A New Take on Yankee Candles

Christmas break: "I'm going to relaunch my blog" January: "I'm going to pay for a second child by selling LuLaRoe" February: "I'm going to...lose 15 pounds, teach 43 kids how to read daily, keep up with all the paperwork/data being a teacher requires, run a successful side business, be a good wife, raise a toddler, feed the dog at least every other day, shave my legs once in a blue moon, relaunch my blog, and start saving for a second child by selling clothes everyday" April: "So, Rudy, I'm feeding you because I honestly can not tell you the last time I saw actual edible food in your bowl. Also, what's the calorie count in a container of Puffs? Because I'm pretty sure that's what I fed Luke for dinner tonight.

This is real life. I can't keep up with my surroundings, much less find the time to write about it.

For those of you who are new, WELCOME! I'm Kristin. I'm 30--something. One, maybe? I'm a 5th grade teacher, LuLaRoe retailer, wife of a police officer, and mama to a one-year-old. I started this blog over three years ago right after I experienced my first miscarriage. Fast forward three years and four miscarriages, I managed to blog my way through my entire In Vitro Fertilization journey in order to get the aforementioned Luke Peebles. All of my posts are archived, so feel free to backtrack and catch up. In a nutshell, it was mostly about my cookie, exaggerated whining, and general frustrations during gynecological visits. Good times. 

I'm currently seriously struggling with the decision to start the process for a second child. Being as I have zero fallopian tubes, the only way I can ever conceive and carry a baby is through IVF. Basically, unless Mike's sperm can re enact the ending to every action movie ever made and do some crazy, slow-motion jump from the end of my egg to my uterus, there's no way for it to happen for us until we fork over some ungodly amount of money for a doctor to hand deliver our frozen (and thawed!) embryo to my cozy, Yankee Candle "Home Sweet Home" smelling girly parts. It worked for Luke, obviously, so duh! of course his home of 39 weeks smelled appealing and not, uterusy. For so long I wanted three children so I could be surrounded by a huge family once they all had their own kids. Take into account the "Disney Theory", meaning, every Disney movie I watched as a kid had the main character's parents/parent die but it was okay, because they always had siblings around to help them make their dreams come true. Then take into account Belle, an only child, who lived a horrible life with a monster while her father was locked away and random dirty dishes kept her entertained so how stable was she, really? Scary thought. Anyway, I think about the future and don't want Luke to be alone to remember all of the weirdness that was his parents.

This has been weighing heavily on my mind recently, as we are in open enrollment for group insurance now. I carry myself and Luke, am also a fully-employed, tax-paying citizen, so of course my premium is jumping through the roof. Nothing, NOTH-ING grinds my gears more than going into my doctor's office and seeing/hearing so many other patients not having to pay a dime for whatever they need and me over there, sacrificing my monthly Clinique budget just to pay a copay. My oily, giant pores do not appreciate you, outrageous insurance companies! It's just not right. And to think by having a second child, everything is going to double. What kind of world are we living in?!

Here's what's new with me: TMJ aka, temporomandibular joint pain, aka, "my jaw hurts". (My life can be described as a series of abbreviations. "KTP BS IVF TMJ NBC CBS ESPN") Do you ever have weird dreams? Of course you do. Mine are usually about teeth. You may recall my 2010 blog mylovelybrokenface.blogspot.com that tells the tale of me having braces as an adult and living through jaw surgery. (Wait, so I have two blogs literally about me from one opening end to the other?! Yikes.) Ever since having both my upper and lower jaws broken and adjusted due to an underbite, I've worn my retainers at night like the quirky, 13-year-old adolescent I am. I dream all the time though about them moving, my teeth falling out, my jaws moving, etc. (When Googled--instead of asking my dentist like a regular person--I've found that it's my subconscious telling me I can't "sink my teeth into" a certain situation. How insightful, Dearest Google.

Over Spring Break, I woke up one morning and my jaws wouldn't budge. Like, I couldn't yawn, chew, yell. It was scary. Scary painful. Luckily, I had a dentist appointment (with a real live person) two days later and come to find out, it's TMJ pain from me clenching my teeth at night--all due to stress. I'd been having neck soreness (also due to stress) and apparently, it crept its way up my face. Nice. The solution? Muscle relaxers to take as needed and for every night.

One can simply say, while I can easily down any type of edible item that is classified as a carbohydrate in massive quantities, I can not hold onto the following things: alcohol, pain killers, and dignity when around any sort of male with any type of moderate attractiveness (i.e.-the Justin Timberlake calamity of 1998). The first time I took a pill, I slept on the sofa for two and a half hours and then moved to the bed to catch 12 more hours of uninterrupted Z's. The next day, I started to giggle 15 minutes post-pill (and didn't stop until 15 minutes before the next pill the next day) Two weeks later, I pop one and it's a sense of calm I haven't felt since Wendy's brought back the Taco Salad last summer (Can I get an 'amen'?). Somebody at work said recently, "you sure are smiling an awful lot" ...MAYBE BECAUSE, I CAN'T FEEL MY FACE WHEN I'M WITH YOU...is what I'm secretly singing off-key in my brain.

My jaw hurt is gone. I'm sleeping like a newborn baby who doesn't get woken up to be fed every 2 hours like they're supposed to be so instead the parents can sleep just a tad bit longer and oh well, who needs to eat that often anyway, I'm not raising a tubby. (Sorry-flashback to Day 4 of "Baby Peebles Comes Home") My neck pain is gone. I'm basically a delightful, grinny, blob of jelly bones sharing all that sunshine with whomever I come in contact with. For now, all the worries I have about "DO WE" or "DON'T WE" will have to take the back burner. I've fed the dog. Luke is functioning. The "lose 15 pounds" is going well; if you consider the "going well" part gaining two pounds. My kids at school can read and I'm selling clothes. Plus, I'm publishing this post. I'd say I'm pretty much nailing it.

Pack of Lies

I've been keeping a list this past year of all things, "mommy". Not so much things I've learned, but situations and opinions I have on so many things that are baby-related. Before I tackle that monstrosity, I'd like to talk about me for just a few minutes. Let's face it, it's after bedtime, I just finished washing 18 sippy cups after tearing the house apart looking for the remote AND the dog's half-full water bowl...one of which was behind the toilet and the other was in the back of the toddler-sized Batmobile's compartment in our living room...so why not focus on me for a change?

Side note: I hope the Batmobile is resistant to hydroplaning because it is currently in standing water.

My body has taken a toll in the last year. Not only did I give birth, but in the same week, I turned thirty. One of my best friends warned me that things were going to be downhill after that and no truer words have been spoken since. It's a wonder that I haven't woken Mike up every single morning because when I move to get out of bed, my bones popping literally sound like an amateur backyard firework show. 

I've actually lost about thirty-five pounds which is all the baby weight I gained. BUT, I really don't believe the fat has left my body. It's just shifted. I got a ton of new underwear for Christmas. It was on the top of my list because I refused to enter 2017 in Blanche Devereux's draws. I may sound like a Golden Girl when I wake up but I don't have to dress like one. Anyway, my underwear is really cute, but because of the new hips that have settled onto the outside of my body, they literally eat them when I sit down. I have to move side to side and awkwardly adjust moments after sitting because if not, I feel the lace in crevices that shouldn't even be allowed to be crevices. All the HIPPA paperwork at the OB's office should legally be changed to "HIPPO", because that's what you're signing your midsection away to look like, ladies. FOR-EV-ER. 

Moving on. Oh, my precious, glorious, breast-feeding boobs! Wherefore art thou? Somebody get Sherlock on the phone because I got a case for him. I'm left with nothing now but...remnants. No one would believe the cleavage I had around 5-week post-partum. I wanted to document them because I wasn't sure if they'd last so I took pictures. Purely scientific, non-sexting related pictures. I needed them to be able to look back and bask in the glory. Clearly, sixteen months later, I've accepted that twenty-five of my lost thirty-five pounds was boob fat. In addition to the Christmas panties, I asked for new bras because I was tired of all the extra padding getting in my way with my old ones. I was fitted and discovered I had gone from a 40-C (with my cups overflow-ething) to a 36 B. As in, A, BEEEEE, C, D. Yeah, THAT one. I asked for the super-padded, super-lifting, super-push-up. Basically a $50 boob job wrapped in a pink shopping bag. I opened the bag on Christmas morning, rushed to change into it, and suddenly realized that all the excitement was a pack of lies. There was no promised cleavage. As a matter of fact, I pulled a shoulder muscle (does that even exist?) trying to squeeze them together to even get them to touch. Get out of my face, Victoria, with your secrets, lies, and false advertisements!

I recently discovered that I'm related to gaming legends, Mario & Luigi. There can be no other explanation for the giant, black mustache that has taken over my face after giving birth. I didn't even accept this until my waxer had just finished with my brows and said, "Lip too, right?" Um, excuse me? Why would you need to do that? **Shows me my face in a mirror that was created for legally blind people** OH. That's why you suggested that. Because my body is rejecting that I'm a woman after the torture I put it through and is slowly turning me into a 50-year-old Italian man. I had my lip waxed. My face broke out into hive-like, red welts, FOR DAYS. So no more waxing. I just buy high-powered primer, concealer, foundation, and powder to keep that delightful accessory to myself. 

Aside from these things, and also that one time when I Googled, "Bosley Hair Replacement for Men" when I thought the hair I lost during pregnancy was never coming back, I'm trying to adjust to my new body. There's a fine line between feeling confident and feeling cocky about yourself and how I feel is currently toward the end of the spectrum fondly recognized as, "Okay-ish". Like so many of the other things I'm slowly adjusting myself to in my new mother role, how I feel about me is something that is taking a while to dig into. Much like my underwear digging into me at any given moment of movement.

My LuLa WHY

Can I just tell you about my kid for a second? We have a sectional sofa in the living room which is reeeeally hard to move. Luke has figured out that if you throw things in the little space between the wall and the sofa, it disappears and probably travels to the magical place in the dryer called "SOCK PLANET" or wherever it is that the 982,3749 bobby pins I've used since I was 16 are. He decided to unload his diapers in the little diaper caddy I have them in and drop them one by one behind the sofa. All the while, looking at me. He knows with every short "lift" of his arm, I get closer and closer to him because he knows what's coming. The arm lifts, the grin cracks his chubby little face, and BAM! he drops the diaper. I fuss, use the God-forsaken word "NO" about 18 times, and move him away. I go back to typing. I look, he's back on the sofa, standing, holding a diaper over the empty space. Again. The arm lifts, the grin cracks his chubby little face...I say, "Don't you EVEN THINK ABOUT IT"...and BAM! Down goes the diaper.

We've popped his rear, we've done time out. He's only one but he knows exactly what he's doing. All I can think is, "I WILL beat you one day, I WILL beat you one day". Then sounds a voice from across the room, the ever-present father who has watched the mother all but lose. her. shit. over a diaper drop...and it says, "YOU WANTED THIS!" And I can't utter a word--because he's SO right.

At what point does the urge to have another child kick in? We originally said we'd try for a second as soon as we could, preferably around Luke's birthday (September). But it's now...January. I've talked to sooo many parents about this. I've talked to the parents of only-children. I've talked to the parents of 2, 3, even 4 kids. Yet I'm so unsettled by it. The people I've mentioned to that 'I'm really happy with just one' have looked at me like I've grown a second head. They can't comprehend it. I'm all like, "before he turned into the 'I'm going to press every single button you ever THOUGHT about having' child, having one has been just delightful". I had an easy pregnancy. We transitioned from phase to phase in the first year with no problems and Luke is perfectly healthy.

Having gone months now with putting so much thought and discussion into this, Mike and I have boiled this down to two hangups. The first one is...nothing, and I mean NOTHING, hurt me as badly when I was going through miscarriage after miscarriage and then through IVF, as people who already had a child complaining about how difficult it was to have a second. For years, I just wanted one. Just one! To hear people publicly talking about their struggle for a second or third was pure torture. I could not fathom how they could be so selfish about the second when they already had what I craved for. Why couldn't they just be happy with what they had?! This is something I'm struggling with now...the fact that I'll be putting a ton of work into getting a second baby when I already have what I prayed for. And so many are still out there praying for a Luke. It sucks.

The second thing is...the money. Guys, IVF isn't hundreds. It's THOUSANDS. Plural. Lots of them. Granted, we've done the biggest part and most costly of the procedure, but in order to do it again, I'd have to pay for the embryo transfer, the medicines and shots I have to take a month in advance, plus all the doctors appointments and ultrasounds. Did I mention thousands?

If we were to base this decision on money alone, this wouldn't even be a discussion. Nada. HOWEVER. Don't tell me I can't do something. My fallopian tubes learned THAT lesson the hard way! I spent many months thinking about ways to pay for our 2nd round with IVF. There just isn't a way to come up with that kind of cash unless you're talking about loans or criminal activity. Since we are a family of cops and teachers, they frown upon that sort of thing. I wanted something that would continue to benefit us even if it worked and we had another successful pregnancy. Enter, LuLaRoe.

I am a full-time career type of girl. I have to work. It's just in my nature. And if it means I need to provide more for us, then I need to do something that will. Even if I have to work full-time after my full-time.

I've mentioned the hangups that are hanging us up but I haven't mentioned the one thing that takes precedence over all of the hangups. When the doctors combined my eggs with Mike's sperm, we made eleven embryos (aka potential babies). We transferred two the first time and got one baby. That means we have nine on ice. NINE. Some people barely make two. There is a reason why I have nine on ice and I feel like we owe it to Luke to see what becomes of them. I can't dwell on the embryos because they aren't here with me, but I can dwell on Luke. And I feel like two toddlers, standing on the back of a sofa, giving me shit-eating grins while dumping stuff behind the sofa into the abyss might just be worth it. This is my LuLaRoe "WHY".

Harriet Tubman Rootin'

Why, hello there, my long lost lovelies! Welcome to my new, clean, purrrty blog! This has been a project in the making over the last several months. Picking colors, fonts, graphics, GOOD LORD. Then it's time to pick your portrait...and let's be honest, I have about 723 pictures on my phone right now. 23 are probably of Rudy or Snapchat screenshots that I can use as blackmail in the future. 350 are probably of Luke, who is now ONE (or 15 months, if I'm feelin' pretentious. I mean, what's the socially appropriate time to stop using age in reference to months? IDK. Much like, I don't know ANYTHING when it comes to parenting, apparently.) The other 350 are selfies, probably 15 are of me in the same outfit, the others are probably the same picture in different variations of filters. Basically, my designer ended up saying, "Why don't I just make you a character??" And I was all like, "YASSSSSSSS".

So, here it is! She nailed my face. It's the face I make literally 5,000 times a day. Waiting for my class to be quiet. Waiting for my kid to stop throwing LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE OBJECT IN MY LIVING ROOM on the floor, only for me to pick it up and wait for him to do it all over again. Waiting for some Stouffer's meal to finish in the oven at 9:00 at night because I've pushed off dinner too late and realize I have to eat and I can probably scrape some leftovers out of it for the next two days for lunches. Going to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, only to realize Mike used all the toilet paper and instead of replenishing the roll, he took one out and sat it on TOP of the roll instead of going the extra mile and putting it ON the roll. Same face for all of these things. She nailed it.

For those that don't know, a new printed currency is going to be coming out in the next few years. There are a TON of historically famous women who will be printed on the back of 5 and 10 dollar bills. (Don't quote me on this; I read the Buzzfeed article, not the NY Times.) Harriet Tubman beat out the arrogant, cocky, bull-headed Andrew Jackson for the new face of the $20. However, how in the heck is she not rolling over in her grave about the pic they are going to use? The new face printed on millions of bills is Harriet, bless her heart, looking like the skinny version of Scarlett's Mammy. I mean, find a better picture, for God's sake. If she were living, I'm sure she texted in response to her mock-up with one emoji: the black girl face-palming.

I bet even Harriet's a little jealous of my artistic character right now. 

When I was a senior in high school, my parents went somewhere for a work conference and I borrowed my mom's brand new Ford Explorer to go rootin' before I had to go to work one day after school. HOLD ON! Yes, you are on the right blog and this IS Kristin. Did I know how to "root"? Hell no. Did I anticipate the filth involved in said act? Hell no. Was it an opportunity to socialize and gossip and get out of any sort of responsibility? Yes. It's exactly the dreams of every teenager. Well, back then it was. And I'm from the sticks so that's what people did.

It turned out to be absolutely disgusting. I was afraid for my life. The other drivers were maniacs. I was too 'old lady' for my own good, even back then. Anyway, I got stuck. For like, an hour. I'd go a few inches forward, then a few inches back. Boys came and took over the wheel and they couldn't get out either. I pondered how I was going to make it to work with time to go home and shower because there was mud in places on me that should NEVER have mud on them. Namely, my hands. I pondered how long I'd be grounded for destroying my mom's car. I pondered science. There had to be a scientific way for the force of the vehicle to push itself out of the mud. Too bad I was a wordy person instead of a sciency one.

For an hour that afternoon, I sat in the passenger seat of that car and went nowhere. Back and forth. Back and forth. Not accomplishing anything. I listened as some of the more experienced rooters strategized ways to get me out. Finally, I climbed to the driver's seat and just basically floored it with all my might until the truck jolted through the mud and busted out of the rut. It was exhilarating! I did it, all by myself!

I feel like I've been in that rut for sometime now. Back and forth. Back and forth. After Luke was born, I was buried under "new mom" responsibilities and had no time to breathe or do anything else besides work, come home from work to do more work, spend a little time with my kid, sleep, repeat. I'm not supposed to feel this way at 31. I shouldn't feel this way about a profession that I love at age 31. I have 18 more years before retirement and I don't want to be the Explorer, stuck in the mud like I have been. When the "higher ups" try to console us from NOT getting a raise, they always say, "well, you didn't go into teaching for the money"...and to some degree that's true. I just want to be all 'Anastasia Steele' for a minute and ask for more. I just want more for me and for my little family.

Which brings me to another topic we've been rolling around in the mud...the possibility of having another baby. I have soooo many thoughts on this, it isn't even funny anymore. Is it fair to him? Will I love another one as much as I love Luke? Can I handle more back poop? Does this mean all the work I've put into losing baby weight has been for nothing and I could've stayed fat? It's WAY worse than making the decision to have one in the first place. In a nutshell, a muddy nutshell, it all comes down to money. Seriously. I can't even tell you how many people have told me "you can't make that decision based on finances". Um, yes I can.

Luke is ridiculously, smelly, rotten, SPOILED. No other way to put it. I'm going to have to put him in the tobacco fields with no machinery in the summers to work just to keep him grounded. That's a reason in itself to have more, right? Because surely it will bring his little conceited head down a notch. No way I'll be able to spoil TWO of them when my insurance is going to double, bigger cars come around, doctor's bills, and lastly, the cost of IVF itself. Because let's not forget ladies and gentlemen, I can't get tipsy with Mike and bust out a pregnancy on Valentine's night like a real American.

These are my real-world problems right now. Which really, aren't really problems at all because when it comes down to it, I'm so happy and content (with most things) that I have no right to even utter an annoyance about these topics. But I'm doing it anyway because I wouldn't live up to my label as "human" and "woman" if I didn't stress over things I can't control.

Please join me as I take this year to drive my mama's Explorer out of the rut. It's time I put some "uumph" into the gas pedal and make my life a little more exciting. I hope you are buckled in for the ride and won't complain too much.

It will get muddy!

(Note to my mama: I again apologize. I'm driving my own vehicle this time, not yours. You're welcome.)