Love and Marriage

A little background on my little family prior to my actual blog:

I met the man that is now my husband when I was 15 years old. I met him through my cousin one night on msn messenger and from that point on we talked every evening online until the one day he finally let down his guard and gave me his phone number. We continued casually talking on the phone and through msn messenger until one day when I was lounging around my house and my cousin gave me a call and told me that she had brought Shaunn over to meet me for the first time. I quickly darted downstairs to my room and threw on a less than modest shirt and some overalls. I did a quick check of the hair and make up and ran out to meet my mystery man. When all was said and done and they had driven off I called my cousin and told her "Autumn, I'm going to marry that man." She giggled and called me crazy and next month we will be celebrating our 9 year anniversary.

I am writing this particular blog because as life goes on and we find ourselves drudging through the day to day sometimes we forget to stop and take in all the wonderful things in our lives. I am blessed with a wonderful husband that while yes, he does have faults, is a damn good father and husband. I have taken him for granted in the past and even caused him deep wounds. Our marriage is like the tide, ever changing, sometimes it's calm and other times it's rough. Right now we are at a very good place in our marriage. I find myself at the end of the day awe struck at how great my life is.

My husband had a friend over tonight for a friendly game of pool and while sitting in the garage he said something that almost brought me to tears. He told his friend that I am amazing and that he appreciates how hard I work. Hearing him say this made my entire year. As a mother and wife my work does seem to go unnoticed and that is a tough pill to swallow because my work is constant. I find myself trying harder and harder to be the "perfect housewife" I want to be that wife that he can brag about taking care of him. I want him to never run out of clean clothes, have the clean house, and a wife that can cook him meals every night for dinner.

Kc has provided me with a great source of inspiration. I look up to her in so many ways. She has inspired me to work harder as a mother and wife. She never stops amazing me with how dedicated she is to her family. She puts so much love into everything she does and even though most of it goes unnoticed she still wakes up before the sun and does house chores, makes breakfast, wakes her husband up with hot coffee and a steaming shower, cleans all day, and makes her husband an amazing meal which she then has to clean up.

I don't believe in the perfect marriage. I don't believe that anyone can sustain a marriage without hardship and the occasional disagreement. I do however believe that if you love someone enough that even the hard stuff can be worked through. I am a quitter in most things in life but the one thing I will continue to fight for is my family and my marriage. The day I said I do, I meant it. I meant every word. I will stand by his side until death do we part. I will honor him in sickness and in health. He is my other half. We balance each other out with our differences and strengthen each other with our similarities.

Trust your spouse. Believe in the power of marriage and in God. All things are possible in faith and Christ. Take a time out to remember why you are with your spouse. Remember all the amazing things about them that brought you together in the first place. Having children and working full time definitely allows a gap to wedge between two people but as long as you find that place for just the two of you love can prevail. For Shaunn and I that place is in bed when our feet just magically find one another, or camping when we can relax and just take in the fresh air, or even on the couch snuggled together watching a good movie. It doesn't matter what that place for you is. Just make sure you take the time to find your spouse. :D

Good night and God bless!

The modern domestic goddes

This weekend has been full of exciting things. Friday night Breyauna started puking, just when I thought we had safely escaped this awefull stomache bug. I spent almost all day Saturday sleeping because I was so exhausted from being up all night with my very sick girl. Once I finally woke up I spent my day cleaning (as usual) and planning out the days meals (or what was left of the day anyways).

My husband was busy out in the garage with my brother putting upgrades on my brothers car while the children ran around the house randomly stopping to watch sprout on the television. After doing some laundry, clearing out some clutter, and doing 3 loads of dishes I finally sat down to decide on dinner. I decided to make one of my older recipe's that my family adores. It is this delectable stir fry with a special glaze to coat the meat and veggies.

I pulled dinner off beautifully and everyone was super happy with it. There is nothing more fullfilling than creating a nourashing meal for your family to enjoy. Once I was done cooking I did more dishes and let the kids run around until about 9pm when I carried them upstairs for bed. Then I grabbed my amazing book and laid down in the spare bedroom and enjoyed some quiet reading. I have decided that reading is my new escape. It captures my attention and takes me to another place outside of house cleaning, bill paying, kids, and over all stress.

Today has been pretty busy as well. I double mopped the floors downstairs, prepped and am currently cooking dinner, did laundry, washed dishes, cleaned up the house. My next project is completing the laundry, finishing what I hope will be my last load of laundry, cleaning my bathroom which by the way is a complete disaster, bathing my children, putting them to bed, and doing the final go round with straightening up the house. Oh what a very exciting life us SAHM's have.

Time to get to work! Hopefully Kc and I will have a date this week, I need my fix lol.

What a day!

I spent the night at my mother's house last night because I had to drive way out there to pick up pull ups anyways. My kids went to bed easily and I thought to myself "hmm...perfect opportunity for some good reading!". I sat on my mom's ultra cozy couch reading until about 3am when I finally realized that I had passed bedtime by about 3 hours. So I reluctantly put the book away and laid down to get some rest.



The "day" started with me waking up to a very yucky coughing sound. I sat up and looked around and noticed Natilee was wretching so I ran over to her and she puked all over my mom's air bed. While cleaning up my little sickling I noticed her entire onsie was brown. My daughter at some point during the night had an explosive diaper. At this point I threw my hands up in the air and said "bath time". One thing about me (on a side note) is I am a MAJOR germaphobe. I hate all things germy and especially the fluid exploding types.



At this point I'm carrying my baby away from my body dry heaving the entire way to the bathroom praying that none of it touches me lol. I tossed my little girl into the bath and got her nice and clean and then laid her down in her playpen. She continued throwing up for about 2 hours after that. When the throwing up subsided enough for us to catch some Z's I crashed hard. I had intended to throw Nati her 3rd birthday party this weekend but now it looks like it will be a private family function.



Now Natilee is feeling great and after yet another two days of dealing with Breyauna puking I can officially say I do not intend on having any more pukey children for at least the rest of the year. I have my puke stripes now and it's only fair that for the remainder of this year they stay healthy. Well now that I have finished this update it's time to do my weekend update :D.

Improvements and progress

So my last post was basically a vent about my life in general as a mother and wife. I must say over the past few weeks my life has improved quite a bit. I'll start with my marriage.

My husband Shaunn has always been a fairly selfish person. Recently however, he has really stepped up to the plate and been the husband I have wanted all my life. It's as if a magical light switch has flipped in his head and he gets it now. I started going to my mother's house to help her out on the weekends since my step dad is over seas and can't help her with the many daunting tasks she has on her 1/2 acre of land. I spend one or two nights at her house and return home on Sunday. This all started as a way to help her out and spend time with her and some how transformed into an amazing cure for our bland marriage. When I come home on Sunday there is this sort of renewed appreciation that him and I have for one another. We are happy to help each other out, happy to spend time together, and we remember why we are together in the first place.

I have no bitter feelings towards him at all any more. Two weeks ago I had so much resentment towards him for reasons I can't even explain and now all of that is gone. Every marriage is different and I can appreciate that spending time away from your spouse may not be good for you but for us this works. I think the longer you are with a person the harder it becomes to find new things to talk about, new ways to "spice" up your love life, and to appreciate what they bring to your family unit.

I can tell you with a shadow of a doubt that I am a lucky girl. My husband, despite his sometimes selfish behavior, is a very hard working man. He supports this family alone and ensures that we have the best life we possibly can under one persons salary. He is my crutch when I can't walk and my best friend for life.

My new project for this week is to find one thing everyday that I love about him and in some way without making it totally obvious, let him know what that is. I want him to know everyday how much I appreciate all he does for our family. I challenge other's to fight for what you have in your marriage. Something drew you to the person you are with and the day to day drag sometimes fogs up that reason. Divorce is not a word I use lightly. Divorce is a last resort and she be treated as such. Fight to find that common ground. Fight to find a way to make the pieces fit again. God bless and goodnight.
-Lainy

Falling apart

Seldom do mom's actually vent about how they really feel. I think for the most part we as mothers hide our real feelings of anger, frustration, betrayal, and over all feeling of being un appreciated.

Every day my husband goes to work at 4am. He drives 45 minutes to the other side of town and spends all day until 3pm working to support his family. He has always pushed through to make sure our family has everything we need. I am appreciative of all he does to make sure that we can continue to provide a home and food for our children. However when his day ends at 3pm from work everything ends.

I start my day at roughly 9am by waking up to my children usually fighting in their room over the baby monitor. I get up walk across the hall and let them out of their room. Frequently I am greated by my 4 year old smiling and clapping only to find that she has stripped her younger 3 year old sister of her diaper thus creating a massive mess of pee and poop. If that hasn't happened I get them dressed and we head downstairs. I make breakfast, clean it up and allow them to play. Throughout the day my children thrash my house and I walk behind them cleaning up. I make lunch clean them and my table up. Then I take them upstairs for nap time because by this time I'm ready to pull my hair out. Nap time doesn't actually consist of them sleeping although God knows that would be nice. Instead it often consists of my oldest tormenting her sister to death so that I end up running up and down the stairs 40 times. I try to do whatever cleaning that has either not been done or was destroyed at the hands of 2 toddlers while they are "napping". This usually lasts for about an hour and then they are aloud to come down. By this time my husband has arrived home and says hello, gives a hug and kiss, and plops down on the couch with his computer. He checks a couple things and then puts the computer away and lays around until bedtime. In the mean time I cook dinner and feed my family. Every now and again my husband will either cook dinner or collect the plates at the end of dinner and place them in the dishwasher. By this time it's bed time for my girls and I take them up and bathe them, dress them, administer medicine and bring them in their room. My husband comes up gives kisses and says good night and it's lights out for my girls. His night is over at this point. He heads upstairs and goes to bed. My night however has just begun. I have to clean the entire downstairs, clean upstairs, do whatever laundry that needs to be done, work on my math homework and hope to be in bed by 3am so that I can pry myself out of bed when my kids wake up.

Now, I do appreciate the fact that my husband attempts to make strides to help me. This has been a huge battle in our marrige and continues to be. Both of our daughters have a brain disease that renders them "developmentally disabled". I am exhausted. I try so hard to be this picture perfect mother but I'm failing. I feel like I have become a doormat for my family. My 4 year old does not listen to a word I say. No punishment has changed this. My 3 year old is relatively well behaved but has a clingy mommy issue. She is constantly attached to me and if I don't sit with her or have a hold of her in some way she lets out a wild screech that pierces my brain. By the end of my day I'm so drained emotionally and physically that it's all I can do to keep from sobbing hysterically. Sitting here writing this all I can think about is an escape. Just me alone on a beach somewhere far. No noise, no people, no stress just the beach, a towel and a cold beer.

Im so incredibly excited to start school, if for nothing more than an escape I am excited.

I'm bummed....

It's not fair!

About 2 years ago I believe one of the greatest men I have ever known was diagnosed with cancer. He was given 6 months to live and he has managed to fight it and is still here today. The path to now has been painfull and exhausting for this friend and it kills me. Today we recieved word that the time is drawing near and I find myself panicking inside. I knew this was coming but I'm a master at denial and I didn't want to acknowledge the idea of losing him.

This man is like no one I have ever met before. He is a friend to all and he looks after and takes care of those that he knows. He would give you the shirt off his back if it meant you would be warm. There have been so many times, too many to count, that Shaunn and I would be struggling with how to do different things and he would sit with us in his garage for hours discussing options.

The most important thing here is that he is the father I have NEVER had. He showed me what it would have been like to have a real dad that was around and cared about me. I'm pissed off. I'm angry that such an amazing person is being killed by such a disgusting thing. Why him? How is it fair that there are so many piece of shit people out there but a truely amazing individual ends up with the deadly cancer. I want to see him again so badly before he is gone but we have to wait for our tax return and pray that he makes it that long and that we can get a babysitter.

I know the argument could be he is going with God, but I'm selfish and I don't want him to go with God. I want him here to shoot the shit with us, here to see Josh and Nathan grow up, here to see Shaunn and I possibly have another baby and here to watch Breyauna and Natilee grow up. I hate how far away he is. We wanted to fly him here to show him the house we got and how we painted the garage sublime green just like he did in his and now it seems that we wont be able to do that.

I know I should be thankfull for the time we have had with Roger and I am but it's not enough. I am pissed that such an amazing person is being taken from us while there is plenty of garbage out in the world that could be taken instead......pain

And the meaning of family is.....

So the past month has been so hard. I'm dealing with some MAJOR family drama that has me in a constant state of major anxiety. I can't sleep I have non stop migrains...and I'm eating like I'm pregnant. The one good thing that has come of all of this is that my husband and I have united as a team. My cousin has decided that she wants to move back in with my grandmother. I have had her for over a year and now all the sudden we are no longer good enough. The pain I'm feeling is unlike anything I have ever experienced. I feel so betrayed. The fact that my grandmother the woman that couldn't handle this child and sent her away to live with me is going along with this makes me that much more disgusted. I have a hard time swallowing all of this. This child is being taught that whenever things get tough she can just run away and turn her back on her problems. Me being the psycho that I am I desperately hope she falls on her ass so that her and my grandmother get a taste of how I'm feeling. Ugh...