I don't want to speak too soon... but

I think my cravings and tolerance for healthy snacks/meals is coming back. I have cooked every night this week! I am so proud of that accomplishment. Plus I have almost completed all the organizing and room-cleaning-out that I wanted to get done... and I may just be rewarding myself with that iPhone I've been wanting. I think that's fair. Accomplish more than I've managed to accomplish since moving into my house = deserving of an iPhone. Plus the whole planning meals and cooking dinner every night thing. That is so awesome of me. Plus it makes me feel so much better about myself as a wife and mother, that I can provide my family more than processing junk food for a meal in the evenings. I even cooked bacon and eggs for LUNCH the other day. That's right. I'm a regular June Cleaver over here.

Yesterday at the book store I picked up Dr. Oz's book, YOU: Having A Baby. It is seriously the most amazing book. I don't think I'll ever go back to "What to Expect" after this. I think after the baby comes I may get his YOU: On a Diet book as well. It certainly can't hurt anything. I love Dr. Oz. I really do. I think he's amazing and I love his holistic approach to almost all things medical. It's fantastic!

I wanted to talk a little bit about feeling the pain over not being able to drink alcohol and socialize with my friends in the same way I used to. It really hit me last Saturday night at a friend's housewarming party. Going to parties while pregnant kind of sucks big fat donkey toe.. but I think the main reason is because I feel like other people are judging me, not so much that I'm judging myself. Plus there's that whole "who am I if I don't have a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other?" thing. I came to a bit of an epiphany the other night while wallowing in some pretty serious depression... I don't think I ever really figured out who I was after James was born. I just knew I was not who I was BEFORE him anymore... but I never really took the time to figure out what that meant or how I should proceed through life from that point. There are a lot of little things that have changed, a lot of emotional growth that has happened (as well as body growth - I mean, HELLO - what is this blog mostly about?)... a lot of my views on relationships and what it means to be an adult have changed... but that is not the whole of what makes a person who they are. This is something that I imagine will probably take a while for me to figure out. I also find myself feeling like, for the first time in my life, I'm doing what I'm "supposed" to be doing - got married, bought a house, having a baby, working toward an actual career, learning how to effectively parent the child I already have - and sometimes I feel like this does not make me happy, and I'm not really sure where it says that doing the things you're supposed to do will make you happy but I feel like that's a pretty general societal consensus. Sometimes I struggle with wondering if I actually WANT these things or if I just have convinced myself I want them because I'm SUPPOSED to want them. It's all very tricky. I've been considering starting some counseling to help me work through these things because I definitely know I'm tired of hating myself all the time, and I definitely am starting to unbiasedly see how it's effecting my marriage and my relationship with my son. That self-hate has a lot to do with not taking the time to figure out who I was/wanted to be after becoming a mother and being forced into this kind of false sense of adulthood at such a young age. I think realizing and acknowledging those things is a pretty positive first step.

Please know, dear readers, that I'm not consistently wallowing really - I manage to keep myself feeling pretty "normal" most of the time, but there are some nights when I just break down and the emotional overflow gets pretty out of control - and if there's any kind of argument, small or otherwise, it sets off this whole "everyone hates me and the way I act" feeling which them just makes me realize that no one hates me, I just don't like myself very much and that shades the way I perceive anything anyone might say to me during high-emotion discussions or arguments - ie: anything Mike says to me during said discussions or arguments.

Edit: I started writing this post 5 days ago and since that time I have ordered my iPhone and I'm VERY EXCITED about that. It should be here Wednesday. For now I'm going to enjoy the rest of the my Holiday with a nap on the couch and plenty of historical programming on History channel and History Channel International.