Breathe In, Breathe Out, Just Breathe

I had to tell myself this over & over last Friday. It's one of those things that you will remember what you were doing and where you were when you heard the news. I remember my heart breaking, I couldn't get to my daughter fast enough. I haven't let her out of my sight much since then. DH & I have talked about the future. Home schooling? Private school? Does it matter? We want her to experience the world, but at what cost? What is this world coming too? Murdering innocent babies? My brain still hasn't been able to process this. Parents are BURYING their sweet children. I think about Maci, and I don't know I would survive if anything happened to her or Elaina. I just can't even imagine the sorrow, the fear, the anger, the saddness. It's just too much. Our prayers are going out to the Newtown, CT community. Daily, by many people. We love you all!!!

Trying

I feel like I have missed so much of her life the past 2-3 months. My camera broke back in June, and my picture taking has gone WAY down. I plan on getting that for myself (I don't know if "we" are doing Christmas w/each other this year) as soon as possible.   I've been so involved TRYING to make things work, trying to figure out how to fix our marriage..I feel like a bad mom. She doesn't seem scarred, but children just *know* when things are off. And people keep telling me "kids are resilient..." blah blah. Guess what? That doesn't help. I don't want her to have to be resilient when she's 23 months old. Her life should be nothing but kittens & rainbows right now. And her father & I are just making it hard. The first week after he found out, she had night after night of godawful night terrors, they made ME cry. I felt so awful. And you know what? Her dad had NO idea what to do for her. He's never had to deal with it before. I'm always the one up w/her at night. It worries me when I think that should we divorce, he will have her 2 nights..and literally only knows how to put her to bed, and usually needs my "help" with that. It just worries me.

I feel like he is just biding his time until he has a place to go. I've given him only one ultimatum, that he decide by the first of the year what he wants to do. I've been trying so hard, for the last year and a half & he literally had NO idea. He blames our marriage crumbling on the (humongus) mistake that I made, and that it completely overshadows anything else that was going on. I asked him if he thought things were perfect before all of this happened and he said "what was the big deal?" This from the same man who just 3 weeks ago, right before the shit hit the fan, told me he didn't want to be a dad or a husband and had been feeling that way for some months. Seriously!??! It's very convenient that my stupid mistake would happen. Takes the pressure completely off of him. BUT, there has to be changes on both of our parts. What I'm slowly finding out is that, per usual, he doesn't think he's done anything wrong, in regards to being a dad or being a husband. I probably could have handled him saying he didn't want to be a husband, but to say you don't want to be a dad?! There's the door. She doesn't need that in her life. And he tells me it's going to take some time to regain trust in me (which I completely understand) but I tell him I feel the same way. I have to trust that he isn't gonna decide he doesn't want to be a dad/husband again in 6 months. He tells me "I'm a changed man, that will never happen again." And I'm supposed to just believe that. To go with that. But yet, I tell him the same thing, AND I'm working on making things better, and I'm not getting anywhere. He's not softening his heart towards me at all. He admitted I am the only one trying to fix this right now. That is so stupid & worthless. If he admittedly isn't even trying, then we are going nowhere and there is no reason to keep pretending. He's made to effort to contact his works HR department, where they offer FREE, unbiased, marital counseling. It's also civilians who do not work w/other officers, therefore, everything will stay confidential. But he is the only who can set this up since it's through his job. Anyway, I said all that to say this. I feel like right now things are just tabled. We aren't really talking about it. I don't think he wants to stay married & right now it's just about control & he wants all of it, hence not admitting any kind of fault. Ugh. Whatever. We'll see what happens I guess.

Happy December!!

I've never been more happy to see a month end then I was for November to wave goodbye. Figured I'd start the month off w/a picture of our (undecorated, we're doing that today) tree & mantle. I love it. This is my MOST favorite season. And getting to experience it through Elaina is the best. She adores the lights, the trees, all the decorations. And it's almost like she can "feel" that it's a special time. It's fantastic!!