Bloggin' bout my homies

One of my goals this year was to spend 20 minutes per day writing, either in my blog or on a collection of stories I'm writing, and as this is my second blog post of the year and I have 3 paragraphs in my book document, it's going really well. But today's a new day! And for today, I'm writing about my little boyfriends. 

I am seriously digging these two kiddos right now. 

Each of them is just in this perfectly sweet spot of ages. Max is happy as a clam, mobile enough to be content rolling around the floor, but immobile enough to not get into anything. Happy to sit in his stroller or be held when out and about, sleeps decently (most of the time), and just happy happy happy. He is pure sunshine. Smooching his squishy cheeks is my drug, and I need a hit 10 times per hour. Nate is curious, hilarious, adorable, sweet, loves to help, plays for hours on his own in the basement (what is this life!?) and he is also just practically pure sunshine with only occasional thunderstorms. In my almost 4 years of motherhood, I've learned enough to know that everything is a phase. The good stuff, the bad stuff, it's all temporary. So I'm just riding the high of this awesome phase and trying to soak it all in. A storms a'brewing, with true mobility on the horizon for Max and the fickleness of toddlers, but each phase brings its own joys and challenges and I'm just along for the ride. 

I am certain that Max was sent to me to heal my heart. Nate's baby days were traumatic for me, and I could not understand why anyone would ever have more than one baby. But I didn't want Nate to be an only child, and so far the only way I know how to have siblings is to have babies, so we had another baby. And I was sure that I was signing up to hate my life for a year and lose my mind, and just hope it was worth it down the line. I couldn't be more surprised to be completely and totally head over heels smitten for this little love bug. He has my heart, completely. He stopped sleeping well at about 3/4 months, and I barely care. He has frequent nursing strikes that make me batty and have me googling all sorts of nonsense in the middle of the night, but I can't even be frustrated at him. He's got me wrapped around his dimpled fingers. He's been under the weather and I just wander around the house holding him all day long and kissing his toasty head and wishing I could take his fever from him. He can barely whimper without me rushing to cuddle him. He's started laying his head down on my shoulder when I hold him, snuggling into me and tangling his dimpled little fists in my hair, and I think my heart might actually explode, and my ovaries just spontaneously release eggs because I need 10 more babies just like him. (Not really) (Because babies grow up) (And toddlers are hard) (And poop their pants, see end of post)

At 5 (almost 6!) months, Max is a rolling machine. I always find him in a completely different position than I laid him down in, and he can roll himself all over a room. He can sit unassisted for a few seconds and loves to stand holding your hands. He LOVES to watch Nate, and thinks he is the most interesting person in the world. He loves to be tickled and bounced. He is a champion napper and still takes 3 long naps every day. He seemed super interested in foods, and he's a tiny little thing, so we've attempted to give him bananas, avocado, sweet potato, watermelon, and pears, all of which were decisively rejected. He did, however, eat a tiny nibble of a waffle fry at Chick-Fil-A, and was quite pleased with his inclusion in the CFA club. He either wakes up 1 time or 3000 times at night, and not really anything in between, which keeps me on my toes and always a little disoriented and tired. He went on his first airplane rides and was 50/50 on sleeping the whole time or crying the whole time. He hated the beach and pool on our trip, but loved all of the cousins to watch and coo at. His babbles and coos are next level adorable. He LOVES grandma, and loves Daddy. But mostly he loves Mama and I love it, I can't lie. 

Nate at 45 months (Ha, or almost 4) is the most curious little question asker. I try so hard to be patient and not get annoyed at the constant questions, as I am acutely aware of just how much I will miss his little raspy, lispy voice when he grows out of it. He loves to sing songs and listen to music. He tells me often that "we are nice friends!" And he asks me daily "Do you like me? Am I your nice boy?" The answer is of course a resounding yes and 400 kisses. He was never a cuddly baby, but he now loves to give the best hugs and kisses and especially eskimo kisses. He asks me to snuggle him every night when we sing bedtime songs and every night I finish the bedtime song and he says "twice!" and every night I tell myself I'm going to end put my foot down and end the stalling and then every night I snuggle him harder and sing the bedtime song twice. And sometimes 10 minutes after bedtime he announces he needs to go potty and then requests that I re-tuck him into the bed, and I repeat the pep talk to myself that I need to crack down and then promptly repeat the snuggling song session, because I just can not resist that little blonde mop bouncing into bed and pulling me down for snuggles. He loves to explain things to me, with his little hand out and gesturing, and he repeats the most amazing "grown up" phrases. I was bugging him about finishing dinner the other day and he gave an exasperated sigh and said, "Stop asking me a million questions, I already told you the answer and I don't want to talk about it anymore!" It was like hearing a hilarious and unflattering recording of a not-great parenting moment. He often tells me I have great ideas (hey thanks, pal!), and starts most of his sentences with "well, actually..." It kills me dead. He loves to talk to Max and hearing him adorably sing-song, "Hi buddy! I'm your nice brother. Are you a happy baby? Hi buddy!" just melts my heart into an absolute puddle. 

It's not all sunshine. Max has cranky days, Nate has more mood swings than a 16 year old girl, I really want to sleep all night, and my hair washing frequency has reached appalling new lows. But I don't need any help remembering the hard moments. My brain is unfortunately wired to try to dwell on those. But brains can change, and I want to teach mine to remember the good, and to put it at the very front of my mind and memories. On the hard days, it helps to remember the moments where my heart was full to bursting, and I was certain that no one has ever loved their babies quite as much as I love mine, and I am the luckiest mama in the whole world. 

P.S. As I went to publish this really lovely post, Nate pooped his pants and then asked 1000 questions about why poop is gross and why do I get mad when he poops his pants and I said NATE STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS AND STOP POOPING YOUR PANTS, I AM ABOUT TO LOSE IT and he said "I don't like that loud voice!!" and now he's crying, but we still love each other. Right? Right. But I hate poop. 

Maxwell James

I wanted to write down the story of how Max came to be, while it's all still fresh in my mind!

Now let's see, if I remember correctly, it was May, around our anniversary... we had been trying to get pregnant for a few months and decided to try some tips we read on the internet... HA just kidding.

We can skip that part and just dive right into the nitty gritty of the day we met Max!

It was basically my dream delivery. Everything that was terrible about Nate's delivery was perfect with Max.

At 39 weeks pregnant, I was having nonstop "cramps", for lack of a better description. They weren't contractions, at least not productive ones, but they were more than Braxton Hicks. I was in pain all of the time, and felt like I was walking with a bowling ball in my pelvis. At my doctor's appointment, my doctor said everything looked very ready to go, and he'd be happy to give my body a little nudge to get things started if I was ready to give Max his eviction notice. Because I love myself more than my baby and value convenience more than his life, I elected to schedule an induction. Haha, or so the internet would have you believe. But honestly, I was ready for him to come out, he was ready to come out, and it really was quite convenient to be induced on the weekend and have Cary there and my sweet cousin in place to watch Nate overnight.

All day Saturday I was calm and collected and just peaceful about meeting our new baby. Ha, again! Man, I am sarcastic today. I was a bundle of nerves and tears and cried 498 times that day. I had painful cramps/contractions all day long and was SO uncomfortable. My belly and my pelvis were just so over this. We went about business as usual, trying to ignore the fact that our whole world was about to be turned upside down. We went to go get frozen yogurt that night with Nate, and I tried so hard to capture in my memory our last moments as a family of 3. We put Nate to bed that night and I laid next to him and sang him extra songs, feeling so emotional about his last night as my littlest baby.

After Nate was tucked in bed and I reapplied waterproof mascara for the 10th time that day, we took off for the hospital at about 9:30. It was surreal, driving to the hospital and knowing that we would be coming home again with a baby! We checked in, did paperwork, I changed into a sexy hospital gown, and the nurse checked me. Much to my surprise, I was dilated to a 3-4 and already contracting! The nurse put the cytotech in and said the doc thought that would throw me into labor all on it's own. After the pill sat there for an hour, Cary and I got up and walked around the hospital for an hour and a half. I was contracting pretty good, but it felt better to be up walking around. After our walking, they checked me and I was at a 5! So the doc said I could get an epidural and he would break my water. I thought this sounded like a fantastic deal, since I still wasn't even in that much pain.

The anesthesiologist came in and gave a very grim warning speech about all of the dangers of an epidural and I said, "Yup, stick me!" He was so incredibly awkward and weird, and I took odd enjoyment out of making jokes and listening to them flatline. But weirdness aside, he gave me one real good epidural! I could still feel the requisite pressure to push and know when I was contracting, but I could feel and move my legs and walk immediately after delivery, and I felt practically zero pain. Contrasted with my epidural with Nate, which took 3 attempts and did not work, and I was in intense pain as they tried to place it, I am now officially team epidural, and I could have french kissed that strange anesthesiologist. Anywho! Epidural in, I'm feeling good, doc comes and breaks my water, which was very uneventful, and leaves me to hang out and be in labor some more. Cary takes a nap, I am too jazzed about the baby thing and still feeling enough of the contractions that I can't sleep, so I watch some Scrubs and just sit and contemplate my reality of pushing a bowling ball out of a hole I really feel is not appropriately sized for such an endeavor.

A couple of hours later, the doc comes to check me again and says, "Well, I'm going home in 15 minutes." I was very confused about his remark, because I thought I would have hours left of labor. Suddenly they were setting me up to deliver a baby and I yelled over to Cary, "Uhhhh, you need to wake up because I guess we're gonna have a baby now??" I asked the doctor, "Is it really time to push??" And he had me feel his head. I remember saying, "He has hair!!" and I was so excited about that, haha. 2 quick pushes later, and he was in my arms. With Nate, I labored hard for hours and hours and pushed even harder for 2 nonstop hours, and I do not even remember meeting him. I was so completely exhausted. This time, they placed him on my chest and I immediately felt a rush of love and happiness that my little boy was here, and he was mine. We looked over every inch of him and I just kept saying, "Hi baby!! You're here! I'm your mama! I love you!"

And we've been completely and totally in love ever since.

Just a few hours old

 Proud Papa

 Loving our new babe. 

 This was minutes after he was born. There is no photo evidence of me, minutes after Nate was born. It was scary, haha. 

 Meeting Grandma!

 And meeting Grandpa!

How we spend a lot of our time these days. I'm addicted to snuggling him!

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about."

I'm not quite sure what is motivating this blog post.  Maybe I just need to process my feelings and writing about it in a sort of public forum is helpful? Maybe it feels so good to have one person understand, and now I just want everyone to understand. Maybe I am a narcissist and I just want to talk about myself a lot? For whatever reason, here comes a doozy.

I have been afraid of throwing up for as long as I can remember. Understatement of the still young century right there.

I was about 7 the last time I threw up. Even typing that sentence gives me extreme anxiety and makes me feel like I've jinxed myself. For the longest time, I wouldn't tell anyone when I last threw up, would never even say the word for fear that it was going to jinx me and make me sick. Seeing the word in print or seeing someone get sick in a movie sent me into a tailspin of anxiety. For my whole life, I've labeled it as an out of control and embarrassing phobia that I just need to get over, but I've never been able to conquer it. And as time has gone by and especially since becoming a mom, it has gotten So. Much. Worse. I am consumed by this fear and the relentless and obsessive thoughts that go along with it. And just recently, my little boy spilled his orange juice and was absolutely beside himself upset. He wasn't just sad it spilled or that his shirt was messy, he was SCARED. And seeing his fear over something that is NOT scary made me realize that my issues could become his if I don't get help. So I sought out a therapist to help me get over this phobia. And she immediately diagnosed me with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. At first I didn't understand, and I wanted a redo on this phobia therapy session gone wrong. But as we continued talking, I realized that OCD is truly the bigger demon that is feeding my phobia.

People joke about OCD all of time- it's definitely not "offensive" to me- people usually say someone is OCD when they mean they are anal or a little obsessive. Whatever, it's a casual colloquialism with no offense made or taken. But I do wish people understood that truly suffering from OCD doesn't mean liking your clothes in color order in your closet (although I do really enjoy that). It means feeling constantly trapped by irrational fears and obsessive thoughts that lead you to irrational compulsions in a vicious cycle, that no one knows more than you is irrational and illogical and totally nonsensical- but you feel completely powerless to stop. I KNOW throwing up is not actually something to be terrified of. I KNOW it's not dangerous. I KNOW that not saying my prayers isn't going to make me throw up- but my brain sends me a message all day long, all night long, on loop- Throwing up is THE worst thing that could ever happen to you, you will not survive, and if you do these things, maybe you can prevent it. OCD is having a constant nervous itch in your brain that is soothed by repetitive and intrusive compulsions. But the relief is so brief, and not real, so you are drawn to these compulsions over and over again as your brain plays a nonstop highlight reel of your biggest fears. It sounds so silly, being paralyzed and held prisoner by such a trivial little fear, but it is SO real. And I've spent my whole life so embarrassed and ashamed of what feels like a ridiculous thing to be so consumed by, but through talking about it, I've found people who struggle with similar fears and compulsions, and just not feeling so alone has helped me so much. 

So, for my own purposes and for anyone that this might possibly help, this is what my OCD looks like. 

1. Constantly checking to see if I feel okay, overanalyzing every stomach rumble and feeling. Keeping mints and bags and Zofran and water with me at all times, "just in case."

2. Constantly assessing Nate- is he pale? He is grouchy? Is he eating too little? Is he eating too much? Is he acting "off"?? 

3. Odd ritualistic behavior- Nate wore that shirt or those pajamas last time he threw up, so I won't put him in them again. If Cary dresses him and puts him in those clothes, I will be very anxious and uncomfortable, but I force myself to try to act normal and not change his clothes- this is my whole life. Trying to force myself to act normal when every part of my brain is screaming EMERGENCY SOMEONE MIGHT VOMIT.

4. Being afraid if I don't read my scriptures or say my prayers, I will be sick.

5. Being afraid if Nate doesn't say the phrase "And help me be healthy" in his night time prayers, he will be sick.

6. Obsessively washing hands and sanitizing our house after we've been "exposed."

7. Obsessively washing Nate's hands and using hand sanitizer when he's been around other kids or touching things in public.

8. Obsessively researching how to avoid the stomach flu, reading the same web pages over and over, trying to soothe my scared brain.

9. Researching norovirus outbreaks, googling "how often does your child get the stomach flu", "do you always get sick when your child gets sick," Over and over. I started to realize I was not okay when I saw google saying things like "You've visited this page 19 times" on some article about stomach flu prevention. 

10. Afraid to go to sleep at night because I am afraid Nate/someone/me will wake up throwing up.

11. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I count the hours until morning when I will feel "safe" that no one threw up during the night. I often can't go back to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night because I am so anxious. 

12. When Nate wakes up in the middle of the night, I immediately launch into fight or flight- it doesn't matter if it's a nightmare, dropped blanket, etc., it takes me an hour or so to calm my heart rate and calm down enough to go back to sleep. The few times he has been sick, I am fighting furiously to keep a panic attack at bay as I help him, and as soon as it is over, I am in full fledged panic attack mode, and I will not sleep for the rest of the night.

13. When someone in my house does have stomach problems, I don't sleep for days, I am so anxious and panicked. Just my husband or even someone I saw for 5 minutes at church mentioning that their stomach feels funny is enough to fuel a panic filled night.

14. I am constantly seeking reassurance from my poor husband- If Nate gets sick, you'll clean it up right? Will you go in there and tell him I can't come if he wants me to come be with him? I probably ask Cary these questions 2-3 times per week and that sweet man is so patient but he just doesn't understand my paranoia, and my constant need for reassurance. How could he? It doesn't make any sense!

15. When someone I know has been sick, I will avoid them for weeks. And I will try to subtly ask questions about the illness so I can decide if it's something contagious or how bad it was, so I can properly gauge my level of panic.

16. When I have seen someone vomit, my brain replays the scene over and over again. A constant loop that I can't turn off. I have nightmares about myself getting sick.

17. If I am feeling nervous about getting sick, I have an overwhelming and constant urge to wash my hands. I can usually control it and force myself to not wash too much, but the urge is always there. And if I've been exposed, all bets are off and I will wash my hands until they bleed. 

18. I want to avoid family gatherings, going on vacations, airplanes, amusement parks and other things I really enjoy because they cause me so much anxiety. Once again I force myself to interact and act normal, but I experience so much anxiety and fear and my compulsions increase drastically in the days leading up to the event and during the event.

19. I obsessively check those around me for looking ill- if I saw a kid looking sick at the grocery store, I will come home and wash my hands, Nate's hands, and think about whether or not we could have been exposed for days. If someone coughs funny, burps, or holds their stomach, I will notice, analyze and obsess for hours.

20. I am constantly aware of how much time has elapsed since a possible "exposure" and googling how long the stomach flu is contagious, incubation period, etc.

21. When I feel ill, I tap my fingers in symmetrical patterns, jiggle my knee to certain beats, pinch myself hard to distract myself from the nauseous feeling. 

22. I feel very uncomfortable that this list is ending on 22 instead of 20. I want to edit 2 out, but as I'm trying to learn not to be a compulsive crazy person, I'm leaving it. 

So many of my compulsions are semi-under control, in that I can force myself to not do them (i.e., compulsive hand washing), but I can not stop the urge, can not stop my anxious brain from searching for something, anything to take away the worry. That's the problem with my compulsions- they make me feel better, for just a minute. So I do them over and over again, and the anxiety ramps up higher and higher between each. 

I kept brushing off my issues to the therapist, telling her, "I know this is so dumb, I know this is so silly.." And telling her that I know lots of people have actual problems and actual hard things to deal with instead of imaginary ones. She stopped me and said, "You have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It is not a weird quirk. It is hard.You are terrified all of the time, and fighting like hell just to live a normal life. This is real, and it is hard, and you don't have to feel this way, and I can help you." And I started crying right there. Not because I was better or because I was happy to have a mental illness, but because for the first time, I felt like maybe I wasn't just a weak sissy, and that my struggles were valid, and most importantly, with some help, I can get better. 

Most people would probably keep this to themselves, and I am sure some people reading this now think I am 100% crazy pants, but I feel like admitting to myself and to the world what I struggle with is the first step in getting better. Owning my problem and talking about it helps me feel like one day this won't be my brain and my life. Identifying and writing down my compulsions helps me see how illogical they are and gives me the first tools to try to stop them. And maybe just one person out there will read this that will relate to part of it and feel a little more normal, a little less alone. And if that's the case, it's worth airing my dirty and super of embarrassing laundry for the world to see. And if none of that, at least now you can all stop putting me on a pedestal- I may be beautiful and hilarious and awesome and smart, but take comfort in knowing that I am also straight up nuts. (I'm kidding. I feel like sarcasm is lost in print here.)

I owe it to him to get better. Because the world is too bright and beautiful to always be afraid.