Nervous Breakdown

Wow, It's been a while. Rather than try and regale you with all that's happened since I last posted, I'll concentrate on this past week or so.

Yesterday, I had a Nervous Breakdown. I was looking at my budget, and realizing that its a shitty budget, whish rreally its not because at least I know where the money comes from to pay the bills and the bills get paid on time and I'm not going further into debt spending money on credit cards I don't have, Nevertheless, I have one account holding my savings, my money for the trip to BC, and my rent money, and I don't know how much there is of what! Right now I know there is definately LESS than there absolutely needs to be, AKA I spent the savings and am cutting into the money for BC, or even worse, Rent. So, Ok I can fix this, I can put the money back from my CTB and UCCB and Child Support this week... Except that I don't know how to account for that in my budget. But I'll figure it out I always do, The issue is that this has been building for a week or so, and now I feel like the world is going to collapse on me, So yesterday I broke down in tears about the whole "money" thing. It was horrible. I still don't know what I'm going to do really.

What makes this whole issue 100X worse is that i'm a shopaholic. When I get stressed out, I go shopping. stressed out about spending too much money? Solve it by pulling out the debit card and spending more! Idiot! this needs to change. I can't really do anything before the trip though... But afterwards, big changes. big.

I've decided to try this Magic Jars system of budgetting (www.Gailvazoxlade.com, Till debt do us part on Slice), I've already got the budget set up, I've got my trusty budget binder, and I've got Jars ready to go as of June 1st (when we get back from BC). I'm hoping that this will help curb my spending habits (this and Toby taking away my debit card) as well as help Toby be more interactive with the budgetting and spending, as opposed to it being all me insisting it's all good. Ok but when its bad I tell him, so it's not like I lie to him.Nevertheless, we need to be equals in this, he needs to be as much accountable as i am, and with the budget saved in an Excel file on my computer, its difficult. Whereas, If the money is sitting in a jar on the shelf, and there's a binder detailing every thing we've purchased, He'll definately be more in touch with it, and I won't be able to hide any mistakes I've made. Hopefully this system will make it a lot harder to make those mistakes though! The only money that Is in my bank account is Bill money, and savings/emergency.  all of which can be handled from my online banking without my debit card.

I can't wait for August, Toby should be able to get a job then, oh it will be so wonderful! If this budget works, we'll stick with it, and just revamp the budget to include his income as well, It will be SO much easier when we are making a little bit more. I know money doesn't buy happiness, but in this case, it buys a whole lot less stress on my 4 person single (maternity) income family.


One more thing I'm going to do come June 1st, is SIMPLIFY, I know this is something Toby wanted me to do with my clothes and other crap for a long time, But I'm going to gather up a lot of the stuff I have, but don't use, and take a good hard look and decide if I should keep it, give it away, or sell it. Things ranging from Clothing, to crafting stuff, to DVD's and Books, I'm going to clean up hard core and simplify, while hopefully earning a few bucks getting rid of stuff I don't need. THIS TIME though, I'm not going to go out and buy stuff to replace it just for the joy of spending money! NO! I'll put the money away, and in future the rule will be that If I want to buy something, I must first get rid of an old item. If I don't have something old to get rid of, I don't buy the new thing. With the exception of course, of food.

Simplifying, Includes going through all the boxes of stuff I have in storage though, So my only problem is How do I break this news to Toby? that's going to be a big project in itself. getting everything out of the storage room, me going through it all, then putting it all back. I love you baby... *sigh* It WILL be worth it. I'm going to change. Old habits may be hard to break, but they aren't impossible.

Krysis

Record this...

So I'm finally buying a real camcorder. Not a really expensive one, but better than my camera. Not that I don't adore my camera. Anyways, the camcorder I'm going to buy is the Canon FS300. It's got good reviews, its got good audio, its got a bright LED light, awesome zoom, and its lightweight, SD card memory, essentially it perfectly fills all the gaps in my camera. I found it at Wal-Mart for 198$, Which is a great price for me, Unfortunately the damned store didn't have it in stock when i went to get it, So i have to call around and see if a different location has one in stock. I'm so mad! I was so excited to get it! My mother is trying to convince me to just accept her camcorder, but the damned thing is ancient, it uses DV TAPES, and it's massive! I'm terrified she'll actually give it to me!

Nevertheless, despite the lack of zoom and lighting, I've made many a video using my camera, and I actually just recently sent a copy of a DVD of photos and videos I've recorded and edited up in windows movie maker (ghetto i know) to Toby's mom, my mom, and both my grandmother in BC and my grandparents in NB, Everyone got it yesterday and they all said they loved it, Hopefully my next one will be with my new camcorder, but we shall see...

Anyways, It's almost feeding time, So I'm going to feed myself before the little one wakes up, and go back to watching "Burlesque" It's quite good!

Krysis

Just Must

So we recently took a trip to wal-mart, and while we were wandering through the baby section Toby picked up a double breast pump. "Mi-pump" by the first years, it was 80$ and it looked pretty good, and since Toby was OK with it, we bought it. I was so impressed, It works great and it's 100x quieter than the evenflo comfort select. So I'm happy.

Saturday I went shopping with Kim, We went to the dollar store just for fun. At Toys r us we got a couple little baby toys for Jon. After that we went to Twisted Yogurt and got some frozen yogurt, Yum! Then before we headed home we stopped at Pennington's since i had a coupon for 25$ off, I got a pair of pants and a shirt. After that we went home and left Jon with daddy and went to Ikea just to look around, I got a really cool wall hanging storage unit shaped like a frog for the baby's room I was super happy about that! I need to get Toby to come to Ikea with me soon too though because there was a good cheap coffee table there that I liked.

I got my Taxes filed this week! I was so proud, since i filed them super late last year and it screwed me over sooo bad, I didn't file till august, and with the change of marital status everything was messed up until December, and then they reassessed me in January, and screwed me again, The worst part is now they are processing shit again since they got baby's information, It's crazy. Hopefully it wont be nearly as bad this year!  I used this program i found through the CRA website "Studio Tax" It's FREE software, regardless of income, and its NETFILE certified. I'm very happy about it.

Yesterday I woke up sick, Sinus cold for the loss! So we ended up going to Sobeys to get me some medication and some snackables, It was good. I ended up getting a Tylenol Sinus combi pack, and I warned Toby that the nighttime pills would knock me on my ass, So he got to take care of baby all night. Taking care of baby is usually not much of an issue, He wakes up twice during the night for a change and feeding, no big, except he's sick too, So he was *apparently* up every 15 minutes and he was only drinking like 1-2 ounces at a time, So poor Toby got pretty much zero sleep, and i was just completely out all night! Luckily baby' nose seemed to clear up later this afternoon so hopefully he'll sleep better tonight, I know I feel a lot better today, Hopefulyl I'll be back to my old self by tomorrow.

Anyways, that's about all Ive got to say, nothign special just a random bit of babble. I'm gonna go get some sleep now since Its actually tomorrow now!  Night Night!

Krysis

Critical Failure

I feel like I'm failing. Badly.

So, I've been having troubles with this whole breastfeeding thing, It was going well until about the 3rd week, I don't know what happened, a bad latch or, something? but I was so sore, I coudn't handle it, I was in tears trying to feed him, Toby noticed, but I was still trying, Until Jon startled, and pulled, HARD, and didn't let go. I burst out in tears and gave up, baby needed food and I coudn't do it, so just for one night I fixed a bottle of formula. Except it was more like 2 days, because that's how long it took for the pain to subside enough for me to try again, and I've just been failing since. So I've been trying to express milk so that I feel like less of a complete and utter failure, at least he's still breastfed even if it's not direct right? Except I seem to be getting less and less milk every time I pump, and he's drinking more and more. Tonight I tried again, He's only a month old, It's only been a few days since we last tried, He ate for almost 2 hours off and on, then he still needed to eat another 3 ounces of expressed milk. I was thinking about maybe getting a double pump, maybe I can keep up with it that way, This single pump isn't meant for such full time use, and I  have to pump for a good 45 minutes to get enough, usually I get 4-5 oz, but if i'm lucky I can get a whole 8oz, of course that's only if I sit there and pump for an hour. Is that what I should be doing? Pumping 24/7? He seems to get more from my pumping than he does when he's on the boob himself. Which I wouldn't complain about if he seemed content when he finished a 2 hour session, but he doesn't, and that's the problem. I brought up teh double pump idea to Toby, he seemed ok with it at first, but when I look at them online or really look into it, he gets that "we can't afford your silly shit" look, like he thinks we don't really need one. Maybe we don't, maybe he's right. I'm not going to argue with him, I don't even know myself.

So what do I do? keep trying and failing slowly? If i can't start getting more milk, he's going to  get more and more formula, and I'll feel like more and more of a failure. Not just to myself, but I'm failing Jon, even though he doesn't know it, and I feel like Toby sees me as a failure as well, even though he says its "OK". Everything just feels, wrong. I'm so upset and I've no clue what to do to fix it.

For nowI guess I'll just go get some sleep, going to take Chance to the playground tomorrow, and then go visiting, maybe I'll feel different in the morning... Probably not.

Will Power be Damned! and other random crap...

Magic Peanut Butter Middles. I found the recipe online the other day while looking for a peanut butter cookie recipe. I looked at it and thought, that actually doesn't look to hard. So today I decided to try and make them. This is a photograph of my final project. broken in half so you can see the magic! Oh my gosh they are yummy! its like reese peanut butter inside, with a chocolate cookie outside that isn't too terribly sweet. We pretty much ate the whole batch, 3 cookie sheets full, in one night. Lack of self control much?

So what is going on with me... Well, I got on my Wii fit for the first time since before I got pregnant, I weigh 16lbs less than I did then. So I've been doing my Wii Fit plus exercises daily. Working on doing more stuff with Chance, he loves crafts and art and stuff, so we've made valentine cards, we're going to do family tye dye, we MADE bouncy balls, and i've got a couple of "glitter picture" kits for us to do. Today we spent 2.5 hours at the mall just sitting on one of those couches watching Chance play on the playground there. Can't wait for it to be warm and dry outside so we can walk to the regular playground for him to play. It'll be good for me to get some more exercise.

Jonathan is getting big, he was 8lbs 5oz at his 2 week weigh in, the nurse was impressed, they only expect babies to be back up to birth weight by then. not 6oz over it! Especially when they are breastfed only. He's been eating like crazy this week, growth spurt, I understand why some women give up and supplement, It's like he's constantly stuck to my boob!

Speaking of feeding, I've been getting frustrated lately. I feel like nothing is getting done around the house, Stuff IS getting done, just not very much very fast, and its like we manage to mess it up much faster than we can get it clean. I want to go clean up, but I am always feeding baby, and then I feel like I'm making Toby do all the work, which is frustrating, But then when baby is sleeping and I do get a chance to clean, and Toby is doing his own thing, playing video games or whatever, I get annoyed that he isn't doing anything to help me. It's silly I know, I know he does a lot, more than I do i'm sure of it! I should respect that (and I DO!) but I still can't help but be annoyed when I use what little baby free time I have to do chores, and he uses it playing video games.  It's definately a mental thing.

My goal for tomorrow is to express some milk, so Toby can feed the baby. at night. while I sleep. hehe! Just kidding, but it will be nice to have Toby feed him once in a while, maybe I won't feel so frustrated and annoyed all the time if I get a little bit more time with my boobs put away. I'm also going to do some tidying around the house. Toby and Chance are going to make Icing after Chance gets home from school. Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry flavored! YUM!In the evening once Chance is asleep and baby is napping, I might try making some soap. I'm really excited to start doing that, but I just haven't had a chance yet. I have everything i need now, So hopefully tomorrow! But the boys need to be asleep because Chance will want to help me, and I don't think i'm ready for that just yet. Other than that It'll be a day of feeding the baby and watching TV mostly. Although I just remembered i need to put plastic wrap on my V-day poster... I'll do that saturday I think. Oh! All of my Valentines stuff is done and ready to go except the 3 things I need from the grocery store that I can't get till Saturday. I'm so excited! We are going to do it Sunday, because Chance will be home Monday and that would make the evening I have planned essentially impossible to pull off! But I have his gift ready for when he coems home. He's going to love it. A Spongebob heart box of gummy candy, a puppy stuffy toy, he loves puppies! and a puzzle, he loves puzzles too!

Well, I better go, Baby is bound to wake up soon to eat. Have a great week!

Krysis

Valentines Play

Oh, My God! Valentines Day is lless than 2 weeks away? I have no idea what I'm going to do this year. Last year i was AWESOME, I planned out this awesome adventure with little riddles in plastic heart containers that sent him fro one place to another to do this and that, I got him a game he wanted, breakfast in bed, lunch out, a fancy romancy hotel room for the night, dinner out, and all sorts of good stuff! It took alot of work but it was soooo worthwhile! This year, I didn't realize it was almost valentines day till like, yesterday, we have a newborn baby, and i have no clue what to do. I'm cool with dollar store goodness i really am, I'm thinking i might go there and se what i can dredge up... I'm thinking chocolate covered strawberries right, and i got this idea, Hersheys kisses making a path to the bathroom, and roses hanging from the showerhead, and a poster that says "I've kissed the ground you walk on, and Showered you with roses, now will you please be my valentine?" (I totally stole this idea...) But i dunno how cool that would be. Another idea i have is to make him a little gift basket of candies and such that he likes, i can get the basket and the wrapping goods from the dollar store, i can probably get most of the candy from there too, I'm just not sure what candy to get. It doesn't have to be just candy of course, anything he likes really i can put in there, maybe some 5 year old cheddar... I jsut question whether i can do this in time or not with a newborn! I'll have to find sometime to go to the store without Toby one day, this weekend perhaps... oh and like the day before valentines day for the strawberries...

Ok, but for now i'm going to the grocery store, i'll get the chocolate for the strawberries there, at least one thing done. and maybe some kisses too if i can pull it off without him noticing...


Happy February!

Krysis

The Milky Way

This afternoon, we went out shopping. Just a little grocery run, it was nice to get out though, and we stopped at Tim Hortons and had a doughnut. yum! Got home around 4-5pm, and attempted to feed Jon, who decided he was too angry to eat, So we gave him a bath while he was already pissed off. ha! After that he did eat for all of 5 minutes, and then fell asleep. I laid down on the couch, thinking i wasn't feeling very good. At some point hubby made cheese steak sandwiches for dinner, i recall him giving it to me and me mowing it down without even sitting up, much less opening my eyes, I still felt like shit. next thing i recall was hubby telling me the bed was made with clean sheets so i could go lie down, I did, still feeling kind of woozy and lightheaded, headache and still post pregnancy sore. I laid down and Toby put two pillows beside me and laid Jon down on them so i could feed him. Fine by me, I got him latched good and fell asleep again, I woke up a couple hours later to him nuzzling me again. Still feeling crappy, I just gave him the same breast, and fell asleep once more. Only for about 30 minutes this time, I woke up as he finished and had to go potty. As Toby took him away and i attempted to get up i realized something awful. My Milk had come in. The breast i had been laying on, the one I'd ignored for the last two feedings, was now double the size of it's partner, heavy and sore as hell, just begging to be drained, and my lillte one had a full tummy. The horror!

Broke out the pump, begged the boy to eat, took a hot shower, nothing... sitting here watching my boob get so big it's malformed may sound amusing, but it sure as hell hurts like a bitch. Jon finally ate, but not nearly enough, he fell asleep after about 10 minutes. so here i sit, ready to burst, watching the other breast slowly catch up in size.

You know how they always say breastfeeding shouldn't hurt? They lie. Or they omit things like, blisters on your nipple if you get a bad latch, breast engorgement, the pain of the let down reflex when baby starts sucking, or the fact that breast feeding releases oxytocin, which causes uterine contractions, which while great for helping your body recover from having the baby faster, are still contractions, You know the ones you suffered through in labour? THEY HURT. Goddamn it. i fully understand why there are so many women who CHOOSE not to breastfeed. I really do.

OK, Its not like I'm going to give up and formula feed just because it hurts, I like to think I'm made of stronger stuff than that! (This is an especially funny statement if you know me). Nevertheless a woman has a right to vent.

MILKING HURTS. Seriously. this sucks.


Krysis

Why can't I have a NORMAL mother?

I accepted a long freaking time ago that my mother is not one of those you would call a "Good parent", she's not even close to a medeocre parent, But she is my mother, So I deal with her. Luckily she lives a whole province away, So its a whole lot easier. Most of the time. For the past several months she's been planning to come visit for 2 weeks when baby comes. She told me in September that she had already purchased her bus ticket. Greyhound has open ended tickets, so you can hop on any bus within a certain date range,So that was fine. Come December we discovered she really hadn't bought her ticket. Whatever, pretty typical of my mom, and we were actually hoping perhaps she wouldn't be able to get one. as time passed, her trip slowly shortened to being a week long because of "work", She hopes we wouldn't be too upset, (we were extatic, less time to have to put up with her "Help"). She did end up coming, on a bus last friday. The bus trip ended up being 30 hours instead of 13 due to road issues. So I've spent the last week being her hotel, having her wardrobe strewn all over my livingroom, Her driving my 4 year old to distraction, and guilt tripping me for "pouting and being angry because she wanted a photo of my baby belly" when really I was sitting in my chair concentrating on making my severe toothache go the hell away. My husband realized that the look on my face was one of agony. but my mother "knows me too well" and that look is obviously one of the pouting little girl who didn't get her way. Yeah... Those are equal. She's taken over my telephone, It doesn't ring unless its for her, She's "Aquired" a coffeepot from one of her male friends, No one in my house drinks coffee, we actually hate the smell of the shit, so I'm stuck walking into a kitchen that stinks of coffee at all hours of the day and night, Unfortunately she doesn't have room to take the damned thing with her, I told her we'll jsut donate it once she leaves, NOT ALLOWED! It's not her coffeepot after all, We need to just store it until the next time she comes to visit. Oh, we'll store it. in the garbage can once we've taken a baseball bat to it.


Thursday night at the hospital, shortly after having given birth, She informed me that she spoke to her work and could stay till wednsday, She had just bought her return ticket though, so she would have to change the ticket in the morning. wasn't I excited? Not really. Come morning she discovered it would cost her an extra 50$ to change the ticket, So she couldn't do it, she'll have to leave monday. OH, thats too bad! not really... Saturday, I had to listen to her whine and moan about how she needs to spend as much time as possible with her precious grand children since she doesnt have long, boo hoo, boo hoo, and by the way would I be willing to lend her the 50$ to change her ticket so she could stay an extra 2 days? Against my better judgement, I agreed. Toby took her to the mall to change her ticket, where they informed her that it was actually going to cost her 75$. So her plans were foiled yet again. Toby brought her home where we fully expected her to spent tons of time with the little ones, Instead she got back, sat down at her laptop, and started helping out some friends with computer issues. She did this for several hours, and then a friend of hers came over to visit, and stayed until approximately 10pm. After which she got back to helping with computer problems until midnight, and then all morning this morning until My 4 year old left for his father's house, He won't be back before she leaves to go home. Really glad she got to spend that extra time with him thats for sure. I'll give her that when she does find time to spend with him, she is good. She did some crafts, played some board games, Chance had an entire cupboard full of board games, he adores them. But she also spent a lot of time telling him to play on her computer so she wouldn't have to deal with him. Nevertheless, that is still a whole lot more than she ever did with me when I was a child.

Now i'm sitting at my computer beside my husband, trying to decide what to do today, I was supposed to go visit someone, but they got sick and had to cancel. Now I'm kind of fidgitty, since I was hoping going out would pull me out of my doldrums, and free me from listening to my mother inform me for the hundredth time that I am not allowed to get rid of this godforsaken coffeepot. I put on a load of laundry, only to discover that the washing machine was set to hot water. I never, EVER wash in anything but cold water. EVER, nor does my husband. Therefore the temperature setting on the washing machine is not something we check. Imagine my surprise to find I'd jsut washed my dark sheets in hot water. Joy.

Alright, I know I sound like an ungrateful brat of a daughter, bitching over little things, but to fully understand the anger that I feel, you really need to know the background of it. and that is much too much for any one blog post. although venting some of those stories may give me a degree of relief in the future... For now though, I'm going to go and attempt to make myself feel a little bit better. Maybe I'll Take Toby up on his offer to take me shopping. Not something he does often, So I know he's worried about me. <3

Krysis

Much Ado about the Baby Blues

I just had a baby. Well, not like this morning sort of thing, 3 days ago now. A beautiful 7lb 14oz baby boy named Jon. He is wonderful. He's not my first either, I have a 4 year old boy too, Chance. Chance is a typical 4 year old, hyper, curious, and just plain wonderful. I broke up with Chance's father shortly before I found out I was pregnant with him. I had a history of clinical depression, and my life downright sucked. I was homeless from the time I found out I was pregnant, until about 3 months before I had him, full term. You would think that if ever one was going to have the baby blues and/or post partum depression it would be there, But I didn't. I was incredibly happy after I had chance, scared shitless, but happy. My little boy had a rough time though, He has Pyloric Stenosis, and was hospitalized for surgery at 3 weeks old. at 3 months old, he was hospitalized with RSV, that was Christmas Eve. He was in hospital till January 2nd. happy holidays. But we got through it me and him. When Chance was a year old I met Toby. I met Toby on a video game, I am aware how silly that seems, but it just, happened. Neither of us were looking for anything, but we fell in love. Toby is an American, he lived in Utah. I'm a Canadian, I live in Alberta. You wouldn't think that would be too bad, but let me tell you, you need to be pretty damned committed to a relationship like that. Toby and I got married in August of 2009, He's moved to Canada, but he still isn't allowed to work since his immigration is still in process. It's rough, but we manage. In the time since I've met Toby, I went back to school, I got a great job which i'm good at and I love. My job pays well, good thing considering i'm supporting my entire family. My life has gotten a million times better. Despite Toby's limbo immigration status, and let me jsut say he is here legally, as long as he doesnt work, So he's doing nothing wrong. When I found out last May that we were going to have a baby it was one of the happiest days of my life. We were so incredibly excited, and justifiably worried of course, but we knew we could handle it, one good thing about the crappy life I led before I met Toby is that I learned a lot. How to get by was one of the first things I learned, I am a master budgeter! I figured out our finances early, that doesn't make me not stress unnessicarily over money, but I know I can always figure out how to make sure that my family has all the essentials. We may not be well off, but we aren't starving thats for sure. Nevertheless it will be so much easier when Toby can work. But I've gotten off topic again, The point is, I just had my baby. My life is good. So, Why am I in the shower at 6am bawling my eyes out for no goddamned reason?


The Baby Blues.

I've heard about this. "it's perfectly normal" they say, its ok to feel this way, trapped, anxious, like being a mother will never get any better than this... but it goes away fairly quickly, unless of course it gets worse and turns into postpartum depression. Ok, I understand what it is, I understand that its normal. I keep reading that people should reassure me that it's normal, that I'm a good mom, that they should let me cry, etc. etc. But what I can't find is, what about me? what do I do? I don't feel trapped, I feel... well I think I read this somewhere too, I feel like this whole thing was really anticlimactic. NOW WHAT? I have an amazing husband who I adore, I have a wonderful 4 year old who is so incredibly excited to be a big brother, and I have an amazingly well behaved newborn who makes me incredibly happy, I have a good life, and the best family a girl could ask for. In spite of that, I'm sitting here thinking, what do I do now? What was the whole point of this? I just went through this incredible life changing event and I don't really know what to do tomorrow. I have a whole year of maternity leave? what am I going to do with myself? I feel like I'm failing at something and I don't even know what. I KNOW I have the baby blues, but what do I do about it? Do I really have to just, feel this way for a few more days? I don't want to! I want to DO something to help myself! I just, don't know what I can do. Why is that so difficult? I feel silly. Crying my eyes out because I have a wonderful family who I adore. What kind of bullshit is that? Maybe if I felt better physically it would be easier. But I just had a goddamned baby. My abdominal muscles hate me, my shoulders are killing me, my breasts ache, my uterus is contracting, I'm bloody exhausted, It's all normal I know, but that doesn't mean I have to LIKE it. So in the meantime, what do I do? I don't know... Usually when I'm stressed out or upset, I go shopping. It's a god aweful habit that I just can't break, but it makes me feel better. The fact that I don't even want to go shopping makes me worry that perhaps I'm losing what little is left of my sanity! I guess I just have to take it one moment at a time for now. Rely on the ones who love me, and eventually I'll get through it. Perhaps I'll even manage to figure out something that helps. I think talking about it is the first step. Just gotta keep walking...

Krysis