Bucket load of answers to a ton of questions.**

since mason may be your last child, are you frustrated at all that you don’t have a girl?
Honestly? No.
I can’t imagine not having my three boys. I can’t imagine any of them being a girl instead of who they are. And I can’t imagine having another right now. Whether that’s because I’m done or because I’m just so enamored with my perfect little family, I don’t know.

** Since Mason may be your last child, are you upset or feel bad that Josh didn’t get to be there for the birth? Especially since it’s his first…and maybe only if (and hopefully you do!) you guys stay together.
I don’t feel bad for me. I definetly like to be alone during labor and birth. I loved the way things played out with Mason. I was completely alone until my midwife asked to come over, and I was already 8cm’s. And within 2 hours, I had a baby. It was wonderful. I’m not sure if he feels like he missed out on anything. When I told him how many people were telling me to record it for him, he didn’t seem interested. And actually said it’s not something he’d like to see. I’m not so sure if he was just putting on his "tough guy act" or not, though.

I do feel bad that he’s missing out on this sweet newborn phase.
And if things work out, and he wanted another child, I would be easily convinced.

** why do you keep saying "if things work out" with you and Josh? Are you not sure?
No, I’m not sure. Even though things are going very well between us right now, both sides are putting forth effort and we haven’t argued in months… I am still expecting the rug to be pulled out from under me. I’m still expecting that he is just telling me what I want to hear. I’m still expecting that he’s got some girl on the side. And it’s not because he’s doing anything to show me that he does – it’s because I’m scared of being hurt again. My trust in him is being slowly built back up as I watch his actions, and how consistent he is. He’s pretty trasnparent to me, I can tell when something is up. And I can definetly tell he’s sincere right now. But I’ve got conflicting feelings going on in my head. My first isntinct is to always run away from something that hurts me. I’m blantantly ignoring that right now and sticking around. It’s hard.

** you’ve been very open about your issues with Josh. Has that been hard for you?
Sort of. I never talked about my struggles in my relationship with George. If you were able to read back through my entries, I never really talked about George, period. I just felt like it was personal and my business, and it didn’t need to be told to everyone. However, that put an image on me that my life was perfect. It wasn’t. And isn’t. I’m more open about my struggles in every aspect of my life now because I don’t want to be seen as some super woman. And because this is my diary – it’s what it’s here for. Who cares if some person on the internet is going to talk trash about me for it. I really don’t have the time to care what anyone thinks. If you don’t like what my life is like? Stop wasting your time reading. -shrugs- If you like reading about my struggles because it makes you feel not so alone in yours, good for you. Either way, I’m writing things for me. I don’t feel like I need to censor or put things on private anymore. This is my life…

(how) will you teach the boys that G & X have one father and Mason another?
Not really sure on that one right now. I’ve thought about it a few times.
I’m not worried about Gabe & Xavier forgetting about their dad. They have an amazingly strong bond (especially considering the circumstances) with George. He’s engraved in their lives as "Daddy" and Josh is just, Josh. I’ve explained to them that Josh is like their second Daddy, but he is Josh. I actually don’t think it’ll be an issue.

what in the world will you do when your babies are all in school??
The same thing I do now? Work. When I was a stay at home mom I always said I’d go back to work when my kids were in school. But I’ve obviously done that much earlier out of necessity.

Compared to Gabriel and Xavier, how is Mason as a newborn? Do you think he’s showing any personality yet or does he just sleep?
Gabriel was my very independant from the get-go kid. He never minded being set down somewhere and entertained himself for hours.
Xavier was my extremely high needs baby. I honestly don’t think I put him down for the first 6 months of his life. He was always attached to me via a baby carrier or cradled in my arms.
Mason seems to be somewhere in between. He’ll sit and entertain himself for short periods of time, but he definetly craves his cuddle time. He doesn’t really cry unless he’s pissed that I’m changing his diaper or giving him a bath. He mostly just lets out a little yell at me when he wants something. It’s pretty dang cute. Gabriel is definetly my carbon copy in looks and personality. He’s intense, stubborn, always on the go, and emotional. Xavier is definetly all George. Easy going, laid back, go with the flow kinda dude. It’ll be interesting to see what Mason turns out to be.

Favorite websites to go on?
I mostly stick with Opendiary, Facebook and MilitarySOS (a military spouse forum). I stop by Myspace every now and again to keep up with the people who message me over there.

Ever dye your hair an awful color? If so… can we see pics?! lmao
LOL That would probably be when I decided I wanted to try on blonde again. I don’t have pics because I’m not on my computer.

I know the boys are now with George. Where does he live? How did you two meet? Were you two ever married?
George lives in Toronto, Ontario. We met when he was working a contract in my hometown. I worked at a coffee shop and he was a customer. We started dating in 2004, married in 2005 and seperated at the end of 2007. Our divorce was just finalized a couple months ago. It took so long due to a difficult judge and him not being physically present for the divorce hearings.

How did you and Josh meet?
Josh and I met in 2003 at a bowling alley. He opened up the door for my friend and I as we were walking in. After being in the bowling alley for a little bit, I noticed that he was hanging out with an old friend of mine. She introduced us and we hung out for the evening. (I was 15, he was 18.) The friend that I was with that night was interested in him, so I kinda just sat back and let her flirt with him. But he wasn’t interested in her… he was interested in me. We started dating shortly after that and were together for a little over a year. We were eachothers first love. He helped me through a lot of difficul

t times, and I was with him while he went through boot camp for the Army. The breakdown of our relationship was ultimately caused by his mother, whom he hadn’t quite "broken away from" at that point. It was the second time he broke up with me, so I pretty much shut down completely. He made every possible attempt in the world to get me back, and my solution was meeting George and running away with him 3 months after meeting him.

You seem so accomplished and grounded for such a young age! How old are you (I figure about my age, 24)?
I’m 22. I may seem accomplished and grounded, but I’m finding that I learn and grow everyday. Everytime I think I know all there is to know, I find out that I was pretty wrong about what I thought I knew. I’m starting to think that’s just life, though.

What do you see in the future for you and Josh? If you could have anything happen regardless of probablity, what would it be?
Right now I see two people that are really trying pretty dang hard to see if they can work things out. Although he’s the one who cheated, I definetly played just as much of a part as he did to what lead up to his infidelity. Our first 7-9 months together were wonderful. And then the toll of everything started wearing on us both. He was struggling with completely readjusting from his deployment (we got back together only 2 months after he came back from Afghanistan), and having a hard time finding a steady civilian job (he got laid off a few times and hours cut several times), I was grieving over the loss of what I wanted my marriage with George to be, and learning how to be independant (going from SAHM to full-time working mom), and throw in two toddlers who were acting out because of the adjustment and Josh going from bachelorhood to a life with a woman and her two kids, we bought a house somewhere in there… it was just a crazy time. When we were in the middle of it, all we saw is what the other person was doing wrong. Now that we’re out of the middle of it, we both see how much stress we were both under and the toll it took on us both.

We’re coming up on our 2 year anniversary next month. I’d like to see many more of these. Will it happen? I don’t know. I’m still a bit skeptical, mostly to protec t myself. But I do know that right now, both sides are putting a lot of effort forth.

How is being a military spouse going for you? What has been your biggest challenge with it so far? What did you think would be hard but has turned out to be easy?
It’s going a lot better than I thought it would. All the time we spent anticipating this deployment, I was very concerned and worried about how our relationship would do through it all. We were already in a bad spot, and I really pressed to make things better before he left. I think I did more damage than good by attempting that. If it weren’t for this deployment, I honestly think we wouldn’t be together right now. We both needed to step away from the situation to get a better perspective.

My biggest challenge has probably been learning patience. And putting trust in him when he really didn’t deserve any of it at the time. Patience has never been my strong suit, but I’ve grown a tremendous amount in the 4 1/2 months he’s been gone. I thought the lack of communication was going to be the hardest part, but he’s really made a lot of effort to call me atleast every other day. Majority of the time I hear from him in some form or another (text message, phone call, email, instant message…) atleast once a day. I’m very lucky with that.

Can I squishy-face your bebe? He’s SO CUTE!
Haha. Of course you can. But you have to come to AZ to do it! LOL

How do you and george manage to maintain such a friendly relationship?
It wasn’t very friendly in the beginning. We had a fairly messy seperation. And he was very difficult for a long time. But one of the best things my mother ever taught me was how to be supportive of my relationship with my father, even though he was a horrible father. She never said anything bad about him, and never took it upon herself to sway my opinion of him. She let us come to our own conclusions. Even though my relationship with George failed, it was always my number one priority to make sure the kids had a good relationship with him. He wasn’t such a great husband, but he was an amazing father. When George realised that I wasn’t going to play into the games, he stopped being hateful and it became all about the kids. Which it should be among two seperated parents. We can have casual conversations and we get along fine, although we can’t really spend a whole lot of time together otherwise we start getting annoyed with eachother.
 
Ummm do you believe in child led weaning or extended breastfeeding?
Uhm. Are those two not the same thing? LOL
I believe in exclusively nursing for the first 6 months. Meaning, no solids ’til then.
And I’m weird and just skip baby food all together and start with finger foods. Ripe bananas, peaches, steamed carrots, etc.
If you have to puree food to death, I don’t think the kiddos are quite ready for them. I just waited until my other boys were interested in feeding themselves.
As far as nursing goes, I just kinda… go with it. Xavier weaned at 15 months. I didn’t push him to, but I did transition him into his own toddler bed and I started working. So I wasn’t as readily available as he was used to. But he didn’t have interest in nursing when I was home. So, I guess I’ll just go with the flow, again. -shrugs-

I just started lurking a month or two ago so how about a short back story to catch me up?
Hm..
Josh was my first love and we met when I was 15 and he was 18. He’s a military police officer in the Army Reserves. Currently he’s spending 12 months in Afghanistan, his third deployment. Daddy to Mr. Mason.
George (ex-husband) and I were together 4 years. He’s Lebanese-Canadian and we moved a lot due to his job. He’s a contracter in the aviation industry. We lived in Arkansas, West Virginia, back to Illinois, up to Quebec and then Ontario. We get along fairly well and he visits the boys every 6 weeks or so. And has them for longer periods of time in Canada 2-3 times a year. In between visits he webcam chats with the boys 3-4 times a week.
Gabriel is my (nearly) 4 year old. Xavier is my (nearly) 3 year old. And Mason is de bebe, obviously.
I was a SAHM until George and I seperated. Now I work at the county animal services.
I used to label the way I parent and did everything involved… but lifestyles change and certain things don’t work for me anymore.
I had a c-section with Gabe, and then a homebirth with Xavier and Mason. I formula fed Gabe, and breastfed Xavier and now Mason. I cloth diapered Gabe and Xavier, and now as a single mom (since Josh is deployed…) I hardly have time to keep up with everyday laundry. There’s no way I could keep up with diaper laundry. I don’t quite know my stance on vaccinating yet, other than it’ll definetly be delayed if I do go through with vaccinations. As of now, none of my kids are vaccinated. I used to spend a lot of my time advocating parenting decisions that I was passionate about. And researching the hell out of things… but, eh. Don’t have time for that anymore. You do what you do, I’ll do what I do. If you have questions, I don’t mind telling you what I know. But there are so many more important things than the decisions you’ve made when your child was a newborn. They do grow up and things get a lot more complicated from there.

How do you communicate with people most- online, texts, phone?
Definetly online or text. I’m a phone-a-phobe.

Who do you talk to the most?
Other than my kids? Probably Josh’s mom. And then Josh. He’s done an amazing job at keeping up with communication throughout this deployment. I was fully expecting days and weeks of not hearing from him. But, most of the time, I hear from him either via text, phone call, or instant message atleast once a day.

Where do you see yourself in 3 years?
I have no idea. Gabe will be 7! Xavier 6 and Mason 3. Depending on how things pan out with Josh and I, we’ll probably be in Texas or Arizona. (He has two pending jobs, one with the Army and one with border patrol.) If things don’t work out with Josh, I’ll probably still be living in the same house and I’ll probably have taken an Animal Control Officer position.

What does a typical day look like for you?
Oh jeez. A typical day would be me working.
4:45am – wake up and get myself ready. Pack my lunch, pack the boys breakfast. Let the dogs out, feed the cats, feed the dogs.
5:30am – wake up the boys and get them dressed.
5:45am – Out the door to the babysitters.
6:05am – Dropped the boys off and headed to work.
6:20am – At work, 10 minutes early. Depending on how tired I am, I may stop at McD’s for a mocha.
6:30am – Start working. I am on my feet all day, most of the time don’t get either of the 2 breaks I’m supposed to get. And more often than not, I have to skip lunch as well. This will need to change when I go back, because I’ll need to make time to pump.
3:00pm – Clock out of work. Sometimes I try to run a few errands (the post office to mail off a box to Josh, or pick up a few groceries, etc.) before I have to get the boys to save myself from dragging everyone into the store.
3:30pm – Pick up the boys from the babysitters.
3:45pm – Get home. Do whatever chored need to be done around the house. Play with the boys.
4:30pm – Start dinner.
5:00pm – Eat dinner.
5:30pm – Clean up dinner mess. Do some more chores. Feed dogs and cats, again.
6:30pm – Bathe kiddos.
7:00pm – Bedtime for kiddos. And then I try to unwind a little. Get online, finish some things around the house, watch TV.
And I’m usually in bed by 8:30 or 9:00 to do it all over again.

What kind of foods do you like to eat most?
Foods of Junk. Hah. 
 
Do you like your handwriting?
Depends on the pen I’m using.

If you were stuck on an island right now, but rescue was coming in a day, what three items would you want?
Clothes, water and… cookies. lol
 
What is your favorite ice cream?
Cherries Jubilee. Mmm.

What names were you considering had Mason been a girl?
Madilyn and Adrienne.

Whats your favorite home cooked meal?
Corned beef & Cabbage. With lots of vinegar.

Favorite restaurant?
A pizzaria George & I frequented nearly every week when we lived in Montreal. I would make a trip up there just to have their delicious pizza, again.

If money were no object, where would you like to vacation to?
Somewhere tropical.

why did you and George split?
I don’t think George was ever really ready to settle down. It’s not his personality. He likes to be free, he doesn’t like to be tied down. He loves to travel and what he wants from day to day changes, all the time. I want to settle down, have a family, live one place for the rest of my life and I’m content with that. He’s not. He resented me for "tying him down". Neither of us were good for eachother. And that’s just the truth of it. We probably could’ve forced it to work, but we both would have been horrible unhappy. In order to happily make things work, two people need to have atleast somewhat of the same goals in life. We didn’t.