cool beans

I’m in a really gritchy horrible mood this evening. I’ve tried to change my attitude, but it isn’t happening. I wish I had a remote control for my moods.

Things that are bugging me:

1. Work stinks.

2. My kids and I have different ideas about what’s cool.

3. My husband and I have different goals and priorities.

4. I can’t get this guy to give me money. C’mon, Barry. Pretty please?

5. I want to call this lady I met months ago so we can be friends but I have no time.

6. There is no good chocolate in my house right now.

Things that I’m looking forward to:

1. Gimping through a 2 mile “race” on Saturday.

2. Going to a new restaurant downtown.

3. Having a break from work at work tomorrow afternoon. (Please, God. Please.)

4. Doing a super secret thing if I can get that break.

5. Having more normal hormonal fluctuations again. (Approach with caution, though. See my first list.)

6. There’s just enough popcorn for one big bowl for me.

There. I feel a little better. Making lists is so much fun, isn’t it? It’s very therapeutic. Organized chaos is more manageable than fucked up chaos.

More good things:

I saw a commercial for the Olympics or something Olympics-related (Olympicsish?) and they are using one of my most favorite songs ever by Beth Hart. What a kick! Yay for Beth.

I have a new favorite beverage. I like it hot or iced. Deeeeelicious.

I wrote this to Dooce this afternoon. There’s a message here that some folks apparently need to see so I’m sharing it (spellchecked this time) here.

I had my first child 10 years ago. I didn’t understand postpartum and I didn’t understand that the amount of stuff I was requiring of myself would cause me to wear out. I dreamt about being able to go to sleep forever, to just never have to feel anything again. Having a baby sent me spiraling into a deep depression, but having the baby kept me from sticking to the very bottom.

Back then, there was no antidepressant my doctor could give me that would allow me to keep nursing my son. I was devastated.

I have been there. I nursed my son for the last time on a Tuesday morning in February 1995. Seven months of snuggling, finger-nibbling, that little chin quiver when he was almost asleep. Milk-stained shirts and sheets. Seven months of “nobody else can do this like I can.” How could something so incredibly hard make me feel better? It didn’t make sense.

But it did make me feel better. I’m here, ten years later. My boy has a brother and a sister and a father AND a MOTHER. He might not have had breastmilk for as long as I’d have liked or for as long as his brother is getting, but I think it’s a reasonable trade.

Unless a mother has been planned her death, rehearsed her funeral, imagined her family’s life without her miserable self, she cannot begin to understand what we’ve gone through. Leta needs her mother. She got more boob than the vast majority of her peers. Please, ignore those who judge you. They haven’t walked a mile in your boobs. They just don’t know. I know. I understand. Take care of you so you can take care of her. She’ll forgive you. You’ll forgive you.

I’m happy those mothers who are displeased with our need to go on living haven’t had to face such despair. I don’t wish that kind of desperation and sadness on anyone.

My heart goes out to you and Leta this week, Heather. I hope this goes easily for you and your grieving is brief and your recovery from depression swift.

Something is wrong with me. I’m so tired. But I can’t nap because I can’t take my contacts out because I’m scared because I left them in when I napped this morning. AHHHHHHH!

I am lethargic. But the caffeine coursing through my veins makes me restlesss. I lay back on the couch, twitchy, but not twitching because I don’t have the energy.

Bah.

What’s worse…my caffeine consumption has, for the very first time, had an affect on the toddling one. He naps for five minutes at a time. Then he gets up and runs into things. Oops.

When I woke up this morning (at 7:00 - argh!) I was unable to move for a few minutes. My back was stuck and my upper body was so stiff, I couldn’t breathe normally. I’d sort of whimper on the exhale. So I laid in bed rocking a little, trying to work out the kinks in my body. Once I was able to move, I slid out of bed and checked on my son who thought it would be fun to have his siblings’ fever and came down with it last night.

Moving around felt good and stretching helped a lot. I felt refreshed and rested and energized. I cleaned up, wrote a note for The Man and headed out for a coffee and the local Sunday rag. I gassed up my car and read the paper while I was sitting in the car wash that is so “Touchless” it didn’t really wash the hood. Or the sides. Or anything, really. But the coffee was good and my youngest kids were up and being quiet when I got home.

The toddler sat on the table, “reading” the coupon portion of the paper. In his world, “reading” means “shredding”, and that means mama gets to skim all the editorials to see what locals are hollering about this week. I didn’t care for the “Editor’s Note” after the byline for one local’s response to a previous Editor’s column. In this small town, there is no need to list the person’s occupation or other social interests. We know what he does. The Editor’s decision to point it out made him look like a sissy.

I’d like to talk a little more in depth about that so it would make more sense, but I don’t want to give up information that would lead a wacko to my doorstep. So play along and pretend that last paragraph makes sense.

After reading the paper, I tried to give the toddler food. He won’t eat for me! It’s so frustrating. He kept pointing and grunting but I never figured out what it was he wanted. He started to act sleepy, so I went back to bed with him hoping he’d nap. He didn’t. I did. Contacts in. Crap.

If I have caffeine and then somehow fall asleep right away, I will be unable to control my snoring, my drooling or my limbs. I will wake up and want to be up, but cannot lift my arms or legs. Turning over can be very difficult. I haven’t experienced this sensation for a long time. It usually happened after drinking a pot of coffee mud (made lovingly by my younger brother who liked to chew his coffee as a youngster) and writing a research paper start-to-finish in one evening (the night before it was due. Always.)

I’m still hungover from my caffeine nap and while my snoring, drooling and limb movement are under control, my funny hasn’t woken up yet. It is sleepy. Poor funny.

I’ll wait to write about my Saturday until the funny is up and about. It’ll be more entertaining that way.

First of all, can I just say how much I love comments? Thanks. I love comments! People who comment on my blog make my day. Thank you! And how totally psyched am I to see Tom had a read. A big thanks to everyone who has left their thoughts here. Me likey you.

Second, if I could, I would hand my uterus to Grrl. Everyone send some good vibrations her way. She’s having a tough week.

My son has some friends over. They are playing in the basement and being rather loud. My toddler still has a fever (105 at last check…taken two nanoseconds before squirting more Motrin into him) and is sleeping right now. He needs his rest. I’m hesitant to ask the boys to be quieter, because they don’t come over often. We don’t have the right equipment.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say later, but I’m the only grown-up upstairs right now and I’m dying to see what this guy looks like in Playgirl. Haha!

Today was much better than yesterday. It started out with a coffee. I happened to get the almost bottom of the pot, so while it wasn’t as yummy as usual, it had the lift-off power I needed to get over yesterday.

Work was relaxed and easy. I pretended I had ambition and got a couple of things done there today. I made a To Do list and then I did one of the To Dos and crossed it off. Whew! I’m beat.

I’ve been very lazy at work lately. I surf and read blogs and look for stuff to do to my blog (without accessing my blog). After completing a work related task this afternoon, I realized I feel better when I get at least some little thing done at work. So I plan to cross two To Dos off the list tomorrow!

My toddler is running a fever. It’s a whopper, too. He must have what his sister had last weekend. The only time my kids get sick simultaneously is when they’re messy sick. We can’t have fevers together. Nooooo. Let’s spread that out over a couple weekends and really wear mom out. But when we puke, let’s do it together. Synchronized spewing. Thanks, kids.

I managed to cook dinner tonight. I grilled chicken breasts on my handy dandy indoor grill, made rice and mixed vegetables. My son doesn’t care for rice, so he had salad. I’m glad my children think a decent dessert is buttered bread with jam or jelly. Suckers!

At dinner, my oldest child asked if he is an adolescent. He meant this in a “not a kid but not a teenager” way. I think knowing the word and thinking it applies to him means if he’s not already an adolescent, he is tiptoeing on the edge. I don’t like it. Okay, sometimes I like it. When he helps me out and asks me about big words and talks to be about books in a grown-up way. But when he gets sassy and shows me previews for The Teenage Years With Tiggs, I’m not ready. I realize that I’ll be in the same position I was in when he was born - way too young for this. So not ready for this. Completely lost. Desperate for antidepressants and booze.

Holy crap. Netscape is letting me create a new post! This is good news.

I am very glad to put this day behind me. I felt tired and worn out all day and nothing good or interesting happened to perk me up. In fact, The Man had a lovely little hissy fit when I met up with him at our daughter’s ballgame. It was already 100 degrees out there and humid enough you could swim through the air. I didn’t need my temper lit, too. Not only did he pitch a fit over nothing, he made a comment that proves he doesn’t listen to me when I speak. He’s trying to be all nicey-nicey with me now. Maybe I’m childish, not playing along. I don’t care. I’m at the end of my rope and I’m ready to strangle him with it.

Speaking of rope…my oldest child will not go to bed and stay in bed. Nothing I do or say will convince him that he doesn’t need to get up and have conversations with me at 10pm when he’s supposed to be asleep already! I am trying very hard to be patient and gentle with all of my children, but this behavior from my oldest is wearing me out. I have entertained the idea of strapping him in kinda like this mom did, but I do love my boy and don’t want to have to hassle with all the buckles and straps.

I’m lazy.

My mother called me this afternoon and asked me if I’d like to go with her to a “seminar” being held at a local hotel regarding doing medical transcription from home. Well, of COURSE I wanna go! That sounds like a riot.

We got there, filled out our name tags, found seats and left before the presenter started speaking. Well, AS she started speaking, really. She was going to try to sell us an online course. That’s fine, if we needed the courses. But we don’t. We know everything. No, really. Ask me what a “hemiglossectomy” is. I can tell ya.

As we were standing in line for the presentation (being herded in like cattle, really), I was acutely aware of my stench. I was super sweaty from chasing my toddler in the blistering heat at my daughter’s ballgame. As we were standing there, breathing in the sweet perfume of other well-dressed ladies’ …perfumes, I realized my bra was wet. Like, really wet. Grrrrrross.

Now it’s raining. It’s also lightning out a little bit. OOH! Okay, a lot. Time for bed.

I was typing an entry this afternoon and was really in a groove when suddenly, I lost it ALL. I was devastated for a few minutes. I wrote some really great stuff. This will be less off the top of my head and probably less fun to read. Poo.

This weekend marked the end of my nonmenstrual days. Until menopause, I’m a bleeder. Sigh. Like I said before, I’m not really thrilled. In an attempt to be more cool and hip about it, I bought some of these. I read the instructions aloud to my husband on the way home from the store. He’s happy he’s a guy. YAY for Y chromosomes!

I was pretty excited to give these a try. As excited as one can be when about to stick a cup in her cooter, anyway. So I read and re-read the directions and decided to give it a go. I did exactly what the instructions said and you know, it wasn’t that bad. Whew. Never again will I fret over panic attack inducing tampon emails!

Wrong. While the thing felt okay (I didn’t feel it at all, actually, which bothers me even more than not being able to get it in there correctly), there was leakage. So I did what the instructions suggested. “Pull it out and try, try again.” After rassling with two cups (I was hoping maybe the first one was defective or something), I gave up.

I will not go into a detailed description of my bathroom, but it did look something like this:

I don’t know what exactly Mr. Orange and Mr. White were doing there. I can tell you they weren’t much help.

I see the Instead Cup website has a video. Hmm. Nice. I’ll let ya’ll watch it. Until I’m brave enough to try again, I’ve seen enough.

My daughter just told my toddler, “You scream like a girl.”

 

He does, too. Worse, he screams all the time the last few days. He’s teething and he’s poopy. His bottom is so red and sore. I’d scream, too.

 

This weekend has been crappy. Friday night I decided I’m not speaking to The Man. It’s going really well so far but only because he was gone all day yesterday and didn’t come home in time to help get everyone ready for church. Fortunately, I hadn’t waited for him to get everyone headed in the right direction, or I would be blogging from jail now. It’s also good I have some of this in my purse. (I think this should come in larger bottles with a straw attachment.)

I finished listening to The Da Vinci Code on tape yesterday. I enjoyed the story and really dig listening to books. I can get other things done while listening and I don’t have to be peeved with the radio in my car. No commercials, no crappy tunes. Just a nice story. I like it.

 

I’ve been sucked into the void that is “I Love the 90s” on VH1. Hal Sparks, I love you.

Other stuff that happened this weekend:

1. I treated my daughter’s fever almost entirely with homeopathic meds. She was feeling really terrible at some point on Friday night, so I gave her the OTC stuff. I always swear I’m going to use alternative medicines, and then chicken out under pressure.

2. I cleaned my kitchen counters and organized a cupboard.

3. My period returned for the first time in two years, two months and a couple weeks. Or so. But who’s counting? I’m not happy about this little tidbit. I didn’t miss the mess at all. I wish I could be hippy-dippy about it. All moongoddesstwirlyspiritual and junk. Pfft.

While sifting through new-to-me blogs this morning, I found this.

I typed in my real name and it says I should be unemployed.

Given my strong desire to stay home with my children, I think this is funny - and scary. Should I quit?

Interestingly enough, it says The Man should be an Air Steward(ess). I can’t wait to tell him.