Wine Please

I cannot believe how tired I am. Of a lot of things. Seemingly everything.

• I’m tired of driving all over Creation to bring my kids to daycare so that I can drive even further to work each day.
• I’m tired of fighting my kids each morning to get out of the house, just to sit in the car for over an hour, so I can sit at work, then get back in the car for a 90-minute ride home at the end of the day.
• I’m tired of getting home so late that I am stuck making really crappy meals in 15 min or less so that I have a chance of having food on the table by 7pm.
• I’m tired of coming home after all day at work just so that as soon as the kids are in bed, I’m stuck working again on whatever day seems to suit the people who aren’t even involved in the work…whether it be one day a week or 4 days a week–they don’t seem to care that I have other responsibilities in my life outside of jumping through their last-minute hoops. Nor do they care that I have such very little time that actually belongs to me.
• I’m tired of my house looking like crap day-in-and-day-out because I’m stuck working in the evenings instead of being able to straighten-up my house.
• I’m tired of my husband being gone for a week at a time every other week. I miss him and the kids miss him.
• I’m tired of Gavin arguing with me; tired of him not “wanting” me and only wanting his father, even when there’s nothing I can do to bring his daddy home each night (due to Justin’s constant training schedule).
• I’m tired of Cooper throwing complete tantrums because he wants something to eat other than I’m offering at that time (that child has one nasty temper!).
• I’m tired of feeling rushed all the time: rushed to the ENT, rushed to work, rushed to Speech Therapy, rushed to get dinner on the table, just rushed, rushed rushed.
• I’m tired of being the only one taking the kids to all their appointments because I worry how it affects my job that I desparately need, and FMLA only covers so much (and doesn’t pay a dime).
• I’m tired of looking at my paystub each payday and wondering where the money is going and why we don’t have any leftover to save.
• I’m tired of trying to get my business back up on its feet–it never seemed to have recovered after Cooper was born since that’s when the cost of living skyrocketed and people’s mortgages jumped through the roof, leaving them with no money to spend on anything besides necessities.
• I’m tired of worrying how hard the billing departments of the people associated with Cooper’s surgery are going to laugh when I tell them I need to set up payment arrangements that will keep me indebted to them for probably at least a year.
• I’m tired of looking at my two options for health coverage for 2009 and wondering if I should allow myself to be wooed again by the cheaper premiums of the PPO and risk not having another outpatient procedure or ER visit that would cause us to be stuck making payments to cover their wretched deductible (which got worse since last year)? Or do I fall for the relative safety of the EPN that’s going to cost more than twice as much per month in premiums, but will cover nearly any medical situation we find ourselves?
• I’m tired of wondering how the company I work for can continually allow themselves to be financially bullied by the union, and tired of wondering how much longer the management is going to take the job cuts, the pay cuts, and the benefit cuts, all while the unionized employees get guaranteed pay raises and free health coverage for themselves and at least three dependents.
• I’m tired of taking a day off work for myself only to find all hell broke loose, leaving me with a mess and feeling as if I can’t take time off.
• I’m tired of taking time for myself to do something fun, only to come home to all these worries and frustrations.
• I’m tired of this that just decided after 6 peaceful, regular months to cause problems again and send me into another tizzy trying to find a product that WILL work.
• I’m tired of feeling like I can never make anyone happy, that I can’t just get ahead of things.
• I’m tired of being sleep deprived–partly because I can’t seem to fall asleep until well after midnight each night, and partly because I can’t seem to sleep soundly during the night.

Actually, I’m not even sure the word “tired” covers it; neither does “exhausted”. I think “done” would more adequately describe it.

It has been another crazy week to continue the Summer of Angst and Teeth-Gnashing.

Monday was a good day, even though I was rushing to get laundry done for Justin for his trip, and had to do my Fantasy Football Draft at 10:30pm at night. Thankfully we zoomed through our draft in about 35 minutes and I was able to get to bed a lot earlier than I had been in weeks.

Tuesday started out alright. Cooper was in a really good mood and was laughing and waving at me while I filled up my car. I dropped him off at school and he even waved bye to me this time (he’s usually too busy eating to acknowledge my departure). After a fairly busy day at work, I was nearly finished when I got a call from school saying Cooper spiked a sudden fever. But in the usual fashion, I had an knucklehead coworker who wasted an additional 25 minutes of my time after that call came in so that I couldn’t leave immediately (this is after this same person had already wasted 90 min and just didn’t get it when I said, “I have to leave NOW.”). While on the road, I pray that it’s just a tooth. I mean, I was just home for two days last week due to his diarrhea. And home a day or two a few weeks before that, and again before that, and over and over for his ears. I get there and grab Gavin and pick up a very miserable and hot Cooper. Thankfully it was only around 101, but his teacher said it literally snuck up on him because he was playing and cruising around the room, and then *BAM* was sitting there fussy and crying in the middle of the room. When the picked him up to console him, that’s when they realized he was hot…and he hadn’t been about an hour prior when he had his last diaper change.

That information made my heart drop into my belly because I knew that it was his ears again. I was so frustrated, so angry, and I felt so bad for my little guy in pain, AGAIN, for the fourth time since this all began about 8 weeks ago. I get ahold of Justin in the car and I’m nearly hysterical because I’m tired and can’t believe this child is ill again, and realizing that it will be a lot harder to get some work done since Justin isn’t home to help. On other occassions, Justin would bring Gavin to school (like usual) so that I could give Cooper his morning cup of milk and he’d either doze back off or play in his bed until 8:30 or 9am. During that time I was usually able to knock out a lot of emails and work, and log a good 2+ hours (no, my bosses do not count my hours and yes, they trust me to get my work done, but I still feel the need to be online and readily available for eight hours). Now, since Justin is out of town, I have to get all three of us up and dressed and I have to drive 15 miles to daycare to drop off Gavin, come back with Cooper and hope he give me a good 20 minutes to get a few things done. I totally lose that morning time to get stuff done (not to mention the hour in the car…argh!).

On our way home, the kids and I get stuck in bad traffic, so I run to McDonald’s for a stellar dinner that both of them whine and cry through. While we’re pseudo-eating, Cooper pulls on his left ear once, and hits both sides of his head just above his ears. Crap. That definitely means ears. I dope him up and put him to bed.

Wednesday begins my marathon. I get up, jump in the shower, get Gavin up and dressed, fix Cooper’s cup of milk (I really mean toddler formula…his blasted addiction to antibiotics and loose bowels have prevented me from putting him on whole milk), throw on some clothes and run a comb through my wet hair, get Cooper dressed, then run all three of us out the door. Thirty minutes later I’m running Gavin into the school, leaving Cooper in the car w/the keys so he has the radio to keep him company. I run out and one of the other parents is telling the front desk that there’s “some baby in car with the keys in the ignition” and I holler, “my kid! sorry! I’m that parent!” as I run out the door (note: it was only about 70 degrees so no chance of him getting too warm in those 4 or 5 minutes I was trying to pry Gavin off my legs).

We drive the half-hour home while I’m trying to reach the pediatrician’s office to get Cooper an appointment. I get one scheduled, get home, feed him some breakfast, play a little, convince him to play on his own so I can get a little work done, then rush off to the pediatrician. She looks at his ears and pronounces them infected and gives me the names and numbers to three ENTs in the area. She gives me a fourth antibiotic (Biaxin), says it’s a great med, but that it’s really really gritty and hard to get kids to take (when I looked it up, the info states it is “practically insoluble in water”). She also mentions that he is probably a prime candidate for ear tubes. I call the first ENT office while still sitting in the pediatrician’s parking lot, and they are able to squeeze me in that afternoon with their nurse practitioner! YAY! So I drive home, feed Cooper, put him down for his nap, and plow through some work before I need to run out again.

At three o’clock I get him up, run to the ENT’s office, where they dig more stuff out of his ears in order to see those little inflamed ear drums and reinforce the pediatrician’s diagnosis. They tell me that they typically wait until there’s a fifth ear infection before doing tubes, but in cases of young babies learning to speak or in cases where the infections have been exceptionally close together, they will do it after the fourth infection if there’s still a lot of fluid behind the ears. So I make my follow-up appointment for two weeks out and pray he doesn’t need tubes. Not so much because I am afraid or uncertain of the procedure, but because my insurance won’t pay for an outpatient procedure like that until my $1,000 deductible is met first. When the rep on the phone first told me that, I burst into tears and warbled, “if I don’t have $700 to fix my car, what makes you think I have $1,000 to fix my son’s ears?” She apologized and I did, too. It’s certainly not her fault that my benefits are crummy when it comes to something like that.

So I leave the ENT’s office, run half-way back home to drop off Cooper’s prescription, realize the wait is kinda long and it’s after 4pm and I still have to go get Gavin, so I leave it there and run to get him. Our ride back home, which normally takes 30-45 minutes, took us nearly an hour to just get to our exit, thanks to a concert. I get off the expressway finally and hightail it back to Target to grab the prescription and we head home, where I fix a nutritious dinner of generic mac-n-cheese with chopped up hot dogs in it. Gavin ate it with little complaint, and Cooper shoveled it in with both hands, barely pausing to poop. Then came the fun of getting Cooper to take his gritty medicine. At one point he tried to wipe it out of his mouth and ran that hand across his cheek…it looked like he had sand stuck to his face. I then decided to mix it in some sherbet and finally got it down him.

I bathe the kids and get them in bed and finally sit down. I start checking in on stuff from work. And trying to reach Justin to catch him up with my day. I realized that I logged 80 miles on my car just on Wednesday alone. I realized that I’ve coughed up $50 in (failed) prescriptions and another $100 for Florastor for Cooper. I didn’t even try to count up the amount in co-pays I’ve coughed up for him this year. Looming over my head also was that potential cost for ear tubes and the money we will need to pay to eventually repair my car, which has had the check-engine light on since the same day of Cooper’s first ear infection in late June (I don’t know about you, but it’s very distracting to me to drive 300+ miles a week with that light glaring at me).

I felt out of control, frustrated, overwhelmed, and had no outlet. Adding to that was that I was having difficulty getting a babysitter for this Saturday night so that Justin and I could have time together out with other adults, and I just found out that friends of ours just suffered a major loss in their lives, which totally broke my heart.

So I pulled out the canning equipment and began to make some jam. Some women clean when they’re stressed; I cook. Or eat. Or both. Two hours later I was cleaning up my pots and pans from making 2 pints and 12 half-pints of raspberry-blackberry jam, all of which were drying and cooling off on a towel on my counter. I felt calmer, more collected, under control, and had a bonus sugar buzz from eating taste-testing the hot molten jam.

This morning I felt calmer. It had started raining during the night and really cooled things off. I got Gavin ready and to school with a lot less hassle than he had been giving me all week. Cooper was so cute and sat and watched the rain for 20 minutes before playing with his toys, giving me a good jump on my work. I laid him down right at noon and he’s just now waking up, 3-1/2 hours later. My boss IM’d me and told me that even if Cooper’s well enough for school tomorrow, to work from home again instead of sitting in bad holiday traffic. I was able to make some brownies to bring to my friends that I will try to take over there on my way to get Gavin (or may wait till tomorrow since it’s getting late). And even though I neglected to get copies of Gavin’s immunizations to the county Child Find office for his Speech/Auditory IEP (maybe because I don’t recall them mentioning it and there wasn’t a sheet in that 2-inch high pile of paperwork that mentioned it, either), I had no issues with the pediatrician’s office faxing it over there. And the Speech Therapist reassured me that she usually doesn’t begin speech services until at least the second week of school, so I still have time to get his schedule coordinated with her. Last, but not least, Justin said he’s been having a great time at his Apple training sessions and says he’s had some really positive discussions with people about all sorts of things, and I think he’s secretly excited to be in such a geeky environment with a bunch of other Apple geeks.

I’m extremely thankful that things are falling into place, and that today was calm and made up for me being so crazy and mentally exhausted yesterday. However, I wouldn’t be opposed to some cash falling out of the sky…maybe these remnant of tropical storm Fey we’re getting will bring some, eh? If not, seeing these two certainly helps:

Cooper has diarrhea and a rash.

Alright…didn’t hear anyone protest…

About two weeks ago, right when we were bringing Cooper back in for his never-ending ear-infection, I noticed he had a few suspicious-looking blisters in his diaper-region. But since he had chronic diarrhea stemming from (at that time) two bouts of antibiotics, he was sporting a bit of a diaper rash on his butt. It was mild enough for me to see that these blisters were not part of the diaper rash and they looked a lot like small chicken pox blisters. But I wasn’t 100% sure and I forgot to mention it to Justin when he brought Cooper into the doctor about the ear.

We treat the ear infection with antibiotics that made the diarrhea worse, but countered the diarrhea with soy toddler formula and Florastor, and countered the diaper rash with A&D Ointment and Desitin. The diaper rash cleared up but those chicken pox-ish blisters did not. They started drying up on Sunday and Monday, and where there were a couple where the leg of the diaper rubbed, they scarred-up and look identical to the chicken pox scars I’ve been sporting since the 5th grade. I called the pediatrician on Monday and let them know, since they have to report back to vaccine authorities on instances of break-outs after receiving the varicella vaccine. Thankfully they didn’t ask me to bring him in to see it because I am tired of paying for their children’s college, one co-pay at a time.

A few hours later, however, I get a call from daycare asking to pick up Cooper because he’s had 4 episodes of diarrhea in as many hours. I try to explain that he’s had 6 weeks of antibiotics; that his gut has been wiped clean of any beneficial bacteria; that we’re treating with Florastor and yogurt and an IV of bananas; that he’s working on a second tooth and is drooling more than Ginger*. They didn’t want to hear it and kindly requested again that I come get him and keep him home until his poops improve (in their defense, there was another baby with similar symptoms so they were concerned it was a bug going around).

As I’m driving to get him, I realize I totally forgot to give him the Florastor in his morning cup of milk because he got up so early. I also realize I forgot to give his teachers a packet of it to mix in with his yogurt. Crap. Literally. And oops. Bit of a blunder on my part considering he’s not been off the antibiotics even a week yet.

So I worked from home with him on Tuesday, and both him and Gavin on Wednesday since Gavin was up for over an hour in the wee hours of the night complaining of ear pain (which seemed to have disappeared by the time he got up around 8:30am and has yet to return). Cooper was overall very good…just very very very EXTREMELY busy. Thankfully I logged on early and got a couple hours logged before he got up. I was able to work intermittently during his waking hours and he was awesome and took a four-hour nap for me on Tuesday and a three-hour nap on Wednesday. But the house looked like Godzilla had gone through it. And I found out that he has learned to climb and is inventive on what he’ll climb on. Mind you this child is not walking independently yet. Instead he is stepping into the open Costco-size box of granola bars in the pantry to climb up and steal the honeybear off the second shelf located three feet off the floor. This is when he wasn’t eating dog treats.

I went back to the office today since Coop’s poop was starting to look more normal, and found out since they have to do some emergency work to our A/C on our wing of the building, those who can are being allowed to work from home tomorrow (those poor suckers who can’t, get to wear shorts/tank-tops and swelter in a building with non-opening windows in 90-degree heat, surrounded by heat-belching video equipment and computers). I can hardly put into words my glee in being able to work from home without Godzilla Baby keepin’ me hopping.

I will however, miss that little trouble-maker. Also, I don’t want to jinx anything, but *looks around* I think his ear infection finally cleared up. SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

*ever since Ginger’s poisoning incident three years ago, part of her lower lip sustained some nerve damage and she perpetually has a string of slobber hanging down like a numbed-up dental patient.

It’s been an interesting week after garnering 9 other teams to form a Fantasy Football League. After ESPN dumped our original draft time because all 10 teams hadn’t registered 60 min before the draft. We attempted to create a faux team to act as a placeholder for the missing team, but because we didn’t finish creating that placeholder until 55 min before, ESPN dumped it our draft. So I scrambled to get a new time, but ESPN wouldn’t allow me to

1. choose a new time that same night, or
2. solidify a new time without getting votes from 5 other Team Owners.

So we chose a new date and time, then I asked everyone to get on there and vote. Some people were missing the page in their account that has the voting/polls. Some people could vote for that date and time, no problem. Some could not: they were told that time was taken, even if people after them voted and didn’t get the same error. One person wasn’t able to log in at all.

After a few more issues, I finally got fed up and created an entirely new league through Yahoo, though I wouldn’t have a few nice things that were included in the ESPN version (primarily the Stat Tracker). Yahoo likes to charge $10 for that. No thanks! Best part? I was able to get a comparable draft time (only 30 min later than what we were trying to get on ESPN). Hopefully I can stay awake long enough. I’m considering a nap after the kids go down for the night.

So I get it set up and send off the emails and the invites. So far, so good. No complaints–in fact, people are excited because they can upload their own images if they so choose. Yay! A few hours later, I log in to see how many teams have gotten in there and signed up, and right at the top of my login page is a promo from Revolution MoneyExchange, an online banker that is essentially a PayPal competitor. If I sign up, they will pay for me to get the Stat Tracker and Draft Kit, and will also put $10 in my new account. Hmmmmm….

I do some research and find that they are legit, they don’t charge fees the way PayPal does (all transactions between RME users are free), and they’re owned, in part, by Uncle Ted Leonsis (among others). This is a total win-win-win for me:

• I got free Stat Tracker and Draft Kit on Yahoo to help make up for my earlier bumbling with ESPN
• I got $10…and who couldn’t use free $10?
• I now have a very viable alternative to PayPal, whom I am incredibly disgusted with after I got ripped-off by an unsavory seller and PayPal chose to find in favor of said seller instead of protecting me, the buyer. Moral of the tale? Do not believe the whole “Buyer’s Protection” bologna. They will protect that seller so that they don’t have to refund those fees. Total conflict of interest since they stand to gain if they find in favor of the seller…no third-party arbitration as one might expect when disputing shady seller and his shady products. I won’t even get into the obnoxious rate their fees are at right now. Argh I hate them!

But I digress. So I’m extremely happy to have an alternate online bank. As of right now eBay really doesn’t accept them, but if you’re an online seller, this gives you a cheaper alternative for receiving payments from your buyers. Interested? Click on the green button over on the right…no…a little left of there…uh, no. Right above the weird guy holding onto his leg. There you are.

So, in summary: Plurk Junkies are now on Yahoo, we have the Stat Tracker, and PayPal can bite my butt.

Justin took Cooper in this morning for another round of fever, diarrhea, vomiting, ear-tugging, and not-eating-anything. This child started getting sick on Saturday, and when I saw him tugging on his ear four days after finishing the second round of antibiotics for his ear infection, I got concerned, then annoyed.

The concern is obvious: I don’t want my baby to be sick. I don’t want another round of antibiotics that will make his long-suffering diarrhea worse. I don’t want him not eating. The eating might seem trivial to some of you, but unless you have a 12-month old that eats nearly as much as you, you probably don’t understand the anxiety of trying to get this human garbage disposal to eat more than half a yogurt and one waffle the entire day. Plus, he needs food to help buffer his stomach against the ever-increasing strength of antibiotics he’s had to endure.

The annoyance is that I almost feel like it didn’t get the correct treatment the second time around if he’s sick only a few days after finishing the medication. Or that maybe they should reconsider their stance on giving young children decongestants and/or anti-histimines like Benedryl. Those decongestants and anti-histimines not only drain/dry up the snot, but also help do the same with fluids in the eustachian tubes, where most middle ear-infections originate. Any time I had an ear infection, even one not related to a cold, my mom gave me a decongestant and/or anti-histimine to help drain my ears.

I’m also annoyed because I can’t figure out how his first-ever ear infection turns into this Ear Infection That Would Not Die! I will agree that the cold that originally caused the ear infection was a nasty one. I had it the same time as he and it developed into a sinus infection; Justin had it and was miserable for a while; Gavin still has the lingering cough from it from over 3 weeks ago. I also understand that the 10-day stint of basic amoxicillin might not have been enough to clear up the infection when he’s in daycare and fighting off other germs in addition to the infection raging in his own body.

What I am a little annoyed about as well, is before the 2nd round was fully identified, he had his 12-month check-up and was cleared for his regularly scheduled vaccines (MMR, Varicella, and Prevnar), which do tax the immune system as well (as they should). I kinda wish I would’ve gone with my gut and asked that we post-pone those vaccines (or at least one or two of them) until his 15-month check-up. Makes me think that maybe his body might’ve been able to more fully fight the ear infection with the help of the cefoprox if he wasn’t also “in training” to fight other potential illnesses. But woulda, coulda, shoulda, right?

So instead I will keep my fingers crossed and prayers going that this third round of antibiotics (the almighty augmentin), along with hefty doses of Florastor to fight this antibiotic-induced diarrhea, that he will be right as rain and eating again.