Well, we discovered a possible cause for my incessant migraines - we have black mold in our master bedroom. Thankfully, it wasn't a full-fledged infestation and we caught in the early stages - as soon as I smelled something musty, I knew we had a problem. See, it has been raining for four days here in lovely "sunny" Florida. It's been primarily on and off, but the breaks have been fewer than fifteen minutes at a time and then it rains for hours on end. So when I smelled the musty smell (with no hubby socks in sight), I knew we had mold. Our window has been lightly leaking for the last 3 days, at least noticeably, but it's been raining so we weren't able to really get the space dried out. So the visible mold has been removed. It is "supposed" to stop raining tomorrow and if it does, Alex and I are gonna tackle disinfecting the whole window area. Alex and my dad got the window unit A/C re-secured with a better seal this time. And we're going to HAVE to get a rain-guard up on our master bedroom window, since it and one of the kitchen windows are the only ones where they are missing. And guess what... those are the two windows we've had problems with.
So because we potentially stirred up the mold this afternoon, we're staying with my parents tonight to give it a chance to settle out of the air. So, because my parents aren't necessarily equipped for children, we're winging it. We've got Apollo in the small pack and play and Orion is supposed to be sleeping in the medium sized one. (We have a total of 3, we kept the largest at our house to keep using as a playpen) I say supposed to be because he is currently laying on the couch beside me, refusing to sleep. I was just checking out my blogs and freebie sites when I heard him crying in the other room, so I went and got him. He was sitting in the pack and play whimpering, so I figured he'd had a bad dream. I picked him up and cuddled him and brought him to the living room to sleep beside me on the couch, but he's fighting it. I think he had a bad dream and is afraid to go back to sleep. But having him bundled up here beside me makes me reminiscent. He's a toddler now and only needs his mommy when he A) gets hurt B) wants something or C) temporarily reverts back to being my little baby before he remembers he's a big boy now and only needs mommy if he gets hurt or wants something. It makes me remember when he so tiny and fragile. How hard we strove to put on him is a story all in its own.
To make a really long story short - Orion was born at 9 pounds 3 ounces and our attempt at breastfeeding was a failure and he quickly lost weight. By the time he was 2 months old, he had gone from 95% on the percentile scale to 40%, a pretty drastic drop at a time when babies are supposed to be gaining ounces a day - not losing them. By 4 months, he was at 20%. He was borderline failure to thrive, but he was smart. He rolled over at a week and did it consistently at a month and half. He said his first real word at 6 months old. But he was a tiny little thing - he wore some 0-3 month clothes until he was a year old and 3-6 month clothes in most brands at a year. He was healthy, just small. Not anymore. We started Orion on baby food at 4 months and table food at 7 months, which is when he really started to gain weight. Now, Orion is my little linebacker. This child has lapped all his cousins who are older than him. He weighs 34 pounds and is nearly 33 inches tall. He is sturdy too. He has fallen out of his pack and play, dove off the couch superhero style, fallen backwards off the couch, tripped into the corner of a table, scraped up his knee on a nail, whacked his head into a cedar chest... and he's still as happy and spunky as ever. And he's going to be a climber - thank the Heavens he's sturdy. That's going to be me with 911 on speed dial...
But to the point of this post and the reason for the title. Orion was the reason I quit. Until I found out about him, I had made promises to quit. I told my friends and family I would quit someday. When it was convenient. When I found someone. Always something else in the future. I made excuses to not quit - "Oh, I'll quit when it gets too expensive." Or "I'll quit when they ban it." Both of which happened and didn't slow me down. Then the unthinkable happened - a pregnancy test I took to prove to my mom that there was no way in hell I was pregnant... came back positive. I knew it would be a hard road...and certainly not something high on my list of viable fun - but it topped my to-do list. I had to quit. It wasn't an option... it was no longer my choice. Quitting was an absolute must... and I admit I stalled. I hem-hawed around the subject for a week before I finally had the guts to do it.
I quit smoking cold turkey on March 17, 2008 after smoking for 5 1/2 years. And it worked. My boyfriend (now husband) Alex bought candy cigarettes as a cruel joke, but it was a lifesaver. It gave me something to do with my hands as I went through withdrawal. And he bought me a pack of cigarettes. Silly thing to give a smoker trying to quit, I know... but it was a crutch. Something to fall back on if it just got to be too bad to handle. Oh and I almost went there. I was a moderate smoker, a pack to a pack and a half a day. So almost hourly, that irritable feeling came over me, that nagging in the back of my mind, that NEED... but every hour it came and I considered opening that pack to smoke "just one," I thought about all the hours beforehand and how hard it had been to make it through those hours... and I went outside and smoked a candy cigarette and moved on with it. After about 12 hours, it got nasty. I was bitchy, shaking, crying, clammy... in full nicotine withdrawal, but I was in withdrawal, which meant that I was quitting.
And succeeding. It was minutes before the shakiness and irritability went away when a craving hit. It was hours before that unbearable feeling became tolerable. It was days before I woke up in a good mood because I didn't have my bedtime cigarette or my wake-up cigarette. It was weeks before I could eat without thinking of that after-dinner cigarette or make love with craving that finishing touch. It was months before I could drive somewhere, especially long trips, without feeling the need to roll the window down and light up. It was a remarkable journey that I never thought I could make. It will be years before my body fully recovers from the addiction, yet there are still times I crave that old crutch, that old friend that was always there for me dollar after dollar and pack after pack. But now that 'backup crutch' pack still sits unopened and the most important number is this: It's 2:38 AM where I am and it has been 2 years, 5 months, 2 weeks, 2 hours and 38 minutes since "I quit for you, Baby!".
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