Sometimes the Positivity Runs Out

I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday.  And Lukas woke up on the wrong side of the crib.  Our day just did not start out well.  He was cranky, which is unusual for him.  And I was all sorts of out of it.  I couldn't even remember the code to our alarm system.  It was that sort of morning.  And unfortunately it carried with me throughout the day.  I just felt really melancholy and ended up with a woe is me evening.

The tipping point was putting Lukas down to bed.  We're still letting him "cry it out", which works in the sense that he sleeps 11 hours straight at night without waking up.  But I thought that eventually after a few days I'd be able to put him in his crib and he'd smile at me and fade off to sleep.  This has happened a grand total of two times.  Every other night he cries, whimpers or screams full throttle for anywhere from 20 seconds to 20 minutes.  Last night he was full on screaming for 12 minutes before he dozed off to dreamland.  And his crying was too much for me.  Eventually (as in 3 minutes in), I started crying too and I just couldn't stop.

Two glasses of white wine later and after a good talk with Mr. Cob on our porch I was fine.  And I realized what had been bothering me.  I do love my life, I love my baby boy and I love my family and friends.  There is very little in my picturesque life that I can complain about.  Compared to a lot of people, I know I have no real serious problems.  I acknowledge all this and realize that my "problems" are ridiculous in the eyes of someone with "real" problems.  But they are my problems, regardless of how small they may be.  I realized that my life has changed and that I'm not fully used to it yet.  I have this little person who is fully dependent on other me and Mr. Cob to survive.  Being a parent does not end, ever.  And it's awesome, but it also changes your life.  Specifically your social life.  I looked through my phone and saw that in the past 20 days only two people aside from my husband and mother have called me - and those two people were returning my calls.  I guess friends assume we are busy with the baby, and admittedly, most of the time we are.  But it makes me a little sad.  I wouldn't change my current life for the world.  I just need to try a little harder to incorporate my "old" life into my new one, or accept the fact that I've changed and my friendships have changed, and that's OK.

I also need to be OK with not always being positive.  Some days I'm going to be in a funk and rather than beat myself up about that, I need to just roll with it and know that tomorrow is a new day.

Today, I woke up happy.  And when I went in to the nursery to get Lukas at 6am, my heart melted.  He was waiting for me with a huge smile on his face.  I love our morning routine of laying in bed together while he nurses.  Before long, he'll be too big and grown up for these early morning snuggle-fests and I'll miss them.

Being a mom is full of ups and downs.  The ups, by-far, outweigh and outshine the downs.  It's figuring out how to manage the down-days that I struggle with.  But like I've said before, I'm not perfect, nor will I ever be, nor am I trying to be.

The 22nd of July

Three years ago, July 22 became a very important day in my life.  It's the day I became an aunt.  The day my amazing nephew was born.  This year Stuart turned THREE!

Then a year ago, on July 22, one of my very best friends from college gave birth to a beautiful baby girl Callan.  This year, sweet Callan turned 1!  (And may or may not have kissed Lukas at her birthday party...) 

And this year on July 22, two and half weeks early, another one of my dear friends from college who I lived with in the sorority house with Callan's momma, gave birth to this handsome little boy, Charlie!



July 22 is indeed a blessed day!  I wonder what's going to happen on July 22, 2012?!?

Rings are Fun

While I consider actually writing the blogs that go along with the titles from my last post, I thought I'd share a picture of the baby.

Mind block

Yea, yea, I realize I haven't written in almost two weeks.  It's not intentional, I promise.  Its just that I don't feel like I have anything to say that anyone would want to read about.  I mean, do you really care about reading the full story for the following blog Titles?

1.  Date Night: Do I get points for staying out past midnight?!

2. Church Search Complete? Maybe, thanks to the internet informing me that the pastor is gay.

3.  "Bup, Bup" = Puppy?: Tales of interpreting the speech of an 8 month old

4.  Get down from that [insert piece of furniture here]!: Our child likes to climb (Alternative title: We are so f*cked)

5.  9 months to put it on, 9 months to take it off

6.  Beware of Older Women: Lukas gets his First Kiss

So those would be the six blog posts I'd write if I were writing a post.  I doubt anyone will miss the actual stories, right?

Little Dude Update

Lukas turned 8 months old last week.  (At what point do we stop getting excited about him turning another month older?  Oh, you've already lost excitement, you say?  Well he's not your kid, so yea, I can see that.  But it's a big deal to me as his momma.  But I see the silliness of it all.  You'd look at me as if I were an alien if I said that I turned 362 months old last week.  But I digress.)

So what's the little dude up to at 8 months?  Here are some (mostly) unconventional notes for the baby book.

- He did his first pull up yesterday.  Yes, you read that right.  He was in his crib at school, reached up to top of the crib and PULLED UP so that his feet were dangling and he was pulled up.  We do indeed have a climber on our hands.  A mini Hulk, if you will.  I'm now taking bets on how much longer before he climbs right on out of his crib.  I think 10 months will be the magic age.  Pray that I'm wrong.

- He has SIX teeth.  I think he gets this from my side.  I was an early teether.  He has two bottom teeth and four upper teeth.  They're big honkers.  Yes, I refer to them as "honkers" on a regular basis.  I can't explain it. 

- He's for real crawling.  I know, I know I proclaimed a while ago that he was "for real" crawling, and he was, or so I thought.  His belly was still sort of on the ground until a week ago.  He now is on all fours crawling.  Or actually, he's on all threes with one of his feet on the ground. It's odd.  I admit.  But it works and he's fast.  You really cannot take your eyes off him, or he'll be gone.

- He's been on a sort of bottle strike lately and not drinking his entire bottle at school.  He's averaging 3 four ounce bottles again (he was at 6 ounces in each bottle).  I suppose this is because he's eating more and more.  And we bumped him up to the stage 3/chunky baby food.  He's now even eaten chicken (baby food chicken bytheway: gross, gag, yuck) and more fruits and veggies than I can keep track of.  He loves yo-baby yogurt and cheerios.  And we're still happily nursing, so my year long goal is looking attainable for now.  And yes, he has bitten me with those teeth.  It hurts.  Enough said.

- He's still a generally really happy baby but will certainly let you know if he's upset or wants something.  The kid has a great set of lungs.

- We're in the middle of sleep training, and it's going pretty good.  The first night he cried for 47 minutes, then 40, then 20 and then Sunday night he decided to throw a big protest party.  I sat on the screen porch, beer in hand, watching him scream on the monitor for over an hour.  64 minutes to be exact.  It's like he was testing me.  But I didn't give in.  He eventually wore himself out and fell asleep and didn't wake up until 6am Monday morning when he was all smiles.  (Yes, a huge part of me feared that he would hate me, but he didn't. Thank God.)  And you know what happened next?  Monday night he cried for a minute, Tuesday night he cried for 2 minutes and last night he cried on and off, but not very enthusiastically for 20 minutes before he was out for the next 11 hours.  So while I totally resisted this, I'm happy that my little guy is learning to soothe himself to sleep and that we're all getting some shut eye.  The key for anyone trying the "your baby won't hate you" sleep method ("cry it out" sounds so bad, I like my name much better) is to have the video monitor near you but turn the sound completely off and go somewhere in your house where you can't hear the baby.  It's the only reason we made it through.  Beer helps too.  And wine.

- The little dude is happy at day care, loves his teachers and friends and even waves to me and blows kisses when we leave.  Ain't he cute?!

Sending Love to Heaven

I've started to write this post a few times.  I even got about five long paragraphs in, but then decided to delete it all.  My words just kept coming out wrong.  I've been hiding from the blog world for a few weeks now.  I have my reasons and they go something like this:

I was really busy at work in June.

Mr. Cob, Lukas and I went on vacation.

The second to last day of vacation my 93 year old grandpa passed away.

My mom's family (including my brother and nephew) descended upon Atlanta to honor, mourn and celebrate my grandpa.

Needless to say, its been an emotionally taxing few weeks.  There have been some really happy moments mixed in with some really sad moments.  I don't feel really comfortable writing about how I feel about my grandfather passing.  Maybe in a while I will, but for now, I'll just say that he's the first person who I felt close to who has died.  I've been lucky in that regard.  Papa John was a Colonel in the United States Army and had military honors at the funeral including a 21 gun salute, the folding/presenting of the flag to my grandmother and the playing of Taps.  This made a difficult day even more difficult, I think, but I'm glad he was given that honor for his service.  He lived a full life and left behind a large family.  Papa John will be missed by many.

My uncle Tom wrote better than I could about him, so I thought I'd share his words here:

The distance between Gay, Georgia and Greenvile, Georgia is about ten miles.



The distance between when John Starr began his life in Gay, Georgia on January 31, 1918 to the moment on July 1, when he left us was ninety-three years.


During these ninety-three years the currents of history moved at near impossible speeds. The world that existed when John began his life and the one in which he was raised in the small Southern town of Greenville no longer exists.


John’s lineage can be traced back to Henry Starr who was born in 1752 and served in the Maryland Militia during the Revolutionary War.

John's parents Joseph Tenth Starr and Marie Barnes Starr raised John along with brothers Robert Arless, Joseph Tenth Jr., and sisters Ruth Adeline and Sarah Ellen during difficult Depression years.


The values that that were formed during these years remained with him his entire life. A close bond to family, strong work ethic, and an appreciation for personal integrity and honesty were central to John's character and outlook on life.

During high school John participated in numerous activities and excelled at track and field events including pole vaulting where he competed and won several state competitions. After graduating from Greenville High in 1936 he attended college briefly in Rome Ga. then the University of South Ga. for two years. During this time he was a Field representative for the Dept. of Agriculture specializing in tobacco programs. He would later receive his LLB degree from Blackstone College of Law while serving in the military.


During World War II John served as an Infantry officer and was responsible for logistics and training of many troops. In the Pacific Theater he was involved in the demilitarization of Japan at the war's conclusion. While stationed at Ft. Breckenridge, Ky. he met Margaret Imogene Railey, fell in love and was married to Jean for 67 wonderful years. After the war, while in reserve status, John worked at Delta Airlines as an assistant station manger in the south for several large airports. He would resume his Army career and spend 32 years in many varied assignments around the world.

Highlights of his Army career include serving as an intelligence officer debriefing thousands of displaced persons after the war in Salzburg, Austria. This important work resulted in valuable information helpful during the Cold War. He also had tours of duty in Taiwan, Korea, Fort Benning, Georgia, Oklahoma Military Academy, Okinawa, and Fort Monroe, Virginia. He received numerous commendations and awards for his service to the country. He retired from the Army in 1974. Jean and John moved to Lakeland, Florida and would spend the next 30 years.

John obtained his private pilots license in 1940 and his interest in aviation was a lifelong pursuit.


John was an active member in the Experimental Aviation Association (EAA). While in Florida he served as a board member of the Sun-N-Fun Fly-In and participated in many aspects of this organization while promoting his love of flying.

John loved talking to people and would offer a “Hello” or smile to both friend and stranger. John was a lifelong Methodist and attended church regularly. He lived out his faith by caring about people and would go out of his way to help those that needed encouragement. John's love for his family was the primary focus of his thoughts throughout his life. He leaves wife Jean, sons John B. Starr Jr., Dr. Robert M. Starr, Tom Starr, and daughters Sippy Cesare, Amy Hubbard, Becky Ferrell, and Tami Paulus. The legacy of his memory will be carried forward with 12 grandchildren and 19 great-grand children.

John will remain in the hearts of his family as he held his loved ones in his heart for so many years.


His sense of humor, love of maps and flashlights, moments of cantankerousness, and mostly his love of Jean will always be with us.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.