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Year Older Aqua Birthday Invitation

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I've been MIA...

My computer crashed and died a couple weeks ago. So very inconveniently, it was the weekend before finals started. It's running again now because I got a new hard drive thanks to it still being under warranty, but all my files are gone. My pictures and videos of Jude? All freakin' gone because I didn't have a chance to back them up recently enough before it crashed. So that's a pretty big bummer, but luckily, I have the ones that I shared on here and on facebook still.
Easter happened, it was filled with candy, family, and good times.

Jude's basket. His bunny was replaced by a chocolate one by his gran. Underneath the big green playsilk were some watercolor paints and a brush, sidewalk chalk, and shaky eggs.

He was so excited!

He loves his playsilks!

In other news; I bought a banjo, went to a Reverend Horton Heat concert (and hit up the merch table for a couple records), I only have one final left this Tuesday, so far my grades are fairly good (a B- & a B+), and I'm a psychology major.

Oh! And Happy Beltaine!

Have you heard?

About the newest household member? Kesey Comma Ken? He's been here a few weeks already, but I've been busy.

Toddler fingers get in the way.

This one makes me laugh. We tried to take a serious picture then the puppy stole Jude's cracker and my mum caught all the middle stuff on camera.

Finally, a good one that he posed for!

My UPS man has impeccable timing.

The delivery man came just in the nick of time when he delivered Jude's brand new rain boots! I was looking for a pair of shoes that I didn't mind him getting muddy in the mud-pit that is my back yard (thanks to the dogs) so we could go out and play.

Check out his rain boots!

Flowers have begun flowering in the backyard!

Giving the gnomie (his new favorite word/thing) kisses, or plotting with him.

Smelling the flowers, which smelled yucky (another new favorite word).

Springtime Egg Painting

I was walking around Michael's a couple weeks ago thinking to myself "what's a good springtime craft for Jude?" Then I saw a whole bunch of wooden eggs and bought 5 of them. I brought them home, painted them all white and decided to put 4 away for the future and let Jude do just one. It's our new tradition, every year he'll get to paint an egg. He had a blast doing it this year of course because he loves painting and getting messy.

p.s. Happy 100th post to me!

Kind of a Big Deal; A Confession of Sorts

"It's so great that you're back in school!"
"Good for you for going back to school after having a baby!"
I hear these things a lot. From all sorts of different people and they're usually accompanied by shocked, sympathetic faces. At first, I thought nothing of it and shrugged it off and said, yeah, it's no big deal. I'm starting to realize that it is.
Everyday I go to class I feel guilt ridden for leaving Jude at home. I sit in class and often wonder what Jude's doing instead of paying attention. I make plans in my head for all sorts of fun things I'd like to do with Jude when I have free-time, but then I get upset because I realize that I don't have this mysterious free-time to do all these things with him. It doesn't help that I secretly don't know what I want to accomplish out of going to school or what I want to do when I'm done.
Pre-Jude, I wanted to graduate and join the Peace Corps and change the world. I wanted to travel. I wanted to be a photographer for National Geographic or something epic. I wanted to be epic and do the things that come along with being an epic person. I wanted to be a nomad or gypsy of sorts and explore my world, I didn't want to stay in one place for too long.
Now, I send myself into several different identity crises because I don't know what to do with my life. I know I have to be a mom and I want to be the best mom that I can be. I still want to be epic, but in a slightly different way. Thanks to Jude, I strive to find more stability in my life for him. What would make me the happiest is making him the happiest. I feel like school cripples me in this aspect. It kills my time with him, it stresses me out to the point that when I'm with him I get irritated from trying to balance him and schoolwork, and it holds me back from doing things that I want to do such as making things and taking Jude to explore the world.
Maybe there's just some sort of secret balance that I haven't quite grasped yet, but even if there is it seems like it doesn't exist right now. Everyone encourages me to stay in school and finish, but I'm not entirely sure they know the pressure that I'm under. School just isn't my top priority right now, and who knows if it ever will be, but if I can't make it a priority and care more about it, then what's the point of forcing myself to do it?

Happy (belated) Spring!

We had a few nice days that we just had to take advantage of. Wish it would've stayed, but the past couple of days have been cold and icky again. 

As everyone knows, Spring started on Sunday. I'm pretty bummed that I didn't get to celebrate the Equinox with as much awesome celebrations as I wanted to thanks to work and picking up my parents from the airport. I had originally planned on giving Jude his basket on the Equinox, but I'm still waiting on a package o' playsilks from Etsy, need to craft some eggs, make some play dough, and buy a pair of shaky-eggs to add to his basket. It is going to be a most egg-cellent basket if I do say so myself. I was at the store with some friends and there were some pre-filled Easter baskets for like $10. I was shocked that you could get them that cheap, but then I looked at what was in them and it was just a bunch of crap. Plastic crap that will be broken/lost/forgotten about within a few days.

I was looking at Jude the other day and I noticed that his eye was swollen. I immediately asked everyone who had watched him in the 24 hours prior if he had hit it on something. They all insisted that he didn't, and the more I looked at it, the more I realized it looked rather similar to how he looked a few days after his surgery when his eyes were starting to open, but weren't quite there yet. He's over 9 months post-op but it looked like it was something to do with that.
I called the surgeon's office. The nurse wasn't in so I had to wait until Wednesday to hear back from her. I woke up Wednesday morning and it was even more swollen. I immediately called the office back and they set up an appointment with another doctor in the office to see him that afternoon, so I called off work. He said it just looked like he bumped it and asked me to come back Thursday afternoon. The nurse called after I had left the hospital and told me that there's the possibility that it could be from the plates they used to keep the suture open dissolving, she then reviewed the pictures the doctor took and told me to keep my Thursday appointment with his surgeon. So, we get to go all the way back out to Ann Arbor again this afternoon to try to figure out what this is. I have to miss an exam, but Jude and his health/wellbeing are billions times more important than school and I can make-up the exam. Hopefully it's nothing major. Part of me believes that, the other part of me that puts too much thought into things is panicking that he'll need another surgery.
No matter what, everything will all work out.