A common theme

I love my friends near and far in the blogging world. Before the days of facebook this was the one and only realistic way to stay connected since emailing all of you on a regular basis just does not happen. And now, even with facebook, I prefer to share the private things here with you. This is a much more personal site for me where I connect with my close friends who happen to be geographically far.

Dear Friends,

As I read each of your blogs and see various posts it appears there is a common trend among all of us. The winter has been long and we are all tired. Tired from deployments, husbands long days in the office, crying children, cold rainy days, and probably the most prevalent reason: being too hard on ourselves. Each one of us struggles with our own worst enemy: ourselves. The pressures we face to be a good wife, mother, sister, neighbor is sometimes overwhelming. I know I have these battles on a regular basis. I am pointing this out because I hope as you are reading this you can take a moment to realize that you are wonderful, caring, loving, and giving and that it is ok to need help and not do it all. I know this is a giant struggle of my own.

Some days are better than others- this probably sounds familiar. There are days where I just feel so defeated and overwhelmed and others where I think I have it all down. As I type this I am contemplating deleting it. It is as if putting this into words admits that I have weaknesses, or that I too struggle. It is hard to be vulnerable and it is even harder to let others know that you are vulnerable. I am not sure the level of detail to share ( I am just not sure what I am comfortable with), but I wanted to type this post for some burning reason. I don't have any answers or way of making the pressures magically disappear, but My faith in the Lord has gotten me through everything thus far and I am confident He will continue to provide for me.

I think the bottom line is that nobody can do it alone. Without getting cryptic and long winded I will end this with hope that each of you will find Peace and joy in the little and big things in your lives.

With love to you all-
Tricia

What we have been up to

It has been a very long time since I blogged. My home computer, which was lent to me by my sister in law after I had to give up my work laptop last year, has a security setting I can't fix that does not allow me to log into the blog and update. I use Mark's computer when I update. I truthfully could have updated a lot more often, but enjoy my evenings with Mark and Tess and don't often find myself online at night.

Tess is growing quickly. She is thriving on breast milk and at her two month check up had gained over 3 pounds and grown 2 inches! We did discover she is lactose intolerant. This is especially challenging for me since my diet consisted of cereal and milk every morning and yogurt and cheese at some point each day. I have not had dairy in over a week and may finally be getting over the cheese withdrawals. Tess is much happier and healthier without dairy, so it is all worth it. Her main symptoms were spitting up / borderline vomiting curdled milk, and chronic diarrhea accompanied by diaper rash. All of the symptoms are much better or gone in just one week with out dairy.

I am still working on my delivery recovery. Since I tore so badly and pushed so long I dislocated my tailbone. I have been in physical therapy since Christmas time and am still going weekly. Hopefully, one day soon I will sit down without pain.

I am starting to exercise more, but still have pain with long strides walking, so running is out at the moment. I am using the elliptical again and am hoping in a few weeks I will be able to run especially since I am planning to run the Cooper Bridge run in Charleston, SC in the end of March. It is a 10k, so as long as I can start running in a couple of weeks- or at least by the end of February I should be fine- just not as fast as I probably would like.

Tess is doing great. She smiles all the time. She giggles a little here and there and is working very hard on sucking her thumb. She likes her thumb and index finger combined. She has lost a lot of hair since her birth and most of it in the last few weeks. I really hope she does not lose much more because I lover her long brown hair on the top of her head. Tess has also rolled from her back to her side multiple times now. She is so fun to watch grow and change. We can't get enough of her!

Finally, here are some photos that were taken recently.

Tess looks so much like Mark it is scary! The hair is all I can claim!

Her first day in the bumbo! She is getting so strong. She is 11 weeks old in this photo.