I’m Beautiful Like Me.

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.

I started work on Friday. The ink and piercings are not as big a deal as I was led to believe at the interview/hiring. It’s looking like I will only be working part-time during lunch rushes. I’m really quite pleased, as it leaves knit night open and me available to continue pursuing ways to make money online. And, in the event that I’m ever considered for some of those 20-odd apps I submitted last week, I’ll be available to interview and possibly find better income.

Right now, this seems to be a good fit. I’ve completed my training and will be making tips when I return to work on Wednesday. I like all 4 of the managers and there are a number of colleagues that are really cool, too.

After my first shift on Friday, Husband and I took the kids to the mall so’s I could get a new nose ring. I lost the CZ in my last one some time ago and we’ve been so tight I haven’t had the bread to replace it. I got a great deal on 6 of them and also got a new barbell for my tongue and awesome tribal spirals for ear-stretching. The kids were surprisingly well-behaved. Then we got a bite to eat at Steak & Shake, where I ran into an old friend.

Saturday night after work, P and her girls came over and watched Joy and Buddha while Husband and I went out to a show. I was indecisive as to which show I wanted to attend, but we ended up going to the Brewery Thunderdome (my first time since it reopened!) to see Caldera and Snake Eyed Savior. I had a couple of shots of Woodford’s Reserve before going and got pretty farkin’ wasted on Blue Moon while there. I didn’t even get to see either of those bands play, but I had a great time and saw so many familiar faces.

I worked a double yesterday, mostly just to get the training out of the way. My afternoon trainer is this really cool chic with a vibe I dig. She let me lead the way. Our second table turned out to be more old friends of mine that I haven’t seen in I-don’t-know-how-many years. Back in the day when we kicked it together, these two were just getting together. Turns out they had just returned from their honeymoon! How cool is that!

Needless to say, I’ve taken numbers, email addresses, MySpace URLs and whatnot. Getting older, having a family and (groan) responsibilities really gets in the way of keeping up with friends who are also busy getting older, having families and responsibilities. I’m hopeful to stay connected.

The past few days have been really, really good for my emotional, mental and spiritual well-being. I’m glad to have a change of both scenery and pace. It feels long overdue.

This morning, I reached frustration boiling point. I was in the middle of sorting through affiliate links to add to the websites and coding the pages when my darling son turned off my computer. None of my work was saved, so I stormed off into the isolation of my bedroom, closed the door behind me and cried a spell. It was cleansing.

The hard reality is that I cannot make a livable income from home. At least not yet. A supplemental income, sure, but not something that will sustain us.

Did I forget to mention that Husband lost his job yet again?

Well, he did. Geek Squad City terminated his temp position because he “took extended breaks.” Bullshit! His “extended breaks” would be taking the actual allotted amount since he typically takes shorter breaks than offered. My take is that they were pissed they were proven wrong for firing him to begin with and basically forced to take him back.

And here is how it went:

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