Secular Confessions

[missychrissy]

Oh no! They won't make an exception?

[3andMe]

Stacy, if you ever need to come out here, I'll watch them for you if you can time it right for my days off. And I wish I still had some of my professional maternity outfits to send to you.

Sarah, I'm really sorry about the deadline. Chrissy is right--there is no harm in at least calling. With the economy the way it has been the past few years, people and businesses are much more willing to make exceptions for paying customers.

Bridget, I'm sure you'll find something that will work, but I have to confess that your daycare was probably the third thing I thought of when you said you were pregnant, so I'm sure it's got to be weighing on you a little bit.

[daylilies]

Lydia, Claire looks just gorgeous in your sig!
Sorry about the deadline Sarah. Call just in case!

[Bridget]

Lydia - you have me curious as to what the first two thing you thought were?
I am starting to tell people in real life that I'm expecting and everyone is so thrilled. I don't know why I expected people to be like . I especially wondered what my close girlfriends, the only ones who know my struggles with dbf, would say. But they are all thrilled and seem to have complete faith that I am going to be just fine no matter what. Sometimes I feel like I give off a vibe of being much stronger than I feel.

We took the kids to Toy Story 3 and I sobbed.
I have a feeling Savana will never get rid of a toy again. Seriously.

[daylilies]

I sobbed at Toy Story 3 too!
I think you do come off as very strong and confident.

[missychrissy]

Bridget, real bravery is going forward despite your fears. You're the bravest person I know. And I have no doubt you're strong. You prove it every day.

Me-I'm a wimp. I've been covering McGraw 2 days a week for a 90 day trial thing, and we have a meeting later this week to discuss the future of McGraw IT coverage. I'm scared they're going to say it's a more permanent thing, and I just want it to end. I want to be back "home" in my own office in Goldwin Smith. I know the people there. I know the network and the procedures. I know what I'm doing (sorta) there.

[missychrissy]

Oh-Bobbie & Sydney cried at Toy Story 3. Conner covered his eyes, and Jessica snorted & said, "They're just toys." Jess is her father's daughter.

[stash]

Chrissy, I confess I have no idea what you're talking about. It's either that I miss pages of this thread sometimes or that I never watch the news?

I'm not taking O to see Toy Story anytime soon after the reviews. Why? Because his birthday is next month and I'm about to try to cull the toys that have been building up for the past four years to make some sense of the madness in our house. We have toys in every CORNER.

That said, yesterday we had a big reorganization project - went and bought O a new dresser and gave him the "big bed" in the guest room, along with my favorite rocking chair and a new bookshelf, so that we could "steal" his furniture for the Gus's room. I have an instant-nursery now and it's a little weird to look in there and realize I'm going to have another baby soon.

Oscar is so thrilled. He kept saying last night that his "new room is wonnnnnnderful" and said that Gus's room is also so wonderful he doesn't know where he wants to sleep.

This helped make things real for him, I think. He got all the good books in his room and Gus got all the baby and board books in his room. That was a big deal to Oscar, and to know that they're going to share but that he gets to have the cool stuff because he's big and smart

[stash]

I also confess that I RARELY post anywhere else anymore but in here.

[sunrider]

Yeah we would easily take a boy...but deep down there is a slight preference for a girl. His thought is that a girl can do anything a boy can but a boy can't do everything a girl can (a lot of things sure like cooking and cleaning are for both genders but we wouldn't say put a boy in a dress or grow long hair for pigtails). But DH could do trains with a girl or teach her to play chess or watch football with him.

Oh man, I LOVED trains as a kid. My aunt took me to the Museum of Transport in St Louis when I was little. At that time the museum was all about seeing and crawling on trains. I collected quite a bit of HO gauge stuff the next decade. and I'm looking forward to breaking it all out again when Liam gets older. I'll have to buy a new engine and controller, but it will be so worth it.

I confess B missed his court date earlier this week and now has a warrant out for his arrest. and apparently also lost his job, and was kicked out of the place he was living.....

I sure know how to pick em, huh?

Yes . . . and you also know how to GET OUT!

I got out of the house yesterday - it was heavenly...although there were people who thought I was nuts to be at a toddler's birthday party 4 days post par tum. I personally feel like the days leading up to delivery are more taxing than the days after. But that's just me!

I might too if I had the birth you did! After 14 hours of labor and then being sliced open by my doc the velociraptor (aka c/s), it was many weeks post partum before I felt like going out. We were out to buy a minivan at 3 weeks PP and it exhausted me.

[missychrissy]

Chrissy, I confess I have no idea what you're talking about. It's either that I miss pages of this thread sometimes or that I never watch the news?

Do you mean about my McGraw/Goldwin Smith rant? Sorry, I feel like I complain about myself all the time & just assumed I'd been lamenting about it here nonstop, but it's possible I didn't say anything...or I only mentioned it once & it was a long time ago.

I've been put in another building here on campus for 2 days a week as a temporary 'trial' period because the IT person has opted to go to school full time to learn to shoe horses. It's a 3 year program (I think?) and he intends to eventually leave Cornell when he finishes to shoe horses for a living (talk about career change). I just don't want to be stuck here permanently. I want to go back to being in Goldwin Smith full time.

I also confess that I RARELY post anywhere else anymore but in here.

There's nothing wrong with that.

[Cosmosmom]

If I have a soul, my dogs do too. Plain and simple.

I'm so sorry about your chihuahua.

ITA. My girl is more than just an animal....I can see it in her eyes and I know she has emotions (just not quite as complex as mine).

[Cosmosmom]

Stacy, believe me, I am thinking the exact same thing. If he proves me wrong, so be it.
And I'm wondering how I am going to run my daycare immediately after I have my baby. I'm just not sure I can swing it and I don't know what to do. I've considered finding a sub but I'm not sure I'd ever find the right person. And the pay would be crap since I'd still be buying and preparing the meals and I'm hardly making a profit as it is. It might actually be perfect for a stay at home mom looking to make a *little extra money and bring their child along. We shall see.

Could you check and see if any local schools with programs in child care might be looking for someone to do sort of an internship?

[sunrider]

Remember I said I was stress eating like crazy cause of the bankruptcy crap?

I confess I weighed last weekend and I've crossed the 300 mark . . . going up this time. Makes me so depressed that I lost almost 60 pounds post partum and have now gained almost 40 of it back.

[missychrissy]

Krista

[Cosmosmom]

Oh man, I LOVED trains as a kid. My aunt took me to the Museum of Transport in St Louis when I was little. At that time the museum was all about seeing and crawling on trains. I collected quite a bit of HO gauge stuff the next decade. and I'm looking forward to breaking it all out again when Liam gets older. I'll have to buy a new engine and controller, but it will be so worth it.

.

Yeah we have been to a number of train museums. And we have some HO things...but now he wants O gauge. Found one he liked and ordered it in April 2009...it was an engine, box car and caboose. Got the engine and caboose in December 2009....and we are STILL waiting on the box car though the looks like the latest update was July 2010. Now that we finally have a basement, he is looking to eventually get a cool layout going.
Not so much a kid friendly thing though...at least not this set. He pratically had a heart attack when I touched the engine (it was NOT cheap!!!). The older HO stuff would be more kid friendly.

[stash]

I have to share that the carpenter showed up this morning to start finishing out our upstairs bath (we did an office/guest space addition when we moved here, didn't finish the bath, and now are doing it so we have guest space after Gus is born) and I'm ssooooo excited. I want it to be done NOW.

Krista, do you have someone to talk to? I mean, other than us . Therapy isn't over-rated. I'm so sorry you're having this kind of stress, but honestly, the way it impacts your body and soul is up to you and only up to you. The world may have your ass in a ringer from a practical (financial) standpoint but only you have control of your body and mind. In fact, that's the good bit here YOU DO have control over you, whether the rest of the world is conspiring against you, or not.

Bridget, I like the idea of a work study student, though I admit I LOVE the idea of a SAHM. Either way, it just has to be the right person, and I think it needs to be someone with experience.

[Cosmosmom]

Remember I said I was stress eating like crazy cause of the bankruptcy crap?

I confess I weighed last weekend and I've crossed the 300 mark . . . going up this time. Makes me so depressed that I lost almost 60 pounds post partum and have now gained almost 40 of it back.

I know the feeling. I lost 167 lbs after the gastric bypass 5.5 years ago. I have regained like 65-70 of that....first stress was when DH lost his job in 2006 and I gained about 15 lbs. Than when we got settled again, we started trying to get pg. After 3 years and not one pg...and since it's pretty much unexplained, I was told to lose weight (which is why I had the gastric bypass was so I could have baby!)....um yeah so I ended up finding a lot more pounds than I ever thought I would. I did so well for almost 2 years after surgery and followed the rules and I swore I would be one of the few who don't regain anything...I was going to allow myself 20-25 lbs to regain in the case of a pg.

DH and I are are getting ready to get back to eating smaller amounts and healthy lower calorie things again and getting in some exercise in again. We ate out a LOT while in the process of moving and unpacking.

[missychrissy]

It helps me to use www.calorie-count.com I'm not good about portion control on my own. It really is true that you don't feel full till 20 minutes after you're done eating too.

But I do know what stress eating is too. It's a much tougher bear to wrestle.

[stash]

My helper was a kitchen scale. I weighed every last freakin' thing if it didn't come with a calorie count on the outside of the package (even then sometimes) even if I was overeating and I knew it, and I logged it all on the weight watchers site. Some days I would have to face the fact that I ate double my point allowance. That usually helped kick my ass for the next day...

[sunrider]

Krista, do you have someone to talk to? I mean, other than us . Therapy isn't over-rated. I'm so sorry you're having this kind of stress, but honestly, the way it impacts your body and soul is up to you and only up to you. The world may have your ass in a ringer from a practical (financial) standpoint but only you have control of your body and mind. In fact, that's the good bit here YOU DO have control over you, whether the rest of the world is conspiring against you, or not.

Not really, and I'm sure that's part of the stress.
Jonathan just keeps telling me not to worry and that we'll be fine. It's not the bankruptcy itself that stresses me, but the fact that we're going to have to live with wage garnishment for close to two years before we can start it. And I take care of the finances so I don't think he realizes what garnishment is going to do to us.

I have friends that have been through a bankruptcy. She filed a year or two before she got married to her second/current husband. And they lost their house to foreclosure less than 2 years ago. But she's rarely available to talk and the times I've tried to talk to her DH (who I DO consider a very good friend), he's done nothing but piss me off.

I feel such horrible shame and embarrassment that this is happening I haven't told hardly anyone. Jonathan told his entire gaming group, which upset me that that many people knew. And I'm not close enough to any of them to talk to them about it now that they know.

I wish I liked exercise and did that when stressed out (instead of eat), but exercise is evil. Except for swimming. And we don't have anywhere to swim that would not cost money to get to get to.

[3andMe]

Lydia - you have me curious as to what the first two thing you thought were?

(1) That your baby was going to be incredibly lucky to have you as a mom, and (2) I wondered how dbf would react.

DH and I finally got an extra set of car seats, and we split up to do separate expeditions this past weekend. I took Ronin to a model train museum with Soren, and we were there for hours! He loved it. Claire was so uninterested when we all went there that we left after a short while because she kept trying to run outside into the parking lot. I do not believe it's a boy/girl thing per se (although Ronin seems to be far more interested in vehicles than Claire)--it's just my kids. My grandmother was a train conductor before she got too frail.

[intactivstmom]

I might too if I had the birth you did! After 14 hours of labor and then being sliced open by my doc the velociraptor (aka c/s), it was many weeks post partum before I felt like going out. We were out to buy a minivan at 3 weeks PP and it exhausted me.

I had about 23 hours of either labor or crappy drugs trying to stop labor. One of them had me shaking so bad my Grandma and Mom thought the hospital was trying to freeze me to death, although I would have preferred to shake for 6 weeks then go through what I did.

I finally had a c/s when they couldn't stop labor and Robbie was transverse.
And then I got to pump 8 times a day, and go to the nicu and back four times a day over a road that was under construction. I thought I was going to tear my stitches.

ITA. My girl is more than just an animal....I can see it in her eyes and I know she has emotions (just not quite as complex as mine).

My little girl is the same. Big, beautiful eyes, and you can see her curiosity, love, and life behind them. There is no way one of my very best friends does not have a soul.

Krista, do you have someone to talk to? I mean, other than us . Therapy isn't over-rated. I'm so sorry you're having this kind of stress, but honestly, the way it impacts your body and soul is up to you and only up to you. The world may have your ass in a ringer from a practical (financial) standpoint but only you have control of your body and mind. In fact, that's the good bit here YOU DO have control over you, whether the rest of the world is conspiring against you, or not.

This is great advice. Therapy can be so great, especially if you find the right one for your personality.

[intactivstmom]

Dh is quitting his job today. Dh has worked in a small auto repair shop for about 5-6 years. He has been fired and then kept on for as little hours as you can be and still get unemployment, and then hired back full time after a few months when the shop was no longer in danger of going under. It has been a great job.

Only now the boss has let her son take over. His son, S, is real jerk, he knows Nick hates certain jobs and makes sure dh has to do them, treats everyone like crap, and is just mean. Oh, and S leaves for hours at a time and goes in the bathroom to do drugs. Everyone thinks he is doing cocaine, but can't say for sure.

Wednesday will be his last day. He is only giving 3 days notice because they only gave him 3 days notice when they fired him, 3 days is the end of the pay period. And every day he stays after he quits S will make his life hell.

Nick has a lawn mower tune up business, Mower Tune, that is bringing in a little income. The scariest part is that we are putting more money into advertising to try and get more income from Mower Tune dh looks for jobs. I'm worried we are going to spend more in advertising than we will make working on mowers.

[Cosmosmom]

It helps me to use www.calorie-count.com I'm not good about portion control on my own. It really is true that you don't feel full till 20 minutes after you're done eating too.

But I do know what stress eating is too. It's a much tougher bear to wrestle.

I was using sparkpeople.com for a while and just need to get back to that. Was a bit eye opening to see the counts for some things!
I know for me, I'm a slow eater, always was and even more so now. If I eat too fast, even though it's been 5.5 years, I will be in pain for like 20-30 minutes...it's like something get stuck. I do still need to chew well and go slow (it was REALLY bad in first year after surgery...had to chew everything forever).

I do my share of stress eating....but a bigger problem for me is I'm pretty much always hungry (I can tell which one I'm doing). Before surgery, I honestly didn't know what feeling full was. I was never full. I only stopped because I knew that I already had way more than I should have needed.

After surgery, they told me I wouldn't feel hungry for 9-12 months. I got about 2-3 weeks and than bam hunger hit again. The cool part though was at least after I ate something, I finally knew what feeling full was like.
I still can feel full....but most of the time (I would say that probably 95-97% of my waking hours), I'm hungry. and I do eat a good amount of fiber (we both actually really like broccoli LOL), make sure to get in my protein and drink a LOT of water.
I'm finally coming to the conclusion that I'm just going to have to suck it up and be hungry most of the time.

[midgeend]

I might too if I had the birth you did! After 14 hours of labor and then being sliced open by my doc the velociraptor (aka c/s), it was many weeks post partum before I felt like going out. We were out to buy a minivan at 3 weeks PP and it exhausted me.

I had about 23 hours of either labor or crappy drugs trying to stop labor. One of them had me shaking so bad my Grandma and Mom thought the hospital was trying to freeze me to death, although I would have preferred to shake for 6 weeks then go through what I did.

I finally had a c/s when they couldn't stop labor and Robbie was transverse.
And then I got to pump 8 times a day, and go to the nicu and back four times a day over a road that was under construction. I thought I was going to tear my stitches.

I realize that I sound insensitive about how fast I got out of the house...I didn't think about it in terms other than my own experience...so I'm sorry if I sounded like I think everyone should just snap right back


Krista - I still owe you some info on battling anxiety naturally, i have not forgotten. Much of what I do is diet related actually, so could hewlp w/ weight also.

[The10Eels]

I confess I am still kinda giggling over

my doc the velociraptor

.....


Is that bad?

[midgeend]

how long do you think it's going to take me to remember that the baby will pee if i take off her diaper and to put a prefold under her butt when i'm changing her?

[Bridget]

Thanks, Lydia.
Krista - I hope you get back on the upswing soon. I hate it when it feels like life just keeps dumping on you.
I just got an awesome deal on some newborn cloth diapers. When I picked them up the lady was like, "Gosh, I think I could have gotten a lot more for these. I had so many responses to my ad"
I was all, "Yup, here you go seeyoulaterbye!" before she could change her mind.

I'm really going to try and make my own so I don't have to buy anymore. I need to open my sewing machine. It gives me an ache to look at it because my mom was teaching me so much about the craft and every time I had any little question I just called her and she always knew. We had a lot of fun sitting in front of that machine. It's going to hurt to do it without her.

[missychrissy]

Dh is quitting his job today. Dh has worked in a small auto repair shop for about 5-6 years. He has been fired and then kept on for as little hours as you can be and still get unemployment, and then hired back full time after a few months when the shop was no longer in danger of going under. It has been a great job.

Only now the boss has let her son take over. His son, S, is real jerk, he knows Nick hates certain jobs and makes sure dh has to do them, treats everyone like crap, and is just mean. Oh, and S leaves for hours at a time and goes in the bathroom to do drugs. Everyone thinks he is doing cocaine, but can't say for sure.

Wednesday will be his last day. He is only giving 3 days notice because they only gave him 3 days notice when they fired him, 3 days is the end of the pay period. And every day he stays after he quits S will make his life hell.

Nick has a lawn mower tune up business, Mower Tune, that is bringing in a little income. The scariest part is that we are putting more money into advertising to try and get more income from Mower Tune dh looks for jobs. I'm worried we are going to spend more in advertising than we will make working on mowers.

wow-that's big. Is this a sudden decision, or have you been discussing it for a while? I wish you both luck!