It's Been Awhile....

I guess it's becoming a habit to only get in here to blog every 2 months- I think about blogging, and then inexplicably become distracted by some other thing, usually involving my son.

Speaking of my son, he is now 19 months old. He's still not saying a lot of words, he currently has about 9 words: Mama, Dada, Poppa (my father), ball, butt, what, no, hi & moon. He also says "uh-huh" instead of yes when I ask him if he wants something. I have yet to get him to say "milk", which I thought he would learn quickly because it's the one thing he always asks for- he uses the sign for milk instead of saying it. He will also sign "all done" and "more" and that's about it. He recently started waving Hi and Bye and using it appropriately. His Pediatrician thinks he may have a speech delay, and I am supposed to check again at 22 months if he's not using more words he will have to go for evaluation and speech therapy. Since his 18 month checkup he went from 2-3 words to the 9 I mentioned, so he picked up a bunch this month. Hopefully he will get caught up- I really hope so, it makes me worry that he has a developmental delay. I always have the fear that he could be autistic like my nephew, who is the only other male grandchild on this side of the family. Autism affects boys more than girls, and does have a genetic connection, although we don't know of anyone with this disorder in our family, so we are not sure which side of the family has the gene- mine or my husband's, or in the case of my sister- her side or her husband's. It's never shown up before so we have no idea. So as a result, I am hyper-aware of every stage of development with my son, I am always watching for the outward signs. So far the only thing that has any concern is the language development. He seems to be social, looks people in the eye, although he is shy with new people. That could be his personality, and that in itself is not an autistic trait. He also started pointing and he does play with blocks and other toys. So this may just be a speech delay, and in that case it is easily remedied with the correct therapy. I work with him every day naming objects, and showing him things like turning on the light switch, closing the door, opening the refrigerator- all of which he LOVES to do REPEATEDLY btw... he definitely like to learn new things, so that is great. I love when he brings me his book and points to the picture of the moon- he tells me "Mun, Mun" that's how he pronounces it, lol! He also loves the picture of the monkey in the book, although he can't say that word yet. Other favorite pictures are of a girl, a goat, an elephant and a flag. Maybe these will be the next words, that remains to be seen. Another favorite thing is music- he LOVES music and dances when he hears a song he likes. He's especially fond of "Yo Gabba Gabba", "Jack's Big Music Show", "The Backyardigans" and "The Fresh Beat Band." He loves the Laurie Berkner Band, Moose and Zee, and all of the musical interludes on Nick Jr. There's a song called "Papa Moko Jumbie" that he just LOVES when it comes one..he dances to it all excitedly. So cute!!

As you can tell, I have been pretty busy with my baby lately- between work, and taking him for his swimming lessons, and shuttling him back and forth to Grandma's house, I have so little time in the day. It's gonna get more hectic starting next week because my boss leaves for China on this coming Tuesday and will be gone for 3 weeks. He had planned the trip prior to this, but had to move it up unexpectedly when we discovered that our Chinese vendors are running behind in our shipments that are supposed to get here right in the heart of our busy season. Our leadtime for product is 60 days and some of the orders are already going to be a month late and they haven't even hit production yet. My boss feels that if he is on-site then his presence will ensure that they get going on our orders and don't put anyone else's in front of ours. It's the only tactic he has to make sure we get our delivery on time, or else risk the wrath of the almighty Wal-Mart. We are going to lose some of their business come February as it is, as they have decided to take our lower level product out of their stores in favor of a competitor's, but they are keeping the premium level product. The problem is, the premium level product has less of a profit margin on it as we pay fees for the branding on them, whereas our lower level brand product (which Wal-Mart has as their store brand) is completely ours and even though it is cheaper, we make more money on it. The loss of this business is going to completely derail our 2011 sales, and to combat it we have started rolling out a new product to our international customers that we are trying to get sold here in the US. Right now we have no national distribution of this product, but our marketing department is courting the larger retail chains to get them interested. To sweeten the pot, we are offering all kinds of discounts and incentives to the retailers that take us on- and a FREE national TV ad campaign that mentions which store you can buy it at. You can't beat free promotion for your store. My company is going to put up 5 mil just for the advertising, so you know it's a serious deal. We need to replace the lost Wal-Mart sales, and for my peace of mind I hope they do. I'd hate to be job hunting again after finally finding a great job that I love. Keep your fingers crossed on this one.

Now for a Shell update: basically, she hasn't called or anything since her birthday in June. So the update is, there is nothing to tell. However, I have decided to not be bothered with her anymore. I just can't stay on the rollercoaster wondering if and when she'll return my calls or messages, or continue to think and over think why she doesn't respond, or obsess over what I possibly did to her to make her not speak to me anymore. It's too much energy to waste on someone who obviously doesn't give a crap about me. I need to move on from it. So that is my decision- let the friendship go, let it go to the great big friendship graveyard and be free of it. I have always been the one who kept the friendship alive and it takes 2 people to maintain one. She gave up reciprocating, therefore so will I. My only regret is not coming to this conclusion sooner than I did. Perhaps I never wanted to face the fact that I will truly be alone and not have a best friend any longer. The fact is- I haven't had a best friend for many years, and although I dearly miss having a best friend, I have been able to get by without her. Having my son and the responsibility of parenting helped to clarify this - I need to give 100% of my energy to worthy pursuits that enable me to be the best Mother I could possibly be. If there is something that mentally or emotionally takes me out of that zone, it's taking away from my son, and I can't allow that to happen. I need to be mentally happy and healthy for my boy, period. Therefore, it is with great sadness that I make this decision, however, the one priority I have is my son, and he will always come first. I don't have time for conditional friendships or part-time friends. My time is too valuable, and my mental health and emotional health are too valuable.

So I will sign off on that note, and hopefully things will return to normal, if there ever was normal to begin with !! :0)

That's it and that's all!!

My Baby Boy is 1 Year Old! and a Rant

I can't believe it...it's a new year and my baby boy turned 1 year old on Feb 6th. He's 30.5 in tall and 21.5 lbs. He's eating some table foods now and drinking less bottles. He is cutting 5 more teeth as we speak! It's been a busy year so far...he's getting close to walking too...he cruises everywhere and he says "mama" and "dada"too! We had a big birthday party for him this past Saturday and he enjoyed himself so much with all the kids, the bounce house and especially his birthday cake! It was a nice day.

I am still working part time, and I enjoy the job more and more. My boss is the nicest guy and he does not overload or stress me with work. I recently held down the fort for him for 2 weeks when he was on a business trip to China and I think I did pretty well. I pray that this company continues to be a good thing for me, and that I have some career growth there. So far so good.

Now on to the rant of the day- I have to say something about bad friends (AGAIN). It seems to be a broken record with me, this friend screws me over, that friend shuts off...etc. But I swear that this keeps happening, and it's a mystery to me WHY. I wish I knew. This particular rant is about Shell- my supposed oldest best friend. She has grown pretty distant since I had my baby, and she has pretty much turned back to her old man hunting ways, acting like a teenager again by carrying on with guys. She has been involved with a married guy for about a year now, he lives in NY and they go back and forth visiting one another and have their trysts. She thinks I am stupid and don't know anything about it, but one of her other friends gave me some details about it and told me what she has been up to and hasn't been telling me. Anyways, she has been acting really weird for the entire year- and it comes to my baby boy's 1st birthday party and she blew it off. First she RSVP's that she and her daughter are coming, then the day before the party...she calls me and tells me something about her daughter having a weird rash and she wanted to make sure it wasn't contagious, so she was taking her to the Dr that afternoon. I told her, fine, call me when you know something. Hours pass, and later that evening I get a text message from her sayins "At the hospital." No explanation was given...so I send her a message right back asking what happened and to call me, and she sends back. "Can't call, will call you later." So here I am...worrying that there is a serious problem with her daughter, and all she would text back is that the Dr sent them straight to the hospital. I texted her back to call me and let me know what happened and how her kid is doing, and I never hear back from her. The next morning, I put a FB wall post on her wall asking what happened and to call me, and I get no response. The party comes and goes, I never hear from her, and I call after the party and I get no answer at her house or cell. I left a message expressing my concern- and you got it...nothing.
By this point, I am plain pissed off. I think I deserve the courtesy of a return call, especially since I was left hanging Friday nite like that. Well, today Tuesday, she calls me cell phone as I am driving home from my boy's Dr appt and I decided NOT to answer it. I am pretty fed up with her excuses and her outlandish stories and I am not entirely certain that she hasn't exaggerated this whole thing to get out of buying a gift and attending the party. Not for anything, but I went to ALL her daughter's birthday parties, her christening, her communion and dance recitals. I always gave gifts too. I find it really rude to not reciprocate when I had been giving to her kid for 15 years. Aside from the gift issue, there is the blatant disrespect for me as a friend to not communicate to me what was supposed to be some sort of emergency and let me sit and wonder what the hell happened! She left a lame voice message saying that she just got back from the hospital today and her phone was ringing off the hook all weekend and it was going dead and she had SO many people to call back, etc and to call her so she can tell me what happened. At this point, I am NOT interested what happened. She is playing games again and I am sick and tired of it. This is the same type of BS that she has ALWAYS pulled and I am not forgiving and forgetting about it this time. She is only a friend when it's convenient for her to be, and I don't want any more part time friends- you're either in or your out. There's no in between anymore. I'm not an idiot- I have seen her ignore phone calls on her cell, where she looks to see who it is and just doesn't answer. She does it to me all the time and I am SICK of it. I am NOT going to pick up her calls anymore. I don't have room in my life for that type of stuff, and even though I am very hurt by her behavior, I am not going to allow her to weasel her way back in so she has me on standby for when she wants to be around. I'm DONE with it. Totally done.

Rant over... that's it and that's all!