Focus on the good.

No. I will not focus on last night. On the fact that I spent 5 hours in a place where no 7 1/2 month pregnant chick should be.
I will not focus on the fact that if I had been there any longer, I might have actually gone into labor.

I will not focus on the fact that I slept alone last night, or the fact that I got frustrated with my cat, and kicked him out of the house to go play. And when he didn't come back by the time I went to bed, I just forgot about him. And when he did show back up this morning, he had a huge gash on his face.

I will not focus on how that makes me a bad mom. Or how, if I can't even take care of my cat, in the hell is someone going to entrust me with the safety of a newborn?!

I will instead focus on how when I did leave the hellish place, the one person I wanted was Ed. His face, his embrace. His kisses. Everything was what I needed at that moment. I finally felt safe again.
Even though he did leave to spend the night (It was a party that they'd been planning for a couple of weeks. I couldn't tear him away from it because I didn't want to be alone. I'm not 5. I'm about to have a baby, and I need to grow up and be more independent.)

I'm going to focus on the text I got from him last night, the one where he said he misses me? And wishes I was there? The one that jolted me out of a dream about aforementioned 'hellish place', and put a smile on my face. A text that after receiving, I was sent back into dreamland with positive, loving thoughts. Because of a text from the right person.

The right person. And he so is. The right one for me. The man who wants to fight for me. Who gets scared for me, who loves me with all of himself.

I will also choose to focus on the beautiful day outside.
The sun shining brightly.
The birds that are singing right outside my window as I work.
And my daughter.
Who is now head down, again. (Though, not to jinx anything here..)
Who is my motivation. When I was in said hellish place, one thought kept running through my head. And from that one thought, I found more strength than I ever knew I had. "Be strong... Be strong for her."

I haven't completely repaired physically from the little jaunt into 'hellish place'. My back is still in enormous amounts of pain, and I'm having more contractions that I'm comfortable with.
But I'm out. I'm here. With the freedom to choose to focus on the beautiful things.
With the the choice to be strong, for my daugther.
With the ability to love a man who is more beautiful than all the stars in a midnight sky.

Because, though I mess up. I stumble, I fall. I get tripped by bullshit in life,
I am still a strong woman, as long as I make the right choices.

Gotta love them pregnancy dreams

Okay, so last night I had a dream about my baby girl.

I was sleeping pretty hard, as I often do lately because I am just SO. DAMN. TIRED. I wake up every few hours, but in between those few hours? I sleep so hard.
Anyway, so Ed came to bed and woke me up.
And trying to go back to sleep was nothing short of impossible.

(Oh, and when my alarm went off this morning? Layliana started jumping around. NO! It is NOT time to get up yet. That's just the first alarm. Oh well, I get her learned one day)

Anyway, so I was having a dream about her being born. And I pushed her out, and everything was just so hunky-dory. Seeing her face was magical. Holding her was everything I could have imagined and more.

And then we went home, kind of immediately. I remember thinking in my dream, Hmm, that's weird. They're sending us home kind of early. Must be because it was a vaginal birth. 

And Layliana was just soo... Well, the way I described it in my dream was that she was a 'little spitfire'. So ... what's the word? Rebellious. Yes. That's the word.
I remember distinctly blaming her father for that.

But she was beautiful. A beautiful, little, perfect angel.

And then she got smaller. It was weird.
In the beginning of the dream, I was taking her around to see everyone (Even her father, because for whatever reason, he wasn't there to see her be born. More on that later.) Anyway, I was taking her around to see everyone in a regular car seat.

But by the end of the dream? She was in this small, porcelain, heart-shaped box. She was TINY.
I would open up the little jewelry box, stuffed with gift stuffing paper, and her laying on top of all of it.

Ugh. That's actually kind of terrible, and I hated the dream.

Except when I held her, when I looked at her.

It just made it so apparent how much I am going to love her.

April Fools us all

Well, Tomorrow is April.


I think I've been working off the assumption that time would stop until I felt comfortable enough to allow it to progress.
This is not the case.

Tomorrow, April begins. And On Saturday, our sweet baby girl will officially be here in THREE MONTHS.

And if you're doing your math, on Sunday, that means that the countdown to Layliana Audrea Rugg will look something like, "2 months, 29 days"

NO. No No No No No nononono... NO. HAAAIIILLL NAW.

About a month-- Nah, who am I kidding? I have no grasp of time anymore -- A while ago, I wrote about how I could look out over the valley that our office overlooks, and everything was dead. No color in the sky, no green in the grass, everything was waiting for beautiful weather and spring.

Umm... Well? The grass is a beautiful, perfect shade of green right now. The bushes are starting to sprout have sprouted leaves. And the weather? Well, despite being a wee bit windy, is definitely beautiful and perfect. When did this all happen? I thought it was still February something. That's when I told time to stop, And it didn't, and WHAT THE HELL.

I am going to write a letter to my congress-people. This is an OUTRAGE!

But, there is good news in the horizon of ever progressing dates and the ever-diminishing amount of time until I have a FREKIGNASING Baby: Tomorrow, they're supposedly going to start the revamping of our new house. Meaning we are thatmuch closer to being able to move in. And to when I can start the nesting phase that I am OH SO ready to start.

Which also means, moving. Which is decidedly less exciting than NURSERY. WITH PINKS AND FLUFF-LES AND CUTENESS.

But, today? Even the thought of moving sometime really soon couldn't get me down.

I got so much sleep last night. And it felt OH-SO-GOOD. I woke up in the best mood. (Which is nice, since I have been a horrible person for the better portion of 5 days now.)
And then I walked outside, and that didn't help, cuz it's just so damn beautiful outside. What, with the perfect freaking weather, and all.

And this VIEW. I'm telling you, it's awesome. To have that as the back-drop to work. I mean, damn. I don't have this good of a view AT HOME.

This weather, coupled with my insatiably good mood, has me all excited to start exercising. Nothing too strenuous, just walking everyday. The last Prenatal appointment has me all self-conscious about my weight. And I know I shouldn't be, the fact that I'm growing a human being should be enough to kick that, "I'M SO FAT" pregnancy mentality. Alas, it isn't.

I've trimmed down the amount of snacks I eat a day. I will eat 3-4 meals, and then a snack in between them. Usually... Yesterday, I had a handful of almonds and a cereal bar after lunch. (Before, I was eating A LOT. A lot of snacks too. Unhealthy ones, at that. Little Debbies, and sugary snacks out the WAZOO.)

I'm hoping that will be enough to tone down my weight gain. And I won't have to stop eating those things I love so much. Like desserts. And pasta. And macaroni and cheese.
Cuz then? It just wouldn't be worth it to go on.