Life On The Other Side

Many moons have passed since I last updated here. Plain and simple, I’ve been busy. Our son is almost seven weeks old and like any seven week old, he needs a lot of attention. We’ve been sleep deprived while enjoying every minute with him. He’s grown quite a bit and you’d never know he was premature.

Some other milestones to note since the last update… the hubby and I celebrated my 37th birthday on June 14th and our first wedding anniversary on June 17th. It was also a joyous first father’s day for the hubby! I can’t believe we’ve been married one year already! It really seems like we’ve been married a lot longer but in a good way. We really enjoy each other’s company and we are really each other’s best friend. We’ve done quite a few things this past year together and look forward to doing more with our son.

After only 35 weeks and 5 days, our son was born on May 17, 2006 at 9:39 PM. He was 6 lbs, 14 oz and 20 inches long. The last few days have been a rollercoaster ride. I was diagnosed with PIH or pregnancy induced hypertension which facilitated the speedy birth of our boy. We were fortunate enough to have ourselves a healthy baby boy although he was considered premature due to his gestational age. The whole family is home and happy and adjusting to our new lives.

The past few weeks I’ve gone through a mini depressive state. I hide it well. Frankly, it’s got more to do with hormones than anything else. I admit that I’m only human and I can’t help feeling angry, upset, or jealous. But I don’t feel it’s right to talk about those things. I can only control me and what’s in my realm. After all, it can’t only be about me, right? One thing I’ve come to realize about myself is that I like attention. For a person who doesn’t crave attention, I do like to have some kind of attention. It’s not that I take it away from other people but I like the inadvertent attention given to me. I guess that’s the vain part of me. It’s the rooster part of me. I was born the Chinese Year of the Rooster and roosters are show offs. So that’s where my attention hogging comes from. Like I said, a lot of it has to do with hormones. Thankfully, it has passed and I feel good. If it gets worse or something I begin to get concerned about, especially after the baby is born, I won’t be calling Tom Cruise for advice.

I’ve been neglecting this blog because I started one exclusively about the whole pregnancy and birth. But I will try to post at least once or twice a week from now on. After all, this is my “secret” blog for me to rant and rave on though it seems like I rarely do.

Spring is here and with a vengence. It’s been darn hot some days (and humid) while others have been cool. I’m lucky that I have my personal built-in heater (baby) so that when the temperature changes back to cold, it isn’t making me take out my coat again. Let me tell you that being hot and pregnant does not make a woman happy. I am so looking forward to feeling “normal” again.

So it’s been one year since I moved to the South. Yep, the day came and went (I think it was April 27) that would have been exactly one year since we pulled into Charlotte and unpacked car and kitty. Not sure what I was thinking about that day except probably something along the lines of “thank goodness we don’t have to drive another 8 hours tomorrow.” Living here has had its high and low points. As with anyplace I’ve moved to before, I’ve experienced some type of “homesickness” and it was no different here. Yes, I miss my friends and being able to see my family more often, but in retrospect, my life has also changed so much. Would I change what I did one year ago? Heck no! I am happy and content with the decision I made. I’ve adapted and made the best of it. I love the direction my life has taken and where it has taken me. I never thought I’d be here today and then again I am.

There is a lot to look forward to in the next year and the years to come. None of it would have probably been possible without moving here. Well I really shouldn’t say that because it would have been possible. I’m just glad I’m here with my husband, our cat and our baby on the way.

Over the Easter weekend, we took probably one of our last long roadtrips for awhile. It was a quick trip down to Georiga to visit with family and spend some time together. The trip itself is about a 3-4 hour drive depending on how many stops you make along the way (bathroom and snacks) and, of course, the traffic. We left Saturday morning and, surprisingly, there was hardly any traffic on the roads. I guess most people probably left on Friday since it was Good Friday and living here in the “Bible Belt,” a lot of people either were off or took the day off. We came home last night though there was much more traffic and two rather nasty looking accidents. The trip itself was fun and relaxing. Spending time with family is always nice and we have a good time.

If you’re not familiar with the interstate here, to drive from N.C. down to Georgia, you obviously have to travel through South Carolina. The trip itself passes through Greenville and numerous smaller towns along the way. The most enjoyable thing about the trip is seeing the greenery and the rivers and lakes. Unfortunately like most interstate highways, you also see tons of billboards and the such. There are also two specific things about S.C. that you can’t miss while driving down to Georgia. The first is that there are cigarette wholesale warehouses and the second is fireworks can be purchases all year. I have come to ignore the cigarette billboards because I don’t smoke so I have no interest in them. But I suppose if you are a smoker, buying wholesale cigarettes can save you money. As for fireworks, most states that I’ve lived in and most states in general either ban them or let you buy them for certain holidays with permit. In S.C. you can buy fireworks every single day of the year and, apparently, use them every single day of the year. I commented to the hubby that I don’t see how these businesses can survive since I’m not sure people actually buy them every single day of the year. In any case, I’d like to see what the inside of one of those fireworks warehouses looks like because they are enormous. The irony is that you can’t smoke near there so no cigarette warehouses are nearby but don’t despair because there will be some billboard along the way that will alert you of your next stop.

Just a little over two months shy of my first wedding anniversary and all I can say is I love my husband even more today than I did the day I married him. Yes it is possible to love someone more today than you did the day before and the day before that! I never thought I’d be privy to this kind of love ever. I don’t fall in or out of love easily, and I thought I could never find the one person who could make me feel this way.

He makes me feel beautiful even when I don’t feel that alluring. He finds just the right thing to say to make me smile. And he knows just the right spots to tickle to make me laugh. He holds me when I need to be held. He senses when I need time to myself. He is my soulmate. A friend recently asked me how would she know if someone was the ONE. I told her she would know. It’s not that I knew my husband was the ONE when I first met him but that time told me he was the ONE. I think you know and sense that the person standing in front of you was meant to stand there for the rest of your life. Yes, I know nothing is a guarantee but for the moment you know and you believe.

It took a long time for my husband and I to find each other. It took many moments before we both knew. Maybe one of us knew before the other but not until the time we stood in front of each other did we know: Yes, you are the ONE! I can’t wait to share the love that my husband and I have for each other with the newest member of our family. Yes, we do love him and we always have but to have him share in these moments with us in person will be even more wonderful.

There aren’t many weekends left that the hubby and I can enjoy by ourselves. The weeks seem to go by rather quickly as the due date for the baby approaches. This weekend we didn’t have much planned so we decided to take a drive. We woke up Saturday to a bleary and wet day, and decided to jump in the car and drive east. On previous trips, we had gone north, west and south but never east. The drive was pleasant and not bad for a rainy day. We drove from Charlotte to Rockingham taking the scenic route through Indian Trail, Monroe, Wadesboro and assorted other small towns along the way. The hubby and I enjoy seeing small towns and the beautiful North Carolina countryside. True there wasn’t much to see but it was beautiful and green. Rockingham is mostly known for its dragway which we didn’t bother to visit. However, we did visit an outdated Hardee’s and had a mediocre lunch. Despite the appeal of the taco salad on television, the real thing has a lot to be desired.

The rest of the weekend was less exciting as we did our usual Target run on Sunday and spent some time at the bookstore looking for new reads. Oh, and baseball season is in full swing now but our beloved Braves haven’t been doing very well. They beat the Dodgers but lost to the Giants on the road. Tonight is their opening game at home and I hope they do a lot better.

I feel rather confident we have all the tools to raise our son. By using the word “tools,” I mean that both the hubby and I are rather well-rounded folks. We have many varied interests that I hope will make some connection with our son. For example, we both like to read and read about different subjects such as science fiction (hubby), history (both of us), chick lit (me), social issues (both), etc. We also enjoy things like music, museums, movies and traveling. We watch a variety of sports though we don’t actively participate in any. But that’s okay because if the “boy” as my hubby calls him wants to participate in any sport, we’ll be the first ones out there helping him. We’ve also done other things in our lives that can and will contribute to the boy’s life such as camping and fishing. I mention these things just because of a conversation I had a few months ago with with the hubby’s sister-in-law before we found out the gender of our babies. She said she wasn’t sure what they would do with a boy since they don’t like sports. Well now they have to figure something out. But the hubby did point out that since it’s their son, he would most likely have similar interests as his parents. So having a boy doesn’t necessarily mean raising a sports player or even someone interested in sports.

In other pregnancy news, I am almost at the end of my 29th week. Only ten more weeks to go before we meet the boy. It’s both exciting and scary at the same time. We still have a ton of things to do. The weight and the cravings remain steady. I’ve started a new blog specifically about the baby and the pregnancy for family and friends who don’t know about this one. If you’d like to be included, let me know.

I haven’t written an entry lately about my observations on living in the South. I don’t suppose this is really an observation but more of a change in lifestyle.

I must confess that I now watch NASCAR. I know the sport itself has become wildly popular in the last few years but I’ve never been a person to even consider watching it. Of course I’ve heard of certain drivers before like Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the Busch brothers, Kyle and Kurt. And in the years that I lived in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway was built. Being completely honest here, I always equated the sport with rednecks and I don’t mean it in a positive way.

In the last few weekends, I have found myself in front of the television with my husband watching the current NASCAR Busch Series. In addition to watching the races, I have become familiar with other drivers, their major sponsors and their standings as well as the mechanics of the race itself. I don’t cheer on a particular driver yet and don’t know if I even will. Frankly, watching a bunch of men race around a track can be exciting just because of the dynamics of their pole position at any given time during the race and the potential for wrecks. In fact, even my husband is surprised at how much knowledge I’ve acquired just by watching a few races.

But don’t expect me to be one of those women groupies who follow a driver like they are a movie star or paste stickers on my car with the number of my favorite driver. I may be assimilating to the South but I do have my boundaries.

Right now I am obsessed with the HBO original series Big Love. I am not nor will I ever be a proponent of polygamy or any other multiple spouse type of arrangement. I think the most fascinating part of the show is how this one man tries to balance his time between three wives and three families. Frankly, I can barely balance my time with my one husband and my one family so thinking about having to rotate between another two seems impossible. Of course I’m speaking from the standpoint of a woman so maybe it’s a little easier for a man though I highly doubt it. Polygamy itself used to be associated with the LDS in Utah but was outlawed by the Church in the late 1800s. However, it seems that there are certain factions within that religion that still support such a lifestyle going against the Church’s view.

My main interest in this show stems from my time in Las Vegas. Despite the city’s reputation, there is a very large Mormon population there. Of the Mormons I have known or do know, none of them practice or subscribe to the polygamy lifestyle. I know from watching several types of news shows that polygamy still exists in Utah and some other parts of the United States. I wonder how a show like this will affect how people view or feel about it. I also wonder how the Mormon population including the Mormon Church feels about a show like this one. I’m sure there will be some controversy if there hasn’t been any already.