Two (maybe three) miracles, an award, and a meme

First miracle, thanks to all the wonderful tips from my fabulous bloggy and IRL (in real life) friends... Bean ate a big boy dinner today! Chicken and cornbread stuffing casserole, leftovers from what I made yesterday for me and DH after Bean was in bed. BRILLIANT! I don't know what I'd do without you all. Seriously. *wipes tear* Sure, it was one of the most painful experiences of my life, giving him a tiny spoonful and then waiting 7 minutes while he slowly chewed it, looked at the dog, smacked the high chair tray, stuck his finger in his mouth, looked at the dog again, took a drink, flapped his arms up and down, chewed, again at the dog, more tray smacking, reached for the vertical blinds on the sliding glass door, is the dog still down there?, giggled randomly, chewed, repeat cycle.... and finally tiny swallow. But somehow I survived without pulling all of my hair out, and I'm so excited about our new opportunities. Yee haw!

Second miracle, Bean slept 11 straight hours last night, then woke up briefly and slept another hour. YES I SAID HE SLEPT 11 STRAIGHT HOURS. Which combined with a bit of a third miracle -- I didn't wake up worrying about him! -- means that I got 7 hours of solid, uninterrupted, continuous, undisturbed, restful sleep. Can you tell I'm excited? I'm not worried about jinxing anything, because I don't expect this to happen again for at least several months. And to prove my theory, Bean has already woken up crying twice since he went to bed a few hours ago. But damn, that was one amazing night...






And more good news... I received an award (above) and a meme from Coffeegrl at Okaasan mommy and more. The honorees of this award are to: A) first list 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep! B) pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap.

Here goes!

1. I really want to go back to school and get a Ph.D. in counseling psychology. I enjoyed my master's program (although not while working full-time, yucky) and would love to take it further. For various reasons, I think it's pretty unlikely that this will ever happen. It's probably one of those things that I'll think of regretfully when I'm 50. That and cutting my own bangs in high school.

2. I get very nervous in groups of people I don't know. This is probably not really unique, but being an introvert, the anxiety causes me to retreat into my head and remain quiet. Sometimes this makes me appear aloof, when really I'm worrying that I have nothing interesting to add to the conversation. Which is usually true. Moving on.

3. Sometimes when I am about to lose my mind in gridlock traffic, I imagine that there is a missile launcher on top of my car. One that instantly vaporizes its target, leaving no trace of the object whatsoever. I picture pushing a red button on my dashboard, releasing the missile, and vaporizing all the cars in front of me, one by one, to relieve the congestion. You know what? It works pretty well.

4. In the first weeks of Bean's life, I was terrified that I had made a mistake by fighting so hard to become a mother. Between the sleep deprivation and constant battle to breastfeed, I was absolutely miserable and longing for the days before DH and I had ever decided we wanted a child. At the time, I couldn't see far enough ahead to know it would get better, but thank goodness it did. Now I find myself feeling like I have finally arrived in my perfect-for-me life, there is nothing in the world I would rather be than Bean's mother.

5. I feel a stab of guilt when DH mentions coworkers with high-earning wives and their amazing houses/cars/boats/vacations/shoe closets. (So maybe he doesn't mention the shoe closets, but I can imagine.) While, as I said in #4, I wouldn't trade my daily life for the paycheck of an ER surgeon, I still wish I was bringing in some fat cash to get DH all those things that he'd love so much. Because he totally, totally deserves them.

6. I am so unreasonably competitive with DH when we play board games or video games, that we can only play on the same team. I'm not sure why exactly, because I'm not competitive with him in our normal life (I guess I think of us as a partnership?). But after a particularly brutal game of "Sorry" which landed DH on the receiving end of an extended silent treatment, we limit ourselves to games that we can play on the same side.

7. Ever since I finished the "Twilight" series, I have been obsessed with the real town where the story takes place: Forks, Washington. Okay, so it's only been like a month. But I think about it almost every day. I want to go there sooooo bad! But it's too far to easily take Bean. I have actually considered weaning him just so I can leave him with DH for the weekend and take off by myself. Even though I know that Bella's house doesn't really exist there, I want to go and try to find it anyway. I'm looking for a support group.

8. Sometimes I worry that maybe movies like The Sixth Sense and Ghost Town are right, and dead people do walk around on Earth and watch those of us that are still living (without being seen themselves, of course). I mean, I generally live my life in a way that I am proud of. But there are certain things that I do that I wouldn't necessarily like to think my grandparents are watching, know what I mean?

9. Although I think it was the right choice for me and DH to marry when we did, if Bean proposes to his girlfriend at age 20 and gets married while he's still in college, I'll worry that he's making a mistake.

10. Secondary infertility freaks me out. I am terrified that Bean won't be a big brother. But when I imagine raising two young kids out here with no solid support network, I am equally terrified that he will be one.

Whew! Are you exhausted? Because I'm exhausted.

I looked through my blogroll to pass along the award and meme, but I don't think I will right now. The award has already made the rounds, and many of my favorite bloggers either 1) get tagged by me too often or 2) are less active recently as they contend with newborns or moving. So I want to issue a huge THANK YOU to all the blogs I read, I find all of them wonderfully open and honest. I look forward to each post on my Google Reader!