Lunch Dates

Luke is quite the lunch companion. We went yesterday and had such fun that we decided to go again today and take Griffin and Janey (well Tara and Theresa got to go too).

Letter to My Little One

Dear Emmy,

I love you to pieces already and you are not even here. However, we are going to have to discuss you changing positions. Currently, you have a foot in my liver and I think you might be chewing on the nerve that goes to my right arm. As much as Daddy enjoyed helping me get dressed this morning, it’s going to get old quickly if I can’t use my right hand until you arrive. I am learning to write left-handed, which is going to make people think that you have a mother that drinks heavily, and using a mouse left-handed is only making my work that much slower. Already I can tell you are just like Daddy since I am already begging you to please, please, please scoot over. Regardless, I love you dearly and can’t wait to meet you.

Love, Mama

Happy Birthday

Yesterday you would have been 61. It is amazing how young that sounds. I celebrated your birthday by getting carpet installed. I figured I would not be good for much at work anyway so I just had them do it then. Besides, spending lots of money helps keep my mind off of things. Miss you and love you,

A funk

Sunday morning at 3am, Aunt Ruby called me—just to chat! She was obviously very confused and said she couldn’t find Uncle Warren (he died 7 years ago) but wanted me to know that she had moved to Memphis and to come and visit her (I have been to her apartment several times). Later on, I found out that she had the telephone operator call Daddy at 3am trying to reach Teri Jackson. Daddy told the operator that you were gone and that he would call her son in the morning. I stayed up the rest of the night just thinking about how “lucky” we are that you didn’t end up with Alzheimer’s. I know that was your biggest fear so I am so thankful that if you had to leave us, it was something quick and you didn’t suffer for years and years like she is. But then I get angry and sad all over again. This week has turned into pretty much a bust for me now. We are taking flowers to the cemetery on Saturday for your birthday so I called Monday and ordered those. I guess it all just has you on my mind even more than usual and I am just really down in a funk right now. I am trying to do all these things to get ready for Emmy and it is just not fair that I have to do them alone. So many people have been so thoughtful and want to help and I am so grateful. But it is very difficult to discuss mucus and boobs with anyone but your mom, More...

The Similarity is Uncanny

Lucas Anthony Salinas

He's here! And he's perfect! After a long Monday afternoon, evening and night, Luke arrived about 1:07 Tuesday morning. He weighed 7 lbs, 9 oz and was 20.5 inches long. Mom and baby are doing great.

Here we sit and wait...

We are all eagerly awaiting Luke Salinas's arrival and it seems to be all any of us can talk about these days. I absolutley just adore John lately and I can't be sure if it is because of Emmy Ruth's expectant arrival or if it is because he is enjoying football with me this year.

Aerobics or Gas?

Either little Emmy has made her kicking debut or I have a very odd tummy rumbling. I am afraid to say for sure that it is actually her moving around since it is nothing like I expected it to feel like (like I had a clue as to what to expect!) but something strange is going on in there!

The Ever Increasing Belly

I have been so busy that I have had little time to sit down, much less write much. Little Emmy's room is just about finished and ready for her arrival. Until February, it just serves as a place for me to go and sit and think "oh my gosh, what have we gotten ourselves in to???" I sit in the rocker and stare at all the little trinkets that were mine when I was little and now she will get to play with them. There is a wooden heart that momma gave me one year, probably in my Christmas stocking, that says "Daughters are forever and I am so glad that you are mine". It's going right on her door.

Tara is edging closer and and closer to popping. If I didn't know better, I would think that Luke must be three feet tall already and jsut scrunched up in there waiting to come out!!

Pictures to come next week, I wish you were here to see all of this, More...

Ultrasound

4 chambers of the heart
10 fingers--10 toes
2 kidneys
1 bladder
perfect little spine
no testicles--all girl!

The Power of Pigs

My dear friend Natalie got me tickets to see the Hogs play in Fayetteville Saturday for my birthday. John was going to go—his first Hogs game!—but then at the last minute, John had to work and Daddy went with me. It was really a great time. On the way to Wynne from Memphis, at 630am!!!!, I got pulled over in Earle—as everyone has at least once it seems. When the police officer came up to the car, I told him I was going to see the Hogs play and I was just really excited. He told me if I could show him a ticket for the game, I could go and he really did! I was so shocked! I told Daddy about it and he retorted, “yeah, that’s something your mama would have been able to get by with too”.

Ian Update

After a week at St. Jude's, Ginger and Greg found out late during the week that Ian's tumor is benign and he is going to be just fine!!! They are not even going to remove it and let it shrink on its own. Such fabulous news!

Week 17

We get to find out in 12 days if we are having a boy or a girl. I am giddy with excitement--John seems to be as well, but that might be that he is giddy to get me to quit asking him whether he wants a boy or a girl. Here is Week 17's photo. Wild, wild, wild. It's all so strange! Last night, I recited multiplication tables for B2 and John suggested tonight we go over state capitals with him/her. Of course, this weekend we will be learning about football. What a brilliant baby this will be!

Frumpy is as Frumpy does

The only thing that looks frumpier than a linen shirt by the afternoon is a linen maternity shirt.

#4

Ginger called and Ian's chest CT came back that there has been no spreading of his tumor!!!!

Good day...

1. I got back B2’s triple screen test results and all is great. Now we can carry on in our regularly scheduled pre-baby excitement.

2. I got roses. And the card only said “I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe that I deserved my friends”. So, that ruled out John, that and I didn’t pay for them from our account. I finally discovered they are from someone who works for our data processing company that I had a very, very minor tiff with earlier in the week. We spend a good deal of our working day discussing the crucial things like college football so we have grown quite fond of each other. I am sure he is only trying to keep me on his good side so that I will cheer for his Ohio State Buckeyes with football season quickly approaching, but it was very, very sweet.

3. I got the best compliment from a 7 year old. My friend Gabby had to fill out this sheet for her homework the other day and one of the questions was “if you could have a teacher for the year, who would it be?” and she answered “Mrs. Tara”! Awww!!! I asked Rebecca if she was sure she didn’t know another Tara and she doesn’t, so it must be me!

Scared shitless...

Ian Gregory Smith--the adorable son of my friend Ginger--is up for a fight. Please keep him and his family in your prayers. Saturday afternoon his mom found a knot on the back of his thigh. They went to the doctor yesterday afternoon just to get it checked out and found out this afternoon that he has cancer. Tomorrow they will go to St. Jude's for the first time. Please keep them in your prayers.

I want my mom

It hits me at the most random times. Not at all when you would think. For example, I did really good on Mother's Day but then seeing a grandma with her kids at Wal-Mart can send me over the edge. This started it yesterday: The finger spacer at Knowledge Tree. I went there to pick up something for a friend's daughter for the first day of school and saw this at the checkout counter. You always told the story about my "rivers" whenever you saw Mrs. Rose, my first grade teacher. Neall slammed my finger in the door and locked it when I was in first grade--my first and only stitiches. I had this big bandage on my finger and I couldn't curl it down to use my index finger for making my rivers when writing. I cried and cried in fear that I would never go to second grade for not being to make my rivers. So, I saw this at Knowledge Tree and couldn't stop thinking of you. It's just little things like this that make it all so hard. The life part of everyday makes it hard.

And selfish. The most selfish parts of it are what makes it all so sad. I feel like a chunk of my childhood died with you. Who knows how old I was when I took my first steps? You did. I remember that I was talking around nine months and potty-trained before two years, but I only knew that for bragging purposes so how do I know when my child is on track or behind? All the little details of my childhood are forgotten now. Men don't remember these things, women do and well, I was just a little too young to remember them at the time. Speaking of selfish, who is going to be with me when I have this baby? And when I come home? It was supposed to be you. And John's mom.

Yesterday, I got home from my shopping excursion about noon and talked to John for a bit and went to laydown and take a nap. I didn't mean to but I couldn't help but start thinking as I was laying there, I started thinking and just lost it. I didn't realize he could hear me but John came in there to see if I was okay and what he could do. All I could tell him was that "I miss my mom". He's so helpless. I hate doing this to him, he's been through it, he knows how hard it is to be without your mom, it is not right to be thirty years old and not have a momma in this world but he also knows that it is different with men and women and he doesn't know what to say. So, we went and got fried chicken--what can that not fix? So the rest of the afternoon was spent with me being exhausted from my emotional breakdown and John in the midst of spinning all of his own thoughts and grief around in his mind--I hate doing this to him.

A friend lost her dad this summer and then only 2 1/2 months later, lost her mom. I felt so lost and didn't know what to say to her. For the first time, I think I understood what my friends went through when it all happened to me. I know that I can call anyone to talk but how awkward and odd would it feel to just call a friend up: "Hey, what are you doing?", "Nothing, what about you?", "Oh just sittin' here thinking about how my mom died, wanna talk about it?". There is a thin line between talking about grief and whining about what you have lost and no one wants to be the wrong side of that line.

Who would have thought that most important lesson you would try to teach me would be you simply not being here?

Time Management is Overrated

I went to Wal-Mart at lunch to return some sheets and get some light shopping done. For weeks I have said that I needed to get my eyebrows waxed or I would not be able to see much longer. In an effort to better manage my time, I went ahead and got them waxed at the hair salon at Wal-Mart. I think I may have overdone it this time since now my fair, fair skin is red and blotchy and I think that wax might have been heating for a week straight.

Happy Birthday Janey!

Yesterday was Janey's 2nd birthday party. It was great fun and I must admit my first doll cake was a success! (She had a small incident with a coffee table two days before her party that gave her the black eyes!)