Getting friendly with the ex?

Sometimes it's strange to really think how much I've changed from that super-shy girl I was just a few years ago. I couldn't do small talk, I never had the courage to start up a conversation with a stranger, even with some friends I just didn't know what to say. 

Both working with the public and dating my ex got me a lot more comfortable with people, and with myself. 

To the point that I've been recently thinking of asking someone to get together. Not a romantic kind of getting together, but something that stems from that. 

My boyfriend's ex. 

I know that sounds a bit crazy. Who does that? I've met the girl twice in quick passing, both times a bit awkward, as to be expected. But one night, months ago before I ever met her, she knew I was without baby and asked boyfriend if I would want to go to a bar with her to see her boyfriend's band play. I said no, simply because I didn't just want to go out alone with a girl I never met. 

But she wanted to meet me, since I'd be around her daughter a lot. Completely understandable. 

While my friend situation is quite limited around here these days, I'm not looking to meet her in hopes of getting a new friend. If it happened, I wouldn't complain, but that isn't my intention. My intentions are to get to know the mother of the little girl who I see usually at least once a week. No matter their relationship, she's always going to play a role in boyfriend's life. Whether or not we become friends, I'd like for us to at least be 'friendly'. This isn't a case of 'keep your friends close, enemies closer'.

The thought only crossed my mind because she is moving within walking distance of where I live. I don't know if I'll ever go through with it. 

But it can happen, right? 

[ via: weheartit ]

The idea of 'taking things to another level'.

"A Life of Our Own" is a name a chose thinking of how it's finally me and my daughter by ourselves, starting a life on our own. Technically speaking, I wasn't even completely "alone" when I created this blog, as I'd already been dating boyfriend for a little while. But I still think of it as me and Chloe and our new adventure together. 

I like that he enjoys being a part of our little world. It's very early on, but I'd like to think that sooner rather than later he will have his own role in this 'life of our own'. 

This isn't the first time the idea of living together has been brought it - the first time was about a month and a half ago. Today was the first time it was discussed in a bit more detail. It feels right to be discussing it as something that may happen in the future. At this point there have been no signs whatsoever that this would be a bad idea, but at the same time a lot more thought will go into the idea before it ever happens. This time around there are not one, but two children that will be involved. 

But if I judge him just on these past four months we've spent together, he will be a great "roommate" and male role model for my baby girl. He told me if I ever had no money, he would never let my daughter go hungry. He's not scared to play with her, to hold her occasionally. He puts his own daughter first - no matter what. While he has his financial flaws (impulse iPhone shopping, anyone?), his daughter and his bills come first. 

And I think of the fun things - like my daughter growing up with his. Tucking in two little girls at night. Tea parties, movie nights, going to the park. Bunk beds. Hair pulling. All the joys of having some kind of dysfunctional family. (And if we ever had a child together we could have our own story of yours, mine and ours.)

I know I'm getting way ahead of myself here, and while moving in together may be somewhere in my semi-near future, marriage and family definitely is not and I'm not fooling myself and having great expectations. I'm just thinking of how it could possibly be someday. So far, he is the perfect kind of guy to think about having these things with. 

I'm in no rush to make living together into a reality, I'm a little scared actually, but it sure is fun to think about. 

Weekends are my favorite.

This Mommy stuff has its rough moments. 

Like today, for instance, when I got a tooth pulled, then had to go home to a really cranky daughter, along with having my own gum pains. I'm pretty sure it may still be her ears keeping her a little cranky, or maybe we were both having 'teething pain' together. Who knows, either way, being half frozen and half in pain is not fun to deal with when trying to food a baby who doesn't want to be fed. 

Or even like last night, which was more of a 'daddy moment'. I was visiting boyfriend and his daughter had a rough night where she woke up several time between when he put her to bed and when we went to bed. Our movie ended up taking about three hours to watch, after all the pausing. He kept apologizing like I didn't deal with the same thing from time to time. 

Still, she got us to bed late, and got us up bright and early, and even made a bit of noise in the middle of the night, just for long enough to wake me up. I'm not complaining though. She's a pretty adorable kid, and she'll cuddle with me more than my own baby. Sometimes it still scares me a little that I might be getting a tiny bit attached to someone else's baby, but I'd rather not think about what happens if someday down the road it doesn't work out between me and him. 

Our weekend was good, though. 

Mother was nice enough to watch the baby for the night Saturday and boyfriend came to town to meet me. We went to a party with his sister and some of their friends. It was at a huge empty house that some girl had just started renting. Four bedrooms, all completely empty but one. 

All pretty nice people. There's something so much fun about having a few drinks and getting to know all sorts of random people. And maybe fooling around with drunk boyfriend in a huge closet. 

Either way, it was a great time. Night like that are the perfect balance for all the other nights spent with my gorgeous girl, just sitting around the apartment. Not that I'm complaining about that either. 

Silent Sunday: Cranky Baby

Our first trip to the ER with baby girl

It's kind of funny that my last post was my birth story, because yesterday I went to visit the first newborn baby I've seen since my own daughter. It was my sister's friend's baby girl, named Hannah. She is a little over 8lbs but feels so much lighter. And I know light babies, since mine was only 5lbs 12oz. She has a bunch of hair and if I didn't have my own baby, I would've had bad baby fever after holding her. 

There's just something so amazing about a cuddly little newborn baby. Especially when my own baby is anything but cuddly any more. She's mommy's big girl and she'd rather be independent than cuddle with her mother. 

I had my first real parenting scare last night. 

We had baby girl up late after visiting baby Hannah, so she only got to bed around 10:45pm. She went to bed and fell asleep without a problem. We spend the night at Mom's place. I went to bed not too long after her, but she woke me up crying shortly after midnight. I scrambled to find the light, not used to sharing a room with Chloe, and especially not a pitch-dark room. It took me a few seconds to even remember where I was before I could grab my phone for light and grab her out of bed. 

She kept crying, even though she rarely full-out cries at all. I took her out of the room and Mom came over, thinking she somehow woke her up. But baby girl just kept crying and crying, and it wasn't her usual cry. After about 20 minutes of non-stop crying, we decided to take her to the ER, just in case. It was only a couple of minutes away. 

She continued crying the whole way to the hospital, then cried for the first 15 minutes we were there before she would start taking little breaks between crying. They got us in pretty quick, weighed her, checked her over. The only thing they could find was that her ears were a little red. By this time she had mostly given up on crying, so they gave her drops, Advil and we went home. 

She went back to bed without a fight, as she was exhausted and it was almost 2am. She was fine this morning, just a little cranky, and is now just finishing up an almost 3 hour nap. Little girl was tired. 

I'm glad it was nothing serious, but I don't look forward to my next baby scare at all.

Are you able to stay calm during situations like this? Or are you someone like me who gets a little shaky and wants to cry?

Baby Girl's Birth Story

I went to the theater with my friend, Sarah, and at 9:38pm on September 24th I started timing contractions. 15 minutes apart. Unlike the early AM of September 23rd, these ones didn't stop. At 2am I sent my mother the text telling her to come to town. She was here by three. B's mother came over too. The waiting game began. Finally, the contractions got worse, and we got to the hospital sometime around 8am. I stripped, got strapped in, and we did a lot more waiting. I believe I was dilated 4-5cm. I got zero drugs until eventually they gave me the gas machine. I was told to suck it in with deep breaths during contractions. That was fine and dandy at first. When the contractions got bad, it wasn't so easy to suck my breaths through a tube. I felt lightheaded, but the pain didn't hurt any less. 

When they examined me, they weren't 100% sure that the baby was facing down or not. Two nurses plus my doctor all took their turn checking, but finally had to bring in the ultrasound machine. Sure enough, babygirl had NOT turned. I suspected this all along. The bump at the top of my belly (her head) always felt the same. So I was going into surgery. I was a little relieved, but annoyed at the same time that they didn't discover this sooner, so I could've had a schedule section, and not had to deal with the contractions that were yet to come. 

Someone else was priority, so I lay in that bed for forever, it felt like. My contractions felt horrible, and were coming ever 2 minutes or so. Finally, at 7cm dilated, they threw me in a wheel chair and needled me up. Epidural = nothing compared to the pain of the contractions. And I would know - I was basically having a contraction the whole time they were doing it. 

Finally, the worse was over. I was nice and drugged up. My feet were getting tingly. They lay me down on the table and I didn't have to move again for hours. Between the medication and my nerves, my arms were shaking like I was trying to take flight. I was terrified I was going to bite my tongue off. 

They did their thing, quickly showed me my girl over the curtain then took her to clean her off. It was so nice just listening to her cry. 

She was born at 1:01 pm on September 25th. She weighed 5lbs 12oz. She was 18 inches long. 

Finally, they lay her on my chest and I could've stayed there and stared at her all day. But instead they took her away, and stuck me laying on a bed in recovery alone for over an hour. 

I only had a few thoughts, while all drugged up along in recovery. 

- I want to see my baby! 

- God I'm hungry

- I am so itchy

- Let me out of here! 

It seemed like forever, but they took me to my room, then they still had to fix me all up in bed. I just wanted the baby! And then I got her, and life was forever changed. 

This is the birth story of my now 8-month old little girl, as previously posted on my old blog. I felt it important enough to be reposted here. 

A Weekend with my Favorite People

[ via: weheartit ]

It's hard to get back into the swing of writing when I had been avoiding it for so long on my old blog.

The weekend was a good one. Baby girl was supposed to spend Saturday overnight with her father but his work schedule had her coming back to me just in time for bed. 

I made my first visit to the beach this year. It was pretty amazing. I wish I lived in a place where I could go to the beach year-round, but then I wonder if it would lose some of its excitement if I could go whenever I wanted. 

Anyhow, I got to spend time with my boy since he was off work early, just watching tv and doing nothing too exciting. As luck would have it, once we went to bed the baby decided it was time to wake up. She was being difficult and it took putting her back to bed once before she would actually get up and drink her bottle and go back to sleep. By that time waiting for me was a sleeping boyfriend. 

Seems like something I've seen in a movie before. 

Little girl of mine had to wake up again a few hours later, but at least this time had her bottle then went back to sleep until a decent waking hour. 

That didn't stop me from being kind of exhausted when I woke up. 

Still, her adorable face makes it a little easier, and waking up to boyfriend makes it that much better. 

Sometimes I still get caught completely off-guard by how great he is. Sometimes it just hits me to the point where I miss him as soon as I know he's about to walk out the door. It's kind of an amazing feeling. 

Silent Sunday: This is my Girl

8 months old

See more Silent Sunday posts.

Welcome to my blog!

Ohhh the introductory post. There's so much pressure to make this one a good one, since it's the only first post I'll ever make in this blog, but it will probably be pretty lame. 

For starters, this is a new blog but I'm not a new blogger. I was having some privacy issues and wanted to start fresh - a place where I can be a little more honest without having consequences for it in my real life.

I'm in my mid-twenties. The mother to a baby girl born September 2011.

I'm not married, but I am dating. Not my daughter's father, but an amazing guy who has a daughter of his own.

I love blogging and getting to know other bloggers. I love crafting, reading and writing. I love the beach, the park, going for walks. I love How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, and Big Brother. I have a huge celebrity crushes on Luke Bryan and John Corbett.

You will probably read about all of those things in here at some point or another. Since I'm a mother, you'll hear a lot about that too.

It's been a long time since I've truly opened up in a blog or journal, but I think I'm about ready to try it again. 

I hope maybe you'll decide to stick around.