Hey! I'm feeling some serious negative energy in this room

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Ugh.

What a weekend. Yesterday I medicated myself into feeling decent, but the combo of everything settling in my chest and exhaustion has left me feeling completely drained. Today, thankfully, Dave didn't have much going on and could take the girls a bit early and give me some time to veg out on the couch and relax a bit. Tonight I'll be able to get a little done, have a healthy dinner and get some sleep. Since I start work in a few days, I really need to start feeling better!

Miss O is doing better. After reading a lot on pneumonia, I'm not sold on that having been the issue, but the antibiotic she's on is pretty broad-spectrum and would address bronchitis or an ear infection as well, so as long as the fever wasn't due to kidney issues, it's a win-win. She started to improve within 24 hours of starting the antibiotic, and now just has an occasional cough and a little congestion. Way better than where she was on Wednesday.

On Thursday Bean had a screening ultrasound of her bladder and kidneys and there was some fluid in her kidneys, prompting the urologist to suggest a VCUG for her, as well. I'm not sure how much fluid, but apparently enough that it raised concern.

O's u/s and VCUG didn't show any hydronephrosis that I recall, so it's possible Bean has a higher degree of reflux than O does. However, she's asymptomatic, so I'm hoping it's just a fluke thing and when she has the VCUG (insert serious frowny face here) it shows no issues.

I'm tellin' ya - my kids are defective. At least Miss O doesn't show any sign of toe-walking ...

We had a first birthday party to attend yesterday, and I had to leave early because Bean just fell apart on me. She was being a bit turdly, not sharing well, that kind of thing, but nothing major. Then I watched her yank something from her sister. When I yanked it back, Bean called me stupid, and then when I told her it was time to go, she started to take off. I caught her and she turned and walloped me in the shoulder with a closed fist. Well, that sealed the departure deal.

She was tired, but 3:00 is just too late to start a nap. So we came home, did an early dinner, bath time and an early bedtime, since O missed her afternoon nap. I'm transitioning her to one nap/day since that's all they do at daycare. I've got to transition them to a later bedtime, as well, since the 6:30-7:00 deal won't work with me picking them up at 5:30. We won't be done with dinner until 6:30-7:00!

My heart was hurting for Bean on Friday. Thursday while O was napping Bean covered about 1/3 of my kitchen table, as well as a great quantity of her leg and arm skin, with green marker. The table cleaned up much more easily than she did, so when she went to school Friday, she still had tons of green marker on her. Several of the kids sang "Bean's a baby" at her, and one kid scratched her and told her she wasn't her friend.

The baby song really, really pissed me off. Why? Yeah, kids are cruel, but the kids learned this from the teacher calling kids babies, IMO. Since she has, on more than one occasion, used 'you're a baby' to admonish children in her class when they do something she doesn't like, she has, to my way of thinking, taught the kids a way to pick on each other. Pisses. Me. Off.

The scratching thing bugs me, too. This is the second time Bean's been scratched, with broken skin, and no incident report. I mean, hell's bell's, I had to sign a report when Bean did an incidental contact scratch on a friend a long while back, but here are two deliberate scratches, that Bean says her teachers knew about, and no reports. But since I've already complained about this teacher once, I don't want to sound like I have a grudge against her ... I mean, I don't like her, I'll be honest, but that isn't why this stuff bugs me. Having my daughter tell me "No-one likes me. They all said they weren't my friend and sang the baby song" is why this stuff bugs me.
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Don't be nervous. Do what I do, just picture yourself naked.

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Ugh. I am so glad Dave will be taking the girls tonight and I can just take a long, hot bath and then get a solid night's sleep. I got a decent amount of sleep last night, but since it was fractured by O's frequent wakings, it wasn't all that restful - especially when I'm trying not to get majorly sick.

O is still asleep, even tho Bean's been up almost an hour now. Around 2:00 I moved us back into Bean's room, where O slept until 5:30-ish, then came up to nurse and crawled back down to pass out in her crib. Once I knew she was out, I let Bean get up. Tho keeping her quiet is much more difficult than you would imagine. If she's not wanting to play with her people and horses (who are all now shopping in the pony corral), she's banging crap around in the living room. The girl simply cannot be quiet. At all. Ever. Try reading to her these days - if she's not asking a kajillion questions based on the page you're on, she's asking you to point out words and hollering them along with you. I know it's a great skill, and that the questions are good, but when you just want to knock out a story before Screamy Screamerson decides she has had *enough*, it's sometimes tempting to but the kibosh on the chatter.

So, about the job. Bean's school doesn't actually do P/T in the afternoons, so I'll be starting P/T on Wednesday, when my folks will be back in town and able to watch O in the afternoons. That will let me take her in a few times during the week, just to get her a little acclimated. Honestly, at her age, I don't know what good any sort of short-term warm-up does, other than get her used to the provider's face. Dave will be doing the first real drop-off, which seems kind of karmically fair, and I'll get to rescue her in the afternoon.

So I'll do Wed, Thurs, Fri afternoon next week, then start full-time the following Monday. I'm a little freaked out, now that it's all sinking in, and fighting the urge to call and say "nevermind!"

The job is almost perfectly tailored to my diverse background, and is that crucial first step in knitting it all together under a cohesive single banner. It's kind of corporate communications meets PR meets event planning meets some admin-type stuff. That's the briefest description I can give you. A lot of stuff I've done, in some vein or another, mixed with one or two things I've learned about doing and one or two things I've never done.

I'm plunging head-first into the deep end of going back to work, rather than my preferred method (in theory) of easing back in. But since I'm a procrastinating visionary (read: lots of ideas and things I want to do, just no movement toward actually *doing* any of them), we all knew this was how it was going to turn out, didn't we?

I'm so disappointed I didn't get to use my new resume (done by the fabulous Liz at Ultimate Resumes - thanks Liz!), but with no job lasting forever anymore, it's a good investment anyways. In the back of my head, I was thinking "I know as soon as I pay for this, I'm going to get a job that never even sees it" - that just seems to be the way Murphy's Law always play out for me. Regardless, it was money well spent :)

I can't believe I'm going to be done with play dates, park dates and lunches with friends :( Man, this is going to be one hell of a transition for me, isn't it? I'm envisioning a week of fast food and a total disaster area at home for the first full-time week. The girls and I will be getting home when I'm usually starting the bedtime routine. At least for Wed-Thurs-Fri next week, we wil be able to start the later nighttime routine and adjust to later mornings without the get-to-work scramble.

Ack. This is all going to work out, right?
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I'm not well. I feel all oogy.

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Bean, practicing sorting with a bunch of androgynous Playmobil figures. She's doing all the Q&A. With voices. Enjoy:
Are you a girl?
Yes.
Are you wearing high heels like me?
Yes.
Then you can come with us.
Are you a girl?
No.
Boys have to stay with the other boys. You stay here.
Are you a girl with a mustache?
Yes I am.
Then you can come with us.

I'm not your friend because you say mean stuff. You can stay in the pony corral.

Only blue boys can go. But the red boys are going to have to stay behind.

Out of the blue at the dinner table, in a totally exasperated tone: Oh what the hell?? (She claims she learned this from her school friends. It isn't from me. My 'what the hell's are usually in the form of 'what the hell are you doing?!?')

Is it any wonder she's my favorite these days? Bizzaro-world sorting hat repetoires and spontaneous hugs and kisses versus Screamy Screamerson who is just a royal PITA these days.

But, apparently, with good reason. O ran a 103.5+ axillary temp pretty much all night last night (ibuprofen only knocked it back for a few hours at a time) and was diagnosed with pneumonia today. Seriously. I've been looking for my receipt and warranty for her all day, because between pneumonia, the kidney infection and all the screaming, this is *so* not what I signed up for.

And I'm sick as heck, running on a total of 8 hours sleep over the past two nights and finally, finally, at 8:30 sitting down to eat dinner after another night from hell with Miss O. If I don't end up with pneumonia as well it'll be a miracle. Because with as low as my defenses are at right now my body is a veritable playground for opportunistic infections. (A concept I tried to cover with Miss I this evening, so if she starts talking to one of you about cooties that take over when other cooties are already there, that might be why.)

Soon as I'm done with my soup, I'm crashing. I wish with Bean, but I'll probably just go snuggle with her for a few minutes and then go bed down with Screamy in my room. Someone cross fingers that they sleep past 4:30 tomorrow morning. Because when that started this morning, I wanted to introduce Bean to Swirly Enlightenment.
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Well, I better get mingling. I really should be talking to people that *are* somebody. But it was fun!

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So I just published my ranting and raving post from yesterday. It covers my attempt at getting O to nap on her own and then the frustration that is 11th-hour interview prep with a sick toddler who woke up every 3.5 seconds. And wraps it in the joy of being sick and having mood-altering PMS.

It's amazing the difference 24 hours and a job offer can have on a person.

What? Yeah it's only been 24 hours. Amazing, huh? I know it takes me by surprise when I really stop to think about how little time ...

Ohhhh. Job offer. That part.

Yeah. Yours truly has now interviewed for exactly one job in her three months of searching, and was hired for said job within 3 hours of my interview. Why yes, I *do* answer to Rock Star, thankyouverymuch.

And all this transpired without even a glance at the hot-off-the-presses just completed and now entirely pointless professionally redone resume.

Le sigh. And it was a nice resume too.

I start part-time next week, full-time the week after. No-one has mentioned this to Miss O yet, so I'm trying not to worry about how she's going to react. Because it's going to be legen- wait for it -dary. Oh yes. Mommy will suit up and O will pitch a screaming hissy fit the likes of which have likely never been seen before.

If she wasn't so sick, I might try to ease her in a day this week before hitting her with it every day next week, but honestly, I don't know what difference a day or two will make. I'm not even sure I'm doing her any favors starting her part-time (ideally 12:30-5:30 - assuming they still do the part-time afternoon thing. I need to check tomorrow) instead of just dumping it all on her at once. Bean is totally fine with going every day, she thinks it's great. O will be a whole 'nother story.

I mean, it's remotely possible she'll surprise me and actually do well. But I doubt it. This will be hard for her. Hard for me, too, I'm sure, but after the past couple scream-a-rific days I've endured, it's not feeling like a hardship to sign her over to someone else :) Of course, now that I've typed that I've begun my internal panic that someone is going to shake her because she's not what one would call a calm, cool, collected toddler.

Anyone have any guidance for this? Please? Or, if not guidance, perhaps some toddler-approved valium?
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Is she moping around in the dark like..... nobody around here. Hmm-mmm.

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Kill.
Me.

Please. Do it now.

I have spent the past hour listening to Miss O scream at me for one variation on the "I can't possibly take a nap alone" theme or another. First the screaming because she wasn't in the backpack. I was laying right damn next to her and she was still screaming.

Put her in the crib. More screaming. Got her remotely calm and quiet and try to step out. More screaming. Stepped back for some pats and soothing, tried to leave, more screaming. Sat with head pressed against crib rails, calmed her down. Moved to bed. More screaming. Calmed her again.

Tried to lay down on the floor to give my back a break. More screaming. Calmed her down again. She was nearly asleep, I stepped out. More screaming. Mind you, at that point it was 2:00 and I hadn't eaten lunch. Closed door, let her scream, took a few bites of my now-cold frozen dinner.

Went back in. Calmed her down. Realized I have to pee. Badly. Laid on bed and talked in soothing voice, she started to konk out, I stepped out to pee before my bladder exploded, but left the door open so she knew she wasn't "alone". More screaming.

I decided to leave her in there a little while with the door open, but she's still screaming and not calming down. We're at the 50-minute mark now and I have. had. it. I need to get so damn much stuff done because I was sick yesterday, including preparing for a great job interview tomorrow, and she sleep sfine in a bed at her dad's so WTF?!?

I've gone back in, tried to calm her, she won't sleep and you know what? She can just scream for a few minutes while I type all this out and attempt to decompress. Because right now? I'm inclined to let her scream until bedtime, I'm that sick of the battle.

Added to that, I've wrapped up my taxes and thanks to Dave taking both girls as dependents, claiming Head of Household and me having to claim half of the damn economic stimulus I supposedly got, I'm down a boatload of money and feeling damn pissy about it. He should get the dependents, since he has actual income and probably needs the help they provide as deductions, but damn, I'm just frustrated with giving up so damn much money. None of it is his fault, per se, it's just easier to blame him than the headless entity of the IRS.

And Miss O is still freakin' screaming. And I can now add hollering "lay down and go to sleep!" to the list of things that don't work.

...

Today is going to go down as the day I can't believe I didn't throw myself in front of a goddamn train.

It's 8:30. I have an interview tomorrow at 9 that I have been trying to prepare for all day. But you already read how well trying to get some alone time today went. And now O is awake - again. For the second time in 20 minutes. I spent an hour getting her to sleep. I get her nursed down and asleep, I walk out, she is up 5 minutes later. And I'm going to put my fist through a freakin' wall here in a minute.

This isn't even a little fair. How the hell am I supposed to shine with no sleep and/or no prep?

When I was in there this last time, I just wanted to scream and cry and kick something because it's just one of those days where I get to pay and pay (sometimes literally) for the damn divorce and I just want to grab Dave and shake him and ask him why the hell he was such a cowardly weasel and why the hell he did this to me. None of this is my idea of a good time - the single parent gig blows sometimes, I've been screwed royally on taxes and lost a huge chunk of what should have been my nest egg (whole 'nother story that I'm not sharing with the world at large, suffice to say one small oversight on my part = major screwage in my retirement fund) - and now I'm scrambling to prepare while I deal with a fever and a wracking cough. All of this is his fault. All of it.

Rationally and in the "not a few bubbles out of plumb" part of my mind I know that isn't a fair assessment of the situation, but with my internal pity party going full bore, it's hard to be anything resembling objective. I just want to curl up in a ball and cry and feel sorry for myself. But O is coughing again, so I'll probably just have to stop mid-cry and go deal with her anyways.
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I think it; I say it. It's my way.

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Yesterday I picked Bean up at her dad's to take her to a friend's birthday party. Dave was supposed to take her, but O is sick and has a fever, so he asked me to take Bean.

As we were driving there, she blurted out: I told daddy to pull his head out of his butt!

{snort}

So, let me set this up a little. One day, completely frustrated with Bean not listening and not doing what I asked her, a million and seven times, to do, I snapped. And hollered: "Bean! Pull your head out of your butt and listen to me!"

I'm just impressed I used 'butt'.

Well, that totally diffused the situation, because she thought it was the funniest thing in the world. She laughed and laughed, in that over-the-top Bean laugh she has, and said "my head isn't in my butt!"

I explained it's a phrase people use when someone isn't paying attention. "You weren't listening to me, so I was worried your head was in your butt."

Fast forward to this weekend, when she said "I told daddy - pull your head out of your butt!"

As I laughed and tried to be stern, I asked why she would say that to him. She said "He wasn't listening to me." Points to her for good usage. But I have to take points away for saying it to a grownup.

I *had* to call Dave and asked how he didn't laugh out loud when she said it. He, apparently, found it less humorous. He said he had to go back into the room and ask "what did you say to me?" incredulously, and that it was a little hard not to smile, but he was already so annoyed with her he didn't find it super funny.

Dude. That's funny. A 3.5-year-old telling you, out of the blue, to pull your head out of your butt? I don't care who you are, that's funny. Maybe not something you encourage her to say again, or to any other grown up, but she deserves one free pass.

(Especially when she says to your ex-husband something you've wanted to say to him so. many. times.)

I explained to her she could say it to me once, too, but then she couldn't ever say it to a grown up again. She said brightly "okay. I will just say it to kids."

Folks, you've been forewarned.

I did tell her it probably wasn't something to say to kids, either, since the kids might then say it to a grown up and get in trouble. I also apologized to her for using the phrase, since I gave her something that could get her in trouble.

But I got a good, long chuckle out of the whole thing. Mostly just trying to picture Dave's reaction when he realized what she said.

Mommy, to birds that flew in front of her car: Ack! Get out of the way birds!
Bean, in response, stops sucking her fingers, says imperially "run them over." and returns the fingers to her mouth.

Perhaps their heads were up their butts and they had it coming?

~~~***~~~

Miss O is definitely contagious, as my 'allergies' have become a low-grade fever and sore throat. So I have that slightly woozy I'm sick feeling going on. Not to mention I burned the roof of my mouth the other day, so I have a raw spot right where my hard palate meets the soft palate: in other words, right where my tongue pushes against the roof of my mouth every. single. time. I swallow. I keep numbing it with Orajel, but that only takes the edge off the discomfort.

What's that? Y'all are breaking out your tiny violins for me? Pbbllttt. I had to cancel on a potluck dinner I had planned to attend, and will instead be spending my day in my jammies, and enjoying a long hot shower (and possibly a long, hot bath) to ease my discomfort. And to make me warm, because I'm freezing right now. Course, the quiet 'sick day' sounds kind of nice in it's own right ... like those days when you play hookie from work because you don't feel great, but aren't all that sick, and just spend the day vegging out ...
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You know, people underestimate the value of a good ramble.

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Miss O is a bit of an imp ...

Wednesday night at bedtime, I was reading to Bean, and Miss O was in the room with us. I hadn't yet closed the bedroom door because, honestly, I encourage O to skip storytime before bed. If she's in there, she screams bloody murder until Bean hustles off my lap with a gentle "It's okay, O, you can sit with mommy". It's very sweet of Bean, but O can't keep 'winning' like that or the screaming will never end. And it has to end. Soon.

Anyways, Miss O toddled on over to the door, grinned at us and started easing the door closed with one hand while waving 'bye-bye' with the other hand. It doesn't sound nearly as silly or cute when I type it out, but trust me - between that impish little grin on her face and the wave, it was wicked cute.

Last night while I was fixing dinner for her and I, I let her play with some dry lentils and bowls and scoops. Yeah, the stuff got everywhere, but she was perfectly content with what she was doing, and there was no whining, screaming or demanding to be picked up.

As the fun was winding down, I got out the small hand broom and dust pan to clean up. O wanted to use them, so I let her for awhile. When dinner was pretty much done, I started to sweep again, and she wandered over to the pantry, got a cloth napkin and came over to start wiping up the floor as I swept. How sweet is that?

For the past two nights I've let her more or less self-soothe to sleep. Not really crying, tho there was a bit of fussing. But when she gets wound up, I've discovered that gently scratching her head is like an 'off' switch, if the planets are in their proper alignment. So with some fussing, some skritching and some soothing, Miss O has wound down on her own, instead of the usual nursing to sleep.

I tried getting her to take a bottle of formula on Wed night, but she was angered mightly at the suggestion. So it was back to nursing last night, but I did make her fall back to sleep a few times without the boob.

She was up a lot doing this really congested sounding cough last night, and was pawing at her ear a bit before bed. I have no idea where the cough came from - she's not been sick or sniffly or congested at all. I'm hoping her ped is open today ...

~~~***~~~

Since my desktop computer kept giving me the "holy shiznit, you're almost out of space!" message every single time I booted up, I sprang for a 1.5TB (that's like a gigolo-zillion bytes or something like that) external hard drive at Costco.

While I know I have a bunch of stuff hogging space, I think my biggest problem is fragmentation and a messy C: drive - but how the heck do I run a defrag when there is next to zero free space?!? I've deleted everything I don't use, but can't move the dial from 3% free space. And the darn defrag wants 15% free space to run. Grrr ...

I'm going to end up downloading (to my D: drive, thankyouverymuch) a bunch of system mechanic type programs, because I figure $70 worth of software, plus my googling skills and (limited) computer savvy is a better option than paying someone by the hour. Right? (Someone say right. Because I have never been my own tech support!)

The clean up and file moving exercise uncovered a strange sidebar: what the heck do you do with a marriage's worth of digital images?

Do I delete old vacation pictures? Is that what one does when one gets divorced? I'm sure that Dave did, as he had a whole Sherman-esque approach to "us" when I moved out ... but it's not like I look at the pictures (ever) or, now that I've had my memory refreshed that there are pics of the places 'we' went, I'm waxing nostalgic and feeling reunion feelings. I guess it's not something like the wedding photo album, that the girls may some day want to see. Any mention of "I went on a cruise with your dad" is unlikely to be any more than a passing thing, and that's only until I go on a different cruise and the one with Dave isn't the only point of reference.

It's different for pics of family trips, once Bean was in the picture (ha, I made a funny). But pre-Bean, I guess there's really no point, is there? Is there any need to be a memory keeper when no-one really needs or wants the memories?