Changes

It is amazing how much can change in the matter of only a few months. Even how much feelings can change. For four years, you can love someone unconditionally; be willing to do anything for them; put them above everyone and everything else. Then in the matter of only a few months, those feelings can go from unconditional love to all encompassing hatred. Two completely opposite ends of the spectrum. I never thought I could be so consumed by hatred for someone until now. I never thought that he would have the power to hurt me more after things were over than he ever did when we were together. If this had been a normal breakup with no kids involved, I would have just said goodbye and never talked to or thought about him again. But it isn't normal. We have a kid together. It changes everything and is the very reason that I never wanted to hate him. We have to be in each others lives for the rest of them. 

During this time, my feelings have changed for another person. This one isn't as unusual in normal circumstances. People experience this all the time. The change of going from someone being a complete stranger to something more than that. My old relationship has been over now for almost three months. I have known this other person for only a month. From the beginning, there had been this intense connection between us. Even over text, we were so similar in our humor and experiences. When we talked on the phone for the first time, I could feel sparks between us; this inexplicable pull toward him. Since then, those feelings have only intensified. We haven't "gone out" much. Most of our time together is staying in. Things are just so comfortable between us. It's like we've known each other our whole lives, yet we have so much to learn about each other. It seems crazy that in only a month I have gone from barely knowing this guy to falling in... that word is still too scary and yet I feel it creeping up every time I talk to him and see him. I have to shove it down, hold it in every time we end a conversation not to end it with I l... you. I've taken to saying the little l word more often to try to keep the big l word at bay. So far it has worked, but it creeps up in my dreams, when my subconscious has the control. 

I never thought I would ever love anyone else except for Ryan. How wrong I had been. But in order to have this new relationship, everything that happened with Ryan was necessary. I wouldn't be the person I am today and would never have met this new guy, if I hadn't lobed Ryan for four years and had a child with him. I don't regret our relationship. I only regret the new feelings I have for him. I can't change those just yet, but I hope one day that we can move past it. 

Nonfunctional Human Person

You would think that after 24 years on this planet we call Earth, that I would have learned that I cannot function on less than 2 hours of sleep after being awake for 24 hours the day before. Or even just only getting 2 hours of sleep. Apparently I have not learned this very valuable life lesson because here I sit at work unable to function or speak in proper sentences and definitely unable to do my job.
It was worth staying up. I had a good time and wouldn't have traded that time for a couple extra hours of sleep. But I am definitely hurting for sleep now. The level of exhaustion that I am at right now is painful. My whole body aches, I feel like I am going to vomit, I'm away but my brain is in jumbles. The quad shot of espresso that I drank when I got here has not helped at all. I want more espresso but I know that it will only make me jittery. I think I will have some more when I go back up after my 10 is over. More espresso just sounds like a good idea. Maybe another quad shot!!
When I got to work, I was definitely pulling it together, but as the day has worn on, I have gone on a downward spiral. I even put iced coffee into someone's hot decaf coffee earlier and had to remake the whole drink. On several occasions, my coworker has told me that I need to just go home because I am a mess. I feel like a zombie. Let's just hope that exhaustion is not the first step towards eating other humans' brains. I already know that I wouldn't do well with that outcome.
I definitely need to learn when to say goodbye to whoever I am hanging out with so that I may get some much needed rest. But my social life has no time if it isn't happening when I should be sleeping. I will just have to try to make up for it tonight. Hopefully all goes well. Although I will most likely want to go to the gym early tomorrow morning. So I doubt I will be getting much sleep. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

The Ever Confusing Game of Dating

I have recently rejoined the world of dating. I have got to say that I don't think I was ever a part of it before. So maybe what I should be saying is that I have recently decided that I would like to try this thing called dating that I have heard people are doing these days. 

After 4 years with the same person, I am now single. This is odd for me since this is the first time I have been single in 4 years. That is a very long time. And before I was even in my recent relationship, I never did much dating. I didn't have many suitors either. I am currently dating and I would like to say that it is not easy. How is it possible to like two guys at once and have at least three other guys interested in you that you could care less about even talking to nonetheless dating? Well that's kind of the boat that I am in. 

I don't know how to handle this. It's hard enough juggling conversations with multiple people. Not to mention actually going on dates with them. Add in the fact that I have a 2 year old son and 2 jobs. Holy Fuck! How do I even have time?! Somehow I'm making the time...

I've got to be honest though. I definitely am starting to prefer one guy over the other. He's very much affectionate and I have never had that. It's a nice change. Things are relaxed and carefree and COMFORTABLE. I have one known this guy for a couple weeks and I am already so comfortable with him. I am scared out of my fucking mind!! I am not used to feeling this way. Feeling so connected to someone so soon. Feeling warm and comfortable. Feeling like I could talk to and see him every day for the rest of my life and not get sick of it. What is WRONG with me?! What happened to the emotionless robot that I once was once upon a time? 

For those of you wondering what happened to the boyfriend and me, I will not go into it. All you need to know is that I lost weight and became super confident and decided I was done with bull shit. I deserve everything awesome because let's face it, I am fucking AWESOME!! I am now a hot single mom and I am definitely not hurting for dates. But I still do not know how to date. I never did it before. I've pretty much been a serial monogamist my whole dating life. Except the few hook-ups I've had and those weren't dates and never went anywhere and had no emotional ties involved whatsoever. What do you do when you have emotions? Yes, I am asking about emotions. I'm not used to having them. The fact that I had moved on from my baby's father as soon as I decided to end things tells you how little emotion I have. And now my emotions are leaking through and they want anything they can get their hands on. Someone make it STOP! Emotions are too scary.

I think I went on a tangent far away from my original intention of thus particular blog post. It has also been awhile since I've been part of this blogging game so please forgive my scatter brain. Although, let's face it, I have always been a bit scatter brained with my posts. I'm easing back into this just fine :) I hope you enjoyed reading. I promise to try to be more consistent now. But as I stated earlier, I am a single mom of a toddler working two jobs and dating. I don't know where I'm finding time to do any of that, plus being a blogger. We'll just have to see how well I do with getting back on both horses. 

Wish me luck!!!

Torrential Downpour

This morning it decided to rain and rain a lot. I am the type of person who normally loves rain, but driving in rain is the hard part. I have come to a couple of conclusions after driving in the rain today.
1. Windshield wipers suck.
2. The freeway has a good part and a bad part.

Why do windshield wipers suck? Well because they have three speeds: super slow, regular, and super fast. Super slow is the one that goes up and down, hesitates for 30 seconds and then goes again. This is the perfect speed for a light drizzle; the kind that you barely even feel when you are walking in it. Regular goes up and down, hesitates for a half a second, and goes again. Regular is perfect for the heavier rain when you are driving on the road or on the good part of the freeway (more on that later in this post). Super fast goes up and down repeatedly without ever hesitating. this one is perfect for the bad part of the freeway. The problem is that there is a down pour that lighter than heavy rain and heavier than a light drizzle. The super slow speed doesn't clear the windshield fast enough. The regular speed clears it so fast that the wipers drag across the windshield. There needs to be a slow speed that hesitates for five seconds.

The freeway has a good part and a bad part. The good part is asphalt that somehow absorbs the rain. You can't even tell that it's raining there except for what is falling on your windshield from the sky. The bad part of the freeway is mad of some concrete or something that lets the rain build on top of it so that as you are driving, the cars in front of you push more rain onto your windshield. This causes you to basically be blind. They should make the freeway all the asphalty stuff that absorbs the rain.

I have three solutions that would make driving in rain better. The first would be to make more windshield wiper speeds. The second would be to make all the freeway the same thing. The last would be to put an umbrella on the top of cars to keep the rain from falling onto them. Then we would just have to worry about the kickback but if the freeway was fixed, then that wouldn't matter. I like the umbrella idea the best.

3 Months

Alright, I am a failure at blogging but I will try to be better from now on. I missed Karson's two month update. I will try to incorporate it into his three month update that I am doing right now.
At two months Karson weighed about twelve pounds and was 24 inches long. He was a big boy. He had just started to really smile. He hated tummy time with a passion. He was still not really into moving around. He liked to squirm but he wasn't exactly active.

Now that Karson is three months old, he is always moving around. He can basically sit up by himself, he loves watching football with his daddy. He still hates tummy time, but he'll get over it. He finally found his thumb and sucks it all the time. He laughs now. When he's away from Ryan and I for a day, he smiles like crazy when he sees us. He loves to "talk" and he does it more than ever. I bought him and exersaucer and he plays in it. He is finally learning that if he hits it, it makes noise. He now eats eight ounces of formula per feeding, it used to be four. He has little baby man boobs. I love this little boy more than anything in the whole wide world.

When Karson turned two months old, I went back to work at Beans and Brews and started to work at Babies R Us. I was lucky to have a day off. There was a bunch of drama at beans and brews so a week ago, I put in my two weeks. Tuesday was my last day. I now work only at Babies and school starts tomorrow so it will be perfect.

We also got our family pictures done right after Christmas. I was so happy to finally get them done. Ryan refused to cut his hair, but they turned out pretty good still. This one was my favorite!

Not Just My Decision Anymore

Now that I have a baby, all of my decisions need to factor him in. I can't just make a decision to do something without first considering how it will effect Karson. This makes all of my difficult life decisions that much more difficult. My most recent difficult decision: Whether to go back to work or not and where to go if I do.

My Options:
Go back to work. This is split into two subcategories: Beans and Brews or Babies R Us. Pros of B&B: I could work early in the morning or late in the afternoon which would ensure that I have someone to watch Karson. I've worked there for a year now and so I know they will work with my schedule. I applied for the assistant manager though this is only a plus if I get the position. Cons of B&B: Everyone that I have worked with so far has left or plans to leave. Beans doesn't always take very good care of its employees. I would have to continue to drive all the way down to Murray to work. Pros of Babies R Us:  It is much closer to my house than Beans. It sounds like they treat their employees better. If I get a discount, then I would be able to get everything that Karson might need. I would be making a definite $7.75 rather than a definite $6.90. Cons of Babies R Us: They are looking to fill their 11-6 or 10-7 shifts which would possibly mean leaving Karson with a stranger or taking him to a day care; I don't trust either of those yet.
 Go back to work only on the weekends. This would not work with Beans and Brews. There is no way I could do just weekends there as a supervisor or assistant manager and I do not want to be demoted to a barista. This might work with Babies R Us and maybe I could do weekends and one day during the week. I'll have to ask at my interview today. Con of only working weekends: Not enough money. I need money to continue to pay my bills and to pay for medical bills (having a baby is expensive).
Become a stay at home mom and have Ryan pick up a second job. Pros: I wouldn't be worried that Karson was in the wrong hands. I would be able to focus on school. Cons: I would feel bad that Ryan was doing all of the work. I am not comfortable with Ryan paying for all my bills (we aren't married so he doesn't owe me that). I would never really have help with Karson. I would rarely get to see Ryan.

Now Taking all of that into consideration, most of my options have several cons associated with them.  I really have to think about what is best for Ryan, Karson, and myself. For me, I really want to go back to work. I need to be able to get out of the house and do something productive occasionally. It is the only thing that will keep me sane. For Ryan, I don't think he really cares. He was the one who told me to just stay home and he'll get a second job. He also told me to just go to work and take Karson to day care. Most day cares don't take babies under a certain age so that poses a problem. Ryan is no help. For Karson, I really don't know what's best for him. I feel that being with his mom is important but if I'm stressed and unhappy, he will be too. So how do I make a decision that will be best for all of us? This would be a little easier if I knew that Costco could either give Ryan a set schedule or if I got a set schedule, they would work with Ryan to schedule him around that. But they don't or maybe Ryan just doesn't want to. Either way, that makes it harder for me to go back to work. If I knew that Ryan's days off would always be Monday and Friday or that he would always work after three on Wednesday, then I could ask for my schedule to work with his schedule. But his schedule stays relatively the same for a while and then suddenly changes. I never know when he'll work and it even changes as he's working. How am I supposed to go back to work when his schedule is so unreliable? Hell, how is he supposed to get a second job? I'm even more confused as to what to do now than I was before this post. I am open for suggestions from anyone that has them. I don't know how to make this decision.

One Month

On October 3, 2012, at 11:31, after 14 hours of labor and two and a half hours of pushing, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Karson Michael Gordon weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce and measured at 19-1/2 inches long. He was perfect and perfectly healthy. I watched Ryan cry as he stood by my side waiting for our baby to be cleaned. I told him that he could go be by our son; he didn't have to stand next to me; I'd be ok. Karson screamed until they finally placed him next to me while I was getting stitched up. As soon as he heard my voice he quieted down. I asked him if he was hungry. He made a tiny sound that sounded like he was saying "yeah".

We spent two days in the hospital. Coming home was a little difficult. The first two days home, Ryan and I tried to sleep at night with Karson in the bassinet next to the bed. We didn't get any sleep. We worked out a sleep schedule. I sleep first and then Ryan sleeps. The person who is awake stays upstairs with Karson sleeping in the boppy pillow on the couch next to us. Now we both get more sleep, though I still get less than Ryan does. I have to wake up to feed Karson when he gets hungry.

It is hard to believe that it has already been a month since I brought Karson home from the hospital. He is still so tiny although he is getting bigger every day. At two weeks, he already weighed 8 pounds.

The top picture is Karson the day we brought him home sleeping in his boppy pillow. The bottom picture is him today. 

Being a mom is such a different experience. It is hard not to get frustrated sometimes, but no matter what, I love Karson with all my heart.