Long-overdue Update

Posted by tata on Saturday Mar 13, 2010 Under Kids and Family

My life has been overwhelmingly busy since I returned to school last fall. Here are the highlights:

I pulled through with straight A’s last semester, although only barely in one class. I really enjoyed my first semester back. Now, in the middle of my second semester, things are moving along. I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up and that is the biggest, most painful thorn in my side, but otherwise it’s okay. I have hit a few kinks earlier in the year, but I think we’re all smoothed out now. I hope!

Last October, my mom fell and broke 3 ribs. During the x-rays, they found she had pneumonia. She stayed in the hospital for almost a week. Then, just after Christmas, she suffered a stroke. They released her after only a few days. Her sister, my aunt, came up from Florida and spent a month helping her out. Meanwhile, I had another major falling out with Big Rob. Once again, we are not on speaking terms and of course, this only increases the tension between me and mom. In any event, I did nothing wrong and I’m trying to distance myself from the drama as best I can. And mom is doing really well.

Joy’s dad got himself into some trouble, as well. He has been on probation for a little less than a year and had a little less than another year to go, but he violated and then avoided going back to his PO. The police finally caught up to him in early February and last week he was sentenced to 13 months in the state penitentiary. Husband and I have been discussing adoption with Joy and she is very enthusiastic. She’s already told a few of her friends that she’s changing her last name to Husband’s.

Between the family drama, school stresses and the lousy weather, the past few months have been a bit tough on me with regards to mental health. However, the sunshine and taste of warmth we were blessed with this week was invigorating!

kidsfish

Just yesterday, P and I went for new tattoos! I’m terribly thrilled with them. They represent my beautiful kids. The yellow/orange one with the Libra glyph is Joy and the green/blue one with the Pisces glyph is Buddha.

Speaking of Buddha, he celebrated his 3rd birthday last week. Can you believe he’s 3 already?! Remember his 1st birthday?! How about his 2nd birthday? Crazy. I was taking it really well until the end of the day when I was adding the new videos I took of him into the computer with all of the old videos. Of course I had to watch the old videos and see just how much my baby has grown! Oy. I don’t think I cried, but I certainly could have. Nothing like becoming a parent to make a person feel old! Anyhow, I don’t like 3 so far. He’s whiny and prone to tantrums in recent weeks and I have little patience for it. Sigh.

All else is going well. I have very little time for leisure, so I haven’t knit or read (for fun) in too damn long. Heartbreaking! Between going to school full-time and Husband working and going to school, as well, it’s hectic. I’ll try very hard to be more consistent in posting! I miss you!

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Coming Back Around Again

Posted by tata on Wednesday Oct 22, 2008 Under Kids and Family, Knit Night

After a week of sick and ick, our household is coming back around again. The baby is still feeling a bit of the cranky side from lack of sleep and proper meals (I think his belly is still a bit flippy-floppy - an educated guess since that is how mine is feelings). The girl is doing pretty well, too.

Big Rob’s girlfriend’s oldest daughter spent the night one night this week since they are still ironing out the details of her new school since they just moved. Joy was thrilled to have her. During the day before Joy came home from school, she cleaned Joy’s room from top to bottom. After dinner, she and Joy tackled the dishes and the next day, she folded a mountain of laundry. I’m ready to trade her for the boy!

I had the job interview with the state yesterday, but I’m not feeling very confident about it. They told me they should have their decision around November 15.

In the meantime, I’m still in restaurant hell. Husband has been advertising for his business online and we’ve printed out some fliers that we’ve handed out to our friends, but at this time we haven’t heard a breath, let alone a word. I’m nervous about how the bills will be paid next month.

I did get to go out to knit night last night after missing it the week before. Husband was cool with me leaving a bit early, too, so I got quite a few hours away! As usual, I had fun (even though I missed seeing Sonnie there!) and I got one of the armwarmers I’m working on finished and a pretty good start on the second. I’m going to finish the thumbs on both later. I also frogged that damn Nutkin sock again. This time it was too small. Sigh. (I can hear Nellis now: “Gauge!”)

image

When I got home, Husband and I hung out watching House and a few other shows before heading to bed. Big Rob’s girlfriend wanted to return the favor and kept Joy overnight at her place and drove her to school this morning. Buddha actually slept last night, too, so it was a very nice evening.

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This Week Sucks Eggs

Posted by tata on Friday Oct 17, 2008 Under Kids and Family, Trials, Work

I fell asleep with Buddha early on Monday night, ’round 8pm. At 2:30am, we awoke to some commotion. My bed has a clear view to the bathroom down the hall when our bedroom door is open - and it was - and I see Husband standing there with Joy, lights ablaze about the entire apartment. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes to see what the hell is going on.

Joy has been sick. The out-from-every-orifice kinda sick, no less. Husband was cleaning up after her (she would have made it if not for the dag-blasted baby gate) and she was fresh from a shower. Well, as fresh as one can be after this kinda sick in a bathroom rife with said sickness.

Well, I have already slept for a good 7 hours or more, so sleep is done. The girl is up and down all night, running for the bathroom. Husband didn’t go to bed until 6am. I don’t even remember why not, just that it aggravated the hell outta me later that day.

Now it’s Tuesday. But not just any Tuesday - no, it’s the Tuesday we’ve been looking forward to for about 3 weeks, when Buddha first got his cast. His appointment is at 12:45pm for x-rays and, God willing, cast removal. That begs the question, what do you do with the girl? One can’t very well take a sick girl to the office of an orthopedic doctor. I did the next best thing. I made her a Nyquil smoothie and called my mom. Turns out that mom is sitting at the Immediate Care Center herself: she fell and suspected (rightly so, we later learned) a broken thumb. Okay, so I really didn’t make the girl a NyQuil smoothie, but my mom did come over to hang out with her while Husband and I took the boy in for doom and gloom x-rays and cast removal.

Unlike the last time, we were only at the doctor’s office maybe an hour. If we had thought the reaction boy had to the x-rays was similar to torture, well he truly must have been dying for real when the nurse removed his cast. I felt sorry for him during the x-ray and coddled him, but the way he howled when the nurse was trying to fit him for a boot after his cast was off had me referring to him as mama’s drama queen son. They weren’t able to get that damn boot on him the right way, ’cause he was so full of drama and wouldn’t stop squirming and trying to kick the nurse with the recently-declared no-longer-broken leg. But he still walked with the thing on.

The entire way home he picked at the velcro on the boot and told us “Off!” The doc said that he didn’t need it, but that some people - kids or otherwise - do well to have some transition support. We took the boot off of him when we got home and he has scampered about without it ever since. At first we tried to coerce it back on for at least a few hours a day, but he adamantly refuses. Frankly, it’s not a battle I want to fight. He’s still walking around with a stiff ankle turned outward as though the cast is still there, but he’s enjoying bending his knees again.

And despite being super-flarpin’ tired from the long day (that started at 2:30am) of puking girl and screaming boy, I stayed up too late, without going to knit night. Boo hiss!

Wednesday came and went without much of a hitch. Joy stayed home from school again since she needed a little more time to feel normal and correct her sleep schedule. I worked. (Did I mention that I hate the job? It’s not even so much the actual work I do so much as the people with whom I work and the fact that, due to said people, I don’t make enough to actually support anything.) We went to Big Rob’s girlfriend’s house for dinner. She recently moved and they wanted us to check out the new place. Moreover, Big Rob decided that he wanted our mom to meet his girlfriend. We had a pretty good time and her new place is really nice, but Joy was whiny and Buddha was into everything at her not-childproof apartment. It could’ve been more fun.

Again, I stayed up too late. Tsk, tsk, tata!

This time, it was the boy. He wakes up in the middle of the night to nurse still, so it wasn’t unusual when he woke up this time. But, he didn’t wake up to nurse; rather he woke up to puke, first in his own bed, then in ours. I was so frustrated that I left the room and came to the couch, yelling at Husband all the while. Why would he think I’d want to lie in vomit while I sleep?! Not much later, he emerged from the bedroom with the boy and the two of them stole the couch from me. I dozed for a bit in the office chair (big mistake - my back has been killing me ever since) while we laundered the linen from both our bed and the boy’s and every farkin’ towel in the house. The poor kid must’ve thrown up every half hour all morning long. I wasn’t able to find anyone to cover my shift at work, so I went in despite having only slept all of maybe two hours.

Work was awful. The other servers that have been there the longest have this attitude like they don’t have to do any of the required sidework to keep the restaurant running smoothly through the rush. This one in particular made a snotty comment about how she isn’t going to run silverware through the wash ’cause “it’ll fuck up my nails.” I was so frustrated that I came within inches of quitting. I made a whooping $18 over in the corner-hole section where no patron in their right mind would want to dine. Guess who decided that section should be mine?! You guessed it - the same one that made the aforementioned comment.

I called Husband as I was leaving work to vent. He said the boy was still puking every half hour. He’d given him a light lunch of dry toast and water and everything came back up. When I got home, Buddha was asleep, but as soon as he woke up, he begged to nurse, begged for his cup, and begged for food. I nursed him for about 20 minutes and we waited at the ready with a towel. Nothing. I gave him small sips of water one straw-full at a time. We waited at the ready with a towel and still nothing. I had even offered to let him drink straight from the cup with the straw, but when I wouldn’t let him hold the cup, he had a meltdown of colossal proportions that drove my sleep-deprived mind to the brink. I finished the laundry and went to bed, closing the door behind me. I don’t even know what time it was. I can say that Joy wasn’t home from school yet (she gets here about 4:15pm). I slept until about 4:30am.

While dozing in the office chair yesterday morning, I was trying to publish a sponsored post but my server was down. That led to more frustration for the day yesterday, too. I tried to resolve the issue a number of ways before throwing the towel in. In any case, I wanted to point out that I knew about it, tried to fix it, and that now all seems to be working in order again. I lost the opportunity to actually earn from that sponsored post, so I took it back down. Oh, well.

Could be worse.

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The Day-After Party

Posted by tata on Monday Oct 6, 2008 Under Events, Food, Kids and Family, Trials

Embarrassed Joy Joy turned 10 on Wednesday, but her party was on Saturday at the park. Some of the neighborhood kids came, my brother and his youngest (who is precisely 3 weeks younger than Joy), my mom, and Sonnie and her gang.

She was embarrassed when we sang “Happy Birthday” in very loud voices so that the entire playground heard.

There aren’t many pictures of her that I can post since she is surrounded by a number of other children in most of them and I didn’t ask their parents permission to post their kids, so I’m posting what I can.

Keep Reading…

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Iroquois Park

Posted by tata on Wednesday Aug 13, 2008 Under Events
I fully intended to go to bed after my last post, but I’d like to turn off my computer before going to bed as part of my campaign to go green(er) and the defragger is at 99%. So, I thought I’d share a couple of pictures from our visit to the park on Monday real quick.
The kids.
The KidsUs.
tata and Husband
I spotted one of them there conspiracy rainbows - and got proof!
::chuckle::

Conspiracy RainbowConspiracy Rainbow

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Reasons to be pissy

Posted by tata on Tuesday Aug 12, 2008 Under Trials
A long-ass time ago, Husband got himself into a bit of trouble. It was all really stupid (especially the part where he got caught) and has been a thorn in his side for a multitude of reasons since. In any case, when the staffing agency that employs him ran his background check, the information came back (as we expected) inaccurately (we didn’t see that comin’). It made his previous troubles exponentially worse and therefore, they let him go. Husband met with them yesterday, taking along all the original court documents. He called our lawyer, he called the lawyer from years ago, he called the clerk’s office in the county where it happened. Maybe he’ll get his job back. But his job loss has created a domino-effect of other great reasons to be pissy.

No more medical insurance = no more Paxil. I’m on my last month’s prescription, so I’m taking matters into my own hands (remember how well that went last time?) and weaning on my own. I started Saturday and already I’m all sorts of bitchy. And just like last time, I’m PMSing.

I was supposed to ride to Indianapolis on Saturday to meet up with Monkeytoes and go to that Daughtry concert with her. Yeah, no cash flow for even gas. I had to cancel with her at the last minute. I would have felt soooo much worse if she didn’t have a friend to take after all. While I’m not a huge Daughtry fan, it has been years since I’ve been to a concert and we have planning this since April. I’m pretty fuckin’ disappointed.

T is gone. I put her on the plane on Sunday afternoon and the little shit didn’t even call to let me know she made it okay. Before heading to the airport, we dropped Joy off at Big Rob’s because he was headed out to Oma’s. I had to ask my mom to buy Joy’s school supplies and some new uniforms since Joy’s Nana didn’t bother this year (the past I-don’t-know-how-many summers, she has at least taken care of uniforms and the new backpack), although she did get Joy a backpack. I’m sure you can imagine how much fun my mom had trying to locate uniforms the Sunday before school started. Even I called three different stores (on top of the countless stores mom called) and everyone was out of Joy’s size. For a pleasant Oma this did not make.

Since the girls were both gone and Husband was home, I spent the rest of a seemingly endless Sunday cleaning the entire house, including Joy’s room. It didn’t take long, but it was tedious as hell and I found all sorts of food-related garbage that I know is from T in that room. When Joy came back home yesterday, I had to get onto her at least 4 different times to keep it clean in there. I just don’t understand how one little girl can be so similar to a natural disaster.

We went to the WIC office yesterday to renew. I was miffed that the nutritionist asked me what I am doing with the milk I get from the WIC checks since we don’t give Buddha cow’s milk. I told her I was still nursing, but she still insisted that he needs a good source of calcium. Erm… hello?!

Mom met with us there to drop Joy to me. We came back home for a bit, I did some laundry, some meal-planning, then we headed to the park for a bit. We went to Wal*Mart to get some diapers and a few other things (that we can’t really afford), came back home to start dinner. Husband and I got into another tiff. He does this really annoying thing where he comes in and either tells me how I “should be” doing something or just takes over. I totally flew off the handle on him. In hindsight, it was pretty stupid. I just remember how I was so consumed with anger. He knows how much I hate it when he interferes. He did try to apologize or at least calm me down. I would have none of it. I finished my chores and went to bed, not even having any dinner. It was 7pm. I woke up briefly at just before 9pm long enough to call Joy in from outside, make her take her pill and usher her into the shower. I scooped up the boy and the two of us went to bed. I slept until 6:30am this morning.

I have got to do something - anything - about the level of anger I reach when he makes me mad. I have never experienced feelings like this before. I dream up all sorts of violent things to do to him when he makes me mad. I want to break shit. Since I cannot (as of yet) find a better solution, I just remove myself from where ever he is. It isn’t practical, for one. For another thing, it just cannot be healthy. He’s my husband and, normally, my best friend. I shouldn’t feel like he is my enemy. I know he is not, but when I reach that level, it feels like he is.

The only good solution I have come up with: one of us needs to get a fuckin’ job.

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Bountiful Bread

Posted by tata on Saturday Aug 9, 2008 Under Food
Yesterday, I found a great deal while Stumbling around. Restaurant.com had an 80% discount, so Husband and I bought $225 of gift certificates for $16! The only clincher is that we were unfamiliar with all the local restaurants that participate with Restaurant.com, so we had to browse their very slow site to make our selections. Husband immediately gravitated to Bountiful Bread, a deli-slash-bakery reminiscent of Panera.

With today being T’s last full day here with us, I suggested we use the gift certificate to dine at one of the restaurants. We chose Bountiful Breads. The five of us packed up in our little truck and drove across town.

The place is located in a little plaza which seems relatively new (or perhaps just very well-maintained). It’s tucked away on a corner near a gym and a few other restaurants. Inside is very large with plenty of seating, but it was quiet - maybe one or two other tables. We walked up to the counter to browse the menu and the entire staff stood there looking at us, at the ready to whip up whatever we ordered. Likely looking as uncomfortable as we felt, the cashier offered us a menu to hold and we found a table in the back by the unlit fireplace while we made our choices.

After Husband and I placed our order, I went outside to have a cigarette and decided the whole lot of us needed to be out there, as it was such a pretty day. T and Joy complained at first, but later agreed that being outdoors was rather nice.


We goofed off and took pictures while we waited for our food, then took pictures of the food before eating. Then took more pictures, in an effort to remember today as well as possible.

Waiting…
Waiting

Joy
Joy's pretty freckles

tata
Your blog hostess

T got the Hot Brown. I daresay it is better than KT’s!
Hot Brown

Joy got Tuna on Semolina bread. Not very adventurous.
Tuna on Semolina

She also wanted the soup. I ordered the largest size, which is served in a bread bowl and we all shared. It was absolutely amazing. They even give you the innards for dunking!
Tomato Pesto Bread Boule

Husband ordered The Underhill. Roast beef, Muenster, Thousand Island dressing and cole slaw served on German rye bread. VERY adventurous!
The Underhill

I ordered the Classic Club, but asked for the Pepper Jack bread instead of the Semolina. Oh my word, it was divine! Piled high with yummy tomatoes, too.
The Classic Club on Pepperjack Bread

For dessert, we shared this insanely sweet, deliciously warm Cinnamon Stick. It’s like a Cinnabon cinnamon roll on crack.
Cinnamon Stick

My family.
The Family

You’d never believe a demon would have a face like this, huh?!
Buddha, that sweet-faced babe

Buddha and Mama

Buddha and Mama

I really love this picture of Husband and I.
Husband and I

Boys making silly faces.
The silly faces boys make

T and Husband checking out their silly shots.
Husband and T

The girls.
T and Joy

T and tata
T and tata

Whenever you miss me, T, remember this picture :)
Whaddafuggulookinat?

T
I’m really gonna miss this kid. I don’t just mean the dish-washing and the zucchini bread and preparation of meals I’d otherwise hafta make (although I’d be lying if I said I won’t miss that, too!). I don’t just mean picking on her for the way she says certain things or making her flinch for the fun of it or licking her face just ’cause it icks her out so much (heeheeheeeheee!!!) I mean the trips to Wal*Mart, the knitting and crocheting we’ve done together, learning signs, the long talks, going to the park, just kickin’ it… I fuckin’ hate to see you go, kid. But I’m holding you to the promises you made to me and your mama (don’t disappoint us!) and wish you the very best upon your return home. I love you.

Godspeed.

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