Now You Can Call Me Stella...

...because I am trying to get my groove back.  I swear this will be the last post where I give myself a ridiculous name.  But I think it's somewhat appropriate given that I do not feel like I am living my life but rather trying to fit into the life of someone else all together.

Thanks to all the magnificent people around me, and the fact that I had an uneventful doctors appointment last Friday I am finally starting to feel better about things.  Part of that is that I am getting organized as a person who will work solely from home.  In the last couple of weeks I have managed to get my superstar cousin started on training in the wonderful world of bookkeeping, I have managed to set up an entire second office in my home and get it organized, and I have managed to chill the fuck out a little bit where my future daughter is concerned.  Those are all huge things because a couple of weeks ago, all of those things were stressing me out.  Big time.

I am so incredibly lucky to have the support network that I do, and I haven't spent enough time on this blog acknowledging that.  I have spent all of my time complaining.  So it's high time that I give a little credit where credit is due.  The person who deserves the most recognition is my mother.    She is my best friend and she has 100% put her life on hold for the sole purpose of taking care of mine.  She was a rock star before, but she has catapulted herself into super stardom roles as of late.  She has always picked The Boy up from school everyday and brought him home and given him his bath before she left for the evening.  Now, she does all of that but she also stays every night and cooks our dinner.  Instead of going home at 6:00 to furiously cook dinner for her husband, she now cooks dinner here at my house and her husband comes here to eat.  So she cooks for The Boy and me, and then we all eat together and she stays and cleans everything up before she goes home.  I can't even put into words how wonderful this is, as the end of the day is when I am absolutely pooped and feeding and cleaning up after The Boy is sometimes more than I can take.    By the time she goes home at the end of every evening The Boy has been fed dinner, my house is clean, and The Boy is in his jammies and ready for bed.  See?  Super rock star status.  She is also practically doing all of my laundry and putting it away and basically taking care of all the small little annoying tasks that add up around a house.  Superstar.  Total and complete superstar.  I am so lucky to have her.

Her husband isn't any slouch either.  The poor man has somehow been designated as my "honey do" man.  He has been told to handle all the things around the house such as changing light bulbs, rearranging the furniture to make room for someone's big boy bed, and taking care of all those "manly" things.  In addition to that, he is also my own personal Geek Squad.  He is an engineer so he has been in charge of getting my computer from my office, setting it up, and making my entire household wireless when it comes to the internet (there is now a total of three computers here that need internet access).  It took him two full weekends to achieve this and he even had to bring in one of his geek friends to make it finally work.  And just when he thought he was FINALLY done, I came into the house with a new desk to hold my old work computer.  The desk was one of those lovely desks that come in a completely flat box with six zillion parts and someone has to put it all together.  When he noticed it he said, "That's a nice desk..." to which my mother answered, "Oh good.  I'm glad you like it.  You bought it." (My mother didn't let me pay for the desk, instead charging it to her credit card).  Instead of making a snide comment about it he said, "How very nice of me..." and kept working away.  When he saw me bring in another box that featured an office chair he merely glanced up and said, "Oh, and I see I bought you a chair too.  And I guess I get to put that together as well?  Damn, I sure am a swell guy..."  And the poor guy was at my house for the past two weekends straight.  First to get all the computer stuff transferred and up and running and then to put together all the office furniture and re-set up all the computers on the new desks.  And he doesn't make a peep.  So unbelievably amazing.  Not only that, but he has had to start coming to my house at the end of his long work day everyday to eat dinner with a very loud, and very annoying three year old and he still hasn't complained a bit.  My step dad is one of the most amazing people I have ever met.  Such a shame that I was such a bitch to him when growing up.  But I try really hard to make up for it now...

The other huge help has been my cousin.  She reads and is a frequent commenter on my blog so you all probably know her as Aunt Fancy.  But she lives in Sacramento and is fortunately (for me, somewhat unfortunately for her) out of work currently and is helping me out with my clients.  She is driving down here every Sunday night and staying with us on Mondays and Tuesdays.  Not only is she training with me to get to know all of my clients to take over some of my work load and help when I am actually out on maternity leave, but she is also a HUGE help with The Boy.  Besides my mother, my cousin is probably The Boy's most favorite person on earth.  And when she's here he literally does NOT leave her alone.  And she takes it.  She will sit with him in his room and play whatever inane game he comes up with for hours.  She allows him to follow her around and demand things pretty much 24/7.    This gives me time to actually get some things done around the house and take care of my crap without a small child following me around demanding my every moment.  I am sure she is quite ready to head home to her quiet house at the end of every Tuesday, but we love having her.  I am hoping that what I am teaching her in terms of bookkeeping will help her in the future so that she can actually get something out of this situation besides just helping me.  Either way, without her help I would be drowning.

Besides that, there are so many others in my life that have stepped up the help out when they can.  My Dad and Step Mom have been taking The Boy for a couple hours one day each weekend and taking him to a farm, or just back to their house for some fun.  This gives me time to actually rest (like I am supposed to be doing everyday), and also gives The Boy an outing when I probably would not have the energy to make that happen myself.  And there are a ton of people who have offered help that I haven't even taken advantage of yet.  I really am one of the luckiest people on this earth and I feel shameful that I haven't yet talked about it.  Instead I have used my blog to talk about how hard this has been on me, and the emotional toll this has taken.  But now that I can see outside of the clouds a little bit I needed to take the time to give a real representation of the people who have set aside parts of their lives to help me with mine.  It makes my heart swell to think about.

One of the reasons I have had a hard time dealing with this situation is because I made the decision to have a second child on my own.  In making that decision the last thing in the world I wanted to have happen was to have to look to all the (amazing) people around me and tell them to step it up because of a decision that I made.  And I am disappointed that is what has happened.  But back when I thought about having a second child as a single mother, and back when people around me thought I was insane for making that decision, I knew about my support group.  When I told people that I had more support than most people who were in a relationship I don't think people really realized what I meant.  This is what I meant.  I hate the fact that I have to call on my loved ones to step it up and help me out.  But the fact is that I have an amazing group of people around me who are willing to do that, even when I refuse to ask.  And it is because of all of them that I know I will make it through these next few months.  I couldn't do it without them and I am humbled to have them in my life.  Hopefully one day I can repay the favor to each and every one of them.