Staying at Home

I have this secret desire to be a stay at home mom. Even just for the first few years. I have several reasons for this desire and I feel like SO and I could still live comfortably if I stayed home... or even worked part time.

Reasons:

1. This might be my only child. And I don't want to miss anything.

2. I don't want strangers raising my baby

3. If I work and have to put baby in day care, all I'm doing is working to afford day care...

4. I think I'm meant to. I've done a lot of things over the years. My favorite job being when I managed the foaling barn in NY. I've had jobs I've loved but not enough to do forever, like working at the track or at the dog kennel. I really like what I'm doing now but is it worth it to lose all those precious moments I could have with my little one? To me the answer is no. Maybe I'm delusional but I think I'm meant to be a mom and that I need to take that time to stay home and raise my child myself.

5. The first few years of you child's life are their most impressionable. If you send them to day care where they aren't allowed to talk about God and where they are told what to think and believe by a bunch of strangers that most definitely do not know what's best for your child, then you're going to have problems. My mom home schooled both my brother and I for a few years. Even in the Christian school I was told what to think and believe and it wasn't always good. I was in Preschool and was told I was wrong for being ahead of the class, already knowing how to write small words. I want my baby to be free to express her self. To not be held back because it might make the other students feel bad. To be able to pray and talk about her beliefs. If you ask me, one of the BIGGEST problems in our country is no one raises their own children anymore. You spend a few hours a night with them. Meanwhile they have spent all day having their head filled with garbage. Being embarrassed for talking about God or praying before a mean. Told that they aren't allowed. They aren't taught morals and values, Christian or otherwise. We can't expect teachers and the school system to raise or babies. We can't expect our children to know what we want them to if someone else has raised them. And then we can't act shocked when they do something bad and say "oh she knows better!" Really? Does she? Because I'm pretty sure the school didn't teach her better.

Some schools are the exception to this. But I still wouldn't want my child attending too early in life. I went to Catholic school for 3 years and if I could have managed, I would have attended for high school as well. The values they taught in every single class matched the values and beliefs I was being taught at home. Debate was welcome. Differences celebrated. No one felt unwelcome or embarrassed. And the education was top notch.


Maybe I'll get bored being a SAHM but maybe it will be exactly what I've been meant to do all this time. I guess I never know until I try. I've been thinking about job options for being a SAHM, like perhaps I could babysit at home a few days a week. Actually... that's all I've come up with.

I haven't made a decision yet. But being a momma and raising a baby is a big deal. It's not something you leave to strangers. You're raising a human being. Someone that has to grow up to be a mature, functioning member of society. You don't leave that to strangers.

My Mom

My mom is pretty awesome. She's so exited about this grandbaby I'll be giving her, even if she lives 600 miles away. She's going to make the most of it.

She is making plans to come down this week to take me shopping for clothes that fit. I had a mo-mo Saturday when trying to get dressed to go visit SO for dinner at his restaurant. I have like 3 or 4 go to pieces of clothing for going out or to work that actually fit. I'm 10 weeks now and already my belly is growing and things are getting snug. I appreciate a nice figure-hugging outfit. But I don't appreciate looking like a sausage.

Mom ordered some stuff off Zulily for me but I swear I'll deliver before the clothes get here. We are going on 3 weeks since the order was placed. BS!

So this morning Mom is like hey I'll come down this weekend and take you shopping! I love this idea! SO and I like to shop together too, and he's pretty classy, but sometimes you need another woman to help you, not your man.

I have been dreaming about my favorite pizza from back home. And I honestly don't know if me having Mom come is more for the pizza or the clothes. But right now all I can think about is Chop's pizza with sweet sauce. My mouth is literally watering right now.

I have friends that said because I am so slim I'd never need maternity clothes. These people are crazy. I don't know how any can not need them or buy them. I bought one size up long sleeve tees from Wallyland and they are already looking not so hot on me.

So I cannot wait for Mom to get here Thursday so I can eat half a sheet of Chop's pizza. And also so we can shop. LOL!

Appetite

The first few weeks of being pregnant I was slightly nauseous but not enough to stop me from shamelessly eating 2 lunches in 1 afternoon to the side eye of my co workers. And then around 6 or 7 weeks my body turned on me. Crackers, toast and ginger ale. Nausea almost all day every day. Being sick on and off all day. The fetal position, ironically, my favorite place to be.

Last weekend it was its worse. The peak. I curled up in bed all weekend and wanted to cry.

But now I'm back in business. I am so hungry all the time. I still can't eat first thing in the morning, which is totally opposite of me. But during the day, I eat. I try to pace myself. But today alone I've had 3 grilled peanut butter sandwiches and 10 wings and a side of fries. Which is a lot more than I normally eat in a day.

And everyday I have a different craving. Right this minutes I have a huge craving for pizza. My favorite pizza from back home. But a KY substitute would do. If it wasn't 10pm I'd be ordering right now... even though I'd have to go pick it up because none of these chain pizza chops here deliver to my house. Now a mom and pop pizza shop would. But KY doesn't have those.


I fell asleep writing this last night.

But this morning I woke up at ate honeynut cheerios and milk for the first time in probably a month or more. Yum! So exciting to be able to eat more than toast!

Sleeping.... or the lack there of

I love to sleep. It's basically my favorite hobby.... after riding and playing with the doggies. I am a professional napper and have been known to nap for 4 or 5 hours at a time.

But lately sleep has been laughing in my face. I am always tired. I hear this is a common 1st trimester problem. Between being sick and the effort your body is making to grow a tiny human, well let's just say it's exhausting.

I've been taking a nap almost every day. I sleep like the dead. But by 9 or 10pm I'm so tired again and can't wait to go back to sleep! Only, I can't sleep! I fall asleep then sleep lightly and wake frequently all through the night.

Roader, our old lab who sleeps in our room, itches all night (we've switched to grain free food but it's taking forever to get rid of his allergies.....) and then I can hear wild animals outside or the neighbor pull in from his job at 11:30 pm. I have to get up and pee at least once in the middle of the night if not 2 or 3 times. And now quite frequently it's to do other things in the bathroom.

What I want to know is how you can go from being stopped up for days on end, drinking teas and taking fiber pills daily to no avail to having the trots like BAM. How does my body decide to go from one to the other in the space of hours?

So now I'm at work, and I should be working. But I'm so tired. I ate my Subway and my cookie and I feel like I should have gotten a footlong because I'm still so freaking hungry! And I really just want to lay my head down on the desk and nap.

But I know I'll get home and nap, or hell, maybe I won't. But either way, by the time I turn off Netflix and shut my book at 11pm I'll still be wide awake, talking to Roader and letting my imagination run wild about everything. Because that's what happens when you lay awake in the dark wishing you could sleep.

Introduction

The name of my blog in no way insinuates anything negative, like a man saying he's going to be saddled with a wife *eye roll* for the rest of his life. It is entirely positive. Both my fiance and I ride horses. He exercises at the track and we also own and train some of our own and the past 3 years I have been training my trusty sidekick, Twister, to event. SO rides Western if he's not riding racehorses and I prefer English. But we still love riding together.

me, Perdo the rescue kitty and SO

We have a farm out down a back road. A couple horses and a big barn. We both have a soft spot for animals in need and in the past 4 years we have been together alone we have rescued 2 dogs, 4 cats and 3 horses, 2 turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. While my SO has 3 boys, all in their teens, the animals are our babies.

I also have an affinity for photography so I will probably post a million photos on each post whether or not they are related to my post. I love photos and I'm not the worst at taking them either if I do say so myself.

I found out I was pregnant after flying home from my mom's 50th birthday party. I peed on 3 sticks because I couldn't believe it. I was crying and laughing all at the same time. I couldn't wait to tell everyone but most of all SO. He was in shock, ohhhh, probably for a week or two. We had talked about having babies. He is 20 years older than me and his oldest turned 20 in May. He really didn't want to have any more babies. And while I wanted to be a mom, I love him and what we have together and I was willing to let that dream go. But accidents happen. Happy accidents happen.

at the last dressage clinic i rode in the week I found out

And here we are! My mom and stepdad are SO incredibly excited to be a Grandma and Poppa. And my dad and stepmom have taken things pretty well too. But they had my brother to practice on (another story for another day!). All my grandparents are thrilled and all my friends. My bestie from college/soul sister is so excited for me. And my bestie from highschool has taken it upon herself to do all the shower planning with Mom.

And SO is warming up to everything. The initial WTF moment has worn off and we've started talking names and talking about the future and birth plans together.

my little bumpie today

I'm not sure where this blog will take me. I like to journal but also prefer feedback as opposed to just writing things down for myself to read down the road. I want to talk about my fears, hopes and dreams and everything I am feeling and about all my planning. There is just so much!