It's been a while.

     It has been quite some time since I have sat down at my laptop, and typed anything out. To bring the world up to speed - I now have two adorable little girls, I am a Veterinary Technician student, and my boyfriend and I are living together and making due with one income. 

     My first little girl, Piper, is a handful. I knew she would be from the day she arrived, but she has solidified my suspicions over the last two and a half years. She is funny, smart, gorgeous, caring, and anything else you could ask for in your toddler. But just like any child of my bloodline, she is a spiteful, tantrum throwing, quick to anger child. She tests my patience up to the maximum at least twice an hour, but then once she has been disciplined she wants to cuddle on my lap. Piper is the most challenging thing in my life. But I love her more than anything, except her sister and father, that I love equally. 

     Evelyn is my second child. As of tomorrow she is 4 months old. We call her Evie, or Noodle. Most of the time the name of choice is Noodle. I love her to death. This pregnancy for lack of a better word, sucked. Towards the end I began having heart rate issues. They would skyrocket to as high as 155 bpm. It was pretty scary. I wasn't fond of the experience. But after a quick and fairly easy labor, she is here.      

     Evie and Piper are so incredibly different that is baffles me. I can't begin to imagine how it will be when they are both older. However, so far it seems that they are quite fond of each other. Piper is always playing with Evie, and Evie will just laugh and smile at her big sister. It makes me so happy that it almost hurts. 

     Parenthood is one of those things that can make you happy, yet incredibly sad at the same time. Learning how to deal with that has been a great challenge. I'm still learning. 

     I began school after Piper's first birthday. I couldn't imagine being one of those people who work in groceries stores for the rest of their lives, and trying to support myself and a child. The circumstances were right, so I began school only one week after inquiring about it. I called my school, made an appointment for information, and began a week later. I was so scared. But I was very excited. 

     It has been very hard. Once I begin to get ahead and start understanding things better, something happens to set me back. Such as issues with babysitting, illness, and lets not even get started on when I got pregnant with Evie. 

     This month for example, I had a 93.47% in my class (Laboratory Techniques). All that was separating me and an academic excellence award was 1.53%. Let me back it up a bit an explain my babysitting situation before going any further. Monday and Tuesday a family member watches the girls. She can't stand it, but she does it. Wednesday, Ethan's coworker's wife babysits the girls. Finally, on Thursday, Ethan stays home from work with the girls. Now back to my previous complaint of this month...

     Today is our first day of the last week of this class. I had to miss it. I miss lecture, lab time, class participation points, essential skills, anything you could do on a Monday I missed. I had to miss because my Monday babysitter is unreliable. Can't be trusted to forward pertinent information on to me about when and why she can't babysit so I can make other arrangements. When the only other arrangement that can be made is negotiated, said babysitter decides that they do not feel like watching the girls. After that bomb is dropped, I then get another bomb stating that this person can only babysit ONE day a week from now on. 

    So not only am I missing today, but I am left to find arrangements from here on out. Stress to the max. But I am determined. I will do well with school, I will pass all my classes, and I will figure something out. I won't let anyone get in my way, family member or not.

     As for Ethan and I, we have our rough patches. Just about as many rough patches as happy times. But the day we stop fighting is the day we may as well give up on us. When you lose the will to fight, you lose to will to keep trying. 

     I hope to someday feel like I'm emotionally healthy enough to agree to marry him and have his last name for my own. As of right now, I don't want to get married when I have to struggle every day to be happy. I want to be a happy person and not let anything kill my moment when I do. I don't think he understand that or realizes that it's not just an excuse. But maybe someday he will. 

     He loves being a dad, and on top of that, is the best dad that I could ask for my kids to have. In the past three and a half years, I have seen him do a complete 180. I love it. I wish it had happened differently sometimes. But we're together, we have our family and that is all that matters. We fight, but we fight for us, we fight for our girls, and we fight to survive. 

Sincerely yours, 

Brittany

Piper is crawling

Not just a couple of steps here and there... but legit crawling. She's unstoppable now. She has been crawling everywhere. And CLIMBING on everything. Everything. Trying to climb up on my recliner, entertainment center, wicker chest, her walker... it's driving me crazy. She keeps bumping her head on things. Not hard, but enough to scare her into crying. It's terrible. Once she starts crying from something like that, it's virtually impossible to stop her until she goes to sleep. And even then, she will wake up randomly and remember that she was crying and start crying all over again. Poor kid. I feel bad for her. But it drives me absolutely up the wall.

It's very pretty weather here. The fall is definitely almost fully set in. It's my favorite time of year. But it's also usually a bad time of year for me. Something bad always happens in the fall. Every year since I turned about 14 something bad happens. Not that this was good... but hopefully my grandpa dying in the end of July would be the bad thing happening. That was bad enough, but for something else to happen this year would probably kill me.

Also, I've been feeling like I did towards the middle to end of my pregnancy. I get heartburn a lot. I get indigestion. I've been feeling nauseous in the morning. Early in the morning anyway. I am sore everywhere. I'm crampy. But I've been having periods. I took a pregnancy test a couple weeks ago and it was negative. But it has also been sitting in my car since I found out I was pregnant with Piper. Lol. I think I'm just being paranoid since I've been watching a lot of I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant. But I dunno. I'll probably take another one in a couple of weeks. And if it's still nothing, I'll have to suck it up and go to the doctor. I REALLY don't want to though since I don't have insurance yet. GRRR

Need to stop stressing

I am now convinced I have a stomach ulcer. A spot in my stomach has been burning for the past couple days again. Same spot as before. It's hurts just sitting here. When I'm holding the baby it's even worse because she puts pressure on it and that doesn't feel good at all. Then I keep getting a twinge of pain on the opposite side of my stomach so I may have more than one. This whole thing makes sense because Ulcerative Colitis runs on my moms side of the family. Her mom had it, her sister has it, she has it. I'm not sure about the generations before that, but that's what I know.

I've been super stressed out lately. About work, finding the new job, starting a new job, the baby, the house, money... everything. And to top it all off, I'm lonely. And it's fall. It's my favorite time of year, but something bad always happens to me in the fall. Every year since I turned like 13. >.<

The baby just took a fifteen minute nap. I was hoping for a little more of a reprieve. But no such luck. She has started crawling little bits at a time. She pulled herself up on her carseat to stand the other day. And again yesterday. She'll be six months old tomorrow. She's too young for this crap! I'm not ready for it.

We're going and getting her a high chair today and a bunch of baby food. Babies R Us is having a sale on gerber 2nd foods so I'm excited. I enjoy baby shopping and all that. If she was just a little less hyper and a little more self sufficient I would be happy. She's getting to the point that I can finally leave her on the floor for more than ten minutes without her yelling at me. She was down for about 30 minutes this morning and she was fine. I think it's just because now she is learning and she likes learning. She's a smart baby. She was watching me flip the pages of her baby albums yesterday and started trying to do it herself. :)

I gotta get off of here now due to hurting stomach and too much shit to do today. Adios.

Bad start to an early day

Piper woke me up at 6 am. Wasn't too thrilled but I can deal. That wasn't bad. But after my sister left for school, she realized she forgot her gym clothes. After we had just told her to make sure she grabbed them, and she yelled at us saying she did. So my mom says she'll watch the baby if I drive the clothes up there. Whatever, no problem. I drive them up there, take them in, and leave. I get in the left turn lane to exit the parking lot and I'm sitting there for about 6 minutes waiting. There is a cop on the street in front of me, and in the left turn lane for the people to my right. I think nothing of it and just figure it's locked up tighter than a preachers ass because it's a bunch of little rich bratts who go there and the parents want it that way. Well, when I finally get to turn, the cop across the street WHOOP WHOOPS at me and pulls me over. I'm scared shitless and shaking because I don't have insurance at the moment. He was super nice and everything and looked up my social because my drivers license is in my diaper bag at home. Apparently, you're not supposed to turn left out of the parking lot during school hours. Me being from a small town didn't notice the sign across the street. Apparently it looks like a School Zone sign, and even says School Zone but the smaller print says no left turns during school hours. We don't HAVE that shit where I'm from. So of course when I see a sign that says School Zone I'm just going to assume it's a damn 35 Speed Limit sign. So, he gave me a 121 dollar ticket. /facepalm

NOT enthused. My paycheck might not even be that much because I've not been getting the hours. AND I have to buy diapers and baby food and possibly some formula. I'm not a very happy camper. I need to get out of the house or I'm going to scream.

Then I get home and me and my mother are looking for a movie. Can't find it. So we go into my little sister's room because she generally is the culprit. We get in there, find about 25 other movies of ours that she is NOT allowed to take in her room because she can't take care of shit. And I also found about 5 of my books, and a bunch of cd's that I've been looking for. I'm going to kick her ass. And she will not be getting the power cord from the computer for a good week. Her ass is grass.

It's only 10 am and I already want a fucking beer and a cigarette.

Been a long week

Start Rant

I feel very out of place with the rest of my friends now. And I didn't realize this until my best friend came home from Afghanistan. It sucks because I still love her, she still loves me... but we're very limited as to what we can do now that I have a baby. We can't stay out shopping that long because the baby gets cranky. I can't drive to Sedalia every day off I have, because Piper's schedule gets upset... and it scares me that it's going to make us grow apart. Another sucky thing is that since she did just come back from overseas, she's not used to being around people outside of her company yet. She wanted to go out, so I took her to a bar downtown. She sat there on her phone texting the whole time and didn't even order a drink. /facepalm I understand, but everything has changed so much in the last year and I just don't like it. I have never, nor will I ever, be a fan of change.

To make me feel even better, Piper has just been screaming for the majority of the days of the past week or more. It's driving me crazy. She doesn't have a fever but I figure she might be getting in more teeth since she has been drooling even more than usual and is super cranky. I find myself wanting to put her in her crib and just get the hell out of here. But then I feel bad for having those thoughts. Then I feel even WORSE because she has begun whining/crying when she sees me leaving the room, or leaving for work. Even if someone is holding her. She holds her arms up and starts doing the hardcore pout and crying. It makes me feel awful for having to leave. Then I feel bad for having the OTHER thoughts even more. So for me, being a mom is just one big emotional storm of being angry, and being sad. Very rarely do I have happy moments. I love her to death, but I just don't know what to do with myself to make myself happy. THEN I have the nerve to go through all her baby clothes that don't fit her anymore and decide I'm going to save them because God knows I have bad luck and will get pregnant again... and then I catch myself almost WANTING it to happen. SOMEONE TELL ME WTF IS GOING ON WITH ME!!!! I can't even handle one baby let alone two. Especially not right now.

End Rant

Start Positive 

But while at Target today I was looking through all the baby stuff and decided she needed a new sippy cup, some pink leg warmers with green and blue polka dots, some new purple onsies with different designs on them. One of which unfortunately says, "Daddy's Little Girl" on it. But I figure she can wear it around Ethan for shits and giggles. I also decided that I'm going to get Ethan a coffee cup or thermos or something that says, "Worlds Best Dad" on it. :D He'll just love that. Haha. He goes along with the Daddy jokes and even calls her his daughter half the time. He even took home one of her big professional pictures to hang on his fridge. <3

The child also has more shoes than any baby that I know.

I find it quite amusing. That is even lacking a few pairs. She has three pairs of baby chucks, three pairs of twinkle toes, and even a pair of baby Sperry's. Haha. While Corissa was up here we spent 300 dollars on her within two days. 130 at JcPenny's, and another 165ish at Babies R Us. They were both having ginormous sales because of the holiday switch out. Some of the fall stuff is even on sale already. Plus Penny's just has really cute but still affordable baby clothes.

I might have a babysitting job for a woman I work with. Her daughter is three years old and adorable. She's a good little girl. Melba(she's Philippino) wants someone who will sit down and read to her, color with her, things like that. And she would like to have an english speaking babysitter so she can learn it better. They speak english at home, but her spanish speaking babysitter is confusing Jade. So if her husband agrees that I'll be a good babysitter, I could quit Target. I really do hate that place. She'd pay me 150 a week. So I'd be making almost what I made when I worked in the Deli. :) So I'm kind of excited about that. I feel like it would actually help me get into a routine also. Because Melba works at 7 every morning. So I'd get up at 6 every day before the baby. Clean up a little bit. Figure out what to do with Jade all day, what to feed her, stuff like that. And Piper would get some interaction with another kid. I know they're different ages. But still, Piper has never been around anyone younger than 12 before. You should see her face when we go into the store and theres a baby around her age in there. She just stares and starts talkin'.

So lets just hope her husband doesn't think 21 is too young. -crosses fingers-

I'm thinking it's time to go to bed now. I'll leave you with an adorable picture.

Not too terrible of a day

I was initially annoyed at how early Piper wanted to wake up. FIVE am... that is not a good time for me. I'm so cranky at that time of morning its ridiculous. But Piper was okay and played in her crib and her walker for a while.She took a very short nap at 7. But then we had to drive my sister to get her shots before school.

So afterwards we went to Target. They decided to NOT give me my three days of bereavement on my check so I had to go bitch at them and make them fork it over. One hundred thirty-seven dollars that they left off my check. Somehow I knew two hundred dollars was an awfully small check. So I let my sister do some school shopping while we were there. She is the most annoying person to shop with. But oh well. Piper was being good so that's all I really cared about.

Got her home and got my bank taken care of thankfully. A few months ago I had told my bank to get rid of my overdraft protection so that it would just decline me. Well, I got online and checked my account and I was over three hundred dollars overdrafted. So I called and talked to the VP who just happens to be from my home town, and get it all situated. :) I love that dude. He's amazing. So then I called and situated my bounced check. Now tomorrow I just need to call Medicaid and figure out why in the hell they said Piper's insurance wasn't eligible when we went and got her shots last week. I was a big girl today.

Piper was super cute today when we got home. Pics to come. Just got her down to bed and it is 9:17 pm. Hopefully she'll sleep a good bit tonight. Since she has learned to roll over in her sleep she thinks when she rolls onto her back it's time to wake up and play. >.<

One more day in... paradise?

This morning I thought today was going to be a good day. And boy was I wrong.

Piper let me sleep until 8:30 this morning. So I was pretty ecstatic about that. I haven't even taken a nap today and it's 10 pm. All was well this morning. She was a little bit cranky but that was just before her first nap. So I didn't think anything of it. I did some dishes and cleaned up a little bit of the clutter around here while she slept. I even got to read a couple pages in my book while she slept. It was nice. She woke up about 45 minutes later and I played with her for about fifteen to twenty minutes after her diaper was changed and giving her some of her favorite breakfast. Banana, Raspberry, and Oatmeal. I put some formula in her sippy cup and blankets on the floor and lay down on the floor with her. All was well for about 5 minutes. She decides she's crabby and doesn't want anything to do with... anything really. I sat her up and let her play with her cloth blocks, satisfied for a few. I put her on her stomach and let her scoot around, she just rolled over and started crying. So finally I let her lay there and she just rolled around all over the place so I picked her up. The little turd was STILL crying.

I took her outside since that is generally one of the only things that will keep her quiet. She loooooves going outside. Which makes me happy because I really enjoying being outside and I didn't want to have one of those kids who didn't want to go outside, or was scared to get dirty or something like that. She finally starts falling asleep on me. And what does the neighbor do? Start up his annoying Honda Prelude that you can hear from twenty million miles away and wakes her up. She starts screaming of course. I go back inside, and proceed to take another 20 minutes putting her back to sleep. She naps for about 30 minutes.

Ethan came over right after she woke up. He played with her for a bit which kept her calm and not cranky. Usually when he's here she's in a pretty good mood. She loves Ethan. Then, she of course gets fussy again. This is basically how it has been all day.

So later on in the day, she had been going between fussing and crying for about 20/30 minutes. I was in our room trying to put her down for a nap. She just kept crying. So I shut my door so the sounds of the tv weren't floating into the room. My mom comes in first after about five minutes to see why she's crying. I shoo her out of the room. Then five minutes later, Ethan comes in and gives me the "WTF" look. I give him the "GTFO" look and make him leave and shut the door. Piper FINALLY starts falling asleep when my sister slams open her door really loud like she ALWAYS does even though I've yelled at her multiple times for it. So guess what Piper does? Wakes up and starts screaming. My mother comes in and I tell her to just get out and she was almost asleep, and guess what SHE does?... legit takes Piper from me because "She's not ready to go to sleep." She was JUST asleep. I know when my baby is and isn't ready for sleep. Their loud asses were just keeping her awake. As usual. It's really very annoying to live with your mother who is supposed to be your "roommate" and not act like a control freak crazy bitch. I don't know if any of the few people who read this have been in this situation, but it was very hard to not tell her to give me back my child and quit acting like she is hers. Yes, I'm grateful for everything she has done for me and is still doing for me. No, I do not need her fucking up my child's nap/sleep schedule because she doesn't want to deal with hearing her cry. Crying never hurt anyone.

Then she tries to act all innocent after five minutes of me saying "fuck it" and sitting in my room and telling me to come outside with her, Ethan, and the baby because it's just oh so nice out and the baby just loves it. "Yes Mother. I know Piper likes being outside. I take her outside all day. She is MY child after all."

I really cannot wait for Corissa to get OUT of the army so she can move back home and we can get our place together. If she doesn't, then once my child support comes rolling in, me and Piper will go solo finally. My only problem is, I have to find a place that allows big dogs. I have two large breed dogs. Boomer is over 110 pounds and is a Lab. Opera is a 70 pound Husky/Australian Shepherd mix. I can't, and won't get rid of my animals.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. It took me forty-five minutes to get her to sleep tonight by 9:30. Something would always wake her up. EX: Sister, mother, cat running around like a bat out of hell.

My advice to anyone soon to be having a child. Don't live with a parent.