I’m Beautiful Like Me.

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!

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!

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!”)

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.

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.