Friday, July 31, 2009

The Last Baby

We have decided we are done procreating.

We originally planned to have only one, our wonderful Violet. But as she grew into toddler-hood, I knew that I wanted her to experience having a sister. I have two awesome sisters who I am very close to, and I want my girl to have that experience.

So we decided to try for number two.

(also playing into that decision was the desire to have a kid on purpose. Novel concept, eh?)

We got pregnant right away, the first month we tried. And were so happy. Ecstatic. I bought a heap of onsies to celebrate.

Then, we lost him. Fairly early into the pregnancy, but still. I was traumatized. I spent a week on the sofa, staring at the sky, the TV, my daughter. I decided not to try again. I couldn’t deal with the heartache.

But four months later, completely by surprise, the second line showed up. I threw up. Sobbed. Called my mother. Shook as I told Ali, my best friend. Then I took a deep breath and dove into the pregnancy.

It was hard. Especially the first 20 weeks, when the movements were infrequent and the cheap at-home heartbeat-listening device didn’t work.

We got past it. I made it through the pregnancy that seemed to last forever, though she was born 2 weeks early. (though I did find out I was pregnant at 3 weeks 6 days, so it WAS a long time.)

Then the post partum depression went into full-blown Action. I barely got out of bed for 2 weeks. I lay in bed with a remote and the baby. I barely ate. Jason took care of Violet, and I…descended into my cocoon. I thank God I have an awesome and understanding husband; we gently discussed what was going on and what steps we could take to make things better.

And they got better. I got out of bed. I started interacting with the world again. I started taking the full dosages of my medicine again. And my family bloomed.

We are content. Our little family of four is perfect for us. Violet adores her baby sister, and Carli positively beams at Violet. I love the baby snuggles I get. I love the drooly, open mouthed kisses. I love the downy head and the neck rolls and the arms and legs that never stop moving.

But I am done with pregnancy. I am done with the immobile first months. She is now in the 6-12 month sizes, which means she gets to wear brighter, cuter toddler clothes; my days of pastel one-pieces are behind me. I will never again wait for the first tooth to pop out, or have to constantly support a weak neck, or try to disguise that bald spot babies get from moving their head back and forth constantly.

I am thrilled. Honestly, completely one hundred percent ECSTATIC.

I have been going back and forth since she born, wondering…am I really done? Maybe I need one more. Or maybe even 5 or 6!

Nope.

We were planning our 2011 family reunion, and I realized-I am going to have a 2 year old and a five year old. I will have CHILDREN, not babies, people who can actually, you know, do some things FOR THEMSELVES.

And I love that thought.

I am not really a baby person. I hate being pregnant. I have depression that just loooves to feed off my hormones. We don’t desire to have a boy; Jason is perfectly happy with his two blue-eyed beauties.

I am excited to move out of that trying to have babies/having babies section of my life; to completely throw myself into the parenting my children part of my life.

Jason will be getting a vasectomy (or fixed, as I like to say) sometime in the near future.

Which led to this conversation:

‘So, when I get my thing done, will I still, you know, shoot out anything?’
‘Yes, you’ll still have semen, just not sperm. Did you think you would just shoot air?!?’
‘Well…’
‘Wait a second…can you not say vasectomy???’
‘No! No, no, no, no…it hurts just to say it.’

And that is why I am glad we don’t have a boy.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

W.T., or Dubya Tee

I went home to Kentucky last week.

Yes, I am a down home country girl, born and bred in the blue-grassland. But not the hat-wearing, julep-sipping east Kentucky. The mine-stripped, dying, backwoods west Kentucky.

The town I am from has one stop light. One convenience store that also serves as restaurant and tanning salon. A tiny post office, one lonely baseball diamond.

I attended the elementary school, but by the time my youngest sister was old enough to attend, the community had to close it down. The kids were bussed to a neighboring town.

My street…destitute is the only word to describe it. Our house was one passed down through my dad’s family, old and creaky, but large and solid. You couldn’t say the same for our neighbors. They were living in literal shacks: 3 small rooms made of flimsy wood covered in tar paper. Skinny, mangy dogs roamed the streets; skinny, dirty children did as well.

My parents kept us clean and fed and mannered. I know it wasn’t easy.

We moved to Canada when I was a teen, and the majority of my pre-adult years were spent in a pleasant, middle class suburb in lovely Alberta. I received a great education in a bright, cared-for, well-respected school. There was very little White Trash in my years succeeding that move.

But I always feared that White Trash is what I truly am. I would become the woman with the bleached hair and stale cigarette in a tar paper shack. I wondered if that was my true destiny, if it would one day catch up to me. If my heart and soul didn’t belong in rundown, beat-up western Kentucky.

My trip has assured me I have nothing to worry about. I am not that person.

Because that person isn’t about not having money, about living in a poorer part of town. What really makes someone White Trash is attitude.

Being racist. Telling my sister that you mourn her future hard life with her black boyfriend. Complaining about those adopted black cousins while they are in earshot.

Believing every email forward you get about President Obama being an Islamic non-American who burns flags and eats babies.

Holding grudges. Believing you are a better person than everyone around you, and never forgetting any mistakes they made.

Believing you are the absolute Right, and never entertaining the notion that you may not have all the answers.

I am not that person.

I may wear too much eye-liner. I may have only have clothes that are second-hand. I may make a joke that seems racy or off-center.

But I believe everyone is equal. That if you are going to preach respect for authority, that includes our awesome President, no matter what Rush Limbaugh says. That a mistake is in the past, and it forms who you are in the future. I don’t need to be asked four times in three days if my ‘wild steak is over.‘ Because if I hadn’t run off to Alaska and gotten knocked up, there would be no Violet Lynn, and consequently, no Carli Jay.

I am a left-wing, garage-rock-loving, Sunday School teaching, tattoo adoring, punk rock wannabe hippie, and I am proud.

I may be from a dinky little poor town in Kentucky, but it does not define me as White Trash.

Also, Kentucky makes my allergies act up.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

BRB

Going to family reuinion...first time I will have seen most of my relatives in over 5 years. Am excited. Have to finish packing and sleep...leaving in 7 hours. Maybe shower, too.
*sniff*
Yep. Definitely shower, too.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

i let Jason cut my hair.


gave him the scissors and let him go to town.

told him to just not touch my bangs.

he came up with this:













Sweetney, if you ever see this...it is a form a flattery? cause yours is so cool? and way more awesome than mine anyways? and i shouldn't worry, cause their is no way that you, awesome queen of the cool blogger world, would even see this anyways? but if you do, I LURVE you?


Friday, July 10, 2009

...

sore.
tired.
5 month old is teething.
3 year old is an anarchist.
head hurts.
rainy days make my joints hurt.
surrendering my bed to offspring and sleeping tensely on 1/4 the amount i need makes muscles hurt.
as does constant rocking/holding of teething 5 month old.
eyes won't focus.
need to clean.
can't move.
need vacation.
or maybe just sleep.
and ibuprofen.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

heat.

It is thick, liquid, sensuous. Heavy. Saucy.

On the Gulf, it is a drier ocean heat, still stifling, but with more escape. Thirty miles inland, there is no way out. The air sits on you heavily, too overwhelmed to move about. It is walking through invisible fire.

It radiates up from the ground, steaming you like so many dumplings. It is tangible, visible in the distance as wavy, psychedelic tricks of the eye.

The saving grace of air conditioning and electric outdoor fans makes one wonder how anyone survived in this heat before electricity. You can understand women having the vapors when they are in this heat, wearing crinolines and petticoats and having only iced tea and rocking chairs to cool them. You wonder how anyone could survive without the crisp, bracing rush that happens when you step inside to a climate controlled room from the outside, where you can control nothing: the bugs, the dirt, the never-ending heat.

But there is something unnervingly sassy about this heat. Something strong, something that speaks of women farming their own food and caring for enormous households while insisting on grace and intelligence. It is impossible to be a wallflower in this heat; it demands you stand up and be noticed. It is not making the best of a situation, or merely existing; it is enveloping everything around it and taking it in, claiming it, squeezing it close.

It is its own entity, a personification that embodies a southern woman. The kind I wish I could be.

It is thick, liquid, sensuous. Heavy. Saucy.