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the girl that grabbed the hornet's nest

I've realized that when I am very sleep deprived, there tends to also be....hallucinations. When Jack was first born, I was very much in need for a good sleep plus the anxiousness about the 8lb 6oz bundle of fragileness that slept in his crib next to our bed was almost overwhelming. When I did get sleep, it was only hours at a time and the quality of the sleep wasn't all unicorns and rainbows since waking up at random intervals to check on Jack was a regular occurance. Consequentially and because of the very little sleep I had gotten, I tended to, hmm, imagine things that weren't real.

These hallucinations weren't like I-see-people-telling-me-things type of hallucinations. They were the in-between feeling of being asleep and dreaming but also awake and aware of my surroundings. I would often wake up and it would take some time and very hard thinking to understand where I was and more importantly, where Jack was.

All new moms know the eating habits of babies when they are young. Just in case you don't know, babies eat all. the. time. Jack ate every 2-3 hours, 24 hours a day. At night, I found that by nursing him in bed, I could catch some z's and he could eat some food.

This is where the first set of hallucinations began. I would wake up in a frenzy thinking I had been nursing Jack and fell asleep. I would be pulling the covers off of me thinking I was smothering the poor bean. As I was pulling covers and searching the bed for a good minute or two,I realized that Jack was safely tucked away in his crib.

This happened for several nights. Try every single night. Like, every single hour of the night. To me, it seemed so real and poor Tyler had to deal with the mommy mental patient for many, many nights. This brings us to Tyler. Oh, Tyler... what a saint! Soon he was pulled into my frenzy's against his will and to his confusion.

When Jack got old enough, I soon began to nurse him while laying down. But again, sleep deprivation + nursing Jack while laying down= sleep hallucinations. Sometimes I would even fall back asleep for a minute while nursing him only to wake up, place him back in his crib and go back to sleep. However, sometimes I would forget the "put him back in his crib" step. Then I would be waking up like a crazy woman thinking I was smothering my little pickle.

There was an incident where I was SURE Jack was under the covers. So as I repeatedly tried to uncover him and pick him up, I slowly woke up and realized that I had been groping at Tyler's leg in an attempt to pick "jack" up. I was fully prepared to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Tyler's thigh! Poor Tyler woke up wondering who the heck was trying to swaddle his leg and like a good husby, forgave me and we both went back to bed.

That experience was way back when Jack was barely a month old. So, you would think that by now, 8 months, my hallucinations would be gone, right?

Not, exactly.

We are actually right in the middle of a move. So let me set up another equation for you. Homework + vinyl shop + moving + farmer's market + taking care of Jack = one tired mother

Because of the move, Jack had been waking up multiple times in the night. His schedule was way out of whack and it was showing when he would wake up 3-4 times a night to nurse. In order for me to catch up on some much needed sleep, I would nurse him in bed again. I should have realized that the combination of such events would result in a mishap at Tyler's expense.

It was very early morning and I was just convinced that Jack was sleeping next to me. In fact, this time, I was positive. I heard Tyler shifting his weight to roll over in his sleep and in an attempt to save "Jack", I grabbed "him" and told Tyler not to move or else he was going to roll on top of Jack. Tyler continued to shift a bit and so I held on tighter to "Jack" and pushed Tyler with my arm in an attempt to keep him from rolling right on top of the Mr.

Me: "Tyler, don't move! Jack is right here!"

Tyler: "What are you talking about? What are you doing?"

Me: "He's right here, sleeping! I'm holding him"

Tyler: "Jessica! You're holding my crotch!"

That conversation was enough to really get me to wake up and I realized, like so many times before, Jack was fine and Tyler had gotten the short end of my psycho hallucinations. Once I realized this, we laughed pretty hard at the fact that I had grabbed Tyler's manhood thinking I was grabbing Jack.

So seriously, when you have a kid, take advantage of as much sleep as possible for your husband's sake.

i can do anything good

I don't think it's ostentatious for me to say that I am proud of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

Having a baby really effs up your body. I kind of knew that beforehand but I didn't really know. My stomach is COVERED in stretch marks and my poor lady melons are not looking so hot due to the breastfeeding and engorgement.

So after not doing much physical activity for the extent of the pregnancy, I decided to whip myself into shape a couple of months after Jack's birth. I failed miserably.

I tried running but I couldn't even go once around the track without getting all breathless and feeling like my side was going to explode. Needless to say, I was discouraged and I didn't know where to go from there.

After a while, I regained my motivation and I started to work out. First, I did the elliptical which was great. It made me feel like I was physically fit without all of the soreness but it was still difficult even at a resistance of 1.

Slowly, I worked my way up and it became pretty easy to do the elliptical. While during my various workout endeavors, I came across an advertisement for a Valentine's Day 5k.

Yikes, I thought, I hope someday I can do that. Then I realized that maybe, just maybe, I was already there or pretty close. So I talked to Tyler and asked him if he wanted to complete a 5k with me and I was surprised when he agreed.

The first time I stepped on the treadmill, I was really nervous of how much I would totally fail and I am embarrassed to admit that I was worried about what people would think of me. My goal was to be able to run at least half of it which is 1.68 miles (I think). I ran the first lap and then the next and the next and the next! With ease! Soon, I completed my goal and I was on my way.

Fast forward to the week of the 5k. That Monday I decided to push myself to see if I could run the WHOLE 5k (that's 3.25 miles, mind you. It's a big deal to me). I pushed myself HARD and at last, I ran the whole 5k in about 40:00 min. I thought that was a good time until I went online and I realized that it sucked. People run these things in like, half that time. I didn't really care though because the important thing was that I finished.

Buzzerp-buzzerp-buzzerp. Fast forward again to the day of the race. I was so nervous for some odd reason. I guess it was because I was envisioning unrealistic scenarios. Here's how one of those scenarios went:

I start off and everyone instantly passes me up in which, lap after lap, I am finally the only person left on the track. Then as I try to finish each lap lamely, the people in charge yell at me and ask why I even thought I could do this and that I was really slow. Then as I finally finish, I trip and fall on my face to which everyone laughs and points fingers at me because I so obviously soiled my pants. You know, because the running jumbles your stomach around and I had an "accident" at the point of the fall. Then for the rest of my college career, I am known as the "5k Soiler" which only sends me into a downward spiral of hatred towards racing and everyone that does it!

Now you can understand how I was nervous.

As I started the race, it was great! I had a guy keeping track of how much I had already run and would encourage me to keep going by telling me how many laps I had left. However, since I had only trained on a treadmill, I soon found out that running in real life is a lot harder! I was able to run 2.00 miles before I had to stop to speed walk. Then after .50 miles, I stepped it up and ran the last .75 miles until I finally finished with a sprint and at a time of 38:08!

Here we are, in all our sweaty glory, just after finishing the race.

Jack came along for the ride too!

Even with the walking and running in real-life versus the treadmill, I was able to beat my training time. It was exhilarating to finally finish! I had completed my first ever 5k and it felt so freakin' good. What's best is that I wasn't last and I didn't fall on my face or soil my pants.

Now, I am looking for another 5k to train for. My next goal is to be able to run it in under 30 minutes. That comes out to be about a 9-minute mile but I know I can do it. I can do anything good.

i think it would be okay if spring came

I have discovered that I live life through addiction after addiction and I think you may be surprised that many of you do as well.

When I was in jr. high, I was addicted to IMing my friends. Looking back, I realize how ridiculous this was seeing as I was just around my friends all day at school. Yet, day after day I would come home and chat with my fellow school-mates online. In reality, I didn't care to chat with my girlfriends too much. In actuality, I just wanted to chat with my crushes and my ulterior motive was mainly to find out if they liked me too. This was pre-texting days, so give me a break.

IMing died away and then I discovered the awesomeness of The Sims. I'm pretty sure every single girl who loved playing house as a child was in LOVE with Sims. I know I was. I could play it for hours, then kill off my family, and create a new one where the cycle would thus continue. Actually, I'm still obsessed with Sims...

But it wasn't only computer technology that would consume my life. I get into my food addictions as well. Right now, I have been eating oatmeal and bananas for breakfast basically everyday since Jack was born. It's good and filling and keeps my milk production up (because you all wanted to know that). Yes, it's true, that equals to a lot of freakin' oatmeal and bananas but that isn't the worst food addiction I've had. I've been known to eat beans for a month strait for lunch. Mainly bean sandwiches and homemade bean burritos. Gotta love that fiber! Good news is that I'm sick of beans now and have moved on to tuna. Gotta love those omega-3's!

Now I have discovered a new addiction. It fuels my life. I think it has moved on from an addiction to an obsession. What's great is that it has taken possession of Tyler as well so when it comes time for an intervention, you can kill two birds with one stone and bring both Tyler and I back to reality. But for now, our obsession is:


SUDOKU
SUDOKU
SUDOKU

But this isn't just a mindless, random sudoku puzzle. This is the Sudoku puzzle in The Scroll! The Scroll is BYU-I's weekly paper which is usually filled with random and pretty lame articles like the top three places to visit in Rexburg (which happened to be 1. DI 2.The Gym 3.The sand dunes). On the last page of The Scroll, there is a Sudoku puzzle which if completed correctly and turned in by Friday at 5:00PM, has potential of being drawn as the winning puzzle and that person gets a prize.

A PRIZE!

So Tyler and I started the last couple of weeks in the fall semester and we continue to this day and we take it very seriously. In our life, the week starts on Tuesday, when The Scroll comes out. Every week, we do the sudoku. Let me just tell you, these aren't your grandma's puzzles. These puzzles are meant to weed out the men from the boys (or so to speak).

Tyler and I have actually gotten into fights about these puzzles. I'm sure you are envisioning a playful banter-like fight. Oh no! The kind of fight that your Bishop advises to work out before you go to bed. THAT type of fight.

It is not uncommon to have shredded remains of The Scroll on our living room floor and I'm pretty sure there are no more erasers in our home anymore, only eraser shavings...

Yet we are determined to get that prize and we're not even sure what "the prize" is. Often times couple's fantasize about what they would do if they won the lottery, we fantasize about what the prize for the Sudoku could possibly be. Tyler thinks it's some brand new BYU-I gym clothes. I think it's a gift certificate to a restaurant. Either way, we ARE going to win before we graduate because we HAVE to know. It is our obsession and addiction.

He's the cheese to my macaroni.