Mommy needs Meds

Wow the realization that I have really crossed the line into mommyhood hit me this morning while getting dressed. While I stood over my jumbled underwear drawer trying to decide which pair to wear, I found myself digging for the cotton, sensible Hanes. I used to pass those by as an absolute last resort in search for the thong. Now those get tossed aside as I opt for the welcoming softness and size of the cotton bikini brief. It is not only with the underwear that I have noticed a change, but I tend to spend less time worrying about the wrinkles around my eyes, if my hair looks perfect or if I have on lip gloss. It isn't that I don't care about my appearance or that I go to the grocery store in my froggy pajama bottoms, I just have let go of certain aspects of my life that used to hold such high priority.
There is another aspect I WISH I could let go- I have deep rooted insecurities that bubble up to the surface every now and then and they become as obvious as my newly adopted panty lines. They take over my life as evidence in my last post. They creep into work, into relationships and, now, into motherhood. With work I am convinced that I am failing and that everyone around me is aware of it and discussing it with each other- yes paranoia comes to your mind I bet.
With Liliana I am afraid that I am going to smother her with love. What? Isn't that crazy? I don't know, I just want to hug and kiss her all the time! She pushes me away now to get to much more important tasks like placing her rings onto her stacking toy- she has mastered this and I am so proud of her! She is so independent which is awesome. I want to encourage that and I want her to feel confident and secure and I don't want my shortcomings to negatively impact her. I should stress that these feelings come in waves. It isn't a constant- I often feel quite confident and competent in my abilities as an employee, wife and mom- just that right now there is a storm brewing and the waves are higher than usual. Blame it on Mercury in retrograde, change of the seasons, world financial crises, genetics, hormones...
I feel wonderful though to have a couple good friends that I can call anytime (Justine- right at you girl!), my OWN mommy who is really just so completely amazing at understanding what I go through and Chris who knows when I need a hug. I sound like I just accepted an Emmy or am writing acknowledgements to a book.
With all that, on to what you probably came here for- Liliana is becoming more verbal but no real words yet. She clearly identifies BALL and BALLOON with the same B sound. She is still fanatical about both objects. She used her walking push toy for the first time yesterday and now confidently scoots it around the house while running into every doorway, table and cat in the house. We inherited the now infamous toy car from some neighbors and she loves to ride in it. She also loves to look at the Elvis book, so does her Dad...

Insomnia

I had one of those surreal days. Looking back 12 hours later it seems like a dream. Not because anything too out of the ordinary happened, but enough to make me realize how easily my life, our lives, can get knocked off course. I should preface anything I am about to say by clearly stating that I like my job. I like the company I work for and their philosophy. I am in sales. I have been since 1997. I have been fairly successful throughout my career in sales and when my last job "dissolved" for lack of a better one word term I was extremely fortunate to find my current job in the corporate furniture industry. The economy was tanking, people were losing jobs right and left and I felt so relieved to be on the other end of things. This was January of 2009. We hadn't even seen the worst of it yet. I basically took on a territory that needed to be built from scratch during the worst economic recession since The Great Depression. I just deleted a whole bunch of lines I had written because I don't want to use this as a place to make excuses but the bottom line is, I am doing really crappy...REALLY crappy! Okay, so back to today. I initiated a lunch with my manager to catch up on things. My manager is from Norway. Amazingly nice guy, positive attitude, supportive...I think I was actually the one who brought up my performance after other discussions about projects etc... I honestly don't remember all that was said because the only thing that keeps playing over and over in my head is "it doesn't look good" and "you shouldn't be surprised". It hit me then and there that I could very easily lose my job, tomorrow, in 2 months, in January...soon.
I was in a daze the whole walk back up to our showroom. I was actually in desperate, panic mode. Texting, e-mailing, calling all of my clients as soon as I sat down. Some I know better than others and I flat out said, HELP, I think I may lose my job- whaddya got? While I am doing this, my manager is having a much different discussion with my counterpart. I heard, "great job" and "exceeding goal". I heard much despite the fact that it was under muffled breath which made me feel worse. I felt like a failure. I shouldn't put that in past tense. I FEEL like a failure. I hate this. I actually got to a place earlier this evening where I convinced myself that losing my job would be okay, we would survive. Maybe it would even open some new doors and steer me on a different path. Chris has been amazingly supportive and wonderful today. I love him so much and today he reminded me why. I look at Liliana and she is so innocent and dependent and I am failing her too. So I woke up tonight feeling very uneasy and it hit me...if I lose my job we have no health insurance!! THIS frightens me the most. I have been following the health care reform debates pretty closely and am so annoyed that the Republicans are blocking our President from putting through much needed reform. I know the cost of even COBRA if I were to lose my job and it is outrageous. I am completely freaking out right now. Of course my main goal is to not lose my job but if I do...I don't think I will be sleeping much for awhile.
So, if you know of anyone that has an office, hospital, school that needs furniture...call me!
Oh, I am going to lighten this post up a bit by putting a recent picture of my heart, my joy, love of my life...

Memento

What is your first memory? How old were you? Do we only remember back to a certain time b/c of synaptic and myelin sheath development or is there also an unconscious blocking of certain memories? My recollection of first memories changes as I get older and interact with Liliana. For the longest time, probably since I was 6 or 7 I would brag that I could remember an event around the age of 2. I remember a gumball machine next to the front door of some shop in Oak Park, IL where we lived until the summer of my 4th birthday. I also have vague memories of finding a dollar under a grate in the street and a much more vivid memory of the green plastic hockey stick my oldest brother Doug bought me for what I believe was my 3rd birthday. I also had yellow plastic rollerskates that strapped over my shoes. My brothers would skate and play hockey in the basement of our 1890's Victorian home. They also painted martians on the wall which is an image that sticks in my mind. I had the pleasure recently of visiting that home again since I have returned to Oak Park to live. The current owners have been more than kind to open the doors to me and my family to tour their house. In the basement, the martians are still there though I had to set Kelli, the current owner, straight about the artist. The former owners, the Wagners (who we sold the house to in 1973) told Kelli that THEIR kids painted the martians on the wall. I don't think she believed me that Doug was the artist but I know the truth as I REMEMBER them very clearly (as do the rest of my family). Unless I am a psychic of some sort, those martians existed PRE WAGNER. So these are a handful of memories that occurred before my fourth birthday. There are a couple of other memories that I can't put a date on. One is my mom telling me to have "sweet dreams" before putting me to bed. I then understood that a dream was a puffy figure resembling the Hydrox guy but without limbs. The dream would emerge from between the wall and my crib at night while I slept. I remember staring at the wall until the mattress striping wallpaper would start to move and appear 3D. I also remember having complete fit and meltdown on my changing table. I think my babysitter Cate was changing me. This latest memory came to me recently as Liliana has been having meltdowns on the changing table. So this led me to wonder if she will remember any of this year ahead of her. The way she process things and plays with her toys is so intentional and purposeful that I am constantly wondering if she will remember any of it. Will she remember how the neighbors Karishma and Anjelie play with her on the blanket in front of our house? Will she remember the menagerie of cats cycling through our house? For me, the majority of my memories from childhood are spotty at best and that makes me sad. Life was chaotic and stressful for much of my growing up. I don't blame or fault anyone for this (anymore), it is just the way it was but I want Liliana to have a more stable, happy home life. Maybe this will help her remember all the fun we are having and will have for years to come.

Obsession

I officially crossed the line from being laid back and casual about trying for baby Kminek #2 to being obsessed. It happened so quickly and easily with Liliana that I think both Chris and I were a bit cocky in our attitude about conceiving again. I am kind of in denial right now as well. I am clearly not pregnant right now. All signs point to this. Example: pregnancy test says NOT PREGNANT (I don't know why I insist on buying the pricey digital tests that spell out the results instead of using the age old method of colored lines). When I was pregnant with Liliana the digitals were great. It said PREGNANT- oooooh exciting! I took probably 5 tests just to keep seeing the results and to have the now classic X-mas gift for my parents to announce the addition of their 5th grandchild. On the flip side, seeing those words NOT PREGNANT over and over is just plain rude. I don't stare at the stick. I read the results, process the information in nanoseconds, throw test away and move on to something else. I pretend it didn't happen. I pretend that I don't care, that I am confident the next time around we will conceive, that I know this is totally normal and it is nothing to be concerned about. Uggh, who am I kidding. Like I said before, I am now obsessed. Not only does the pregnancy test prove it, I am also spotting. But here is where I am driving myself crazy. This is what goes through my head: the spotting is probably implantation bleeding b/c my period isn't due for another 2 days (timing off so really this can't be right), the test was wrong, WRONG b/c I am testing before my missed period so I really should be testing first thing in the morning instead of middle of the day so I really could still be pregnant. Seriously, I am in denial. I need to move on, enjoy a glass of wine and a soup bowl size mug full of coffee (at the same time just to give those conception fairies the middle finger) and try again next month. No, I don't really believe in conception fairies. I am a scientific minded person after all which is part of my problem. I am over analyzing everything from my hormone levels to mucous consistency (sorry about that) to uterus position. I need to RELAX. Now I am afraid this stress is going to make it even harder. I am on a slippery slope dammit.

Change of gears, I heard this story this morning on NPR about lead in children's toys. It makes me so angry that we can't trust toy manufacturers to produce toys that our safe for our children!! We are talking brands like Baby Einstein and Disney. What the hell! Don't we have enough to worry about when trying to keep our babies safe? Liliana just got a crap load of new toys for her birthday and I have no idea if they could be potentially harmful or not. Maybe she has triple the amount of lead in her blood right now, it is affecting her brain and that is why she still isn't saying mama and dada. Crap. Click HERE for the story.

Middle Age Crazy

I am suddenly feeling a new sense of pressure with my blog. It was the simple act of adding my blog address to my signature for my personal e-mail that has led me to feel a sense of responsibility to update, inform and possibly even entertain an anonymous audience. I have enjoyed writing this blog and sharing Liliana's achievements with friends and family. Lately though I am feeling a bit bored with reporting milestone successes. However, as Liliana enters this whole new world on the other side of "1" I have a feeling there will be no shortage of material when it comes to funny or scary stories. BUT, I am also having this desire to explore deeper within myself and share more of my fears, thoughts and experiences. I know a lot of people think it is crazy to put those things out there into the nebulous universe of the blogosphere. It certainly isn't for everyone but it is what I want to do. Maybe this is my skydiving "40 style". I hope you stick with me and share my blog with others if you enjoy it. Sharing comments is also encouraged if you have words of wisdom, thoughts or even criticism. I want to use this as a platform to learn more about myself and others.
Thanks for reading...
Oh, and the birthday weekend was fantastic- Liliana is DA BOMB as far as I am concerned- best baby ever...