Frustration

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. Ours was there. I was sick. I am sicker than I was last week when I went to the dr. I felt better for a few days because of the big old shot of steroids and then the dose pack, but now not so good. I had a fever most of the day yesterday and again today. I went back to the doctor, you know, after I got out of work early today and got stronger antibiotics and better cough medicine. I have coughed my self into some strained muscles along my ribs and into back spasms. What freaking fun! That isn't my actual issue however.

We went to my in laws yesterday to eat. Mike was actually home and went and then it was just them and Jake and me. We ate during nap time. Oh wait, we had to keep the boy up. Thank goodness I feed him lunch because there was nothing for him to eat. He is FINALLY interested in real food, some. He wouldn't touch the turkey. He wanted green bean casserole. Luckily she had some beans in the cupboard still. The chewed on a radish for awhile. He basically ate a few green beans and some crackers. We have known Jake's allergies since he was 8 months or a little less right? Grandpa wanted to give him the casserole. No, I said. He wanted to give him the mashed potatoes Jake wanted. No, Grandpa I said. Grandma wanted to give him the stuffing. Where is package I asked. Did you use butter in it like the directions say? Oh, says Grandma. Grandpa hands him a roll. Where is the bag, I ask. Nope, not that either. Well can he have the green salad, Gpa asks. I turn and look at him and say No! (it gag worthy anyway but it is made with cottage cheese). Hello??? When I went to take the roll away I looked at their bread, nope, it has milk. I know I am not handling this as well as I might because I really don't feel good, but come on people! They pick him up from daycare and FEED him. Now, to my knowledge, they give him crackers, baby food that I buy, and fruit. I have actually been grateful he won't eat food there. Apparently I am going to have to pack him a dinner on the days they have to pick him up. They just don't get it.

However, the icing on the cake, the thing that sent me home crying, the reason that I believe these people are idiots... sitting on an end table in the living room where Jake plays was a cup of m&m's and PEANUTS. I know it isn't the end of the world if Jake gets a little dairy. Milk still gives him eczema. But peanuts could KILL him. Obviously they don't understand that I am absolutely terrified of the world out there and my child's peanut allergy. I have to work hard not to think about it and just do everything I can to control his environment. I am working very hard to not let the anxiety in the back of my mind over this allergy to freak me out. I have thought about changing my job to something I can do from home. I have given it thought to actually home school my son when the time comes. I think that is a great thing for some people. I mean I really give those parents (okay we know it is mostly mothers) credit. I couldn't do it. We would be butting heads and I would be going insane. I get frustrated to easily. I am not a teacher and I think there is a special place in heaven for teachers and those who care work in daycare. I can't imagine being in a room full of two year olds, three year olds, four year olds, whatever. I know I couldn't handle that, but I am terrified of the world out there when my son has a life-threatening allergy. I can not control the whole world, but I should be able to count on his damn grandparents! The f***ing peanuts are right next to his crackers in the cupboard. The f***ing peanut butter is next to his baby food. He goes to the cupboard for his stuff! I should be able to count on his grandparents to not be idiots. I have tried education. I have expressed to them the severity of the allergy. They have and epipen and had to learn how to use it.

I didn't even bring it up with Mike after we got home. We went in separate cars and he went to work as soon as we came home so he didn't notice I had been crying. I don't know how to solve this. They are always going to be his grandparents and apparently they are going to be idiots. I have looked into different daycare options. I can't find anything that fits our need. We can't afford to pay someone $10 an hour to watch him in addition to his regular daycare. There is not one actual daycare that is open late enough. Plus, sometimes I have to stay late. Overtime is mandatory and not scheduled. Mike is gone there is nothing he can do. I have considered giving room and board and paying a college student to watch him but I can't find one. I almost had one. Almost, but that is only temporary anyway. I have asked at daycare if there is anyone interested but there isn't. Duh, they want to leave work too. It comes back to me. To my job. Or Mike's job. If I could find an office/case management/ education kind of job, I would have to take a huge pay cut. That would be hard but we could figure something out. But there hasn't been anything. I can't really afford a 20 thousand dollar pay cut either. Especially since there is still instability with Mike's job. If he loses his job than maybe he could find something with normal hours but the job market is so terrible here and he won't move. I don't know what to pray for! I wish a nanny that refuses pay would drop out of the sky for us. I think I need to talk to my minister again. I keep hoping that someone will present them self to her that will fit our needs. I have put it out there to many people. I mean we obviously will have to cough up the cash if we could just find someone because we just can't count on his grandparents. They won't watch him overnight when I am on call either so that is a problem as well. But I can't really trust them anyway! Mike doesn't get it either because when we have problems with our actual daycare he is quick to say that we could pay his mom to watch Jake.

BTW, the dumbass coworker was finished yesterday and so far the charge hasn't freaked out and retaliated. I know the boss talked to her after so many people talked. I know I have had some bad assignments lately but I think work just sucks right now. I think some people have worse assignments than I do.

Really?

I know that I am in a funk, okay, a depression right now. I am working to pick my self up and enjoy this time of year. I know I need to do a better job of enjoying all my time with Jake. I know once the time is past it is past so I need to do better about taking in the moment. Anyway, that isn't my beef. Right now my personal issue with everyone is to think or just shut their freaking mouths. I will probably explode on the next person who says "don't you think you should be thinking about a second one now?" I have been sick, really sick. I have had a cough for more than four weeks that turned into pneumonia last week. I just had a cough, a dry annoying cough so I didn't go to the Dr until I got sick. Well, this week I had a couple of really rough days at work. I mean I was light headed, diaphoretic, just not looking so good - a combination of being sick and being anemic from AF. I believe I was asked about 100 times, seriously, if I was pregnant. I just can't take it.

Can't people mind their own f'ing business. I mean, I don't know if I am going to yell or burst into tears. I mean you just can't sit down and discuss your reproductive issues with everyone. Maybe I should and they would get the point to back off. People just don't get it. I know my issues are much less significant than others but I'm certainly not one of those people that gets pregnant without trying. I'm scared, I guess. What if it takes a year again? What if we have to do more? How am I going to be able to deal with these people??? For crapsake, yesterday the people giving me a hard time were friends - an OB and a nurse for the GYN that specializes in infertility. What if? What if? What if? My little mind is so fragile right now, but time is not my friend (as I was reminded) and I can't take anymore time to try to straighten myself out. I'm scared. I don't know what to do, but I do know that the next person that says something to me might really regret it!!!

Hell to pay????

I think we all might be in trouble at work. Friday and Monday our Unit Manager (charge nurse+) and another nurse that we don't actually know what she does (her title is supervisor of the aides or something) were gone. Oh and the director was gone Friday too. Crap to me that I was on call and the charge for the day. It was a bad day. The nurse in charge of the aides made a very poor decision to leave someone who has been here for like a month on her own to take the only aide with experience to a meeting. Not good. Not good at all. We didn't even have any extra nurses to help her until afternoon. We are lucky she came back!

Anyway, that just has me pissed what I am worried about is the boss. We have meetings every Monday morning to help educate us staff. That is good, most of the time. Our presentation was very short this week so we sat and talked because we could. All the people you have to worry about what you say were gone. People could speak freely about how stressful our charge makes everything and how in her attempts to make things go well, we are actually getting screwed. We also all realized that we don't know what this other nurse actually does all day everyday and she stays for hours and hours of overtime when we are in a time of very tight money. We all talked about talking to our new boss and our fear for retaliation from our charge. It is horrible to live in fear of what awful things the person in power over you will do to you. It is awful. There are some newer people that don't know the hell you pay and don't understand why us old timers don't demand change. They know how she is, they just have never experienced months or years of torture.

I was in a room all day until I left early because of a call from daycare that Jake had a temp of 103. He did still when I got home too (Mike went to get him). Poor boy. Anyway, I understand that after our morning meeting that many people went to the boss's office and were in there for hours. Some went as individuals and some went as groups. I know the boss was aware of our fears of the charge nurse, but I don't think any of us ever talked to her before. I don't know what we would. I don't know what we can do. Someone has to be in charge. She also is doing a ton of stuff that she didn't do before we got this boss. When someone else is in charge we just run the desk. We don't do all her "other" stuff. Well, when she is gone for any length of time, it has always been the nurse that we now don't know what she does that would be in charge day after day. Well, in the past, she might have been a good candidate for the job, but now she does not have the respect of the staff. Not at all.

I am very afraid the can of worms we thought we were opening was a actually a bottomless snake pit! I didn't say anything, but I will stand behind my coworkers that did because whatever they said is true. And as bad as moral was for awhile, we have all realized it is worse now. We are looking at the holiday schedule and there is no one to work. It is bad. We won't have many late shifts so people can go home at a decent time. The end of the year is always when we do the most surgeries. People have met their deductibles and want to get it done and don't care what time or day of the week. Doctors are grateful for the business and will work us to death. Each doctor only sees their own needs or how some other doctor is standing in the way of their needs. They don't see or care if they are burning out all the staff by keeping four or five rooms going until seven, eight, nine at night. We just aren't staffed for that. I am scared. We have already had some huge fights at my house over our work schedule. With impending cuts with the railroad, I really have to keep my job! It is just a big problem right now. I'm scared, but my family is more important than my job. However, we do have to eat and have a place to live.

Some pictures finally

Finally some pictures from our trip to my sister's house. I decided I needed to get them onto the computer at last! I am terrible about erasing pictures from my camera and it was sad! I got this camera for Christmas last year. Poor my Jake has changed. The baby has sure come out off his face. Makes me sad to see how fast he is growing up!

Here is Jake with his cousins at Balloon Fiesta. He loved it. LOVED it. Only Ethan and Sam went with us. Ben is still afraid of the burners so he stayed home with his dad.
We got to have a lot of fun with Aunt Suzi while the boys were at school. Here we were at the aquarium. Kind of hard to take pictures though
We also got to go to Explora a kids science museum and it was great fun for Jake and us. He is controlling one of the water sprays on a two story interactive fountain here.
Here is an air table where you put nails in the holes and it increases the force of the air in the other holes. I think we all could have played with it all day.

I thought the bubbles would be his favorite part but I was surprised. He was done pretty early and my sister and I wanted to keep playing
He loved helping Aunt Suzi vacuum!
I tried and tried to get a picture with all the boys and mine wouldn't cooperate. He was having none of it but his cousins were really good!
He had a lot of fun playing with the boys. He loved all their toys and all the space they have to play.

He stacked these cans in my sister's window forever. Unfortunately, I did have to listen to some sisterly advise on parenting. She didn't tell me anything I didn't already know was a problem. Jake's sleep is still a nightmare. It is almost impossible to get him to go to his bed, lay down and go to sleep. He will go lay down in his chair in my room and go to sleep and then get in bed with us at some point. He will lay down in the living room and go to sleep so you have to carry him to bed. He still screams and throws up for hours. We need to have a better schedule. I know this but it is damn near impossible with our jobs. Daddy goes to work at all hours of the night and day. I have three different shifts I work plus call and I literally don't know from day to day when I will be picking him up. In addition, he gets picked up by Grandma or Grandpa when I have to work late so he is at their house too which always throws a wrench in his schedule. I'm sorry I'm not a SAHM or have a job with normal hours too or have Mike's job have any schedule what so ever at all. It would make a schedule for Jake a heck of a lot easier! It makes me not want to see my sister again until Jake's sleep is better and I have no idea how long that will take. I mean it is a little better because he doesn't have to be rocked to sleep anymore.
Jacob has a new uncle! Mike's parents had to put their dog to sleep because he had lung cancer. His dad's way of dealing with that is to immediately get a new dog. Well, he had to wait about two weeks to pick up his puppy and those two weeks were hell. He was so depressed he had trouble getting out of bed. Now that MJ is here he is a different man. I don't understand the name MJ nor do I like it. I've just been calling him puppy like Jake. Jake wants to play with him so bad and the puppy wants to play with Jake but is smart enough to know better. He will run out and take a swipe at Jake and then run back to the safety of an adult. It won't be long and Jake will be experiencing those razor sharp teeth.

Jake did not so much like Halloween. He wore his costume just fine but not the going to the houses business. We didn't even go door-to-door. I am going to have to have another person with me that can go ahead and plant Jake-safe treats or stay with him so I can scope it out. We just went to friends and he cried at almost every stop. He did not like having a bag and he wanted to eat everything right then and there. I couldn't even get a picture of him until we got to the grandparent's because was so grouchy.