breaking point.

I should say breaking point number 1. I know there will be more when Elias finally leaves for Afghanistan and it scares me that I am already feeling this way. When I started this blog, I told myself I was not going to use it as a venting outlet. I would try my hardest, even though some days I feel like I can't take anymore. The purpose of this blog was really meant to be a place for me to talk about Alexa and all the new things she is doing and of course a place for me to talk about everyday life as a military family. But right now I really do need it as an outlet.

Background: I am staying with my mom right now. She offered me to live here while Elias was gone. However, I've been having issues with her lately. She nags about every little thing and talks to me like I'm still a child. I think she forgot I became an adult when I moved away, got married, and had a child. She just acts like me living here is such an inconvenience to her, and she complains every time Alexa makes noise. I wish I could move out, but I really can't afford a place and we don't even have our furniture here. On one hand, I know we are living here rent-free but on the other hand I still feel like I should be treated with some respect, especially at THE toughest time of my life. Everything my mom does for me (like offered to pay for Alexa's party when I said I was just going to cancel and have a small one at home), she holds it over my head. Next time she offers to do something, I will turn her down without a second thought because she will just say "Well I did this and that for you" as an excuse for me to not have feelings and let her treat me like crap. I never ask anything of her-- everything I've taken from her has been an offer. Well I learned my lesson now, needless to say. If I'd have known I would be this stressed living here, I would've NEVER agreed to it.

And if you are reading this thinking there must be something wrong with me, some other side to the story... I promise, I am the easiest person to live with. I keep to myself, stay out of the way, and I go along with whatever she wants. I am the most backbone-less person sometimes and I really need to work on that. Allowing people to walk all over you can take a toll after a while.

Before I get into what happened today, here's a small example of what goes on. Yesterday I sat Alexa in her highchair for lunch and remembered there was something I wanted to mention to my mom, so I went by the spare room where she was sitting on the computer with the door open. I started telling her whatever it was (can't remember exactly, but doesn't matter) and she shooed me. out. Like a dog. "Shoo! Get out, I'm busy!" Hand motions and all. Ok I understand if she was busy but 1) I was not rude or intrusive in the way I approached her, 2) she could have closed the door, and 3) she was just rude about it.

Today, I put Alexa down for nap and went out to the living room like I always do while she puts herself to sleep. The conversation went something like this:

Mom: Oh, guess what I found today?
Me: What?
Mom: My old camera! (It had been lost for months and she bought a replacement a long time ago.)
Me: Oh really, where was it?
She goes on to tell me how it was shoved in the back of a drawer, behind socks, etc.
Mom: I'm glad I found it because it really takes better pictures and I like it a lot better than the new one.
Me: ....You could give me the other one. (obviously half-joking, not expecting her to actually give it to me but at the same time well-aware that it will just sit and collect dust)
Mom: Well... I might still want to use it some time. It has more megapixels.
Me: You just said the old one took better pictures.. why would you want to keep using it?
Mom: Well I don't know! You can't have it. I would sell it to you but you don't have any money. You can borrow it if you want.
Me: That's ok, I'll just use mine.
Mom: (as if I said something offensive) Why do you say that??
Me: Because I have my own camera and I don't like borrowing things. (My camera is a little on the old side but I'd rather keep using it than borrow a better camera that doesn't belong to me. She's super possessive about her stuff and I'd rather not go there.)
Mom: You're so spoiled!
Me: What?? How am I spoiled?
Mom: You just want me to GIVE it to you.
Me: No I don't... I really don't care. (I really don't.)
Mom: silent.
Me: Well if I'm spoiled, you're stingy. (I know it was childish of me to say, but it's true. She is stingy and I won't get into all that. But I am far from spoiled, as she knows.)
Mom: ME? Stingy? Don't even get me started on all the things I've done for you. Hmm, you're living here rent-free...
Me: You offered to have me stay here. I could've moved to North Carolina. I SHOULD have moved there if I knew you were gonna be like this.
Mom: You couldn't afford that.
Me: Well we would've found a way. Just because I don't pay rent doesn't mean I don't deserve respect.
Mom: And I am paying for the party too..
Me: I said I was going to cancel the reservation but you said "No, no, don't cancel it. I'll pay for it.."
Mom: Well you were already looking forward to it.
Me: Yeah I know but you're holding it over my head now. I should have just cancelled it and had it at home.
Mom: Well I'm not stingy.
Me: And I'm not spoiled. Barely making ends meet does not equal spoiled.

Anyway, that's pretty much the gist of the conversation. I really just wanted to come out and say "Give me a break!! My husband is deploying and I am going through a hard time!" I'm not one to ask for sympathy but I really don't think she gets it. I also wish I could have asked her to explain to me her definition of spoiled. Because if anything, she's the spoiled one. She has money, a house, a job, a husband that is home all the time.. they get to take nice vacations... I have none of those things. UGH.. Ok enough with the self pity.

Bottom line: I am already stressed enough as it is. This living situation is just adding to the stress so it's not working out at all.

Well I'm done, and my little smiler just woke up. I wish I could be more like her and just be happy simply being alive...

New blog! With pictures!

Yes, the exclamation points were necessary. I wanted to try and update the blog every night, but sometimes my mind is just blank and I feel like I have nothing new to say. And I don't want to be saying the same stuff over and over.. "Blah blah hubby's deploying and I miss him.. Blah blah Alexa's growing up so fast.. Blah blah boring life of a stay-at-home mom..."

So anyway, that's why I haven't updated in the past couple of days. It's just been the same ol' same ol'. I did finish a slideshow that I made for Alexa's first birthday. I'm not an expert at slideshow making but I think it came out pretty darn good. It's the make-you-cry kind of slideshow and I'm pretty proud of it. I put her first cries in there and eveything. We still have over a month until she turns one, but I was so anxious to do it. It's fine the way it is, but I left a little room in there just in case I take some cute pictures in the meantime and want to add them in. Plus, I wanted to make it in time for the hubby to be able to watch it. There are some really sweet daddy-daughter moments in there. I'm sure I will put it up on here some time. I just don't think I'm ready to share it with the world yet.

I do have pictures to share!

Here are some pictures from a little family bar-b-que we had while Elias was here. His aunt took them--she takes great pictures.

Alexa with her daddy :)

The whole family

So, who does Alexa look like?

Elias with his cousin and her little boy. He was born just two days after Alexa.


Us with Elias's dad

Can you tell someone was a little bit antsy? (I cropped my mom out because she didn't like herself this picture.)

And here's the "three generations" picture.

Good times! Can't wait until we have the WHOLE family (Elias included) back together again. :)

I said "11 months" out loud today

Oh my goodness. Nine days and Alexa will be ELEVEN months. (Lol, I just typed "ten" and had to backspace.. it is truly unreal.) Eleven as in, ONE month away from being a year old!!! I just want to squeeze my baby while she is still a baby because this time is just flying by and I feel like my baby is slipping away from me! Literally! Haha.. She doesn't let me snuggle her anymore. But really, I feel like she's such a big girl now.

May we take a little walk down memory lane?

I cry when I look at these ultrasound pictures. My little inside baby!

My little snuggle baby. I was 20-something weeks here. 22 I think?

I was 30 weeks here.. This one really gets me because you can really make out her face, and she still looks so much like this picture!

Me and my hugeness. Looking at this picture makes me glad I had a c-section. Not that she was really big (like we thought) but I am just a very small person!

My sweet little BooBear on the night she was born. This picture makes me want to rewind time just to go back and kiss and snuggle my tiny baby some more.

She was so little! Only a couple weeks old. The matching was a coincidence, I swear.

Here's Alexa at one month old. Who's that sexy guy? ;)

Two months old. I had to put her in the Jumperoo as soon as we put it together. She was too little, but I couldn't resist!

Three months. She loved having her talks with daddy after he was gone all day at work.

Alexa's first Halloween. She was four months.

Five months and sitting all by herself for the first time!

Six months. Look at my little cutie with Santa.

7 months. We had professional pictures made for Grandma's birthday.

Eight months.. First ponytail!

Nine months. At Laguna Beach right before we moved away from beautiful Southern California!

Ten months old and back in Houston.

And here's my girl now at almost eleven months....

People say kids grow fast and you hear that all the time, but man... You don't really know until you have kids of your own and time just flies by. I remember Alexa's birth like it was yesterday. Now I almost don't remember her being so tiny and I wish I could go back just for a moment and hold her seven-pound body against me. At almost eleven months now, she is her own person completely. She has the biggest personality of any baby her age that I've known, and I think I've known a lot! Before I know it, it will be this time next year and I'll be wondering what happened to the little crawling monster that she is now. I am trying my best to enjoy her at this age while I can, because I know it won't last.

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

-Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

This is me trying to stay positive about the deployment.

Thinking about the hubby's deployment just depresses the crap out of me.. and I am tired of being depressed. Though the negatives completely outweigh the measley positives, I can still think of what good will come out of this gosh darned deployment.

Here we go:

-Money. Lord knows we need it.

-It will be a great opportunity for Elias to move up and get promoted faster. It's stressful, but he is given a lot of authority and responsibility in this unit. He just got promoted to Staff Sergeant in November, so next is Gunnery Sergeant. Big boss man! I know he can do it.. He's very motivated.

-It's only a seven-month deployment. He would have been stuck doing a year if we'd stayed in California. Seven months is a long time to be away, especially when Alexa is growing so fast, but one year.. I couldn't imagine. He had a year deployment in Iraq (cut short) and six months in, they are required to take leave for two weeks to visit family and get their sanity back. That's only if they're doing 12 months. It's all great to be able to come home but the bad part is saying goodbye again, for another 6 months. Saying goodbye to him after those two weeks was THE hardest thing I've ever done. I just got him back and I had to let him go again. It may seem silly that I'm sort of glad he doesn't get to take leave, but I just remember how torn apart I was that day. Deployments are never easy, but that was just like a little cruel tease. Here, have the time of your life with your husband/significant other for two weeks then send him back overseas. Not fun at all.

-Just getting this deployment over with will be a relief. Going to Afghanistan at some point was pretty much inevitable, so at least we are getting it out of the way now. And like I said, it's only seven months as opposed to a year.

-My husband is in radio communications, so I'm hoping ::crossing fingers:: that will give him an advantage when it comes to being able to contact me while he's gone. He had internet and phone in Iraq, and even though Afghanistan is a whole different situation, hopefully he will still have some capabilities.

-I will miss next football season... what a shame.

-This is time that I get to spend back home. My mom and my friends are all here. I may not get to live here again until Elias retires which is at least 11 years from now.


And that's all I can think of for now. Even though all those good things added together and multiplied times a thousand could never be equal to the security of having him home, I still try to keep them in mind so that I remember with the hardships in life, there are also positives.

Almost every day I think about what life would be like if Elias had a "normal" job.. the kind where he worked 9-5, Monday through Friday, and came home to his family every evening and never had to worry about going into a warzone overseas. I am envious of wives who don't have to worry about their husbands in the way that I do. I hear/read wives' day-to-day complaints about their husbands and I think: How lucky you are that he is there for you to be arguing with. Elias can drive me nuts at times too when he's around, but in the big picture what really matters is that he's even there at all. What I wouldn't give to have a stupid little quarrel with him right now, in person. So if you are a non-military wife, just feel grateful in that your husband is able to be with you. You do not know how lucky you are.

Although it is far from easy, I am (and will continue to be) very proud and supportive of my husband.

Can't wait to see you again. ♥

How about a video today?

I got Alexa on video today. She started walking with her stroller! Maybe this means she'll be walking soon... And be sure to watch until the end when she gives dada a little shoutout. :)

We have a party theme!

Yay!

I had a couple of ideas for birthday party themes, but I wasn't sold on anything yet. Then as I was browsing on Etsy, I found this cute mermaid banner with graphics from this site and fell in love with the mermaids! So I have decided to make the decorations myself... a daunting task, but I think I can do it.

Here are the graphics:

I'm excited to make everything now. :)

Unpopular Opinion Thursday

I've decided that when I don't have anything on my mind to blog about, I'll just go along with the themed days of the week (Attention Whore Wednesday, Flame Free Friday Confession, etc). I would love to do a "Thankful Thursday" but half of what I'm thankful for (my hubby) is not here for me to enjoy, so it makes me a little sad and sentimental. Maybe next week when/if I'm in a "puppies and rainbows" kind of mood.

So, here's my unpopular opinion of the day: You cannot claim to be an animal lover and eat animals. It's one or the other. All animals were created equally; therefore it's no more justified to eat a cow than it is to eat a dog. And there you have the main reason why I quit eating meat.

As a sidenote, I don't judge people who eat meat and I certainly don't try to push my beliefs on them (I hate it when people do that so if I did, I'd be a hypocrite). I just think it makes zero sense to claim to love animals, and have a dead one right on your plate.

That is all. :) I will be back when I have something more interesting to write about.