I Never Imagined It Would Be This Hard

My husband does not live in the country with us thanks to the wonderful immigration process we are currently going through.  In January I gave birth to our son, his first child, and while he was able to attend via Skype, unfortunately, he was not able to be with us in person to experience the joy of his son being brought into this world (although, he was just as ecstatic as I'm sure he would have been had he been there physically).  These past few months have proven to be a little more difficult than I had expected. 

For years I was a single mom to five children, so when we found out that he was not going to be able to be here at the beginning of our son's life, I was not afraid.  After all, I had raised five children on my own already.  How difficult could it be this time around?  Little did I know!

I miss my husband greatly... far more than I could ever express in words on a blog.  While I am so thankful for our son being able to have "communication" with his Papi through Skype, it still is not the same as it would be were he here with us.  It breaks my heart every time Baby D does something new and his Papi isn't getting to see it and experience it with us.  I try to keep in mind that this really is such a small fraction of Baby D's life and Papi will be able to make up for it eventually, but there are times, like this week, that thought doesn't give me much comfort.  I want to be with my husband.  I want Baby D to be with his papi.  I want my daughters to have that father figure they have grown to love and trust. 

During these grey periods, all I have to hold on to is my love I have for my husband and my family; and most importantly, the faith that I have in God that somehow, someway this whole situation is going to work out and we are going to be together again.  

Baby On Board!!

I have decided that I really need to get me one of the "Baby On Board signs for my soccer mom minivan.

Let me shed some light on why the parents who have these signs are the ones who drive the craziest... They do not have these signs to simply be cute, nor are they attempting to tell you to be cautious on the road while they are taking their "joyride" with their little bundle of joy.  No, they are telling you to stay out of their way and don't do anything stupid, like cut them off, while they are driving with their little one who has been screaming in their ear since they got in the car and every nerve in their body is about to explode!  

I know this now because Baby "D" absolutely despises his car seat and hates actually riding in the car that much more.  This really stinks since I spend so much time driving all the other kids around.  There are some days I'm in the van at least 3 hours, and that's living in a little town where nothing is more than fifteen minutes away.  

The other day I was just trying to get back to work after spending my entire lunch break driving and listening to him scream so much his voice was cracking, when this lady pulls out in front of me and begins driving at least 5 miles below the speed limit.  I honestly felt like ramming into the back of her car (not that I would actually do that, it was just a thought).  

If I actually had one of these "warnings" it would be more like this:

So, the next time you see a mommy, or daddy, driving with their little sign, see it for what it really is... a warning! 

I Have An Addiction

I had every intention of writing at least one blog a week.  I really need to tune up my writing skills anyways so one post a week wouldn't be all that bad, except the wonderful (yet oh so distracting) blogger giveaways was introduced to me. 

It started as just a fun thing to do here and there, until one day I received the email.  Yep, I actually won one of the giveaways.  I couldn't believe this... I had never won anything before... well, at least not in a really really long time.  This encouraged me to enter more giveaways, and the BAM! another email that I won again!  That was twice I actually was chosen in these giveaways.  Now most people would have then gone and tried their luck at the lotto, but I knew better than to start expecting too much.  So, I just started entering more and more of these things.  I even made an Excel list so I could keep up with them and be sure to go back daily to earn the additional entries.  Needless to say, this began to take up a lot of my time.  I also haven't won anything else.

I finally have reached the place where I can admit I have a problem and that's the first step, right?  I still enter some of the giveaways, but I no longer obsess over it.  If I come across something I wouldn't mind having I will complete the entries and then move on from there.  It would be nice to get that email saying "Congratulations, you have won!" but not at the expense of me sitting in front of a computer all day filling out rafflecopter forms.

Have you ever found yourself with a silly "addiction" that was distracting you from life... and no Pintrest doesn't count.