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?

Spring is so close!

Less than a week away to be precise.

The weather is warmer, things are starting to look green instead of grey, the sun is shining brighter and longer.

Jude helped me plant some Daisy & Sunflower seeds to put in his basket and they just started to sprout!

I couldn't resist the Oh, Gnome diaper cover from Gen-Y Diapers, it's adorable and perfect for getting into that happy, sunshiny mood.

As you can tell, we're super excited for Spring to come! I hope everyone else is too!

And, because Spring is so close, I'm on Spring Break this week! I took the one day that's in between my class days off of work so I can go down to Ohio to see Zak. Carly and Kaleb are coming with us as well, and it should be super-fun!

Simplification.

I've decided that life needs to be simpler. Less toys. Less stuff. More hands-on. More simple.
It's all because I've been looking into Waldorf education and lifestyles. I would like to teach at a Waldorf school I think. There are schools for Waldorf teachers so I'm no longer going to pursue education at Wayne State, instead, I'm taking a faster route by getting a BA in Liberal Arts with a major in Psychology (WSU doesn't have a plain Liberal Arts degree, it's silly) which will take me 4 more semesters, max. Four semesters. Sounds far more appealing than the four year minimum I was looking at with the school of education, plus if I went that route I'd most likely end up teaching in a public school, which is against everything I stand for. I can't stand the standard school system. It's all about teaching children to memorize facts long enough to pass a test. Intelligence and opportunity isn't based off a number, or it shouldn't be at least. I would also like to send Jude to a Waldorf school, or homeschool him with Waldorf methods.
Some people may think I'm crazy, but whatever, I'm going to do what I want to make myself happy and make my life pleasant.
I've been trying to work on simplifying our lives, it seems like it would be easier to do once I move out of this house into my own space. Once I have my own space to do what I want, how I want.
The first step is weeding out all of Jude's unnecessary toys. He has a lot of them. A lot that he doesn't even use. They make me cringe from the sheer abundance of them.
I'm not sure what the next step is, but it will be good and I'll know when it happens.

Hello, Weekend Off!

Well, I worked Friday night and Saturday morning, but I don't have anything to do until Tuesday morning!

• Saturday, one of my besties came up from Ohio to see me and Jude before heading home for Spring Break.
• We hung out with Jude and he loved playing with her.
• We went to the bar and had some jolly good times.
• Sunday, she was still here and went with me to get tattoo #4!

"UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better, it's not"
From "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss.

• We also went out for some OPA! and gyros. 
• Played with Jude some more, of course. 
• I love Kelsey and the best friend time I get to sometimes have with her. 
• Monday (tomorrow, the future!) I don't have to work so I'm going to hang out with Jude. We're going to go see "Gnomeo & Juliet" and it'll be his first time at the theatre so hopefully he'll behave. We'll go early when hopefully not many people will be there, just in case he is a menace. Who knows, maybe we'll do some shopping too. 

Something we like to do around here...

Painting!!

I cannot wait for it to no longer be winter. It seems Jude is even feeling stir-crazy and our in-house activities are fairly limited. I should take him to Jungle Java or something, but I don't want to go alone. Time to find some playdates! I think we're going to go to the library tomorrow before I work so I can read my picture books for class. That will be an adventure.

School started today.
I work. A lot.
I don't make enough tip-money on a daily basis, but at least I'm making money.
Jude can count. To 2.
We were at Target and they had Yo Gabba Gabba! underpants. He saw the Yo Gabba Gabba characters and started going "Yo! Yo! Yooo!" so I bought them for him. He was very happy and kept going "Yooo!" throughout the store. He's going to need them eventually anyway. :P
He was sick again at the end of last week. :( The flu and whatnot. It was messy, to say the least.
That's all I've got. I think. I'm not all that exciting.

The Grades Are In!

My semester has been over for a week and I finally got all my grades back. 

*drum roll*

B+ in History.

B+ in Chemistry (lab).

C in Macroeconomics (online). 

Go me! I'm pretty proud of them. I probably could have done better, but it was a good first semester back. I raised my GPA from a crappy 1.55 to a mediocre 1.90, which is splendid because I need to ultimately get it up to at least 2.50 in at least 2 more semesters. That's doable. 

Next semester I have U.S. Government online, Speech, Developmental Psychology, and Literature for Children. It should be pretty easy, I only have classes Tuesday's and Thursday's, and my friend Carly is in my Psych class. It will be a good semester. I'm hoping to get at least one A. 

It will be a super-busy semester too because I'll also be working 2 jobs. I'm waiting on Tony Sacco's to open, which should be in the next week hopefully. This week I've had to go in to help clean up and get things together. It's coming together nicely and I can't wait for it to open! Laurel Manor is... Laurel Manor. Banquet hall stuff... Meh.

Look forward to several fun posts about our Christmas excursions... as soon as I find my camera that disappeared off the face of the Earth. >.<

Post-Thanksgiving weekend

We had a busy weekend after Thanksgiving!
Friday
No crazy Black Friday fun-times. Just a trip out to Ferndale for lunch at the WAB and some Black Friday deals at No Pins Required. We picked up some bum cream, soap, holiday edition Rockin' Green detergent, and 3 diapers; a purple Fuzzibuns, a black Happy Heiny's and a robot Rump-a-rooz.

This print is so cute, it's the only reason I got the RaR, not going to lie.

The rest of the day was quite lazy and spent with catching up with laundry and fluffing it up since our dryer had been broken all week. Thanks to Ikea and our drying rack/hanging octopus thing! I also worked on my semi-top-secret Christmas crafts.

Octopus!

Saturday
My parents took Jude on errands for most of the day. I went to an open-interview for a new restaurant opening in a month. It went really well. They said they'd call within a week, so imagine my surprise when they called later that day and said they'd love to hire me! Luckily, I'll have time to finish up this semester without that added stress/time-eater. After that interview I napped and then Jude and I chilled, my dad & I went super-grocery shopping at Costco.

Sunday
My mum and I took Jude to get his Christmas portraits taken at JC Penney. He wasn't being very cooperative, until the very end and afterwards so they didn't all turn out as adorable as they normally do.

This was one of the few good ones, so naturally, we ordered a bunch of it!

We then continued on to Ikea for some Christmas presents for Jude and had some tasty meatballs for lunch.

This is his big present this year

Some things you may have learned from this post:
Jude is a punk. I have a real job starting next month. We love Ikea around here. I love cloth diapers.

So it goes...

Lists, lists are fun, right?
-Jude's walking! Like, all over the place and not just a few steps here and there! He does still crawl a lot.
-I'm putting my blog under construction until I can make it look snazzy.
-I'm oddly excited for the hectic holiday season. I won't be shopping for any Christmas presents at the mall and I'm hoping to make a decent chunk of them, especially Jude's stocking/stuffers. I need to figure out what to stuff his stocking with. I already have most of his other presents. Amazon & Ikea are my favorite for that.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's that whole recent boycott against Amazon because of "pedophile handbooks" but all the books referred to in anything about that are not a how to diddle little boys, so I choose to continue to use their awesome services. That's enough on that topic.
-Still no check. :| Seriously, State of Michigan, you suck.
-I have no school until next Monday! I'm so excited for this little break. Hopefully I'll be able to actually get stuff done. I should write myself a list so I don't forget things, or I'll just wing it.
-I saw some of my favorite people on Sunday. I went to Kelsey's potluck in BG and it was amazing! Everyone made excellent food (I slaved over pumpkin soup all day), and it was just an all around good time. I miss it down there, but then I remember how much I wouldn't have (Jude and my awesome new perspective on life that is credited to Jude) if I were still there.
-I don't have much else to say, really. not that I can think of at least. If I don't come back before Thanksgiving, have fun, be safe, and may the force be with you!

I feel like this blog isn't exciting enough...

Maybe that means my life isn't all that exciting?

I started working last weekend! I'm working at Laurel Manor, it's a banquet hall. I worked there in high school but had to quit when I left for college in Ohio. In high school I was a busser, now I'm wait staff, woot. It's really not all that more exciting, I get paid more than I used to, and I might get more hours, but it's mostly a weekend/night job, because that's when the majority of people have weddings/parties/excitingfuntimes.

I took Jude to story time at our local library for the first time today. He wasn't a complete punk like I half expected him to be. He was more interested at looking at all the other babies than he was in the stories/songs/dancing. It made me realize that he really does need more exposure to kids or else he's going to end up all socially awkward like me. On that note, I didn't have a huge panic attack like I usually do in most social situations. Hooray!

2 days ago was the 9th, which means 5 months post-op from the CVR!
2 days from now is the 13th, which means 1 year post-op from the skin tag removal!
So much happiness and excitement, and I know I say it like every time some sort of milestone and time passes from those surgeries, but he looks like a completely different baby now. Plus, his eye color changed dramatically, which I didn't really notice until I was making a sweet comparison scrapblog thing and had two pictures side by side. I then went through a lot of my pictures to try to pin point when it changed and the determination was some time around April.

I almost made a whole calendar of things like this. I still might, after I finished this one I made another one, for fun (and my computer desktop) because I have a cool kid who has a skeleton sweater for every year! He already has one for next year too.

Jude's Almost ONE!

That's right, in 2 and a half(ish) weeks Jude will be one! It's amazing how much personality he has and how much he has learned and grown over the past nearly a year.
He's still not walking or standing on his own, but that's groovy with me.
He's eating real people food. Often at meals he won't eat unless I feed him what I'm eating, which is really no big deal.

He has 7 teefers right now.
He stopped calling everything "Bubba" and now he calls everything "kitttty" except the t sound isn't fully there so it's more like "kiiii-ey." I think. I'll try to catch it on video and post it.

I have been working on things for his party. I started making a banner, I just need to go buy ribbon. My whale invitations turned out awesome. The whole family was invited and a handful of my friends. I think we're going to have a taco bar. Or pizza. I'm leaning towards taco bar. The cupcakes I'm going to make are going to look super cute. So is Jude's cake, I decided to do a regular shaped cake instead of a whale shaped cake, it takes less thought. I still need to figure out what to do for favors. My mum picked up some fish stuffed animals for them. I'll get some fish-like snacks and bubbles and who knows, I'm sure I'll find something. I'll probably put everything in buckets. Paint some names on said buckets. Or decoupage, just because decoupaging is fun.

And then there's the rest of my life... I put my cat down a few weeks ago. That was obviously sad, but it was for the best. I'm still unemployed and looking for a job. I want to leave this place and find something bigger and better for Jude and I because that's what we deserve. Chris still refuses to talk to me. I still haven't heard from the child support offices about a hearing.

We went to the cottage last weekend. I love it there. It's so peaceful. The weather was really nice, except for Sunday, but it was still a good, lazy day in the cottage. Jude LOVEDLOVEDLOVED the lake, even though it was pretty cold.
I have been reading a lot lately. I stormed through The Tao of Pooh in under 24 hours last week and plan to do the same with The Te of Piglet soon. I've also read a few other things, but those are the most exciting and noteworthy. Plus I highly recommend them. They explain Taoism through Winnie the Pooh (and vice versa). I read The Tao of Pooh as a kid when I was home schooled and learning about different religions and I understood it for the most part. Re-reading it now, it made even more sense and I was able to understand it better on a deeper level.

Summer!

So it's Father's Day. I thought it was last week so I already gave my dad his gift. It was a magnet picture frame with a picture of Jude in it and I painted a speech bubble that says "I love my Poppers!" onto the frame with the hand dandy paint pen I bought at Christmas time to make my mum's family tree ornament. I should change my name to Martha or Suzy, seriously. My Martha Stewart/Suzy-homemaker skillz have been insane lately. It especially shows when I host get-togethers with my friends. They keep telling me to relax and let them get their own beer refills, but I can't and I almost always beat them to it. My dad got me a Father's Day gift. He got me Zane Lamprey's Three Sheets book, so I can gain more useless alcohol knowledge I reckon haha. If you've never had the pleasure of watching this show, I highly suggest you do. They usually play re-runs on FLN all the time. A blurb about it on the website: "Embark on this international drinking tour with comedian Zane Lamprey who takes you around the world to master the local drinking customs." It helps that Zane is a total cutie, but that's aside from the point. Tonight after Jude goes to bed I'm going out to the bar to sing karaoke with Dan, Nicole, Jon, and a few other people apparently. I'm excited. I promise I'm not an alcoholic.

Tomorrow's the Summer Solstice. i wish I could have a bonfire to celebrate, but alas, my parents work and don't want people over late when they work. I tried to have one Friday, but it stormed literally when I was about to go outside to get it started. It was still a good night, we played Twister and just the trivia disc part Scene It! I was awful at Twister, but Jon kept getting in my way and knocking me over. At least I kicked ass in Scene It!, they accused me of cheating because it's my game, but I didn't, I just have that much useless movie knowledge. I love Summer. I feel so much happier. I can blog on the back patio in boxers and a tank-top with a face mask on while swell, upbeat tunes eminate from the speakers imitating rocks, right now it's my Summer playlist that's always being adjusted to suit my ear's tastes. I can paint my toe nails and drink iced coffee, I'm on my 2nd one, I make the best, better than Sturbucks. It's the time for wheat beers, served chilled with an orange slice, so delicious. And picnics and garage sales! There's nothing bad about summer, except for my tendency to fry in the sun. I also feel more confident in the summer. Jude is chilling out here with my sister and I, in plaid shorts and nothing else.

He's healing really well, almost all the swelling has gone down and he looks less caveman-like everyday. I haven't uploaded pictures in days and my webcam doesn't want to work so you'll have to see later. He's also getting really good at sleeping on his own. He'll go down around 9:30 after nursing, cry a little bit (like 3 minutes tops), then just fall asleep. He wakes up once, at a quarter to 3 usually, to nurse and then goes back down the same way and wakes up at 7.

Busy week

Where did I leave off last time? Ah, yes, a very incoherent rambling about nothing in particular. Let's do a real life update.

Wednesday, June 2:
- The dreaded paternity test... dun dun dunnnnnnnn. I tried not to be awkward arond Chris, I thought I did pretty well, but he was still awkward, but I reckon that's to be expected. He still won't have an adult convo with me, but whatevz. I'm sure he'll change his mind about that once he gets my lovely pre-recorded Maury "you ARE the father" message. The actual test itself was kind of gross. We go back into this dinky room in an office building and there are two "nurses." They asked the 3 of us to stand against the wall and snap a polaroid, in my head I was making jokes about it because I'm fairly certain it's the only "family" picture of the 3 of us that exists. Then, as the nurse was preparing to swab my mouth I asked if she would wash her hands before doing Jude's because of fear of him getting sick, surgery in a week, yaddayaddayadda. They both looked at me funny and said "We switch gloves between people." As she was saying this, the nurse that did me totally sniffled and wiped her hands on her pants after taking off her gloves. They then proceeded to tell me that the closest bathroom was on the other side of the building. I was like, "I don't care, please wash your hands." She did, it took her forever to go there and come back, the whole time I bit my tongue from complaining to the other nurse that was doing Chris about how they sit in this dinky room all day, swabbing mouths and all they do between people is switch gloves.  There wasn't even hand sanitizer in the room. I thought about calling human services or whoever and complaining, but then I got sidetracked by something shiny.

Friday, June 4: 
- Went out to the bar with Nicole, Jon (whom I met a few random times, years ago but this was the first time we actually hung out), and Mike that night because I was feeling cooped up and needed to surround myself with friends. Mission accomplished.

Saturday, June 5:
- Got lunch with my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. My grandma got Jude a Saint Jude necklace for surgery. All my little cousins kissed Jude's foot (so they wouldn't spread germs to him) and wished him luck on his surgery as we left.

Sunday, June 6:
- Went to see my sister march in the local parade with the fam.
- Hosted the most badass last minute BBQ-on-a-mostly-rainy-day ever. Jon, Nicole, Dan, and his girlfriend Amanda came over. I really overdid myself, I grilled wings (hot and bbq), butternut squash, and supremely delicious hamburgers. I also sliced a watermelon, Nicole brought chips, Jon brought beer, I had my dad pick up baked beans, soda, and potato salad. Good times were had, we played Scattegories, I almost won but got distracted by a screaming baby and a father who failed at diaper changing and lost in the last round. Everyone but Jon left and he helped me clean up and we hung out for a while. It was an excellent night.

Monday, June 7, today:
- Stressed over packing, it's still not done because Jude keeps getting in the way or whining. My mum's mom came over for a visit. Went on a hospital tour with my mum. I keep freaking out so bad that I almost puke. One full day left before surgery. The lady leading the tour thought I was the one having surgery because I left Jude with my dad and I look like I'm 16.
- Jude said "kitty" to the cat while I was gone. 

So the theme of the weekend was pretty much "surrounding myself with family and friends to distract myself from freaking out." It worked, but now that that stall technique is out of the way, I got nothing. I'll get through this, somehow, I know I will.

Tomorrow, my dad's taking Jude to the zoo while my mum, sister, and I get massages and lunch. RELAXATION... It will only last like 10 minutes though before I'm going crazy again.

Rain, rain go away

The birthday party planning is coming along swimmingly (tehe). Hopefully I'll have the invitations finished before Wednesday, that would be convenient and ideal. I lost my basket o stamps once again though. I don't know how this thing always goes missing but it does. I wanted to see if I have an invitation stamp or if I have to do it all by hand, which I have no problem with, I just thought a stamp would look nice. I actually made progress on the invitations today... by printing a fail whale stencil, making modifications to it, cutting it out, and tracing it onto 15 pieces of cardstock. It's a step. I made a mock-up a few days ago that's super cute, but in all the wrong colors.

I have a silent movie on in the background and each time I look up it gets stranger and stranger. "The Mysterious Island."  There are strange creatures with a battering ram undersea. I have no idea what's going on, I didn't even start it from the beginning.

It's storming, I hate storms, luckily the power didn't go out and it has mostly let up.

Jude is actually sleeping on his own right now! In his crib! Wooo! And when my parents get home from a graduation party I'm going to the bar to grab a drink with some friends! A girl needs a break... Jude has been restless today. He didn't sleep until midnight last night, woke up around 7-8, and then napped for only about 20 minutes total. Maybe this means that he'll sleep through the night and on his own? I doubt it, but it's nice to dream. So when I mentioned he was cutting a second tooth on the bottom... It's more like 3. He has the one on the top, and 3 on the bottom are working their way out and I think maybe another one or two on top. Just a few weeks ago he had none, now he's getting tons. That means as soon as we're back to semi-normal after his surgery I'll start him on meats (I refuse to give him the pureed meats, they gross me out) and more table foods! Yay!

My grandma's coming over tomorrow to give Jude a gift for his surgery. I love my grandma. My mum bought him a Rex (the T-Rex from "Toy Story") stuffy at Kohl's today. He's super cute. Jude was loving on the Lorax earlier too. He's so funny. OH! He pushed his walker-push toy... standing up! He only got one or two little steps, but it's still exciting even though I'm not ready for him to start walking anytime soon, he could hold off like 3 more months and that would be great.

I'm not sure this post had any real substance or point to it. Sometimes my brain just overflows and my fingers pour it out. I have to wash diapers. (Typing it out helps remind me so I don't forget :P)

Birthday Party brain vomit

Jude's turning one in 2 and a half months. I've been trying to figure out what to do for his birthday party. I've been googling themes and I keep finding great stuff. Like really awesome things and now I want his party to be perfect, I don't even believe in perfection, but his party has to be it. Just a warning, this post may or may not be coherent from a spectator's point of view, it's mostly to get my thoughts out of my brain so they don't get swallowed and lost in that vortex.
I definitely narrowed down the theme from several contenders to under the sea. I'm thinking for colors I want teals and blues and orange.
Maybe some greens for shiggles. Orange doesn't really belong below the sea perse but it looks really rad with teal. I figured it out! It's the fail whale's fault.

I'm debating between doing a tons-o-fish feel or narrowing it down to one main sea creature; either a whale or an octopus. The fail whale is mighty cute, but that might be sending the wrong message... Maybe I could use my master-genius to turn him into a not so fail whale just for Jude's party.
I definitely want to make most of the decorations and whatnot by hand.
- Banner. I have so much extra cardstock and scrapbook paper lying around.
- Cupcakes, because slicing cake at a party with my family is always a huge hassle. But, my grandma has been on an ice cream cake kick for everyone's birthday's this past year... and ice cream cake IS mighty tasty... NO. Cupcakes, and since my grandma loves me she'll probably bring an ice cream cake to the party for my birthday (a convenient 8 days after Jude's). Cupcake cake or individually decorated cupcakes? Cupcake toppers? Cake stand? I feel like I'm getting a little crazy, I never plan things this far in advance, I'm a very last minute, spontaneous person.
- Jude's cake needs to be adorable, and sea creature shaped.
- Invitations; do I make them on the computer and print them or do I work some paper magic like I did for my baby shower (which reminds me, Sydney's graduation announcements need finishing, good thing my parents aren't ready to mail them yet).
- Favors, to do or not to do? I'm leaning towards yes because everyone loves favors, and I have 10 freakin' little cousins for crying out loud, plus Jude's baby friends that come. That said, it really is going to be a small affair, just close family and friends but I have a lot of those.
- I'll leave the nom sitch up to someone else.
- Table decorations. Fishbowl ceneterpieces complete with real live fish that double as a party favor, anyone?
- Activities aren't really needed, he's only one and everyone can just enjoy everyone elses company, dammit.
-Oh, and of course, this will be as eco-friendly as possible. RRR, ftw.


In other, completely unrelated news:
- We went to the beach with Nicole, Carly & Kaleb on Thursday. My back is sunburnt and Jude wasn't digging the water but loved trying to eat the sand. I didn't take any pictures though.
- I'm pretty sure I have an ear infection, my ear has been hurting for days, and there was a pimple in there and it popped and it still hurts and my mastoid is swollen and PAIN OW OHMIGAWD. I'm pretty sure I'm going to urgent care after those hosers get home from the parade and I eat some lunch.
- Jude's cutting another tooth, this time on the bottom. Teething isn't as bad as I expected, he's just extra cranky and extra clingy. And he has a boogery nose.
- He plays the soooo big! game now. I tried to capture some video of my intelligent baby earlier but alas, my stupid video camera is dead even though it has hardly been used.
- I sneezed and Jude's toy cheered for me. I legit had something more important to put here but I can't remember, and yes, they do say I have A D somethi- can we have class outside?
- I like lists and I love lamp.

That is all. Have a wonderful long weekend! We're bbqing some ribs & chicken wings for dinner. omnomnomnom