Preparing for change..

Everyone tells me they don't know how I do it so well with Vance being gone so much. All I can say is I just try to suck it up. I've done this for 9 years now. Trust me it does not getting easier. I wish I could say that each deployment gets easier or that it's a piece of cake. But it's not. I cry at times. I get so lonely at night when he's gone. I worry about him all the time. I HATE when I don't hear from him for weeks. I think that's the part that drives me crazy the most. I never knew how much a short email saying I love you could mean so much but it does. I call his cell phone to listen to his voice again. I have cried before in our closet smelling his shirts. I sound pretty pathetic right now, huh? I appear to be so strong on the outside but in the inside I'm crumbling. I know there is going to be days where I'm probably going to want to lay in bed and eat a whole tub of cookie dough ice cream because I miss him so much. Yes, I am guilty of doing this in the past. Can you blame me though? At times I wish we had family that lived closer so that I had that family support to lean on. I wish I could call family and ask for help or a break for the weekend. I wish I could send the kids to a grandparents house for the night so I could breath and have mommy time. But everyone is in Texas. Sadly, I don't think any of them can come to Washington and see me.


We're moving to Washington sometime in November or December before Christmas. Part of me is excited to get there and check it out. Part of me is dreading the move. Lets face it -- 5 days in a car with 4 kids isn't the funniest thing to do. I'm glad my little brother Craig is most likely going to fly out here and help us drive both cars there. It makes it easier having 3 adults taking on 4 kids. Especially with filling cars and bathroom breaks. I'm hoping for a smooth move this time around. My dream move would be to beat the movers so that I can have my stuff as soon as they get there. I don't want to stay in Navy lodge longer then I have to.

Vance isn't reporting to a boat right away. I get 6 more months with him before he starts deployments again. He has to do more schooling before he can leave. Which will help get the kids use to the new area. Bryce & Caleb seem pretty excited about the move. I think they have become use to the long road trips from station to station. Which in a way makes it easier. Aiden & Dylan on the other hand get pissy after so many hours in the car. Which at times can make the drive seem like it's never going to end.

I'm more so nervous about life once Vance is deployed. Last time I did a deployment we only had two kids. Now we have four. I'm trying to think of things I can do to help them not miss their daddy so much. I'm going to get them each a daddy doll I saw online. Plus thinking of having Vance record his voice in some stories. One for each kid. Since bedtime stories are usually daddy time with the boys. I'm trying to think of other ways to keep them happy. Feel free to comment with any ideas on how to make deployments easier on them. I'm all ears.


My biggest fear right now is handling this ppd. I am still seeing my therapist who I love. She is so supportive and caring. I'm going to miss our sessions when I move. I finally was able to switch to a pill that helps with my anxiety. We'll see in a month if there is any real difference. My goal is to eventually get past ppd and not need any pills at all. But with going back to deployments I think I'll always need some for my anxiety attacks. I get pretty overwhelmed on bad days. I'm most likely going to be a hot mess when Vance is deployed. So be warn my blog might seem super gloomy and depressing at times. Not all the time but I'm sure I'll have my days of venting.

Again if anyone has any suggestions on how to make the next few years of deployments easier for myself or my kids let me know. Seriously, I'm up for any suggestions. Sorry for the depressing entries lately. I can't have a lot on my mind and can't seem to post anything fun or exciting worth sharing at the moment. I ran across this quote and it's exactly how I feel at times.

"I remember when I used to be the happiest,
loudest, spunkiest person alive. Nothing
could get me down for very long. I smiled
all the time and laughed nonstop. I still see
glimpses of that girl sometimes, but not much.
I miss her."

My first grader, therapy, birthday rambles..

I can't believe I have a first grader now! It doesn't seem like it's been that long since I brought him home from the hospital. Or when I would watch him crawl around the living room chasing daddy and laughing at his rattles. Now it's all about school, friends, and moving out one day. His first day went very well. He was thrilled to see that half his old class was with him this year. Including his crush from last year. Yes, he's only 6 and talks about how pretty this one girl is. How nice and funny she is. Bring on the teen years, lol. Only person missing was his best buddy but they have recess together to play. He was excited to come home and tell me how when everyone else couldn't figure out the math problems he could. He even was able to show the class how to solve them. My little geek. Takes after my geek charming hubby, lol. Today he has science and was pumped to roll out of the bed to get ready to go. Kept asking if we could go yet, lol. I'm sure I'll hear all about it when he gets home. I love my little school nerd.

Caleb will hopefully be in school next week. Hurricane Irene seems to have the school starting classes late. I'm looking forward to have Bryce & Caleb out of the house during the day. Though with just Bryce being gone my day seems lighter. Caleb seems to do better when Bryce is not home with him. It's like he's lost his partner in crime so why bother. Not that I'm complaining. They all go down for naps with no fights. I'll admit I have been taking a mommy nap when they sleep. Makes up for all the times I'm woken up at night. Plus it's refreshing to rest for an hour or 2.

Therapy is going pretty well. Still figuring new things out and processing old. The more I go the more I question people in my life. Which usually I would feel bad for wanting to cut ties but now I don't care to try and have a relationship with them. Hell I don't feel like I need to please everyone like I use to. I'm just going to go on living my life with my little family. If for some reason certain people get cut out a long the way, I'm fine with it.

Finally able to get through to my doctor about changing medicine finally. I go in tomorrow to switch pills and add an anxiety med to my prescription. Hopefully I start noticing a difference in no time. I hate having to remember to take a pill every day. So far I have been able to get up in the morning and take it before I start my day.

My birthday came a few weeks ago. For once I didn't care if someone didn't bother to call and say anything. Or anything. I'll remember when yours comes this way. The people that truly care all called or emailed to wish my a special day. In which I thank them for. Birthdays have never really been my thing. Usually nothing seems to go the way I like. Something usually happens to ruin the day and I end up crying my eyes out. Been like this since I was a kid. To me it's just another day. Just a reminder that I'm another year older. Big deal. I did enjoy the cake that my husband attempted to make me. It was his first cake to bake me. He worked so hard to make sure it was perfect. Every time he made a mistake and I said anything he would hurry and fix it, lol. In the end I was happy it was edible and the house was still standing, lol. I'm just kidding. I love you babe.

As much as I could continue to ramble on I'm going to stop. Probably post again later. Just to vent some anxiety I'm feeling with the move coming up and preparing for deployment again. I'm nervous I'm going to be a hot mess when hubs leaves.

Managing PPD & life

It's been about 6 weeks since I started being treated for post partum depression. Honestly I wish it was something that could be fixed overnight. I've been on medicine for 6 weeks and have not seen any real change. Started on 25 mg, then boost to 50 and now 100 the last 2 weeks. Nothing. I'm suppose to go back when I start running low again. Maybe they can give me something else to try. I honestly think that I need some anxiety medicine on top of the depression medicine. If you don't know what it's like it's hell. I'll give you an example of what I deal with. One night after barely any "me" time and just lack of sleep. I found myself going off on my husband. Dylan had been crying for days. He's teething and has horrible acid reflux. I found myself stressed out from the house not being perfect. I have seem to develop ocd with this. As it's common in post partum depression. Dylan started crying again. My husband who had kept reminding me that or son was crying yet again for the millionth time. I finally snap and the flood gates open. I just started yelling at him. How all he ever says is "Babe he's crying, babe he's crying, babe he's crying!" and that I had it. How I hadn't sat down all fucking day and that I can't take it anymore. I'm not super mommy. I'm never going to be perfect ever. He took Dylan and try to calm him as I found myself rocking on the couch crying my eyes out for a good hour. The whole time I kept asking myself, "Will I ever be normal again?". It scared me. I hate this feeling. I hate it so much. I'm trying so hard to figure out how to fight this but most days I find myself wanting to call it quits.

I am super overwhelmed with daily tasks lately. Between the lack of sleep at night, kids are home all day driving me crazy on summer vacation and just lack of any free mommy time it seems. I'm hoping when school starts August 31 it will get easier. Bryce is enrolled for first grade I need to take Caleb up to enrollment for pre-k. Just don't seem to have time to get around to it. Vance has the car at work all day and it's just too hectic to take all 4 boys. Plus Dylan's acid reflux is driving me crazy. Zantac is doing NOTHING for it. The last few days have been hell for me. He screams all day long and spits up tons of food when he finishes. Or just can't eat without screaming from the pain. His doctor wants to try and ride it out til his check-up and then we'll go over more options for him. Maybe even doing some more testing to see if everything is developing. Hopefully I get some answers soon.

I'm in the middle of trying to change the kids eating habit at the moment. It's getting better. Less junk food more fruits and veggies. I'm trying to work on a menu for the next pay period. But it seems like I never have the time to sit and work on it. Right now I'm rocking Dylan as I type hoping he'll take a nap. If I can just get this menu done today for grocery shopping tomorrow I would be satisfied with my day.

Only have 2 hours left til I need to leave for weekly therapy session. Actually this will be my second session this week since my therapist is taking a week off. Therapy has been pretty helpful. We talk about everything. Stuff I haven't thought about in months and things that make me question the way I look at people in my life. She makes some very good points about how I've looked at life and the fact that some people I shouldn't feel the need to "be" there for. I have always been a people pleaser. Always trying to please everyone but not myself. Family members mostly. Some friends. Not going to list names on here. I'm still processing it all and just trying to figure out who has really been there and resolve some issues I didn't realize I have from my past. If you know me then you know about my not so great childhood. Let's say I've been through a lot more then some people have. Do I let it define me --no! But I do know that I've never showed anger or my true feeling to people that could have been there and weren't. Or anger to the ones who did do stuff. Instead I've always tried to bottle it up or make excuses on why it's pointless to talk about it. I do realize that because of everything I went through as a child and stuff my husband went through has made it hard to trust anyone with my kids. My therapist says I have good reason to be so overprotected. In fact she supports me on it. I will continue to be protective on my boys in til I feel like I don't have reasons too. If your finding this offensive then most likely you have given me a reason why I should be around you. Or why my husband feels the need to have them not around you much.

I hate that we're both grown and our families continue to think we're dumb when it comes to the things they are doing. We know EXACTLY what you all have been doing and saying. We're not stupid. Our kids are not stupid. They are very educated so that they NEVER have to go through the shit we went through as kids. I'm proud of that. My 4 & 6 year old knows what "evils" are out there in the real world and how they cause people pain and tear families apart. They know what to do if someone ever tries to do anything to them or offer them anything. As long as I'm alive they will not go through any crap we went through. Mark my words and if one fucking person attempts to try anything with my kids or offer them anything I will tear them a new one. I'll be damned if anyone does anything to my boys. Test me if you don't think I will. Go ahead try.

I would love to say thank you to my husband. Thank you for dealing with my ups & downs of post partum depression. Thank you for all the times you've listen to me cry and just for being supportive every day. I'm so thankful to have you in my life. I love you so much babe.

Vance - I never thought in a million years that I would find someone
so amazing and completely perfect; someone that would
make me happier than I ever dreamed; someone that would
give me a whole new reason to breathe. I love you. <3

Baby Blues

Finally went to the doctor and had a long talk with her. Finally explained how I've been feeling lately. How I have tons of anxiety around people. How I cry a lot lately, not sleeping much, stressed like no tomorrow and just down all the time. The kids drive me crazy at times. I feel like I don't have enough time, energy, hands, etc. Better explanation I feel like a hamster running around in a cage. Turns out I just have postpartum depression. I had a feeling I had it. But didn't want to admit it to myself. I didn't want to be put on pills or anything like that. I was on pills when I was a teenager and told myself I would never need them ever again. I find myself going down this path and I can't seem to get myself out of it. I cry way more then I need too. I don't even bother getting dress nor do I want to go out really. I'm tired of being stressed out all the time. I find myself laying awake in bed just looking at the ceiling hating life. I'm overwhelm when dealing with all the kids at once. Which makes me nervous when Vance deploys. I'm going to be a hot mess most likely. I miss my family all the time. Maybe seeing this therapist will help. God I hope it does. I hate myself at the moment and just want to be the happy cheerful me. *sighs* I wish I had someone who can relate to this. Vance tries to understand but I don't think he fully gets it. I don't think anyone really does. The way I feel scares me at times. I hate this feeling.

I'm sorry if I've been distant. I'm sorry if I've let anyone down. I'm trying to figure myself out at the moment. I'm trying to be strong and do it on my own. But failing miserably..

My doctor also took some blood work and other labs. She is running tests on my thyroid and making sure the preclampsia from all 4 kids hasn't effected my heart. Plus she is also checking on my kidneys to see if they've bounce back. Hopefully everything is normal. Why can't lab results come back asap and not take almost a week to get back. I hate waiting on labs. I'm way to impatient.

Stress (venting)

Heh, I haven't been on this blog in a very long time. I almost forgot about it. Life the last few months haven't been the easiest and it doesn't look like it's getting that way anytime soon. If their are any spelling or grammar errors in this then I'm sorry. It's hard to see what your typing when all you can do is cry. I can't make the crying stop. I'm sitting in my bed with room door closed wishes the I could freeze time and just be left alone just for a day or something.

I guess the stress started when they messed up Vance's pay by giving us two re-enlistment bonuses back in Feb. I was smart and put the mess up in savings since with the military you never know how they will handle their own fuck ups. Of course they stopped Vance's paychecks for 3 months. So we had to live off that to make it til we paid it all back. Plus remind you I was having lots of health issues with my pregnancy. Plus we were coming on our due date which added more stress. To add more to that our apartment in Colorado told us we had to move 3 weeks prior to our actually date to move to CT. So we had to move all of our shit to storage and live in a hotel from April 12 til May 2. I'm sure you can imagine how much it was to eat out and pay a hotel for that long. OH and the hotel didn't allow pets so I had to board our husky in a kennel for that time to. So add another 487 just to board her. Then moving day came and it took us 3 long days to get to ct. Gas is at it's highest. Every time Vance had to fill his car the pump would cut him off at 90 which didn't fill his tank. We had to get hotels on the way and sleep 6 hours so the kids/baby could get out of the car. We get here and the mover had put our shit in the warehouse which couldn't be delivered for 6 more days. Another hotel stay at Navy Lodge. Which was more money at this point. Our dog tore the hotel room to hell in one hour of leaving her alone in the room. So we still owe Navy lodge 400 I think the lady said. Not sure they are still repairing the flooring. God I was so embarrassed and I think I told them sorry more times then they care to hear. At that point I just wanted to throw my hands up and quit. Because I had hit my breaking point and didn't know what else to do. By the time we moved into our home in CT. We had ran out of money completely. I had to make our account negative to get some food for the month so we could eat. I didn't know it would be another month til we saw a check. We thought 2 weeks. Just 2 weeks, we can do this. Payday came and left no money in our account. The stress got more overwhelming. We had to borrow some money and pawn some stuff to scrape up enough to get a little more food. Which wasn't enough so I had began to skip meals so that my kids could eat. Because I rather starve then not be able to feed my kids. Vance had to go talk to several people to get his paycheck back. Which it should have already came back since we paid them everything back already. But no make us wait and suffer another 2 weeks..assholes. Pay day finally hits and I'm thinking yes we'll be fine now. WRONG. Our old complex decided to debit our account 738. Very unsuspecting. So now we are in the negative big time. They claim they will refund it but won't fax our bank so that they can correct it right away. No so our account is getting overdraft fees and every other fucking fee because of this bullshit. So now I'm shaking, throwing up and have chest pain from more stress. By the time they refund it which the bank says can take 10 days we will have tons of overdraft fees to pay. Because oh yea the bank still wants the fees from this bullshit. Can I just die now? Because I don't know how much more stress I can take. I wish we get some good news like the check would come in for our traveling/hotel fees. Anything. At this point I just want to give up and crawl in a ball crying. Funny I already can't stop crying. The kids luckily don't have no idea what's going on. So it's not really effecting them. But it's causing Vance and I to fight at times. I don't want to fight I don't want any of this. I just want everything to be fine again. I want to not stress about money or any more about this fucking awful move. I just want to be left alone from the outside world. My neighbors probably don't know what to think of us. I can't do any big social thing with them because I have no money too. But I also don't want to tell them what's going on because I don't know them well enough. Can we please just fast forward the weeks til all this shit is fucking fixed already!?! I haven't gotten my monthly friend from all the stress, I'm throwing up, I'm getting chest pains, I can't stop crying now. I just want this all go away already. I'm tired of pretending like our lives are fine. When really it fucking sucks right now.

I'm going to finish this vent so I can blow my nose and clean myself up. I'm covered in tears and I don't want my kids asking what's wrong when I leave my bedroom in a minute. Plus I don't want Vance to worry. *sighs*