it is so quiet in this house today, TOO quiet.  carl is away on business and louise is off at daycare.  we didn’t take her out when i lost my job because carl didn’t want to.  he didn’t want to try to find a new arrangement if WHEN i find a better different job.  plus she likes it,  playing with other kids all day is a lot more fun than hanging out with boring old mom every day.

whoever said two (years old) was going to be easy is a liar.  probably no one has ever said that, that’s why they call them the terrible twos, right?  yesterday we went to the store after daycare, louise refuses to hold my hand or be carried in parking lots (as well as crossing the street).  if i try she lays right down in the middle of the parking lot (or street) and throws a temper tantrum.  if i pick her up, same thing.  it makes for a challenging walk from the car to the store.  once in the store, she is no longer content to sit in a cart, not the little seat part or the big part, she insists on walking, or rather, her version of walking.  this involves lots of dawdling, picking things up off the shelf, staring at them in amazement, turning them over and over in her hands.  if you’ve got a lot of time to spend in the store this is fine, but it is not conducive to running in real quick to pick up one item.  anyway, yesterday one of those things went into her mouth (first, ew, she put something on the store shelf in her mouth!) so i had to buy it (at least i felt like i had to).  it is a ball like cup with a straw sticking out of it, lucky for me it was only 97 cents.

after the store we headed to the beach, i LOVE taking her to do stuff like this because she loves it so much, but i also hate it.  the part where we have to leave is so awful that i’d rather not do it most of the time.  she would stay at the park, playground or beach forever if she could, the temper tantrum she throws when it’s time to leave is epic.  it’s totally nearly impossible to get her into her carseat, she does the alligator death roll.  and i feel so BAD making her leave, but seriously, an hour at the beach on a tuesday evening is enough.  i probably should have left well enough alone.  yesterday, when we got home from daycare, before the store or the beach, she was perfectly happy playing with the little tikes lawnmower i just got for her.  i should have taken that as a sign, she is happy, leave her be.  oh well, she did have fun at the beach while it lasted.

i have tried bribes but she doesn’t really get it yet, getting in the car=ice cream or going pee pee on the potty=cookie (i WISH i could bribe her for potty training, she is SO not interested).  i guess these are just days (hopefully not years) you have to get through.  it’s not like she’s always naughty or unhappy, in fact, i’d say most of the time she is happy, but for some reason our brains have a way of always remembering the harder times.

i don’t have much news on the marriage front.  our next counseling appts are not until next week.  we will both be seeing the counselor individually and then going in for an appt together.  things have become a little less uncomfortable around the house, carl is still sleeping in the guest bedroom but i don’t feel like i’m walking on eggshells as much.  i would really like to start doing more things together as a family.  we have also been making an effort to make sure that we spend some time together after louise goes to bed, no cell phones, tv or internet.  it’s not usually a huge amount of time, maybe 1/2 an hour, sometimes longer, but i think it’s important and i think it helps.

i had a job interview two weeks ago, i should be hearing something back later this week or early next week, fingers crossed.  this job is at a hospital that is about twenty miles away, my old job was less than a mile away, it was SO convenient and i actually really liked my job.  still bummed that i don’t have it anymore but i am hopeful for this new opportunity.

i am still taking accutane, i’m into my second month now.  the doctor doubled my dose from 30mg a day to 60mg a day.  i haven’t been having any terrible side effects EXCEPT my lips.  accutane completely dries out your oil glands so it’s not uncommon to have super dry skin, i really haven’t had any problems yet but my lips, they are CONSTANTLY peeling.  it is like i shed and grow a new layer of skin there every single day.  i know, kind of gross right? as far as results, i haven’t really seen any yet, my chest and back cleared up completely but they weren’t that bad to begin with, it’s my face that i’m concerned with and i’m still getting acne there.  i can’t wait to get a couple more months into this so i can finally see it clear up.  actually, i can’t wait to be done taking the stuff all together, the monthly doctor’s appts and blood work are kind of pain in the ass, totally worth it if it works though!

i guess that’s all i’ve got today, this post seems kind of somber but things are going fairly well i guess, as good as can be expected considering everything that’s happened recently anyway.  i really appreciate all the support i’ve been getting, it helps so much, thank-you to you all.  here’s a couple of pictures as a reward for listening to all that dribble

the counseling appt went as well as i could expect it to, my husband was open and receptive, so that’s a step in the right direction.  he did say that he felt we started drifting apart when we were going through infertility treatments, which was news to me.  thanks again infertility for fucking up my life even more than you already did.  here we are over three years later and i’m just finding this out.  i wish that he would have told me this sooner.  the counselor was nice.  he said we are basically going to have to start over from here and sort of forget about the past to start building our relationship up from scratch again.  now he wants to see us individually and then together again, so we’ve got three appts over the next week or so.

i am hopeful that we can work this out, i don’t know if carl is as hopeful as i am but at least he’s trying.  things seem a little less awkward around the house.  he’s still sleeping in the spare bedroom but the counselor said one of our goals is to get him sleeping in our bedroom again.  we will revisit everything in about eight weeks and see if we have made any progress or if it’s just not going to work out.

today is the day, we’re about to leave for our first counseling appt.  wish us luck.  more later.

i hope the iclw participators will understand if MY participation is not up to par this month.

i called the counselor’s office today and told them we were in crisis and that my husband was threatening divorce and they moved our appt up to wednsday, the day after tomorrow.  thank god.  i’m not sure we would have been able to wait until june 7.  that seems so far away right now.

so… i don’t know.  my husband is distant at best.  the last few days have not been easy.  thursday he got home late (from work), about 10:00.  that’s the night i got him to agree to try counseling and see if we can work on our relationship.  friday he got home around 4:00 and i sort of made him go with louise and i to this really awesome playground here called imagination station.  i said i was going to take her and he said, well, i can take her, and i said, i kind of thought we could both take her together.  he didn’t seem to thrilled about it but he did it.  when we got home we put louise to bed and he was sort of just running around the house, folding laundry, working on his bike, hanging out in the basement.  then he went out with his friends.  yesterday he volunteered to work so he was gone from about 10 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon, when he got home he mowed the lawn and then around 6 i went out with my friends for a little bit.  i got home around 10 (i think carl got home at 3am when he went out) and i was so exhausted i just went to bed.  today  he left around 6:30am to go on a 200 mile bike ride so he won’t be home probably until 6 or 7.  so, like i said, things definitely aren’t great but i guess that’s to be expected.  i sort of feel like he isn’t making any real effort, but where do you go from here? i called about five different counselors and none of them could get us in until june, which seems so far away.  i don’t know if i can go on living in this fashion until then.  i think i might call the office tomorrow and tell them we are in crisis mode and my husband is threatening divorce to see if they can get us in any sooner.  so, that’s where we stand right now.  on shaky ground to say the least.

wow, the response to yesterday’s post has been overwhelming.  i cannot tell each and every one of you how much i appreciate the support.  i wanted to let everyone know that after talking yesterday my husband has agreed to try counseling and give it a shot to see if we can work this thing out.  it took a lot of talking and even some arguing.  i explained to him that sometimes marriage is really hard and you have to work at it.  i’m sure every marriage goes through periods where there is less passion and you don’t feel as loving towards your spouse as you once did, that’s where we are, but i know we can get it back if we just TRY.  we also have a two-year-old and that can be very trying on a relationship.  i have been so busy taking care of louise that i haven’t taken care of my husband or our relationship.  so that’s one of the problems, i haven’t been loving enough, which is no surprise, i am not an affectionate person by nature so i do really have to work at it and obviously i have not been doing that.  the other big issue is that my husband is very passive and not a good communicator.  if he is upset about something he does not tell me, he bottles it up and bottles it up until it’s too late.  he has been having these feelings for a YEAR and i had no idea.  of course i knew we had some issues, every relationship does, but i never thought for a second that he would want to get divorced.  so, that’s where we stand now.  i am happy that he is at least willing to try and see if we can fix it, if it doesn’t work, at least we will know that we did everything that we could.

of course louise has been fine through all of this, she has no idea that anything is going on, neither carl nor i would ever involve her in anything like this no matter how old she was.  she is still the pickiest eater of all time, it is a struggle to get her to eat much of anything, i swear, i don’t know what she lives on.  wow, i have really rambled on here, suddenly it’s time to pick louise up from daycare.  my main objective was just to thank everyone for all of the support, so, thank-you!!

sorry for the silence, i have been going through a lot.  i didn’t things could get any worse for me but they did.  out of the blue my husband has decided that he wants a divorce.  i did not see this coming and i am still in shock over the whole situation.  if this happens and we do get divorced i will take louise and move to montana, he is aware of this and said that it was the hardest part of making this decision, knowing that he won’t be able to see his daughter very often.  i absolutely don’t want to take louise away from her father, but i am lacking friends and family here, i don’t have the support network i would require as a single mother.  i have asked him if he is willing to try to work through this by going to counseling or anything but he is not receptive and says that he just doesn’t care anymore.  so, that is what is going on right now.  that is the reason for the silence.