sight isn’t always necessary

I’ve been wondering about this lately.  I’ve been wondering about it especially because I’ve been so stressed out that I find myself muttering things under my breath that I dare not let slip out in full force.  Then, when I’m talking to myself to console myself on how it’s ok that I’m having these feelings, the “other” me tells the stressed out one that I’m just being honest with myself, as if that is an acceptable excuse.

Is honesty that useful if it hurts the people closest to me?  Is it beneficial to be standoffish to my husband just because I’m bored or stressed or his beard is bothering me, or should I ditch the honesty and fabricate a carefree “me”, willing to drop all television programs and late-night studying for some good one-on-one time with my husband of almost ten years?  Maybe if I was able to lie to myself more often, I could get more frequent “relief” of stress.  In bed, that is.

Maybe I should stop being honest with myself.  Maybe all of this internal honesty is just the easiest coping mechanism, much easier than actually trying to relax or trying to prioritize or trying to be more efficient.  Instead of making excuses for myself, I probably should try to change some of these behaviors and habits I have developed.

I should work on school related items, for instance, when I finally have a few hours alone because Craig took the kids to the museum.  I should complete some assignments, and maybe even study, rather than post on my blog.

Not only is tomorrow the first day of full-day Kindergarten for our first little kid, but it’s also the day I have to go into school and get checked off on some skills competencies for nursing school.  The day after that is my first full-day lab, and the day after that is my first full-day clinical experience.

It’s not that I’m worried I won’t be successful, I’m just wondering how I’m going to handle the stress.  This week especially has been relaxing and uneventful, and I’m almost wishing it were more hectic to ease me into this lifestyle I’ve been moving toward; one of rushed dinners and late-night studying.  And more.  I’ve deleted about ten different “other” things that my life will include just while writing this post, because each of them seems so dark and dreary, but in fact this is what I’ve been striving for all this time.

I should be doing a hundred different things; getting binders ready, downloading stuff onto my netbook so it’ll be available, putting Connor’s lunch together (or at least adding this little note I wrote to him… way cute), reading the hundreds of pages of crap that I need to have read by Thursday.

I’m blogging.  Where the heck is my brain?

Fuck.

I use this word abundantly, and so for me, the brashness of the word is lost a little.  I try hard not to, but I use it around my kids all the time, too.  I’m a lot better about not doing it around other children.  I know I shouldn’t say it around Connor especially, because he’s like a little sponge and is likely to use it around his friends at school, but if it’s a little mistake I make in parenting than I’m willing to live with the consequences.  He knows I love him, he’s well fed and happy, and if his mommy has a dirty mouth it’s a pretty minor offense, in my opinion.

As far as it goes for this blog, I use the word constantly and without care.  I also use this blog constantly and without fearing the repercussions of what I write.  The reason?  It’s stream-of-consciousness writing that helps me to diffuse myself before I explode on someone I love.  If I explode on my keyboard, the only thing that could happen is I break it, and have to spring another $30 for a new one.  If I explode toward Craig for a simple thing like buying Lunchables, I’m risking creating a rift in my marriage that cannot be mended, and that’s a risk I’m not willing to take (usually).  So I explode here.

Emotions aren’t meant to be held in.  I let them out freely and honestly because I don’t want to become something I’m not; I don’t want to put on a happy face just to please the masses when it doesn’t please me.  I’m not an unhappy person, and this blog is what helps me to BE a happy person.  Really, if I can get rid of negativity by putting it in print, isn’t that a good thing?

I’ve been stressed lately.  Isn’t that probably always the case in life?  But very recently, my stress levels have been elevated, so my entries here have been exceptionally angry and frustrated.  I’ll get through it.  This too shall pass.

I was making cookies with Connor yesterday and he was making me crazy, so I was yelling at him and moving stuff around frustratedly, when he looked up at me with his big blue eyes and said, “Mommy, sometimes you just need to relax.”

Bam.

I did.

If I weren’t always so pissed off?

Today has been hard.  I don’t even know why – probably unseen stress in my life.  Maybe it’s the fact that I have two fucking days to take a final exam, which is comprehensive by the way, and absolutely no time to study for it?  Yeah, that could be it.  I was going crazy this morning with my kids, so I took them to the beach.  I figured the half hour drive there and back might give me a whole one hour of fucking rest all day, so I packed up a little lunch and hit the road.  I was irritated at the beach but at least there was sand and sun, so I managed.  The rest of the afternoon was uneventful.  I put both of the kids to bed, and Elly has been up a bunch of times at least screaming her head off since I put her down.  The first eight times she cried, I was the only one here to calm her down because Craig was out getting the groceries we needed so badly.  Now he’s home, and he’s been up there two or three times, one of which ended in him bringing her downstairs so that I could feed her.  After I fed her, I took her up to lay down again, and she was sleeping when I left the room until my foot hit the top stair, when she started screaming again.  I gave up and Craig went upstairs to console her, so I walked down to the groceries to help put them away and check out what he bought.  Right now I’m so mad right I could cry, or rip out my own hair, or at least kick a dog.  So instead, I’m sitting downstairs blogging.

Here’s why I am mad, and you may laugh, and maybe some day I will too, but for this exact moment, I’m steaming.  I don’t try to freak out too much about Connor’s food; I’ve really tried to be relaxed (ha!) about what we do, within reason.  I want him to have vegetables and fruit at least once a day.  I like him to have a “healthy” snack once in a while, rather than just cookies and shit all the time.  I’ll buy McDonald’s on occasion, because kids seem to like that crap.

I suggested to Craig the other day, and it must have been completely asinine conversation in his mind because he obviously ignored me, that I wanted to get a little plastic container with dividers in it, so I could cut up pieces of meat and cheese and make a “homemade Lunchables” for Connor’s lunches.  He’s going to camp this week, and I thought it would be cool for him, and it might actually get him to eat food without someone bugging him to take every bite.  And seriously, my suggestion was boring conversation really, but it wasn’t like I was suggesting something crazy like “I’d like to make homemade sushi for Connor to take to school” or anything – just a simple idea.  Boring.  Silly.

Craig went to the grocery store tonight and bought 5 little Lunchables kits for Connor’s lunches.  With pasteurized processed cheese food and everything.  Yay for Connor!  Here’s some garbage for you to eat.

Fucking fuck fuck.  That was just for good measure.

I just can’t seem to get enough of venting lately.  It’s like I’m a pressure cooker gone way past the pressure it can stand, and at any moment I’m going to totally explode.  To vent on this blog is to save my sanity, so I write.

We went for a little trip on a train today.  It was originally thought up as a “treat” for Connor for not freaking out all the time, but that was scrapped when we went to the doctor for his stomach issues.  We still decided to go on the train trip though, and just have a good time traveling via a method we usually don’t get much of around here.  Michiganders love their cars!  Anyway, we took the train into Royal Oak, and because Craig’s parents live close by they came out to dinner with us before we caught out train back.  The train trip was fun, though Connor forgot his backpack (or I forgot it, but it’s easier to blame it on Connor) and was bored the majority of the time, and walking around town for the first 20 minutes or so was fun as well.  Then we had to meet Craig’s idiot parents.  At first I could cope; I just bit my tongue a lot, nibbled at it a bit, holding back little curses from exploding out of my mouth.  By the end I was full-out choking on the profanity vomit that I wanted to let fall out of my head.  I think I did a good job of looking like a sane functioning person, but inside I was going wacko.

Katelyn, when you had a crush on Craig in the beginning, you really did yourself a favor by introducing him to me.  Believe me, this shit with his mother is a serious curse.  I’m thinking Tom probably was a better choice for me, at least as far as mother-in-laws go.  Your mom likes me.  Maybe I still have a chance…  Shoot.  Who put this ring on my finger!?!

Anyway.  Ok, so first Craig’s mom stresses that the day is “Connor’s big boy day” and it’s all going to be about celebrating him.  I guess way back when we mentioned a train, Craig said it would maybe be a prize for having a month of good days, not freaking out at night about having a stomachache.  He never told his mom that the plan changed, so I guess I’ll give her the benefit of doubt.

*slight irritation*

Then we find a restaurant – Monterrey’s – and go inside.  Elly was asleep in her stroller, the first time she had been sleeping for the entire day, less the 15 minute nap she took driving from our house to Ann Arbor.  I guess there’s a rule at that restaurant that no strollers are allowed at any table, and whereas I can understand the usefulness of that rule, I did not want to wake Elly up for a stupid meal.  The hostess looked down at Elly and noted, “Oh, her eyes are open, I think she’s awake.”  Ugh.  So I picked her up and she immediately lay her head on my shoulder, obviously still very sleepy.  Craig’s mom came up and yelled (because she has but one volume), “Who’s my sweet little baby?”  Then Craig’s dad came up and shook her hand and said something else asinine and loud, and I had a little tiny flip out.

*more irritation*

“Papa!  She’s still sleepy, I was hoping I could keep her calm for a little while longer before we sit down?”  They both looked shocked (all the while they were both totally ignoring Connor), and I explained that she hadn’t slept much, and though it’s fun to do those things with her, her exhaustion will eventually creep up and I’ll be the only one to be able to calm her… nothing gets through though.  Bah.  By this time her head was up, she was spitting out her pacifier, so I gave up.  I handed her to Munga.  I called Papa back over (he walked away looking depressed) and told him it was okay.

*feeling like crawling out of body for a while*

We sat down.  Craig’s mom told a charming story about how some place they walked by down in Royal Oak was “full of homeless people”.  Then she told another charming story about how all of their idiot friends are gone so (and this was a funny joke, I guess) they were considering calling up some other douchebag friends they used to associate with years ago, but had a falling out with.  She mentioned about six times that they are going camping tomorrow and suggested an additional six times that we should visit them while they are camping.  I briefly interjected that it’s supposed to storm all day tomorrow, and rather than reply to me, she just talked in a baby voice to Connor about how “we’ll just snuggle up in the camper then!”  Fuck no.  “Our doggies, you guys, your doggie, it’ll be so much fun!”  Fuck, fuck, fuck no.  Then she mentioned that one of our old teachers’ granddaughter (Mrs. Falucca) fell out of her crib and broke her leg.  It was all very stimulating conversation, really.

*chewing violently at inside of cheek, hoping the pain will distract me enough*

Then the food came.  Connor ordered a children’s Mexican pizza, which was about six inches across.  We always have been pretty firm about getting him to eat some good food during every meal, but with Craig’s parents I’m willing to make an exception, because it’s easier to allow Connor to eat a crappy meal than to deal with their looks and comments about it.  They act like I’m some kind of fucking nutcase (which I am, but for different reasons) for wanting my child to eat a vegetable.  Anyway, his mom really stepped on my authority right away, because she told Connor that he only had to eat a QUARTER of it.  That is literally ONE BITE for Craig, maybe two bites for me.  Tiny.  A snack.  That stupid fucking bitch.   Uggggghhhhhhh.

*chewing my face now more than I’m chewing my food*

Finally I had enough.  I got up to take Elly to the bathroom to feed her, and Connor needed to go to the restroom too so he and Craig stood up to go with me.  They got back to the table well before Elly and I did, and I guess Craig did tell his mother and Connor that he had to eat more food than just a quarter of the little pizza.  His mom is so fucking passive aggressive though, so she’s making these little comments to Connor the whole time like, “Okay baby, only these two little more bites, and I know you don’t want to but it’s just a tiny bit, sorry baby boy!”  Like he’s suffering.  It’s a fucking pizza, bitch.

*trying to find a happy place*

We got up to leave finally, and I was a few paces behind everyone exiting the restaurant.  When I caught up, Connor help up a huge handful of after-dinner mints, exclaiming, “Look what Munga gave me, mom!”  It was about as many pieces of candy as he had bites of dinner.  Did anyone know that Connor has been having stomach issues lately?  Because I thought it was pretty clear.  And the last I heard, a buttload of candy was not the remedy for stomach pain.  Craig’s mom thinks that eating only 3/4 of her humungous sour cream burrito (barf) was “taking it easy” though.  And they didn’t take Craig to the doctor when he was 13 for his Crohn’s until he was shitting blood (sorry, it’s just true).

*can’t find mental happy place, so considering going to Noir Leather because I know they won’t follow me in*

My venting is almost making me feel better.  One last thing.  When we went back to the train station, Connor was acting up.  I’m sure it was because he was exhausted, but I had to make him sit down to prevent him from hurting himself or Elly; he was just acting crazy.  Craig’s mother is just SOOOOO passive aggressive – the SECOND I had to discipline him, she says to Craig, “Why don’t you let us take him for the night?”  Oh yes!  Please, take our first-born son!  He doesn’t need a carseat.  All he needs is candy, and your amazing “Munga-love” that you talk so much about!  Oh, and scary movies!  Please, take him, so that you can let him watch movies like Ghostbusters and Freddie Got Fingered, which are the most child-friendly movies of all time!

(Don’t even ask about Freddie Got Fingered; luckily it doesn’t actually involve Connor… yet.)

*puked in my mouth a little, swallowed it back down*

Craig firmly said, “Mom, we don’t have a carseat.”  End of story.

I write all of this down, with a little twinge of humor, because I’m trying as hard as I can to cope with my life, but when exposed to those people I have a real problem with everything.  I can’t talk about it with Craig because he really just sits there and randomly changes the subject, not ever acknowledging that I have done a good job of putting up with that shit again.  I can’t call my mom and complain because she takes Ann’s side, or at least is WAY too sympathetic with Ann, 95% of the time.  Nobody else listens long enough.  I don’t usually talk a ton, but I need some serious decompression time when I deal with my in-laws.  This blog is all I’ve got.

Craig’s parents are coming over to go to the air show tomorrow, and though I should be studying for a pharmacology exam, instead I’m blogging about how much I dread tomorrow because of those douchebags.

On Mother’s day, Craig’s mom had a fit because we didn’t go to her house to see her. Ahem. Because she’s the only mother around.

On July 4th, which unfortunately happens to be my birthday, she and her husband traveled to Indiana for a camping trip. They couldn’t get into the campground in the state park near where my parents live, so they were camping somewhere 45 minutes away. We went to Indiana for the 3rd and 4th, and we had to come back on the 5th because Craig had to work. So. We traveled 2 hours on the 3rd with a four year old and an infant, and when we got to Indiana we wanted to relax… which we did. We didn’t know where Craig’s parents were camping until late that afternoon, actually, when Craig finally talked to them and they insisted that we visit. Craig tried to politely decline. They were disappointed, but didn’t sound pissed. They also insisted that we come out the next day (my birthday) because they had a present for me, but Craig said that I really wanted to spend time with my family on my birthday, and we were having a big barbecue, so he invited them to come. They didn’t give an answer.

On the fourth, the day began wonderfully. Craig made me an awesome breakfast, which Sandy and Jean came over to share with us, so we had a big feast in the morning. We spent the day playing with toys, going over to Sandy’s house to play with the dogs, and getting stuff ready for the barbecue later that day. Craig talked to his mom in the afternoon to see if she was going to come over, but she gave him the lame excuse that she wanted to “let Liz enjoy the day with her family”, so they were just going to stay at the campground. Whatever.

Craig bought me a HP Mini for my birthday, and a sweet new stethoscope. Yay! Dinner rocked, and there were pretty cool fireworks that night.

Ok, so July 5th, we had to leave by lunchtime so that we could get home in time for Craig to take a nap to prepare for work that night. He talked to his mom that morning, because she was really hoping to get us to come out to their camper sometime, and they were going to be at the state park that day. Craig told his mom that we had to leave by noon, and she whined that they weren’t going to be at the campground until noon, and he basically said “Well, sorry mom, can’t do it.” She was pissed.

A week later, they were traveling home from their excursion in Indiana and called Craig to see if we could all meet up sometime that afternoon. Craig had to work that night, and Christine was visiting so she and I and the kids were going out to lunch, so it wasn’t really an opportune time to visit with the in-laws. Craig told his mom that he had to take a nap for work, but they were more than welcome to stop by for a while if they wanted to. His mom reluctantly agreed, and they hung up the phone.

About 5 minutes later, his mom called back but for some reason Craig didn’t answer the phone; I think he was in the bathroom. She left a message and basically said “Oh, forget it, *sniff sniff*, we’re not coming. Bye.”

I guess the fact that we didn’t drop everything in our lives to cater to his psycho mother was too much for her to handle. UGH.

Ok, so LOOOOONNNNNNGGGG story short, we got some tickets to the air show tomorrow. I suggested to Craig that maybe we should ask his parents if they want to hang out, just to smooth things over with them. He thought it was a good idea. But THEN I brewed on how shitty they are a little, and I wanted to take back my suggestion because I can’t stand those fuckers, plus I’d rather take Christine and Russell to the air show because they are WAY cooler.

Breathe, Lizzy.

Just a little crazy venting, really. I just hate it that they said yes, and I really want to go see the Blue Angels tomorrow, but at the same time I wish I could be someone else and see the Blue Angels away from my family, because my family will have shithead company, and I don’t want to be anywhere near them. Fucking douchebags.

Whoo! That feels better.

We have been having problems lately with Elly sleeping. She doesn’t go to sleep easily – it’s a struggle for both Craig and I – and then she wakes up 3 to 4 times a night on top of that. Most nights I end up taking her into my bed and sleeping next to her, and she’s happy to be near me. I already have one child that was terrible about sleep for a long time, and it seems to me that we have another one… and I honestly don’t have any idea what to do about it. I am not willing to let her cry it out, even though about thirty people have suggested it. It’s just not for me, and that’s that.

Ok, so I’m not writing this to get suggestions on what to do, because I’m pretty good at scouring the internet for crap information and I’ve read it all by now. Seriously – I did a buttload of research with Connor, and another buttload of research for Elly. I’m on research and information overload.

What I’m irritated about with all of this is that in the middle of the night when I’m up with Elly, tired beyond tired and rocking an 8-month old baby, I’m thinking about how other people seemingly have perfect babies and I’ve been blessed with two poopy sleepers. As if I have the space in my brain to waste thinking about how other people either do or *think* they do have it better than me.

Anyway. A good show is on TV. Gonna watch it.

I really feel emotionally drained and crazy today, so rather than calling everyone I know and giving updates over and over, I’m just going to write this here.

Connor is apparently fine.

We were worried about a multitude of things, and all of the testing didn’t help to calm those fears, but after a lengthy discussion with a pediatric gastroenterologist today, it seems like he’s maybe just…

constipated?

I don’t know. All of the symptoms were all over the map, and the strange lab values were all together not indicative of any one thing. He had strange values in his differential white blood cell counts, but the actual cell counts weren’t abnormal enough to warrant any concern. He’s anemic, but that’s normal for his age, weight, and family history. He doesn’t have any of the indicators of celiac disease, irritable bowel disorder/Crohn’s/ulcerative colitis. His x-rays on Monday didn’t indicate any problem with backed up stool, but apparently there was a bunch of stool seen in the CT scan today. His history didn’t seem like constipation was the cause, but it was the only thing that made any sense right now.

And this was a really good doctor! Or so we both felt.

So now, we’re less freaked out. But all of the freaking out all week seems to have culminated in a huge whopping flop of a diagnosis, and I’m just exhausted. Connor was prescribed Miralax, but it’s such a silly drug that it’s actually not even covered by insurance anymore.

We’ll see how this all pans out. I hope I answered whatever questions you may have about it all in this post, because at least tonight, I don’t have the energy to relive it all again.

Craig’s schedule over the past two weeks has been as follows: last Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday he had off, which he spent doing family stuff, playing, tiny mini vacation. Then he worked Tuesday and Wednesday night, which in and of itself isn’t too much for me to handle. I get overwhelmed with these two kids, but two days, even three days with the prospect of having a break afterward, that I can handle. However, Craig only has tonight off, and then he has to work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. So, basically, he had a little vacation, and now he’s working nonstop for almost six days. I have ONLY tonight to breathe, and all I can think about is the fact that the next four fucking days I have to be a single mom. I have a headache, it’s raining, and I’m super crabby too.

I want a vacation. I need a vacation. I want to just cry, but I have to go to class.

I’m not sure what to do, if anything can be done, about my crazy mother-in-law.  Over the years, plenty of things have happened to label her as crazy, and we’ve had our fair share of falling outs.  The current issue started just before and during Mother’s Day.  Craig’s mom was very offended that we didn’t come to her house that Sunday, and has been holding a huge grudge ever since.  She called around that time and left Craig a message about how she doesn’t understand why he has to “ask permission” to go see his mother, and we are just using her for free babysitting, and she just wants to see her grandkids.  Craig and I were upset for a few reasons, understandably, and had a very long discussion about how to control that situation.  It was completely rude of his mother to question his authority in his own family – neither of us owns the other, and when it comes to making decisions about what to do and when, we work together.  It was not that he was asking permission to go to his mother’s house, it was that he wanted to talk it over with me because we have two children and need to plan accordingly.  Plus, it was Mother’s Day, and since I’m a mother too… it’s only logical that I’d get a chance to decide what to do on my day.  Whatever.  That is too damn logical to get through Ann’s hugely thick skull.

I was also upset because whenever Ann does this, she causes a lot of unnecessary stress in our lives.  She’s called to bitch Craig out about so many silly things, and it should be easy for Craig to brush it off and call her crazy, but she’s so overbearing that he’s usually incapable of doing so.  She called recently to cry to Craig about how it’s so unfair that Connor never has spent the night at her house, but he has spent the night at his other grandma’s house.  She called to bitch him out about having other people over to our house on the day that she came over with her old lady friends to see Elly (it was my dad’s birthday, BTW).  She bitches him out because I won’t go on little lady trips with her and her friends – they wanted me to go to the Detroit Lady’s Show on my last day of my Organic Biochemistry class.

Our lives are not so easy most of the time – raising kids is a very hard job, and losing your firm grasp of your dreams isn’t something one can let go of so quickly.  Each day we struggle to do right by our kids while also doing right by ourselves, and it’s so much easier to do that when there are supportive people around.  Craig’s mom is definitely not one of the supportive people we have backing us up.  Instead, she’s a thorn in our sides, constantly shoving her drama in our faces.  She makes Craig feel like crap, and he doesn’t want to talk about it with  me because he knows I’ll get all worked up about it.  We both end up bottling up this crappy feeling… is that fair for a mother to do that to her child, and still expect unconditional love from him?  Especially when he’s 31 years old?  No.

So, Craig called his mom and told her so.  Obviously after acting like such a bitch, she wouldn’t answer her phone, so he had to leave a voicemail telling her how he felt.  Craig really rarely tells his mom the whole truth about how he feels because she’s really good at blowing things up.  This was one time that he really laid it out for her – he didn’t appreciate the way she was treating him and his family, he didn’t want to keep his kids away from her nor did he want to stay away from her, but if she kept acting the way she is, he isn’t coming over to be treated like crap.  He said he loved her, he wants to talk to her, and could she please call him back.

She didn’t call back.  In fact, that coward instructed her husband to call, so Craig had to relay all of his feelings toward his mother through his dad, and that’s never really useful.  Craig’s dad is not a good listener, and he has a real way of twisting and tripping over words.  It was Craig’s only option though, and I think that conversation was actually beneficial in some ways because it helped Craig to see even more clearly how his mother is trying to manipulate us all.  Apparently Neil was recently diagnosed with Type II Diabetes, and because of his mother’s drama, Craig wasn’t ever even informed.  So both Craig and his dad were realizing how twisted it was all getting, and though nothing was really resolved, it was easier for Craig to feel angry toward his mother without guilt getting in the way.

We arrive now at this morning, when Craig’s mother called while he was in the bathroom.  He didn’t get to answer the phone in time, so she left a short irritating message.

Craig, I just wanted to call to set up a time for me to see the kids.  You don’t have to call me if you don’t want to, just call your dad.

Bye.

Um, what?  Now she’s making “appointments” to see her grandkids, but she doesn’t even want to talk to her son about it?  She doesn’t want to fix things with the human being that she actually grew and carried in her womb, gave birth do, raised and cared for, watched over in the hospital for countless hours, loved his entire life long?  She doesn’t care about that person anymore, it’s all about the grandkids?  That lady is fuckin’ nuts.  Craig didn’t talk about it with me for long, he just said that he wished she would call and apologize.  She could apologize for being a bitch, for treating him badly, she could even apologize for the fact that Craig hasn’t realized that she’s crazy yet.  He just wants to hear “I’m sorry” come out of her mouth.  It’s SO not going to.  As I said before, she’s fuckin’ nuts.

Any suggestions?  Anyone?