Keeping It Real

I have enjoyed blogging for quite some time although I don't think I devote enough time to it. Today I ran across this blog site and decided to sign up. I realized that I wanted to keep a blog of "happenings". Personals, News, Opinions, Items of Interest, People, Places, Things, Whatevers... After giving some thought to content, I decided that, more than anything else, I am going to "keep it real". I am not going to glamorize, trivialize or sanitize any of the details. I will write about it just as I saw it, felt it, lived it, heard it, etc...

I will start my blogging with a Personal.

This photo is of my sons.

Today my Ryan is 5 months old. He sits and watches me move my fingers across the keyboard and I think he wonders what it is I am up to. Those little fingers dance slightly toward me as if he wants to try moving them across the keyboard himself. In time, little man, in time.

I am still flabbergasted that I am a mom again. My first child, Michael, is almost 21 years old. Ryan is number two. I don't regret a minute of it. As I have been watching Michael grow up and move along with his life, ever so slowly decreasing any mom time or direction he has needed for all these years, I suddenly feel needed again and look forward to a pair of little boy eyes looking up at me and hearing this child call me Mommy. Recently, when he decides he is bored with the toy, blanket, the Baby Einstein video, his finger scrutiny, you name it....he starts to holler and several of us have realized that what he is saying really does sound like "Mama". That is really all it takes to get Mama in motion and I run in there with tears of joy in my eyes to pick him up and, usually, I am blessed with the biggest toothless grin you can imagine which I have not yet allowed myself to believe it is actually a smirk saying "sucker, I fooled you again and you came running". Not my baby.

I took Ryan for vaccinations on Monday and he has been a little cranky ever since. Sleeping a bit more too. I have concerns about vaccinations that I never thought about before. When Michael was a baby, I took him for his shots whenever they were due and never gave it a second thought. But there have been discussions over the safety of certain vaccines and I am sitting on the fence awaiting more definitive answers. I just don't know. The MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is the biggest one. Can it really cause autism in babies? If there is even the slightest chance, I don't want to subject Ryan to it. What about the swine flu vaccine? How safe is this thing? Is it necessary? No matter the vaccine, should they be required or voluntary? Should parents have to make this decision for a child? Could they wait until the child is old enough to make the vaccination decision for themselves? I found info online yesterday about exemptions from vaccines based on religious purposes. All a parent has to do is put it in writing that they object to these vaccinations on that basis and that covers it. But what about if a parent objects because they don't want to risk their child's health and/or life by having them injected with a live virus (whether it has been altered or not)? I got the MMR vaccine when I was a child and I still got mumps, which was miserable, so what good did it do me? I intend to bring this up with Ryan's pediatrician on his next visit.

I need to complain a bit. About 3 weeks ago, on Sept. 18th, I was out on our front porch, sitting in the rocking chair with the baby, who was about to fall asleep. I decided to take him in the house because it was getting really dark and mosquitoes were starting to notice us. When I got up out of the chair, I felt myself get a little dizzy and I lost my balance. I knew I was going to fall and my only concern was for the baby so I clutched him tightly to my chest and fell straight backwards on the deck. I fell behind the rocking chair and into a long solid wood table I have back there with plants on it. I made contact with the table with my rib cage just below my left shoulder blade. It knocked the wind out of me and bruised a little but after a few minutes I felt a little better. Baby was fine. When I went to bed that night, I laid on my stomach like I always do when I felt and heard this "pop" just under my left breast and suddenly I was in excruciating pain. It has not let up at all and I can hardly lift the baby (or anything else for that matter). I am just wondering if this is just badly bruised, did I break a rib, is my lung damaged? I feel like an idiot and that's why I haven't gone to the doctor. Clumsy, big time. Suffering from dumbassity on top of all of that. You see how this blog is going to go, eh?

Over time, I will gradually introduce you to the other players in my life's drama. Members of these stories will include an ex-husband, a few brothers, a little sister, a significant other and a host of other folks who rarely enter my realm but do, on occasion, have some noteworthy tales that need to be explained, examined or exploited. For that reason, some names may be omitted or changed to protect the innocent or to not embarrass the guilty. This oughta be fun, huh? I have some friends and relatives that will have you rolling on the floor in hysterics, crying your eyes out or picking your chin up off the floor in shock. Promise.