Struggling

I'm struggling. I have so much stuff that I need to do, and not enough time to do get it done. I feel like I'm caught in an undertow, and fighting for air!

It doesn't help matters that Alice is teething and cranky. Add in a horrible diaper rash, and yeast infection that requires constant changing and slathering on creams. Then I've got a little fuss bucket, whom does not like garlic, and a mommy who forgets those things. I have been up the past two days with a screaming, gassy baby. Poor little guy!

I probably wouldn't feel this overwhelmed if I had some sleep. I swear I get one asleep and the next one is getting up!

I hate Sean's new schedule. He has been leaving around midnight and getting home somewhere between 2-3. He almost immediately goes to sleep, gets up for dinner, and then goes back to sleep until he gets called in (usually around 10-10:30pm). This sucks! Unfortunately, I think this is how life will be for awhile.

And for those wondering, he does help out some. I just worry about him driving and falling asleep, so I try to enable him to get as much sleep as possible (try keeping a Daddy's girl quiet and away-she went in and threw a few of her toys at him today because he wasn't awake to play with her, and I was nursing). I think it is fair to say she is struggling with this new schedule too. Heck, Sean is also!

I have not had time to read (or comment) on many of your blogs. Please don't take it personally. I enjoy keeping up with everyone. I may only get to you every few days, but I'm reading (and lately doing one mass comment for all your posts-tacky, right?). I'm just doing what I can, when I can. So bear with me. I'm struggling with our new schedule here, and it has thrown me the biggest curve ball. This pitcher is good, but I'm determined not to strike out!

Annoyances

As the title may suggest, this is a part vent post.

Awhile back, I mentioned a vent about Facebook here. Well today I will touch on that. Don't worry... I will get to Alice's 10 Month Post later today or tomorrow.

Do you have friends on FB that annoy you? I only ask this because there are two "friends" (and I say that b/c neither of them are really friends; more like acquaintances) that annoy the utter hell out of me. Seriously. One gal... all she ever says in her comments to me are "awwww. LOL." or "awww" or "hehe". Seriously? Is that all you have to say? And my sister can vouch for this b/c she asked me what was up with her. Another gal, whom I went to high school with, is just SOOOOOO negative. Don't get me wrong, I can be a negative person. I vent (I am now!). But I also have positive and fun things to talk about. This gal is always, always, always cussing out her ex and his girlfriend. She is always posting about not being able to get over him. And then goes back to cussing him out. And occasionally there will be a cute update about her son or daughter...but immediately afterwards, it is all volatile again. Seriously? Get some therapy. I (and I'm assuming every other one of your "friends") am not your therapist. Why I haven't de-friended them yet, I do not know. Other than, they don't really deserve it. Perhaps I secretly love their stupidity.

The one gal that I did de-friend (and wrote about in that post) really deserved it. She was a former co-worker. I only "friended" her because all of my co-workers wanted to see pictures of Alice when she was born. Of course, I only friended a few of them. First, some background...

I never really liked this gal. Something about her just rubbed me the wrong way, but I figured it was because I was pregnant most of the time I had known her. Though my sister will disagree with that, as I was WAY nicer than I ever was when I was pregnant. I was a HAPPY pregnant woman. If I could just always be pregnant (and only the second trimester) for the rest of my life... but I digress. After Alice was born, I posted something about how painful it was to watch her get her immunizations. I know all of you moms out there know what I'm talking about. Well she posts something along the lines of "That is what I deserve for giving her Satan's shots" or something like that. Her youngest son (part of a set of twins-boy/girl) has autism. And she is part of the population that autism is caused by immunizations. No, I'm not going to get in to that. If you believe that, then you are entitled to do so. So she had already upset me.

Fast forward a few months... I return to work, to find out she has quit! YAY! So I forget that she is one of my friends. Well my supervisor (and this is a whole different post for another day~trust me this one is GREAT!) found out her husband had been cheating on her (this is like the umpteenth time it has happened since I have known her for 7+ years). Ironically enough, there was also another lady who works in the building (whom I consider a co-worker as I've known her almost 10 years) whose husband also cheated on her (for the second time). Well, I put up an update on FB asking what you would do if your spouse cheated on you multiple times; and the only clarification I put was that it wasn't Sean or myself. Well, along comes this gal posting a comment about "Shame on you. You need to worry about your own husband and quit publishing that girl's private life on the Internet. Clean your hands of the devil. She has done nothing to you. She has always kept all of our private information confidential..." and probably some more stuff. Well, that pissed me off. First off, how presumptuous of her to assume I was talking about our supervisor. Second, how is asking a question (with NO ONE being named or detailed) doing the devil's work? And FINALLY, that gal whom "we trusted with private details of our lives and who keeps it all confidential"... HAHAHA! Everything... and I do mean EVERYTHING, that anyone has told her in confidence, she has told me and my other co-worker. EVERYTHING! I know that this gal was cheating on her husband, and that is why they split. I know that she had ovarian cancer and had surgery to remove it when she was off work for 6 or so weeks. I know every small detail about everyone's lives in this office. There are no secrets, if you tell our supervisor. In fact, if there is something I want to keep in confidence (and I have to tell someone at work) I tell my co-worker. She is the only person who will keep her mouth shut... with the exception of our male part-timer (but he probably didn't want to know when I first found out I was pregnant). So what did I do? I sent her back an equally haughty comment, and told her all of the stuff that I just wrote, plus something about if she was such a "Christian" then why was she judging me. And then I defriended her. Who needs haughty, holier-than-thou "friends" who only write negative comments about my hands doing the devil's work? Not I. I am just suprised that she didn't get our supervisor in trouble, since I knew all of these private, confidential things that she told our GREAT supervisor. (I think I threw up in my mouth when I wrote that)

And that folks, is my vent about Facebook. Have you de-friended anyone? Would you ever leave comments like that on someone's page? I know I wouldn't. I don't leave any comment, anywhere, that I wouldn't like to receive myself. And if that means that I have to disagree with you (albeit politely) I will.

Trying not to get bent out of shape

I was going to post pictures of Alice today, but I need to get something off my chest so that will be pushed back.

While I proclaim myself to be laid-back now, I wasn't always so. In fact, it has been quite a journey. I would get thrown in to a tizzy if plans were changed or things didn't go exactly as I had planned. So most of the time, I was high-strung, irritable, crabby, and the list goes on and on. I can only credit Alice for this growth that I have made.

A little background first. I have been at my job (in my current position almost 8 years) for almost 10 years. I work at a bank. I do processing. Basically, when you deposit your checks, make your payments, transfers, etc. I am the person actually doing that transaction. The tellers are the "front-line" people. Technically, I really do the balancing and corrections. Inevitably, customers can't add or get all their checks in their deposits, or have extra checks. Of course, this goes both ways... tellers can't get their work right either; sometimes there is actual cash in the work. Have you ever read your receipt from your bank where it says something along the lines of "Transaction subject to verification by the Bank". Here is where I come in. I make a correction to make the transaction balance. Whether you get money credited or money debited, I am the one doing that at my bank.

Okay, so I get to work today and my manager tells me that our whole severance is being pushed back a month. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal. Great, I get at least 4 more weeks of income, and my severance could potentially be a bit larger. There are a few problems. Granted, not problems of great monstrosity, but they are there. Perhaps mostly just perceived in my still "trying to be laid-back" mind, but in actuality I'm trying not to get bent out of shape. See, I wasn't planning on really staying at my job after I had Alice. I was going to come back for the required 30 work days and then put in a two week notice. I was burnt out. I hated the place most of the time. Sean agreed that I should stay home and work on getting back in school. Well, when I came back they told me then that it was 100% guaranteed that they were closing us down. It was just a matter of when. So I talked to Sean, and we decided that I should stay on until then. I mean, why not? We were only talking about maybe 9-10 months, and then I could get a 30 week severance. Granted, that doesn't last forever, but it would be just fine and dandy to get paid to stay home with my baby.

We were supposed to get our severance package (9 weeks out from the expected end date) tomorrow. However, they pushed that back to next week (June 3). And today, I found out they pushed that back a month. So we are looking at roughly July 7th probably. Figure in 9 weeks... that makes it September 8th (I'm just guessing dates here people). Well that puts a kink in my plans. I wanted to travel with Alice to visit relatives. I wanted to enjoy the summer and go swimming.

Should I also mention that Alice's babysitter is pregnant. Her EDD is September 30 (I believe), but she will be having a repeat c-section at least a week or two earlier than that. Do you see where this is going? If the bank pushes this back anymore I'm going to be out a sitter. What do I do with Alice? I can't very well find someone to watch her with my hours (I am scheduled until 11 pm, but most nights I get off by 9:30pm) and only temporarily at that. And what if I do find someone? Will I have to pay them a lot more than the current sitter because of the time and it is only temporary? ARGH! FREAKING OUT!

Calming down... I know it will all work out. I'm just frustrated. I want to BE.DONE.NOW. NOW, NOW, NOW! At least I am on vacation until Tuesday after I get out of here tonight.

This Laid-Back Mama is About To ERUPT!

Yesterday, I got a text from the babysitter saying she had strep throat. So trying to give her a day to rest (she is pregnant) and thinking I'd save ourselves the potential of getting it, I made other arrangements. Turns out, I wish I would have just taken Alice down there and risked the possibility of strep...

My brother agreed to come to the bank to pick up Alice when he got off of work. So Alice was at work with me for about 2 hours. Lets just say that it is really hard to get work done with an almost nine month old walking and crawling around... and oooh outlets! Fun stuff!

So he picks her up a little before 5 pm, and I transfer the carseat to my sister-in-law's car (which is a coupe)... that took about 10 minutes of creative wrangling on my part. Try getting a Britax in a small coupe. HA! Then I went over the whole eating/bottle/sleep thing with him. I called on my pumping break to see how things were going. He informed me that his wife was irritated with him (and possibly me) for not knowing when "a 9 month old last ate or slept". So I told him to try to give her some of the bottle, and if she didn't want it then heat up her little meal. I have been buying the Gerber meals for toddlers/preschoolers for the babysitters... it is easier when doing BLW (baby-led weaning) and I also know what she is eating.

So I get off of work and go pick her up about 10pm. My SIL gives me a run-down of the evening. Alice slept for 8 minutes! Yes, 8 minutes! I mumbled something about the sleep regression thing (she claims to know nothing about it). Then she says she was really fussy and crying most of the evening. Oh, and she only ate just a few ounces (FIVE!), but she just kept chewing on the nipple and playing with the bottle.
No big deal, I think. She just didn't want milk.

So we get home, and I start unpacking things and find her meal in the bag. Along with her cheerios and goldfish. ALL UNEATEN! No wonder my baby was crying and fussy... she was STARVING! So I quickly heat up her meal (who has time to make food when I can heat up her meal in 30 seconds and give it to her) and feed it to her. She ate it all in less than 7 minutes! I have never seen any child eat anything so fast in all my life. Then I nursed her and she fell asleep. I put her in her crib, where she slept for 33 minutes before she was back in bed with us and nursing most of the night.

I have a few problems with this whole thing. First, I'm not sure where the problem broke down, but I have two guesses (and either one could very much be the correct assumption)... my brother, either out of not caring or his inferior baby knowledge skills to his wife, decided not to tell her about the meal. OR she decided not to give it to her. I know she had to have seen it... it was right next to the diapers and wipes. Perhaps she thought my baby shouldn't be eating solids. All I know, is that my baby was crying and I'm sure they ate in front of her. Poor baby! I don't care what your personal opinion on feeding a baby is. You want to give your baby purees-fine. You want me to give your baby purees-fine. I give my child solids. I ALWAYS have. If you have a problem with that, I'm sorry. Get over it. Feed my baby.

I think I should also mention that my SIL is a NICU nurse. She claims she is "The Baby Whisperer". I also know she has not read a single thing on baby/child development... and she is 33 weeks pregnant. YUP! She tried to tell me that I needed to put Alice on a feeding schedule every three hours. I told her you can't do that with a breast-fed baby. I have also told her about BLW and wonderweeks, and a few other things that I "buy" into. She hasn't heard of any of this stuff. I think now may be a good time to try to figure it out. Just sayin'.

So I spent the majority of the night awake. And feeling like a horrible mommy. I cried. I still feel like crying, but now I'm more to the screaming part. Alice is fine. I think she has probably forgotten all about being hungry. Thankfully, she will not remember any of this. Me... well I unfortunately will not.

Just a Vent

*or Because I Can

I know I need to update on what has been going on (A LOT), but I just have a little vent I need to get out. And since I can't vent (apparently) on Facebook, without a bunch of "friends" ripping in to me, well here we are...

When you ask a question on Facebook (or another social networking site), wouldn't the appropriate response be to answer that question? You know... instead of ripping in to the person for asking it. I don't care whether you feel I'm right in asking the question or not; you may disregard my comment and make none of your own. I didn't ask my question and then ask if you thought I was the Devil's Spawn for asking it. I also didn't ask whether you thought I would get fired for posting that comment (and NO-I'm not that intellectually inept to keep my profile open for all to see... FB has settings you know).

Well, I suppose you are probably wondering what I asked (it has since been deleted-as well as a few "friends"). You will have to wait until I have more time (I'm on break at work) and I will explain more. Though I will say, that this vent is about two separate updates on my part and there corresponding comments.

Til then...
Sarah