choked up today

today is martin luther king, jr's birthday. so i got some books on him and his life. unfortunately only one picture book came in so far...and one longer book that is too much to sit and just read to maeve (she'd never stay interested)...hoping more of the picture books come in this week...

anyway so we're reading MLK's story today and i got all choked up! seriously, i canNOT believe that this country of mine could ever be so absolutely horrid!!! i mean, i believe it but it STILL shocks me!!! doesn't it shock you??

i was reading about MLK to my daughter...her first time hearing about him, i believe...and i was really hit hard by what he did for us! he seriously was a HERO!

and then, the comparison some people are doing with obama. i get it. sure, its not exactly the same...but perhaps we'll see some degree of similar change in the next 4 years. there's so much hope in the country right now. its really wonderful to be a part of!

and *I* can proudly tell my children that *I* helped make history happen! because *I* voted for obama! and i'm very proud of that! i'm proud to have been a tiny piece of history! it just occurred to me that that is what i did and it really makes me feel good!

oh there is so much hope in the air in this nation right now...i really think this is going to be a fantastic time to be an american!

tomorrow we get our first african american president. it was only a little more than 45 years ago that MLK made is "I have a dream" speech in washington D.C. ...isn't it just AMAZING how far our country has come in such an incredibly SHORT TIME??? a black man as our president, just 45 years after MLK's fight for equal rights for blacks!!! how unbelievable is that???

what else is going to happen? what else will i live to see? what will my kids live to see? the possibilities are just endless! this really is an amazing country! we learn from our mistakes and we move on to bigger and better things...i am really proud to be an american today. :)

oh gosh, choked up again!

i love rainy days

so funny...today i was driving in the greyness of today (which eventually started raining)...and was thinking how i really wanted to blog about it. :)

i love wet days...not when there are tons in a row (but we don't get much of that happening in the central valley)...but here and there...i LOVE them!

today i was driving my kids around and it was grey and gloomy and i just loved it because it started to get wetter and started raining...in fact i was listening to the radio (something i don't usually get to do with maeven in the car, she insists on specific cds...but this was after i dropped her off to play at a friend's house) and the perfect grey day song came on for me..."sunglasses at night" by corey hart. i LOVE corey hart! i was a HUGE fan in the 80s.

this was my FAVORITE album, back in the day! (this is "boy in the box", and didn't have "sunglasses at night" on it...but this was my FAVORITE!)

oh my, i love youtube! here's the song:

so funny cuz that's the first time i've ever seen that video.

oh lookie, he has a website! WOW, he still looks good! :)

anyway, so that song came on...and i was immediately in an even better mood...the greyness was nice, but corey hart ROCKS! LOL!

then it started to rain...i'm stuck in traffic but i don't care! cuz guess what came on next? U2!!!



just gorgeous! i ADORE U2 too! :) this band always makes me remember an old boyfriend (high school days) who was really into them...but i just adore them for the tingly good feeling from all the intense emotions their songs evoke and all the good stuff that i know that band has done.

bono and corey on a rainy day...could it get any better??

wow and then i drove past shaw and blackstone where there was a protest going on against israel? something about israeli acts of terrorism in gaza? i still don't know anything about this but there was a LOT of people out there on the corners...with signs and banners and peace flags and a lot looked of middle easter decent and had some strong emotions on their faces...it really touched me to see people standing in the rain on a cold day, nearly dark (and after dark when i went by them again later)....to feel so strongly about something to do that...it was really intense for me...i choked up and my eyes filled with tears. that's not something that happens often to me. i now need to do a little research and learn what it was they were protesting because i haven't a clue.

but wow, what a day. great music, great weather, great emotions. i'm feeling really high on it all.

and then i got home and told adam about it and it got me to reminiscing about when i lived in new jersey...because it rains a LOT there. but it rains more during warmer weather...all summer long, in fact. it almost never rains here when its warm. in jersey we could go out and play in the rain...and enjoy killer thunderstorms. and i remember how the wet asphalt from the street would smell SOOOO good when it rained...and the way the electric lights reflected off the wet streets. oh there was no feeling like that! its difficult to put into words.

i remember i used to love driving around in my little '64 bug in the rain with the windows down to smell that wonderful rain smell and hear all the nighttime rain sounds of the town i lived in. there was this one intersection in particular that i just ADORED. it was a busy intersection with gas stations on every corner...and i used to keep doing circles to come back to that intersection over and over sometimes cuz i just LOVED the way all those electric lights were just a rainbow of beautiful colors bouncing off the wet streets right there...and the sounds of the cars and people and just the smell and it was sooooo uplifting to me. it was like a life high. i get highs off of lots of things about life, LOL...i'm just funny that way.

certain songs...certain smells...certain commercials or tv show scenes...of course my kids and my husband...i often get a tickly tummy about a loved one from loving them so much for something cute or funny or (in my hubby's case, sexy) fun that they do or say...there's a lot in life that excites me and gives me a high. its so cool! i LOVE it! :) who needs drugs?? LOL!

anyway, it was a good day. :)

seriously nauseous

ok this is really weird but really bugging me. adam is digitizing our old movies (from video to dvd) and we were just watching pre-maeven footage...34 wks pg with maeven, at my baby shower. i am having a really hard time with watching this. i wasn't interested at all in watching, and after watching a little...its hard to put into words how it's making me feel.

its almost nauseating.

god i can't believe i've come to this...but after all 3 of my pregnancy birthing experiences...none of which were 100% wonderful...i seriously have a really REALLY hard time even thinking about pregnancy and birth and especially looking at images of me while i was in the middle of it.

its this all powerful sick feeling...i guess it could be fear? not sure why it would be...maybe because i'm scared i will have to go through it again? i'm so dead set against getting pg again because i just don't want to have to deal with any of that again. it would mean having to decide where to have the baby, how, and having to deal with all the complications again of all that...not something i ever want to rehash. then there's going through infancy again. no thankyou. i've done my time with my 2.

don't get me wrong...i love my babies! but i'm ready to have older kids only now. looking forward to tyren not being SO much work...i'm just tired. so very tired. and how pathetic is that when i only have 2? well i choose to only have 2. no more. but of course if it accidentally happened, i wouldn't hate the baby! i would make the best of the situation and grow to love the idea as much as i did with the others. but i seriously hope i don't ever have to deal with that. hopefully we can get adam snipped pretty quick here and hopefully it will work for us and not be one of those that get pg after vasectomy, yikes!

ugh, i just seriously feel ill right now after watching that video. i wish i could understand it more fully. i can't stand to think about pregnancy or birth anymore. i don't even care to talk to friends about it. reminiscing (i'll do it when everyone else is but i'd rather change the subject) and reliving the moments...no thank you.

and when friends get pg...hard for me to deal with because it seems that that's all that is ever talked about around pregnant women...pregnancy, birth and babies. this is really so foreign to me feeling this way! i don't think anyone was surprised about me feeling this way after losing baelin...but after gaining tyren...i'm not exactly sure why its such an overpowering feeling now, when that story ended happily. there is perhaps some more digging to do to get to the root of this. hm.

i don't like reliving any of my births. i really don't. i just was thinking yesterday about how i have never watched baelin's birth/death tape. wondered to myself if i would ever be able to watch it. part of me wants to. but part of me is scared shitless of the emotions it will bring up. i've been thinking more of baelin lately. looking at how sad i've let his garden grow and wondering how i'm going to get out there and work on it without tyren running into the street. wondering what to do in his memory this year. this year he would have been 3! oh man that hurts my heart.

i suppose all this is tied irrevocably to baelin. my birth with tyren turned out the way it did...another c-section...because of our experience with baelin. it was truly a happy c-section...i was just glad to get my baby into my arms as fast as they were able to with that birth...so glad to finally have what i hadn't had from the previous 2 births. and yet there was still this cloud of sadness over not being able to bring him into the world naturally. not having one single, living birth that was natural. the only natural birth i had was to a baby that died as he was born. how sad is that? its very sad. it really is. i don't think i'll ever get over it.

and i just don't want to ever go through any of that ever again. if i got pg again i would have to make decisions on a new birth...after 2 c-sections...i would seriously consider another homebirth...as odd as that sounds...because that to me, at this point in my emotions, sounds less scary to me than a THIRD c-section...something which is considerably more risky. so i prefer to just not go there. just not have to deal with the issue at all. i know that decision would be something that would freak everyone out...but i feel like if i had to make it i would not really want anyone involved in it...perhaps not even my husband...not that i would be able to do that...but just saying how i feel right now...just me and jacque probably. with the phone right there by us to call 9-1-1 should it be needed. i know that wouldn't sit well with anyone. part of me wants to have that one last chance to do it "right". but not a big enough part of me. a bigger part of me just wants to never EVER have to deal with pregnancy and birth and all the insane complicatedness of it (for me) EVER again!

ugh, what a sickening feeling to think that i could be stuck in that situation again if adam and i aren't careful. bleh.