4.4.11

It's another month! Hooray April! In 16 days I will be 26... crazy. I think I'm still having my quarter-life crisis though :oP

I want to take this time to just complain about stuff... since I'm freshly pregnant, slightly hormonal and moody, I want to get all of these thoughts and feelings off my chest.

First of all... if you are an adult woman (by adult I mean over the age of 18) you should NOT be sporting that hideous "poof" hairdo crap on top of your head. (For the unfamiliar, the "poof" has been made famous by that Jersey Shore character Snooki; it's sort of like a really bad tribute to a beehive hairdo or something, but looks absurd and awful.) This should probably even be extended to anyone who is in the 6th grade or above. This does NOT look good on ANYONE. It looks like you have a freaking tumor growing out of your hair on top of your head. I implore you to find a different hair style... there are many that are classy and flattering to all face shapes and hair types... the poof is not. I don't care who you are. Quit it. Stop making your head look stupid.

Secondly... I am a member of a "mommy message board" (CafeMom) and I have been reading THE STUPIDEST posts in there from people who think they might be pregnant... claiming they missed their period and feel a baby kicking inside, and their belly is already looking like they're pregnant (but it's only been 2 days since that missed period!) NEWSFLASH DUMMIES: It takes quite a while before you will even remotely begin to feel a baby kick inside you. Try 16-20 WEEKS of pregnancy (just about the halfway point). When your baby is initially conceived, it is a minute mass of very tiny cells called an EMBRYO. It's not even considered "fetus status" yet. That won't come until at least 10-12 weeks. When your baby is an embryo, especially at just a few days after your missed period, it is literally no larger than the period at the end of this sentence. It does NOT have arms or legs yet. There is NO WAY you can be feeling a baby "kick" your insides at this point. You have GAS. Chill out.

And let's not forget the people who post their basal body temp charts every single day begging for people to analyze a very obviously anovulatory cycle... and their chart has 5-10 temps TOPS on it, which is not enough to determine much of anything at all. And these same people have been told every day when they post that they need to have a couple weeks' worth of temperatures for anyone to even make a remote analysis of it. They've been told, shown, given resources of where to look to find out more information about basal body temping. You did NOT ovulate unless you experience a significant thermal shift... your OPK stick is NOT positive unless the test line is as dark as, or darker, than the control line. (This may not necessarily be true for all women; some do not ever get a positive OPK and still ovulate!) But yeah.

Ahhh I hate stupid people who do not READ or choose not to educate themselves. I have no sympathy for you. I don't want to help you. I want to slap you.

And now I will take my freshly pregnant self and finish this crazy robot project I was assigned for my engineering design class. It's either going to go pretty well, or be a complete and epic failure. I'm going with the 2nd option, since we've been given little to no clue how to operate the software and robot and we're all struggling (but hey, we're pretty good at providing each other with emotional support!)

3.30.11

WE ARE PREGNANT!!!!

After much planning and charting my morning basal body temps, using Ovulation test strips, taking prenatal vitamins, and hoping for the best.. I am so proud to announce that we are pregnant with baby #2, who will be due approximately December 10, 2011! Tyler will be a big brother this year!!!

I am so excited. I honestly did not expect to get so luck on our first try of actually TRYING, but we are truly blessed. And due to popular demand, I will begin my "Fetus Chronicles" again, like I did when I was pregnant with Tyler (only this time I will do a better job, because they were sporadic and I started late in my pregnancy with him.) Jon and I are thrilled!!

3.7.11

Today started out great until after I was done with physics class...

I had to go to the DMV to renew my car registration. Well, apparently I have a hold and cannot renew it because I owe property taxes to the city of Norfolk. I have never lived in the city of Norfolk, and not only that, but military are supposed to be exempt from paying property taxes on vehicals. Basically, I wasted an hour of my time waiting at the DMV to find all of this out. So I called the treasurer about that, and the lady said I need to fax or email her my last active duty LES and my DD214. Couldn't access my last active duty LES because the website took that option away from me for no particular reason, so I had to call DFAS and the lady said she could email me my last LES, but she can only send it to a military email address. Okay, cool. Next problem... my military ID is in my car, which Jon is driving today, so I cannot check my military email (I need the ID to put in the card reader I have at home attached to my computer in order to check my military email) so now this whole damn process is delayed AGAIN.

It just irritates the hell out of me that something that should not be a long drawn out process is getting more confusing and complicated than it has to be. I can't find the spare ink cartridges I bought for my printer a while ago, and I need to print out some important paperwork for Tyler's appointment tomorrow. I need to find a cheaper and closer daycare for him since his costs way too much and I am tired of driving back and forth to Hampton to take him there when I don't work or go to school there, it's a waste of my time and gas. I thought this week was going to start out well but here I am with a pile of stress on again.

I think I'm thinking too hard about us trying to get pregnant too... I have been tracking my cycle and taking my basal body temp every morning, peeing on ovulation sticks, observing other bodily functions that need not be mentioned in this blog... and I'm frustrated. I just wish getting pregnant were as easy as it was the first time when I got pregnant with Tyler, but this time I'm actually trying and it's frustrating me.

I'm irritated at Jon. I wish I wasn't, but he is bothering me, I don't want to talk about it here though.

So much for having a relaxing spring break last week... and having a nice fresh start to the new semester. I am ready to throw in the towel.

3.2.11

I want to dedicate this post to my son.

Tyler Jon Lalonde.

Before having him, I honestly never knew how much capacity I had to love another person. Sure, I love my parents, my husband, my family SO MUCH. But my own child... it's a completely different kind of love. It's amazing. It's wonderful and astounding and fulfilling. It makes every day worth waking up for. It makes me truly cherish every single second I get to snuggle with him, or kiss those little chubby cheeks, or tickle his little toes, or feel him throw his little arms around me for a hug. Hearing him say "mama". Seeing his enormous grins. Feeling his pride when he accomplishes something.

I love this little boy SO MUCH.

I am in love with being a mother. I love spending time with my son, I love watching him learn and grow and discover things every day. I love to just sit on the couch with him snuggled up against me while we watch TV. Or when we chase each other around outside, or play with his Matchbox cars or build block towers or read or pretend. His life makes mine magical. This child is just 100% amazing and awesome.

Sure, when he gets angry or throws a tantrum sometimes I could just scream... but those moments are not often. I love when I go in his room in the mornings and he greets me with a big smile and a giggle. Or watching him blow kisses to my husband at night before he goes to bed... and later on before I go to bed, when I go check on him one last time and pull the blankets up and tuck him in. I would do anything for that boy.

I just love Tyler so much, and my heart feels so full because of him, and I want to blog about this right now. He is my world.

2.28.11

Well, it has been a little bit since I've blogged... and here we are on spring break!

Thank GOD... I need this break. And Jon is going to be away for weapons training until Thursday, so it's just Tyler and me... and I will be taking Tyler to daycare for half days this week so I can get some spring cleaning done.

It's kind of lame that most college kids on spring break go out partying and go to the beach, and I'm here at home cleaning for fun. LOL! I don't much care... those days are far behind me. In a way, I am glad to have this free time alone to straighten the house out, because even when Jon's home and keeps an eye on Tyler for me, most of the time not much gets done.

We're in the process of starting to try for baby #2... some might think we're nuts for trying right now, especially after I just started school again, but I think now is a good time for us. The age gap will be good between kids, and I don't want to wait too long. I feel confident that I will be successful in school while pregnant and even after delivery, so we begin this month (March) of starting... I already ordered two 50-packs of ovulation strips and pregnancy test strips lol! I've been charting my morning basal body temperature every day since last weekend, and keeping a little journal on my laptop of how I feel each day and so hopefully we can figure out when I'm most fertile and get lucky. Perhaps we'll have a December 2011 baby! :o)

I have plenty more to say... but lunch time is calling my name, and I need to eat!

2.16.11

Another week down in my college career. Last week was an odd one. This week is turning out to be not so bad. I am almost positive I will be bipolar when this semester is all said and done.

So far this week I got to retake the physics test I failed miserably at, which is awesome. I felt pretty good about it. Then I had Italian class on Monday but I'm starting to feel kinda wishy-washy on it. I NEED index cards and I NEED to review the new vocabulary words. I usually do really well learning new vocabulary, but throw in verb conjugations and we're gonna have some issues. Ack.

Monday night I had my 10 minute Power Point presentation for my Engineering Design class. I did my project on cloth diapers... pretty original, considering most of the other topics were crazy like nuclear fission reactors or railguns or different types of sailboats. I was surprised with myself even. Unfortunately, I only made it to a little over 8 minutes, but that was pretty good considering the first 2 people were REALLY short (like 5 and 6 minutes, respectively). I got a few laughs out of the audience. And in class we are all doing peer grading/reviews and at the end of class we are supposed to choose the best presentation of the evening. I was the best one Monday night, which means a lot coming from a class consisting mostly of males (I think there are about 26 guys and maybe 5 girls) and I got some compliments as people were leaving class. That made me feel really awesome... who would have thought a bunch of young college guys would find a presentation on cloth diapers to be interesting and *slightly* cool???

Last night I had our end of season Upward sports league celebration. My peewee cheerleading squad performed their short dance routine and our "funky chicken" cheer, which got more laughs. (In case you didn't notice, I enjoy making people laugh!) They did really well. I was SO proud of all of them!!! Really, it felt like I was their mom for a little bit lol. But I will really miss those crazy girls, they were a lot of fun. However, it will be nice to have my Tuesday nights back to myself again.

I found out last night that a guy in my Reserves drill unit was murdered over the weekend. I have dealt with the death of family and friends before, and even when I was on deployment in 2007 one of my shipmates passed away while we were out at sea which was crazy and strange, but I didn't know her personally so although it was sad to have lost a fellow sailor, I wasn't emotionally attached. It hits me weird because during drill 2 weekends ago, I was sitting with this guy and helping him spell words in an email he was sending to one of our chiefs, and joking around with him, and went and got lunch at the Naval hospital with him (and a bunch of other guys in our unit). I mean, it's not like we were best friends or anything, but to have known someone and they were just alive not that long ago and now they suffered a pretty horrific death is something different to digest. I think he had kids too, he wasn't much older than me.

From a sociological standpoint, I've noticed in different social situations that groups of people act very differently toward each other depending on the nature of the environment. Like when I go to drill, all the military people I encounter are very easy to talk to and you just seem to fall right into an easy friendship or relationship with them, I think because we are all sharing some kind of unspoken brotherhood and you know that if we were in any kind of crazy situation, the person you're sitting next to during training could very well be the person who saves your life. In school, I think a lot of the kids in my classes are still stuck in the high school mentality of looking cool or whatever, so based on looks alone (or if you open your mouth and speak) they are quick to judge right then and there and choose who they associate with that way. Annoying, yes. I wish I could understand why people act that way. I think after having been in the Navy I don't have much of a problem talking to random people. But this subject is neither here nor there and I could go on for a while about it.

Anyway... was just supposed to meet and work with my computer science lab partner on some Java pages for class, but looks like it's not happening, because neither one of us has our textbook for the class and we need it to complete the assignment. Dammit.

I guess if it's warmed up a bit I could go walk around campus for giggles...

2.9.11

I've been slacking on my blogging.

It's been busy. Maybe not physically busy, but mentally busy. I'm trying to keep things straight and organized but once in a while I lose my mind or just say screw it and blow things off because I can't handle the stress. I swear this first semester back in school is a rollercoaster of all kinds of proportions. Mental, emotional, physical, whatever. I have good days and bad days. I have bipolar days. Like yesterday for example... went all day at school feeling GREAT... got home and right before dinner it felt like stuff was unraveling and I was pissed off.

I guess I'm just checking in here. I'm at school again for another "Pizza My Mind" series and this week they have Northrop Grumman presenting. I'm still gunning for the NASA internship but I'm going to get some info with NG since Jon might unfortunately be out of the Navy soon unless they get their s*** together. They're playing puppetmasters right now and jerking him around on a string and can't give him any straight answers which sucks because I hate not knowing anything and being in limbo with decision-making.

Looks like it will be a pretty small turnout for this thing. Damn. Last week was kinda packed... I guess NASA is cooler??? Hmm. It makes me feel badly for the presenters in a sense, but maybe they don't really care because they're getting paid to be here anyway whether people show up or not, and I know they have great jobs, I just don't think the average partying college kid has any idea.

Now I'm rambling. I have Italian after this. I bombed the quiz we had in there Monday so I'm thinking I need to make myself some fabulous study aids, AKA index cards with vocab words. Woohoo.