Halfway.

In a couple of days, Spencer and I will be just about halfway, give or take a few days, to meeting our little boy or girl.  I am 19 weeks and 4 days today, but July 2nd still seems a long way off yet.  We find out the sex of the baby a week from today, and I am definitely ready to get another peek at our little one.  Aside from wanting to know if I'm carrying a little brother or sister in there, I am looking forward to the ultrasound to see the growth of the baby, to ensure that all of the necessary parts are present and accounted for and working just as they should.  So far, all prenatal testing has come out just fine, but the anatomy scan is always helpful at easing my mind.  Instincts have told me all along that I am carrying a little girl, but I've been so sure that it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a boy was in there just to give me a little surprise.  Like all parents, I'll be happy either way, and honestly don't know if I have a preference for one sex over the other.  My girl, Cori, is a handful and a diva, and honestly, the thought of battling it out with two girls sounds mildly terrifying.  That said, a girl would be neat to even out our two boys and one girl, and to give Spencer the pleasure of raising a little girl all his own.  On the other hand, boys sure are sweet, and tend to be so much easier... at least in my experience.  Either way, I am so excited to find out next week, and truly can't wait.  We have a lot of pretty solid candidates for baby names, but haven't settled on anything definite for either boy or girl.  While I find it hard to believe that I'm already halfway done with this pregnancy, I also feel like I've been waiting forever for the mid-point anatomy scan.  I'm in no rush to the end of the pregnancy by any means though.  I am pleasantly happy with keeping this little one growing on the inside for as long as he or she needs me to.  Babies are, after all, much easier on the inside than on the outside. :)

We have been living in our new house for about two weeks now, and I am in love with it more and more as we settle in.  It is becoming our home, and I am beginning to imagine what it will be like to bring a new little one home here.  The kids are thriving in the new house, loving the extra space inside and out.  Fox is picking up on potty training all of the sudden, and seems to be getting very excited at the prospect of being a big brother.  When we ask him, he insists he'll be having a baby sister, and Cori and Avery seem to think the same thing.  Fox will be transitioning from daycare to K3 soon, and I wonder how that, as well as a new baby, will affect him.  He seems to have really come around to me finally, and doesn't cling to Spencer's side like he did for so long when we first moved in together.  Life with two different homes is all he knows anymore, just like Cori and Avery.  Speaking of - Cori and Avery are both doing wonderfully in K3 and K4, and have surpassed what they were supposed to learn this school year.  Cori spends her days drawing and writing constantly, and I imagine she is a born writer.  My question is what to do with the stacks and stacks of books and papers and drawings that she produces every single day.  I imagine at this rate, our entire attic space will be filled with boxes of Cori's artwork.  Soon, she'll be reading I know, and I'm sure we'll never be able to get her to stop from there, which is just fine with me.  Avery has come out of his shell a lot this school year, and while he still clings to me some mornings at drop off, he has gained a lot of independence.  The three of them together get on quite well, but certainly have their sibling rivalry going for them.  Cori and Fox like to gang up on Avery sometimes, but ten minutes later, Fox and Avery are racing trucks around their bedroom floor, and Cori is screaming from across the hall that no boys are allowed in her room.  Ah, kids.

I often wonder how in the world I so quickly found myself here in life, mother to a 3 and 5 year old, stepmom to a 2 year old, and expecting a new baby with my soon-to-be 2nd husband.  Life sure is funny, and really has no way of letting you know what's going to happen down the road, but it sure is a blessing.  I am grateful every morning when I wake up that I wake up next to a man that I feel is surely the mate to my very soul, and that just down the hallway, we have the most wonderful bunch of children amongst ourselves.  I hope I can always find myself in a moment like this, admiring where life has brought me, and appreciating the tough times that always lead to something greater.

Godspeed.

My little girl tells me that she hopes the baby in my tummy is a girl.  "Well, what if it's a boy?", I ask her.  "Boooooring!", she responds.  My son just hopes it's a puppy.  As for me, it doesn't matter because I'm carrying Spencer's baby.  He is going to be the father of my third child, and I can't get over the giddy, happy, tingly feeling that gives me.  If I'm being honest, I have the inclination that this little one inside is a girl.  My pregnancy so far reminds me much of my first pregnancy, the one that resulted in my sweet, argumentative little Cori.  Spencer seems to think it's a boy this round, and if it is, that'll be exciting too.  Cori may pick up her dollies and hit the road if we add another boy to the mix, but I'm sure she'll grow to love him (and boss him around....) just like her other brothers.  We've still got several months before we find out the gender, and I'm trying to appreciate the time between now and then.  After all, this will be the last time I get the excitement that comes when you are just about to find out what gender the little one you're carrying is. It will be a very exciting 2015... that, I can say.

We are in the process of purchasing our first home, and have less than a month until closing.  It is our dream home, and we are fortunate that we are in this position.  I am fortunate that I am in this position with Spencer, that we are in this together.  It is the perfect home for our growing family, and I will be so relieved and excited once we are holding the key in our hands.  This is the home that I imagine we will be in for the rest of our lives, the one that our children will bring our grandchildren home to for the holidays, and that Spencer and I will grow old together in as a married couple.  I'm excited for this home-owning adventure to begin for us, as new and scary as it is.

And if a new baby and home buying weren't big enough challenges for Spencer and me to face together, he asked me to marry him last month.  We shopped together for engagement rings two days before I had any idea that I was pregnant.  This was also the day we truly sat down and began to discuss purchasing our first home.  We looked and tried on and sized so many different rings, and we talked about the size of homes that we were interested in, areas in which we'd want to live.  This all happened on a Sunday, when I truly had no idea that inside of me grew a five week old baby.  When we discovered that I was pregnant, we immediately revisited our discussion of engagement.  It became clear that perhaps our sights shouldn't be on engagement right away, but rather on preparing for the unexpected blessing that was coming our way sooner rather than later.  I felt sure after our discussion that we would plan for an engagement and a wedding after the baby made its arrival, and I was okay with that.  I was a little sad at first, of course, because I wanted to be engaged to the man of my dreams, but I also didn't want the judgment that undoubtedly would come from those who felt we were only getting engaged because of our unexpected 'situation', had he proposed at that point.

Little did I know, Spencer already had his proposal in the works, and when he proposed to me on November 23rd, a Sunday only three weeks after our initial ring shopping, I was speechless.  I had no idea how he could have possibly done all that he had to prepare for the proposal when we had both been so busy over the last several weeks with doctor visits,  home inspections, and so many mortgage papers to sign, we could hardly find time to eat dinner at night.  But somehow, he had planned and he had purchased the perfect ring, and when he proposed to me, I could not have been happier or more surprised.  He made me realize that our love is what is most important in our own lives, and that anybody in our lives that truly knows and loves us, would know that this was a natural progression of our relationship for us, baby or not.  I am the luckiest girl in the whole world.  He sees me inside and out, and he fends off the inevitable fears that I have when it comes to judgment and the baby and home buying and life in general.

Fortunately for us, through all of this, life has gotten easier on the ex-husband front.  Raising children with Jesse has gotten exponentially easier, better, more fun than it was for so long after our separation.  Arguments are a rarity, and we openly communicate about the kids and their schedules on a regular basis.  We have a "set schedule", but we vary from it from time to time based on work schedules or family gatherings on either side.  We switch or share holidays, and the kids seem much happier.  We've shared ultrasound pictures of mine and Spencer's baby, and the baby that he and his fiancee are expecting about a month ahead of us.  He and his fiancee come into our home regularly, and we are all able to laugh and talk and discuss all that is going on in our lives.  On the other side of the fence, life seems to stay difficult on the ex wife front.  There is near daily drama involving Spencer's ex, and she is a very hateful person towards Spencer and our family.  I know that it makes raising his son difficult with her because rather than openly communicating about their son, Spencer is often made to play a game in where he must always choose his words so carefully, he is not even able to share his true feelings on certain matters.  Sometimes I wonder if he realizes what a good man he is, for the role he plays in his son's life, for the energy he puts into conflict avoidance.  Even when I've lost my last nerve in regards to her latest antics, he still maintains the face of calm and somehow gets through it.  Surely, it must be a skill he gained over the many years that he grew to know her, but it is undoubtedly admirable. 

Believe it or not, I pray daily, sometimes twice or more daily, that one day, she will shed her hatred of his happiness and that they will grow as a parental unit together.  Even six or eight months ago, I never would have envisioned that raising children with Jesse would be as effortless as it now is, but somehow that happened, and I hope that one day, Spencer will experience the same. 

I worry about how our family life will change when our new addition makes his or her arrival.  It can be very difficult to raise three children that have different parents together in the same house, but we manage to do it pretty well so far.  Surely, and hopefully, adding a child of our own to the mix won't be much more difficult than the challenges we already face, but I'm certain it will have its own set of challenges to navigate between ourselves and the siblings.

On that note... here's to a brand new baby, a brand new home, an impending marriage to the love of my life, and to healed and renewed relationships between all of the parties involved in our family's lives.

Curveball.

      I know that when I first saw his picture on his dating profile, something stuck out about him, but at the time, I had no idea what.  We exchanged plenty of messages, and we certainly had good conversation, but beyond that, there was just something about him I couldn't put my finger on.  It's been well over a year since I first laid eyes on his picture, and still, I haven't figured out what it is about Spencer that keeps me guessing, keeps me on my toes, what it is that stops me dead in my tracks.  I've imagined time and again what it would be like to take his last name and become his wife, and I know that it would be the thrill of a lifetime.  I would never want to think about this life with anyone but him.  I don't know how I was so lucky to have our paths cross, but it is clearly the meeting that would determine how the rest of my life would turn out.
      I've thought beyond marriage too.  We both have -- to home buying together or one day having a baby together.  Those things excite me, but the most exciting part?  That we are actually facing both of those things right now.
      After waking up feeling hungover for the 4th day in a row, with no alcohol consumption to blame, Spencer joked that I must be pregnant.  I laughed it off, feeling extra confident in the birth control pills that I had been consistent with for over a year.  But something about his joke stuck in my head, and I started analyzing all of the weird ways I'd been feeling lately, the sickness, the being overly tired, the weird sensitivities.  It burrowed into my brain, until I finally decided I just needed to take a test to eliminate the thought from my head.  I dug through my bathroom drawers until I found one lonely pregnancy test, obviously a leftover from when I'd been trying to conceive my youngest son, three and a half year old Avery.  I flipped the package over to see the expiration date, three months past due, glaring at me.  I figured expiration dates meant nothing, and proceeded to use it right away anyway.  Within seconds, a huge, dark + sign appeared on the test.  Maybe it was shock or maybe something else, but I cast off the result as an expired mistake, and planned to immediately hit the drug store for a test that was not past its date.  After two clearly-not-expired tests and a total of three glaringly positive pregnancy tests later, I realized something.  I'm pregnant.
      This was on November 4, a Tuesday.  I had no desire to share the news with Spencer via text message or phone call, so I sat on the news all day long at work, through picking up the kids, and fixing dinner.  I sat on it quietly still longer through story time and tucking the kids into bed, until finally we had our only moment of alone time for the day.  His lack of being shocked, shocked me further, and his ability to stay calm, then helped to ease my own feelings.  We are having a baby.  This was not the timeline we had envisioned for ourselves.  We had talked engagement, marriage, and buying a home together in the near future.  We had talked about having a baby in three or four years.
      Our timeline is irrelevant now, but we have swallowed the news and started to process.  We are excited now, talking baby names and thinking of the gear we'll need to purchase over the next eight or nine months.  We don't know exactly when the baby will be here, a result of my being on birth control and having no idea when I would have ovulated.  My pregnancy has been doctor confirmed, and we have our first prenatal appointment on Monday, the 17th, followed by a dating ultrasound on Wednesday, the 19th.  Our best guess puts me between five and eight weeks, which would give us an expected due date somewhere from late June to mid July.  My morning (all day....) sickness is rampant.  I feel queasy all the time, and the only thing that helps is laying down, which makes working, driving, housework, and parenting difficult.  I can only hope that it will pass within a few weeks, though who really knows.  The pregnancy so far reminds me much of my pregnancy with Cori.
      We have a lot to figure out, like getting into a bigger home.  We hope to purchase a home before the baby comes, but it will depend on if we happen to find a home that works for us by then or if we have to rent a little longer before making that leap.  I'm not sure how my job will work after the baby comes, or how I will spread myself amongst three, sometimes four, little ones.  I don't worry too much though because with a partner like Spencer, I know that we will figure out every little thing that life throws our way.

Together, we make five.

      This is a step I have taken only once before. Circumstances were much different, and the two situations are really not comparable. The first time - I was married for five months before we ever shared a roof. This time, we've been dating not even a year.  I had no responsibilities the first time around, no kids or even pets to speak of, no financial cares in the world. This time, I bring with me two children, two jobs, and a laundry list of financial responsibilities. He brings one child himself, and together, we make five.
      It is chaos, no doubt. Our home houses a dad and a mom, though with no shared children between, alongside a 4-year-old girl, and two 2-year-old boys. There is arguing and toy stealing, door slamming, sleepy whines, and jealousy. But there are also little hugs and kisses, snuggles, games of hide-and-seek, shared bubble baths, and "I love you"s.
      It is unconventional, and at times, it is terrifying and overwhelming. We have opened not only our hearts as the adults to something that is bigger than us both, but now our childrens' hearts too. I can imagine it is just as scary for my boyfriend, this man who loves my children, as it is for me. He tucks them in at night, and lets them bounce and jump on him way past the point when I, as their mother, would have grown tired of the game. He picks his cereal to match my daughter's when she asks, and he laughs when my son calls him the "fluffy daddy" or sometimes just "Fluffy", a nickname they coined for him due to his fluffy beard tickling their little lips when they kiss him on the cheek.
      It makes my heart swell with hope and happy feelings that, despite how scary it is, or what a leap of faith it has required, it is a leap we have chosen to leap together.  Here's to the little moments that we, as five, will make together.

Let it go.

April 2012

      When it happened, it sunk me to my lowest low, and I had nowhere else to go. The deceitful messages had been offered up to me with a guise of helping him thumb through previous texts to locate an address. My breath was knocked from my chest when I read them, and I cried and screamed, begged him explain to me what was going on.  I pleaded with him to just tell me that he hadn't been cheating. But he wouldn't. He drove calmly and refused to respond to me. I screamed at him to pull the car over, but he continued on, and I threatened to open the car door as we sped down the highway. "Let's just go to this lunch with [M & B]," he had said to me, "and then, we'll talk about this when we get home."  Was he serious? He was truly expecting me to sit through a lunch date with my kids and my seemingly cheating husband, with some friends of his - a happy couple - one of which was a prime suspect in this cheating debacle - and pretend that my life wasn't suddenly crumbling under my feet.
      After a stiff refusal, he eventually turned the car around, and I sat, sobbing, wondering what in the hell was about to happen in my world.
      When we got home that day, I pleaded for an explanation, but he was cold and hardly responsive. I called his father, and his sister, and my mother, trying desperately to find someone he would speak to, someone who could help make sense of this mess, but he still refused. Instead, he told me he was going to go to a non-mandatory work function, to hang out with some of his buddies. I pleaded still for him to stay, telling him that if he left, he would be coming home to an empty house.
      And then I found myself locked in the bathroom, crying on the floor, screaming through tears that I was going to take a handful of pills if he left our family for his friends. I sat there, fist full of Percocet, thinking to myself that surely he wouldn't leave his wife in this state, his one and two year old children unsupervised in another room. But after several minutes, I heard nothing, and for my children, I dropped the pills, and emerged from the bathroom to find my two babies alone in the living room, front door wide open. He was gone, and I was with my children, devastated and hardly able to form a sensible thought.
      I tried blinking back tears as I tore through my closet, trying with all that I had, to throw a bag together for myself and my kids, so we could drive back to South Carolina a broken family. I called him, over and over again, no answer. And when he finally decided to pick up my call, I told him he needed to come home and say goodbye to his children.
      We didn't end up leaving that day. He somehow charmed me again, and I dealt with lies and mistrust and heartache for another five months before he eventually demanded a separation, and kicked our children and me out of our home.
      Two years later, I struggle to look past the hell and torment I was put through mentally and emotionally, and I struggle harder not to hate him. Because of him, I have these children, I remind myself, but it is still a battle I fight internally everyday, to not despise every fiber that makes him, him. It is for my children that I give my best efforts to tolerate him, but oftentimes, I feel it is all for naught.
      I hope my disclosures of an unhappy past will prove to be therapeutic. I do not want to carry this hatred always, and I certainly don't want my kids to pick up on it one day. It is sad and embarrassing for me, but it is a reality, something that I am trying to grow from and hopefully learn to forgive. I'm a long way away, but maybe one day.

Let all that you do be done in love.

      I remember taking the test on a whim, just to rule out another reason my body was acting weird.  Despite the fact that we'd been trying to get pregnant, I had confidence that it would surely be negative.  But then two, thin lines appeared on the test strip, and I slammed open the bathroom door to my husband, and screamed in excitement for him to look too.  Two lines indeed, and in an instant, I was lifted into his arms, and we were in newlywed,  parents-to-be bliss, as we spun 'round and 'round in the kitchen of our first home.  Just like it should be.
      "Where did that man go?", I wonder, only five years later.  That man, who breathed through contractions with me, and proudly helped me through years of breastfeeding and advocated to his work buddies how awesome cloth diapering was. Did I have him wrong all along, or can a person change so much, so fast?  This man loves his children, no doubt,  but he is not the man I envisioned as a father to my children.   That man would never childishly mock me in front of, or even to, my children.  That man would have always given his last penny to make sure all of their needs - not just wants - were met.  This man I know now refuses to pay child support, instead dropping cash on yet another toy, or Happy Meal,  or trip out of town.  He is the good guy, the fun daddy, and I get to be the mom who constantly must say no to another doll or dress,  or to eating fast food, or to buying expensive snacks at the grocery store.  I get to regularly hear,  "But Daddy ::insert whatever wonderful, expensive thing Daddy does here::". 
      My ex husband tells me I should be paying him child support, in spite of the fact that my kids spend at least 4 (and usually more like 5 or 6) nights at my house per week...  Or the fact that my income is a considerable amount less than his... Yes, in spite of these things, he feels I should be paying him child support.
      Generally speaking, I don't take time with my kids off for any reason, except work. On the rare occasion, like when I took a night off because I was in a wedding, I am always sure to pick up any extra time I can to make up for lost time. I do not give up nights with my kids weekly for date nights, or trips out of town, as has happened on the other side.  No, my date nights consist of a couple of drinks shared on the patio with my boyfriend, after wrangling the kids into bed, and soon after, crashing into bed to start all over again the next morning.  That is my life as a mommy, and I accepted that when I chose to bring little lives into this world.  When things come up, and my ex cannot, or will not, watch the kids during times when he is supposed to, it is my family to which this burden falls.  Time and again, my family takes on the extra time, despite what they may have going on in their own lives. I am so grateful for this, and yet, bear so much guilt for all of the help they provide.
      It is hard to co-parent because of the times when I must completely let go and trust that he will provide the attention and love that I know that I provide. When my daughter tells my boyfriend, "did you know my daddy doesn't love you or [your son]?", I cringe and wonder what else her innocent, little ears are hearing.  I find comfort in her following up with, "but that's okay, because I love you and [your son]", and I silently pray that she will always have the confidence and fortitude to have her own opinions.
      I know that, from experience, kids are very much aware of the negative things that one parent says about the other, and I know that all I can do is continue to express my frustrations into an outlet that my kids do not have to witness.  My hope is that one day, this will all become easier, for my kids, for me, for everyone involved.

This night so still / For dawn does come swiftly

      When I used to be a stay at home mom, I didn't appreciate the gift I had. I heard all the time how fortunate I was to "have the luxury" to be a SAHM, and I knew from a financial standpoint, that I really was.  But I don't know that I ever really realized the incredible gift of time with my kids that I had. I spent a lot of my days tired and maybe a little grumpy. I felt like I was meant for so much more than "just" changing diapers and washing dishes. I was jealous of my then husband, who got to escape from the household and parenting duties to go play Army on the daily.  He got to engage in conversations with real, in the flesh, adults, and my social life ceased to exist outside of my laptop's keys.  The monotony of staying home with two small children in a place where I knew next to no one weighed heavy on me for sure, and I thought often of when I'd find myself back in a classroom or on somebody's payroll. I had no idea the incredible blessing that I was wishing away every single day.
      When my ex and I separated, I saw it as a blessing in disguise that I would have to find work immediately. I snagged a job very quickly that had me working 40+ hours a week, and I was grateful for the distraction from my crumbling marriage, and the cross country move I'd just made.  I made friends for the first time in my adult life where our only common ground wasn't just that we were married to the military.  Although in retrospect, these friendships were short lived, they were exactly what I needed at the time, and I keep them in a happy spot in the back of my head, grateful for the personal growth these friends unknowingly sparked in me.
      When I first because a single mom, I had the first opportunity to go out with friends, child free. It was new, different, and fun, and I was appreciative of the break it gave me from just being a mom 24/7.
      Time passed though, and the more "freedom" I got from "just being a mom", the more I yearned for the time when my only duty was showing my children my unending love.  Sure, I'd had household chores, and had handled the finances as a SAHM.  But what I'd never had to do was work multiple jobs, hardly see my children, and despite my best efforts, still have to figure out which bill was just not going to get paid this month.
      It is now, when the luxury of being a stay at home mom is so completely unattainable, that I yearn for it. I don't want to share my kids, and I don't like having to stuff their backpacks with the dolls and pajamas that they just don't want to go without while they're with Daddy or Grandma, or Aunt Heather.  I know it is silly to feel this way when I see my kids way more now than I did for ten very long months last year, but I still feel like I don't get nearly the time that I desire with them.  They are little for such a short time, and I feel it is slipping by in the hours while I work,  and it scares me. I know that one day, I will wake up, and it will be the morning of my daughter's graduation, and I will cry and wonder how in the world this day has already come. My son will announce an engagement to a future spouse, and I will think back to when his biggest worry was what spoon he was going to pick to eat his oatmeal.
      I wish I could quit my two jobs, or even just one, but I can't and will probably never be able to realistically do that.  I think back to when I longed to work outside the home, and I wish I could tell my former self how absolutely blessed I was. When I felt like I couldn't take one more temper tantrum or wet diaper, or one more episode of Elmo's World, I would tell 21-year-old me to cuddle closer, to sing those Laurie Berkner songs another time, and to push the double stroller around the block for just a few more loops.
      It is now when I would give up anything I could to just have my littles stay home with me all day long.