Mimic

Things Jacob can say:

Mama
Dada
Juuuice
Pwease (Please)
Oh NO
Oh WOW
Tanks (Thanks)
M'Emma
Tada!
Deedee (Jayden)
wahssh (trash)
Up
Beep beep
Bye bye

Boobfree

In all the drama that's been happening, I believe I forgot to update that I have weaned the baby. It started when my sister in law came to visit at the beginning of April. I nursed Jacob to sleep and when I laid him in the crib, his eyes popped open and he started crying. So I left him in the crib because I needed to help her get the pack and play set up and get my things from the room so she could go to bed. Jacob cried himself to sleep, something I wasn't sure he could actually do. It took about 30 minutes but he wasn't screaming, just sad. But I was at the end of my rope with his neediness toward me. I know he will learn to sleep without touching me, but I have to teach him how to put himself to sleep. He didn't last long in his crib that night, maybe till 1:30 AM but it was a good start.

The next day, I nursed him at naptime and when I felt like my breast was empty, I took him off and placed him in the crib. He only cried for twenty minutes and he was out. I decided then to not let him nurse again. At bedtime, after he repeatedly tried to lead me to the rocking chair and get to the boob himself, I placed him in the crib and closed the door. Then he proceeded to sleep until 7 AM, when I got him and took him back to bed for an hour or so.

I wish I was able to keep up with placing him in the crib at bedtime and naptime so he would learn to put himself to sleep but we've been staying with CS a lot and Jacob's crib is at my mom's house. Luckily, once he realized he would no longer get boob to sleep, he has settled into a routine where all he needs is to be held for a bit. He likes to watch lullabies with Dada before going downstairs to get into bed. Sometimes it only takes him minutes to fall asleep. Usually when daddy does it, as I seem to invoke a spirit of FUN TIMES.

Part of the reason it took me so long to decide to wean him was because I was afraid that he'd stop napping and I would get horribly engorged. I spent the first 6 months of nursing with hard, full breasts and I was not looking forward to a week of discomfort. Luckily, my right side didn't even notice. My left was a little more trouble, I actually let Jacob nurse off the hardness about four days after we quit. I had just showered and he started pointing to them and saying "boobs" and it was a little sore so I let him. Now they are empty and so small. I'm wearing my pre-pregnancy bras and when I lay back the cups are totally empty. It's a sad day for me. My clothes fit so differently, I never noticed how much of a rack I had until it's all gone.

But I hear they grow back, right?

The only thing that I'm trying to get him to stop doing is pushing his hands into my shirt when he's drowsy. He still likes to touch them to go to sleep. This will end soon, as he tries to lift my shirt up in his sleep. Like so many things in parenting, I'm learning that hindsight is 20/20 and I should have kicked the boob habit a long time ago!

Darkness Is Only As Long As The Day

The trouble with passion
Isn't that it doesn't last
But that it does.

I stole this quote years ago from a much larger poem I found on a daily poetry website. I feel that it sums up everything I feel about being in a relationship, especially when one ends and you're left feeling empty and full of longing.

I know the road back to normalcy is going to be long and fraught with much doubt and mistrust and confusion. You can't fix two months of chaos with one beautiful week. Maybe it won't be as bad as I fear, but we are only human and never do we do things the easy way. I know everyone is wary of this peace we have made. No one wants to see me get hurt. But I believe that great things can happen. I have faith that there is a chance we can move on from this and become those two old people on a porch swing together.

That's not to say that I don't spend a lot of time in a very dark place. On Thursday we took Jacob to the park and I watched CS and Jacob throw rocks into the river while I sat above them and thought about what I have to overcome. I know too much and there is little peace in knowledge. But there would be more anguish in not knowing, at least in my experience. I am morbidly curious, wanting to know what they talked about, what they did, why, why why? Will I ever be free from the images I see when I close my eyes as he kisses me? Will I ever feel peace when I am not with him, knowing that he is waiting for my return as eagerly as I will await his? Spending time with CS this week has been like a return to the life we had before pregnancy. We went to town on Monday afternoon and had Sonic, sitting in his truck, drinking a malt and stealing tator tots while Jacob played with CS's brother and sister. Later, I found on of her cigarettes in his truck. He threw it out and I was reminded on the very first fight we had. It was over me joking that I may have let his boss's wife smoke in the truck when we went on a beer run. I never would have let her but CS didn't think it was funny and we fought. Silly now, but I remember sobbing over it. So in a very raw moment between CS and me, I hated to find evidence of her. I hate watching my fiancee and our son play together at the park, doing what I always thought having a baby with him would entail but being preoccupied with knowledge of what they did in bed, what she likes, what he did. He was mine and I thought that we were each other's last. I have a ring on my finger to prove it. But I also know that I left him and maybe all of this is what he did because of what I did. You don't leave the man you love if you can't stand to lose him. Maybe as much as I wish he hadn't ever touched her, he wishes I had never packed that first box.

I want to feel more at peace as time goes on. I want to start over and make a family. I want to go to bed together, with our baby tucked between us and put my cold feet under his legs. Jacob has started to prefer Dada, even refusing to let me put him to bed the other night. Dada held him and comforted him when Jacob sprayed his face with bleach and they had to flush it out. And I am the one CS calls and texts. I am the one who sits next to him and we watch clips on YouTube of our favorite comedians and shows on Hulu. I'm wearing his ring and he tells me he loves me. Anything can be overcome with love, would you agree?

Moving (On)

Yesterday morning I woke up and thought about whether or not I should discuss the fact that I gave out my number to the very friendly waiter I had on Friday and the plans we made to go out to lunch someday when he called me on Saturday. I know CS still read this and while I had made it clear to him that I wasn't interested in anyone else, I wasn't going to try and be cruel by taunting him with how I might move on. I had asked him to stop talking to me on Friday afternoon because I was no longer capable of arguing over what I saw versus what he said it meant. It was madness and I just wanted it to stop. We broke up, he didn't want me, I was tired of fighting.

I went to dinner with my friend and our waiter was very nice. He told me that I could let Jacob run around and they would watch him for me. He commented on how hard it is to go to dinner without the other parent present, following up with an "I'm single, so I know" comment. My friend insisted that I leave him my number, whipping out paper and pen and writing him a message so he would know it was "from me" and not her.

He called the next day and we talked. He asked me questions about what I did and how old I was and I answered while thinking about how surreal it was. I was struck with how hard dating seemed and how nice it would be to just get this part out of the way. Just skip the dating and slip right into a relationship. It doesn't work that way, apparently.

Sunday morning, after we got back from church and the kids were playing in the yard, CS texted me and asked if I was still in church. I told him where I was and he responded by asking if my mom was there. I knew then that he wasn't just asking to see Jacob. He called me and for the first few minutes there was silence, broken by me asking if he was there and talking. Finally I shut up. He said he was sorry. Sorry for being the biggest dumbass in the world. That he loved me. All he wants is to be with me, for me to be his girlfriend and fiancee. He said he will be the man that he was when we met, fell in love, and decided to have a baby.

I honestly thought I would never hear any of this from him. Never. At this point, it's the only thing he could do to attempt to win me back. Because, of course, I want to make it work. We have a baby. We have a timeline for another one. We were going to get married. Our future was made with each other in it and we have a baby to think about. We don't just get to walk away and start over.

My Beach Bunny

Jacob,

I promise to take you back to Da Beach.


Watching you at the same beach CS and I took you to when we lived here was like seeing the future and longing for what could have been.


But maybe we have the chance to go back and make what felt right, real.


I'll give everything I have to make our future all it could be, should have been and will be.

The End

I wrote this a few days ago when I didn't know what I was going to do about CS. I've since confronted him and we have ended the relationship. He denies that everything I read on his phone happened. Instead of letting me read them, he repeatedly threw his phone against the wall until it shattered into pieces. A man who has nothing to hide does not destroy his one saving grace.


This is what I know.

I know that Chris and I are trying to work it out. We have been spending most of the days together and a few nights this weekend. We have been intimate. I am wearing my ring again and he says he wants me to, albeit maybe not as an engagement ring. We are affectionate to each other. He won’t say “I love you” but he wants to hear it. He doesn’t know if he’s in love with me. He’s hurt because I left. He has not moved on, he does not want to be with another woman, he has not slept with her. They are just friends and when they talk via text, it’s been about Chris and I. She’s curious about how it’s going with us. They are just friends. They never slept together. She only kissed him once. He didn’t take her to the Fireman’s Ball. They didn’t have their hands all over each other. She is not a skank.

This is what else I know.

He thinks she has nice tits, cute ass, long legs, pretty face and a great sense of humor. He thinks he might be falling in love with her. His reasons for staying in Florence are: her, class, the fire department, his grandma. They’ve talked about him living with her when he has to move out of the house we lived in. He gets jealous when other men flirt with her at the bar. He was jealous again when he saw a text from the other man she’s talking to on the Thursday morning he claimed to be sleeping at a friend’s house. She’ll put her whole self in a relationship with him. She’s waiting for him to make a decision. He wishes he didn’t have to make such a hard choice.


Here is what I don’t understand.

Why is he lying to me? He doesn’t believe that you can love two people at one time. To me it seems simple. Her or me. A life with a local bar skank for a few months or a hard won life with your family. Is it that hard?

Either he will decide to take the easy way out and start over with her or he will have to struggle to make a family with me. If he chooses her, he will lose me and he will lose Jacob. I will not sit by and watch him degrade himself like this and put Jacob through a string of relationships. I will move. I will leave. And I will take my son with me. I believe he knows this. When I first started dating him, it took us three months to say I love you. I do not believe that he has gone from wanting me to be his wife to in love with another woman in six weeks. I believe that I hurt him deeply by leaving and his defense was to find someone else. He knows if he tells me that he slept with her, that I will probably leave him but I’m not sure if I will.

As of now, it is over. I did not make up what I saw. I even showed his mom when I was looking at the phone. He cannot lie to my face that I am making things up. I am not stupid. My father was a cheater and a manipulator, I am not naive in these things. I do not have to make a relationship work when the other side is cultivating a back up plan. I do not share my lover and I do not compete with another woman. I am amazing. I am the best thing he ever had. I do not deserve what I was given in return.