one month

i can't believe its already been a month since the car accident. i'm still having panic attacks and elijah asked me yesterday (when we had to stop quickly) if we were going to crash again. i'm ready to put this part of our lives behind us.

wrecked

a week ago today my family and i enjoyed a lovely day at he texas state fair and then headed back home to round rock after a great weekend in dallas. sadly in elm mott (just outside of waco) we were in a multiple car collision and our car was flipped twice with myself, my husband and our 2 young sons inside. we were really fortunate to, not only all walk away, but to all come out of it with just bruising and some cuts... and even then only on me and ricky. the boys were completely untouched. i can't put into words how fortunate, lucky and totally grateful i am that my family is safe and that i am not having to morn the loss of my loved ones, or have them morn my loss. surely G-d was watching out for us and keeping us out of harms way...

 pics of the crash

....and yet, despite the fact that we are all okay i can't help but feel horribly guilty that i (as the driver) could not keep my family out of harms way. that all of the financial burden (new car, car seats, camera battery, ambulance ride, x-rays, ct scans) and emotional upheaval (i'll cry at practically anything these days (its like being pregnant all over again) and elijah is having night terrors) are all my fault. mentally, i know that there is nothing i could have done to avoid being rear-ended or being hit when the other truck lost control... but emotionally i am guilt ridden in a way i've never felt before, despite what my brain says. 

it's worse at night when elijah wakes up screaming and refuses to go back to sleep because he's too scared and knows he'll have bad dreams again. i'm finding it hard to reassure him because i question my ability to keep him safe. hopefully he and i will find a good place again soon. in the mean time i will take comfort by holding my family close to me and spending as much time as possible showing them that i love them. and praying that nothing like this happens to our family again.

wwwhhhyyyy????

did you ever notice that when you have a really late night, for whatever reason, your children know and out of  instinct wake up extra early? 6 am was so stupid early this morning that i can barely think straight at the moment. i can't wait for elijahs nap time.

tomorrow will be elijahs first day at daycare since we took him out in march to stay home with me to save money. its a new day care and i'm a little nervous but we went by yesterday so elijah could met his new teacher and her kids (its out of her house so they'll be there with him) and they all got on really well. so that was encouraging. hopefully every thing goes smoothly.... fingers crossed.

love

i've been thinking a lot about love lately (weird since it isn't feb). love between a man and a woman, parents and their children, friends.. whatever. and i've pulled together some of my favorite love phrases.. hope this inspires you to tell someone you love them.

• i like not only to be loved, but to be told that i am loved. -george eliott
• there is no remedy for love, but to love more. -henry david thoreau
• the sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo last a great deal longer. -oliver wendell holmes
• to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with- mark twain
• people who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy. -bob hope
• your capacity to love others is closely related to your capacity to love yourself. -bruce fisher
• love is an act of endless forgiveness. -peter ustinov
• love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties. -jules renard
• love demands the impossible, the absolute, the sky on fire, inexhaustible springtime, life after death and death itself transfigured into eternal life. -albert camus
• love is a temporary madness.-captain corelli's mandolin
• i love you , not only for what you are, but for what i am when i am with you. -roy croft
• kiss me and you will see stars; love me and i will give them to you. -unknown
• if i had a flower for every time i thought of you, i could walk in my garden forever. -alfred lord tennyson   

have any other great love verses? send them my way!

a night off

today is my husbands 30th birthday and to celebrate we had dinner and drinks with friends last night followed by some alone time at juniors bar in downtown round rock and a night at a nearby hotel while my in-laws watched our kids. we had the availability to sleep all night and sleep late... so of course i was up at 5:45 thinking it was time to get up with micah for a feeding. then we were both up by 8:30am... and missing our kids.

and how did we spend my husbands birthday today? taking the boys to the park to play on the play ground and feed the ducks and playing with the puppies at "barktoberfest", eating bbq, taking naps and now he and his dad are on their way to the ut football game. tomorrow while the boys sleep he'll get a professional massage :)

moral of the story- even when we have free time or its our birthdays... its still all about our boys.

describes my night...

every so often you come across a book that so accurately describes your life that its a little freaky. last night i was reminded of the book 'go the fuck to sleep' by adam mansbach (a wonderful gift from my mom). heres some of my favorite passages. enjoy:

'the windows are dark in the town, child. the whales huddle down in the deep. i'll read you one very last book if you swear you'll go the fuck to sleep.'
'the wind whispers soft through the grass, hon. the field mice, they make not a peep. its been thirty-eight minutes already. jesus christ, what the fuck? go to sleep.'
'the cubs and the lions are snoring, wrapped in a big snuggly heap. how come you can do all this other great shit but you can't lie the fuck down and sleep?'
'we're finally watching our movie. popcorn's in the microwave. beep. oh shit. goddamn it. you've gotta be kidding. come on, go the fuck back to sleep.'

ah, parenthood...

endings

and so the time has come.. i am no longer a breast feeding mother...

this is a strange thing for me.

on one hand i'm totally excited. i get to drink and eat what i'd like and not worry about things like: it it too spicy for the baby? i can really start exercising (his one may seem weird but i know a lot of moms who's milk dried up after hard days of working out and i'm like the size of a small car these days- i'd like to correct that) i don't have to worry about finding a private place to pump or a relaxing chair to feed in. the feeding responsibilities (which have always been an 80/20 split) can now be split more evenly because i'm not a needed component any longer.

on the other hand i'm totally distraught. i no longer get to have my little one snuggled all close to me that way. i'm no longer the thing he needs to thrive (since breast milk is best). i'm now super worried about his digestion because of how much formula he'll be drinking. feeding is no longer just between me and my micah. and i will never get to experience it again (as ricky and i do not plan on having any more children).

i have never held back from the fact that i don't really like breast feeding. not because i don't understand its importance or because i'm super weirded out by having my kid eat from my breasts, but because i always found it slightly awkward and neither of my children were very good latchers. it also took FOREVER to feed that way. perhaps i have been lost to the land of instant gratification or i'm just super impatient.... or both. but i could pump in about 10 minutes, i could make a bottle of formula in about 1 1/2.. it took about 20 minutes, some times much much more, to feed from me. and when i feed brom a bottle i don't get blisters on my nipples.... just sayin. now i will get to have my body back just to me. its been almost a year (to the week) that i got pregnant and for the first time in 11 1/2 months i belong only to me (no matter what the hubby says).

while i was enjoying the extra calories being burned and the uterus shrinking benefits of breast feeding and i'm not looking forward to starting visits with 'aunt flo' again any time soon, its time. micah is young enough that he will not be upset by this and he takes to the bottle like a champ so no worries there. a friend, who has a son a few months older than micah, has more than her fair share of milk and her son does not take to the bottle like a champ.. or at all. so we are lucky enough to have been gifted with a entire drawer in our freezer full of her expressed milk. this will keep micah drinking more breast milk rather than formula (this is also a relief to our pocketbooks) and i'm so grateful that he will still be able to get the benefits of breast milk, even if its not mine.

i'm far more hormonal and upset about saying good-bye to breast feeding than i ever thought i would be.. but there it is.. i'm a sad camper....
but look who is here to cheer me up! mr. negra modelo! i've missed you too! now that i'm not breast feeding we can be friends again!

...now where are the limes?