Exhaustion

Betsy took some great pics of Camden the other day. Here's a pic of my job during the photoshoot-trying to keep his hands out of his mouth!

The rain has finally stopped, for now, and we are enjoying the beautiful weather! I spent half of the day on the backyard patio yesterday trying to catch up on our bible study over Daniel. Extreme Home Makeover 2007 is still in the process. The bathroom floor is tiled and looks fabulous. We are going to pick out the granite and backsplash for the kitchen sometime soon. We are thinking black granite with white subway tiles and black glass accents. I'm not sure if I love the idea of black in the backsplash, but I like the glass tiles, so I'm trying to find a way to incorporate them. We are going to wait to refinish the cabinets because we think the whole family needs a break from the noise, dust, and paint.

Camden is doing fabulous, and we are having so much fun with him! Being a parent is exhausting though. I'm still trying to figure out how to juggle everything with him by my side. It could be the fact that I am carrying around a 20+ pound baby , or it could just be that I am in denial about getting back on those dreadful iron pills for my anemia. Pre-Camden, I didn't realize how complicated it could be to just "run" by Albertson's or Sonic. I don't just "run" anywhere. Packing the diaper bag isn't the main issue; it's lifting my heavy baby in to his car seat, buckling him in, filling his seat with toys, and then trying to find my car keys because I most likely lost them during the buckling... and that's before I've even left the house! Once I get somewhere I need to decide what to do with him. Baby Bjorn him? This guarantees a quiet trip, but I do not have a personal masseuse to re-align my back afterwards. Carry him out in the car seat? Lifting 40 pounds of baby and seat out of a car is easier said than done. Stroller? a good idea but I will be limited on time because although he is warming up to the stroller, he still loses his patience rather easily. The exception is if we are outdoors, and this is why Utica Square is one of my best friends. Outdoors shopping areas are genius. Drive-thrus are also fabulous because un-buckling him and lifting him in and out of his car seat should qualify as an Olympic sport.

I'm also mentally exhausted. I can actually feel the years of education oozing from my brain, never to return. First, I have to write everything down because I cannot remember anything someone tells me! I can't even remember the most mundane words. During a conversation, my mind will go blank about a subject, and I'll catch myself saying "Oh...what is the word for that?" I was an English major for crying out loud! I also misplace everything. More than once I've caught myself placing our phone in the fridge. I thought I lost my wedding ring last month. I destroyed my house searching for it, and it took me a week to remember that I had been in the processing of cleaning it when Camden woke up from a nap. Sure enough, it was sitting in my jewelry cleaner, extra sparkley from a week soaking in cleaner. I think I've lost my mind. I know you are supposed to lose your mind a little during pregnancy, so I didn't think much of the time that I thought I lost my keys in Albertson's to find that I actually left them in the car... and the car was still running! I didn't realize I would still have this problem once Camden got here. A girlfriend calls it "Postpartum Amnesia", and she warns that I may never regain what I have lost. The saddest part of it all? I can still recite every song from Camden's LeapFrog Caterpillar. There was a time not too long ago that I could recite Marc Antony's famous speech from Julius Caesar to my students. Now I walk around reciting,

"Three little little bumblebees full of fun...
three little bumblebees buzz, buzz, buzz.
One! Two! Three!"

*sigh*