Hope

Through my life my only experience with pregnancy was with my mother and my sister. My mother had my brother when I was seven years old and so that bit of my experience is extremely limited to impressions of a growing belly and the wonder of a new baby. When my sister became pregnant in 2006 it was a whole new story. I was able to ask questions and see how things progressed but even then it was not the same as being pregnant myself. Finally in 2008 I became pregnant with my son Gunnar and started walking the long road of pregnancy. There were many things I was not prepared for and many things that I was and many things that I never imagined I would experience. Overall I was blessed with what my doctor called "a boringly perfect pregnancy", and when disaster stuck I was not at all prepared. I never even thought that something would go wrong.
In October 2009 I found out I was pregnant for the second time and in November 2009 I found out it was an ectopic pregnancy or a tubal pregnancy and was ordered by my doctor to take two shots of MTX (methotrexate) in both hips. Although I was aware at that point that it was not a viable pregnancy terminating it was the hardest thing I may have ever done. I remember sitting in the doctors office with tears running down my face trying to muster the strength to even stand up and walk out of the room. I felt utterly defeated, confused, and resentful. Why did this happen to me? Why after such a perfect first pregnancy was my second such a complete disaster? For months I was unable to look a pregnant woman in the face or feel real joy for their circumstances. It is a feeling that I have never quite been able to leave behind me. Still, I feel it a bit ever day.
In August 2011 I found out I was pregnant for the third time. After two and a half months of exhausting weekly blood tests, two ultrasounds, a viable heartbeat and baby picture...I miscarried in early October. "Again...this cannot be happening to me again!" was my only thought. With this loss came true despair and bitterness. It was all I could do to not feel real hate and anger when I saw a pregnant woman or a newborn baby. Now I just feel a deep gut wrenching sadness that I can hardly control. The kind that drives you to eat a whole bag of milk chocolate chips and cry until you cannot see and are gasping for breath. It has been two months and I sometimes find myself frozen in desolation with tears running down my face.
Recently a friend of mine has become pregnant for the second time. I am so completely happy for her and also ridiculously envious at the same time that it sometimes makes my head spin. I sat looking at the picture of the two pink lines and cried...and cried. It continues to be so hard for me to see any facebook posts, or blog updates, pictures of bellies, and pregnancy complaints. I feel like I die a bit every time I see them.
Still...I have hope. The anger and bitterness has faded to an exhausted memory, and I am now left with only the anguish and desolation. Everyday is still a struggle but I hope the struggle gives me strength. It is my wish that writing all this down and sharing it...facing it aloud will help with that struggle and give me hope. Hope to try and try again.

About a week ago recieved my VERY early Christmas present from my amazing husband and after I signed the pad with the UPS man and did a very energetic happy dance I started unpacking it and set it up in may craft room. I have since only tackled a few projects and played a bit with the stitches...I have not really done a whole lot. Truth is...I am a bit intimidated by this machine. It is about 3 times bigger then my Kenmore Mini Ultra which I have been sewing on for the last seven years and does just about anything and everything you can imagine. I was completely awed by it when I saw them demonstrating it in HSN (yes...we are occasional HSN watchers) and it looked super user friendly but now that it is unpacked...I am just a bit overwhelmed. What is a woman to do? I guess I am just gonna have to dive right in and see where it goes. Maybe I just need to find the right project to get me going...maybe that new coat pattern I bought with do the trick!

The Empire Strikes Back

After countless hours practicing his knocking on the door, saying trick-or-treat, and then thank you we left the house on our way out to collect as much candy as possible! We started out in one of the better neighborhoods in town with great expectations only to have them crushed when almost every house we visited ignored our knock on the door. I was a little peaked...ok, ok, honestly I was pretty pissed off over the whole situation. Really...you are gonna ignore your door on Halloween night with your cars sitting right out front in the drive when you live in one of the better neighborhoods in town? It made me miss my childhood when there were about 500 (or what seemed like 500) other kids out on the street walking from house to house and every house on the street had their door open, smiles one their faces, and bowls of candy in their hand ready for the hoard to arrive. Oh the good old days.

Despite the lack of show from the neighborhood he loved every minute of the experience and got as much candy as he could carry, but by far his favorite part of the night was growling at all the other little kids from behind his Darth Vader mask and getting bubble wrap from his Aunt April. He loves that bubble wrap...don't all kids?

Well...Happy Halloween!

Puddle Jumpers Pumpkin Patch Trip 2011

Gunnar had his first trip to the Pumpkin Patch this year with his preschool class and loved every minute of it! He had so much fun picking out his pumpkin that he can't wait to go back when daddy gets home this week!  Once we arrived I was almost completely unable to pry him away from the vintage tractor they had that was surrounded by straw bales and pumpkins for the kids to climb all over until it was time to take the hay ride! It was the favorite part of the whole trip for him. Before we set out on the hay ride we were give a general announcement detailing all the rules and a little word of caution to "watch out for the black widows". Needless to say I was a bit freaked out about that...I mean really?

Apparently my thumb is greener then I thought!

Besides all the weeds in the background you can see that all my squashes, pumpkins, and melons are doing great! My peppers are looking good and my tomatoes are on their way. I still don't have more than a handful of tomatoes on but they were like this last year also. I didn't get tomatoes until late in the year and they never really turned red. On the up side I had a lot of green tomatoes for frying I guess. I also got my first five yellow crook neck squashes out of the garden yesterday and Gunnar has been begging me to make them for dinner tonight. All in all I am super excited with they way the garden is turning out!

Fair 2011

It was time once again for the annual Malheur County Fair so Adam and I loaded Gun up in the car and headed for the fair grounds. We took Gun to see all the livestock and the pigs and horses (of course) were his favorites. While we were walking through all the stables for the horses we looked over to see Gun with his pants down in the middle of the isle going pee....yeah, pee. We were of course semi-mortified because we were in a public location but it is better then him peeing in his pants and really, we live in Vale so it wasn't that bad. After the livestock we sat down to eat something because I was not about to leave the fair with out getting a happy bowl, scone, and kettle corn...what kind of fair experience would that be without the basics? Then we ventured to the carnival where I was astounded to learn it cost three dollars per ride...OH MY GOD...and three dollars per carnival game. So we rode the two rides he was big enough to do and did the two carnival games that we could help him with. He left with a little teddy bear worth about 50 cents that actually cost us 6 dollars and memorable ride on the motorcycle merry-go-round. We left with these FABULOUS pictures which were completely worth the trip.  

Deja Vue...

Gunnar and Belli were having a great time eating the apricots out of Alycia's tree. In fact it was Gunnars first experience at climbing trees...it made me really nervous but he took it as one of his greatest accomplishments. I am sure this will not be the only tree that he climbs in his life. The tree that he is climbing is the same tree that Adam used to eat apricots out of when he was a little boy! How I love that some things never change. It is comforting some how...

The Stand Off

 When we went to Salem in June for my cousins graduation party we spent two days with my sister and her kids. I   learned two very important things about kids on that trip.

1.     All boys are rotten antagonists

2.     All girls are whiny drama queens

We took the kids outside to play in the backyard and Terrance had shown me her new princess bicycle she had gotten (I think for her birthday) and then they went to play on the swing set. The bicycle was quickly forgotten...that was until Gun when to go sit on it and Terrance noticed him. There was an immediate high piched screech and a standoff ensued. Gun stared at Terrance and all her theatrics provoking then when he could so finally I got up and just took the bike and put it away so neither of them could play on it. You would have thought that I ended both of their worlds. For the next five minutes (yeah, apparently that is all the time it takes to get over the end of the world) they both screamed and cried sand finally lost interest and started playing on the swings again. WOW! What a learning experience that was. 

Gunnar at 31 months

When I watch you while your sleeping it is in some ways hard to believe that you are only 31 months and in other ways hard to believe that you are already 31months. I sometimes catch myself getting frustrated with you because I expect you to act older then you are...I sometimes loose sight of the fact that you are still only 2 1/2. 

You are so independent that if I try to help you put your clothes on you get mad because you want to do it yourself. You want to pour your own glass of water, get into bed by yourself, wash your hands by yourself, cut up your food by yourself, and even mop the floor by yourself. While at the same time if you drop you cup while on the couch you want me to get it for you, you can't go too far without your red blanket, and baby Elmo is still a regular at bed time. You want to wear you Buzz Lightyear rain boots everywhere (even if it is 100 degrees outside) and can't go a day with out strawberries. Needless to say we always have a large supply of them in our fridge. You have recently learned to pee in the toilet (which I am very proud and happy for...except now my bathroom smells like pee, oh-well...it beats changing diapers) but outside is your favorite place to go. And not an hour goes by when you are not being the "bad red power ranger" running around kicking and screaming HI-AAA!  I often serve as your punching bag unless your father is home in which case I am happy to be put on the back burner for a while. You can say your ABC's, know your colors, can count to 20 and even know what the numbers look like. I am amazed every day at what you have learned and what you are able to do. 

You have the best and worst of both Adam and I. You are as stubborn as I am, and have the Tamez temper to follow. But you are smarter than I ever have been and stronger then your father. You are our wonder and our greatest achievement and we love you very much. 

Lets see if my thumb is green or black!

For my entire life I have been convinced that I have been cursed with a black thumb. It is particularly bad when both your mother and grandmother could just about grow anything (like a pineapple or an avocado in Ontario Oregon). I have literally not been able to grow anything for as long as I can remember. Well, actually last year I had some limited success with growing tomatoes and peppers, and I have also been able to keep a house plant barely alive for the last couple years. A major accomplishment given my track record. For that reason alone I have tended to shy away from having a lot of plants around because it means their certain death but lately I have had this weird itch to have some greenery around and I completely and utterly detest fake plants. So I have decided it is time to have a yard (for Gunnars sake if nothing else) and to plant some flowers and a garden. Here is the results after the first three weeks...I already have one plant facing eminent death. A house plant that I accidentally scorched when I watered it with hot water instead of cold water...ok, ok, ok, scalding water. Ooops.

My yard is doing great! The grass is coming up with some weeds but we can always weed and feed it. And as you can see, my garden is up and running. I have four tomato plants, four bell pepper plants, one jalapeno plant, some cantaloupe, honeydew, butternut squash, yellow squash, and pumpkins of course. We will see how we do in the next few months. Hopefully my luck is even better then it was last year. 

Bedtime Madness

Lately Gun has started this thoroughly infuriating and totally enduring routine. I sit him in his bed around 7:00 to start settling down and get ready for bedtime and watch part of a movie. I go in and out of the room getting him this and that, water, toys, blankets and books until I tell him that it is time to turn the movie off and then the world comes crashing down as we know it. He starts throwing a giant fit and I leave the room telling him to go to sleep and that I love him. Not a minute after I walk out of the room I hear a big thump and he comes crying out of the room saying:

"Gunnar fall...."(he flung himself out of his bed and onto the floor)

He is kinda dramatic a character trait only recently developed and more than mildly entertaining...especially when  he is throwing a giant fit because he wants a pickle but doesn't want you to get it out of the jar for him he wants to stick his entire grubby toddler hand in the jar and pick it out.

I go to him and pick him up and put him back in bed and comfort him and he says:

"Mommy lay with Gunnar and rub back..."(how can I resist that with his puppy dog look)

So I lay down with him for about fifteen minutes and rub his back and then he falls asleep. It has been going on like this for about a week. Tonight...I fell asleep with him. There really is nothing like being  mom and I wouldn't change a single thing about it. He makes my life special.

Christmas 2010

 Christmas this year was a WHOLE lot better then last year...Gunnar actually got the point! He loved everything and by the end started opening presents that weren't even his just to open them. It was such a joy to watch.

Dad bought him a Thomas the Tank Engine train set which you can see he loved.

Not as much as his vacuum though! Sheesshh.

Woody and Buzz made a definite appearance!

Our tree was beautiful...all red and gold, Gunnar had an amazing day, and the food was fabulous! A sure success in the Tamez home and a Christmas to never forget!