It’s still a mess. There’s still plaster on the floor and dust on the shelves, the furniture is all over the place, all of our artwork was taken from the walls, and I don’t even know where to start with the kitchen. We have a lot of cleaning, organizing, and transferring to do. It will probably take several days to settle back in. 

And I couldn’t care less. I’m home. I’m sitting on my own sofa, watching TV, and watching Adam read stories to Ethan before putting him to bed in his own room for the first time in over three weeks. 

This feels even better than I expected. We’ll be opening a bottle of $4 champagne and watching a Harry Potter movie or two, going to sleep in our own apartment, and thanking our lucky stars that we have it so good.

For anyone who may be interested, I started a Facebook page for this blog. It can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/TheSemiSAHM

Thanks for reading, everyone!

So, I’ve been thinkin’…

…my hair is pissing me off. I’ve had a pixie cut for almost three years, and as much as I love it, I’m just feeling a change. Plus, it’s easier to have longer hair when you’re an actor and look as obnoxiously young as I do (not humblebragging. I seriously look like I’m 16. I get a lot of judgey looks when I’m out with Ethan). I failed to take into account the fact that the in-between stage means I have total Mom Hair. I like being a mom, but I’m 24. I do not need Mom Hair to prove myself. I’m not yet at the soccer stage. 

…all the ab exercises I have been doing for the past six weeks aren’t even making a dent. It seriously crossed my mind for a hot second that I’d rather just be pregnant again than try to solve the flab issue. And then I was like “INCORRECT” and did some crunches.

…Ethan was so weird tonight. He ate four ounces at about 2:30, then absolutely nothing before bed, passed out until 11:30, chugged eight ounces, and passed out again. If this is any indication his eating habits wind up being as bad as mine were for the later part of my adolescence, he’s in big trouble and will require some intervention. 

…not to totally white whine or anything, but my laptop is messed up and my Kindle isn’t holding a charge quite like it used to. 

…I’m sitting in the dark, alone, on the internet, at 2:00 AM. When did I regress to my 19-year-old self? All I need now is some ice cream, twenty extra pounds, a zealous love of Harry Potter, and a hefty dose of self-loathing and we’re officially in a time warp. 

…to clarify, I still freakin’ love Harry Potter. I’ve just calmed down about it a bit in favor of gushing over YA dystopian fiction these days. 

…I’m disappointed that there are no potato chips in my house.

I’m so out of shape. 

To the point where it’s kind of pathetic. 

Okay, yes, I did just have a baby not quite two months ago. Yes, it was a C-section so I wasn’t technically allowed to do any exercise until now. Yes, I was on bed rest for most of the end stages of my pregnancy. 

What’s your point?

I know I’m being too hard on myself, but the fact that a few reps of crunches and tricep dips have nearly incapacitated me is a little bit sad. A bunch of the girls in my Facebump group are all taking part in a 30-day challenge to try and jump-start our post-baby diets, so some of us hopped on Bodyrock to do the beginner’s fitness test. I did it yesterday…and boy, was that harder than I was expecting. Halfway through the second set, I was wheezing and sweating and shaking. I felt terrible…how could I have let myself go so much? I feel like I could have been doing more to stay in shape. At least walking a little more or doing a few yoga poses, for crying out loud. 

So thus begins the long and difficult road to putting my body back together. I’m down to 147 lbs (from 175 on the day of Ethan’s birth), and I’m hoping to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight of 120. More than the number, though, I want to finally get my body toned. I’ve never had the tone or muscle mass that I’ve hoped for, and I know that it’s possible. I don’t want to look like the Bodyrock chick (though her body is, admittedly, pretty bangin’). I just want to be leaner and flatter than I am now. The ultimate goal, though? To wear a two-piece bathing suit for the first time in my adult life. 

I know. That’s lame. But I’ve just plain never had the confidence to wear a bikini. This year, though, will be my year. Stretch marks and all. 

And no, I’m not going to end this post with that quote about how stretch marks are tiger stripes. Because we’ve all seen it floating around on Pinterest and I’m not bothered enough by my stretch marks to care. My Frankenmommy tummy, however…yeah. That has to go. 

Okay, I know it has been less than 48 hours since my big “I have horrible anxiety” post, so it’s not like I can give a real update with measurable results. However, for those who may have been wondering how I am since putting it out there in the open, the answer is “a little bit better”.

It isn’t one of those things that fixes itself the moment you let it off your chest. I feel some relief from the burden of keeping it all to myself, though, and that’s not nothing. I’m still feeling a lot of the anxiety and still getting frustrated with myself for not being able to magically stop my child from screaming (realistic expectations of oneself FTW), but now I can see that it might not last forever. 

I want to thank everyone for the calls, texts, comments, and e-mails of support. While I wasn’t glad to see that so many others are dealing with the same emotions, I am glad that maybe now we can all help each other out and not be so afraid to admit what we’re feeling. A special thank-you has to go out to the members of my “Facebump” group, all of whom have given me so much hope for a near future that isn’t tainted by panic attacks. I love you ladies, and I mean that sincerely and not just in an internet-y “loves ya!” way. 

I will end this post with the following image, because every time I look at it, I feel a little bit better (and also because it’s adorable and I want to show off the cuteness of my kid some more):

I’d just like to say that the $3 bottle of Tisdale cabernet sauvignon is actually pretty delicious. Or maybe I went nine months without wine. Either way, I’m happy. Don’t know why I felt the need to create a separate post for that little tidbit of information, but hey. I’m just a free spirit that way. You can’t contain me. I’m like a bird. 

What a weird day. 

Last night, Ethan decided to be a newborn again. We could not figure out what he needed, it took forever to get him to go to sleep, and he woke up about a dozen times. It made for a very frustrating and exhausting night. Finally, around 9:00 AM, I took him into the living room, let him lie on my chest (on his tummy. I know. Bad mommy. But the kid needed to sleep and I figured as long as his airway was clear, it was okay), and we both took a nap. We didn’t wake up until almost 1:00 PM. Good thing it was a rainy Sunday or I’d really feel like a bum!

I was fully expecting the rest of the day to be hard, but Ethan seemed to feel so much better. He has been full of smiles and snuggles, cooing, loving his Tummy Time, and generally just chilled out. And now he’s sleeping like an angel. I guess babies, like full-sized adults, just have those weird insomniac nights where nothing is okay. I know this will make me sound like some kind of robot or alien, but I seriously find it amazing to see just how much like adults babies really are. 

Now, I’m not unfamiliar with newborns. I’ve cared for several throughout my life in a babysitting capacity. While parenting is pretty different, this does mean that I went into motherhood with a lot more experience than most people get. And beside the newborns I looked after, I’ve generally been around infants and small children my entire life. I tend to gravitate towards the cute, so I’m used to kids of all ages. I really didn’t think they could surprise me anymore, but there you go. Ethan surprises me all the time. Everything from the expressions on his face (which, squee, so cute) to the way he reacts to things amaze me. I think it is really hitting me that babies aren’t just babies, they really are teeny-tiny adults. 

Maybe this perspective is what makes me treat kids the way I do. I’m not really one for baby talk and I’ve never been overly coddling towards any of the kids I babysit. I’m fairly no-nonsense, and I always try to treat children with the same respect I would show an adult. That’s how my parents always treated us. We weren’t just “the kids”, we were valued, respected, and often treated as adults. That’s not to say that we were expected to act like grown-ups or that my parents were irresponsible with us in any way, it just means that they didn’t necessarily sugarcoat stuff. They always answered our questions, whatever they were, and always gave us an answer. They just explained things in whatever way would make sense to a child. There was never any hiding of the truth if we asked a direct question. We weren’t sheltered from reality, nor was a puppies-and-rainbows reality created for us. We learned about things like pain, injustice, and “grown-up stuff” (as we generally referred to topics like sex, drugs, alcohol, etc) in ways that we could comprehend at whatever age we had reached. 

I’ve always appreciated that. My parents always gave me privacy and respect. I never worried that they’d go into my room and read my diary. I always knew they’d explain things to me, a luxury some of my friends did not experience. One friend said that her mom didn’t tell her about sex until she was fourteen (!)…of course, she already knew about it long before then, but apparently her mother basically pretended it didn’t exist. If there were references to sex in the movies or TV shows they were watching, she would fast-forward or mute. That’s an extreme example, of course, and I know it just stems from wanting to protect your kid, but seriously? I was about six when I asked about sex, and my mom explained it to me in a child-friendly way. No beating around the bush, no putting off the conversation, no panic. She just gave me the basic rundown, got me a book or two, and we called it good. 

I fully intend to treat Ethan this way. Kids deserve respect, they deserve privacy, and they deserve truth and reality whenever they can get it. I’m not saying ignore your kid and make him jaded to toughen him up or something, but I’m saying don’t read his journal and answer his questions when you can. Find the answers when you can’t. I think it’s one of the few ways to ensure that he’d turn out halfway normal. The kids I grew up with who were either overprotected or left to their own devices too often were the ones who were really screwed up. The ones raised with similar styles to my parents were only moderately screwed up, just like me. 

Oh, wow. I just reread this entry and I am kind of amazed at how much of a ramble it really is. Probably because my sleep schedule is so entirely ruined at this point that my sanity is starting to check out after about 2:00 AM. Please forgive me, because I’m totally posting this without any attempt to edit. Enjoy the ride.