I’ve Written Here, Too
Stop Following Me
And Then: More Corn
Tonight in the car I wondered if a person could actually be depressed from being sick for an extended period of time. And then I laughed and laughed and laughed. And then chuckled some more. Hello, my name is Sam and I have had a chronic illness (fibromyalgia) since 1999. However, I don’t feel like I get colds or the flu any more than the rest of the population. I do suffer from IBS, which is totally fucking annoying but not typically a full bag of dicks. I’ve gotten used to most of it, and unless I’m having a fibro flare I don’t have the time or energy to sit and feel sorry for myself. Maybe sorry for YOU, having to read this crap, but not for me.
This is my long-winded way of saying that there has been some fucked up illness here in my house. It began with my lungs going Snap Crackle Pop and a diagnosis of pneumonia in October-ish. I never quite got over it, and a never-ending round of coughing up shit began. Then on Christmas Eve things got a little weird. Adam took the boys out to have pancakes with his father, and I stayed in bed to get a bit of uninterrupted sleep. I woke up with that unmistakable feeling of “oh dammit I started my period in my sleep.” Moments later I realized that I was cold and wet because I fucking soiled myself. In my sleep. I literally SHIT THE BED in my sleep and didn’t wake up until it was cold. Merry Fucking Christmas. I spent all of Christmas Eve running to the bathroom with my ass cheeks clamped together and the day of Christmas trying to recover. That was fun.
The next weekend, on January 1st Egg threw up everywhere all night, canceling our cruise. He proceeded to run a fever, cough, runny nose, and the like. I was still having asthma issues and coughing up crap, but this new yuck decided to live in my lungs. As per usual, right lungs? Then Adam got sick. On January 11th I gave up fighting the cold as my asthma was not well controlled and I went to urgent care. As I waited for the doctor I was grimly reminded that it had been six years TO THE FUCKING DAY that my dad had died due to his stupid fucking lungs. The doctor listened to me breathe and ordered chest x-rays. I was awarded the “at least bronchitis but likely pneumonia” prize and gifted a prescription for antibiotics and a beefier steroid inhaler.
[Important aside: I started my period right at this time, if this post was a timeline. Which it is. Kind of. The hormonal changes that come with your (First postpartum! Seriously? NOW?) period may reduce your supply of breastmilk.]
The following week I visited my doctor, who thought I needed a shot in the ass of steroids to get me over the asthma issues. During this visit Egg and I figured out that Coop, almost eight months old, had finally cut his first tooth. I also got another prescription, this time for Singulair. Hopefully the combination of Advair and Singulair keeps my stupid fucking asthma in check. (I swear this post is going somewhere!) She listened to Egg breathe (oh hai another story for another post) and pronounced him clear. Coop was sick by this point as well, but both littles were improving. Adam was almost completely well.
*deep breath*
Chicken and Sam on Egg's Birthday
On Sunday I felt better, and then ate something contaminated with gluten. My poor system said politely, “FUCK THIS SHIT” and I immediately felt worse again. Then poor Coop nursed almost non-stop throughout the night. This morning he was a wreck. He was crying, miserable, wanting to nurse constantly, and wouldn’t nap. I would have defrosted some breastmilk at this point but due to illness, a broken pump (I KNOW!), and my period I had no stash. Around noon I changed his diaper and almost fell over when he peed all over his onesie. His urine smelled SO BAD, and it was much darker than normal. Oh fuck.
I asked Dr. Google, and he said that it was possibly ten thousand horrible terminal things or maybe just dehydration because your lousy fucking body isn’t making enough milk, dumbass. I tucked my Exclusively Breastfed except for an occasional chew of food ala Baby Led Weaning tail between my motherfucking legs and bought some formula. I bought a six pack of the organic made from Angels pre-made type of formula and fed my baby. After four ounces he was happy. After eight ounces he peed, pooped, took a nap and was delighted. *whew*
Tomorrow I’m going to try to find a pump to rent until I can resolve my pump issue. I need to buy a new faceplate or get a used pump off of eBay or Craig’s List. Tonight I’m going to feed Coop whatever he needs. I might be a breastfeeding advocate, but I’m also an advocate of non-dehydrated babies. Hopefully this run of depressing sickness and misery is over, and we can all go back to complaining about how fucking stupid some Republicans are being right now.
Posted in Backend, Breastfeeding, Coop, fibromyalgia, One Sickly Bitch, Pictures, Rambling, Suck Ass, Wheaty Issues
10 Comments
Blondie Part Three
Two things that I need to address before we can finish Blondie’s story. 1) I got my period today. My first postpartum period and OMFG OUCH PAIN DEATH BLURG. So I took two muscle relaxers. They relax my brain. A lot. 2) I have a great deal of anxiety regarding the phone and voicemail. I should get a gold star for my phone and voicemail usage in this story. This is the last installment of the Blondie story, and if it seems like I am TOTALLY FUCKING RELAXED you’ll understand, right?
Adam got home from work, half expecting to see Blondie draped across our couch. I told him Blondie was with her owners and filled him in on the sad details. There may have been some totally serious half-kidding jokes about fence hopping and dog-napping. We were all sad to see her go.
The following day my phone rang and I ignored it. The caller left a voicemail which I also ignored. Four days later my doctor called, and it prompted me to check my voicemail. The first voicemail was from the veterinarian’s office. The day after Blondie went home to her owners a woman showed up at the vet’s with her. She wanted to know if Blondie was microchipped, and left her contact information in case the owners called. Luckily, the vet tech was the same one who had helped me the day before and she recognized Blondie. The vet tech took down the contact information and told Blondie’s new friend that she would call me.
Now, I hate using the phone. But I had to call this woman and find out what happened to Blondie. Had she found her owners? Did she drop her off at the shelter? If she still had Blondie, what should I say to her regarding the owners? It was not an easy phone call and I had a serious case of nervous tummy just thinking about it. The phone went to voicemail (of course it did!) and I had to leave one of those, “You don’t know me but…” messages. Carrie called back two minutes later.
Carrie found Blondie in her neighborhood the day after I reunited her with her owners. I asked a few questions and realized that Blondie had crossed a 45mph road to arrive in Carrie’s neighborhood. Blondie was running farther away. She was still wearing a collar with no tag. Carrie had put up signs in the area, including the main street that Blondie’s owners likely drive down every day. And when I say “likely drive down” I mean it is the street that anyone leaving their house to go anywhere would take. The sign was at an intersection where one of the busiest streets in the WHOLE ENTIRE VALLEY meets our little road. Blondie had been with Carrie for four days. Blondie’s owners had not contacted the vet, my neighbor, or myself.
If Blondie was my dog, I would have looked for signs, called the people that found my dog the day before, called the local vet, and walking the fucking streets until I found her. I would have littered the “Do not post your crap here” mailboxes with lost fliers. Blondie’s owners did none of those things. I was at the point in the conversation where I had to speak up for Blondie, the pre-fuckage point that I had missed four days before.
I told Carrie in careful words that I did not think Blondie should go back to her owners. I was afraid she would say, “How could you say that about someone, it is their dog!” I gave Carrie a few examples of behavior that made me think that she had been abused. And then Carrie responded in a way that I did not anticipate at all.
Carrie worked at a veterinarian as a vet tech. She found Blondie and took her to the local vet I had visited. She got all the information I had the day before and brought her home. She noticed the Blondie had a staple in her belly, and she also observed sores that I did not. Blondie refused to come in her house or eat for the first day, and acted like an abused dog. By the time I contacted Carrie, Blondie had integrated herself into the household and was currently snoozing on the couch with another dog. Carrie thought she was a wonderful dog and was considering keeping her if the owners were not found.
I told Carrie that my neighbor was the only person that knew exactly where the owners lived. I said that I would give my neighbor Carrie’s phone number and would leave it up to them to make a decision about where Blondie should go. I also told Carrie that I thought she should keep the dog. She had already renamed her. I went to my neighbors house and gave her Carrie’s phone number. I told her that she could choose to call or not. If Carrie really wanted to return the dog, all she had to do was call me again.
My neighbor didn’t call Carrie. Carrie never called me. The owners never came looking, never posted a sign, never called the one vet in our area. Blondie got her happy ending.
Posted in Uncategorized
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Blondie Part Two
You might be wondering why I went through the effort to deposit Blondie in my backyard. There were two reasons. One, her collar did not have a tag on it. Note to dog owners: If you are able to keep a collar on your dog, it would be a prudent idea to put a tag on it. Two, I had to pick up Chicken from school where he was taking his final Spanish 2 exam on campus. I made a few signs and posted them on our neighborhood mailboxes next to the signs stating it is illegal to post on them. Then I stopped by our local veterinarian to leave my contact information. We only have one vet and I would assume that any person with a missing animal would go there first.
At the vet, the tech asked me where the dog was because she wanted to scan her for a microchip. I felt like a moron but promised to bring Blondie back in an hour. I picked up Chicken, explained the muddy car and drove back home to get Blondie. This time I used my tiny fucking brain to put down a seat in my car and covered it with a towel before bringing out the dog. Of course Blondie was now dry and mostly clean. At the vet we discovered a few things. Blondie was microchipped. She was also not in the best condition for a six year old dog.
The first thing I noticed while the vet tech was calling about the microchip was that there was a staple in Blondie’s belly, likely left after she was spayed. From the look of her abdomen, the surgery was not recent. She had some spots where fur was missing and her coat wasn’t great. The vet tech found that Blondie was sold from a puppy mill in Missouri to a pet store in Fallbrook, California six years ago. The puppy mill put the microchip in and it was never registered to the owners. (This requires a single phone call.) The pet store in Fallbrook no longer existed. I was starting to form a picture in my mind of Blondie’s owners at this point and it was not necessarily positive.
I brought Blondie home and Egg lost his fucking mind playing with her in the backyard. Even Chicken liked her because she wasn’t a licker. Adam wasn’t home yet but he was half anticipating us becoming dogs owners. We had no way to find Blondie’s parents, and with no local “no kill” shelters I didn’t see a lot of options. Then Twitter delivered my neighbor to the front door. You can say anything you want about social media, but that day it brought Blondie back to her parents. My neighbor saw the picture of Blondie on Twitter and came over to meet her.
Blondie was curled into the smallest ball possible by my front door when my neighbor arrived. I had to drag her into the house from the backyard. It was cold and I thought she might be hungry. She didn’t want to be inside the house, she had the unmistakable look of “they’re going to fucking kill me if I go into the house one more time.” I offered her a piece of chicken, she sniffed it and turned away. You know that look, the one that says, “Please don’t hurt me. I won’t do it again. I promise. Just don’t hurt me.” That’s the look she gave me. My heart was breaking for her.
My neighbor thought Blondie looked familiar so she rounded her kids up and drove throughout our neighborhood. She noticed a teenager walking a dog and asked if she knew of anyone that was missing a dog. The teen girl said she was missing a yellow lab. The girl went inside her house and got permission to go get the dog. She got into my neighbor’s car and showed up at my house. Let’s take a moment to think about a stranger showing up at your house, claiming to have your lost dog. At which point you give your daughter a leash and tell her to GET IN THAT PERSON’S CAR AND GO GET THE DOG. My neighbor might be a sweet SAHM with two kids, but really? REALLY?!
I brought the girl through my house to Blondie, who was happily snoozing in a chair in my backyard by then. I tried to tell the teenager there was a staple in Blondie’s belly and that she needed to register the microchip. The girl looked confused and not interested. I told her Blondie was afraid to go in my house. She replied with a short, “She’s not allowed in the house and she gets out all the time,” put a leash on her and walked back home. I thought I was going to be sick.
You know that feeling you get, where something goes incredibly wrong and you have no idea how to get back to the point of pre-fuckage? All of a sudden I realized something, something I knew to be true beyond all doubt. Blondie wasn’t getting out and joyriding around the neighborhood. She was running away. I had just delivered her back to her abusive owners. People that couldn’t be bothered to come and get Blondie or teach their daughter to say, “Thank you.” Or even to show a smallest bit of gladness that their beloved dog was found. I was crushed. I looked at my neighbor and realized that she had drawn the same conclusion. What had we done?
Luckily for Blondie, that was not the end of her story.
Posted in About Me, Asshats, Dawgs, Rambling
Tagged dumb assed motherfuckers, labrador retriever, lost dogs
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Blondie Part One
This is Blondie. On December 14th I found her galloping along my street without a care in the world. Labradors just have this way of being in the moment that I adore. When big dogs with an attitude get out of their yards, they project, “I am gonna FUCK SOME SHIT UP.” Little dogs tend to have a “oh mah gawd I am lost and a big dog just looked at me like I’m an appetizer aaahhhhh” feeling about them. Jack Russell Terriers are ADHD dogs. Their brains are a swirling vortex of “GRASS! SMELL! DIRT! PERSON! CAR! POOP! CAT!” Labradors are like happy stoner dogs when they’re free. They’re not scared or angry, and they just want to go with the flow, man.
I have a reputation of finding lost dogs, shoving them in my car and then calling their owners. I have a good feel for dogs, and beyond the occasional slobber festival thanks to a Basset Hound, I haven’t had many problems. I have been yelled at by more than one person who thought the dog I was trying to catch was MY dog. Dogs on the run are attracted to other dogs, and I’m usually in the process of catching the loose dog when it sees a new friend and then all hell breaks loss and the other dog’s owner yells at me. Thanks, lady. I love you too. Yes, I am flipping you off.
One of the reasons I grabbed Blondie was that she was wearing a collar. This means a quick phone call and my duty is done. When I have two small children in the car and a teenager to pick up I don’t have a lot of time to fuck around with dogs without collars. The first problem was getting Blondie into my car. She got in just fine, and then decided that the driver’s seat was more to her liking. Have you ever tried to move a Labrador that wasn’t interested in being moved? It is not easy.
I got her into the passenger seat and noticed two things: there was no tag on her collar and she was muddy. I glanced at the mud liberally smeared around my car’s interior, stifled the voice that said, “But it’s a 2012! It doesn’t even exist yet!* And it’s covered in mud!” and drove down the street to my house. I locked the little ones in my car, and Blondie pulled me to my front door. As soon as I got the door open my husband’s bitch cat took one look at the dog and said, “Oh hell no. You are not coming in my fucking house.” She thinks that she is Queen Bitch. I ignored her and coaxed Blondie into my backyard.
My backyard is completely fenced, and the shortest fence is six foot tall. I wasn’t worried about Blondie escaping, but I was worried about her retrieving one or more of my chickens. Their fence is about 3″ and no match for a dog. One by one I grabbed a chicken while holding Blondie and tossed (gently) the chickens on the side of the house. There is a fence that separates the side yard from the rest of it, and the birds would be safe temporarily. I let Blondie go, and she bounded around my yard, sniffing and thinking happy thoughts. I filled the plastic kiddie pool with an inch of water, and left her to explore.
*It bothers me that you can purchase a car in the summer of 2011 that is model year 2012.
Mary Jane: Not THAT Mary Jane, Toby
A few months ago I took the kids to Payless Shoes to pick up an order for Chicken. Chicken had found a pair of boots that were not available in his size at the store, but you could have them shipped to the store for free. At 15 years old, Chicken is starting to learn about things like shipping. He wants his product as soon as possible (he’s a teenager) but he has limited funds (also part and parcel* of being a teen).
While we were in the store, Chicken could not resist looking at the shoes for a few minutes. And of course, Egg wanted to check out the shoes as well. The way Payless arranges their shoes for young children is by size, not boys or girls shoes. So I said to Egg, “Look, this is size 8. If you like a pair a of shoes, they must have an 8 on them. Egg picked out several shoes and I helped him try them on. After a few minutes it was clear that he liked one pair of shoes more than another, and that pair of shoes was too big. We settled on a pair of brown shoes in size 7.5. They were less than twenty dollars, and Egg was delighted.
Although I’m working through my culture’s insistence that boys wear BOY things and girls wear GIRL things, I still struggle with going against the grain. For me, buying a pair of shoes that is less than twenty dollars means that if Egg only wears them once I won’t feel the need to push them on him. My goal here is to allow Egg to decide what he wears regardless of the fact that is a girl thing or a boy thing. He is almost three years old, and he does not give two shits about whether clothes or toys are deemed appropriate for him.
Generally speaking, I let Egg pick out what shoes he wants to wear each day. I don’t let him wear slippers out of the house. His backyard shoes must stay in the backyard with the chickens, and the inevitable shit which is the one place he steps. Otherwise, he has about four different pairs of shoes to pick from each day. Three of them are traditional boy shoes purchased by my mother-in-law and one pair is the brown ones from Payless. Depending on his mood, he will pick a pair of shoes and put them on his feet.
Around the house, Egg is likely to wear undies, socks, and shoes. Everyone else in the house takes their shoes off the minute they arrive, but Egg is a shoe wearer. When we leave the house, he is most likely to be wearing “boy” pants, a “boy” shirt, and whatever shoes he likes for the day. If that pair of shoes is the brown pair, I am treated to a day of confused people.
You see, Coop is one of those babies that spends all of his time outside attempting to catch the eye of any person that he sees. He grins, pretends to be bashful, and generally says HEY LOOK AT ME AND MY FAT CHEEKS, YO. AREN’T I CUTE? This means that people talk to him and take notice of Egg. A typical conversation goes like this:
Coop: *grins broadly*
Stranger: OMG what a cute baby. Look at those cheeks! Look at those blue eyes. OMG *pokes friend* his big brother has blue eyes, too! *looks at Egg for a moment, notices brown shoes* Oh I’m sorry, that must be your big sister! What a cute baby you are!
You see, if you take a child, cut their hair short in the current style that indicates “I have a penis” and put them in traditional boy clothes BUT they are wearing girl shoes then that child must NOT have a penis. It is a true fact. Shoes, my friends, are what make a person a boy or a girl.
*I looked up the idiom “part and parcel” and Merriam-Webster was kind enough to include that it rhymes with “metatarsal.” In case you were wondering.
No More Corn Please
I went through a rough patch when I was pregnant with Coop where I watched more episodes of the Maury show than any person should ever inflict upon themselves. One thing that frustrated the fucking shit out of me is when people faced with a paternity test would exclaim, “Babies in my family do not have [insert whatever stupid fucking thing here].” If you haven’t seen the show, you might not understand the stupidity of these assertions. People would say that the baby is too fat or too skinny or his head is too round to be their child or relative. One particularly offensive person said that there are no handicapped people in their family, therefore the disabled child could not be their offspring. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS, RANDOM PERSON ON MY TELEVISION?
With the understanding that I realize the claim I am about to make is complete bullshit, I would like to tell you that my people, we do not throw up. During pregnancy, there were many times that I wished I would just fucking barf and perhaps for a moment not feel like I needed to vomit. I am fairly sure that I have not puked since 2006, and that I blame on Rubio’s. I can remember two occasions that I have witnessed Chicken throw up, and they were of the barf once and feel better variety. Egg will be three years old this month and he has barfed three times, within fives minutes and in my car. I do not count spitting up as vomit.
I have read many blog posts that detailed the horrors of children vomiting. I never understood. Kid pukes, clean it up, do a load of laundry, the end. Right? HAHAHAHAHAHA. Sunday night Adam and I were packing in preparation for our family cruise. I had the notarized permission from H1, official birth certificates for all of us, and I had cleaned the shit out of my house. At midnight Egg woke up crying. Adam lost the highly mature game of “NOT IT!” and he went in to comfort Egg. The next thing I remember is seeing Egg covered in vomit.
My midwife gave me a list of items needed for my homebirth. Having at least ten full-sized towels was one of requirements. Because we were leaving the next morning for our cruise, I had every damn towel clean. I do not like to come home to a dirty house filled with laundry that needs to be washed. In three hours we were down to two clean towels, we had each changed clothes two or more times, and many of Egg’s blankets were coated in barf. It will be a very long time before I eat corn again.
Eventually I set up Egg’s mattress on the floor in the living room and had Adam on the couch right next to him. I love wood floors. Barf away, sweet child! I got to sleep before 4am, and asked Adam to wake me at 8am. We needed to leave and drive to Long Beach by 11am. I was assuming that Egg had food poisoning and would be fine after a night of hearty barfing. Monday morning Egg stopped throwing up around 9am, exchanging the puke fest for a fever. Our cruise was fucked.
Egg is slowly feeling better but not eating much yet. He hasn’t had a fever since last night. It seems like we’ve been at home for weeks now, tending to a miserable toddler and asshole baby. Adam goes back to work tomorrow, Chicken returns to school on Monday after three months on home hospital. We don’t know if we’ll be able to reschedule the cruise, and it is heartbreaking to hear Egg say, “Big boat? We go on big boat?” I’d feel more sorry for myself if I wasn’t worrying about my Twitter and Facebook friend Kate. Please send healing thoughts her way, and donate to the relief fund mentioned in the linked post if you can.
Posted in Egg, Mah Peeps
6 Comments
AlI I Want For Christmas
Is just a few minutes to write and shave my legs.
Posted in Coop, Pictures
5 Comments