Ever grab two brownies off of a plate in a dark room, take several bites before you wander into a room with the lights on, then, upon being able to see the little plate you are holding notice that it’s swarming with ants? If your answer is no, be grateful. If it’s yes, then can you please tell me how long it takes to get that ‘something is crawling down my throat’ gaggy feeling to go away?
My first mini album sold on ebay and I would like to thank the buyer and also the people who drove the price up. You know who you are. There are two more still going, and I already have another in the works. This ebay thing could be a good thing. At least it will keep me in paper and glue so my husband doesn’t have to take away my car keys and chop up my debit card.
Maggie is eating. Remember back when everything was nasty? She now thinks food is great. I try to be selective about what she eats, what with her immature digestive system and the fact that she needs healthy food more than sugar, but Jonas believes in the old ‘share and share alike,’ so Maggie has been eating whatever he sneaks out of the kitchen. Once this week I found them giggling on the kitchen floor shoving hand fulls of cheddar cheese into their faces. Another time, Jonas put his bowl of Hamburger Helper (which I make once a year just to remind myself that I don’t like it, even if it is easy) on the floor and walked away. I found Maggie five minutes later, face first in the bowl eating to her heart’s content. I’ve never seen an infant enjoy beef so much. Since the Hamburger Helper incident, Maggie will scream if I don’t give her some of what I’m eating. If I try to fake her out and give her freeze dried apples or vegetables while I’m snarfing Oreos and ice cream she has a total meltdown. I suppose this means I’m going to need to Be A Good Example, but in order for that to happen she is going to have to quit having night terrors because I’m so tired all I crave is chocolate and caffeine.
It’s my favorite day of the month, payday! And my friend in England commissioned me to make her daughters some scrapbook pages, so I have an iron clad reason to hit the scrapbook store! Woo-hoo!
The people from the camera shop in Connecticut called me last night and told me that Best Buy should be getting my camera in today. I called Best Buy and they said it wasn’t there yet, but they’d call me when it arrived. I was all, “yeah, right, when does your mail get in”. The guy told me to check after four. So, after four, I could possibly be getting my camera back! I’m quivering with excitement!
Posted by Lou on September 30, 2005 @ 6:09 pm | 3 Comments
You ever have one of those days where you are going along all innocently then someone verbally smacks you upside the head with a two by four and it leaves you stunned and slightly disoriented all day? That was today.
I was handling life as best I could. I flooded the kitchen this morning because I put the water on to clean the sink and then absentmindedly walked away (don’t laugh, absentmindedness is supposed to be a sign of intelligence), but I cleaned it up alright. I finally unpacked my bedroom so I now know where all of my clothes are. I even made brownies.
I was invited to attended a make ten cards for ten dollars party that had free babysitting ( how could I refuse?) So I went to that with a friend and was having a very nice time until someone walked in and decided to make some insensitive remarks about my son and his behavior at church. I ignored the initial comment, hoping that maybe if I just turned a deaf ear she would realize how asinine her remarks were, but noooooo, she had to expound upon his less than stellar moments and then call my husband’s disciplinary tactics into question. Nothing she had to say had any bearing on the moment or had any way of possibly benefitting anyone at the table in any manner at all. She seemed to have no clue that what she said was offensive and rude, even though my responses were curt. This same woman once pulled over when she saw me out for a walk with Jonas and had to bring up how horrible he was at church that morning. Why would someone do that? Earlier that day at church I had gotten stressed out to the point of getting hives (because he was having a pretty bad day, and that’s what happens when my stress level hits nuclear levels), and so it was SO UNBELIEVABLY THOUGHTFUL of her to keep rubbing it in. All I can figure, because I just can’t imagine someone deliberately trying to be a heartless poop, is that she thinks it’s amusing or engaging small talk. It’s not. It HURTS. This is my psyche saying, “ow.”
On the way home I mentioned it to my friend and she asked what my response was. In retrospect, my response stunk. Upon the first rude comment I probably should have responded with a sarcastic, “thanks”, or something else that might have clued her in to her rudeness and shut her down, but being me, I had absolutely nothing to respond with until after the fact. I just sat there trying to form cohesive thoughts while my mind said, “what the heck is the matter with you” and then breathed a sigh of relief when the onslaught was over.
I think I was simply trying to get over the shock of the rudeness without being equally rude or making things worse and so I tend to just have to sit there and stuff whatever I’m really feeling until the other person shuts up.
It kills me that people feel the need to make comments like this. Jonas has special needs. I’ve informed the people over his church nursery class. And I’ve seen marked improvements in the past few months. The people who are just meeting him now don’t see the same child as the people who have been working with him for the past year, and they don’t make the same comments. I really think some of these people have things set in their minds about him, and they fail to recognize any growth or development.
This comment came during a pretty tough week. Every time I have been in a large group of people in the past week I have had to fight a panic attack. Only once did I lose control and have to leave the situation and even that didn’t get as bad as it could have. A panic attack is a pretty horrible thing. I get hot and short of breath and my heart races and I get dizzy and feel disorientated. Most days when I feel that panic feeling coming I can tell myself to chill out and take the control back. Most of the time I don’t even deal with them, but something about the past week has set me off, and they have been dog piling. I can’t help but be grateful that this upcoming weekend is a broadcast weekend at church so I can sit in the safety of my scraproom and listen to the wonderful speakers over the internet, far away from people who make hurtful comments and far away from the big crowds that have been making me feel so hemmed in and panicky. Hopefully by next week I’ll feel braver and be able to face church on Sunday. Hopefully I’ll be able to avoid insensitive people.
Posted by Lou on September 29, 2005 @ 5:07 am | 17 Comments
On the sheet of paper Best Buy gave me when I dropped off the camera to be repaired it says that the scheduled completion date was the 20th. So when I dropped by on the 20th and was told the 25th, I was a little bitter, but hey, only five days, and I can handle that. Fast forward to today.
I call Best Buy and ask where my camera is. I talk to Customer Service wench, Marianne, who says she’ll find someone to help me and proceeds to hang up on me, instead of putting me on hold. So I call back, tell her who I am, and she acts annoyed with me and says, “I’m getting someone, just wait a minute.” Then prances off to do who knows what without letting me tell her that she hung up on me.
About three minutes later I get to talk to some guy who has no clue about the status of my camera, only that it isn’t there. He does manage to tell me, after much clicking of his keyboard, that it was received at the Connecticut camera repair shop they hire to fix stuff for them. I start asking him about the wait time, and he says that they have a thirty day policy and it hasn’t been thirty days yet. He then gives me the number to the repair shop so I can check on it myself and he can get back to discussing Magic cards or Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is the pimply Geek Squad people do while they take an hour in the back room to answer a simple question.
I call Connecticut and get their brand of “customer service” which is listening to a long list of non important information and then being told to leave a message without any promise of your message being acknowledged or returned. I leave my message between clenched teeth, hang up and call Best Buy back, where I ask to speak with a manager and get the same grease ball I started with.
I explain to him that this company’s reluctance to provide him or me with any information really isn’t good customer service. He goes on and on about how this can take from two to four weeks depending on back ordered parts (which they usually get informed about, but since we have no information, clearly, he hasn’t been). I ask him at what point they just replace the camera so I can get back to my life. I explain that I bought the expensive warranty so I didn’t have to be without a camera for long periods of time. It gets me no where.
Last time my film camera broke, I brought it in under warranty and it was replaced right there with no questions asked. Policy has changed in the past few years, I guess, and not for the better. I suppose with a camera they think that if they can fix it, it will save them more money to not just replace it outright, but since it takes so long the only reasonable option left to me is to, upon finding my camera in need of repair, cause it enough damage to render it obviously unrepairable, so that they replace it with more immediacy and don’t make me crazy waiting for it!
So, for now, I just sit here and stew and look at the large pile of Gymboree clothing and Leap Frog stuff I have to list on eBay, but cannot take pictures of. I keep watching my baby grow without being able to take a picture of how cute she is. And I plan my nasty letter to several different branches of Best Buy, if upon hitting the thirty day mark I am still without answers.
Posted by Lou on September 26, 2005 @ 11:20 pm | 11 Comments
I’ve got a few housekeeping matters to take care of, so here they are:
1. Listed another album on ebay!
I’m getting a little eBay happy, what can I say? It is a very pretty autumn album, and sadly, the scans don’t do it justice (Supposedly I get my camera back this week- I certainly hope so!). I’m going to try to do more stuff on eBay, so if you would like to be added to a mailing list just e-mail me or leave your e-mail in the comments section. Thanks to those of you who have bid on my other album, my little heart goes pitter-patter every time I see a new bid. It’s got three days left so this should be interesting. . .
2. I have been replying to most comments in e-mail form, but I have decided to start replying to them more in the comment section. If any of you are feeling hurt that I haven’t e-mailed you back, perhaps it is because every time I try it bounces back to me. This has happened with quite a few of you guys.
3. It has also come to my attention that a few more people from my real life are reading this, so welcome. I hope you guys don’t learn so much about me you hate me, or think I’m completely nuts. Do comment on occasion, I like to “see” you! I also enjoy phone calls from people laughing hysterically because they were reading my blog and had to call and tell me. Perks up my day, that’s for sure.
This isn’t really housekeeping, but it’s very important to today so I’m listing it anyway.
4. Maggie is wearing her first pair of tights today. They are ruffle-butted tights, and I must say, there is nothing quite so cute as a Ruffle-Butted-Baby!
Now, I must away to the kitchen where a sink full of dishes awaits! Hope you enjoy your stay here! *leaves cyber mint on keyboard*
Posted by Lou on September 25, 2005 @ 9:10 pm | 5 Comments
I have dealt with migraine headaches for about ten years. I was first diagnosed when I was in high school. For about a year I complained of horrible pain in my face, mostly around the eyes. My doctor thought I had a never ending sinus infection and so I was prescribed antibiotics at increasingly toxic levels for about a year and a half before the doctor finally ordered a CT scan to figure out what the heck was going on. We learned two things. To begin with, I didn’t have a sinus infection or a brain tumor. Which was good. Secondly we learned that my sinuses are totally out of wack. One is very small and one is very large and I am pretty sure this is why I get so dizzy when I get stuffed up. My theory is that the air in my head can’t equalize and so it makes my eustachian tubes go haywire and I get vertigo. But that isn’t really pertinent to this story, so anyway.
My doctor sent me to a neurologist who listened to me talk about my symptoms for all of two seconds before she diagnosed me with chronic migraines. (Defined as at least four out of seven days a week I was living with a headache). Then she put me on a daily medication, a medication to take when the pain got bad, and something to take when the pain got worse. I was set!
I faithfully took my medication and I’ll never forget one day when I was walking down the hall at South High School (original name, huh?) And I had the thought that, gee, wasn’t I having a pleasant day. I couldn’t figure out the root of this good day until it hit me that for the first time in probably a year my head didn’t hurt. I couldn’t help but become envious of normal people who got to live like this every day. They always seemed so nice, but now I understood why I was edgy and cranky almost all of the time. I mean was it any wonder that I could be a total shrew at a moments notice? I was in constant pain!
This euphoria lasted about two weeks. At that point the medication quit working and we spent the next three years filling new prescriptions that my body figured out how to work around in a matter of weeks. Finally, I was sent to college with Maaxalt and a new drug called Neurontin.
I didn’t touch the new drug for about two months, until I had a killer migraine and it was about midnight and I was incapable of sleep. I had a seven-thirty class the next morning so I popped two, wrote a note of what I took in case it killed me and my roommates found my cold, lifeless body the next morning, and went right to sleep.
The alarm woke me up at seven. I stood up and the room literally spun. I picked up my jeans and tried to pull them on, but fell over, crashing into my closet on the way down. This class was not one that could be missed without severe consequences, so I grabbed a sweatshirt and stumbled down the stairs and out the door where I proceeded to swagger and sway like a drunk, tripping over my own feet all the way across campus to the History building. I got to my class, grabbed onto my desk and managed to ease myself into the seat just before two of my professor walked in. I have no idea what the lecture was on that day, only that two of one fat man in a big purple shirt was definitely one too many. After class, I staggered back home and slept off the rest of the drug induced haze.
Upon waking I decided that perhaps I should have only taken one of the pills. The bottle had said to take one or two depending on severity of pain, but I never expected anything like the aforementioned reaction. A few weeks later I had another migraine and thought I would try just one. Now, one proved to be the magic number. Not that it killed the pain any, but it gave me quite the high and made me happy, yes, very happy. I vaguely remember rolling down my hall giggling like a maniac at unfunny things like cracks in the wall and people studying chemistry. My friends, seeing that I was clearly not well, and that our quaint little Utah college was not ready for the likes of Miss High As A Kite, took me into their room until I returned to my normal self a few hours later.
I never took Neurontin again after that experience, and I’ve never met anyone who got sent to the moon quite like I did on it. I can tell you though, that were I ever to become a junkie, prescription drugs would be my drug of choice.
Posted by Lou on September 24, 2005 @ 5:28 pm | 6 Comments
Maggie has started having night terrors. A night terror, for those of you fortunate enough to not have to deal with them, is when a person appears awake while sleeping and is screaming bloody hell.
It sounds like all you would have to do is wake the person up to get them to shut up, but it doesn’t work that way. It’s like sleepwalking; these people are nearly impossible to wake, so the screaming can go on for literally hours.
Jonas had these when he was about twelve months old. Chris has gone to basic training and we were visiting my family for a month. Every single night he would refuse to go to sleep until he passed out at about midnight, then about an hour later he would start the screaming and thrashing. That usually lasted about forty-five minutes, and only ended after he had cried so hard that he projectile vomited all over my sister’s room a few times (how they ever sold that house is beyond me), then he would fall back to sleep and leave me shaking and numb on the edge of my bed.
I would fall back to sleep and then we’d do it all over again in about an hour. The entire month I was at my parents I averaged two hours of sleep a night. I was exhausted to the point of stupidity. I would get hungry, throw food in the oven and leave the house. I can’t even remember nintey precent of what we did while I was home I was so sleep deprived. It was like having three newborns. Jonas certainly didn’t help matters any because he wouldn’t even nap he was so shook up about going to sleep.
Until I knew what was going on, I was pretty freaked out by all of this. I mean, seriously, who screams like that for no good reason? We visited the ER, talked to friends, and finally upon consulting my mother in-law she sadly informed me that her kids had done this too. I still just figured it was a weird Jonas thing, and that he was having a lot to adjust to what with Chris being gone and staying at his grandparents, but now we have Maggie doing the same thing (minus the vomiting, thank heavens), and all she did was move to a nicer house. C’mon children! Adjust already! We’re moving up in the world!
I was up until one am last night trying to get Maggie to settle down, then Chris came home and took over. It took me several months to figure out how to win the night terror battle with Jonas. His occurred primarily when he was overtired. Jonas naps were nothing short of sacred for over a year because I knew if he missed it I would pay for it dearly later. They did get worse when Maggie was first born, so I was up a lot with him then too. I never even contemplated subsequent children doing this to me. ( I guess it was just too horrible to consider). It’s such a mean trick of nature. And I’m so tired!
Posted by Lou on September 23, 2005 @ 2:57 am | 8 Comments
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