A LONG RAMBLING POST ABOUT THE CRAPTASTIC GOODNESS THAT IS MY LIFE RIGHT NOW

I'm alive.

I have been composing blog posts daily (really good ones too!) but typing them out is far too difficult recently.

We are trying to get ready for Christmas. I would not recommend trying to squeeze a new baby into the holiday season. New babies are a LOT of work. Molly is growing like a weed...time is getting away from me and she is already close to a MONTH old.

As bad as I have been about blogging, I have been even worse about returning emails and phone calls. I have a friend that lives far less than a mile away. I haven't seen her since this summer (before I was telling people about the pregnancy), then decided to only tell people in person, and with not returning phone calls and all, this friend has no idea that I was ever pregnant again! Now how can I call her?!?!? What do I say in response to her email wanting to get together?!?!?! "Oh, by the way, since I last saw you I HAD A BABY!"

It also doesn't help that every time I actually answer the phone it's some bad news. I told Gary last week that we need to get rid of the phone completely, because I just can't hear anymore bad news. Then I get a call from a relative who starts the conversation by telling me that she has news, was specifically asked not to tell ME, yet here she is, telling me, even when I also told her not to. Ugh. Her reasoning? It shouldn't be a secret.

In the past week we have dealt with an eye infection of Gary's that had him in the ER many times, and they eventually just left the IV in and told him to come back every 24 hours for more antibiotics. That was fun, with the highlight being the very first night when they had him all doped up on morphine and he left 800 messages on the answering machine because I was asleep and not answering the phone.

Joshua broke out in the worse hives I have EVER seen, and they lasted 4 days before the doctor finally put him on steroids. The poor kid was all swollen and looked AWFUL. Then I had the pharmacist yell at me, then she told me that she didn't have all of the prescriptions, refused to call the doctor to straiten it out, yelled at me again, then proceed to ignore me for 20 minutes. In total it took me 40 minutes of sitting at the drive-through trying to get his medicine. I can't believe that I didn't cry but I did not want to give her the satisfaction. The steroids did not help the hives, and it wasn't until the next day at 4 am when he woke us up wanting more Benadryl (that we did not have and sparked a drive all over town trying to find some!) that we figured out what was causing the hives. It was his pillow and blanket. Yup. The kid said several times that he felt much worse when he was in bed, and finally realized that his pillow and blanket are goose down. (did I spell down right?) He then remembered breaking out in a rash a long time ago when having a pillow fight, and another time in the birdseed aisle. Smart kid. We all went back to sleep after throwing his pillow outside for the night. When I woke up in the morning he was gone. I began to panic, then noticed that his backpack was gone. After almost 5 days of near death (no, not really!) the child felt perfectly fine and got himself off to school!

Also, one relative is dying, another needs an immediate surgury due to cancer concerns, and a young unmarried relative is going to be a parent. That's about all I can say right now about any of those emotional minefields.

I had to run Katherine's backpack into her this week and the teacher completely ignored me, save for a slight lowering of her head to acknowledge my presence. Nice. I whispered to Katherine that I was going to Ms. H's classroom to show her the baby, as Katherine has been begging for a photo* to show her. Ms. H was Noah's teacher for two years, Katherine's for two years, and Anna's while she was here. Remember how I was just completely ignored in Ms. I'm the Biggest Bitch Ever's class? Well Ms. H got right up and oohed and ahhed over Molly. She was so happy to get to see the real baby and not just a photo. All of her students came over to have a look. Ms. H told them it was Katherine's sister, then said, "You all remember Anna! This is Anna's...(looks at me with sympathy) Anna's baby sister. Yeah, that didn't stir anything up! From there I went downtown where some shopkeepers asked me about a sick relative (see minefield above!).

*There isn't a picture to bring in because I haven't taken any. I know!

My sister was coming through town on her way home from a business trip and would have approximately one minute to visit, so I wanted to round all the kids up to say hello. I called each school and told them what time I would be there, and could they please have the child in the office. Not for the first time Katherine was not waiting for me. I asked the secretary to please call down again and she hadn't even left the classroom yet. She was my first pickup so the message the teacher got before I left the house was to send her to the office NOW. More waiting. Finally she arrives and the secretary quietly tells me that Ms. I'm the Biggest Bitch Ever sometimes has a hard time releasing the kids. Yeah, no kidding. This isn't the first time that I have had to wait a lifetime. In fact, avoiding that wait was the whole point of calling ahead! So then both boys had to sit in the office waiting forever as well, because their teachers are capable of following instructions and not at all interested in screwing with people just because they can.

Some days I think, "Boy, I'm having a bad day!" Then I think, "Well, it's really been all week. No, month. It's been at LEAST a month....you know, it's been a bad long time." I don't want people to worry though as I feel okay, just teary when I think about any of the off limit topics. I have been taking the fish oil and I think it's really helping. I don't feel the need to move south and have not once mentioned anything about impending death if I don't get some beach RIGHT AWAY! I know that it isn't even technically winter yet, but I am usually pretty sick of winter before it even starts, so I think I'm ahead of the curve in that respect.

The worst news of all the recent bad news is that we have eaten all of the toffee* that was alloted for our family's consumption. We now need to choose between having no toffee to eat, or no presents to give. Oh crap!

*And every Oreo ball such that we now have no Oreo balls to eat AND none to give as gifts. Double crap!

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