a crazy few days

Jun 29

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, caleb isaiah, just another day in paradise, memories, parenting, ramblings, rants

It all started with me calling to upgrade our internet earlier this week, on Monday I believe. I asked if anyone had to come out to our house. No. Just a new ethernet cord that they would be mailing. Simple as that. Mkay. Fast forward to Wednesday. Kim was here for speech therapy…it was a nightmare. Caleb was on the floor throwing tantrums. Trying to do anything BUT what she wanted him to do basically. She gave up, and proceeded to talk to me about the situation. His attention span has been declining for the past 3 or 4 sessions. She said ‘I’m just seeing a side of him I’ve never seen before, with the tantrums and everything?! You need to nip that.’ This was the point where I mainly just wanted to flick her perky little head right off her shoulders. NIP a 2 year olds tantrums??? Are ya kidding me? She acted like is was completely unheard of! I explained that I usually deal with tantrums by walking away. He doesn’t get his way, he doesn’t get attention, and God willing he will eventually give up this bargaining technique, hopefully while my sanity is still in tact.

I turned over everything and spoke through email with my friend Kelly. Her little boy had intense therapy because the doctors were concerned about him possibly being autistic. I asked her how they dealt with J not behaving during therapy. After much thought on the subject, I made some notes, and gave Kim a call. I explained that tantrums were certainly nothing new in this house, and were pretty normal for a toddler. I told her that I think we are seeing some boredom, thus he’s losing interest and acting negatively when we try to steer him back. She agreed, and we are going to try some different activities on Monday, as well as me leaving the room. So we’ll see.

So as I was saying, therapy started the day out on a sour note. After I got Caleb down for his nap, I came in here to watch TV. An hour into his naptime, he woke up screaming. He was soaking wet with sweat. It was pretty obviously he wasn’t going back to sleep, so I brought him in here to watch TV and cuddle. He just couldn’t get comfortable. He kept crying and fussing, then he’d arch his back, then he’d hug me and cry some more. He had woken up with a runny nose that morning, so after crying so much, there was snot everywhere. I took him in the kitchen to wipe his face with a cool cloth. He was screaming so hard by this point that he could barely breathe. I walked in his room from the kitchen, and out came the puke. Which of course made him cry harder. I grabbed stuff out of his dirty clothes basket to catch everything and try to get him cleaned up. All of this continued for almost an hour. Just screaming and puking. Unfortunately, the ONLY thing God didn’t change about me when I entered the wonderful world of motherhood was giving me the ability to deal with puke. Without puking myself. Maybe I’m eternally scared from all the morning sickness at the beginning of my pregnancy. And I use the term ‘morning’ loosely. Well in the middle of all the screaming and throwing up, someone knocked on the door. Bell South guy. He asked me if we were upgrading our internet speed, and then said he just had to put a part on, but it was outside. I asked if he needed to come in, he said no. He could check our connection at the modem, but he didn’t have to. I thanked him and returned to the screaming pukefest. By the time I was done and my poor baby calmed down, the guy was gone. It wasn’t for a few hours that I noticed, the DSL light of death blinking. Great. No internet. Sadly enough, it makes me crazy, I can’t stand to be without internet! *hangs head in shame* Hi my name is Rachel and I’m addicted to the internet.

So I made the first of MANY phone calls (on my cell phone mind you, eating up my minutes, about 200 of them to be exact). The girl tried to troubleshoot, and more less blame it on me, which just infuriates me. She kept asking the same questions over and over. Had I moved my computer lately? Any thunderstorms? Basically refusing to take responsibility in any way shape or form, dismissing the remote possibility that the tech could have done anything wrong. My temper grew shorter and shorter. After 30 minutes of this, she proclaimed that a technician must be sent. So she set up an appointment for the DSL tech for the following morning. The most wonderful part is, they don’t make appointment times, they give you a FOUR hour window. So any way you look at it, you’re spending at least half you day waiting on them. Scott called back later that night, and made a weak attempt to get someone out here at 9pm. The person he talked to said, “Oh this is standard procedure, it takes 24 hours to update, so you should have your internet connection and phone back tomorrow.” I’m sure he could hear me yelling incredulously in the background, and could possibly even see my arms waving around wildly through the phone. So the next morning, I waited. And waited, and waited. I called Scott hissing under my breath at 12pm, the end of my four hour window. They never showed up! So he called in and asked to speak with a supervisor. This guy assured Scott that the tech was just running late, and would be here soon. He agreed to personally call Scott back 40 minutes later to be sure that the tech had arrived. Yeah that didn’t happen. Not only did he never call back, the tech never arrived either.

At 3pm, I’ve been sitting here staring at the driveway for 7 hours at this point, I call back. Again. I started off the conversation by saying, “We had an appointment scheduled for this morning between 8 and 12, and it is now 3pm. I’d like to know how much longer I will have to wait on someone to show up.” Same questions again, I re-explain our story for the 20th time, since you have to explain it no less than 4 times during each phone call. She put me on hold for a while, and clicked back over here and there to ask me questions. At one point she says “Okay, hold on for a few more minutes, I’m still trying to determine why your appointment was canceled, so you didn’t call to cancel it at any point?” My blood was boiling. I told her this was unbelievable. She kept apologizing, like that did any good. So she set up another appointment for Friday morning, saying that she needed to send a phone tech first, then a DSL tech. Apparently no one knows how to do both. The phone tech would be here first thing in the morning and the DSL tech would be here by 6, yes SIX PM. She said it like she was doing me a favor. I just spent the last seven hours waiting on someone that was never coming, and now you’re telling me I need to sit here for another 10 hours tomorrow???? I called Scott. He thought I was mad earlier. That didn’t compare. Many choice words followed. Scott headed to Steve and Debbie’s (the boss and secretary). He used a landline there to call and speak with another supervisor. This gentleman said he needed to call around and find out what was going on. He called Scott back about 10 minutes later. The original guy that came to the door during the pukefest fried our phone and internet!! Whatever he did knocked it out at the control box up the road. And he didn’t even have the you know whats to come to the door and tell me. He just hopped in his van and left. No phone call or anything. The 24 hour downtime after upgrading? They made that up trying to avoid the truth! Now that…THAT is customer service for you. This is Bell South ladies and gentleman. Avoid them if you can.

The supervisor said he would attempt to have someone fix it last night, but it would probably be first thing this morning. We were standing in the kitchen rediscussing this mess when the phone rang. It was a guy working on the control box down the road. Scott asked if he could come down here and look at our internet. Luckily this good old redneck boy was proficient in both phone and DSL work. He muttered about them being a ‘buncha idiots’ down there. He even scoffed at the 24 hours of downtime, is that true? “No it ain’t,” he said. Now I like this guy! He’s speaking my language! He headed back down to the control box, and replaced something in there that the other guy had messed up. When we returned from the grocery store last night, our services had been restored. Oh yes, I will be getting something for free. What a nightmare.

So anyway, that’s where I’ve been for part of the week. And to be honest, I haven’t had much heart to write after my last entry. I’ve thought about that family a million times. I’m a fixer. I’m a helper. And no parent should ever have to hurt like that. I can’t even wrap my mind around it. Every fiber of your being is interwoven with you children. Toys everywhere. Dance lessons. Pottery Barn Kids magazines in the mailbox. Carseats in the car. Photographs of three little angels that now have wings. It just makes me short of breath. All I can do is pray for this couple. Parents should never have to bury their children. The mother said she now realizes that the only thing worse than burying one child is to bury three.

When you have your own children, you come to an amazing realization. My parents love me this much. The love from a child to a parent is a strong bond, there’s no doubt. But the love a parent feels for their child, there are just no words. You can never understand it until you have a child of your own. It gives you a little understanding to why your parents act so stupid sometimes! They do things that you just find unbelievable. Mine sure have. But they do it because they love me like I love Caleb. I always knew they loved me, but I didn’t realize until after Caleb was born, just how much. I feel sad for people who cannot or choose not to have children. For those that make a decision not to, I couldn’t possibly imagine living my life without having ever felt this love. It would be so empty and meaningless.

And with that, I’m all out of words now. Caleb managed to wipe enough snot on me in the last two days to transfer whatever mess he had to me. Again. This happened a few months ago also. Luckily I get the mutated 10 times as bad version. Last time he had a little cold that ran its course in 48 hours or so…Me? An upper respiratory infection. Of course I rather I have it than him, but ugh, I’m off to melt away aches under the hottest water I can possibly stand.