My 3 year old and pictures FINALLY

I'm finally back and with pictures to deliver!!! YAY!! Hope you guys are ready for picture overload because it's headed your way.

First thing in the morning his Nendny called him to wish him a Happy Birthday and he got to talk to his brothers-can you tell he likes talking on the phone?

Yesterday was Caleb's 3rd birthday. I am in shock that he's three. I'm going to try and get his birthday post up later on today. Last night we had alittle celebration for him. We're doing his party with his big cake on Saturday but we did cupcakes last night. He had very unusual requests and changed his mind every 30 seconds. We ended up with blue swirled cupcakes with yellow icing and red, green and multi colored sprinkles. He had fun decorating them and was so proud of himself all afternoon!

He opened a couple of presents last night and got a game from his Bubba and some balls and a new Radio Flyer bike from us. He was inlove at first sight. The older two boys are at my dad's so things are much quieter around here for a couple of days and it was nice to get to experience his excitement with just four of us last night. Everyone will be here on Saturday so they're not missing out-they'll get the good cake :)

He's the only kid I've ever seen that will play baseball with his hands. He doesn't care where he's at or if he has the right equipment he'll just throw his hands together and bat away. He actually hits it too!!! I think we have another player on our hands.

Now you ask how in the world I all of the sudden have pictures:well that would be thanks to my brand new laptop that I got for Christmas from my dad and stepmom. I'm still in the process of figuring everything out and getting stuff loaded on here but I'm in computer heaven right now. I have officially said goodbye to Vista and have no plans to ever visit it again!!!! Now I just have to get the new wireless printer hooked up that my mom gave to me and then I'll be set up for anything and everything that comes my way! Whoo Hoo!

So get ready-I have lots of backtracking and updates to do-and catching up with all of you of course.

Crazy

I have found that coffee is my best friend in the mornings! As soon as I get up I can't get it out of the coffee pot fast enough. I've seen those Keurig machines that make one cup at a time and they make one in like 2 minutes-wow that would be Heaven! I can't tell you how many times a day I want a cup of coffee during the afternoon or even at night yet I don't want to make a whole pot. But has anyone seen the price on those machiens?!? they're at least $100 and then you have to buy those miniature K cups that are incredibly expensive too. Keeping up with buying those would cause me to get a job on third shirt!

My computer is still down. I still haven't fixed anything so I can get to my pictures. Yesterday my existing camera card was officially full with 1527 pictures. I'm going today to get a new memory card so I can at least take pictures over Christmas. I just couldn't go through the holidays without hundreds and hundreds of pictures. Then I suppose I'll figure the computer situation out after Christmas is over. It's enough to make me cry and drive me crazy at the same time right now.

This week is insane-who ever thought of the idea of letting kids out the entire week of Christmas? It was obviously not a parent that had last minute shopping to do in order to get done. Especially not a parent with 4 kids and a husband that is hardly ever home! Driving me crazy!!!! I cleaned everything yesterday-got the house cleaned and then he walked in this morning to go to work and tracked mud from his boots all over the carpet! :( I may not sanely make it to next year! I am so missing blogging and posting about everything with the kids. When I get my pictures and computer back up and running I am going to have tons and tons of catching up to do-you all will get sick of pictures :)

Picture Depression

I'm mad-I'm aggravated-I'm perturbed! I can't do anything with my pictures right now. I can't load them onto my non working computer because I don't have a clue when it's going to freeze up again not to mention I can't get online with it. I can't load them onto the backup computer that I'm using right now because it doesn't support all the system requirements that I need. I have pictures on my camera that I can't delete because I need to back them up on my external hard drive yet they have to go onto my computer first in order to do that. My memory card is full-right now there are 1527 pictures on there and I can't take more until I get rid of the ones that are on there. I can't post pictures on my blog-I can't talk about everything going on right now without my pictures and it's about to drive me crazy! I feel lost without them! I know I'm crazy! I have to figure something out so I can post pictures and load them onto my computer so I can at least function again. Ugh!!! And a week before Christmas...I'm telling you I'm going to figure out a way!

Behind and Frustrated

I've been so out of the loop. Things are going okay around here I suppose. Still on the AA recovery road-it's hard right now because we're starting over from the word go. I feel like a single mom again because he's gone every single night to a meeting and I'm having to do everything else on my own. Dinner/baths/ball practices. It's enough to drive me insane taking care of kids all day and night by myself. I'm making it though and we're taking it one day at a time-that's about all I can do right now. Thank the Lord for my mom-she's here and has helped me out with ball practices if I need it and she's jumped in at the last minute to help with dinner or even go grab takeout like she did last night. I don't know what I'd do without her right now!

My computer is messed up so I can't really blog the way I want to. My only connection to the outside world and it's more difficult than ever to keep it up right now. I can't get to my pictures and with the old computer I'm using I can't load my pictures onto her therefore I can't post any to my blog. Frustrating is not even a word for it right now! I am thinking we need a computer fairy-you know one that would just drop one off on my doorstep with a new operating system-that's right I'M BANNING VISTA! Hate it!

I'm going to try and catch up with blogging....I miss everyone and feel horrible that I've been absent. We've decorated inside-did that over the weekend but we haven't gotten the decorations up for outside yet. Guess we're going to have to do that before Christmas Day! Right now it's raining so it's not looking likely for today either. I was just thinking about blogging in the past and as I was looking through there is rarely a single post without a picture and now here I am going on two weeks without them....so FRUSTRATING!

Here We Are

I can't describe the last few days. My feelings have been all over the map...one minute I'm up and the next I'm the lowest I've ever been. It's exhausting to be honest.

We finally were able to sit down and talk..that was aggravating enough to me in itself. The tension in our house has been off the wall for the last few days. He can be right beside me and yet I feel like we're miles apart. His sponsor apparently told him that he needed to clear his head before he sat down to talk to me and he didn't need to get into an argument right now. As a result I felt like he didn't care and it only made me angrier than I already was.

The hardest part of it all is that I know that I will never feel safe and secure again. It's been that way for a while but it's just now hitting me again full force. This fight will never be over and I am horrified that something is going to happen. I question whether the decision I have made to stay is the right one. Am I doing what is right for my kids...because that's where I'm at right now. I love my husband with all of my heart and would obviously do anything in the world for him but right now I feel like I need to do what's best for my kids. Thankfully they're young enough that they don't know what's going on right now. They know that things have been tense and my nerves have been shot for the last week but they don't know the details of everything. I have spared them of that...it's another hot spot for me also. I cover up for him and he looks like this great dad and man again while I know the truth of everything that has happened. Ugh! Right now I am so scared though..I worry about what he's doing and the effect is it could have on the kids one day if he relapses again. If something happens to him what I'll have to tell them. Having Allie grow up without her Daddy is one of my biggest fears right now...I know that boys need their dad but having a little girl whose Daddy rules her world and have so much hanging in the balance right now is so scary.  I can't walk away right now..I just don't have it in me. I can't take his kids away..I just can't do it. It would kill them and him at the same time. I just pray that everything works out this time...I pray it works! It just has to!

I am sad..I'm angry...I'm lonely....I'm cold...I'm just miserable.

There are moments when I look at him and see the man that I married...there are moments we laugh and then it hits me..the reality of what is going on and then I fall down again.

The one person in this world that I should be able to depend on to keep me safe and secure and to never hurt me has broken me down. I want my normal boring life back and the worst part of it is that I know it is never going to happen. I will never go another day and not think about alcohol. I hate alcohol! It makes me cringe when I see people drink...it has destroyed my life and yet I know that people think I'm crazy when I say that but it's how I feel. I'll will never hear another can pop open and not have a flashback to a beer can being opened. I'll never call my husband and have him not answer the phone without wondering if he's in a bar or sitting somewhere drinking by himself. I'll never not wonder and that's a scary thought. The only thing he can tell me is that he's sorry but he can't make it better. He can't fix me and it makes me mad. He did this! How can someone break someone down so much and then do nothing more than utter the words I'm sorry but I love you more than I could ever say? Why couldn't he love me enough to not pick up a drink?

He says he knows what he has to lose and he's trying. I know he is..he's back in AA on a daily basis and feels like he knows what he did wrong last time. He stopped going to regular meetings..there were weeks he would only make it to one when he should have made it to many more.

On the other hand I know I need help. I have to have help because I'm falling apart. Things are still going here though...he seems to be doing better and has a clearer mind today. I wish I could say the same for me.

Hell

What a hellish week! It feels like the days have just drug on and on and on without end. I feel exhausted emotionally and physically yet I feel like I haven't even dealt with the big stuff yet. It didn't end with the first relapse...we continued through a second night of it and things just got worse that following day. I felt like I was in a nightmare with a person that I didn't know at all. I can't begin to describe what living with someone and their  addiction is like to someone that hasn't experienced it firsthand..it's almost impossible..it's the scariest and most lonely thing I have ever seen. Things have yet to sink in..I am still going through the motions and trying to just make it through the day. I have to say thank you though..the support I've received from everyone has been beyond anything I ever imagined. I can't say thank you enough! I am so blessed to have people that care so much about me and are there for me to talk to and lean on no matter what. Right now I'm scared to get deep down...I don't want to deal with what I've dealt with before..I don't want to be back at day one. I don't want to live the last year of my life over again..I don't want to have multiple panic attacks a day..I don't want to watch my husband drive out of the driveway and not know if he's going to relapse while he's gone or if he's actually going to come home like he's supposed to without disappearing for hours at a time without notice..I don't want to be scared/sad or lonely anymore. I just want a normal boring life right now. I want it all to be over..I want to feel secure and safe and right now I couldn't be farther away.

Back At One

After 360 days of being sober my husband relapsed yesterday. I'm not sure what to think..my mind is jumbled and filled with hundreds of thoughts right now. I expected to be much more upset than I currently am...I don't think it has sunk in yet. I am upset but right now it hasn't hit me. Things have been really stressful with his work situation....extremely stressful. Things are very slow and to top it off the "big" people haven't handled things very well in the process....very vague and lots of empty promises. I was pissed when I found out...I threw stuff and blew up. He blew up and it got ugly but I quickly realized how upset and disappointed he was in and with himself. I had to put my anger aside because he was falling apart....I didn't have a choice. Maybe that's why it hasn't sunk in yet...I had to push the feelings aside last night and they just haven't risen up again yet. I said I would leave if it happened again yet I'm still here. I don't know why but I feel like this is where I need to be right now. It's not easy yet it's not as emotional as I thought it would be again. I think I'm separated in a way...I feel like I've cut myself off from it to a degree. Mostly right now I just feel bad for him...horrible! I literally felt his pain as I held him in my arms last night and he collapsed in sobs. It was at that point that I couldn't put forth anger and hurtful words...all I could muster was sympathy and love.

So here we are starting over again from day one. He has spent the last few hours doing nothing but apologizing and begging me not to leave. We could use your prayers right now if you have time. He could use your prayers most of all.