I’ve spent much of the last week feeling guilty for not writing on top of everything else.  I came down with some ailment yesterday.  Caleb is having a hard day because I know he senses all the stress in me.  We have basically lost our only source of income at the worst possible time of the year, with the holidays around the corner.  And the worst possible time, due to the state of the economy right now.  It isn’t in stone yet, but not far from it.  I honestly kind of think they are trying to make Scott quit.  Which I suppose is the thanks he gets for carrying his boss’s business by himself 2+ years out of the last three.  Cheers.  I’ll drink to that.

I suppose I’m just excusing myself for a couple days trying to get my thoughts in order and get well.  I’m by no means gone, and reachable by email…just need a few days to figure out where Christmas is going to come from….or our rent.

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Edit at bottom

Come over here and tell me again in my good ear.  I lost my hearing on my left side.

Yeah, so I took Caleb in for allergy testing this morning.  Actually, let me back up.  On several past occasions, he has had a reaction to eggs.  Now all three times, they were in totally different forms.  Once was just regular scrambled eggs when he was a little over a year I think.  Immediately came back up along with whatever he ate before it.  Once was French toast, and once was whipped egg whites on top of banana pudding.  Red splotchiness around his mouth and it always came right back up.  So at Caleb’s three (and a half, so I’m a little late) year check up, the pediatrician assumed (without even asking) that I wanted the flu shot that we’ve never gotten before.  Not to stick my nose in the air, but it was September 2008 at his appointment, and it was our first time being there since March 2007 (for his 2yr well checkup).  So for the third year running, I planned on declining the flu shot (as I have with several other vax - way different post for another day).  I just let it go, and listened to the pediatrician as she rambled on about going to see an allergist.  Why not, I thought, then we’d know for sure if it was a reaction or his sensitive gag reflex with different textures. Forgot to add, the flu vaccine has trace amounts of egg in it - I guess the two sounded completely unrelated without that knowledge.

So the pediatrician called me a few hours later -in the super loud children’s museum of course- to let me know that she had so graciously called and made us an appointment.  Gee thanks for letting me check my schedule, asking what time of day…  Whatever.  Luckily, there happened to be an allergist not only in our town, but so close that we could have actually walked faster than we drove.  Literally.

We went in this morning, to get tested for egg allergy.  She asked me a bazillion questions totally unrelated to eggs/food.  She then said, he was going to be just as mad about us doing one verses ten, so maybe we could do a few others while we were there.  She rattled off maybe four things.  So, since four plus one is five…this would naturally lead you to assume five or six things, right?

So in the come with THIRTY THREE little prickly tests.  Milk?  You want to test him for milk?  He drinks two gallons a week.  Seriously, I think Scott helps a little, but I would bet Caleb’s intake accounts for 75%+ of that consumption.  She had a counter reason for every one I suggested marking out.  I got fed up and said lets just get it done.  The nurse asked if I had a problem with them holding him down.  I asked to hold him instead.  Like I said, this is when I lost my hearing on the left side.  I closed my eyes and prayed for them to hurry up so I didn’t cry.  Having my child looking at me with tears streaming, screaming “Stop dat hurwts” is not how I planned on spending my morning.  His back now looks like he got in a fight with a cat because it is impossible to hold a child still when you’re doing something like that.  So several of them scraped across his back.  Blah.

He couldn’t even breathe when they were done, and almost deposited his breakfast on me.  It really helped that the nurse absolutely sucked with children.  She asked me if he had some horrible experience with a doctor in the past.  Um hello, kids don’t like people they don’t know touching them.  I don’t think that is unusual.

I, personally, think it was a lot of drama for not so much information.  Out of the 31 they did, they came up with positive ones on a few of the molds and dusts, and so they say, dog.  If you go huff dust, do you sneeze?  Me too.  She was saying he shouldn’t be playing in the grass because that made him stuffy.  “I’m sure you notice that when you come inside, right?”  Um, that’s another no.  And he would live outside if I let him.  They gave him a prescription for Claritin and some nose spray.   Cause kids love nose spray.  It is still, in my non medical mom intuition opinion, overkill.  Oh and they want me to get a dust cover for his pillow and mattress.

So anyway, it sucked.  Yay.

Edited to add: Ah yes, Andrea reminded me, in being so flustered I forgot to add, no egg allergy showed up.  I believe that he had an allergy that was outgrown (egg is a common food allergy for children that is outgrown by 3-5)

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You’ve been seeing a lot of pictures lately.  And I’ve been taking a lot.  And feeling about a million miles away.  With writer’s block.  Weird.  Sometimes in stressful situations, I can write and it helps.  Other times, I can’t think of anything to say to save my life.  Or at least I can’t put it down ‘on paper.’  So apparently I just take pictures instead.  You ever have a period of time where the days fly by and at the end of each one, you think, what did I actually accomplish today?  The hours are gone, but you feel like you’re in the same place you started that morning.  And you get up and do it again the next day.

My mother inlaw has been having a lot of health problems lately.  Quite frankly, she gave us all quite a scare.  The doctors determined her heart strength to be significantly lower than it should be.  It was one of those things where, she  felt a little worse gradually, then that became normal, then a little more winded, and then that became normal, until suddenly normal was really a struggle.  Thankfully a defibulator/pacemaker seems to have her feeling a little better, other than recovering strength from the ordeal in the past several weeks, which involved several hospital stays.  The rather ironic part is, two days before a catheterization to determine if there was any type of blockage, she was going down the slide with Caleb at the park next to her house!  I’ll do her the favor of sparing the photographic proof of her deciding 3/4ths of the way down that it might not have been such a wise idea, but she did make it to the bottom with a big smile.

Then there’s the job.  You know, that ugly thing that provides ever cent we need to survive?  Well it has been a battle zone recently.  Uncertainty.  Stress.  Disrespect.  Stress.  Did I mention stress?  You probably don’t want to know the grizzly details.  I’ve been doing everything I can think of to conserve money, spend wisely.  Hopefully this will blow over.  Truly a reminder of nothing is guaranteed, even if you moved into a house that was on the high end of your budget on that premises.

Discovering an empty pool.  A face sad enough to almost put 5000 gallons back in there.

“Picking berries” which he says will grow into a beanstalk that will reach the sky

Caleb received a VW bug from his Auntie, so I once again set about the task of transforming it into Herbie.  This one started off red, so I was forced to add a white base coat this time.  I allowed plenty of dry time (a mistake I made last time because the paint smudged almost immediately), and worked over about a two week period.  Adding three coats of white, then each stripe and the I drew on the 53’s with a paint pen (looked like I had the DTs or something, surprisingly my hand was more steady with the paint brush, go figure), and lastly added the sunroof, bumpers and tail lights.  He was thrilled yesterday morning.  Then he dropped Herbie last night at Walmart and a big chip of paint flaked off!  How disappointing.  He was crushed too.  He just got silent and almost started crying.  It was pitiful.  But we assured him that Herbie could be fixed.  I think I’ll try some clear coat spray over him in hopes that it will give the paint some stability after all my hard work.

He started off red.  Now he is Herbie.  The kid is thrilled.

~ Taken Today ~

I see you.  I hear you.  I just do not intend on looking at you.

The difference between kids and adults: we actually mind laying in the sand, whereas kids, not so much.

Raining today.  We played on the screen porch for a few hours.  Pretty chilly, had to break out the long sleeves.  Listening to the rain was relaxing.

I’ve found solace in my photography.  I sat down one night last week.  Made my rounds online.  No new emails, blog entries, not much going on with the mommy board I frequent.  I sat here staring at the screen.  Scott was already asleep.  Don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I looked up the RAW picture files from the one decent snowfall we had last winter.  I spent the next hour tinkering with them in Adobe Lightroom.  For that hour, I forgot about everything going on.  I got lost in the calm, quiet snow of the pictures below.  I remember that day, it was so quiet you could almost hear the snow fall.  The middle picture is still my favorite.  Especially since it used to be my backyard.

We are heading off on an adventure tomorrow.  An adventure brought about by Caleb’s three year well checkup at the pediatrician.  Yes he’s three and a half.  Shutup.  At least I can say it is our first time going since his two year well visit a year and a half ago!!  So that counts for something.  That plus I can use the -we were moving- excuse.  We were looking at houses right around his birthday, and moving at the end of April.  Then the summer skipped on by and here we are.  It is strange though.  Last time we were there, he wasn’t even talking.  And now he’s up to 100,000+ words per day.

After the pediatrician, we are headed to the children’s museum, always a favorite.  I’m packing lunch and snacks to take along to save some of that green stuff.  In fact, my goal is for tomorrow to be completely free.  With the exception of $4/gallon gas of course.  I have selected a cool castle event venue in hopes of getting some neat pictures tomorrow.  Clothes are laid out, lunches are packed, camera is stowed, plus undies, extra clothes, a small trash bag, napkins, a toilet and a maybe kitchen sink in there somewhere.  Feels like you’re going camping for a week when you leave home with kids on a day trip.  I must say, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to spend the day away tomorrow.  Clear my head.  I sure hope the weather is nice.  The house was just dim all day today and it rained today, and I just wanted to go back to bed.  All. day. long.  Tomorrow will be a good day.  If I can just stop my head from calculating how much every 1000 feet costs to drive (I stay home.  A LOT.).

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned the hard way that some poems don’t rhyme and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, and taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what is going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.” - Gilda Radner

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Can someone please explain to me what the government -whoever the hell asked, The Pantry (gas station chain)?- hopes to accomplish by asking people not to get more than 10 gallons of gas???  Was that a conspiracy to get the exact response they desired?  People lined up at the damn pumps driving the price through the roof again?  Instead of the normal amount of people who would have gotten gas this weekend, instead everyone, his brother, cousin and great aunt Sally is lined up with the cars, gas cans and any other container that might hold gas.  People are probably driving their lawn mowers to the station.  I’m gonna start riding a horse just so some of these idiots can step in his crap behind me.

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And insert boring content here.

Ya miss me? I have been feeling rather quiet the last few days. We haven’t really been too many places, so I don’t have my usual repertoire of interesting stories.

I could tell you about blowing my lid at Belk after trying to exchange/purchase some items. And how I clearly told the lady the easiest way to do her job…to exchange the items on the receipt for a size smaller and add on the extra items, holding one item on the side to exchange with the item for which I did not have a receipt. She instead rung up all of the items together, which totaled $40 over the exchange, then tried to give me a gift card for the item that was returned without a receipt. Can someone please explain why I would want to pay $40 and then have a $8 gift card leftover?

Or I could write about Caleb giving away my sugar to the WAITRESS this weekend when eating out with my parents! That’s right he hugged our waitress and kissed her on the cheek. Flirt.

Then there was my mom’s visit. My dear mom. The one that still doesn’t comprehend no contact between her dog and our son. Why? Oh no reason other than him coming 1/4 an inch from possibly losing his eyesight in one eye. Because I don’t still get physically queasy when that flashes back in my head since I will never get rid of that image. And I certainly haven’t cried about it twice in the last month. I could go on to explain how she has rationalized an “excuse” in her head as to why it happened. Because he fell on her. No he fell beside her. And it hurt her. No at most it pulled on her collar. And she didn’t mean to react that way. No actually it was a combination of jealousy and she sensed of weakness. And he is now rightfully so afraid of dogs.

So my mom calls wanting me to ask Scott if it is okay if she puts Gilda behind a safety gate in the third bedroom. She has me risk life and limb to dodge the wasps that occupy our storage building entrance to retrieve a gate. And upon her arrival, let’s Gilda roam where ever she pleases and crap in the kitchen floor. She also downright begged that I leave Caleb with her and go to Target. Why should I? She’s obviously shown that, after Gilda attacked my child’s face, she still doesn’t understand nor respect that we do not wish for them to be in the same room together.

So if at this point you’re just feeling depressed and/or speechless, go have a look and a laugh at my finally completed 101 things!! Looka there. It only took me a year and a half to write!

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Got this in the mail. It made my day. I’m such a jerk. That’s right. Small balance writeoff. Since I may or may not have blatantly said, “I’m NOT paying it,” and slammed the phone down. Mwahahahaha (no clue what I’m talking about? read here) If I ever live anywhere without cable again, I’ll just dig a trench and bury the wire from the nearest neighbor with cable myself.

Oh yeah, and Lou-hoo-zah-her!

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Caleb ate a granola bar this afternoon for a snack.  He climbed out of the chair himself as I was busy grouping flowers.  Scott was a few steps away from him walking toward the sink and he just went ballistic and yelled “You forgot to clean ME UP!”  And smacked his fists against his legs or something.  We both whipped around like “Um excuse me?!”  I told him that was absolutely not any way to ask to be cleaned up and he knew better than that.  I questioned whether he could think of a better way to ask.  He kept trying to hug me to get out of it, whimpering and whining.  I stood my ground (while squatted down eye to eye with him).  His little ass downright refused!  Ugh!  Talk about making Mt. Everest out of a molehill!  Let me tell you.  He cried and whined and carried on for FORTY-FIVE minutes!!!  I told him he would have to sit in this chair at the table until he was ready to ask nicely.  It was so infuriating!  But as stubbornly as he pushed his refusal to ask, I pushed right back refusing to free him from that spot until he asked.  I left the room numerous times, and returned and re-explained myself again.  Finally after a long winded discussion of how it was rude and unacceptable ask the way that he did and it was important to use nice manners no matter who we are speaking too, and yada, yada, yada, a few more tears and snot swipes…he finally complied.  Tell me that at some point, a future wife, teacher, someone will thank me for this.  Turkey!

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Today was library storytime day. I woke up late, started slow, and left late, but I made myself/us go. I’m glad we did, because we got a HUGE stack of books (perhaps even so many that I feel okay skipping next week! Ha!), and we even re-checked out On Top of Spaghetti.  To go along with the nationwide summer reading campaign, “Catch the Reading Bug,” we made butterflies today.  So there actually was no storytime, just a long hour of waiting for the three librarians to come around with the box of foamies to select the butterfly parts and put them together.  It was a cute project, which all of the kids loved, but of course it made for a rather chaotic and time consuming event.  There were probably 75+ people there today, we graduated to two rows of chairs around the edge of the room!  Since we had plenty of time on our hands, I began to look around me.

To my left there was a girl with strawberry blonde hair, her son looked exactly like her.  He was perched in her lap, and as she tried to talk to her neighbor, her son repeatedly headbutted the wind out of her.  Each time she corrected him, he snuggled and nuzzled up under her chin.  As soon as she began to talk again, the process started over.

Over to my right, I noted that the lady with four kids (from last week) had returned.  The newborn was sleeping peacefully in the stroller, despite all the noise.  Her older child was very attentive and still overall.  The two middle children were a handful again.  The older boy was whining and whimpering as they came in.  She finally got him settled and he and Caleb exchanged silences about the monster trucks on his shirt.  But the younger little girl seems to be having a most difficult time adjusting to no longer being the baby in the family.  She constantly demanded all of her mother’s attention with a wide assortment of antics, cuddles, whines, and cries.  She climbed on the table and jumped up and down repeatedly, threatened to jump off the table, threw herself all over the ground, cried over everything, and climbed right back on the table to jump some more.  The picture frame above the table was about to fall off the wall by the time they left.

I looked around the room at all of the faces, and we all seemed to have at least a one thing in common.  Everyone had this glazed look in their eyes, as if to say, “If only I had the energy, and I weren’t so tired, I might just be pulling my hair out right now.”  The few faces that didn’t say that were full of creases and wrinkles that said, “These aren’t mine, I just get to spoil them and then, thank goodness, I get to send them back home to their parents tonight!”  I kind of laughed to myself.  It is nice to know that no one is super mom every day.

We gathered up bag full of books and headed up the stairs to check them out.  I always remind Caleb on the way up the stairs that we use our whisper voice up there.  When we reached the top, he eyed a boy playing a computer game with a monster truck on it.  I noted the game to him and told him to come along as I went to get in line.  The line was no more than 15 feet away, and Caleb is often pokey and slow about these things.  I knew exactly where he was, and that he would be along momentarily.  By the time I reached the line area, and turned back around to check on him, there was a guy dragging him along backwards by the upper arm!!!  Caleb was starting to whimper because a person he did not know was pulling him by the arm.  I don’t think he had time to figure out what was going on, and I was so damn stunned, I didn’t either.  The guy said something like “I got him for ya,” and as he walked away, he said to himself “library child saver.”  I think I muttered ‘thanks’ or something like that, but I just felt like saying “excuse me?!”  The more I think about it, the madder I get!  When I told Scott, the first thing out of his mouth was “what time does the library close?”  I *think* the guy worked there, I’m not sure.  He started fiddling with the books on the shelf to go back out and be filed away, straightening them and such.  I know he probably had the best of intentions, but you do not drag someone else’s child.  And certainly not even giving the child a chance to turn around and walk forward, he had to walk backwards about 15 feet.  He was not being disruptive, and I knew exactly where he was and what he was doing.  I couldn’t have gotten five steps in front of him before the guy grabbed him by the arm!  Not cool.  If there is ever a next time, I will get my wits about me faster and let him and his boss know that it was not appropriate nor necessary.  Am I overreacting?  What would you have done?

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I can’t decide which is worse, this Walmart experience, or a few months ago, when they bagged a glass bottle that I broke and sent the chard home with me. We went looking for the below mentioned bike today. Hubby had to work all day and we’re a bit lonely, so I figured, why not? We went to the closest Walmart and they didn’t have it. We tried out a few bikes there, wandered around the store and came out with the grand total purchase of a Dinoco helicopter from Cars.

I tried to call Scott and find out when he might be home. I didn’t get an answer, so I figured we’d head down to the Walmart about 15 minutes away. We headed straight back to the bike section and spotted the bike we were looking for on the very top rack, about ten feet in the air. I couldn’t even come close to it reaching my arm above my head. As I was pointing to it and showing Caleb, a young guy walked by and turned back and asked if we needed a bike down, in a very friendly, helpful manner. I told him yes, but of course he couldn’t do it, he had to page someone in that department.

So I stood and waited. And waited, and waited. About 15 minutes later, the same guy passed by again one aisle over, and I saw him cringe when he saw me still standing there. A few more minutes passed and I walked to the closest desk and told the girl I had been waiting for 20 minutes already, could she please page someone for bikes again. And I resumed my waiting post. Caleb was extremely patient. He just toyed around with everything in the area, and besides keeping an eye on him, I didn’t have to do a thing, he completely entertained himself, thank goodness.

After another 10 minutes, MY THREE YEAR OLD spotted a ladder. He kept asking me to go get the ladder to get the bike down. It was hanging on a pole just four aisles down. I called Scott, and waited a few more minutes. I went back to the same desk again and told her I was still waiting in bikes (straight in front of her desk, I kept seeing her looking at me) and now I needed someone to get a bike down and a manager. So I went back and I waited ANOTHER TWENTY MINUTES!!!! By point, I was livid, and I was not about to leave without letting someone know it. I had been standing there a damn hour!! Just as I was about to head to the desk for the third time and tell the girl to call her manager and give me the phone, a girl comes up that had passed by me no less than seven times walks up and says “somebody here need help with a bike?”

I said, “Yes that’s me, I’ve been waiting for an hour.”

Lo and behold, here comes the same guy that first asked me if I needed help. Yep, he’s the assistant manager. “Oh, nobody ever came over here to help you?” he asks! Well you see the damn bike still up there on the top shelf don’t you?!

“Nope, I’ve been waiting an hour,” I reply in a flat voice.

Turns out the girl who works in bikes, yet completely ignores the store intercom service, is afraid of heights. So she asks her manager if she can stand on the huge flat part of the ladder that is clearly made to stand on (it was sort of like a paint tray, only made to hold a person instead. Trust me, it was really obvious). She struggles with the bike until her manager offers to do it, and she immediately takes him up on the offer. So as we finally try out the long awaited bike, I ask about a discount for the last hour of my time. Do you know what he says?

“I could do 10%. $6.50.”

I told him it wasn’t worth it. And that his store’s service was absolutely ridiculous. I grabbed Caleb by the arm and we walked away, him crying because we weren’t getting the ‘con-stwuc-shun bike’ we waited an hour to look at. We marched straight up to the customer service desk. I composed a new text message contained the store manager’s name (who I assume was not present today) and the district manager’s name and phone number. After the returns line was cleared, I asked if the D.M. was the proper person to file a complaint with, or whether there was a 1-800 number.

“Yeah you can call 1-800-WALMART or call the district manager, but I don’t think that name is right anymore,” the girl replies. So I wait some more to find out the D.M.’s name. The customer service manager comes over and gets on the phone and calls…..who do you think? The assistant manager.

“What’s our district managers name?”

There is a pause, some more conversation and then I hear her voice lower (although not enough) and she says “I don’t know, blond hair, a white shirt…”

The other girl interrupts loudly and points and says “No not her, that girl over there.”

I announce loudly to the whole returns area that I’m the person that waited in bikes for an hour and got offered $6.50 for my time. One girl in the return line actually started laughing and shaking her head.

“Yeah, gray Carolina shirt, little boy with her. Yeah.” She hangs up. “Is there anything we can do to resolve the situation.”

“Obviously not at this point,” I said. We determined that the D.M.’s name was right after all, so I left.  I felt so bad for Caleb. He asked several times on the way home, and I told him we would talk to Daddy about the bike. Sad thing is, I didn’t even go there to buy it today, we only wanted to look at it!

If gas wasn’t so expensive, I would absolutely quit shopping at Walmart (with the exception of grocery stores, there is nowhere else to shop here). I find, in some instances, Target is actually cheaper. And they have better customer service and nicer stuff. Raise your hand, how many people have asked a Walmart employee where something was and been told they didn’t carry that item and walk away with the distinct feeling that the person was too lazy to find it?

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How stupid is there?

So as you know, we moved here at the end of April.  2008.  Rewind a few weeks before that and you could hear me steaming over the phone with DirecTV about them automatically debiting our final bill from our bank account.  The bank account we used to pay our bill online.  On time.  Every single month.  The bank account that allowed them to save on paper and postage every single month of our service.  Yes that one.  Apparently there’s some little footnote w.100.97 in the original contract that says they can charge the final bill to your credit card if one has been provided (you know, like when you do them the favor of paying online), even though our “contract” ran out in March of 2007 and we continued to keep the service for another year (it was the only choice where we lived, one mile outside city limits, but don’t think I didn’t beg Time Warner to extend there service 20 houses further).

Anyway, I told them in no way, shape or form did I wish to “way you move” my service on over to my new address.  I was in line for Time Warner like teenage girls at a Hannah Montana concert.  And I told them that.  “May we ask who you plan on using for TV service?”  Well not that it is any of your damn business, but Time Warner Cable.  They are cheaper, they are better, and they don’t go out every time a bird craps between my satellite and the southern skies.  So after much persistance, they finally took no for an answer, I pitched a tantrum about the final bill thing, got transfered to 17 different people, and solved absolutely nothing.  So they automatically drafted their final payment and we went our separate ways.  They even sent a “bill” about a month ago stating that I owed $0.00, because there is postage and paper well spent.

So imagine my surprise when hubby brings in a DirecTV envelope.  Another bill!  Just as I’m ready to call these people up and tell them they are killing the rain forest with their $0.00 billing statements, I notice that apparently I watched two pay-per-views!  The Fog and Saw 2.  What are we on now, Saw 8?  No don’t remember watching Saw 2 after canceling my service two months ago.  So I give them a call, and the lady proceeds to tell me that I watched these movies in April and May of 2006.  Yes 2006.  I think I actually laughed out loud on the phone.  And I may have said, “You’re kidding me right?”  And a few other things such as, “Can you snail mail the dispute a charge information because I don’t even feel like writing it down right now,” and “Well never mind then, I just won’t pay it at all.  Byebye!”  I just hung up on her.  She was trying to tell me all this BS about how I ordered it with the remote, thus it is stored on my receiver until the end of time, or I cancel my service, which ever comes first.  And also that I ordered it from the bedroom TV, which I absolutely know to be untrue, as we never used that TV (Caleb was sleeping in there, no I didn’t watch Saw 2 with my one year old) and sent the receiver back after the first few months.  She claims that pay-per-views ordered with your remote don’t get downloaded onto their system until they get the receiver back, so I guess I could have ordered them on a regular basis and never paid for them, then gotten a bill for a few hundred dollars upon moving?  Yeah, okay.  But if I still had my paper statements (that DirecTV feels the must send, again with the rain forest people!) from 2006, I could look back and see that I wasn’t charged for the movies then.  DirecTV, if you are reading this, this is the reason why your customers leave.  Think about it.  And you can go ahead and write that $8.54 off, because I won’t be sending it!

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