It's done

Thank you to J, M, and W for your kind thoughts and words. And J for slapping a bit of sense and confidence in me like you always do. I love you girl.

I must also acknowledge another person, V. She isn't even aware this blog exists but she deserves mentioning nonetheless.

The dreaded conversation was had tonight. It was hard. Harder than I thought it would be. But V came in with her grace, love, and humor, and saved the day. Not being dramatic at all...had it not been for her, the tone of the phone call would have been drastically different. She is, and has been for 10 years, my saving grace and voice of reason in situations like these. I knew on that excurciatingly hot August day 10 years ago that she was indeed a special, special woman, but my love, respect, and admiration for her has grown steadily more since then. She is the perfect match for him and I am so grateful that she is in my life.

Thank you, V, for being you tonight. I think you may have just resuced my vacation.

Happy Un-anniversary, Mom and Dad

June 25th will be the 10th anniversary of my parents' divorce. After 26 years of marriage, they separated during the beginning of my senior year - Spirit Week to be exact. Mom, Brandon, and I all moved to an apartment during the separation. The 6 months we lived there was so emotionally up and down it was nauseating. Would they reconcile? Would they divorce? It changed almost weekly. I felt stuck in the middle - always close to my Mom and being there for her, but feeling so sad for my Dad and loving him too. He and my brother have never had a very strong relationship but I was always a bit of a Daddy's Girl, so it was (and still is) hard at times to balance.

In spite of all my parents' issues, I have nothing but fond memories of our apartment life. We lived in the complex where all the San Angelo Outlaws (I think they're the Saints now) lived. I could tell you which apartment belonged to which player. The team captain, I wanna say his name was Mike Vandenberg, lived across the courtyard from us. And the two hotties, Carl and Carl were in our building.
Mom and I tried a diet while we lived there that was similar to Atkins. It stressed eating plenty of bacon, cheese, and grapefruit juice. I still, to this day, crave that combination once in a while. We didn't lose any weight though. The white on white cake Mom would make during our days off spoiled our efforts.
I remember coming home one evening to the smell of chicken cooking in the crock pot and an apple cinnamon candle. It smelled like Thanksgiving. I still buy that apple cinnamon candle every holiday season.
That period of time was roughly the height of mine and Jenna's N Sync obsession. And while the embers still burn on, the flame has long since died down. (That's all I'll say about that.)
I also remember long - very, very long evenings at the kitchen table doing hours of homework. Staying up until midnight or later just working towards graduation. Taking a break from chemistry and eventually rocking myself to sleep in the big pink recliner.
And how could I forget the Student Council sleepover before our trip to Six Flags? With the infamous combustible toast incident? ;)
But I digress...

When Mom finally sat us down and told us they decided to get a divorce, honestly, I was relieved. I know I didn't cry, but I don't remember my brother's reaction. Yes, there is always some sadness when it hits you that your parents don't love each other anymore. And they'll now live in different houses. You'll live with one and go visit the other. That part never seems fair. But truthfully, my parents are better separate than together.

Ten years later, the problem with their divorce now lies in me, yet again, feeling caught in the middle. I know in my heart neither one of them ever wants me in this position, nor do they willingly put me here. But because I love them both so much and want to make things as equal as possible, I get all the good, and all the bad from them both. Our upcoming visit home is a stark reminder to how much divorce can hurt the kids...even when they think they were never hurt by it in the first place.

This trip, that was excitedly planned to visit family and introduce them to the newest Rojas, has now become a point of stress, guilt, sadness, and fear for me. I attempted to split time at each house as equally as possible, but traveling with 4 is harder than traveling alone. When I came home by myself last year, it was easy to spend one night at Mom's and one night at Dad's. Now that we're bringing the whole family, and especially the baby, it has become exponentially harder to make that time equal. What's worse for me, is that I had already told each parent the amount of time we would be spending at their respective houses. Now, after having thought about it more logically, it makes more sense to stay in one location and not have to uproot my growing little family midway through the trip to stay with the other parent. I now have to tell one parent that we will need to stay with the other parent and come visit during the day. This absolutely breaks my heart. In situations like this I find myself wishing that I wasn't such an emotional person. That I could detach from the situation and just say what I need to say and not worry about hurting my parent's feelings.

But I can't.

I can't and it sucks. It has made me physically sick worrying about this. Will it make the time we do spend together awkward? Will there be any bitterness or anger toward the other parent? Am I just overreacting and not giving the shafted parent the benefit of the doubt?

At least there is a valuable lesson or two to be learned in all this.
1. Keep your mouth shut. Had I never told my parents these plans to begin with, I wouldn't have to cancel, thus saving us both plenty of heartache. And me more gray hairs.
2. Next time, stay in a hotel.

New spot..

I did it. I made a new blog. Go forth and add.

Oh, and play the game. It's fun. :)

http://sensible-tomfoolery.blogspot.com/

What's my title?

So, yes, I'm still alive. Barely. All 3 of the boys are sick. Jacoby's on the downhill side of it so it's not TERRIBLE but still, I'm the only one that's well and hopefully it stays that way. As my husband put it, if I go down, the whole house goes down. LOL Sometimes I think he gives me too much credit, and then those days where I don't see him except for 2 hours a day and I have to take care of the house, the boys, and on Thursdays (which I DREAD with all my heart) when I babysit my friend's kids..I agree. :)

Anyway, the point was to say that I'm sorry I haven't blogged much lately. Even with Shannon's help I still am not able to change anything on my profile. I think it's because Wendy set it up for me so she has all the "rights" to it. Seeing as how she's about to give birth to another little boy, I doubt she'll have time to mess with this. Sooo...I think, sometime down the road...in the not so distant future...I'm gonna create another blog. I can't promise I'll update that one as frequently as I do this one though. :) I will not be deleting this account since it has priceless and precious mommy advice from my online baby shower in August.

So, enjoy the rest of this lovely Sunday evening. I'm off to have some ice cream before I get back on my diet tomorrow....

HELP!

OK, I wanna change my layout thingie to something different. (Not that I don't love the one Wendy put here for me...I do..I just want something new.) Problem is..I have no idea how to accomplish this.

Someone wanna clue me in?

2009 already?

So, it's been over a month and no sign of me. I know. I apologize to both of my readers! LOL

Life in the Rojas house has been really good. Daniel is finished with college as of December and will walk the stage to receive his degree in May. I am ecstatic. We're still very back and forth on what to do come September when his enlistment is up. We have so many options and we just want to make the right decision.

Jacoby is playing basketball and loves having Dad as his coach once again. Between the two of them basketball has taken over my home. I'm a bit tired of hearing about the high post and this defense, and that offense. Maybe because I don't understand it as much as I do football. On that note, don't ask me about the Superbowl. I hated the Steelers before I knew they had the officials on their payroll. Kurt Warner will always be in my top 3 QBs of all time.

Josiah. Oh my how he has grown and changed since December. He is now 17.4lbs and only 24.5 inches. Poor lil guy is built like his mama. Even has her legs, I'm afraid. But he's so smart and so fun. Really the happiest baby I've ever seen. He laughs and smiles at everything, babbles (he says 'baba' and 'mama' now), sits up completely unsupported for a half hour or more. And he eats. A lot. Hasn't met a food he doesn't like yet. His last name is Rojas. So far he loves peaches, blueberries, squash and green beans, and on the list of unconventional baby food that he likes are avocadoes, mashed potatoes, and Daddy's LJS chicken. He had it off the plate and in his mouth before we even knew what happened. He would also rather not be bothered by scooting or crawling or rolling to get a toy that's out of reach. If he's sitting on his blanket he'll just pull the blanket towards him until said toy is ready to be stuck firmly in his mouth. Ahh, love the drool.

I'm doing ok. I have a dear friend who I've actually never met face to face, but you'd never know it. She has become my accountability partner, and I hers, in our quest to drop the baby weight. Darn us for gaining 60lbs with our boys! The unfortunate thing about us as partners is that we both are too easy and sympathetic on each other. For example:

Her - "I didn't get a chance to do my workout today."
Me - "That's ok, you're chasing a toddler around all day."

Me - "I could've done much better on my diet today."
Her - "Ah well, don't beat yourself up, just do better tomorrow."

She's lost 6lbs and I've gained 1. Go figure.

Maybe it's because I'm watching "Chocolate-covered Weekend" on the Food Network....



And by the way, that 1lb was after a 4lb water weight gain during AF after which I lost 3. I know I know. "Justification is a sign of carnality." Ah the things you learn in Bible college.

Christmas Pics

I have two things to say. Well, one thing to say and a few to show. Maybe two things to say and a few to show. Moving right along..

1. I still don't know if anyone reads this but I continue to post in hopes that one day, somewhere out there, someone will stumble across my blog and read all my back posts.

B. Hopefully said someone will not stumble upon the blogs of my ridiculously witty and eloquent friends. I try to play in their league like a 16 year old girl puts on more makeup and revealing clothes to make herself appear old enough to get into the hippest new nightclub. But alas, I fail. Miserably. Maybe I should continue in my quest for a college degree. That's the one thing they all have in common.

III. Now for the show and tell portion. My gorgeous little Santa Baby






And finally D. I'm rather proud of myself for figuring out how to post pictures even though I have NO idea how to do anything on Blogger. *pats self on the back*

Merry Christmas!