Chris and I usually sit and watch OnDemand and lay around the couch with our laptops- exciting huh? It’s no fun when you run out of shows, and of of the 600 channels we have, only infomercials for the slap chop and magic bullet.

The occasional 4am Wal-Mart trip is always in store when we’re super bored.  I go to work when its light out and come home when its light out, I miss the night completely. If I need to get something done, I have to wait for it to open before going to be and in order to have a somewhat normal life I often get very little sleep I'm awake for 24 hrs straight a LOT of the time! So just know that when you see me yawn, or I’m a tad bit crabby just deal with me. I’m just not a morning person. Or would that be an ‘afternoon’ person? Hmmm.

But I do have to consider myself lucky. I only work 3 nights a week, Chris and I are on the same schedule and I love my job. I have to try to look in the good of everything. I could be sitting behind a desk 5 days a week and driving myself crazy, my ADD would be getting me in trouble. What?.. You told me to do what?! Sorry I was playing paper toss in the waste basket. I have a job that keeps me on my toes and keeps me entertained. Thank god.

Mama Necklace

When Heir to Blair posted on her blog she was hosting a giveaway on this beautiful necklace by Tali Gillette, I fell-in-LOVE.

I HAD to get one! I even turned to Chris and put a bug in his ear that this would be the coolest Mother’s Day present, knowing he would have no clue what to get…even though I’m happy with just a card. (Totally not expecting anything anyways) But this still would have been awesome.

I fell in love with Tali’s story and her inspiration for designing the necklace. What a classy way to show off your a Mama. As she mentioned women have a way of expressing milestones with jewelry from engagement rings to wedding bands, and now they have a Mama necklace.

I may be a different kind of Mom but either way, I have a son. I gave birth to him and he made us a family of 3. No one can take that experience away from us and even as short as his life way… I was still his Mama. And I want everyone to know I am a Mom too, but it’s something kind of hard to do in my spot. It’s something I struggle with on a daily basis. I want so badly to be recognized as a mom. But it is SO hard to do when you you don’t have the baby in tote and all the accessories to go with.

So anyways,

I entered Blairs contest with never expecting to win. There was a ton of other readers who also fell in love and wanted it just as badly and deserved it just as much. So when I got the message from Blair herself that I won the Mama necklace… I had tears. Actually we both did.

I will wear it with pride, and one day I hope, pray and dream I will be able to pass it on to my child when she is a Mama.

 

Thank you Tali & Blair!

 

Sweet Jesus: SPANX

Mama Spanx!

No worries here, when I am toting around my belly one day I will be sporting these totally unsexy and unflattering Spanx. Why you may ask? Because they are my damn security blanket. I have learned that I can not go with out. They hold me in and suck me in with little effort. Will I need that for my belly??…. HELL NO! I look forward to the days that I can wear maternity jeans again. But these suckers claim that they have

• Soft yarns stretch with your growing belly
• Provides lower back support
• Comfortably shapes the rear and thighs
• Body-shaping control that's comfy and flattering
• Wear as underwear to eliminate VPL (Visible Panty Lines)
• Perfect to wear every day under skirts and dresses

So how could I NOT get these!? I wish I would have known about them when I was pregnant before. So when I was perusing the spanx.com site the other night and found these suckers, I had an affair with them. But I am sure I will change my mind when I start those hourly bathroom trips. I can’t say that will be fun and will probably ditch them then. But they can’t hurt to try, right?

I thank the lord to my dear friend who introduced me to the slim living ways of Spanx about 2 years ago. Yes, it’s my secret that I shout to the world. I have gotten so used to them I can’t imagine not wearing them. I mean if I could wear them with my bathing suits, I WOULD! I seriously wear them EVERYDAY. Ok, not to work but you catch my drift. I just feel more secure, put  together and slim when I wear them.

I promise you, if your sick of that slight muffin top or hate sucking in, Spanx are the answer for you. Get over the fact that your wearing a spandex body suit, you’ll get over it when you look in the mirror and say… daaaaaammmn!

These are my newest pair! I was jumping up and down when I saw these! I can now wear them with shorts, shorter dresses (because nothing is more embarrassing that dancing at a wedding and getting “Low Low Low” with your nude colored biker shorts popping out. Sexy? I say not.

I think it’s about time that the people put the invention of Spanx up there with the light bulb and car! No lie!

 

Christina’s walk for Nolan

Thank you Christina for dedicating your walk this year to Nolan. I never imagined we would have raised over $1,000!!

Christina sent me some pictures, so there’s not much more to say other than THANK YOU! Oh and I wish the sun peeked through a little bit today, but it still looked like a GREAT turn out!

Again, THANK YOU everyone who donated and walk in Nolan’s memory today. I could never thank you enough.

$1,246

THANK YOU!

That’s $1,246 that went to saving other little babies just like Nolan. I am so excited that there are a lot of teams across the US walking for Nolan. It melts my heart that people are getting out there and making a difference with Nolan’s memory.

Thank you everyone! I can’t wait to share pictures from Christina’s walk for Nolan, and Team Kalli’s in Kansas!

I’ll be thinking of you all tomorrow!

Walking Guilt

With the approaching walk for March of Dimes this weekend, I am starting to feel loads of guilt for not planning on being there participating. What is my problem? Why do I have such a huge fear of the kind? Is it the amounts of strollers filled with babies that Nolan should have been? Or is it all the shirts that show the NICU grad baby on it? What is it?!

All the blogs I follow of Moms of ‘my kind’ are picking up their shirts they all had made and writing about the upcoming walk. I’m just sad I couldn’t find my big girl panties on and go walk myself. I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only Mom without a stroller. Maybe it would have been a good place to connect with others. Maybe I should have thought about this sooner. Now I am scheduled to work during the walk. So is that my excuse now?

I am so thankful that I have 2 friends walking for Nolan. Christina, has walked the past few years and has dedicated this years walk to Nolan. I am looking forward to hearing all about it, see her shirt she has had made and see all the pictures from the walk on Saturday.

I just wish I had the emotional strength to go walk for something I feel so strongly about. It’s so much easier said than done. I know so much has been donated in Nolan’s name and that makes my heart melt that so many individuals remind me constantly how much they think of Nolan. Thank you everyone! I know me walking wouldn’t change all the money we had raised, but the reward would have been heart felt. Too bad I let my emotions win a lot of the battles. That’s okay though to be weak at some things, I can’t make it all happen. Right?

If you haven’t donated yet or were thinking about it, there is still time. Every dollar counts and every time a dollar is donated it reminds me how someone else thought of Nolan.

I am still pretty impressed we have raised $1,106. I hope to see it grow a little bigger come Saturday morning.

Amy’s Visit

I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand
Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand
Life is good today. Life is good today.

-Zac Brown Band

Amy’s flight landed at 10:45am and we we’re on the beach by noon with a cold beer (ok ok- a cooler full of beer). I sometimes forget how lucky I am to live so close to beaches. So I like when my friends come to visit and remind me that I live in a pretty decent place. 

  We spent the first few days basking in the sun, listening to music and having picnics. We tried to go swim with the dolphins that we’re with in swimming distance but the unexplained bite and screaming fiasco halted that. We assume that is was a crab that bit Amy but with both of us screaming and frantically running back to shore, I am SURE people thought it was a darn shark.’

We partied like we we’re back in college and I think I will need a week long detox to get out the skinny margarita’s, beer and long island ice teas we consumed. But we had a blast. I was sad to see Amy leave this morning, I guess it’s back to my usual routine… work, sleep and blog.

Countdown 5 weeks until 3 more best friends come to visit.