I spent the weekend not talking to Mark. I discussed things to do with the baby in a curt, businesslike manner. Other than that I had nothing to say. He'd try to start conversations and I'd ignore him unless it was to do with Matthew.

We talked some of it out late Sunday night, and more on Monday. This is it. Last time. I told him if he lied to me again I'd leave and he'd never find me.

Last night I told him that while I don't really mean that, that I'd never keep him away from Matthew, if he lied to me again, even about something stupid, I really will leave him.

And I mean it.

I want my friend back. I want my perfect marriage back. I want our biggest argument to be about me leaving wet towels on the bed or about him leaving socks on the floor.

Does the fact that we now have a baby together mean I have to settle for a marriage that's not everything it used to be?

I can't figure out how this happened. I don't know how much has to do with the changes a new baby brings, how much has to do with going broke and losing everything, and how much would have just happened anyway; the inevietable (?) breakdown of an eight year old marriage.

I'm tired of thinking about this stuff. Last year this time I was happily pregnant, done all my Christmas shopping AND wrapping, and worrying over final exams. I feel like I've aged a hundred years since then. I don't even know who that girl was anymore.

But I sure do miss her.

The hits just keep on comin'

The lies continue... I found out about another stupid, completely inconsequential lie that sent me reeling once again. I don't know why he keeps doing this. Lying about stupid crap that undermines the trust I'm working so hard to rebuild. I really think I'm to the point where I've got to stop caring about him, about what he's doing, about our marriage. Because caring is screwing me up. It's taking me off my game, making it a thousand times more difficult to be good to Matthew and good to myself.

I refuse to feel stuck with him.

He can go make his money and spend it however he likes.

I really will go get a job. It will break my heart to put Matthew in daycare, but I'll do it if I have to.

I can't be married to someone who lies, even about stupid little things.

Lying about stupid little things leads to lying about big things.

If he's not lying about those already.

I am a good wife. He's putting up this distance in our marriage.

I'm sad and angry about it.

And now I feel like a complete idiot for ever feeling happy the other day for shopping at Sephora.

I must be an idiot.

I don't know what to do.

I have to take care of Matthew. That's my first and most important priority.

He can either grow some balls and stop lying or he can go scratch.

Does the fact that I feel this way mean I don't love him anymore?

Because I really don't know if I do.

Merry Christmas. Ugh.

Nothing like expensive beauty products to make a girl feel good...

Last night we went out to do some Christmas shopping. This is an activity that needs to be done in several trips, as we're shopping for six kids (5 girls!), as well as various nieces, nephews and other assorted relatives. Mark kept getting pissed at the cost of sweaters in American Eagle, and he about lost it in Hollister (actually, I almost lost it too... that store sucks! It's dark, it's noisy, and I'm convinced they keep it that way so you don't notice the cheap quality of their overpriced crap!)

Why is it that a 14 year old girl wants needs a $90 sweatshirt? I don't get it. Especially when the small pockets of the same sweatshirt in a different color were the cause of a lost ipod last week at the park... No wonder we're broke.

Anyway, I had mentioned to Mark the other day that, at 36 years old, it's really not good for me to be washing my face with Dial Antibacterial soap. But, since we went broke I've had no money for expensive good face washing/toning/moisturizing products. It's been Dial soap for months, and it's starting to take a toll on my skin (the winter air and stress are probably not helping either).

We were walking by Sephora, and Mark suggested we go in to get some decent face washing stuff. I warned him it could be expensive, but he insisted...

Holy crap! As soon as I walked in the door I started to feel pretty again! Aisle after aisle, row after row of sparkly, good smelling things all meant to make me look younger, fresher, brighter, prettier! I didn't know where to start! I wanted to try everything, buy everything... I wanted to take everything in the store home just so I could look at it all day!

I ended up getting a Nars lipstick that I'd had before and loved! I got a Philosophy exfoliating cleanser which I love! love! love! And I got a set of small bottles of Clarins facial cleanser, day lotion, night lotion, serum and eye cream... all of which I love! love! love!

I had so much fun smelling things, trying things, and just soaking in the good clean prettiness of the store! When we left the store I actually hugged my Sephora bag and made Mark laugh. He said seeing me hug the bag was definitely worth the $85 dollars we spent in there.

I think the fact that I felt human like a human girl again made it more than worth it.

I had intended to post about the things I'm angry about in an attempt to examine and then be able to let go of them. But now I think that spending that much time focused on things that are "wrong", or at least that I perceive as wrong may be just a waste of time. There's not much to examine other than to know that I'm pissed about not being in school anymore, losing our home, being left alone with the baby all the time, feeling left out, feeling ugly, feeling unappreciated. That's pretty much it. To spend any more time on it would be a waste.

Mark and I have been fighting all the time. I'm really being shitty, but I just feel like I can't help it. I feel so resentful that he gets to do whatever he wants whenever he wants and I have to ask if he has time to watch the baby just so I can shower. He sets his own hours at work, while I feel constantly "on call" day and night. Even when he does cover the baby so I can sit in the tub for 20 minutes, he's knocking at the bathroom door at least twice with questions about when the baby was last changed or fed or whatever.

Wow... so much for not focusing on the anger, huh?

Anyway... This morning when I was brushing my teeth, I remembered something from a sociology class I had my second semester: "The person with the least interest in continuing a relationship has control of the relationship." And I realized that I am really doing my very best to push Mark away in an attempt to "get control" of our relationship. Maybe because I really feel like I have absolutely NO control over any aspect of my life right now my brain is twisting things up to try to take back some control over something.

Or, maybe I really am just a bitter, angry bitch.

I need to get nice. I miss myself. I miss waking up happy. I miss feeling good... feeling loved and loving and appreciated and appreciative and admired and admiring. It's a lot of work and takes a lot of energy to feel this angry and sad all the time. I'm so tired of it.

I feel like I'm doing a really terrible job of balancing taking care of this new baby, taking care of my marriage and taking care of myself.

I just want to be happy again. I want to be a nice person again. I want to like myself again.

Four Months

Matthew is four months old today. As I write this, he's sitting in my lap leaving me only one (sometimes none) hand free to type. In four months I've gotten pretty good at one handed typing, with typos and misspellings occurring less frequently.

Last night Matthew went to sleep at 6:15, after an hour and a half of solid crying. He woke up to breastfeed around 7:30, and took some of a bottle around 8:45 without fully waking up. He slept straight through until I woke him at 7:15 this morning. I didn't sleep well last night; I was constantly turning over to listen for his quiet breathing. I think the prolonged crying episode followed by such deep sleep had me freaked out.

It's amazing that I've been a mom for 4 months already. I still feel so unprepared for this some days. Some days I can tell I'm doing a good job, but I really haven't ever felt like I get it completely right.

He's really the most amazing thing I've ever done. Sometimes the feeling of loving him so much makes my eyes fill up with tears. Nobody in the world can understand how this feels. (Except maybe every other mother?) He's so beautiful, so snuggly, so perfect. Every single thing about him is sweet and amazing.

He's changing so fast. It's hard to remember how things were just last week let alone 4 months ago. Everything passes in a blur, and it's all too easy to picture him starting school, making friends, growing up and away... Some days I just snuggle him and breathe in his sweet baby smell.

At 4 months, Matthew is intent on trying to talk, cooing and gurgling. He knows that "talking" will bring me to his crib, and he'll smile when he sees me coming to him. He and I have very serious in-depth conversations which involve his coos and my agreement. He's laughing out loud, a special funny kind of giggle that could cheer me out of my grumpiest bad mood (at least for a minute). He still sleeps in his car seat due to reflux... I'm too afraid to lay him flat to sleep. He smiles at me every time I say the word "beautiful", even if I'm not looking at him when I say it. He wants to stand on my lap pretty much non-stop. He naps everyday around 9:30 and 3:00 for about a half hour each. He loves his bath, but hates the drying off/getting dressed again part. He fusses in the stroller when he's been in it for more than 20 minutes, and he refuses to ride in it in any kind of store or mall.

The hardest part of being a new mom has been the amount of time I'm alone with the baby. Alone with no help, no one to talk to, no ability to just take 5 minutes for myself all day. I shower no more than 3 times a week... usually just twice a week. I don't believe, will NEVER believe that Mark has a single bit of understanding of what this feels like; I am absolutely certain he could never do this. I'm also fairly sure that he's thought to himself on more than one occasion "well, what did you expect when you wanted to have a baby?" I know I'm holding a lot of bitterness and mistrust towards Mark, which I will either have to get over or it will end our marriage.

All three of us are living in my mom's dining room, with a fake wall partitioning us off from the living room. We're living with 6 disgusting cats who throw up and poop in places where they shouldn't. I spend a lot of time in the make-shift bedroom with the baby, because I feel like things aren't nearly as clean as I'd like them and I do not have the time to clean them myself. I'm just waiting to move, waiting to get away from this messy house and all the cats. Waiting to have my own things out of storage, to have a nursery for Matthew. (My heart still breaks over having to leave his nursery in NC.)

This is what my life is like with 4 month old Matthew.

Stroller envy

We had a beautiful weekend... the kind of weekend where it's not at all difficult to remember why we got married. On Sunday we took Matthew to the park for a walk. It was beautiful weather, warm but a nice breeze off the water. It was really just a perfect day, with one minor exception.

I'm coming to realize that my stroller is very, very uncool. I have an ordinary Graco stroller. It's beige and green, with the typical ugly plaid fabric. We bought it before Matthew was born, and I chose it myself, primarily because it was part of a travel system that seemed like it would be the height of convenience. It was one of several similarly priced, similarly styled strollers, and honestly I didn't really give it a whole lot of thought.

Now, everywhere I go, I'm seeing these Bugaboo strollers. Every other mom I see is pushing her kids around in this sleek-framed, brightly colored stroller, and at least it seems to me, they're looking down their noses at my hopelessly un-sleek plastic disaster of a stroller.

I looked on the Internet, and came to find that these Bugaboo strollers cost over $600! WTF??? Where are these moms getting that kind of money? I really can't imagine that all these mom's can afford that kind of expense with all the other expenses that go along with a new baby.

So, while we were enjoying a great day in the sun, strolling along and talking in a way we really haven't since Matthew was born, along comes this obviously Type-A mom, with her DOUBLE Bugaboo stroller, her new baby in a sling across her chest and her 2 year old riding in style. As she's pushing her DOUBLE Bugaboo stroller with a speedy powerwalk stride, she's chatting on her cell, probably about something way too expensive for me to even understand.

While I don't admire this woman, I admire the hell out of her DOUBLE Bugaboo stroller. I want a cool stroller too, even if it's WAY overpriced. I want it. I want to feel cool while pushing my baby around the parks and neighborhoods and mall corridors of my little world. I want to feel supremely cooler than the other hopelessly unhip Graco stroller-pushing wanabees. Yes, I am shallow enough to buy into this ridiculously expensive stroller hierarchy crap.

I've got a bad case of stroller envy.

Pretty lame, I know.

Yes, I am the wicked stepmother

Well, this past weekend was better in some ways and worse in others. Mark and I got some time alone together, and talked a lot of things out. I'm not sure how long things will stay straight between us, though; I have a way of twisting things up again when I've spent too much time alone. We'll see how this week goes.

J came up for Fall Break, and was kind enough to squeeze in an almost 2 hour breakfast with us. Her mom had planned all kinds of family activities (which is weird, since she wouldn't even break a date before when J came up), and J was booked up with her mom all weekend. Maybe that's how she wanted it anyway. Maybe I'm blaming her mom for playing games by making all these plans. But maybe J just wanted it that way. Thinking about all this crap makes me tired.

Anyway, I went into the breakfast meeting feeling defensive. J is pissed at us for leaving NC. Never mind that it really wasn't by choice, that I was 31 weeks pregnant when we lost our house which included the completely redone baby nursery, and that going broke and having to move 500 miles away from home right before the baby came was stressful, embarrassing and just plain sad. Nope, we won't even think about that. We'll just think about how any money spent on the new baby is money not spent on her.

We gave her wallet size pictures of Matthew from the pictures of him we had taken a few weeks ago. She just looked at them, didn't even pick them up, and sneered, "Oh! Professional pictures, huh?" I couldn't even believe it. She couldn't bring herself to smile at the baby (which was fine, since everyone else in the diner was smiling at him and saying how gorgeous he is).

Actually, it isn't fine... it really hurts/bothers me that she can't get over her selfishness for one minute and be happy about the baby. I've spent the last 8 years doing everything I can to make life better for her, to help her, to foster a relationship between her and her dad (which has been difficult), and she thinks it's ok to shit all over Matthew... to ignore, begrudge, or envy any little thing done for him. The other kids are the exact same way. I almost (not completely) expected it from them; they live with their mom and I know she's not at all supportive of any relationship they might have with their dad. But J lived with us. We were close, at least I thought.

It's not ok. And I don't know what to do anymore. I'm tired of trying and trying and feeling like shit. I'm tired of feeling guilty about being married to their dad. No matter how much we do, it's never enough, and I'm tired. I have other things to think about. I don't know if I should just wait for her to get over it... that could take months. I don't know if I should try to talk to her about it... she's so bitchy and accusatory on the phone, and I'm tired of apologizing to her just to make peace.

I think in the end I'll do nothing. She's not my child. She's 22 years old. I'll still remind Mark to call her periodically, but for the time being I'm going to back away. She's got anger issues and I just can't help her with this.

I really just can't.

Where is the light at the end of this tunnel?

I swear things just keep getting worse and worse. Mark and I are fighting all the time... I just keep telling him that our marriage is over, and the worst part is that I really mean it when I'm saying it. I don't know what is going on; we were absolutely best friends before Matthew. Now I feel like we're just like every other married couple who can barely stand each other. We used to be each others' greatest support. Now we say such ugly things to each other that I can't remember what I liked or admired about him in the first place.

I don't know how things went so bad so quickly. And I don't know if things will ever be the same again.

What I've Missed the Most

Since going broke and becoming a mom happened around the same time, it's hard to know which life changes were brought about by which event. I realize now that I took a lot of things for granted before Matthew was born and when we had plenty of money.

Before we went broke we had nice houses, nice furniture, the swimming pool, frivolous shopping, trips to the beach, dinners out, Vegas, and just a general sense of security you get when you lay your head down at night without worrying about paying the bills.

Before Matthew I had time to myself; time to do my laundry without scheduling it into my day. I had time to take a shower AND blow dry my hair without worrying. My boobs stayed in their bra all day , and no one other than Mark ever saw them. I went to bed at night without listening for tiny sighs and snores, proof that the baby was still breathing and therefore alive.

But, the one thing that I miss the most that I can attribute both to going broke and the birth of Matthew is:

Taking a bath.

I was an every night in the tub kind of girl before going broke and having a baby. I would take a book and sit in there for at least an hour. Mark would come in to the bathroom to chat, bringing with him some kind of snack. Since we went broke, I haven't had a tub available to me, and since Matthew, I haven't had the time for a proper bath.

All that's about to change.

Thursday night, we're getting a hotel room with a luxury bathtub, and I'm going to soak until I shrivel up like a prune. And, before we check out the next day, I'm going to soak again. In fact, I may just sleep in the tub all night long. I'm so excited!!!! I just can't wait!!!

The good, the bad, the adorable...

The Good...

This weekend started out beautifully. On Saturday, Mark came home from work early and covered the baby so I could take a long shower and blow dry my hair. We loaded up the baby and drove to an outdoor shopping mall about a half hour away. The weather was beautiful and Mark had just gotten paid, both of which helped to lighten our mood.

In the Gap, I bought my first pair of non-maternity jeans in my new and quite frightening size. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I expected... still not good, but could have been worse. Buying those jeans felt like turning a corner, in a way. As though buying non-maternity clothes has officially ended my pregnancy in a way that giving birth didn't. Or something like that...

In the end, we came away from our day at the outdoor mall with a set of 6 wine glasses from Pottery Barn for $22, 2 bags of Williams Sonoma's Pecan Pumpkin Quickbread mix, and a jar of fancy tomato sauce to be used on chicken later this week. Not a huge haul by any means, but more than enough to satisfy the frivolous shopping need, when we spent the day strolling in the sun and congratulating each other on our gorgeous baby. We really needed a day in the sun like that.

The Bad...

That night we went down to pick up the girls for the night. That didn't go very well, but i really don't feel like writing anything about that right now.

The Adorable...

What was amazing though was that while I was digging through the Gap's sale rack for jeans (there was NO WAY I was paying full price for giant pants), Mark held Matthew up to the mirror and Matthew smiled and laughed when he saw himself. He's been doing it ever since then, and we all keep putting him in front of mirrors to see him laugh.

Are all babies this amazing? Do all moms feel so "lifted" when their babies smile at them? It's got to be the most incredible feeling.

boo-hoo blues

I am in full-on "feeling sorry for myself" mode today. I hate Saturdays. They always seem like they'll be different than the other days of the week. But they never are. Mark still goes to work, and I'm still sitting here, watching the baby sleep and tripping over disgusting, flea-ridden cats everywhere I look. If I don't get out of here soon I'm really going to lose my mind. I actually found cat hair on my boob when I was breastfeeding the baby. Yes, it really is that bad.

Mark says absolutely no way on me getting a job. He says the baby is too young. My whole pay-check will go to daycare. Blah blah blah. But I still feel like he's lying to me everytime he opens his mouth. I still don't trust him. I'm not even sure if I can love him anymore.

How did my life turn into this? Six months ago I was happily decorating Matthew's nursery in our own home, and thinking about calling the pool company to schedule them to come out to open the pool, with the intention of soaking my very swollen pregnant body in the deep end until delivery.

Now, I'm living in my mom's dining room with my 2 month old (2 months today!) baby and my husband. And I spend more time thinking about running away from my life than I do about anything else. Probably a big part of my problem.

I really don't know what to do. I realize how wrong it's been for me to put all my trust and faith in Mark. On any given day I don't know how much money is in the bank, what our monthly bills are, or how much money he makes. I have no money of my own. Really, this whole experience has been eye-opening. On any day he can decide to walk out of my life, leaving me completely fucked. How did I never realize that... how did I never think about that before now?

And what am I supposed to do about it? I need my own money, I need some independance, but how do I get it? I just don't know what to do.

All I know is that my whole life sucks. The only good thing I have is Matthew. I have to find a way to keep him safe, since my husband doesn't seem to give a shit about security.

It's on me. I get it now.