Totally random stuff

Bullet points seems like a fun idea for today, my thoughts are scattered.

• Last night a horrible thought occurred to me. What if I end up having one of my former students in my community college class?  That is pretty unlikely.  The kids from Hell City are still in middle school/high school. My alternative school kids, were mostly not college-bound, and the ones who were should hopefully be done with A&P by now. Fingers crossed. That would be just my luck.

• Mailed off my application to start volunteering yesterday. (Rethought my timeline and decided it will be easier to get those hours over with, or mostly over with, before I start classes.) Also applied to community college for the first time ever, which is really weird to put in that I have a bachelor's degree.

• I almost had a heart attack in the car today. Since it was pretty warm, I opened the doors for a few minutes before I put Lucas in to get a breeze in there. So then I put him in, closed the doors, and pulled out of our court. Then I hear a buzzing sound, which for a second I dismiss as one of the baby's toys that he was playing with in his car seat, until it occurred to me that none of his toys buzz. Luckily I was stopped at the stop sign when I looked over my shoulder to see a GIANT WASP at the window in the backseat, a few feet away from my BABY. I hit all the buttons to lower all the windows as quickly as I could, and to my horror the wasp flew across/over the baby to the other window and then went outside. Lucas was totally unaware of the whole drama, but I think my heart stopped. 

• Lucas has gotten over his hatred of "being worn". Just in time for him to move out of his infant car seat. I've worn him around the house a few times and he just chilled. Today we tried it for the first time out in public, in a store. I got a few bewildered looks, but it worked out really well. I think he liked having so much to look at. And bonus, it keeps strangers away from him. He's still too wobbly to sit in the cart and strollers are not nearly as convenient as snapping the baby carrier on and putting him in it, (especially to just go into a store, if we were spending the day at the zoo, then it would be worth the hassle to deal with the stroller for the shade) so this is perfect.

• I think the Cardinals are gonna win the World Series this year. Just sayin'. 

• I wrote a really long blog yesterday about the challenges of trying to raise a normal kid after losing a baby. And then I decided it was boring and deleted it. (Not that this is full of excitement today either.) But basically, my mantra is, "how much will this affect him?" Since he has no idea he sleeps with a breathing monitor every night, I could pretty much keep using that forever, if I wanted. But someday soon, I'm going to have to let someone besides Joe watch him without me, and I know it will be good for him, but I'm going to totally hate it. It's not about me though.

• We did the drive-thru at Starbucks today, for the first time ever. (I know.) I've had those glass bottle frappacinnos  (love them!) but I've never actually been to/through an actual Starbucks before. The guy was totally creepy weird nice. Like, "Oh, I see you have your baby with you today." "Yep." "So how is motherhood treating you?" I smiled and said, "Good." In hindsight, I totally should have said something to freak him out instead just to see how he kept up the creepy nice routine. Are people that work at Starbucks all creepy nice or was this just random? Also, I got a pumpkin spice *light* frapp and it was disgusting. I'm not a big coffee fan and I had to force myself to drink it. As much as I could, at least. (I actually went through to get a gift card, not really for the drink.) The glass bottle drinks are way better.

• We still do not have Lucas's 3 month picture prints back. (The photographer we used turned out to be a nightmare.) His 6 month pictures will be next month, and we are doing them at the park where the Angel statue and Olivia's brick is. I can't wait, I think it is going to be gorgeous there in the fall, and I love the little ways we can incorporate Olivia without making Lucas JUST "Olivia's little brother". Which is hard to explain, but I feel like his milestone pictures should be mostly about him, not about being Olivia's little brother.  Which is very hard because the two things aren't really separable,but Lucas is more than a tribute to Olivia. Anyway, I'm probably not explaining it well, but what 'm saying is that its another tough thing about parenting a rainbow, trying to find that balance of incorporating the baby we lost into our family now. So I think doing the pictures at that park, even if we don't do any at her brick or with the angel, will be a nice way to include her.

4 months + paranoia

It's harder to write now that I'm not quite in that angsty grieving period and not a stressed out pregnant psycho. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of paranoia here in our "2 breathing monitor plus a video monitor with the kid either sleeping on me or 5 inches away from me house", but I've chilled out, a lot.

It's hard, trying to be reasonable and rational, and manage that paranoia when you've watched your first baby die. I don't think those who haven't been through that really quite get it. And I think it's even different, when that is your first experience with "parenting". I remember all too well sitting in the funeral home with Joe picking out a casket for our baby girl. Even almost two years later, I can flashback to those awful dark moments like it was yesterday. And now Lucas is here, 4 months old in a few hours, and he is perfect. He makes my heart feel fuller than I imagined would be possible, he makes us smile- truly smile and laugh- which I never thought I'd do again. I can't imagine losing him I have lived that, so I can imagine it, but I don't want to.

And it's a battle that I am constantly struggling with, because I am justifiably paranoid, but I don't want Lucas to grow up a crazy paranoid freak like me- or to deprieve him of experiences because of my fears. And that's a hard line to balance. I mean, right now, it isn't too bad, I can leave him with Joe (and maybe next month I'll even let my mom watch him for a few hours- but that's it, and I'm still not so sure if I can leave him with my mom because she says stuff like "all those silly sids rules these days, all 4 of you were fine.." which makes me totally uneasy). He still sleeps right next to me and he's not going anywhere anytime soon (studies show sleeping near mom helps regulate their breathing and reduces the risk of SIDS, so they actually recommend co-sleeping the first 6 months), I actually don't normally use either breathing monitor because 1 is a pain to clip to his diaper, and the other is set up in the pack n play but he sleeps in the rock n play most nights. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I've managed not to screw him up so far, but I know that's going to be constantly a struggle, finding that balance.

On a lighter note, we are fantastic. Lucas is holding his head up pretty well, he has discovered this screeching voice that he loves to use which makes us laugh and makes him laugh too. He's not rolling over yet but he can slowly push himself across his blanket just by pushing his chubby legs against the ground.He uses his hands intentionally though he's still kinda clumsy with them. He's a perfect eater, breastfeeding is pretty easy now and we are still going strong. He sleeps through the night and is a pretty good napper during the day. He's perfect. I love being home with him and I'm so lucky we can manage it, though I've been thinking a lot about what I will do next, that's a blog for another day.