He'll ALWAYS be my baby.....right???

It's amazing how fast time flies. Your parents always tell you to treasure the time you have because it goes by so quickly. I never realized these words to be true until i had children.  The past couple weeks have had death, birth of new babies, and celebrated birthdays, and with that it made me go back and look at the past; to look at my babies, well when they were babies and just reminisce.

I remember it all like it was just yesterday. It was January 23rd, 2003. My due date. I went in for my 40 week check up and they did an ultrasound to find that i had a slow leak, and admitted me into the hospital to start the pitocin. 12 hours of labor, 20 minutes of pushing and at 12:35am January 24, 2003 out came this 6lb 11oz black haired little boy. My life forever changed. FOR THE BETTER.

I was obsessed with taking his picture, because to me he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. My mom always told me "lyndsi you keep kissing his face like that you're going to kiss his face right off". but i didn't care, i was going to forever kiss him.

My little man is 11 now, he's almost as tall as me, wears the same size shoe as me and prefers to use Axe body wash and shampoo. He's in his 7th year of baseball and just turned in his registration for middle school. To be honest, I cried when i filled it out. Where is my baby? Where did he go? What happened to laying on the floor and playing with Tupperware, and finger painting, and being paranoid you were going to fall going up the stairs? *sigh* why do those things need to stop? Why must you grow up? I know its selfish to want to keep him little, but all moms wish the same thing.

My boy is almost a teenager. Just saying "teenager" makes me quiver. I hate it. Teenagers are assholes, i know, i used to be one. Will my Joey no longer hug me? Will he want me to drop him off down the street? Are his friends going to become more important than his mother? Answer....yes. It's something I've known since he was born, but never wanted it to come. I live today for the moments when he gives me a kiss before bed, or comes up to me and hugs me for no reason, and that very rare moment when the word "mommy" slips from his lips. He's growing up, and he is forever going to be that beautiful bouncing baby boy to me. Perfect in every way.

So when your mom tells you to treasure every moment, do it. Take millions of pictures because you'll never be able to get those moments back, and one day you're going to be like me and sit down and go through memory lane and smile because you know that this far, you've done a pretty good job.

Family time = Reflection time

So as you can see we just spent the weekend in Arizona for Dodger spring training. It was an amazing adventure, even with the fiasco that started the whole trip! I look back at this past weekend and it really makes me reflect on life and family as a whole. I'll get to that in a bit.

So about the weekend. It was a blast! Getting to see the players up close and in your face, Tommy Lasorda cruising by on a golf cart, and even meeting a players wife at a random Starbucks (Red Patterson's wife). I've never seen so much excitement radiate off a person until i saw Joey get his first ball signed by a player. You would have thought that he just won the lottery. Some of the players were jerks, and refused to sign stuff, and some just stuck to one side of the line and skipped over joey, but that's OK. We took this trip as a learning experience and know EXACTLY what to do next year to make it more beneficial for us.  Our hotel was Posh!! 5 star resort and spa in Scottsdale, which it better be since we had a huge issue with our hotel to begin with.

We drove around to different areas of Arizona that were of some interest to us. I must say i enjoyed Tempe. Seeing ASU was incredible. Such a pretty place. And then we cruised through Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler. All very nice areas.

The games were awesome! The Fields were incredible and the people were pretty great. We sat 5 rows from the field, and i could almost squeeze Ethiers tush!! It was neat because you could tell that with spring training they knew it was time for practice, but they also would be out in center field before the games shooting the shit with the other teams players. It was a great experience and i can't wait until next year.

So on to the other part of this ride.....family

My family is quite....well....different i guess you could say. It's a big family. But my immediate family (my parents, brothers and sisters) are pretty awesome. This weekend brought me an abundance of emotions, happiness, jealousy, elation and exhaustion.

Not a whole lot of people get to spend time with their families like i do. I'm lucky that my parents have lived in the same city for their entire lives, and therefore, so have I. There have only been a handful of sports games that they've missed in the 7 years joey has been playing sports. It's pretty incredible if you ask me.

So with this weekend brought a bunch of reflection time about family. As I'm sitting at the pool watching my little brother with my kids it genuinely warms my heart and at the same time gives me a little ping of jealousy. My aunts and uncles didn't do those things with me when i was little, and still don't now that I'm an adult. I don't get invited to the movies, dinner, or happy hour. Just when it's someones birthday is when you hear from them. Oh well. But i look at my kids and I'm so thankful that they won't have to have those feelings. They have an uncle who wrestles on the floor with them, who does puzzles with them, helps with homework and even takes them to the movies. An uncle that doesn't miss a sporting event or school play. My kids are so very lucky to have an uncle like that. He's not just "Uncle", he's the "FUN-cle".

Then it gets me into my mom. My mom is an amazing person. She would give you the shirt off her back in a second if you said you needed it. And this past weekend proved me right once again. She's not only an amazing mom, but an even more amazing grandma. Watching her with my 2 boys makes me smile. Seeing my boys get so excited to see grandma, to want to run up and give her hugs and kisses is the best sight for these eyes.  She had a great role model for grandparents and i know she strives to be like them, and i must say, she's right on par. I can only hope that when i eventually become a grandma I'm half the grandma is she. Again my kids are so incredibly lucky.

So i guess you could say that even though i myself don't have all that great of a relationship with my extended family, I'm so elated that my children have outstanding relationships with theirs. and I'm so glad that my parents and siblings are willing to put themselves aside for just a few moments to make these kids feel important. Life is too short to be consumed with yourself all the time. Believe it or not there are other people out there who are missing out on great memories and experiences because of your self consumption.

So thanks for being awesome! I  myself and my children appreciate it.

And again thanks so much for such an incredible weekend!!! So many great memories were had!

GO DODGER BLUE!!!

Not so fun when you're.....dun dun dun....GROUNDED!

It all started on Friday March 7th with parent teacher conferences. Turns out me trying to give my 11 year old some responsibilities and not harping on him about doing homework (meaning when i ask him if his homework is done, and he says "yes", i believe him and  not go rummaging through his backpack) was a TERRIBLE idea. New parents to 11 year olds, take my advice, BE NOSEY AND GO THROUGH THEIR BACKPACKS! According to his teacher he hasn't turned in any of his homework this quarter. *Sigh*. So all these months of him telling me he did his homework, he was lying to me. And as everyone in my family knows, I DO NOT TOLERATE LYING! Period!!

So that's how we got on the subject of this blog. I'm not going to talk about how my son is behind in school blah blah blah. I've known this since he was in kindergarten. What I'm going to talk about is the emotion toll on a parent is when you ground your kid.

This is my first time ever having to actually "ground" my kid. He's been in  trouble before where I've taken some of his things away and after a week or so he gets it back. This time is different. This time it's for the whole enchilada. Not only did i take away his TV, tablet and he's no longer allowed to watch TV in the living room, but he's stuck in his room ALLLLLLL day and night. I believe that 90% of parents think that they can handle their kid being grounded and that it's no big deal. For me it's been an emotional nightmare.  Hearing my son cry in his room for hours, apologizing profusely pulls at my heart strings.  I so badly just want to tell him he's done being grounded, but deep down i know I'm doing the right thing and that he has to learn.

Every kid at some age has been grounded, so i know mine isn't the first. I know he's going to learn from this and hopefully come out on top and be more of an honest kid. I just want to see him succeed and be proud of himself and know that he is capable of so many great things if he would just apply himself.

But man being grounded is harder on the parent then it is on the child. Remember that. Don't give in, and just know you are doing the right thing. Your child will thank you for it later in life when they are succeeding!

Weight....man is it heavy...

So I was having a conversation with a friend and the subject of weight came up. Ugh! Just the topic makes want to go into deep state of depression.  Weight has ALWAYS been a sore subject for me. It's something I have been struggling with my entire life. I know I'm not the only person who freaks out about their weight and hasn't gone to extreme measures to try to lose it, but I'm gonna be honest in this blog and put myself out there.

I really started noticing my weight being a problem when i was in 5th grade. I was a chubby girl with LOTS of freckles and a ridiculous perm.  I didn't really have an interest in boys, but that's when i started to notice "cliques" and how i wasn't really part of one. I was a tomboy who played sports and would prefer to wear jeans and a hoodie over skirts and form fitting shirts.  Deep down i really wanted to be apart of the "pretty girl" clique, where all the girls were pretty blondes and always wore cute outfits and were constantly surrounded by people who wanted to be them.  And that year was the year i started to obsess about my looks.

I never really got "teased" for my looks or weight until i was in 7th grade. I was already feeling like i was the fat person in school, but then there were 2 boys at my bus stop who would everyday tell me that i belonged in Seaworld's Shamu show.  From that day forward i hated myself. I hated the way i looked. I hated my freckles, I hated that i wore a bigger size then my friends, I hated that my friends were already starting to get boyfriends and there's "fat lyndsi" all by herself.....as usual. From that point forward i made sure i wore baggy sweatshirts, baggy jeans and my hair in a ponytail. I refused to wear any sort of bathing suit out in public (still don't), and i vowed to always remain covered because no one wants to see a fat person in a bathing suit, i mean ewwww gross!!

I have a mother who has always been very positive towards me and is always telling me that I'm beautiful, but as us kids know moms are supposed to say that about their kids. I remember as a kid going to my dads house and my dad making comments to me while i would walk through the living room saying "hey lynds why don't you stand next to the TV and see if your ass is as wide as the screen?" and then laugh. While i would laugh it off as a joke, little did people know what i was doing behind closed doors. That's when I started throwing up.

In my mind I was DETERMINED to be skinny. I didn't care what it took to be skinny. I wanted to be the girl that all the guys in world fantasized about. I wanted to be asked to be on covers of magazines, i wanted to be a supermodel. I used to make jokes when i got older that i should do do crack because it would make me skinny and people would tell me "yeah but then your teeth will fall out and you'll get pits in your face and die". And my retort was "yeah i can always pay to get my teeth fixed and get plastic surgery, and if i die, at least I'll die skinny, so make sure you bury me naked!" Apparently no one thought that was funny.

I did the throwing up bit from about age 12-16. I was hardcore into sports and so i was really busy with that, that i don't really think anyone noticed. I don't even think my primary doctor noticed when i would go in for my yearly physicals.  I would look at  myself in the mirror and just be full on disgusted with what i saw. Even after all those years of throwing up and doing heavy exercising with softball, in my mind i was FAT...F A T FAT!! I still didn't have a boyfriend, much less any guy even look in my general direction. I was the one who had to ask boys to dances. Talk about pathetic. BTW i finally got my first boyfriend at 17, and a year later he left for marine corp boot camp.

After I graduated high school i went to work full time. I was planning my wedding and as usual obsessing about my weight and that i can't be fat for my wedding, because what will people think if a giant cow of a 19 year old walked down the aisle?  That's when i discovered Phentramine. To be honest, that shit was AMAZING! It killed my appetite to where i would at the most eat 1 meal a day, it was a lifesaver! I remember being so excited because i had lost a bunch of weight and was able to fit into my mom's Victoria secret size 8 jeans, but was really sad and upset that my wedding dress was a size 10. I cried for days and days because i felt like i worked so hard to not eat and yet my wedding dress was the size of a whale, talk about a punch to the gut. I wore the dress and went about my wedding day and my life.

Here I am at age 31, had 2 babies and my obsession with my weight rides on.  I've tried every diet known to man, Ive starved myself, worked out for hours and hours so on a so forth. I know that i should except myself for what i am and who i am, but being another "obese American statistic" it's hard.  I see these women on the covers of sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and i want to curl up in a ball and cry. Why can't i be like that? Why can't i for once have a flat stomach? Or an ass you can bounce a quarter off of?? Instead Ive been given jiggles and jelly, stretch marks and acne.  I've even gone so far as to consult doctors about surgery, and guess what?? I don't qualify through my insurance. You know why? Because I'm a "healthy" fat person. Even though my BMI reads me as being "morbidly obese", my blood work tells me that I'm as healthy as an ox. Sucks to be me.

I know that I will forever struggle with this subject, and deep down i don't think I'll ever really be able to come to terms with ME. Some days I'm ok with the way i look, and there are others where i wanna just lock myself in my room and never come out. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford the surgeries i want and maybe then i can be satisfied with what i see in the mirror, but until then i will continue on with my struggles.

The kids....they look like me....right??

So since our youngest Alex has been born my husband and I have had this on going "debate" for lack of better words. His whole entire family seems to think that there is NOT one single thing on that child that resembles me. Where as i look at this kid and i feel like I'm looking at me. Where as I feel like this boy has Marshall written all over him, his family seems to think it's all Bledsoe/Bashaw.

While normally this isn't a big deal for most people, it kinda is for me. Call me super sensitive, or petty or whatever, but i carried this child for 9 months and you mean to tell me that there isn't ONE SINGLE THING that is me on him??  It gets a little old when all you hear from people is "omg it's Patrick's twin." "Look at those Bledsoe eyes". "He smiles just like a Bledsoe". "His personality is definitely from the Bledsoes". It can be a little disheartening hearing that pretty much this child isn't yours, you just housed him.

Like i said, i know this may be petty, but it's how i feel. And while i love this kid more than life itself, and deep down i KNOW he's me. If anything, he has my awesome sass!!

So if these pictures aren't proof enough that this little adorable little human doesn't look like his wonderful, amazing mom then i don't know what  else to tell you.

GO BLEDSOE'S!!!!

But....How do you do it???

March 1, 2014 

  

So as you all may know my husband is a firefighter for the DOD. And if you don't know, well, now you do. His job means that he gets the opportunity to work for the military in different countries around the world. To say that im jealous would just be an understatement. He's been just about everywhere, from Iraq to the middle of the south pacific on a island called Kwajalein, to Africa where he is currently. So this leads to the reason why I'm blogging right now. We've been married almost 5 years and in our 5 years of marriage he has always worked overseas, it's nothing new to me or us. So with that being said, im going to answer the questions that i get asked on a regular basis in the most upfront honest way. So here we go.....

"How the heck does your marriage work with him being gone all the time?"

It's quite simple actually. It's called "Communication". And to be honest, i bet our communication skills are probably better then the marriages of people who are around each other 24/7.  There isn't one thing that the other half doesn't know, whether it be where the other person is, to what they had to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And THAT is how our marriage works!

"Isn't it hard raising the kids alone?"

Honestly?? It's got it's frustrating moments. There are days where i wish he was here, just so i can shower alone and even poop alone. But is it hard? No. There are women who raise their kids alone everyday, I'm not any different. And I'm not going to act like a martyr.

"Why doesn't he get a job in the states?"

Why should he? A lot of people ask this because they think that it's lonely and not healthy to have a distant marriage or whatever, when in fact this situation works perfectly for us. He not only makes great money, but he enjoys what he does. And who am i to not let him do what he loves? As a wife, i feel it's part of my job to make sure he is happy, and if he is happy working with the troops in another country then by golly who am i to take that away from him.

Our marriage may not be perfect, but it's perfect for us. We Skype on the daily, and talk on the phone sometimes 3 times a day. We miss each other like something fierce when he's gone, but we both know it's part of our routine. Both our kids know what dad does, and why he does what he does. I've had LONG conversations with Joey about his Dad, and I've never in my life seen a boy light up so bright  whenever he talks about what his dad does to other people. We are so proud of Patrick and what he does and us Bledsoe's support him in every way possible. You know why?? BECAUSE WE'RE AWESOME!!

So I'm hoping i answered any questions, and gave some understanding. So until next time!