It's Vegas or bust, baby.

If you're reading this, I'm in Vegas. I know, sniff, sniff - you're really sad for me because I'm not going to have any fun at all.

I mean, I'll be staying at a total dump.

Relaxing in luxury.





























Shopping.

Dancing like a fool (seriously, like a fool - must I remind you I have no rhythm?).

Meeting blog friends for the first time.

Like Summer from Le Musings of Moi.



















And Mama Kat from Mama's Losin' It.













Riding a gondola while a little Italian man sings to me.















Eating lovely food.

Watching TV in the bathroom. Because there's a TV in the bathroom.

Walking around, pretending I'm actually in Venice, even though it's far, far away.















And smiling from ear to ear.




















Because I'm going on vacation. SITScation, to be exact, with a bunch of lovely ladies from SITS - otherwise known as The Secret is in the Sauce.

No diapers to change, no bills to pay, to work to go to, no dishes or clothes or spilled spaghetti-o's to clean up.

Just a girl's weekend in Vegas.

But, since we're all bloggers, I can tell you that what happens in Vegas, won't be staying in Vegas. ;)

Have a great weekend, and I'll tell you all about it when I return!

Eeeeeeee!!!!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - she's my rock star.

The day was April 29, 2008.

It was the day Kaylee was born, but it was also the day I saw my mom in a whole new light.

She was there with me all day as I labored through contractions and walked up and down the halls in the labor and delivery unit.

With Dennis on one side and my mom on the other, I managed to endure about 8 hours of labor without my much-anticipated epidural.

When I was in the hospital bed and could tell I was about to get hit by a ginormous contraction, I'd close my eyes and just squeeze my mom's hand like there was no tomorrow. And it got me through, every time.

A lot of the details are fuzzy, but her and Dennis were like a tag team that day, taking turns rubbing my back and letting me squeeze their hands through the pain.

Dennis never left my side - he was rubbing my back pretty much the whole time.

But the face I remember seeing the most when I think back to that day is the face of my mom.

I remember her staying calm when I freaked out and I can still just picture her looking at me, and I could tell that if there was any way for her to take the pain from me, she would have. In a heartbeat.

I remember the look of excitement on her face when she first showed up at the hospital and I was still in the triage unit - it was like her face was telling me, "The day is finally here! We get to meet Kaylee - finally, and today I'll be a grandma! Woo hoo! Let's DO this thing!"

I'm so glad my mom was there with me that day. I needed her. I needed her right there beside me, holding my hand, reassuring me, and being there for me to lean on.

When all was said and done, and Kaylee had safely entered the world, that's when I realized my mom was more than just a mom.

I realized my mom is a rock star.

She managed to bring me into this world without any pain medication. I had my frickin' awesome epidural and didn't feel a thing once it kicked in. The contractions were unbearable at the end (hence, the epidural), but I don't even want to know what actually pushing the kid OUT would have felt like without drugs.

I realized that I put my mom through a heck of a lot the day I was born, and that was just the beginning.

She's always been there for me, through everything - stupid mistakes, stupid boys, zits, smart ass remarks, shopping for bras, leaving home for college, planning a wedding, getting married, being there for me the day Kaylee was born - and now - being there for me on my good and bad days as I do my best to be a rock star for my own daughter.

She's my mom, and she's my rock star, and I'm so, so lucky to have her.

Love you, mamacita. :)

*This post is a part of Writer's Workshop, hosted by the hilarious Mama Kat from Mama Kat's Losin' It.

Wednesday humor courtesy of moi. You're welcome.

Well, if you don't share my sense of humor, you may not laugh - you may think this is ridiculous and stupid, but I love it.

And frankly, I think we're in need of a little humor around here. We saw this a few days ago on TV and it just had me in stitches. Another reminder that when you're down in the dumps, funny stuff can really help lift you out of the funk you're stuck in.

Dennis and I get so excited every time Andy Samberg comes up with a new digital short on Saturday Night Live. He's just crazy and hilarious, and we love him. I wish we could be friends with him so we could sit around and insist that he makes us laugh all day and all night. But, he would probably think that was be weird, and - well, he's a celebrity, so we'll never be friends.

I'll just have to settle for watching his videos online. This is his latest, and it had us cracking up and rewinding the DVR to watch parts of it again. His facial expressions just kill me.

Andy Samberg - I Threw it On The Ground - watch more funny videos

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow this house down.

This past week I've felt a bit like The Hulk when he starts to go from scrawny human to angry green monster.

It's made me feel a bit compelled to write about the aspect of depression that shows up as anger, because - frankly - I think that component is overlooked all too often.

Before I had actually experienced it for myself, I always associated depression with things like sadness, crying, having no energy, being down in the dumps, staying in bed all day - those types of things. I think those are the ideas that a lot of people in our society think of when we think depression.

But how often do we associate anger, and dare I even say it? RAGE with depression?

Because it is a symptom, but from my little corner of the world I never realized depression and anger went together until I experienced it for myself.

It doesn't fit the picture we all have in our minds.

I think one of the more common thoughts that probably comes into people's minds when they think of women with the baby blues, postpartum mood disorders, or just flat out depression is a picture of a woman who sits at home and cries all day.

Those of us who have been knee deep in depression or postpartum mood disorders know that's not how it is.

It's different for all of us. For some, maybe it does mean sitting at home crying all day. But, for me, and for several women that I have talked to in my own life, anger seems to be a pretty common theme, and if we're brave enough to admit it, we'll even tell you that the anger can turn to rage.

I'm talking about the feeling that your blood is actually boiling, you're on the verge of trembling and literally want to throw your TV set through your window kind of rage. You're mad, mad, MAD, and you can't talk yourself down from it. You don't think or act logically and you say things you regret.

You are 100% aware of what you are experiencing and how you are acting, but you have no power to change it.

Simply put - you are out of control.

It's amazing to me how we can put on our "I've got it all together faces," when really - we're falling apart and beating ourselves up over the fact that we are treating our families like dirt and have these emotions that seem unmanageable.

Now, I realize some people use a diagnosis to excuse their behavior, but that's not what I'm talking about here, and that's what makes it so difficult to grasp and to accept.

You act a certain way - you are mean, you are angry, and you want to stop. You hate what you see yourself doing, but it's happening anyway, and all you can do is wait for it to pass.

And in my case, wait and hope and pray and cross your fingers that the medication will kick in and do the same magic it did last time...

Ladies? If you've gone through this or are going through this - trust me. You're not alone. It happens, and there's help. You might feel crazy, but you're not, and you shouldn't have to feel like you need to just suck it up and move on. There's plenty of help out there that's yours for the taking, but you have to make the choice to accept it.

Wordful Wednesday - Watch out, kids - she bites!

See that kid? That one on the right? She's mine. And she's a biter.

Up until Monday, the worst thing I'd heard whenever I picked her up from someone's house who watched her was, "Yeah. She used a blue crayon to color on the dog."

No big thang, right?

Yesterday one of my best friends, who happens to have a daughter just a couple months younger than Kaylee, watched her for me.

We decided when the girls were just weeks old that they'd be each other's BFF, and now we can say they are well on their way.

I arrived to pick Kaylee up and asked how she did. My friend said she did great, but that there was one little incident. Oh, crap! Not my sweet little child (who is nothing short of a little pistol) - no!

She totally bit Maggie's finger, which made Maggie cry, and then Kaylee started crying. My friend said she didn't even have to scold Kaylee. She just looked at her and said, "Kaylee!!!" and she could tell that Maggie's crying was enough of a lesson.

So that picture above is Kaylee giving Maggie a hug after what we now call "the incident."

The looks on each of their faces just kill me. I love it.

5 milligrams - down the hatch.

Tonight, I'm filled with cautious optimism.

We've been swimming around in some all-too-familiar water these days.

All of us know that when we're under a lot of stress, we don't exactly put our best foot forward.We have a shorter fuse, we're a bit more cranky and lot less willing to have a sense of humor about things.

For me, an overwhelming amount of stress can often mean that I lose much of my ability to cope in appropriate ways, so instead, I turn to things like yelling - real, actual yelling - at my loved ones, eating too much, being cranky and rude, and getting focused on being in a "funk."

That's been me lately. I definitely think I had some situational depression these past few weeks when Kaylee was so sick. You can only take so much of seeing your kid go from doctor appointment to doctor appointment, hospital to hospital, and being put on medication after medication, only for the same infections to remain for over a month.

Optimism and hope aren't so easy to come by.

Negativity, pessimism, and all-around crankybuttedness begin to dominate. You start to realize you're becoming someone you're not.

And for me, it made me realize that maybe I'm not as okay as I thought I was...

I was on anti-depressants for 6 months after being diagnosed with postpartum depression 3 months after I had Kaylee. The medication worked absolute wonders. At the 6 month mark, my doctor and I agreed that I could come off the meds because it appeared that my depression had been treated.

Since then, I've questioned whether or not that was really the case, and when I went to see my OB in June I told her I felt like my depression was coming back. The thing was, feelings of depression and changes in mood were a possible side effect of my birth control, so we decided to switch to something else to pinpoint what the precise cause was. She wanted me to give it a month and see how I felt.

After that time passed, Dennis and I noticed a huge difference, so we pretty much wrote off any depression, even though - from time to time - we'd see a symptom emerge here and there. I think we chose to ignore it for the most part because it really was a drastic change from where I had been before.

About the same time I talked to my OB, I talked to my new primary care doctor who said that, based on my symptoms, she thought that what I was describing sounded a lot more like anxiety than depression, and I agreed with her, although I was still having symptoms of both.

She recommended some lifestyle changes before getting back on any medication, so I implemented her ideas, and I continued to sail along with minor symptoms here and there, but they were small enough to write off as day-to-day crankiness - pretty minor stuff, it seemed.

But, one thing Dennis and I finally concluded a couple nights ago was that lifestyle does make a difference (eating healthy, exercising, getting outside, getting good sleep, etc.), but in my case, it seems that, since I had Kaylee, there's always been something underlying, whether it's irritability or anger, or a panic attack waiting to happen. Up until more recently, it was pretty much under the radar and tolerable. But, really stressful situations just seemed exacerbate the symptoms and show us the scarier side of what has really seemed to be there all along.

When I shared my story on postpartum depression, I wrote about how I reached a point where I'd forgotten what it felt like to be myself, and I'm bummed to say it, but that's where I'm at again.

Lately, it's just been crazy amounts of anger and irritability. Anger over the stupidest little things, and I told Dennis it frickin' sucks that I can't just get through a day without getting really mad about something. That is not. ME. At all. But, it's how I've been acting, so something needs to change.

And now, I finally realize it won't be a 6-month trial of the meds. I was on them before. They worked. Life was good. And now things are starting go to crap again. I've come to accept that things went a little haywire with my brain chemistry after Kaylee was born, and I'm not sure they'll be going to back to normal. Possibly ever. I've talked with several other moms (many fellow bloggers) who feel this same way.

So, I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm a bit whacked out, and I can unwhack what's whacked.

I need my trusty little pill to help me, and that's okay.

It's okay because I've been here before, and I know it doesn't have to be this way. I know that my life can get back to the way it was, and I will feel like myself again.

There is help, and I'm going to accept it. And if I still don't feel back to me with the medication alone, I'm going to find a counselor to talk to because my family and I deserve for me to be happy and healthy.

So tonight, I've got 5 milligrams down the hatch, and I'm more relieved than I can even describe, just knowing that it won't be long and I'll remember what it feels like to be me again.

Just give me a hot drink and my DVR and I'm set.

Dennis is at karate and Kaylee is sleeping. My house is filled with with this unfamiliar thing I like to call silence.

I'm about to make myself a hot chai latte, pop some popcorn, grab some tissues and get set to watch last night's season premier of Private Practice.

One of my favorite shows ever, and no matter what - I cry at pretty much every episode. I'm such a frickin' sap.

Oh, how I love my alone time. So very much.