Empty Head, Full Heart

I know I am modifying the tag line from Friday Night Lights, but this is the best way to summarize what is going on in our world right now.  This week was the finale to a very very very long journey for my husband...he was offered a job as a firefighter yesterday!!!  Can I get an AMEN, a WHAT-WHAT, a YEEHAW, and a PRAISE THE LORD?!?

Forgive me as I rehash this, but I am feeling the need.  When I was 7 months pregnant Rob came home without a job.  He was a financial analyst, and when the market tanked-so did the need for his job.  We know the layoff was coming, but it still hurt on so many levels when it actually happened.  Rob is a man with a plan, so when he came to me with a plan that started off with "Please hear me through, I need to say this," I knew I needed to listen.  I knew he was unhappy with his career.  His frustration level was at an all time high in fact, but like so many of us he felt stuck by finances and lack of options.  So when we were dealt the unemployment card, Rob took advantage of the opportunity.  He told me that he wanted to work toward the goal of being a firefighter/paramedic, and I knew in my heart that is what he always wanted to do.  The tricky thing with this goal is that it is not like a college degree in that if you work really hard and apply yourself you will complete your goal in X amount of time and get a piece of paper to congratulate yourself on the accomplishment.  This goal was going to be a year of putting himself through  fire school and paramedic school without the guarantee of a fire job-ever.  In fact the chance of it not working out was far greater than it ever actually working out.  He was jumping in feet first without the guarantee of ever swimming.

I knew that many people applied to be firefighters, but I had NO IDEA how many actually applied.  For example, Rob tested for the City of Fort Worth.  2,700 people took the test.  They only hired 3 people.   Needless to say, Robs 96% on the test still put him 317 on the list, after the tiebreaker lottery system was applied, and he still did not come close.  Rob tested for the City of Irving and over 800 applicants tested, and after the written/physical/polygraph he was ranked #11.  That is in the top 1%, and the unfortunate thing is it still was not good enough.  They were only hiring 3.  Close but not close enough.

After 2 years of this, I was having a hard time encouraging him to get back up on that horse and keep trying.  To be honest, I was getting weary.  At what point do you start to nudge your husband toward a new goal?  I wasn't to that point yet, but everyday pushed me closer and closer.  He was hired on last January as a paramedic which I know he enjoyed, but being a LPC was never the final goal.  That job gave him the burst of energy he needed to carry on.  He had no idea how much he would actually like working in that kind of stress.  I never once heard him complain about his job.  He may have mentioned the audacity of what people do to themselves, but he still enjoyed the actual task of helping them.

Now that I have made this incredibly long winded I will try to wrap this up.  The Deputy Chief called him a month ago and invited him to the Battalion Chiefs interview, then the polygraph test, then the psychological evel, and finally the medical evaluation (all of this after already having done the written, physical test, and panel interview).  They made his official start date January 2nd.  It almost doesn't seem real.

Rob is walking a little taller today.  Not just figuratively-he has a spring in his step, and I am sitting here crying crocodile tears as I am writing this.  He has worked so hard-so very very hard for this.  I would have given up by now.  I am so very happy I married such a persistent man.  One day if our sons are ever floundering about a goal, I know that Rob will be able to speak to them from a position of understanding. While E is too small to remember this and Andrew will only ever know his father as a firefighter, I hope that one day they will grasp what their father was able to do when he was 30.  He convinced his wife that he needed to pursue his passion and the darn plan actually worked!!!

I AM SO HAPPY!

On a side note, I wrapped up my chemistry class and took my exam for work that I had to pass in order to keep my new job.  I completed them both with flying colors which explains why my brain is empty.  I am one emotionally and mentally drained mama.  Happy but drained.

I'm Thankful

I am thankful for so many things these days.  I could make a very long list, but I will keep it short mainly because my brain is soooooooo very tired.

1.  My happy healthy boy.  E makes my heart smile.
2.  My happy healthy baby growing inside of me.  He too makes me smile from my heart.
3.  My husband.  Not only does he make my heart smile, he makes me laugh.  He makes me laugh REALLY hard.  I like that our marriage has a lot of laughter.  I think it is important.
4.  My family and friends.  My circle of family and friends is a small one, but a tight one at that.  Growing up, I had a very large circles of people around me, and now as an adult I value having fewer people in my life.  But those people that are in my life really know me and I know them.  I would do anything for them and they for me.  I'm thankful for small-tight circles!
5.  My new job.  My new job makes my brain feel like it could explode with all the information I need to learn daily, but that is a good feeling.  I don't like to be bored, and bored I am not!
6.  I have 3 weeks left of chemistry.  I have to toot my own horn here-I have a perfect score in the class right now.  I was dubbed the "smart mom," which makes me laugh.  I was not a good chemistry student 13 years ago the first time I took it (ask Andrea-she was my lab partner).  I hung for dear life in that class and barely made a C.  I think having so many things going on, it makes me focus and makes the class worth while.  Every class is a sacrifice to be there, so it makes it easy to apply myself because of what I am giving up to be there (time with my boys).  I have 1 test and one final left...I am thankful I am almost done.  I am ready to just focus on learning my new job and finishing out this pregnancy!

Here are a few pictures of what we have been up to these days.

 E sporting his new track suit.  He thought he was pretty cool.  He told me he looked "addsom" or handsome.

 Making cookies-this boy loves being in the kitchen, much like his dad.

E's room is all but done.  I just have to hang a few things on the wall before I post the final pictures up. Here it is with the gray primer over the wainscoting.

Happy late Thanksgiving-I hope it was a blessed one for you!

Changes

This week marks the start of many new changes going on in our family.  All good changes.  I am going into my last week with my current company that I have been with the past year.  I was offered a job with a company that I would be a fool not to go work for.  It is back in the spine/neuro world, and I am a total geek for the spine stuff.  I wasn't looking for a job, but the job found me-so who am I to say no?!?  It will be in FW only (NO TRAVEL)-HALLELUJAH!!!!

I remember running through all of the airports on a weekly basis when E was just months old with my red cooler in hand, toting around my milk I had just pumped, and having many curious people ask what on earth was in the cooler.  I normally travel in scrubs for simplicity sake, and it is only normal for a person to think that I was carrying an organ or something.  (I don't know why they would think I would be on a commercial flight for that, but I can still see how they would connect the dots.)  Here is how the conversation would normally go with another passenger (normally a male passenger no less):

Stranger:  What is in your cooler?

Me:  A brain.

Stranger:  Really?

Me:  No. (Long Pause) But I don't think you want to know.

Stranger:  I really think I do, what is in there?

Me:  Breast Milk.  I am a working mom that has a baby back in FW waiting for me.

Stranger:  Oh.  (Total look of awkwardness and grossness on their face.)  I think I liked the idea of a brain more.

Me:  You can't say I didn't warn you.  :)

My new schedule will be incredibly busy, and it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.  I feel blessed that Rob is totally supportive of this, and he knows that this new job means that he will have to be more flexible with his schedule as I figure mine out.  (FYI:  This news was one of the good phone calls I got a few weeks back.)

The next change going on in our house is our next home project that hopefully will be complete by this weekend.  E will be moving up to his new room.  I am that mom that has kept her kid in his crib far longer than I should have.  E loves his crib, and he doesn't climb out-so my thought thus far has been to leave well enough alone.  He sleeps all night in that crib, and my fear is that he will turn into a horrid sleeper when we transition him up.  With that said, he is way to big for it, and sadly it is time for him to move to his big boy room.

We have always affectionately called this room the "bug room."  When you reach the top of the stairs there is a cute little lady bug painted on the door, and you can see the hand paintings along the wall.  It is a darling room, but definitely painted for a little girl.  I have envisioned a "camping theme" for E's new room.  Picture "old school boy scouts" mixed with "air stream campers."  I have been collecting numerous items over the past few month, and I really hope that it all looks like it is supposed to after we are done.

The visions in my head are always grander than my budget and my decorating skills, but I am excited to get my hands on this room.  I will post the after pictures in the next week or so when it is all done!

Here are the before:

I lost my brain

I think this second pregnancy has stolen more of my brain that my first ever did.  For starters I had 3 moments yesterday that made us laugh out loud.  I know that I have air head moments all the time, but these were particularly bad ones considering that they all took place within 30 minutes of each other.

1.  We were driving in the car when I saw a man dressed as a pirate.  I made the comment that it was weird that a grown man was dressed as a pirate in broad daylight.  Rob looked at me waiting for it to dawn on me that it was Halloween, and when that moment didn't come-he smiled and said, "It's Halloween."  We both laughed and moved on.

2.  Not even 12 minutes later we were driving through on a busy road that has huge houses sitting up on a ridge, and when I looked up at one of them I saw a body hanging from a tree (it looked real).  I gasped loudly, but fortunately that time I remembered that it was STILL halloween.  Rob just laughed knowing that I had already forgotten what we had just talked about.

3.  5 minutes later I looked out the window and saw a woman walking in the "museum district" of FW dressed as a wench.  I made the comment that she must be in a play or something because she was dressed awfully weird.  Rob started to laugh to the point of tears because he had to tell me AGAIN that it was halloween.

I think I have lost my short term memory, and my long term memory at that.  Hopefully it will return once our little man arrives.

On a different note, Rob took E trick or treating last night and he looked so stinking cute!  I had to miss it because of class (BOOOOOO!), but I am glad that the boys got an evening together.

I had to include this picture of my boy on the way out the door to school.  Bad lighting, but he was so happy I had to capture it!

Good Luck

Two days ago I was pooped on by a bird walking out of E's school.  It landed on my head, and it was really gross.  It was in front of the playground with all the teachers and kids watching.  It was one of those moments where you want to totally gross out, but you don't want to be a crazy example to all the little eyes and ears that are so intently watching and listening.  What was really funny is E pointed out all of the birds flying overhead before the poop came flying.  E saw the poop land on my head, he announced "Mommy-Poop-Head-Yucky!"  He then proceeded to laugh to the point of snorting and hiccups.  I love that he snorts when he laughs.

While I was totally disgusted, I couldn't help but laugh to the point of tears while driving home with my little man.  The rest of the night he kept talking about what had happened and insisted on inspecting my hair long after the mess was cleaned up.  When we walked in the door and I was laughing/lamenting over what happened, Rob reminded me that getting pooped on is a sign that good luck is coming my way.  While I don't necessarily believe in actual "luck," we did receive two calls the very next day with good news.  (More to come on the good news thing...)

So I was reminded that sometimes getting pooped on (literally and figuratively) isn't always a bad thing.  My son thought I was the funniest person alive, and I certainly can't complain about that.

We are Having a.......

BOY

We had the ultrasound, and there is no mistaking that we are having another boy!  I am absolutely thrilled that E will have a little brother to rumble around with.  I have always felt that I would be a "boy mom," and it appears that my feeling was right.

I thought for a bit that we might be having a girl, mainly because I thought it would be fun to do all the girl things with one.  But now that I know that our little Andrew is happy and healthy, I couldn't be happier.  

Rob made a special point to recognize that I will be the only girl in the house, and he realizes that it might be tough having to balance all of the testosterone.  He promised that my girliness will not be lost or forgotten in all of the "blue" we will have going on.  That made me happy.

So we are having a little boy, and we are naming him Andrew!  Hooray!

The Results are In...

Last night I decided to test out all of the "Old Wives Tales" of the gender prediction world to see if the tests could accurately determine what we are having.  I found 8 different versions that didn't seem to be to hokey that I put to the test.  I was going to do 9, but after finding out that the Drano test involved toxic fumes I decided to pass.  

1.  Parents.com Quiz:  Boy

     This quiz was very similar to the actual "old wives tales" quiz, but with a few random one inserted into     

     it.  Questions on leg hair, cravings, weight gain, and questions of the personal sort that I will not 

     mention.

2.  Chinese Lunar Calendar:  Girl

     Based on my age and the lunar calendar when this baby was actually conceived.  I don't know why I 

     put more validity in this one...I'm a big fan of acupuncture so all Eastern Medicine must be right-

     right?!?  

3.  Old Wives Tale Quiz:  Boy

      Similar to the Parents.com 

4.  Heart Beat:  Girl

     Our little one's HB has been above 140 every time, so according to this method the baby is a girl.

5.  String tied to the wedding ring:  Girl

     This one required the help of Rob, and we could stop laughing while we were doing it.  It took    

     forever.

6.  Math Formula:  Boy

     This one took my age and added the month the baby was conceived, and it was an odd number.

7.  About.com:  Boy

     This one kept asking what position my pillow faced at night which was weird, but I guess none of 

     these are actually scientific.

8.  Sexwizard.com:  Boy

     This website advertised that it has pretty accurate results, so I tried this one as well.  It was more of the 

     same, so it was no surprise when it came back boy as well!

So according to most of the tests that require I answer questions about my pregnancy itself, they pointed to BOY (5/8) or 63% chance.  The other three tests that pointed to girl don't have much in common (37% chance), so we shall see what it comes back as on Thursday!