i just work here

the falconer

oh my good god, balloon boy.  i was watching obama talking in new orleans when all of a sudden THIS came up on the screen.  a 6 year-old boy in a flying saucer balloon.  i know!

i don't meant to sound like a bitch, but the TV anchor announced that his parents called the police and then immediately called the news network and i figured a) the kid wasn't in there and b) it was a publicity stunt.

as time went on, they announced that the father was an amateur scientist (which i'm sure you can imagine annoyed the fuck out of me, a real scientist) and that they'd been on wifeswap (which means they were already extremely not the same as normal people) and i was convinced that the kid wasn't in the balloon and that it was a stunt.

where was falcon (wtf?)?  here.

i watched the balloon fly in the air, up to i think they said 11,000 feet and back for 2 hours (okay,i fell asleep twice, FINE). 

i don't have any way to end this.  i just felt like i should admit that i watched the balloon for 2 hours, and i'm sorry.

i have swine flu (i don't).

but i am getting myself all worked up as though i DO.

my husband and my brother-in-law were (are-ish) both sick with flu-like symptoms which i assume is H1N1, because i watch daytime TV, and the fear-mongering TV segments told me so.

i have a sore throat, and chills... and general bad stomach feelings which i have had since 3w 6d of pregnancy, so i am willing to omit those from my list of symptoms.  however, i still feel that i am going to be a) hospitalized and b) risking my pregnancy.

last time i was pregnant, SARS was all the rage.  i had occasion to visit the ER (thought amniotic fluid was leaking out) and had to do so unaccompanied because even HUSBANDS weren't allowed into the hospital.  i'm willing to admit that the general health hysteria level is lower this pregnancy 'round... but H1N1 is getting people all aroused regardless.

i don't think i'll get any flu vaccines, H1N1 vaccine included.  i never have.  i generally have high resistance to illness... figured i would while i was pregnant as well.  i'm surprised to be sick at all.  maybe i'll wake up in the morning, and all will be new and not sick.  maybe the air is just dry!  (my mom taught me how to rationalize to the point of whatever outcome you are either hoping for, or most afraid of... explanations in the intermediate are not generally thought of... either you're dying, or you're not even sick at all.  please remember to go back and forth between the two.  thanks mom!)

sam's doing pretty well at 1st grade.  he's not complaining that he has to 'learn' too much like he did last year.  he does mention that the bus "keeps [him] rushin'!" and he cannot understand why he's not allowed to talk during class ("we can't even talk until recess, mommy... and recess is SHORT!").  sam comes from a line of chatties.  i was forever in trouble for talking in class.  my seat moved in science (a class i LIKED) over 15 times (there were only like 20 desks).  it soon became apparent to my science teacher (who's name i forget but she looked hippo-ish on account of very rounded, firm yet fleshy features) that i was going to talk to WHOEVER she put me next to AND get all A's on the tests/assignments anyway.  her solution was to move me to another room.  i couldn't talk, but i also couldn't LEARN.  wtf.  anyway... my mother before me had 'chatterbox' scrawled over report cards and so i'm not surprised that sam can't shut the hell up while the teacher is talking.  the poor dear.  he's learning lots of french.  so far every time i ask him 'comment ce va?' he replies with comme ci comme ca.  at first i thought he just didn't know about being tres bien or mal even, but upon further questioning, i have found that sam is just comme ci comme ca to a fault.  he really is a little this and a little that, both bad and good.  i don't know if that's just higher order thinking, or if he's a little depressed at 6. 

eli and i went to a football game this weekend at Ford Field.  i'm not particularly into sports, but i do enjoy football as far as sports go, and i like spectacles so i got us tickets.  it was pretty great, actually.

last night i had a dream that i started using hospital equipment (without authorization) to get a look at my baby.  what happened was that i couldn't hear a heartbeat.  this is probably because i was using an ultrasound machine as though it was a doppler, but that didn't occur to me in my dream.  at any rate, i've begun in the last 2 days to be scared about losing this pregnancy.  okay, scared again... i was terrified at the beginning.  once i got past the miscarriage weeks (5 and 6) i was too sick to care WHAT happened.  now the baby is the size of a lipstick tube and has fingernails so it's a thing, and i don't want to lose it.  i don't want it in there destroying my life either, but i don't want to lose it.  i also have dreams about car crashes and a muslim woman cleaning up her baby off the street.  that was pretty graphic/horrific.  weird dreams are part of pregnancy.  also, you CAN scream in your dreams... but you will sound very unfortunate and spazzy and so it's best to not yell lest your husband laugh at the way you screamed for him.  eli didn't laugh, but if he were meaner, he would impersonate that yell.

so eli has finally, after nearly 5 years of trying, become a full faculty member at the college he teaches at.  eli is a bum, but he's an amazing teacher. ;)  i never knew that would be his best gift, but it really is.  the college had him teaching as a sessional, partial load, or part-time instructor for the last 5 years.  in that time, 4 full time positions have been advertised and eli has been interviewed for them 3 times.  but finally, they have given him the job.  i suppose it's because eli is the youngest faculty member by a stretch and the dean seems a tad... traditional.  but hard work pays off finally i suppose.  we're very pleased that one of us has hit the mark finally.  all the schooling, all the tuition, all the time spent DOES lead to what you wanted in the first place.  there's no more panic talks about moving to oklahoma or utah (don't ask), no more wondering how much more credit card debt we can take to get through a summer with no pay, and no more wishing the college would just hire him.  and more than that... eli gets personal satisfaction.

i have a lot of things i need to mail.  i'm not great at getting envelopes or stamps.  i usually steal stamps off of letters that have been sent to me but that weren't post-marked.  awesome trick, i KNOW!  but on the last package that came to my house, the stamps were taped over with packing tape (you know who you are) and as such, i have to go out and BUY them.  this shit is never getting mailed, i know how i am.

hope you had a great thanksgiving if you're in canada.  columbus day i'm not so sure about (genocide anyone?), but i hope your weekend was nice too.

i spoke to a stranger in an elevator, and actually liked it.

what are you supposed to do when everything goes to hell?

i'd love to count it up for you, all the bad things that have gone on since the year turned... but i can't even name them all because some are scandalous.  but like, NAME IT, because it's happening in my life.

re: the miscarrageS.  i'm so fucking angry and i'm sorry about that word but god damn it am i ever angry.  I DON'T KNOW AT WHAT, but i'm mad.  i'm sure you've all been thought about in an angry way in the last couple of months, and i mean all of you; even all of you imaginary internet people, ESPECIALLY if you're pregnant.  i hate everyone and everything.  is that normal?  why am i so mad?  i lay in bed on saturday night, SEETHING with anger at one particular person (best not to hurt your feelings here, you... so i won't name names).  i still feel like you just DON'T get it, and everything that comes out of your mouth feels like running my knuckles down the kitchen rasp.  i can't even start thinking about it right now, it's making me re-angrified.  and no, it's not my husband... he's been almost... soothing throughout these miscarriageS.

i was totally fine with it, i cried for a few minutes on friday when the spotting started.  i cried and yelled at eli for an hour on saturday.  but other than that... fine.  mostly residual sad from the first one.  but today the bleeding and cramping started.  i was at school, being productive in order that i didn't have to feel like a lazy bitch in addition to a being a baby-killing machine.  i started to feel sad, but at 4:47 i walked out to my car.  as soon as i got into the parking garage, i started SOBBING for myself.  i was all alone and i was going to go home and be alone and i was in pain physically and emotionally and i was tired, frustrated, confused, angry, sad, sore... all of that at once. 

sam and i ate pizza from saturday.  then we dragged the air mattress up into the living room and watched 'muppets take manhattan' and at 7:30, the advilS finally started working and my mood improved as well.  ugh, thinking about that pizza made me seriously nauseous just now. 

sam still doesn't know about any of this 2nd pregnancy business.  i say that, but i'm sure he hears me talking but he hasn't said a thing about it.  i made the mistake of telling him we were pregnant the first time, and then had to explain that we 'lost it'.  just last week he brought home an abstract work with sad faces and the word "MOM" all over it which, when asked, he explained that the baby was so sad, because it was lost.  i'm not telling him i'm pregnant ever again until i'm 36 weeks.  his heartbreak was more upsetting to me than my own.  

sorry, eli is eating chips right now, and it's PUTTING ME OVER THE EDGE.  i have just turned on the TV to max volume so as to NOT be able to hear it, but i still can and it's making me enraged!!!!!!!!  is THAT normal? 

my only friend at school moved away this weekend.  only friend?  only friend that i intend to be friends with when i'm not at school.  friends are fine, keeper friends suck to lose.  i'm just losing shit all over the place, eh?  like i said, NAME IT.

fuck off with the chips! ALKDKJFA;LDJKFA;LSDKJFA;  like, ARE YOU DONE?

on the way down in the elevator from the early pregnancy unit to get blood drawn i was in there with another woman my age.  she asked me if i was on my way down for good news or bad news.  i said bad news and she agreed.  NEXT thing she said was "you know there's no one to talk to?  no one wants to talk about it, they don't know what to say and it's like a secret"  i felt like she popped an uncomfortable bubble and i sighed loudly, "i know!" 

anyway, i remember when i was reading finslippy during her miscarriage... i didn't know how i felt reading her blog.  i like her blog a lot, but i felt uncomfortable reading about how sad she was.  i guess it was because i couldn't relate, and it made me feel sad and you know... i was an idiot.  i hope you're not feeling that way, because i feel a little gagged this 2nd go around... everyone who's not physically miscarryING can just roll this fail into the first one and that's something they've been dealing with for 6 weeks now... but not me, and i haven't told pretty much ANYONE because i'm so embarrassed... and i just need to say things... or not.  i don't know.

i'm going to the DR on thursday.  the day i started spotting i was fierce about getting in for recurrent miscarriage testing, i wanted the full work up and the full treatment.  i still think something might be wrong with me, but i'm willing to accept that it was a fluke.  i've read that only 4% of women will have back to back miscarriages, WAY TO BEAT THE ODDS, ME... but still... i've had one healthy child, what could it be?

stick with me, i figure the upswing is coming, right?

WALL E is a real drinker.

firstly, i want to thank all of you for your comments and emails in response to my last post.  i couldn't believe the caring and consideration you all showed... it took a lot to say what you said, so thank you.  thank you.

i'm feeling much better, thank you.  maybe it's my new attitude.  it starts with an "F" and ends with "it".  seriously, try it.  louis CK, a very... shamefully crass stand up comedian that makes me cluck with laughter brought me to the F-it life.  it was 4am and a re-broadcast of his "chewed up" was on.  i woke eli up laughing so hard.  i needed that. 

sam lost two chicklets out of his mouth.  the two bottom ones.  i had to forcefully YANK both of them out on separate occassions and i would like to say for the record that although both eli and my sister had opportunity to either do it or at least SUPPORT me in doing it, neither of them did.  however, emily's fiance, eric cheered me and sam on superbowl sunday when we liberated a bottom tooth from his jaw.  eric, and only eric, helped.  love eric.  emily and eli, you suck.  my point!  right!  sam pulled in some sweet cash as a result and he bought himself a WALL E. 

on our way out the door today, sam casually mentioned to eli that he was NOT to touch WALL E while he was at school.  but, you know sometimes you want to do exactly what you're not supposed to (especially if you're eli ad;lkfja;wekjfa;lskdfja). 

WALL E kills!  "yo mama is sooo fat..."

guitar hero!  WALL E is in the middle of a pretty awesome windmill here:

after the game, he and eli shared a few brews... to relax.

 

ah, great day spent together.  BFF.

 

we're really messed up, but you know when i think about it... this is no different than the time i walked out into the garage and was hit in the face by my stuffed bunny haning in a noose from the garage rafters.  no different.  or the time i found him in the pot on the stove with carrots.  also crazy.  that's another post.

S

warning, i am insanely angry/disturbed

re-run no. deux.  i said don't judge.

To the parents of the 6pm class children at The Little Gym,

1. Um, shut the hell UP, please. Your incessant talking at an above 'inside voice' level in the hopes that we'll listen to your inane bullshit and perhaps jump-in is making me want to toss a chair at you. You're not interesting, you're irritating. I just want to watch my son have fun, not learn about your son's poo consistency.

2. Someone should say this to you and I'm going to take one for the team: You are raising CRIMINALS. WHY do you make excuses when your sons are pulling the teacher's hair and sticking their faces in her crotch and breastal region or smacking her across the face with the mooshy ball. Why do you LAUGH? 'Boys will be boys', really? You're making me die. Good lord, parents... do you realize in 10 years you'll be making excuses for why they stole a car hopped up on meth and raped a girl? Seriously, control them while they are 3' tall. Seriously.

3. I didn't want to go here, but, WHAT ARE YOU WEARING? I know you've given up on sex, that's infinitely apparent by how you and your cell-phone addicted husband are interacting, but you really don't care that you are wearing a big sign that says "don't pay attention to me" on your chest? Holy crap, I hope to never, EVER see someone wearing head-to-toe red gingham and knit with "i just can't wear those heels anymore because I'm on the go with my boys, but these are kinda neat with the velcro, don't you think?" shoes again.

4. Sweetheart, your children are not going to the olympics. Neither is mine, NONE of them are. It's for FUN, and if you discuss any of your childrens' actions using gymnastic jargon again, I'm calling Bela Karolyi and telling. If you want your child to be an olympic gymnast, you might want to enrol in private classes with a trainer and quit your job. But if you're going to be in the 6pm class at The Little Gym... CHILL.

5. Don't you think it's slightly disturbing, if not outright dangerous that a 4 year-old is running your show? They aren't capable of rational thinking, let alone knowing right vs. wrong and yet, they are in charge? WOAH.

Maybe I'm experiencing the rage that comes only to those trying to finish up experiments and write a thesis before September. Maybe that's why I had to bitch and complain to my husband for over an hour about how awful you were. And sure, I had a fit earlier today when I was using the tape dispenser worthy of arrest by the police... but I still feel at least SOME of my anger/frustration towards you is warranted. People, I'm telling you this out of love, SAVE YOURSELVES, get control of those children and be the boss, because I know you're living in a hell of your own making.

Sincerely,
moi.

4 easy steps to needing therapy!

it's former blog re-runs week here at i just work here.  don't judge...

okay, first... here are a list of 'easy' recommendations from this website about how to improve your child's morning and set a good tone for the rest of the day.

Here a couple of ‘Rise & Shine’ ideas to get you and your children off to a brighter start!

1) Create a hot breakfast meal together: Have your children help you make blueberry pancakes, whole-grain waffles, or a berry-and-milk-smoothie.
i don't have time to make tea in a to-go cup, i don't have time for blueberry pancakes, either. i'd have to get up at 6am, which would be alright if i didn't have to stay up until 1:30am the night before to get my work done.

2) Tell a story from your childhood: My children’s favorites are the ones about losing my passport in a foreign country and capsizing in a rowboat. (I suppose hearing about Mom being in a vulnerable situation is always a hit!) this brings on a torrent of questions. 'where was i?' 'why wasn't i born yet?' 'what's a rowboat?' 'can i come?' 'why were you a little girl?' questions to which, the answers are unacceptable, prompting a yelling fit where he insists the opposite of what i'm telling him.

3) Using old magazines and photos of your child create a collage together. Themes like sports, favorite things, and places we want to visit are just a few of the many sources of inspiration you can use for this simple yet memorable project. listen sweetcheeks, i just told you in #1 that i don't have time for a hot breakfast... so if we extrapolate from that, it's reasonable to say that i don't have time to collage either.

4) Institute a ‘calm voices’ rule for the mornings. Define when the morning period ends- perhaps when breakfast is over, beds are made, or school starts. Feel free to say, after a tennis ball has shattered your lamp, “I’m feeling upset, so I’m going in to my room alone for a few minutes to calm down so that I don’t shout at you.” What a wonderful message you will be sharing about controlling outbursts! in a very QUIET AND CALM voice... 'put your pants on. yes, you have to wear those pants. why do you hate those pants, they're just pants? so pick what pants you do want. in your middle drawer, go. just put your pants on. HEY! i mean, hey... you can't go to school without pants on. no, it's not a home day, put your pants on. ON... on, on buddy. okay, i'm almost ready and i'm going to leave without you if you're not ready. yes i will! so just put your pants on and then you don't have to worry about it. put them on. not backwards, stop that. put them on. pants! on! oh my god i can't take anymore.

i'm going to go ahead and say that NONE of these things are even remotely options. thanks a lot for making me feel like an even bigger a-hole mother, because now i know that there are either women out there that DO all these things, or at least believe i should. scroll down on the page and read what Jaylene has to say... she gets it, i'm calling her to be BFF right now.

artistic expressions of anger break my heart

i am insane right now... it's true.  i am getting ready for "sunday in the valley."  i've shipped the lion's share of my product via UPS (you may remember my hatred for Fedex,).  in fact, UPS did a beautiful job and my box is there already with ZERO problems at customs even though it wasn't scheduled for delivery until saturday!  it cost me $150... but i'd pay that in a second to not have to deal with trapped boxes at customs and nothing to sell come sunday. 

anyway, my point is that i am busy.  in addition, i've had several scholastic tasks that were due FOREVER ago hanging over my head, and even though i have been working so hard on the bench that there were times i thought my head would pop open, i can't seem to get them tied up. 

so, i'm having some physical manifestations of my stress... namely neck-aches and headaches.  this is because i am either HUNCHED over my sewing maching, HUNCHED over my computer, or HUNCHED over my lab bench at all times. 

a couple of nights ago eli was away and it was just me and sam.  well... he was whining and it put me over the edge.  after trying everything i knew to get him to leave me for 5 minutes so i could just. have. some. quiet.  we started fighting. 

her refused to stop whining, and i admit it, i yelled, "Sam, GET!"

well, the little one stomped upstairs to express himself in a quieter way... and here are the results:

alright, things to note here...

obviously sam was saddened, as is evidenced by this:

but why?  well scroll your eyes to the right and see...

because his mom is an angry monster.  what is she doing?

she's yelling "GET!" which you can tell by the backwards G coming from her mouthal area.

and how does poor, poor sam feel?

broken-hearted and unloved.

ugh... :( 

seriously annoying child.

 

sam has been crying and WHINING for 3 days straight.  there is no good reason.  don't suggest he's sick, because he's not.  he's just NUTS.  all he does is whine and cry and drive me berkserker.

exhibit a:  while washing the car next to the garbage pails because the hose won't reach futher than that... i was squatting for minutes on end cleaning nooks and crannies of alloy wheels and SAM decided to grade me with either check marks (good) or  X's (bad).  he would come up to me every 3 minutes (a terribly annoying interval) and say either, YOU GET AN X MOMMY, BAD RINSING or that was okay, you get a checkmark but you need to go slower because we're not on section 5 yet.  whatever section 4 was, i wanted the hell out of it because it happened to be the smelliest of garbage sections... and he wanted me to slow down.  the whole thing is, i wanted to ignore his grades, but because i couldn't for the life of me figure out what warranted an X or what it took to get a check mark, it drove me extra crazy (i don't like to do a bad job at anything apparently, even subjective marking by a newly 5 year-old tyrant who has no prior knowledge of the task). 

exhibit b:  sam came into the room from a cry fest and put skull stickers on eli's as well as my hand.  he told us that because we were mean parents, we get monster stickers.  when you laugh, he yells 'DON'T LAUGH AT ME WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH."  awful.  i mean, don't be hilarious then, kid.

exhibit c:  background: sam sleeps in a tiny tent on his floor. oh he HAS a bed, but refuses to sleep in it.  i told him absolutely no way not gonna happen never was he going to sleep there in the winter, so every fall i put the tent away.  it's a little early, since there is no need for heat or anything... so the tent remained.  samuel came in today while i was laying down because i wanted to be dead i was so tired and said, 'mom, i really need to take my tent down because i need the room'.  i said, fine... and i went in and disassembled the G-D thing.  literally as soon as i got back into bed, sam came in and told me, "mommy, actually i want it back up, because my stuffed animals are going to sleep in there".  A;DLKJFAL;SKDJF;ALSDKJF;A

exhibit d:  we decided to go outside the three of us and play a little football (ie throwing a nerf ball very very slowly).  after 1 whole hour of manipulation and coaxing on our part, sam decided he would finally grace us on the football field.  when it was time to go in, i threw the ball to eli (he's in charge of putting the balls away, obviously)... and SAM LOST IT because he didn't get to catch it LAST.  then as sam was entering the screen door eli thought it would be really cute to throw the ball in over his head and into the house (yea... what's wrong with my husband.)  but actually (as it always does) it hit SAM instead which meant he screamed and cried in the doorway for 45 hours.  ugh...

everything he does is honestly designed to be miserable/combative/torturous.  why?  i. have. no. idea.

HELP ME, I CAN'T TAKE IT.

4 year-old's wedding plans

Sam:  how long is auntie's wedding going to last?

Me:  you'll bring up the rings, and then we'll all come in.  then there is a mass like church, then they kiss and then we go to a party with dinner and dancing, and at the end of the party, the wedding is over.

Sam:  oh, then what?

Me:  auntie and uncle eric will go on a honeymoon.

Sam:  what's a honeymoon?

Me:  it's a little trip they go on, just the two of them.

Sam:  oh yea.  well.   me and esabella are going to go on a little trip just the two of us after we get married.

Me:  umkay, what happened to emma? 

Sam:  uh me and emma... we're JUST friends.  i'm marrying esabella.

Me:  okay. 

Sam:  mommy, you can bring the rings up at my wedding.

Me:  well, you'll need a little kid to do that, not your mom.

Sam: alright, i'll get owen with the small head from preschool to do that.

Me:  wha?  owen has a small head?

Sam:  yea, he's got a small head.  he can do it.

Me:  don't you think when you're an adult, owen will be an adult too?

Sam:  oh.  well what little kid is there, then?

Me:  you'll have to see if you know one when you get married.

Sam:  okay.