Randomness

My A.D.D. is kicking in full gear this morning, I probably need to be medicated for it but oh well!  Hence, the blog title is "Randomness", just my random A.D.D. musings!  Hope you are able to follow along.  :)

First off this morning I was thinking about invites.  I am planning Anna's first birthday party(yes, I love planning parties) and I am thinking about what size of party to have.  I do not want huge but yet I get to the case "Well, if I invite that person then I must invite that person" and so on and so on.  I get really tired of this.  Why can't I just invite who I want anymore?!  I thought about doing only family but then Anna has baby friends(bff of course right now is Cecilia) and I don't want to leave them out but doing so opens up the door.  People get their feelings hurt when they are not included in EVERYTHING!  This is stupid.  I'm sorry but I'm not responsible for your feelings.  I don't get invited to a lot of things but I don't whine about it.  Some people feel like they are somehow entitled to be invited to everything anyone does and guess what, they aren't.  I should be free to invite who I want without having to include those I don't want to.  Case in point, this past year for my birthday.  I just wanted a quiet intimate dinner witha few friends.  I did not want spend my birthday with everyone I know.  Somehow asking this was somehow wrong of me and people got mad that they were not invited.  IT WAS MY FRIGGIN BIRTHDAY!  Another example was right after Anna was born Dave and I just invited another couple over to the house to watch the LSU game.  Anna was colic and we could not have a  big rowdy crowd and her bedroom backs up to the den but others got their feelings hurt and were mad because we didn't invite them over.  CRAZY!  I'm sorry but my child is more important than other people's feelings, especially when those people are being selfish.  I feel like I shouldn't have to be guilted when I don't want to include everyone I know to every single thing I do.  So to summarize my thoughts this morning:  People need to get over themselves in feeling like they have the right to be invited to every single thing.  If I do not want to include everyone I know, that should be ok.  It isn't to be mean, it is to keep things simple and small.  Needless to say that if you don't get an invite to Anna's birthday party and get mad. .  . well, get over it and if you don't then call me not my husband!

The next of my A.D.D. thoughts this morning kind of tie into the previous.  You can see how my mind works.  There is a saying "Good fences make good neighbors".  This makes me think of boundaries and what is appropriate.  You must have boundaries in your life.  There are times I have to set boundaries with family, work and friends.  Some people do not understand the concept of appropriate boundaries and in this case the boundaries aren't clear and become enmeshed.  I guess because boundaries are a social work/therapy concept I am very aware of my boundaries with others.  Because some people do not have appropriate boundaries they do not have appropriate relationships with people.  Example:  a single male does not stay at a married female's house when the spouse is not home.  Even though the male and female are just friends and it may be innocent, it isn't appropriate.  It is a boundary that is enmeshed.  Some people are the epitomy of the saying "You give them an inch, they take a foot".  These people do not have boundaries so you must be the one to set them.  They tend to not like it but oh well.

 Life is changing and it is exciting.  Anna grows everyday and continues to amaze me.  She was giggling so much yesterday that it made me giggle.  She is so sweet and happy.  Makes me feel like I'm not screwing up too much as a mom!  I have never been happier in my life.  I have a wonderful loving husband and a beautiful, happy and healthy baby girl.  I don't mean to sound like I am bragging, I just wonder sometimes how I got so lucky!  God has really blessed me and I thank him for it everyday!

I am still working out  and boy has Blake been kicking my butt.  Last night's work out was brutal!  I feel like I am going to die during the work out but feel so good about myself afterwards.  I am struggling on getting my cardio on the days not working out.  Just seems like there are not enough hours in the day to do everything I need to do. 

I am contemplating something I swore I would never do and that sucks!  I hate being wrong!  I'm not ready to say yet what it is because I am still on the fence about it.  Boy is Dave going to make fun of me if I do decide that I am going to do it because I have made fun of it for years.  Stay posted.

Girls

I get tired of being friends with girls.  Why?  Because we are all so petty and mean at times.  It is like some natural instinct to want to tear another girl a part.  We are always competing against each other.  We talk bad about each other, we put each other down and we are just overall very immature.  I have tried to not be this way but I admit it is hard.  I just really get annoyed when people make comments about things that don't matter like what a child is wearing.  Who cares?  As long as a child is dressed appropriately for weather and circumstance, what is the big deal?!  I honestly do not care what my child wears to daycare.  She is going to daycare!  I am not going to put her in smocked clothing, what is the point?  Do the daycare workers care about what my child is wearing?  Nope!  Do the other babies go "OMG, look at what Anna's mom put her in?!"?  NO!  What matters to me is that my child is happy and healthy.  If someone doesn't like what my child is wearing, suck it!

I also get annoyed by girls that are ALWAYS putting someone down.  Get over yourself already!  Everyone has different style and just because it doesn't match your style doesn't make their style wrong.   I admit sometimes I see people (the Boardwalk is a perfect example) that I go "What the hell is she wearing?" or "Did she get dressed in the dark?" or "Does ____ think it is Halloween?" or "Geez, she looks like a hooker".  I just try to keep it to myself, sometimes I am not successful but I still try.  Being friends with someone especially means not saying these things behind their back.  It's just ugly.  Again, I have been guilty of talking bad about other girls behind their back but if it is someone I consider a friend, I try not to.  I have been trying to not engage when someone else is doing it but it is like a natural instinct and you sometimes just get caught up in it.   Sometimes I feel like I should be in 6th grade again when I am around certain girls.

I heard something the other day that I felt was so true: "Women dress for other women not for men".  Men don't care about what we are wearing, they probably would prefer we wear nothing at all!  When a woman is getting dressed she thinks about what other women she is going to see will be wearing and tries to look better.  The instant we see the other women we do a quick one-over of their outfit and then decide if we look better.  If we don't feel like we do, we immediately want to go change!  Any woman that states she does not do this is a big, fat liar.  So why do we do all this???  Simple, we are completely insane!  No, truth being we are all insecure.  Skinny, fat, tall, short we are all insecure about how we look.  We take this insecurity out on other women.  Somehow if we put others down about their looks, then we feel better and more secure about our looks.   I realized yesterday that there is a girl that always complements me but I always fail to compliment her.  I almost always like how she dresses but I never tell her.  I thought about why I do this and it dawned on me, I'm jealous and insecure!  Insanity I tell you!
So from now on, I said I am going to make a conscious effort to compliment this girl when I like something she is wearing.  Maybe as women, if we compliment each other more than putting each other down we might get somewhere!

Being a mother has really changed me, I look at things differently.  I think about how my actions are going to affect her.  I want Anna to always feel beautiful, to not worry about other girls, to not put another girl down because she is feeling insecure or jealous, to not compare herself to other girls.  Mostly I want Anna to just be a nice person who accepts others for who they are.  I want to give Anna the best of everything in life but I still want her to be humble.  I feel like children learn from example so I am trying to be that example for her.  It isn't easy, but I'm trying.

Anna's First Easter

My Gram, who is my stepfather's mother has been in poor health recently.  Every year we attend church with Gram in Natchitoches and then have Easter lunch at her house.  It was especially important to me that we spend Easter with Gram this year again since she has been feeling so rotten lately.  This was Anna's first Easter and it was a great one!  She sat in church with us and did excellent.  She kept staring at the lady beside me but other than that she was an angel!  We went to Gram's house for Easter lunch and then hunted Easter eggs.  Anna did not like being on the grass at all!  She's a little diva!  After Gram's we traveled back to Shreveport and had Easter dinner with Dave's family.  Anna was so worn out but she had a terrific first Easter!

Love and Marriage

I have the Bundy TV show theme song stuck in my head as I am writing this blog hence the title.  People watch these romantic comedy movies and think that love is so easy and of course you live happily ever after.  Well, the truth of it is that love is easy but marriage is not.  Marriage takes a lot of hard work.  There are days where you can't stand the way your spouse is breathing.  You look at your spouse and think, "Why the heck did I marry you?".  You always love your spouse but there are days you don't like them too much.  I think this is absolutely normal but it is the stuff no one talks about.  The people who say their marriage is perfect and that they never fight are big, fat liars.  Somehow it is shameful to admit that there are days you struggle in your marriage and I just think "Hey let's be honest".

Since having Anna, my marriage has been on a roller coaster.  Dave and I have been so focused on taking care of this little person and trying to be the best parents possible that until now we stopped working on our marriage.  There have been days where we have been like "Ok, let's call it quits".  Marriage is hard but having a baby is even harder.  You both start feeling unappreciated by the other and start resenting each other.  I got very concerned that basically Dave and I weren't going to make it in our marriage.  The analytical social worker I am started researching and found that the majority of couples report dissatisfaction with their marriage after having a baby.  Because no one I know who had a baby every talked about it, I thought Dave and I were doomed to get a divorce.  Turns out WE'RE NORMAL!!  Life after baby is hard on your marriage and it is normal to fight more.  You are so busy taking care of baby and the extra chores that come along from having baby that you stop taking care of each other.

Anna was colic when she was born and for the first 3 months I was just trying to stay sane.  Sleep deprivation combined with nonstop screaming really does a number on your nerves.  The last thing I cared about was my marriage.  I just wanted sleep and a happy baby.  After Anna was 3 months old and not colic anymore, Dave and I were just stuck in a routine of caring for Anna.  A couple of weeks ago Dave and I both decided that we need to focus more on our marriage rather than focusing so much on being just parents.  We went to Vegas for our 3rd anniversary and have been taking date nights where it is just the two of us.  It is nice to be able to eat a meal together and actually talk.  After having baby, it is like you need to date again.  Our goal now is to have a date at least every 2 weeks.  We realize that we have a great marriage but for the past 8 months it has just been neglected and we can't do that.  To be great parents we have to first be a great couple.