Single Mom-ing It

So over the past few days I've lucked out and been able to talk to Ryan on the phone a couple of times for a while. Which was definitely nice. We're both tired of being separated by these field ops. Deployments we expected, but it feels like even when he's home he's not really home. He's tossing around a lot of other options. Changing MOS. Changing branches. Getting out. None of which are set in stone because for pretty much every other Marine out there re-enlisting or not is a decision that's never really made until the last minute. His mind will change a dozen or more times between now and his EAS in 2012. He'll probably have at least one more deployment before that and God knows how many field ops.

Just thinking about all of the stuff I have to do by myself while he's gone now that Anya is here causes me to break out in epic proportions. (At least I don't need an eczema treatment, but sheesh.) She is a handful when I'm on my own. Even though I'm staying with my family right now they don't really know Anya's cries and needs as well as Ryan and I do. So I have to dictate what needs to happen a lot which pretty much eliminates the point of having help. Though it's still nice to have extra pairs of hands to occupy her when I need a minute to get something accomplished. Right now she has finally fallen asleep for her morning nap in the bouncy seat so I should probably hit the shower while the getting is good.

Behind the Scenes

Apparently Anya and I brought our stomach bug to everyone else. My family has spent the past week taking turns being ill. For a moment I was afraid it was a different stain, and that I would be taking Anya back to the pediatrician. Thank goodness we aren't set in something like a Blue Cross NC health plan. Thanks to the Marine Corps I would be able to take her in to her old pediatrician here in Tennessee just as easily as I could in Jacksonville and still be covered by our insurance to the same extent. Pretty much hassle free. Awesomeness. Everyone finally seems to be getting back to normal around here now so hopefully everything has blown over.

I've got a long term blog fix in the works. My domain is being transferred over the next few days so if at some point things kind of drop off the face of the Internet don't be alarmed. I'll get it all back up and running as soon as possible. I'll probably just use a WordPress template and upload my existing Blogger entries to get things running smoothly again. Then I'll worry about making my own design and the extra pages. Until then this site should stay functioning while the transfer is still pending. I also have a 10 page research paper I'm trying to write before the end of next week that I haven't even started so I have to prioritize a little. When it rains it pours when it comes to stressful, time sensitive matters in my life. Heh. On the bright side of things, I was able to talk to Ryan today for more than 2.5 seconds. Our communication has mostly been sporadic text messages and few really short phone calls so to be able to actually have an entire conversation was nice. Back to the usual until he gets home in a little over a week. I miss him so much. How did I ever get through that 7 month deployment with next to no communication?

Of PHP and a Haircut

I'm still trying to decide what to do for a long term fix regarding the Blogger completely screwing me over issue. I've basically come to terms with the fact that I'm going to have to get a host that allows PHP so that I can figure out and use WordPress from now on. Only one problem: this domain is registered through my current host...until July 2011. Not to mention I've already paid for all of my hosting through then. I figured I would be out the money at this point, but I really don't want to give up moonlit-butterflies.net. I'm sentimental about it. It had certain meanings when it was created, but now that meaning is something entirely different. It reminds me of the poem I wrote about feeling like a moth envying the butterflies until Ryan came along. Moonlit butterflies almost sounds like another name for moth; a more poetic one perhaps. I don't want to lose that connection to my website so I'm hoping to find a host that will let me transfer my domain or something. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I really hate to leave my current host as they have been very good to me since...oh...the 6th grade. But their lack of support for PHP has finally become a brick wall in my desire to have a functioning blog.

In other news I finally got a haircut. The stylist curled my hair a bit for fun so I'll probably never get it to look like this again on my own, but here's what I'm rocking right now. I guess we'll see how it really looks when I have to figure it out on my own tomorrow.

Quick Update

Figured I should blog instead of continuing to drool over Christian Louboutin shoes. I need more shoes like I need another baby right now. (Meaning, I don't need either one at all.) Anya and I made it to Tennessee in one piece in eight hours with only one 30 minute stop about halfway here to feed her, change her, take myself and the dog to the bathroom, top off the gas tank, and pick up some food for myself. Considering it's the first time I've ever driven an extensive distance, or on the interstate at all for that matter, I've feeling pretty good about it. Now I'm just hoping to enjoy some time hanging around with my family and getting a break from Anya now and then that I would not usually get if I staid home while Ryan was away on this field op.

And in case you were wondering, we're all feeling a lot better. Ryan texted me this morning to let me know he was feeling pretty good, and Anya and I are both doing fine today. I'm eating regularly and all that jazz. Anya still seems a bit sluggish and wary to eat very much formula, but I'm sure a 24 hour bug takes a much bigger toll on such a tiny 5 month old versus Ryan and myself. But to ensure it doesn't come back to bite me, I'm going to call it a night. Oh, and Happy Birthday to me!

The Verdict

It's a stomach bug. That we're all sharing. Hopefully the worst is over because I will never need to read another phosphacore review for weight loss if I continue to be ill the way I was last night. Ugh. The good news is I finally felt hungry enough to eat real food for dinner. And so far I've kept it down. Anya seems to have stopped throwing up. I've been giving her Pedialyte in her bottles as her doctor ordered. She took a long nap right before bed, and she's been so pitiful today that I didn't have the heart to wake her so she went to bed a little late.

Hopefully I can finally get out of here tomorrow and head home for Tennessee. I'm getting really tired of postponing this trip. Now instead of spending the whole week there I will be spending my birthday driving the eight hours on the interstate to get there before dark tomorrow night. Hopefully Anya cooperates. She slept the whole way there at Thanksgiving, but she was a much younger baby that slept anytime she hit the car seat. Now she gets ticked off in the car seat more than she sleeps in it. Or so it seems. We shall see. Must go pack up some last minute things if I hope to get out of here at a decent hour tomorrow.

At the Pediatric Clinic

I'm typing this on my iPod touch. Thinking maybe I can get a little more blogging done if I use the Notes feature to write on the go. I'm waiting at Anya's pediatric clinic to be seen for what I think is a viral bug or the flu. Ryan and I have it, too. Ryan texted me last night to let me know that he'd been throwing up since lunch, and he's still feeling it today. I went to bed early feeling a little off but hoping to get an early start toward Tennessee this morning. I ended up waking up abruptly around 11:30 to be sick in the bed because there was no way to make it to the bathroom in time. It was bad but having to clean it up myself since Ryan is in the field was even worse. I spent a good portion of the evening running back and forth to the bathroom before crashing out around 2AM. (With the way my body was cleaning itself out, I will never need anything like colon cleansing pills.) I woke up a few times after that to tend to Anya who started throwing up around 5:30. I still feel a touch off, but overall I feel way better than I did. Anya on the other hand is not taking much formula and has thrown most of what she did take up already.

I brought her to pediatrician before her scheduled appointment because her behavior worried me. She was so pitiful. She was sitting up on the couch with her blanket, and then she would just slouch over onto her side and would be laying on the couch in the sitting position with her eyes half closed while she let out a half-hearted whine. The most ridiculously pitiful thing I have seen in my life. Ever. Hands down. I felt so bad for her. But hopefully I can get her in to see the doctor soon and have some sort of solution. Though I have a feeling this is just a 24 to 48 hour thing that we'll all have to ride out. Regardless I really want to try and head for Tennessee tomorrow because putting it off is starting to get old. Bring on the eight hours of interstate driving!

Quick Fix

Speaking of needing a cure for adult acne, I finally had to do something to save my blogging ability in the short term. My blogging service (blogger.com) has decided they will no longer support FTP. What that means is I cannot publish my blog to moonlit-butterflies.net which is hosted by an outside source. I instead have to publish to a blogger address. In order to keep m-b.net functioning as it currently is without a complete renovation I decided the easiest solution would be to transfer my blog back to my blogger address (rabidcaribou.blogspot.com) and then embed it into the already designed index page of m-b.net via iframe to look pretty much exactly the same as it did when the entire page was designed and hosted on blogger while being published via FTP to this address. There are a couple of problems with this that will surely get annoying in the long term, however.

First, the blogger navigation bar at the top of the blog area is cut off in the iframe and is ugly regardless. It completely ruins the flow of the overall page which irritates me endlessly. But I'm willing to overlook it for now to keep my blog functioning so bear with me on that one. Second, the comment page will appear in the iframe and, therefore, also be cut off making it difficult to read what you are typing. Enough of the comment box and the submit button show to be able to utilize it when you wish to leave a comment though it may not be the most convenient comment system in the world at the moment. I'm hoping you will be able to make do with those issues for now as I really don't have time to figure out a better solution. I thought of using WordPress, but my current host (homestead.com) does not support PHP and is often tricky with FTP. I love my host as I have been with them since they were a free option back when I started tinkering around with web design and blogging in middle school. And they have never raised my subscription fee due to being a loyal, longstanding customer. So for now this is my best option. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to comment in my sad excuse for a comment box.

Heading Home

I had to take Anya in to the sick clinic today to get her reflux prescription dosage increased since it wasn't done at her 4 month physical. The well clinic does physicals only. So here's hoping Anya doesn't get ill from all of the children in the waiting room who actually had something contagious. I think it was pretty much the dumbest thing in the world to have someone take their otherwise perfectly healthy child into a disease infested area for a reflux prescription. And then when I finally got out of there - two hours after my appointment time - the doctor had given me the exact same prescription I already had. He thought Anya was on less than she actually is so now I'm still in the same boat on her dosage but out two hours of my time and could possibly end up with a sick child. Ridiculous. The well clinic is amazing, but I am not impressed with the sick clinic in the least and will be complaining at Anya's next visit for her 6 month physical at the well clinic. Seriously, the stress of it all has me investigating adult acne treatments for all the breakouts I keep having.

I was hoping to be headed home to Tennessee this morning but chose to wait until tomorrow so that I could get this appointment taken care of, and now I just feel like it was a waste of my time. I could have been over halfway there by now. But instead I'm going to spend today packing and getting the apartment set for my absence. Ryan left this morning for a three week field op. My birthday is on Thursday, and I thought it was a pretty good excuse to take Anya and myself home rather than sit here cooped up in the apartment 24/7 moping about being alone on my birthday with little communication from Ryan. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone and getting out of this apartment for a while.

That's the one thing about being a stay-at-home mom and online student that grates after a while. I feel so trapped and isolated. I try to get out with other Marine wives from time to time, but everyone has a lot of the same issues with sharing a car or wanting to be home when their spouse is that getting a substantial amount of time with any one person to build a solid friendship with is next to impossible. So I get pretty lonely when Ryan is at work, especially on these overnight field ops that can last for weeks. Heh. I'm glad to be heading out tomorrow. But I am dreading tying to fit all of Anya's contraptions into my car. We're going to be like Sardines in there. And by we I mean myself, Anya, and Kieran. Should be interesting trying to keep a baby fed and changed, take myself to bathroom and get food, and take the dog to the bathroom all by myself on an eight hour road trip. But I have faith that I can manage. I have birthed a baby. I figure after that I can do just about anything.

Happy Early Birthday from Ryan

Ryan walked in the door last night bringing nicely wrapped gifts, a balloon, and a mushy card.





One of the gifts turned out to be a nifty digital photo frame. I've eyed them for years but never wanted to drop the cash. The other gift turned out to be an iPod touch! I wasn't expecting it at all. It holds fewer GB than my current iPod, but all of the apps and WiFi access make it an entirely differently electronic accessory.

Busy Busy Busy

Anya has kept me hopping today. She isn't really cranky, per say, she just can't seem to figure out what it is she wants. Something only keeps her happy for about five minutes before I have to do something else entirely with her. She's always bored quickly, but usually you can get a good half an hour to an hour of entertainment out of one thing before she forces you to change it up. Maybe she's finally going to cut that first tooth after almost two months of gum pain. Or maybe she's growing. Or maybe I need to call about having her reflux medication dosage increased. Considering how much she's been spitting up the last few days I'll probably take care of that last possibility tomorrow regardless.

I was hoping to fit in a workout today and maybe get myself back into the swing of things to lose weight fast with the '30 Day Shred'. But, alas, I still haven't done so. Between Anya, housework, homework, and good old procrastination I just can't bring myself to squeeze it in. Heh. I need to get a jogging stroller so I can make Anya part of a daily walk/run routine. I was doing really well with that while I was pregnant and enjoyed that time each evening. I felt a lot better. Trying to fit in a DVD workout around a finicky baby is not quite so enjoyable. I usually try to fit in homework, housework, or - call me crazy - a shower when she's finally entertained or napping for more than five seconds. So, yes, a jogging stroller. That's what I need to talk Ryan into buying. Looks like my dream date with the Dyson will have to wait. I need to be fit before we're introduced anyway. Wouldn't want to give a disappointing first impression with my sad excuse for a stomach and thighs. I disgust myself some days. Wouldn't want my first date with the Dyson to be the last after forking out all that cash.

Vacuum Envy

Ryan's car broke today. Again. It's starting to fall apart one piece at a time. (Or maybe 1,573.87 pieces at a time. That's how it kind of feels.) So it's stuck on base where I had to drive this evening in rush hour traffic to pick Ryan up from work. We're in the process of figuring out where to have it towed to get it fixed and who to get to tow it. Since when we were looking for an auto insurance quote we didn't even consider roadside assistance, we for sure do not have it on our policy. So who knows how much this mess is going to cost us. Guess that's what we get for procrastinating on fixing something we knew was a problem and just hoped to milk a little bit longer before dealing with. That's about how our lives work.

It's kind of like our vacuum cleaner. Ryan did the vacuuming for me one day and got something he shouldn't have that has broken the main part of our vacuum. The extensions all work fine, but the vacuum itself does not pick up anything that is on the carpet. And it's really annoying since we have a dog that sheds 1,297,682,196.25 hairs a day. And that's not considering how much I shed. I probably put Kieran to shame on a good day. So I've been trying to convince Ryan that we need a new vacuum, a nicer vacuum. Like that new Dyson Ball that looks like it makes cleaning smaller spaces with lots of angles (*ahem*Like maybe an apartment crowded with baby related contraptions.*ahem*) a dream come true for a neat freak like myself.

But it costs $400 or something crazy so Ryan about had a brain anneurism right then and there when I finally admitted the cost. And yet he'll lay down $60 to $70 for one video game and want another one a week later. Of course, I don't always let that fly either so I suppose it's all fair in love and war. Maybe I just need to start saving my measly paid blogging revenue for that vacuum cleaner. That could take a while, though. Like a couple of years. We'll all be swimming in Kieran fur by then. Literally. Anya will be eating it for a snack. Because there will be nothing I can do to stop her due to the sheer volume of it all. Guess it's time to break out the screwdrivers and let Ryan attempt to fix the cheap, broken vacuum that we have. Darn.

Pacifier Blues

So I know I've whined and complained over and over again about how much it just plain sucks to get up almost every hour some nights to replace Anya's pacifier. Seriously. It's bad. We've been doing it for over a month now since the pacifier dependency reared its ugly head at the end of a week of growth spurt induced night feedings. We were grasping at straws for anything but feeding her in the middle of the night when we figured out that she was only doing it to be soothed by the suckling. So we turned to the pacifier. And then somewhere along the line it changed from a once a night if at all thing to an OMG I NEED THE PACIFIER RIGHT NOW OR I MIGHT DIE once an hour or more thing. And it is getting old really, really fast. We know she's capable of sleeping through the night. She no longer gets a night bottle beyond bed time. She doesn't need anything until 11 to 12 hours after we first put her down for the night. We know she's capable of sleeping that entire time. Somewhere during the battle for our sleep we allowed her to depend on her pacifier way too much when she was already doing so well at self-soothing in the middle of the night aside from the occasional night feeding. We would have been better off weaning her from the random night feeding than what we are facing now.

Because we are tired of getting up all night long and essentially feeling like we didn't really get any sleep on an almost daily basis when we should be sleeping like babies (Pun totally intended.) through the night, we are taking away the pacifier. Starting tonight. Cold turkey. Aside from social situations. Because if she freaks out in the middle of dinner at a restaurant we really don't want to inconvenience everyone else with out screaming child. She's already stopped wanting it in the car. And she rarely takes it during the day aside from the occasional fussy spell and nap time. She actually spends more time taking it out to chew on the handle than she spends suckling the pacifier the way it was intended to be used. Getting her to fall asleep initially isn't going to be that bad. It's the getting her to stay asleep that is going to be a challenge. She needs to learn self-soothing all over again. And I have a feeling we'll be the ones needing soothing by the time this is all over. From what I've learned from other mothers that took away pacifiers at this age, it should take a week or less for her to get over it. But this is going to be one long week.

I'm actually a little sad about this transition. Sure, we're doing it sooner than a lot of parents so I suppose that's our own fault, but I got a bit teary eyed thinking about the fact that I won't really get to see her suckle on the cute pink flowered pacifier that I love to see her with so much. Except maybe in those social situations that require it. And we hope to break her of those next month when instead of buying the next stage of pacifiers for 6+ months we're just going to pack away the last remaining pacifiers we're keeping in the diaper bag for the time being. I've gotten a range of opinions on taking away her pacifiers this early. Some people say it's easier than waiting as far as the fight she'll put up, and others say it's selfish because babies need to suckle. But she has already gotten to the point where a pacifier does not satisfy her during the day for entertainment or soothing more often than not so I know she doesn't need it at night. She wants it. For comfort. When, at this point, she should know how to self-soothe in the middle of the night. And I know myself enough to know that if I give it to her to fall asleep with, I'll keep giving it back to her in the middle of the night. So they're going away. Just a couple are going in the diaper bag for use outside of the apartment. And next month those will also be gone.

I'm dreading nap time more than bed time. I think she'll get over it a lot faster when it's dark outside and all of her other bed time cues such as her womb bear and fan for white noise are in full swing. During the day at nap time if she wakes up wanting her pacifier she wakes herself all the way up so that there is nothing you can do but try to give her the pacifier before she realizes she's awake and it's day outside. I'm going to have to pull some strength from that part of me that survived pregnancy and childbirth without my husband being physically present to tackle nap time while Ryan's at work next week. It's going to be a full out war between Anya and I. And to be honest, I'm not entirely sure who's going to win. Ryan could come home one afternoon to find that Anya has me in a chokehold. Try getting that image out of your head. I'll be imagining it all week.

She rolls...and takes her pacifier out incessantly.

Baby Giggles

Anya discovered how to roll over on Friday. Now she won't stop doing it. I can only imagine what this means for me when she learns to crawl. And walk. And run. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. But the cuteness is totally worth it. Especially since I've been on my own since yesterday morning when Ryan left for a field exercise that he won't be returning from until at least tomorrow night. But Anya has behaved beautifully considering how horribly bad it could be if she had been in a bad mood for any length of time over the past couple of days. The only problem I had was last night when I'm pretty sure she wanted her pacifier back at least once an hour. It was ridiculous. The extra thick curtains I bought for her window keep her from waking up until around 8AM, but custom blinds can't magically keep her from wanting her pacifier at 3AM. Jury's still out on how to solve this particular problem so that we can sleep through the night as we should already be seeing as Anya hasn't had a night feeding in months. But we survive it because in the morning, we get to see this:

My Insecurities Laugh at Me

All the pizza I ate today makes me with I actually thought diet supplements worked. But I know better. I need to start hitting the 30 Day Shred again soon. I was out of commission for a while after jamming my wrist in my dog chase related fall a few weeks ago. But I'm finally back up to about 98% usability. If I lift something at the the wrong angle I get an echo of a twinge and have to take it easy for a few minutes. The push up segment might be a little iffy, but I'm so tired of being gross. The baby weight must go, or I will lose my mind to all the insecurity based thoughts running through my mind every time I get dressed and look in the mirror. I must get motivated. Ryan's going to be going on a 30 day field exercise in the near future so getting started soon so that I can be working on that while he's gone would be pretty awesome. That way he'll notice the change even more so than if he were here every day. I want to surprise him with my motivation to get in shape because he knows how lazy I am about it most of the time.

And I know some people look at the 10 pounds of baby weight and the other 10 pounds of bleh I had before the pregnancy and laugh, but for me it is a lot. This is the most I have weighed in my life, and I didn't like what I weighed before so I'm really feeling it. I'm a very insecure person when it comes to my looks. I mean, I was told I was hot in high school as a joke right before they laughed in my face and walked back to their group of laughing friends. That breeds problems in a girl's self-esteem, and I was already fighting an uphill battle before all the jerks of my teenage years walked in and out of my life laughing at me. And I'm not looking for pity here, I'm just explaining why I've spent a lot of time mentioning things related to my looks on this blog. It's a touchy subject for me, and poor Ryan spends a lot of his time giving me as much reassurance as he can. But I know the only way I can make myself feel better is to know I'm doing what needs to be done to look decent and be in shape. So I'm working on that.