Liadan Elaine

So I got my kitty! She is so adorable, and great with the kids, even The Goob!

In more awesome news, I actually have a whole weekend off, with no kids! Lovah and I are at a loss of what to do. I have Molly's baby shower Saturday, but nothing else! Of course, it's stupid deer hunting so Sunday will be spent sleeping, I'm sure. I have to work that night, anyway.

In very scary news, there were abnormalities found on my mom's mammogram. Her mom had breast cancer. They are going to do more tests Monday, but Mom isn't worried.... which worries me. This is a woman who coughs once and swears she's got strep, bronchitis, SARS, and she is about to die. This is just adding on top of everything else, it's hard to concentrate on the positive when nothing good is happening. But I have my Goob and that's all I need! Lovah and Loo are nice, too, but I would die without my Goob.

Speaking of my favorite person, she's doing pretty well! She's getting along with Loo better, and she's in love with Liadan. It's strange to have Loo be the problem lately, not Goob. She's even talking a little better, but still only about as well as a two-year-old. Her anger issues have lessened, but her ability to listen and know the difference between right and wrong still suffers greatly. January can't come soon enough. She's gonna kill herself by then. She has started jumping off the stairs from like 4 steps up. I really don't want her breaking something, or worse. Ugh!

So that's where I'm at right now.

Endo Woes (TMI Alert!!)

Good lord 2 weeks is too long to have a period. I have a fluid pocket on the right side of my uterus again. It's been happening ever 3-4 months, and it gets to the point where it doubles me over in pain. I give up going to the doctor for it, because nothing can be done. I just deal with it, go to work, raise my kid, because the world doesn't stop because I'm in severe pain. Tylenol is worthless, I may as well take Skittles for it. I refuse to ask for stronger stuff from the doctor because I feel like I'm a seeker and I'm not. Plus Vicodin makes me hyper and messes with my heart and I'm allergic to Tramadol, Torrodol, and Aspirin. But, bitching won't do anything about it. It just sucks because it's messing with my sleep, because sleeping is hard when you feel like needles being stabbed into your abdomen. Every time I get this pocket, I also bleed heavily. I get my period for like 2 months straight. It also wears me out, so I'm exhausted all the time but I can't sleep. Make sense? Of course not! It makes work even harder, and it's already got me at my physical limit with all of the staff cuts.

On the happy side: I'm getting a kitty!!! Lovah thinks everyone will be mad because we "can't afford it". I told him that maybe that should've been in the forefront of his mind when he spent over $60 on video games last month. Yes, getting the initial things cost money, and the cat costs $30 (1/2 price "senior" pets in November!!), but after that cats are quite cheap. She will be fixed and have all of her shots and everything, so $30 is very cheap. She's quite gorgeous, and just a cute little button of a kitty. We got the carrier, the cat box, litter, litter scoop, and food dish. Tomorrow I will get cat food, some toys, and a scratching post. I'm very excited :D I haven't had a kitty since my deaf cat, Bobert, when I was in high school. I have always been a cat person, and back when I hated children, I always said I'd be the crazy cat lady because my parents always told me that no one would ever want to marry me. Even after I met my current fiance. Assholes. Anyway, the only thing I'm stuck on is a name. I can't wait to have something else to love! I have tons of love to give and not NEARLY enough people/animals to give it away to! Which is my own fault, as I am QUITE choosy! But I have decided that a LOT of people are just not worth my time or attention because I know for a fact I'm not worth theirs. Because of this, I have no family left other than my parents. I'm pretty damn okay with this. I grew up not knowing my mom's side of the family (still don't, haven't met them), and after all of the life-altering trauma that happened with my dad's side, we stayed away from them for quite some time, and now I'm learning why. I don't have time for people who treat me like a second-class citizen. I'm a wonderful person with an AMAZING daughter. We're not perfect, we are definitely flawed, but we are who we are and if you don't like us you can take a long walk off a short cliff.

I Hate EVERYTHING

.... and everyone right now! I don't know what it is, but I am severely and chronically unhappy. Between financial woes that are going to get way worse before they get better (who am I kidding?! They'll never get better!!!), my job taking a turn for the worse (I'm currently looking for a second job to supplement my no-longer full-time one!!!), and then the complete and utter realization that no one wants to hear about it kind of makes me want to disappear from the face of the Earth. I am in a funk I haven't been in for YEARS. Since the Goob was born.

Every time I hear someone complain about something -anything- I want to grab them by the hair and bounce their face off the wall. It's so bad?! IT'S SO FUCKING BAD?! If anyone even KNEW what we were facing right now they'd be shocked. BUT I can't tell anyone because, well, Lovah is embarrassed and doesn't want anyone to know. So I have to keep it logged up. And I feel like a failure as a person, as a mother, as a fiance, as everything. It's too much to deal with. We have run out of options. I am so angry and frustrated that it got to this point WITHOUT ME KNOWING IT WAS SO FUCKING BAD. I was not informed about anything, everything going about as though it were just fucking peachy. "Oh no it's fine" "Don't worry about it" "I got it covered" Bullshit.

Oh your job is so fucking hard. OH MY GOD IT'S MONDAY AND YOU HAVE TO WORK!!! Boo-fucking-hoo. Shut up. Every night at work is Russian Roulette. I may or may not be sent home. I am already short 2 shifts on my next paycheck. 3 if you count the shift I picked up and they didn't let me come in and work. I may be sent home one more time before the pay period is over. There are no jobs ANYWHERE that I am qualified for or live close enough to make the drive worth it. I've seen tidbits here and there where stay-at-home-moms (the SAHM is more often than not the biggest crybaby on the face of the Earth, FYI) complain about things like weight gain from lack of exercise, fitting in daily errands to fit in with "busy" schedules with kids, financial "problems" (we can't afford our brand new car/house/anything!). This makes me absolutely sick. Shut your stupid fucking ugly face. You know what a real problem is? Worrying about whether or not your child will even have a fucking ROOF over their heads in 6 months, food in their bellies next week, clothes on their backs throughout the rough Wisconsin winter! I have TWO full-time jobs (soon probably a part-time one on top of it!), and I only -barely- get paid for one of them! I am PROUD to be a working mom, to know that my child gets the things she does because I personally worked for them! When she gets a present from me, I am absolutely giddy with excitement, knowing that I made her happy, that I worked my ass off to get her something she really enjoys. Not just that I happened to marry someone with good money who worked hard for them to have something. But maybe that's because I'm also a single parent, and I have never once EVER in my life had so much as five dollars given to me by my parents. When I left home at 18 I had $20 and a tote of clothes. That was IT, and then didn't speak to my family for over 6 months. If my parents ever DO "get" me anything, it's a loan, and it's a loan I pay back as soon as humanly possible. My parents never babysat for free, my parents never bought me a car, my parents never let me move back home for free, nothing. I'm proud to say that when I get pregnant again, I will work full-time until the damn kid drops out of me. That when/if I ever retire, it'll be knowing that I worked hard my entire life for every little thing I have.

And I do mean work hard. Many people under-value my job (CNA in a nursing home). Some go so far as to lump it in with daycare workers/nannies/babysitters (esentially all the same, IMHO). I finally freaked out on a girl the other day about it. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I said it is comparable to a mall cop being the same as an NYPD officer. Yes, they both uphold the law, they can arrest you, they wear a uniform, etc. But they are abso-fucking-lutely NOT the same goddamned thing! Case and point:

Similarities
*Take care of individuals who are unable to care for themselves
*Changing diapers/incontinence products

.... okay, that is RIGHT THERE the extent to the similarities.

Differences
*a compliant, if wiggly, baby vs. a violent, non-compliant fully-grown (200+ pounds I'm talking) adult. Most of which used to be farmers/farmers wives. I have had my ass HANDED to me by the elderly, they can be mean
*"Miss Smith, you're a bitch!", child goes to time out, parents get a call/letter, disciplinary action is taken "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE YOU STUPID BITCH I'M GOING TO KILL YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!" (yes, your grandma uses these words!) if this resident is unsafe at the moment, or is about to go after another resident...  you just volunteered to be a human shield against a 250 lb. 6' tall ex-Navy farmboy who thinks you're robbing him. You can't TOUCH him (that's abuse!), you can only shield your soft spots. I've known residents to break/fracture/sprain bones on CNAs, leave massive bruises, scratches, bite marks, cuts, etc. The funny thing is.... the women are WAY worse than the men! I get called every name in the book for my entire shift. If I stop and go pee quick, and a resident puts their light on and I don't get it right away because I am peeing or in with another resident, I am called lazy, stupid, awful, threatened with abuse charges, etc. What can I do? Apologize with a smile on my face. Try to do that every day, 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week.
*a child hits you, same scenario as above. I once got suspended because a resident had their hand on my arm and was squeezing so hard the nails were digging in (I ended up bleeding) and I tried to get her fingers off of me.
*The teacher is law, they are always right! vs. CNAs are awful, stupid, know nothing, and they are ALWAYS thinking of ways to abuse residents! I saw a CNA that was about 5' 100 lbs soaking wet get thrown up against the wall by her neck by a 6' 200 lb Alzheimers resident. What did she do? Cleared off his part of the table after lunch. She asked him if she could take the dishes, he said yes. Apparently "yes" didn't apply to his 3 teaspoons of milk left in his glass. She got in trouble for that. Yep, that was her fault. She provoked it.
*A child is sick, they get sent home vs. an old person gets sick, they send them to US. I'm not talking about pneumonia or the flu or any of that piddly crap. I'm talking MRSA, VRSA, C-Diff, Thrush, TB, gastroenteritis, staph, strep, shit like that. Shit that can potentially kill. Most of us have small children at home. Residents don't even get tested for these things until the symptoms have been there quite a while, either. "You know that guy that's been hacking on you all week? Oh, he has MRSA (HIGHLY resistant infection!!!) in his saliva". That kind of shit.
*Dead people. You usually don't deal with them when you deal with kids. Holidays are coming up, so I know that I'll be cleaning up quite a few more dead people, we're due for some and there are a couple (at least) on their way out. BUT with winter here, we'll have more pneumonias and broken hips/arms/legs from falls on the ice!

Do I make my point? Don't get me wrong, I love my job. But when people start talking like it's an EASY one... I get pissed. I have a very very tough job that almost never gives us any breaks. It takes a strong person with an INSANE work-ethic to be able to do my job, that's why many never last more than a month or two. But it can also be incredibly rewarding in a bittersweet way. You get to know these people with different backgrounds who lived a lifetime ago, you share stories, you get to know them, you get to know unexpected things (at my last job I ended up taking care of a lady who was my grandma's neighbor when she was little!), and you get attached. For people, like me, who never really had grandparents (although all 4 of them are STILL alive...), it's nice to get a bunch of extras! But, it makes it sad to have to see them pass away, hoping you made some sort of impact on their lives. The last lady that I had to clean up after she passed I was pretty close to. She was such a sweetheart, she gave me candy every morning, we laughed about things, I was the only one who knew she was Swiss, everyone else thought German. I held her hand for 20 minutes waiting for the ambulance when they sent her out 2 weeks before she passed. I have to stop cuz I'm gonna cry, I miss her.

Well, I think this gets some... SOME of it off my chest, maybe I can sleep now.

A rare glimpse at my self-esteem

You can ask anyone: I absolutely hate myself. My Lovah and I even have made almost a game out of it, he names it, I say what I hate about it. BUT!! There are two things I take pride in knowing that I do exceptionally well: being a mother and being a caregiver at my job (CNA in a nursing home, for those of you not knowing). You've seen me defend the first, now you'll see me defend the latter. I'm just as passionate.

Here's the low-down of my job:

First off, the nurses and CNAs have a boss called the DON (Director of Nursing), and all of the department heads (Activities, Dietary, Business Office, etc.) have a new boss, the Administrator, who has been there a couple months and is starting to get a grip on things around the place (they suck). There are 3 shifts at the nursing home, AM PM and NOC (morning, afternoon, overnight; respectively). I work NOC. Apparently Days has been bitching about the following on NOCs: not getting up extra people during the week, not dressing people properly (forgetting socks, just throwing clothes on people), leaving them in dirty beds, getting residents dressed but not out of bed, etc. Basically we are not doing our jobs and it is a form of resident neglect and abuse, and they went straight to the administrator with it.

Fast-forward through my 2 nights off (which I had no phone because we're poor and couldn't afford  it), I go back to work to EVERYONE and their mother telling me I got written up for the above reasons. Umm... okay. No notes had been left for me, since my phone was disconnected, nothing. So, I am in a panic. I figure I will be talked to at the end of my shift, cuz by then it was Friday morning. Nope. No notes left still all weekend. I worked last night, nothing this morning. But, instead of being a CHILD about it, like other people are being, I went straight to the source and asked the girl who originally went to the administrator about it. She said that she never turned me in at all, that she told them I go above and beyond and do an excellent job and that nothing bad she said was about me. Which is good, cuz I had an entire speech prepared for if I was mentioned. She said not to worry, I wasn't mentioned (in a negative way) at all. PHEW! I worried for like a week!

I take pride in caring for my residents. I am known as "The Whisperer" with certain residents, being the only one who can deal with some of them. One guy has been sent to a behavioral place cuz he's so violent and angry and all that jazz. I have him laughing, talking, doing anything. I can get him washed up, in bed, and sleeping in the time it takes most people to get punched in the face by him. Another one is the same way, he has aphasia (you understand what is said to you, and you know EXACTLY what you want to say... but your brain mixes up the signals and you can't get it out.), and I had him laughing last night, I talked to him a bit and got him settled in bed just fine. That's why I believe it's my duty to work with Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia... I work so well with it. I also enjoy working with it. The only thing is I'm a mom, and I get piddly child support. I can't work full time, do school, and raise my child full time. Especially if she's going to need all these therapies. But if I did... her life, and my future children's lives, will be so much better. But she'd suffer until then. Ugh. I dunno.

Losing it

So much crap getting so much worse. I have to call like fifty people today once I get my new phone. I think I'll start with Dr. Russia, my pediatrician. The Goob is getting so much worse, and fast. The tantrums are about hourly now. She pretty much isn't allowed near Loo cuz she'll physically attack her. She's biting herself and/or others multiple times a day, screaming all the time. I really feel like I can't do this another minute, let alone forever. It's killing Lovah and I because we can't agree on how to handle it, his daughter doesn't know what the hell to think, and poor Goob is going to end up in the nuthouse and/or hospital. But she's fine, nothing is wrong. Totally normal behavior. What do I know? Every kid does this? Every parent is afraid of their child injuring themselves on purpose all the time? Apparently people think I am pretty stupid.

I also need to call my Ob/Gyn about what to do about my IUD. Mine is migrating, and it needs to come out before it ends up completely destroying my insides, or migrating through my uterus. I amsaying "Fuck off" to birth control because I am 100% sure it's been my problem since Goob was born. Ever since my IUD migrated, I have normal periods! The pain is getting worse, but that's always been the trade-off. I either bleed til I need the ER or I am in pain equivalent to childbirth. Pain is easier dealt with, I've discovered. I've dealt with the bleeding a while, and my tolerance to Tylenol has gone down (1500 mg doses instead of 2000 does the trick!), so I figure I'll go this route a while. My liver and kidneys have been benched long enough! Besides, we will be trying for a baby in 8 months, so it'll be just fine!

Then I still have the wedding stuff, goob's school stuff, buying all her winter clothes for outside, etc... anyone who has any help whatsoever with buying their kids anything.... you are so fucking lucky! Lovah helps where he can, but he has his own child to support. I get a small amount of child support and no extra help with school pictures, outdoor clothes for winter, school supplies, nothing. Thankfully I picked up extra shifts so I can afford to get this stuff today, at the cost of almost all my time with Lovah. Meanwhile, DBD has no job because he goes to school a couple hours a day for a career he will NEVER get a job in. I sure can pick 'em. Not that I picked him to create a child with, but at least I learned my lesson there!

Ooo Fancy!

I am blogging from my phone!! So, naturally, I am amazing. We brought the girls to the Pumpkin Patch yesterday, and they had a blast! Then we went to my parents' house tonight and they rode the horses, which they also enjoyed.

I received some AMAZING news yesterday :) in December, Molly (future SIL) will be an official SAHM. And she just may start watching The Goob for me, instead of sending her to the shit-hole day care. I almost cried. This is great news. It would not only save us tons of money, but Goob would be taken care of someone who isn't so stupid. She will get the care and help she needs to help her be the best person she can be! So I am very hopeful :)

Some answers....

I got the paperwork from The Goob's appointment in Marshfield with the behavioral specialist/speech therapist/sensory person. Basically there were some surprises, but nothing that wasn't at least somewhat expected. I knew she was behind in speech. I did not realize she was a year behind in speech. She's behind everywhere, in every category across the board except she has the fine motor skills of a nearly 5-year-old. So far the only thing that may be the issue is ADHD, but they aren't 100% on that, either. I need to bring her back in in about 4 months for them to see her again (especially the sensory lady!!!). This time I am going to write things down and bring it with, because her self-mutilation is getting worse again, especially the biting herself. It is now daily, multiple times a day. I just wanna scream and cry and just hide in a hole because my baby is hurting herself on purpose, because she's mad at me. I'm causing it, I feel. I am being mean and too strict and not loving enough so she feels she needs to hurt herself to deal with it. This whole thing is making me so severely depressed. I cry so much because I feel like such a failure as a mother. Especially if she ends up not having ADHD or something of the sort, and she's just behind in every single thing but one because I'm just a shit mom who doesn't do anything right and is screwing her up and she's never going to be a functioning adult. Through it all, all I can think of is karma. This is what I get for cutting, for putting my own parents through the same exact thing. When I was younger I used to be huge into self-harm as a form of self-punishment when I was frustrated. When I was little, it was hitting things, punching walls, banging my head on the wall to the point of nearly blacking out. Then I got older and it was abusing pain killers, and once a gun was (literally) put to my head and I was told to stop, I decided I needed to start cutting. If my father knew he alone is the only reason I ever mutilated my arm, I am 100% sure he'd kill himself. It would absolutely destroy him. The only reason he put the loaded gun in my face and threatened to kill me is that I'm his baby and I was about to hurt myself, and with no parenting skills to fall back on (father drank all the time, mother hid in her room until all the kids were in school), he responded with the only thing he knew: threatening. The phrase "If you want to die, I will kill us both right here and now" is burned into the forefront of my mind until the day I die. But I never once overdosed again.

All I know is this is absolutely killing my relationship. Lovah does NOT understand what I am going through right now. Between stress from Crazy, money, Goob, and having pain flare-ups.... I mean, I'll be lucky to get married next year at this rate. Which , at the same time makes me incredibly angry that so much emphasis is put on sex, like it's the only thing that matters. Like it's all I'm good for, and the only reason he's with me. I dread it, when we have alone time, cuz it's all that is mentioned. Either wanting it or whining cuz I don't want it. Enough to drive me up a wall. I dunno, I feel like I am slowly losing myself, my mind, every day.

Back to the Goob part.... I just want the next 4 months to fly by. I want answers. I want to scream at the mountain top "I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!!!!" To all the nay-sayers who thought my daughter was just fine. She's not, she needs some help. The only way I am going to get it is to say "I don't give a fuck what any of you say" and go ahead and do it. I'm glad I went with my instincts! I knew she was behind, I didn't realize that my child is, mentally, a 2-2 1/2 year old. She will be 3 1/2 next month. A year or year and a half doesn't sound like much... but when you're talking about only 3 1/2 years total, it's a huge difference. So she will more than likely be pulled from Head Start and put into the Early Childhood program here in town. Which will break her heart to not ride the bus anymore. But, I am doing the best I can for my baby. My mom is now fully disgusted with me that I want to have more kids. Excuse me? This is actually good! I know what to look for in the next 2, if they are having issues! Plus, they'll be boys, and boys are different. Either way, I am having two more.