Happy New Year's indeed

The New Year is actually off to a good start. DH drove the dog to another friend's place on New Year's Eve. From the beginning this arrangement looked more promising. The family is large and really wanted a dog. They were committed to "making this work," their words. The wife stays home and there are four (older) kids in the family so there would be no shortage of attention for the dog, who would get to be out and about with the family all day instead of locked up in a single room for 10 hours like she was at our place. So far so good. The furbaby has not only proven to be her adaptable, loving, loyal self but she hasn't had any aggressive responses to her normal triggers (a giant cable guy came to the door and apparently her response was to bark and wag her tail). It's like the new environment, paired with being the only dog, has really improved her demeanor. I know dogs' behavior can get worse once they settle into a new home and have a chance to get territorial, but I'm optimistic. DH continued to mope around and not sleep in our bedroom when he got home on NYE. I was still thinking there was a 50/50 chance we would end up still married by the end of 2011. Probably less than that at this point.

But then there was a shift. I don't know if he had just gotten used to fhe drill of giving her up or if he was more comfortable with the new arrangement, but he let it go. Little by little, he started to warm back up to me and our life together and our future. New Year's day he was back in our bedroom for the first time in a couple months, he said "let's start the new year off right," he made a couple demands of me like "if we're going to stay together you need to come up with a budget." Mostly because I want things like another kid and a bigger house and the occasional vacation and for him everything comes down to money. He hates his job and wants to make sure I'm doing my part to achieve my goals.... I'm a little bitter that he's still blaming me for every turn our lives take and every proactive decision to do anything (like a 2d kid or a vacation) and holding me accountable for the $'s and the results, bad or good. Like he swears he could do without vacation. Really? Do I want to spend my life with someone like that? But I could stand to pay more attention to how much I'm spending. So we're taking it a step at a time.

He's been incredibly good to me lately, incredibly helpful around the house, great with Dom, although he will not stop talking about how much he misses the furbaby. I tell him I know, it's the worst thing I've ever done - making him go through this - but I also say that I don't regret it, that it was the right decision, that it's clearly better for the dog (not to mention for us and our other dog), and I leave it at that. He's the kind of person who takes a while to come around to things, but I have a feeling that one day he will understand how obviously right it was to do things my way. I just wish it hadn't taken 4 months of me being seriously clinically depressed for him to take that first step.

Dom is great, ever the love of my life. I have really grown to appreciate the CPC scare. Envisioning life with a T18 child really put things in perspective. No amount of dirty diapers or screaming in public could ever compare to having your child's life taken too soon and I feel I am a better parent for having gone through my bout of pre-partum depression.

As I near the end of my maternity leave (I have two weeks left) I am noticing that my days of taking him out and about are numbered anyway. I spent 6 hours at the mall with a friend this weekend - we did pedicures and lunch and shopping and coffee - it was a blast and Dom was SO good. But my parents were thinking about a trip to a museum in the city next weekend and that seems patently impossible. The mall is one thing - there are changing tables and places to feed him, etc. But there are some places that just won't work they way they might have when he was a newborn. And even these day trips I've been making will probably be close to impossible once he starts moving around on his own and once he needs more than a hanging stuffed animal to keep him entertained. This is one of the things I tell myself to try to make myself less miserable about going back to work. Oh how I wish I liked my job.

I'm going to try to not obsess over the differences between my husband and I and just live life more in the present for a while. And I've come up with some New Year's Resolutions to keep myself busy (ha ha).

1. Moisturize!
2. work on my posture
3. come out of every store with only the things I went in for.
4. No new bags for the rest of 2011. Seriously.
5. Ditto for shoes
6. For those of you who think I'm being too hard on myself, I got both a new bag and a new pair of shoes in January. And I have plenty of both, believe me.
7. When something new comes in, something else has gotta go
8. Organize!
9. Budget!
10. Related to #9, eat out less. Starbucks OR Rubio's. Not Starbucks AND Rubio's.
11. Write an article for work
12. Donate and return with abandon
13. Stay on top of my photo library