Thoughts

I hope everyone has had a good Christmas. Ours wasn't as planned but worked out well. I will hopefully post on that soon. I have been pushing some thoughts to the back of mine mind to deal with next month. Of course that is only next week. Last week I finally saw a doctor, sort of. The doctor, a friend of mine, was finished early and I was in her room. So I asked her if I could talk to her because I am having some problems and I don't know where I should start. We talked for a good long while and we developed a plan. First a bunch of blood work and an ultrasound and biopsy in a few weeks. I am having very mixed feelings. I feel better knowing that I finally have someone to help me with whatever the hell is going on with my body. I also would like to continue to believe nothing is really wrong and everything will be fine in a minute or it is just stress. I realize I need to get my body in order and that will help me cope with everything else.


I am a little mixed about my choice of doctors. I didn't know who to talk to so I talked to someone I know pretty well. I don't know if I want her to know how crazy I really. She wouldn't be my first choice for some things but I think she is an excellent diagnostician. She really delves into things and goes to whomever she needs to get help if she needs it. She is also my age and her sons play with my son every day. That is her job though right. I'm just nervous. I want to get it all over and figure out what we can do to get Jake a sibling that he says he doesn't want!

Not so merry at the moment

So I've complained about my mom before, a lot actually. She has issues. She is very lonely but has done many things to isolate herself and push away the people around her. But she also really likes to draw attention to herself, particularly if someone else is getting attention. There is a long history of her having... fits at important events or such. She is always late for family events so as to make everyone wait and to draw attention when she finally makes a big entrance. She always wants to help, say, sew something that is important but not have it done when it needs to be. Critical items, like the dress I wore in my sister's wedding. We were all waiting for her and my dress. She showed up almost an hour late. The dress still wasn't finished and she wasn't dressed and ready. My sister's SIL had to sew me into the dress, literally. There were several, SEVERAL tantrums during my wedding. She refuses to participate. She ironed through the rehearsal. She was late and we had to wait on pictures even after the photographer rearranged his detailed schedule. He was not happy and I think it showed in our pictures. We almost had to delay the damn wedding. She gets sick and wallows in her illness. She misses tons of work.

So the actual issue at hand? We are all (my mom, my aunt, Jake and I) supposed to go to my sister's house for Christmas. Mike has to work and doesn't want me to go. Still having issues there. But my mom threw a fit! A hissy of monster proportions because my sister wants my aunt and my mom to stay in a hotel. My sister has one guest bedroom. I know her house is huge and has a lot of rooms, but there really isn't a place to put people. My mom and my aunt are extremely loud. My aunt never had children and my mom is obviously many years removed from having young children. She doesn't get how hard it is to try to keep a little order in their lives while there is company. It was a little hard when we were down there this fall. When my sister visits anywhere she usually stays in a hotel. There are five of them. They need to be able to put the boys behind closed doors to sleep, not in the middle of a main room floor. (one would be fine. the second is pushing it, but the third is too little still). Besides is my mom going to sleep on the top bunk or my aunt? Anyway, my mom has gotten ugly. She was supposed to take my aunt. Now my aunt wants me to take her but I'm still on the line to go. I still have to work on Mike. I don't want to be away from him. I don't want him to be away from Jake. I don't want to miss my family and I'm sick of holidays with his family. They just don't feel right.

Anyway, my mom won't talk to anyone, but she will send horrible emails. Mean, mean. She tried to raise her children right, but she doesn't know where she went so wrong to end up with children like this. What did she ever do to deserve such horrible daughters? She has yet to actually come at me, but it is coming. It has been directed toward my aunt and my sister so far. Ugly, ugly, ugly to my sister. My sister doesn't come up to the area we live often. She never lived here so it isn't home. There are five of them to try and coordinate. There is one of my mom to travel. My sister has paid several times for my mom to fly down to visit her. My mom complains about it. I paid to fly my mom down once, she just bitched about it. She hasn't seen my nephews since July 2007. She was mean to them. She made them cry! I do go visit my sister without including my mom. I can't drive down there with her. I would kill her. I would be mad the whole damn time. It is my vacation, right?

I don't know what to do. I mean this is totally my mom. She has done what she can to ruin the holiday for everyone. She got the attention she felt like she wasn't getting. It has gotten bad a few times before but this is truly ugly. My mom can be down right mean and that is what she is doing. She is a therapist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know what to do. I may whine a lot and complain, a lot, but this is actually scary to me. I don't know how this can be worked through or past.

I forgot to mention that my sister is having surgery the Monday before Christmas but was still having everyone come. It isn't outpatient either. She will hopefully only spend one night, but still. That should be reason enough for people to give her some damn space! I am reluctant to go myself just for the added stress of company because I know it is hard. She is hoping to be feeling great two days after the surgery when people are supposed to be getting there but I am doubtful.

My happiness

I bitch and whine a lot but that is because I need to vent about the stresses in life. But there is so much good too. There are a lot of temper tantrums at the moment and frustration all around right now, but there is so much happiness. I am really enjoying Jake right now. He is so much fun. He is just so much more interactive now. We can really do things together. He is so smart too. I am shocked at his ability to problem solve! (I swear he is better many men I am around and thinking through things). He is so darn cute and he flashes a big smile to get his way. He is a total cheese when he sees a camera. It is terrible to try to take a picture of him right now. He talks my leg off! I can't believe how much he says and how long he goes. He still says a lot of things that I can't understand and he most definitely gets frustrated with me because I'm not on the same page. He tries to show me what he is saying that I can get which is helpful. I do get a lot of "dis, Mama" or "dat, Mama" when he is showing me around. But I swear there are some Duh Mama's in there.

He is a terrible flirt. Terrible. He is also very loving and asks for hugs and kisses all the time. He is not particularly gentle though. He's a bit of a brute actually and bossy too.

He is so good at helping his Mama. He wants to do it himself though. He was trying to reach something in the kitchen one day and I told him to go get his step. He always uses his step to get into the monster toy box but now he has figured out that it is his key to the world "up there"

He had his first Christmas program tonight and it went okay. The two's were a little too young to really get into it. But they tried. He made it about half way before he got bored and then ended up bonking his head on the microphone and sitting down on the floor with one of his teachers. He was literally the smallest of the children and he was just so cute.

We have made some progress in sleeping. Although he is passed out in the middle of the living room here, he almost always walks to bed now. However, this is where he sleeps. He won't sleep in his bed (his converted crib). He will play in it and lay down while he is playing but her won't sleep there. He will sleep in his chair in my room. At some point most nights he gets in bed with me but it isn't all night anymore and he goes to bed awake! I don't think he likes being alone to sleep, plus I think his room is noisy at night. The wind is pretty noisy. We are going to get him a big bed after we recover from Christmas. He is eating some food too. Food that little kids eat! He at two, TWO, hot dogs last night. Now, I don't think that is the greatest food (being so healthy and all) but it is a normal thing to eat and he is eating it! I'm proud of him though.

I adore my little guy and I'm sad I can't spend more good times with him. We have our moments when I am willing to pay someone to take him, but I just look forward to our time so much.

Well...

Okay, I need to back off a little. I am extremely thankful to say that Jake is over his milk allergy and they "think" he is over his egg allergy. However, it is going to take some time before he can just eat both if everything goes well. His back is still a mess from his skin testing Wednesday. His got additional drugs and increased his existing meds. We are supposed to wait until all is calm and then start the dairy. Bad parents we are, we have given him some already (he is on the new doses though). I have added 2%milk to his rice milk once a yesterday and once today. I have given him one of his favorite things in addition to that. It sounds like he is saying "wickert" but what he is jumping up and down and hollering for is yogurt. He LOVES yogurt. I got him some of the little bitty kid cups but I know he wants a whole carton. I thought we should go small for awhile. We tried giving him yogurt awhile back and we thought it was making his cheeks break out. Supposedly, that isn't it. They told us now it happens if he gets a lot of soy. That presents some significant issues. But if we can have eggs and dairy it should be a bit easier to cut the soy back. Soy is in practically everything packaged or ready-made of course! But now I should have an easier time trying to make things he can eat. I do most of my cooking from scratch so it is easier to control the ingredients.

So I feel a little bit bad for being so mad at the grandparents. I did make sure that they understood that they still can't just feed him whatever they want. This is going to take awhile to make sure he won't react to these things and to get his body used to dairy. His poor digestive system doesn't know how to handle it yet. Okay, but there is still the peanut portion of my irritation with Grandma. Mike talked to his dad and it didn't really go that well. Jake had such a bad skin reaction to the dilute peanut serum. They nurse and the PA doing the testing brought several other nurses in to look at his back because his reactions were so severe. Just a little education. That is fine. I just felt so miserable for him. The process hurt him and then the allergic response made his whole back go nuts. Now his back is covered in eczema and little scratch marks.

So, as I was saying, Mike talked to his dad about the peanuts. He was sorry they left the cup out. They never leave Jake alone so it isn't a problem. Mike told him that obviously it is a problem because even if they are in the same room with him, if he finds a cup of peanuts it is too late to prevent it. He is a little speed demon. Mike pointed out that he will have picked them up and have one or more in his mouth before they even realize what he has. We all know how they get something you don't see and put it in their mouths. We have all fished something out of baby mouths. Mike told his dad that they can no longer have peanuts in their house. That went over with Mike's mom like a ton of bricks. My suggestion had been that the peanuts/peanut butter need to be up on the top shelf in the cupboard not down at Jake's eye level like they are now. They still can't eat them when he is there and they have to make sure and clean everything up right then and there. Mike said absolutely not. No peanuts at all. He acknowledges that it is just too much for his mother to have to do to get it right. (okay, he said "you know she isn't smart enough to handle it" but I feel bad writing it even if it is true). Poor Mike got yelled at enough that he has given up trying to bring peanut butter M&Ms in the house in his lunch box from work. I admit that both Mike and I will indulge in our love of peanut butter when we are not at home and it will be a long time before we will be around Jake. It just isn't worth the risk to have the allergen around Jake. But grandma eats a lot of peanuts. A lot. A lot of candy containing peanut butter too (goes well with her diabetes and all). I'm not sure how this is going to work out. Mike may not let Jake go over there at all, ever. That helps our problem.

I had such a bad day at work Friday that had my boss been there I would have quit. I suppose it was in my favor she wasn't though, huh. I am a service coordinator for plastics and gynecology right? Well, my favorite charge nurse is the one that makes our room assignments every day. I don't ever get to be in my services. We have one plastic surgeon and she has one scheduled day a week in the OR. I get to work with her maybe every three weeks. But there is gynecologic surgery four days a week at least. I have not done a case in more than a month. I think it is very hard to do your job if you never get to work in the specialties. You are completely reliant on what others tell you/ask of you. If your coworkers don't tell you something needs to be changed on a card it can't happen. So then if the doctor decides to change something and tells the people they are working with and they don't pass it along, then next week when they want to do it exactly like they did it last week no ones. Then the doctor is pissed. Another issue we have is making sure a surgery gets scheduled in the computer for the right actual procedure. When the person puts it in the computer they have to match it up to a card. That card tells the people who pull the case what to pull and the people who do the case what they need and what to do. Well, if you don't match up a surgery to the right card it is a huge problem. It wastes a lot of people's time and it causes a lot of frustration. It also costs money. Supplies always end up getting wasted then. Well, Friday I got my ass chewed the entire time I gave a lunch to a coworker in the room where the plastic surgeon was working. She barely took a breath. There was nothing I could say or do, she just wanted to be mad at someone. Making sure what is on her cards is right is my job. I don't know how to get the people that schedule to get the right cards. I have tried and tried. I have told them to ask me. I have explained and explained. I finally have the ability to go in and change it in the computer but that is something that is very hard for me to do when I am in cases all day. We finally got permission to get slight overtime to work on some of our service coordinator duties. We can have one hour a week. That is something, but really need one day a week (not overtime, just a regular day) but we don't have the staff. Anyway, I was ready to quit after my ass chewing because I have been so frustrated about never getting to be in my own services. I'm so glad I got a warm welcome when I got there. Can't wait to work with her tomorrow because it is my once every three weeks!

Last but not least, Jake is allergic to the dogs and the cat. For this moment we aren't going to do anything. The dogs don't come in the house. The cat is almost fifteen. She isn't allowed in the bedroom and that is the biggest recommendation besides getting rid of her. My hormones are all over the place and that doesn't help with any of this. I am finally doing better. The pneumonia is gone. Still coughing, but a lot less. My energy is a lot better. I just feel like I am on the verge of tears a lot. I suppose that is why my ass is so big.