I have talked a lot about how I got pregnant with our oldest daughter when Adam and I hadn’t been dating very long and how that has affected the dynamics of our relationship over the past 8 years. I am not even close to being finished telling that story and I am planning on writing Part 6 of The Truth Is series very soon. If you haven’t read it and you are interested then you should go catch up.
It’s ok I will wait. No really go ahead….I will totally be here when you get back.
So yeah we were very young and scared and we were having a baby. Toward the end of my pregnancy my blood pressure started to rise and my doctor advised me to stop working. I was swelling and he was concerned that I might be heading into preeclampsia. About 2 weeks from my due date which was May 11th, 2001 we went in for our prenatal appointment. I was so ready to have our baby even though I had no idea what to expect.
People tell you things that you should listen closer to and you hear them, but you just can’t know how you will feel until you experience it. That day at the doctor’s office my blood pressure was dangerously high and I was so swollen that I didn’t recognize myself. So my Dr sent us home to get our stuff and told us to get to the hospital for an induction.
I won’t go into the whole birth story, but to make a long story short I was in labor for what seemed like 12 yrs and everyone thought I would NEVER dilate. But I finally did and the epidural worked so well that you could have sawed off my foot and I wouldn’t have felt it. I was so numb that the Dr had to put this suction cup thing on Addison’s head and help me get her out. It was traumatic to say the least. But finally she was here.
I had been watching TLC’s A Baby Story for weeks so I knew this was the part where the baby was supposed to cry. But she didn’t make a sound. She was limp and sort of a purplish color and I knew something was wrong. Adam’s mom immediately dropped to her knees and started praying and I was just in shock. A whole team of people came in and they were rubbing her and suctioning her. She started to wiggle around and she was trying really hard to cry. She was making these little sounds and her chest was filling up and collapsing and you could tell she was struggling to breathe.
After about 15 or 20 minutes they let me hold her for like 30 seconds. Then they whisked her away to the NICU. A few minutes later a woman came in to talk to me about Addison’s health. She was a pediatrician and she was very direct. She told me my baby was very sick but they weren’t sure what was wrong. She said she was pretty sure Addison had inhaled fluid and it had gone into her lungs. She said it could be pneumonia and that they were giving her oxygen and medicine. I asked her if she was ok and she told me simply and honestly “no”.
I remember being shocked. It was one of those moments that doesn’t feel real and you are sort of outside of yourself. The hospital where she was born has an excellent NICU and she was in really good hands. There were babies in there who were much sicker than Addison and although it was a serious situation for us I couldn’t help but feeling slightly thankful. I prayed very hard for our baby but I also prayed for the health of all of the other babies.
Looking back at the pictures I realize how rough she looked. I only remember thinking that she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I don’t think I will ever forget the smell of the soap that you had to wash your hands with before you could come in or the sound of all of those machines beeping.
We were young and totally unprepared, but I think the experience brought us all closer as a family. Addison coming into our lives made such a positive impact on us and changed our future forever. She made a full recovery from her traumatic beginning and after 6 days in the hospital we took her home.
And literally 5 minutes after we got home with her from the hospital she gave me another kind of shock…..
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry….so I did both.
It was just her little way of saying welcome to motherhood.
This was my 18th birthday. A few friends came over to my house to do the cake with the parents thing before we went out. We were seniors. We were on Christmas break and we had not a care in the world.
I didn’t care about politics. All I knew was that Bill Clinton was our President and he was in the middle of the Monica Lewinsky thing that year. I remember that being on TV a lot.
I had pretty much stopped going to church and started ignoring God. I had much better things to do. Better things like…driving around town at 60 mph with music blaring. Out with my girls chasing boys and letting boys chase us. Being stupid and making too many mistakes…mistakes that could change lives.
Wow ten years ago ya’ll.
Some interesting stuff I looked up about that year:
Stamps were 32 cents
1 LB Hamburger meat $1.40
Cost of a gallon of Gas $1.15
Dozen Eggs 88 cents
Loaf of Bread $1.26
and Google was founded in 1998
What were you doing ten years ago? Were you already a parent? Were you already a grown up?
I was neither and to be honest it’s all a little fuzzy for me. I remember I couldn’t wait to graduate and get out of high school, but I didn’t have many plans passed that.
I knew I was going to MTSU but I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wasn’t thinking about my future in a logical way. I never daydreamed about having children or who my husband would be. In those pictures up there I hadn’t even met Mr.007. I was still making goo goo eyes at the guy in the hat. Exactly two years later I was 20 years old and almost 5 months pregnant. When I think about that it blows my mind.
For this week’s Fro me to you I just wanted to take this opportunity to recap some pictures from the past few months. We are NOT the people you love to hate because of our perfection. We are just hanging in there every day trying not to run from the house screaming. Most of the time we just have to laugh and go with the flow. So here you go…a little taste of the madness:
Remember our stupid kitten? He is still driving us crazy daily. He is still free to a good home
A collaborative effort. The dog and the cat were in on this one. Gah!
Remind me again why we have animals.
Oh that's right. I am insane.
Some days I can't catch a break
This keeps me up at night
My laundry room at it's worst. I should be more embarrassed.
I am not lazy I swear.
10 granola bar wrappers from under the couch cushion. Where else would they be?
Since Christmas is approaching and I have been cleaning the house so I can get out the decorations a funny story came back to me. It didn’t happen very long ago. It must have been in January of this year.
Here is the story.
We have this Christmas tree bag. It is a big rectangle tarp-like bag that holds our artificial tree. Yes I have a fake tree. I love real trees, but I don’t have the patience to put on the lights. Thus I have a big bag with our tree and our wreaths inside. Soooooo what happened was…
The bag is HUGE I didn’t think I could fit it in the attic, so I dragged ( is that even a word?) the bag outside into our shed. Our shed is attached to our carport and it is damp, dark, gross and filled with spiders and cave crickets. So obviously I avoid the shed unless I really need to go in there.
So I heaved the tree bag with our Christmas tree inside it out in the shed because I…well because I am a control freak and I wanted it out of the dining room floor and I didn’t want to wait for my husband to get home. There I said it. I am an impatient control freak.
When I told Adam where I put it he told me it wasn’t a good idea to store it out there. Well that made me a little perturbed. I dragged the heavy darned thing out there and now he was telling me that we weren’t going to be leaving it out there. So about a week later I went back out there in the damp dark shed. I hauled the bag inside our house and upstairs into the attic.
When I got it up there I started to hear a sound. I would describe it as raindrops. A thousand million raindrops coming from the inside of the Christmas tree bag. I could see the bag moving in spots and that along with the sounds coming from the bag I panicked. My heart started pounding and I slammed the attic door closed and RAN downstairs to hide in my room. I expected hundreds of insects or spiders or baby mice to follow me down the stairs like I was the pied piper or something. I just KNEW there was something horrifying inside that bag.
So I called my husband at work. I was talking really fast and squeaky because I am a drama queen like that. Just sayin’
” Hey I brought the Christmas tree bag in the house and I put it in the attic but it’s making a weird sound and I think there is something alive in there because it sounds like it’s raining on the inside of the bag and I am freaking out can you tell I am freaking out? yeah can you come home and fix it?”
This was before he got his current job in the town where we live and he was 32 miles away in Nashville. So because he is such a good husband he took his lunch break to come rescue his bride from all the “critters” in the Christmas tree bag. When he arrived he went upstairs into the attic and dragged the bag downstairs and out to our deck. I made him close the sliding glass door because I didn’t want the “critters” to get me.
When he opened the bag guess what was there?
A Christmas tree…and a wreath. And gasp!….one dead fly.
Yeah….that was all. Good thing he doesn’t work at that job anymore because I think the Christmas party this year would be really embarrassing for me. Because at last year’s party I had just had a baby and 3 glasses of wine made me trip over a chair (I am such a graceful goober). And this year it would have been all about the empty Christmas tree bag that caused Adam to drive 64 miles round trip on his lunch break. This is what it’s like to be married to me.
This story involves a beautiful wedding. And cows mooing. And farting.
And lots and lots of inappropriate laughing.
Have you ever been at a wedding or a funeral or even at church and you just get tickled? It starts with a giggle and then before you know it your shoulders are shaking and tears are running down your cheeks. And you know that it is entirely inappropriate to be laughing so you try to contain it. But the urge to laugh just won’t go away.
Well…if you can relate to that feeling keep reading.
A few years ago Adam, myself and Addison( then about 3yrs old I think) along with Adam’s parents and sister April traveled to North Carolina. Emily who is a very close family friend was getting married so we went to Asheville for a few days. Claxton Farm is where the wedding was held. It is such a beautiful setting and what made it even more unique was that there are cows, miniature horses, llamas, goats and camels. Emily and Will are veterinarians, so the animals being there was a really cool addition to already wonderful surroundings.
When it came time for the ceremony people stopped talking and the atmosphere became serene. While the vows were being said you could hear cows mooing and that was pretty funny all by itself. Everyone in attendance laughed when a cow interrupted the ceremony and then it just became part of the experience.
But then we heard a sound that no one should ever hear during the most important romantic moment of a couple’s life.
A fart.
And it wasn’t just a small hardly audible poot.
It was a man fart.
A fart so loud it reciprocated off of the folding chair and echoed in the ears of the back four rows of the bride’s side. The strange thing was that we couldn’t tell from which direction it had originated. And as soon as it happened people started exchanging glances and snickering.
Now remember internets….the vows were being said during this moment. So we HAD to hold it in. We couldn’t screech with the laughter that wanted so badly to escape from our bodies. We couldn’t chuckle aloud and say ” good one” to whoever it was that let the air biscuit. We couldn’t ask our neighbor if they had been the one to cut the cheese. We had to pretend it didn’t happen and try to focus on the marriage that was taking place at the exact moment that the North Carolina barking spider chose to well….bark.
And you could see that the aftermath of the bean bomber was spreading among the immediate area. There were two young guys sitting in front of us with their parents. We watched as they quietly tried to ask each other if the other was responsible for the crack rattler.
By this time we are all in hysterics. Just when you thought you had yourself under control you would see the person in front you start to lose it. Their shoulders would start to shake and you would hear a choking sound because they were trying to hold their breath unsuccessfully.
We still didn’t know who the let churchhouse creeper, but I was starting to suspect someone. I noticed my sweet little cherub faced 3 year old was squirming in her seat.
She looked uncomfortable. She looked embarrassed. And then I just knew. And Adam and I met eyes and then I knew that he knew too.
We were all unbelievably relieved when the vows were all said and the bride and groom were announced as man and wife and we could finally relax. We all got our chance to giggle, but oddly enough it wasn’t as funny when we were free to laugh as loud as we wanted. And it definitely wasn’t as funny when I had the knowledge that it was my darling child who caused the whole farting scene.
And bless her heart. She was embarrassed. I think it was the first time she had ever felt that emotion. So we didn’t make a big thing about it, but she did confirm what we already knew. She was the toot tooter.
I guess I should go ahead and apologize to my precious child for telling this story that she will undoubtedly one day read. I am sorry Addison. Everybody has a butt…and everybody farts. Don’t be embarrassed…just laugh about it and move on. I am sorry your life is such good blog fodder.
What am I saying? I am not sorry. Thank you for being my muse! You just give me some really great writing material what with all of the wedding farting….and sticking lip gloss in the dog’s butt. I love you Addison. My little tooter bug.
Oh and also if any of you would like to know where I found a few of my fart references….check out the Fart Thesaurus. Thank you Google for coming through once again.
For more stories that won’t be going in the scrapbook…visit Kristen at We are THAT family.
This is the story of the day my lovely innocent cherub of a child stuck lip gloss up the dog’s butt.
This lip gloss was a staple during my high school years. I had a certain obsession with it. It smells like cake. Delicious wonderful vanilla cake with luscious vanilla frosting. In my lifetime I have probably purchased approximately 50 tubes of this shiny lip enhancer. Sometimes I would use it until the very last drop was gone. And sometimes I would lose a brand new tube the day after I bought it. So for years I would find them everywhere. Under the passenger seat in my car, in an old purse I was giving to Goodwill or the pocket of a jacket I have been keeping around since 1999.
So it didn’t come as much of a shock when a 3 year old Addison came toddling up to me carrying the familiar tube. I thought to myself…”wow I haven’t seen one of those in a while”.
Then she said these words. “Smell it”.
I wish I could say that I didn’t do it. I guess I just couldn’t even fathom the horror of what was about to happen to my nostrils.
But this sweet little face was looking at me and saying “Mommy smell it”.
So I put the tube up to my nose and sniffed.
OH! OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! GAG! RETCH! OH NO!
What IN THE SAM HILL WORLD did I just smell?
After I regained consciousness…I asked Addison where exactly she had put that lip gloss tube before she brought it to me to smell it.
Her silence spoke volumes.
After a series of questions I was able to deduce that she had in fact stuck the vanilla frosting lip smackers lip gloss tube up Max’s butt.
I have smelled a lot of gross things in my life. But I have NEVER I repeat NEVER smelled anything as horrible or wretched in my entire existence on this planet!
This incident happened 4 years ago people! I can still remember the horribleness.
Clearly I am suffering from Post Traumatic Olfactory Disorder. I need help.
I don’t think you can fully grasp the seriousness of the situation. Let’s recap.
I SMELLED A LIP GLOSS TUBE THAT WAS INSIDE MY DOG’S BUTT!
Ok. I am ok now. I am calm.
You may have a hard time understanding why I chose to put my nose to the lip gloss, so to speak. Well Addison’s cuteness had a hold of me. Here is a video that will serve 2 purposes. Show you the caliber of cuteness we were dealing with. And to honor Veterans day yesterday and show a little patriotism.
For more pictures and stories that will NEVER make it into a scrapbook visit Kristen’s Fro’ Me to You Thursday’s here.
This post is Part Five of a true story. A story about Adam and I getting pregnant before marriage and how it has made our life together complicated, painful, wonderful and FULL of surprises. A story of how love can grow in even the most unlikely situations. If you haven’t already, you can read Part One here, Part Two here,Part Three here, and Part Four here.
So there we were…Engaged and Underage. Well not both of us, I was 20 and Adam was 21. We were the parents of a toddler and we were about to get married.
And let me just say….I needed some bangs yo! My forehead is just not meant to be bared! Especially with what was going on with my eyebrows.
So we were showered with all of the things that we would need to set up a household. It was so exciting to pick out a china pattern and flatware. Here are my actual choices. I still love the patterns 6 years later. I hope I still love them for 24 more because from my observations people tend to hold onto these things for like 30 years.
Just a little tidbit…before my engagement I didn’t even know what flatware was. Silverware is silverware is silverware. Utensils. Forks and spoons. Knives even. But Betty at the Macy’s Bridal department opened my eyes to a whole new world of tableware and kitchen appliances.
I think I was more excited about playing house than I was about the actual wedding. I know how crazy that must sound but I was an unwed mother and I felt the need to be legitimized. Of course I loved Adam and I wanted to marry him, but I don’t think I really knew what it meant to be a wife. I can’t speak for Adam but I think, although he loved me too, he may have felt a little obligated to marry me. So at the time of our wedding I think we both were just young and ill equipped to fully grasp what we were about to embark upon.
Our wedding was a happy day and we went to Destin on our Honeymoon and Addison went to stay with Adam’s parent’s while we were gone. It was so hard to say goodbye to our baby, but it was the first time that Adam and I had ever been able to get away by ourselves.
And we had so much fun! Our honeymoon was WAY too short and 2 days after we came back Adam started a new job ( in addition to playing gigs and delivering pizza at night) and I went back to college.
We jumped right back into real life and everything that comes with it. We moved out of my parents house and we rented my Aunt Missy’s house while she was living in Texas.
And life was not easy. Adam worked VERY hard so that I could stay home with Addie on the days I didn’t have classes. I was a full time student and I was trying to figure out how to be a wife , mother and homemaker. It was way harder than I thought it would be. Honestly, I wasn’t very good at balancing my responsibilities AT ALL.
I am sitting here trying to think of something funny, but our first year of marriage was lesshoneymoon and morehard work. I would be lying if I said it was anything other than that. I temporarily forgot that God was in control and that all I needed to do was seek Him and I would find peace in that.
I was totally focused on Addison and my schoolwork and so many other things were neglected. One of those things was the housework. Laundry was always piled up and the house was usually a cluttered mess. I wasn’t a very good cook and one night I screwed up beef stroganoff so bad….well let’s just say that my cinnamon and my black pepper were in identical jars and no amount of rinsing or ketchup could help the situation.
One other minor detail I tended to push by the wayside was….my husband. I was exhausted, anxious and overwhelmed and ,to be completely candid, I wasn’t a very good christian wife at all. I think I might stop there for now. I will tell you all about the stupid mistakes I made and how much I SUCKED at being a wife in Part 6. Yay! I know you are all on pins and needles.
Don’t let the first picture fool you. There are some others in this post that will make you judge me. I hope you don’t judge too harshly though…I was only 16.
When I was 2 my family moved to Germany. My dad was in the army and although I was very young I do have memories of living there. We were only there 3 years, but it was long enough for my parents to make lots of friends including a German couple with two daughters ( Bianca and Daniela). I found this picture today while looking through a box.
I thought I looked so cute with my pigtails and my little German friends.
I was able to go back to Germany when I was 16 (and not nearly as cute as the first photo) as a part of an exchange program through my German class in high school. Sorry the picture is blurry.
I am the short one in the front wearing the cutoff khakis and huge green anorak ( I was such a fashion maven)
Each person hosted a student in our home and then we got to go spend a week with them in their homes as well. Our group was there for 3 weeks. We spent 2 weeks in Munich with just our teachers and the other American students and then a week in Aschaffenburg with the family of the student we hosted back at home. I kept a journal of it, but I haven’t run across it in years.
I wish I would have been a little more mature at that age. I was like all about socializing and I thought it was like so awesome that the drinking age in Germany was like 16 or something. Yeah I was an insightful gem back then.
I didn’t appreciate the fact that my parents paid a good sum of money for me to have this experience. Only 16 or so people participated, so I was pretty fortunate to be involved. But to me it was a chance to go somewhere without my parents and have fun and be free. Priorities you know?
We had chaperones of course, but we found a way to misbehave and I said and did stuff that makes me cringe with embarrassment now.
Oh and I loathe the fact that while drinking beer and kissing a German boy that I hardly knew I wore a W.W.J.D bracelet. What would Jesus do? I don’t know, but I can tell you with certainty what He would not do. He would not be acting a fool in a foreign country!
Of course I wasn’t all bad. We went to many cool places. We took a bike tour around Munich and that was one of the greatest things we did. We also went to the BMW museum.
We had the sweetest fresh strawberries I have ever eaten at a cafe up on a roof.
The rooftop cafe with the strawberries
We explored the streets of Munich.
This is a few of us acting silly with the police
We hung out at parks and took many pictures.
I know it's kind of blurry, but it looks like he is peeing...16 yr old humor for you
We took a boat tour of some other towns in the area and that was fun as well.
I almost got attacked by a crazy parrot in a random tree. i think he wanted my milkshake. (typical)
I made some really great German friends and became closer with some of the people from my German class.
Check out my eyeliner....and yes those are overalls! Ack!
I want to go back someday with Adam and the girls. I would like to visit again now that I have had a little life experience and I can appreciate it.
Whoa…did you make it all the way down here? Bravo! I know it was long, and you should get a prize for hanging in there. Too bad I don’t have anything to give away. Wait you can have the stuff in the back of the van going to the Goodwill.
What’s that? You don’t want that? Phsaw! Fine aren’t we snooty?
Kidding Kidding! I am hoping to come up with some sort of giveaway soon. Mwuah!
Today I went through a box of old pictures and notes and stuff like that from when I was very young. The box contained things like notes from middle school, really embarrassing emo poems I wrote in my angsty teen years, and horrifying pictures of me from 7th grade all the way up into college. I found a diary that documented my transformation from a normal 13 year old girl into a badly behaved 15 year old who hung with the wrong crowd and cussed like a sailor. Reading my words made me feel both embarrassed and more than a little anxious about my future. I have two lovely daughters and I am nothing if not terrified that they will go down the same path I once traveled and not make it out as blessed as I am.
Presently, I try not to do things I will regret and today I got a backward glimpse of how I came to be the person I am today. I know that I am who I am because of all of those experiences, both bad and good. So I can’t regret doing all of the stupid things I did. I just have to forgive myself and move on.
On a lighter note there is just one thing I have a hard time forgiving myself for. I noticed a recurring theme in most of the pictures…
My eyebrows.
Why oh why did someone not tell me that I needed to wax? I don’t even think I knew what waxing was until my freshman year of college. Finally one of my closest girlfriends took me to the salon and introduced me to the fine art of pain = beauty.
Here Ashley meet this woman…she is going to yank hair out of your face and you will be prettier.
Your welcome.
So yeah back to the lovely pictures of me with the big hairy strips of fur above my eyes. I found a picture of me and a friend at my very first sorority formal. In case you don’t know me…I am one on the right with the caterpillars on my face. It makes me cringe! Enjoy my humiliation!
Now…like most things waxing and plucking should be done in moderation. Once I discovered this wonderful practice of pulling hair out of my face, I went a little too far. I would start plucking and just plain ol’ go too far. My wedding pictures are a prime example. Not only was I fatter than I had ever been, I also had no eyebrows.
This is because I went a little plucking crazy. I am going to share a picture of this only because I am secure enough in myself to expose the truth. No not really….I am just glutton for punishment I guess. That’s what the “Sincerely Fro’ me to you” carnival is all about right? So here ya’ll go. The other side of the eyebrow extreme. Oh it’s going to be so hard to click publish. I better do it before I chicken out.
For more things you might not want in your scrapbook visit Kristen over here
I do claim on my About Me page that I am not a redneck and that I don’t let my children go out into public barefoot, but that is not entirely true. It’s up for debate whether or not I am a redneck…and Livie has pretty much been barefoot since the day she was born. I mean yeah I put socks on her when it was cold and of course she wore a lot of sleepers during the winter. Fortunately due to the weather in the South she hasn’t really needed to wear shoes.
However, it is starting to feel like fall around here and I love it. It’s my favorite season! I am not big on winter, ( although I do love Christmas) but Fall is so wonderful!! So ANYWAY I got off subject there for a sec.
New shoes. yeah. I bought Alivia new shoes. I was so tempted to buy these.
But they didn’t have them in her size. And my mother in law and my mom both will LOVE the one’s that I bought. They are classic baby shoes. And Alivia looks so cute in them!
They even took a picture of her and gave us this! You may have to click on it to see it better.
I think she caught Alivia in between smiles. Still cute though.
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