The right thing

I think (or at least I hope) that every mother at some point in time has wondered if they were doing the right thing for their child. I've been having a hard time with a decision and I'm starting to wonder if it's the right one. I found a job at a daycare center and Olivia will be going too but she will be in a different class. This week I've been taking her for a few hours a day so she can be eased into this huge change. She has never been left with anyone besides family and usually not for more than a few hours. We left her overnight once with my mom but that was different, she was at home and comfortable in her surroundings. Yesterday I stayed with her in class and she whined from the time we got there, to the time we left. I don't really understand why she was so sad because I never left her side but she just wanted to cling to me. Today, she fell in the parking lot on the way in, she got scraped up pretty bad and that set the tone for the rest of the day. She was playing at first and I snuck out after about fifteen minutes. She was doing okay until they changed her diaper, then she started crying. She calmed down after a while but then I heard her screaming again, the teacher brought her to me and said that she just wouldn't calm down. I was hugging her and she was crying so much that she couldn't even catch her breath. That was so heart breaking for me to see. On the other hand, I really feel like this will be great for her in the long run. She will get to socialize with other kids and learn how to behave in a school setting. The problem is that she always has trouble starting a new routine, these next few weeks are going to be rough. My biggest concern is her lack of appetite. During snack time, she sat at the table with all the kids and she did so great! She really surprised me, she ate all of her food and didn't even cry when another little girl stole some. Unfortunately at lunch time, she didn't want to sit down. She had absolutely nothing to eat and wouldn't drink anything either. It really stresses me out because I'm worried about her regressing, it took me so long to get her to where she is. If she stops eating, I will feel like all the hard work was pointless and we will be back at square one. If she loses weight, her doctors are not going to be happy either. I honestly wish that I could be a stay at home mom but that's just not possible and there is nothing wrong with that. A lot of moms are in the same boat as me. I just want to fast forward to next month and not have to deal with this heart wrenching transition. I have a few irrational fears, like she is going to be mad at me for leaving her or that she is going to eventually like her teacher better than me. I love her so much and I am going to miss being with her 24/7. I know I sound like a psycho overprotective mom right now but it's so much harder than I thought it was going to be. So what is the "right thing"? There's really no answer for that, only time will tell. Parenting is all about trial and error, not every child is the same so you have to do what works for you and your family. I'm going to see how this goes but if she is really struggling, I have no problem rethinking my decision.

Three cats and a baby

We have three cats (Rooney, Peyton and Gabby). Before having Olivia, my cats were my babies. I was obsessed. Despite my allergies and feeling like death the first few weeks we got them, I still loved them. After having Olivia, my feelings have definitely changed. I still like the cats (sometimes) but they are more of an annoyance than anything. After having kids, pets are just so much harder to take care of. I can't speak about dogs because I don't have any but I assume they would be much harder since I specifically wanted cats so I didn't have to walk them or play with them 24/7. Also, I would have felt bad leaving a dog home alone for eight hours a day, cats don't seem to mind (I think they actually prefer it). Ever since I've been a stay at home mom, the cats stare at me like they are plotting my murder. I know this is going to sound mean but, finding a new home for the cats wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. However, my husband is dead set against that which I understand. Since he is against that, he takes all responsibility for them (feeding them, cleaning up after them and buying them litter and food). Unfortunately being home all day, the burden still falls on me more than I would like. The most annoying and disgusting thing is hairballs. If you have never seen a hairball, please Google the image, now go wash your eyes out with soap (and trust that it's much worse in person). Only one of our cats vomits hairballs up on a weekly basis but it is the most disgusting thing you will ever see. I rather clean up Olivia's diarrhea on a daily basis than clean up Rooney's hairballs once a week. Not only are they gross but they appear at the worst times! Always when I am trying to rush out the door because I'm late to Olivia's doctor appointment or play date. I'm thinking "yay! we are going to make it with one minute to spare!" and then I turn the corner into the kitchen and bam! A massive disgusting black hairball. Sometimes I debate just leaving it there (ugh too gross) but I can't. I have to clean it up while gagging the whole time. Here's a horror story for you.. one time one of the cats (not sure which one) threw up some undigested dry cat food. Before I realized it was there, I saw Olivia grab something and put it in her mouth. NOOOOOO. Yup. My child ate cat vomit. I quickly moved her and cleaned it up but it was too late. I kept giving her cookies and goldfish (crackers not real goldfish) to eat to get rid of the taste but she didn't even seem bothered by the taste. I can't help but cringe every time I think of it but she was completely unaffected. We keep the litter box in the basement (which is finished) but every time I go down there it smells terrible. I just hate the smell of cat litter, even mixed with air freshener it's just gross. Rooney and Peyton beat the crap out of each other a few times a day and it causes fur to fly everywhere, they usually do this in the carpeted areas of the house (thanks guys!) So I'll admit that I rarely vacuum, I hate vacuuming so Paul does it. Although I find it quite pointless because fifteen minutes later, cat fur is everywhere again. It amazes me how much Rooney sheds. We can make another five cats out of the fur he leaves around the house during the week. Another pain in the... is when they get in my way, I am constantly tripping over a cat. I swear they do it on purpose. They are always making me spill something. Olivia absolutely loves the cats, so much that I started calling her Elmira (the little girl from Tiny Toons who takes her affection for animals a little too far). She loves them so much she wants to squeeze them to death (literally). Her favorite word ever is "cat". Unfortunately her love is not reciprocated. In fact I'm pretty sure that the cats hate Olivia with a fiery passion. She likes to pull and bite their tails, attempt to rip out their fur and smack them on the head. This has led to a few scratches to the face. I try my best to teach her "nice" or keep them separated but it doesn't work all the time. They drive me insane (Jackson Galaxy, please come to our house!) Playing referee is getting old and cleaning up baby puke and poop is enough for me, I don't want to deal with an animals mess along with it. Here's a quick run down on how our cats have changed after Olivia was born.

Rooney in Olivia's high chair (eye roll) and making a creepy face on my lap.

Rooney before Olivia - The fur ball who loves to vomit. Our craziest cat. He used to be a wild, rough, active cat who was not much into cuddling. He was a bit of a bully to the other cats even though he is the smallest.

Rooney after Olivia - He is now an overly needy little mama's boy. The second (and that's not an exaggeration) I sit down on the couch, Rooney is on my lap. It's sweet sometimes but mostly very annoying because I don't want a cat on top of me 24/7. He also cries outside the door whenever we are in the bedroom. Super annoying. He is okay with Olivia and will usually just run away from her instead of trying to attack, I appreciate that. Sometimes when she is bugging him, he shoots me a look like "get this kid away from me or I'm drawing blood" So at least I can tell when he's thinking about it. So far no documented Rooney attacks, they have luckily all been avoided.

 Peyton trying to fit his fat butt into a box and jumping on the counter to avoid Liv.

Peyton before Olivia - My Favorite! 90% of the time you will find Peyton sleeping on the couch (the cushion is permanently saggy because of him). He really only gets up for food so the other 10% of his time is spent eating. He's our sweetest cat, he's so big (about 20lbs) but wouldn't hurt a fly. We always call him our gentle giant. He was in my lap a lot and loved affection from me but was always pretty lazy.

Peyton after Olivia - Still super lazy but a lot less affectionate and a little more mean. I thought he would do the best with Olivia but I was wrong. He's been the worst. He is the one who has given her a few scratches to the face. Although warranted because she bit his tail, he's still a jerk. However, he loves her when she's feeding him baby food off her fingers. We like to call Peyton "Lennie" now (Of Mice and Men) because we don't think he really means to hurt her, he's just a big dummy and doesn't know his own strength.

 Gabby laying in the living room (rare occasion) and staring out the window.

Gabby before Olivia - "Who?!" Yeah we have a girl cat but she hides in the basement for at least twenty two hours a day. She was a stray and taken away from her mother too early so she never learned social skills. She is so darn adorable but only lets me pet her every once in a while. She steers clear of Paul and Olivia at all costs.

Gabby after Olivia - Exactly the same except she comes upstairs even less than before (unless Paul and Liv are sleeping). At least she runs away from Olivia instead of attacking her but I'm pretty sure she's Liv's favorite cat. Probably because Liv barely sees her, she gets super excited every time she does but she ends up yelling in excitement and Gabby runs back downstairs within seconds.

Happy Mother's Day!

Today was a nice relaxing day (for the most part). Olivia did not want to take her nap, I knew if she didn't then she would be a beast at my parent's house. After an hour of jumping around in her crib she finally fell asleep but then she woke up an hour later, ugh. Luckily she wasn't too cranky for the rest of the day/night. We ate dinner and hung out for a while, it was a fun day. I still don't feel like Mother's Day is about me though, I always forget. I feel like it's all about my mom but obviously I'm a mom too. My mom got me a present (which she totally didn't have to do!) and that was really sweet. Paul got me some yummy chocolate covered strawberries (gigantic ones) and two very cute cards. I feel very lucky to have such an amazing mom, we love you so much! We also love our guardian angel Gina (my mother in law), we miss her everyday. I am so blessed to have a happy, beautiful, healthy and sweet little girl (most of the time), I am so proud to be her mom and I can't say that enough. I hope all of you had a great Mother's Day!

 My sister, nephews, mom, Olivia and me. 

All three of these kiddos are so dang adorable :)

Quick Q&A

So I've gotten a couple of questions in the past few weeks and I decided to do a quick Q&A, I wanted to take the time to answer these questions honestly.

Q.) How were you so strong?
A.) I get this question a lot, the truth is that most of the time.. I wasn't. I wasn't strong, I broke down many times. After I first found out, I went into the bathroom and cried my eyes out. I wondered why?! Why my child? (although I would never wish it on any child). What did I ever do in my life that was so bad to deserve this?! There is no answer to that. I will never know why it happened but it happened and I had to deal with it. People always say "I couldn't even imagine" or "I couldn't do it" Well of course nobody wants to imagine something horrible happening to their child but if it did, you would be able to handle it because that's all you can do. If I had the choice of letting her go into surgery that day or erasing everything and making her magically healthy so she didn't need surgery, I would have chose the latter. You just have to take it day by day (as cliche as that sounds) and some days hour by hour. It's okay to breakdown, it helps. My main goal was to be there for her and I was. I was with her every single day and night at that hospital.

Q.) Are you happy that she won't remember any of it?
A.) Yes, now I am. When people said "she won't remember this" while it was happening, it didn't make me feel any better. I knew she wouldn't remember it but it was happening at that time and she could feel pain, I hated that. I wanted to her to be comfortable and happy but that wasn't the case. I truly did wish that I could take her pain away, I wished it happened to me instead. When she is older, I will definitely tell her the whole story and make sure she knows how truly strong she is.

Q.) Did it affect your marriage?
A.) Yes, something so significant will definitely shake things up a bit. There were ups and downs but we got through them and I think it made our marriage stronger in the end. Everyone deals with emotions differently, my husband and I have two completely different ways. I won't say he was in denial but he was much more positive than I was. He didn't want to believe anything would have a bad outcome and he also was trying to be strong for me. I tried to prepare myself for the worst. I did try to be positive but at the same time, I didn't want to turn a blind eye. I wanted to make sure no stone was left unturned, that she was getting the care and help that she needed. Even if I was wrong about what I might have thought was wrong with her, I wouldn't take it back. I needed answers and even if my questions were way out there, I asked them anyway.

Q.) What helped you through?
A.) Normally I'm not a very emotional person, I rarely cry. I can honestly say that I cried more in that one month than I did my entire life. Crying really helped, I had to let it out or I would have gone crazy. A lot of things helped me through, not just one thing. My family and friends support was a huge help, so many people were praying for Olivia and a lot came to visit, sent gifts or just messaged me to say they were thinking of her. The hospital also had some counselors and I spoke to a few of them, they were really nice and very supportive. Even the hospital staff shared their stories about their own children, some of them went above and beyond to make sure Olivia was comfortable. I really think the biggest help was talking, about everything. Exactly what happened and what would happen, what might happen, what I had fears about, just anything I could think of. Also, having some time alone with Olivia gave me a chance to clear my head and just focus on how adorable and perfect she was to me. I would talk to her all the time even though she was usually sleeping. I would tell her about her room, her cats, her toys and books. I would tell her all the things we were gonna do once we got home and how much I loved her. I know she didn't understand me but it made me feel better.

Q.) Do you still worry about her heart?
A.) Of course, I always will. Every parent has worries, healthy child or not. I might be a little more paranoid just because of what happened but I try on most days to just enjoy my time with her. Worrying is usually pointless. I worried my whole pregnancy about what could go wrong and not one of my fears was about her heart. So all that worrying didn't help in any way. When I did find out about her heart, I dealt with it at that moment. My best advice is to try your best not to worry because things you worry about probably won't happen and things you don't worry about, might. There is no way of predicting tragedies. I almost lost my child and I would have never thought that could happen to me. "If you didn't bring her in, she would have died." -ER doctors exact words. I will never forget that because it echoed in my head, it was the scariest thing I've ever heard.

Thanks for the questions everyone. If you have any other questions, just comment below or email me at melissastensland@gmail.com and I will do another Q&A soon!

 The tattoo on my wrist has even more meaning to me now, she is strong.

The truth about being a stay at home mommy

I didn't exactly plan on staying home for a whole year (and counting) but since everything happened the way it did, it was best for me to be home with Liv. I remember while I was pregnant I would always say "It will be so great staying home for a few months! The house will be clean, dinner will be ready and that will be my job!" lol.. yeah. freaking. right! Don't get me wrong, it is great (most of the time) but it's much harder taking care of a baby than I ever could have anticipated, I also wasn't counting on health problems. Let me say this.. I had a job at the same place for eight years and I've only been a stay at home mom for one year, every single job I've ever had has been much easier than mommyhood. People think I sit home and watch TV all day.. not so much. If and when the TV is on, it's on Bubble Guppies or Dora the Explorer while I'm quickly trying to wash the dishes or start a load of laundry. Between feeding Liv (still a struggle), giving her a bath, changing diapers, playing with her, taking her to doctor appointments, playgroup, running errands and dealing with the cats.. I barely get a minute to breathe. It also seems like we always need to go to the store for something.. diapers, wipes, food, medicine, clothes. I try to stock up on stuff but it still runs out really quick. Having a baby is not cheap, especially with tons of medical bills piling up. It's safe to say that I am ALWAYS tired (actually an understatement). Olivia comes first so everything I do for myself is done while she naps. Lucky for me she still naps twice a day, I try to use every minute I can in the best way. For instance, I've been writing these posts while she sleeps and I'm on the treadmill (a little risky, hopefully I don't break an arm or leg). But it actually works out because the times goes by much faster. Some days really fly by and some days seem to drag on forever and I end up counting down the hours minutes to her bedtime like it's New Years Eve! I guess it's part of mommyhood to have those rough days. We all have them so I try not to feel guilty when I think to myself that Olivia is driving me crazy! The funny thing is, after she's sleeping for a few hours I start to miss her and I just wanna wake her up and play with her. That would be a terrible decision so I haven't actually done it yet. I had previously said she has three teeth coming through, well I was wrong, it's four.. all at once. That explains her very cranky night last night. Poor kid and poor me! Lol kidding but she did wake up around 3am and just would not go back to sleep. I tried feeding her and rocking her but it didn't work. I had to give her medicine (not my favorite thing to do) cause I could tell she was in pain. After that, twenty minutes later she finally went back to sleep. I couldn't though. I am always so jealous of those people (Paul & Olivia) that can lay down and fall asleep within minutes. It takes me at minimum half an hour to fall asleep and that's on a good day. Before I had Liv, nothing could wake me up. I even worried about it when I was pregnant "what if she's crying for hours and I don't wake up?!" but now if she even just rolls over in her crib, I spring out of bed like the house is on fire! So weird. It's still strange to me that I have a baby, I say this all the time but I still don't feel like an adult. That sounds silly since I'm married with a baby. But seriously.. I'm eating a poptart for dinner. I guess another reason would be the fact that in many situations.. I decide that I need to consult with my parents in order to make the right decision. When you're a kid, adults always say (and I remember this vividly) "enjoy being a kid, you don't have any responsibility!" and I would just be like "yeah yeah whatever old man" well they were right (surprise!) I totally miss having zero bills, getting mail used to be fun. Okay.. I've definitely gone off topic and I'm starting to ramble.. happy Tuesday!!