Mommy Guilt

That's what I'm told I'm supposed to feel.  Guilt for giving my charming daughter what she needs!

When I first held her during her first nap she snored.  I asked the doctor about it, was told it's likely just left over fluid and it'll clear up in a day or so.  I took his word for it because he's the professional and the way he worded it made sense.

Life went on.  After a week or so I noticed she had a chronic snotty nose.  Probably just reflux I was told.  Okay, I can handle that, after all my older child had HORRIBLE reflux for the first three years of his life.  I've walked that walk, so no big deal.  Hers wasn't as bad as Mikeal's was, but it was nearly identical, except she still snored.  That bit I was told was just a side effect of the reflux fluid that caused her snotty nose.  She was sleeping through the night, all was well, so okay, makes sense.  After all he's the professional, he'd been doing this for decades.  I'd seen him since I was 12, myself, here I was 25 years old.

Time went on, she made all her mile stones, on time, life was great, she started talking, and boy did she have a lot to say at just 8 months old.  She had a minimum of 25 words she used on a regular, correct basis.  It really helped that she has a brother 5 years older than she who talks non-stop. 

She ended up getting her first ear infection when she was 10 months old.  I wasn't distraught over it, yes she was sick, but my older child had his first one at roughly the same age.

So far, up to that point they were nearly identical...except Mikaila couldn't stand nursing at my breast, she'd fuss, fight, or when she did latch on she had a vicelike latch.  HOLY FUCK was it painful!

Mikeal, my first child to breastfeed latched on perfectly from the git go and it was absolute smooth sailing...outside of that first day when my foggyhead forgot the bit about having to change a diaper too, and let him nurse roughly 8 hours because it was the only thing that kept him from screaming...and he sucked blisters onto my nipples that burst a few days later.  THAT SUCKED...however, we were able to move past that, exclusively breastfeeding for 10 months before I had to go back to work, then we supplemented with real foods until he decided he wanted food & a sippy cup instead of mama milk.  He was great with it, I was okay with it.  All is well that ends well.  Not one time did he have formula, money well saved.

Mikaila, on the other hand, for two months I worked hard to bite my lip through the nursing sessions, often crying out of pain, but I was producing well, was even able to pump an additional 4-6 ounces after each feeding that I wanted to pump so that I could let Mikeal & Brian feed her from a bottle and she LOVED the bottle feedings...so long as the bottle was positioned just so.  I spoke with lactation specialists, I spoke with my doctor, I spoke with his nurse practioner, had a year of my own personal experience with it, including personal experience with blisters, thrush, mastitis, an unsupportive, abusive husband, I tried nipple shields, etc.  Anything they threw at my I tried and I became exhausted & depressed.  By the 3rd month of her life we switched to formula & bottles and life was happy again.  I didn't fail, I provided what worked best for my family, what made my daughter happy and healthy.  I succeeded!

But, as I mentioned, before backtracking, Mikaila had her first ear infection at 10 months old.  Mikeal only ever had 2 his whole life, but I had experience with them with my nephews who had chronic ear infections, so recognized all the signs early, took her in, she was given the standard ear drops & antibiotic, all was well....except...

By the time she was a year old I noticed she'd nearly quit talking.  She was doing more tantrum throwing, she quit sleeping through the night, and life became Hell.  My depression set in, the fingers were pointed at me for not putting her on a consistent enough schedule, not doing this right, not doing that right, you name it, I was failing.  The professionals told me so, and I believed them...not really, but I was supposed to, so I tried all the crap they told me to try with her.

Mikaila & her Uncle Bradley (my youngest stepbrother)

A few months later the bad behaviors were only worse, not better.  I took her again and again to the doctor.  Was given antibiotic bottle after bottle or a pep talk on the importance of schedules and sleep in infants/toddlers...as if I didn't know this or something, fuck I only had a 6 year old child who thrives WAY above the charts in everything, I tend to think I know what I'm doing.  But I was failing with my daughter.  She wasn't talking, she only screamed, she didn't sleep, would only nap 4-5 times a day for 10minutes -2 hours at a time and I was EXHAUSTED.

I lived near my mother, sister, other folks ones would think I could count on to be supportive of me, but instead they only added to the guilt I was already feeling.  Depression dug her claws in deeper.

I googled everything I could think of, talked to other mothers, was eventually left with the impression that I needed to take Mikaila in for more testing.  Specifically testing for Autism or other similar diagnosis.  I needed help and I wasn't getting it.

She underwent all the tests they threw at us.  Vision screenings were good.  Hearing screenings were good.  Just her behaviors were a bit off, but she wasn't consistent with her behaviors.  One week she'd appear to be fully on the spectrum, the next week she seemed normal, just didn't talk.  At 18 months old we started the occupational therapy with a therapist that came to the house once every other week, or so.

After a few months *I* noticed that if I spoke LOUDLY to her or included gestures to specify what she may need or want she didn't scream as much.  I mentioned it to the therapist & the doctor...and was told then to just continue and was given a book in baby sign language.  WHAT THE FUCK!  My daughter's hearing screenings came back good, she didn't quite meet the proper guidelines to be labeled as autistic or as having any actual disability because nothing was ever solidly regular.  Sometimes she was, sometimes she wasn't.  I was told it was just a short coming of my own, because I wasn't consistent enough with her.  Pile on the guilt.  After all, these are the professionals, and I know nothing about any of this.

By Mikaila's 2nd birthday my body was shutting down.  I'd gone almost a whole year with no more than 1-5 hours of sleep a day.

In November, before her 2nd birthday (birthday Dec 13), I laid down to go to sleep with my stomach severely cramping, within 10 minutes I had to make a mad dash to the bathroom.  I'm quite confident that there was absolutely nothing left in my digestive tract ..except blood.  LOTS and lots of blood.  I had to go to my mom's early the next morning to spend the day doing laundry at her place for the week, packed up the laundry, feeling a bit faint, but managing.  I was mom afterall, I can keep going.  I fainted a few times after I got to my mom's and was still shitting blood.  A combination of black & bright red, but it was blood nonetheless.  Enough to make me faint from the blood loss over the 6 hour ordeal.  My mom called a friend of hers to watch the kids and she took me to the ER.  It was quite the busy day in the tiny ER - three car wrecks resulting in 4 people being helivaced out to bigger hospitals, other massive traumas, a motorcycle vs telephone pole accident...I was given an IV and waited. And waited.  The single ER doc there that day, bless his heart, was just plum exhausted.  I rehydrated and was released with the diagnosis of hemorrhoid rupture.  Ok, whatever, he's the professional, I'd been there for many hours already and was feeling at least a bit better...plus my mom was watching my kids and I had laundry left to get done and you know, mom stuff to take care of.

A few more months of OT and no real progress.  We did discover melatonin around Christmas and for about 2 months my life was GRAND!  I was able to sleep!  Still not more than 4-5hrs at a time, but a MASSIVE improvement over the 10-30 minutes of sleep at a time.  Then the melatonin effects started becoming hit and miss and back to the guilt being laid on for drugging my child because I was just too lazy to do everything else that we'd already tried to get her to sleep.

We moved from Oklahoma to Tennessee when Mikaila was 27 months old.  I immediately sought out the Early Intervention program to restart her therapies here and learned SOOOO much!  To start with hearing screenings and hearing TESTS were two totally different things...the screening showed that her hearing was perfect, but her behaviors showed differently.  A referral from the new doc and she was on her way to having a test ran on her hearing by an ENT.  The ENT noticed that she had quite the build up of fluid on her ear drums.  I told him she'd been on antibiotics almost all of the last year for 'ear infections' that weren't quite ear infections, just the beginning stages of one...ear infections without the redness & fever, just the fluid.  Clue #1.


He prescribed a round of antibiotics stronger than amoxicillan, went back two weeks later, fluid still there.  He had also noticed that her adenoids were inflamed & her tonsils were LARGE.  July 1st, when she was 2 1/2 years old she had surgery to remove her adenoids and have tubes put in her ears.  She was a bugger to wake up from the surgery and never fully woke up, but did eat the popcicles they gave her and fought us when we'd try to wake her up, after a few hours they sent us home anyways.  She slept for almost 24 full hours, straight.  I worried and fretted over it the whole time.

When she awoke it was like she was a totally different child.  Normal talking bothered her GREATLY, fireworks bothered her, whereas the year before she could sit right under them and fully enjoyed them, she had to cover her ears after her surgery.  Within a week she was sleeping through the night and her daytime behaviors were so much less frustrating for both of us.  Mommy guilt started lifting.  But then it was quickly added back in by persons who blamed me for not getting this taken care of earlier.  You know, because the professionals were incompetent I should have known that.  I did suspect it, but when you live in the middle of nowhere where there are only two doctors, only one of which accepts your insurance you're kinda limited on what you can do on an extremely limited budget.

By the time Mikaila aged out of the Early Intervention program her assessment was that she just needed speech therapy.  She was transferred into the preschool program at the elementary school and life has steadily gotten better.

She goes to bed every night at 8pm and 90% of the time is asleep within 10 minutes, she gets up between 6am and 8am, and life is as it should be with a 3 year old who only has a speech impairment.

A few weeks ago, on the 25th of August she went in for a sleep study because she still snores, still has muffled speech, etc and due to the HUGE success with the adenoid removal & tube placement I wanted to look into the option of the benefits of removing her abnormally huge tonsils.  You would think this would be a good thing, right?  I have competent doctors who have tried things and we've had GREAT success.  No, instead I get more outsider guilt piled on because I'm now 'mutilating' my daughter because I'm a lazy/unfit parent and don't seem to want to take responsibility or something for my daughter's behaviors & muffled speech.  By these 'professionals' (meaning persons with longer life experience/multiple more children experience) my daughter is behind because of me...and for some reason my son excels, even though my daughter's life has been EASY in comparison to his at this age.  I won't lie, until he was about 5 years old life was a constant inconsistent rollercoaster.  If all the experts and professionals had a cookie cutter clue my son, who is 'perfect' child material - if you take off the tween attitude - should be an absolute hellion who's flunking kindergarten, still.  He just turned 9 and in the 4th grade gifted program, give me a fucking break!


This past Wednesday we went back to the ENT for the results of the sleep study.  Her sleep score is comparable to that of a 500lb, 50 year old man, who smokes 3 packs a day.  She's 3 1/2 and weighs 37lbs and doesn't smoke.  On several occasions her oxygen level dropped below 80%.  Not good, at all.  Her tonsillectomy is scheduled for October 10.  And I am HAPPY about this.  I am looking forward to my wee daughter having surgery, again.

She was cursed with my larger than normal tonsils & adenoid tissue.  I can't do anything about that, that tidbit was the way the genes fell, but I can do something about improving her quality of life.  Lay more guilt on me.  Such a horrible mother I am for being relatively excited over her having surgery to remove her tonsils with the hopeful expectation this will further clear her airway so she can breathe, eat, talk, sleep, etc like a normal healthy child does.

Special tribute to Caryn (@ihave7monsters) and her post about her own 'Professional' run Mommy Guilt here.  We, the mother/father/fulltime caretaker of children, ARE the professionals when it comes to our children.  Just because someone has a bunch of debt and fancy letters after their name doesn't mean they are right when it comes to our children.

Edit to add:  My bouts with depression have gotten a bit better.  I'm getting more sleep & Mikaila has made progress with talking so life doesn't seem as damning.  The support from friends is great, both online and offline; professionals are doing their job - addressing my concerns and sending us off to specialized professionals when the concern is  out of their specialization.  It is still a work in progress, I am still battling some personal health issues that became quite exaggerated during Mikaila's first few years of life, but these problems didn't just suddenly appear, so they're not going to be quickly fixed.  Everyday is a new adventure and life is relatively good.


****Update October 26, 2011****


Mikaila had the tonsillectomy on October 10th.  

So far we have been able to notice that her speaking is MUCH clearer, it no longer sounds like she has cotton in her mouth.  Still has some delay, but quickly gaining ground & catching up.


Mikaila no longer snores at night.  Absolutely the most heart wrenching thing to be laying by your baby girl, who for almost 4 years has snored every night of her life, and then notice that you are not hearing her breathing...took me almost a week to stop rousing her while she was sleeping, just to be sure that she was just asleep.


I have also not noticed a single runny nose, not even an inkling of a runny nose.  I had noticed a difference after her adenoids were removed in July of 2010...but with the removal of the tonsils & regrown adenoid tissue I can't recall a single runny nose.


Her daytime attitude is MUCH better.  She sleeps all night now that her throat no longer hurts, and life is peaceful...once we get past the bedtime battles 2-3 times a week.

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The Puppies are here! The puppies are HERE!

I don't think I've ever been through such a whirlwind of a labor.

It started quietly enough - sometime around noon-ish I heard an odd squeak come from the kids' bedroom. Mikeal heard it too, but I gave him that "If you dare say a peep with your sister sitting there beside you or you so much as even THINK puppy I will KEEL YOU" look, so he stayed where he had been on the couch. I stole away quickly to the bedroom to see what was up.

The first baby was born, right there in the corner of the kids' bed, roughly 2 inches shy of being on Mikeal's pillow. I can't keep the kids from going into their room so I gently & quickly moved LugNut and the baby to my bedroom closet.

LugNut finished up with the first baby, he latched on & started nursing like a champ...and then nothing.

No contractions, no pushing, no wimpering, no nothing from LugNut.

Roughly an hour after the first puppy was born LugNut moved from my closet to my pillow, on my bed.

At this point I was getting a little worried, but this is her first litter and dogs are known to take up to 4-6 hours even between each puppy. She didn't seem to be in any sort of distress, just looked at me like I was crazy once in a while...

Around hour 4 I called the vet. I explained to her the situation, no signs of labor or distress - she said to either bring her in & they'd do an x-ray to see how things were going or I could just wait. The vet's office was closing in 30 minutes though and Brian didn't get home from work for at least another hour after that. There was no way I was going to bring my (maybe) ailing dog, her puppy, and both kids to the vet's office by myself.

I searched online between the pleas from Mikaila to go see the puppies NOW for information about laboring dogs (or whelping bitches)...Yea, I'll be surprised if LugNut talks to me at all for at least a week. With the information I'd read, paired with my own birthing experiences of having assisted cats, cows, goats, & horses give birth I figured I could do some vet work myself. I don't know about everyone else, but I really don't have $500+ just laying around.

I was able to feel the rib cage and one leg of the next puppy. Not good. Not very good, AT ALL.

I called the on-call vet back to let her know what I'd found in regards to the stoppage of labor - one puppy was in the birth canal - sideways. She told me that she was out on a call assisting a horse, so would not be in town for another 1-2 hrs. We discussed the cost, payment plans, etc of LugNut having to have a cesarean...as well as my plans of trying to turn the puppy. We agreed that either she would call me or I'd call her in an hour or so to check the status of each. She also gave me the name of another after hours vet in the area. I called them - they're complete expensive asshole douchebags.

I worked to turn the puppy, giving LugNut about 20 minutes of rest time between each 5-10 minute session. Nature sucks in the aspect that every time I'd get in far enough to move the puppy LugNut would have a push contraction. Neither of us made any progress.

I called the vet back after our agreed upon time and decided to bring her in.

Brian and I made a very tearful decision. Due to the way our finances have been lately with him being first out of work due to an unexpected layoff and then out of work again for shoulder surgery we just could not afford to pay for a $500+ vet bill, even with it broken into three payments. We were going to just have her put down and bottle feed the one living baby. It completely tore our hearts out to have to make that decision, but we couldn't let her suffer either and when it come down to making sure the kids are taken care of or the dog the kids take priority.

I hoped and prayed that in the very least maybe the vet would be able to straighten the stuck puppy out & the rest of the puppies would come out on their own, thus saving us the $500 surgery bill...so I called my landlady to ask her if I could borrow her crate, JUST IN CASE such a miracle was in our deck of cards. She agreed to meet me at the vet's office.

I loaded LugNut & her puppy into the car; Mikeal came with us to help keep LugNut calm in the car. On the way to the vet's office I told Mikeal that LugNut was likely to have to have major surgery and it was possible that she may not live through it, but we were going to at least try. I wasn't about to tell him about mine & Brian's conversation in regards to LugNut & the unborn puppies.

We get to the vet's office, I get out of the car & talk to the vet before letting Mikeal & LugNut out of the car.

I told her about the situation and she understood and was willing to do what she could to prevent the surgery. My landlady showed up as I was taking LugNut out of the car and went back to the exam room with us. Mikeal sat in the front lobby area.

I choked out to my landlady the situation and she understood, then she offered to help with the immediate vet bill & said that she would work with us on the rent & us paying her back the money she paid on the bill, etc. So I called Brian, gave him the short story version and approved the cesarean. The vet did try and try to move the puppy but she had no more luck than I did.

What seemed like an eternity later I heard the first few squeaks of living puppies! I was expecting LugNut to have between 3-5 puppies.

She ended up having 6.

The vet assistant brought us out three very active wiggly warts, one that looked like he could miss a meal or two and still be alright, even as a newborn, the other two were a wee bit smaller, but not by much.

We were up to four healthy wiggle butts and all of them look like Mini Schnauzers....no pug puppies. A little bit later the vet assistant came back out again with another one and told us that the puppy that was wedged in the canal did not make it. I expected that. But she was also holding a 6th puppy. Roughly half the size of her siblings and barely hanging onto life. She not only is the runt of the litter, but she was wedged up against the stuck puppy, with three meaty siblings pushing against her. I think she'll do alright, so long as she makes it through this first night, she was looking fairly rough, but was getting the hang of latching onto momma the last time I looked at her.

About 30 minutes or so after bringing us out the final living puppy we were being released. LugNut came out of the anethesia quite well, a bit loopy, but she was getting a bit distressed hearing her babies yelping from the box beside the cage, until we got them in with her.

At this time LugNut and her 5 babies are in my bedroom, squeaking and squawking, resting and eating. And unlike the cats I've seen end up having to have a cesarean LugNut is very attentive and is taking great care of her babies, even now, just two hours out from surgery. ♥

There are three very big boys and two littler sisters, the runt being about half the size of her siblings. I hope each are able to live very long lives and each take on the temperment of their mother. She's one of the best dogs I have ever known and I can't even express how much it killed me inside to think that we even had to make the decision we did. But very grateful for awesome friends and a very competent vet!

LugNut will be 4 years old on the 10th of October. She's been a part of our family since the 11th of November of 2007. I really couldn't imagine our family being the same without her. <3 Love you dear LugNut!



**Updated to inform that the runt baby did not last through the first night. <3

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EPIC Conspiracy Thingy

So I went to bed, with Brian...Laid there, tossed a bit, turned some, laid there, WILLING myself to go to sleep...after sometime I decided I needed to write this blog post so that I could go to sleep, so this is what I'm doing - writing this post.

See, we recently got all new windows for the house, thanks to our awesome landlords, cause we rent and all that & they're just awesome folks. Anyways, I'd asked the dudes putting in the new windows to just leave all the windows here that they did not happen to break while removing them - trust me there are SEVERAL! Okay, when I say several I mean at least 25, if not more, but they're taking up a whole closet I have down in the basement, under the staircase...and I do mean the WHOLE closet under there.

Anyways, I was drawing out a stained glass panel design for my landlady, because her mother in law makes stained glass panels and occasionally people want something custom done, then they turn to me to draw it out - mainly just names - and I came up with this awesome thing I could use the old windows for that are taking up this space in my basement.

I could PAINT pretty pictures (or whatever) on these windows..then do something with them, maybe even sell them in the shop downtown or in craft shows or things like that, like I do with the other stuff I've done in the past. PURE GENIUS!

Now, I don't have the first clue what I'd charge for such masterpieces things I suppose a lot will depend on how much work I actually put into drawing & painting and all that jazz, but who knows? Maybe it'll profit me enough that I can have some extra Christmas money or something...whatever.

But then I got to thinking about just painting them up for Christmas presents themselves - AWESOME!

Then my brain shifted towards the costs and hassle of shipping such things - 24" square piece of glass in 80+year old wood frame - through the postal system...I'd be a complete nervous wreck.

But then the more I thought about it the more I was sure that I really could get enough bubble wrap and such to make it fairly safe...right? RIGHT!!!???

Then my brain went into thinking about the COST of shipping - fuck, I'm screwed...

But then (and you wonder why I'm having trouble getting to sleep!?) I figured if I did something REALLY EPIC with one of these panels then it'd be absolutely, totally worth it. That pressed me into thinking about WHO I'd feel worthy of such...and I thought of two persons...the first being my baby brother & his wife - BOTH of whom are Marines, with not one, but TWO children (ok, the second one is still not here yet, she's due August 1st, the older one his birthday is August 10 - as in his FIRST birthday is just NINE DAYS AFTER his baby sister is due to make her entrance into this world - O.o - yikes! But I know they're going to totally rock it because, well, they're Marines and Marines just rock! ((Yes, I'm biased, get over it, besides one or two of her sisters live with them to help care for the wee one(s), so it's not COMPLETE chaos!))

But the other person, she's a bit trickier. She reads my blog, so if I'm going to do this as a surprise then I can't share about it...BUT I only know her on social media sites. I know that it's so totally going to rock if it goes according to the plan in my head of what to do, but I'm absolutely CLUELESS how to go about 1-getting her address or 2-actually being able to pay to ship this huge heavy, fragile item to her...so lets just hope that I'm awesome enough over the next few weeks/months to 1 - actually draw out & paint what it is I'm wanting to draw & paint out & it not look like absolute crapola; 2 - I'm able to draw, paint, & sell enough to be able to pay for the shipping of this item; and 3 - shipping it from here to there doesn't cause it to shatter - cause then I'd cry - big, huge, sloppy tears.

So yes, this is what is keeping me up tonight - the worry that I won't be able to do this epic thing that I have in my head to do and that if I do manage to pull it off that it'll be completely destroyed before it makes it to its intended destination.

Woe is me, I know. But now you know what keeps me up at night....weird random stuff.

oh...and might I also add that as I was scraping off old caulking & smoothing out the layers of paint wiht my handy scraper I slipped & sliced my wrist. Yea, it sounds fairly dramatic: "Stephi was scraping caulk remnants from a window pane and sliced her wrist" or "While removing excess caulk from the glass Stephi sliced her wrist"....ok, I'm getting tired now and I don't remember exactly how I phrased it the first time that made a TON of people suddenly @ message me or DM me on Twitter, worried about my mental well being, but I know it was close to one of those lines...But seriously, this is all I did, with the tools & window pictured in the background...a piddly little flesh wound that BURNS like a freaking papercut! OH...and there was almost enough blood on the bandaid to warrant the need for a bandaid - almost.


 


**You'll have to check out this post to see what all the blood, sweat, & tears ended up being about**

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I believe I'm on the Crazy Train

Crazy Train Incident #1

Earlier last week I got a friend request on Facebook from a chick I had never heard about...come to find out she's one of my husband's ex girlfriends. As in they dated for a few weeks, he decided she was utterly psycho, dumped her, all well over 10 years ago. Anyways, he can't say he didn't warn me, because he did. repeatedly.

I responded to her friend request, with a message. I simply asked her if I knew her.

She responded that yes, I did know her, that I knew her from when I lived in Virginia.

I responded back to her and told her that I haven't lived in Virginia since I was maybe just 2 years old, when my daddy was stationed there in the Navy, not been back since. I also added in that I spent much of my childhood living in Arkansas & Oklahoma.

So her next response was "oh, that's right, I knew you in Oklahoma, we lived on the same street".

At this point my jaw is just DROPPING. When I lived in Oklahoma I lived on a "street" if you'd call it that, backwoods barely paved road more like it, where maybe 10 families lived & I knew every one of them....the only folks remotely close to my age lived right down the road & were named Tania & Andrew, they were brother & sister - neither one named Stacie.

So I respond back to her, I ask her what city it was we'd lived in together.

Her immediate response was Tulsa.

Now my eyebrows are REALLY raised, seeing as I only spent maybe 6 months, total, of my life actually living in Tulsa...and that was when I was in my early 20s.

This chick is absolutely blatantly LYING to me and thinking that I'm stupid enough to go along with it and actually want to accept her friend request, on my Facebook? WTH!

So I keep up my end of the charade. I respond back and ask her which street or what year even...make it simple.

Some time goes by and she finally responds back...tells me that she was really young back then so doesn't remember and is sorry to have bothered me.

By this time I've completely had it with the lies and bullshit. I'm nearly 30 years old, I'm not fucking stupid and this chick is at least 5 years older than me and it's just absolutely RIDICULOUS to lie, period.

So I sent her a message that read:

I never lived in Tulsa until I was in my early 20s, you're 5 years older than me, so if you were really young when you lived in Tulsa, on the same street as I then I don't know who you think you're trying to play games with.

Look, I know you're one of my husband's psycho-ex girlfriends, by his words. By your profile you live in Alabama. I also know that you were only in Virginia for 3 weeks, well over 10 years ago. So at this point I'm going to have to agree with my husband on his "you're a psycho" opinion, primarily because at 30+ years old your wall statuses read like a 12 year old's and you, for some childish psycho reason feel the need to lie to me.

So if you have a legitimate reason for trying to friend me or Brian then grow up and state it.

She's not responded back to me and I don't expect her to.

Crazy Train Incident #2

Mother-in-law calls.

This particular event sends me into a spiral of mixed irritation & annoyance...maybe I've blogged about that particular history...if I have I'll find the link & post it here tomorrow, after I search for it...but the short story is that we don't talk to her or brother-in-law & his wife because they're, for lack of a better phrase "Jerry Springer types".

Anyways...apparently mother-in-law had talked to brother-in-law a few days ago and BIL told her that Brian & I had divorced; I'd kicked Brian & the kids out of the house & they were living at father-in-law's house. This was based solely on the fact that Brian took the kids to see his dad for almost a week while I worked to paint the living room. He had the time off, we had the spare change, it's not a far drive, & FIL is wonderful to spend time with. We weren't fighting, it was just merely opportunity was afforded for things to work out that way, no big deal.

Apparently in BIL's & SIL's world if one spouse isn't up the other's ass 24/7 it means they've separated and are getting a divorce. I'm absolutely comfortable & secure enough in my relationship with my husband to let him out of my sight for hours, or even days at a time.

I think this makes at least the 4th time that Brian and I have gotten divorced in our 3 1/2 years of marriage. MAN! Our divorce lawyers are making a KILLING off of us, no wonder we're broke! ROFLMMFAO

Since MIL, BIL, etc are all on Brian's Facebook (I have them all blocked) I'm considering having Brian change his relationship status to 'complicated' just to fuck with their heads...I think it'll be a blast...just fuel their stupidity!

Whatcha think?

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May Day

Twitter was afire this evening, as I'm sure you're well aware.

Many significant things occurred on the date of May 1 over just the last 80 years of history:

May 1, 1930 the ninth planet of our solar system was named, Pluto.
May 1, 1931 the Empire State Building was dedicated in New York City.
May 1, 1945 Adolf Hitler was confirmed as dead.
May 1, 1948 North Korea is established with Kim Il-sung as leader.
May 1, 1956 the Polio vaccine is made available to the public.
May 1, 1961 Castro declares Cuba to be a socialist nation and does away with elections.
May 1, 1970 President Nixon announces that Armed forces in Vietnam would be entering a neutral county, Cambodia, in pursuit of enemy troops.
May 1, 1978 Naomi Uemura becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone, via dog sled.
May 1, 1982 The World Fair opens in Knoxville, TN.
May 1, 2003 President George W. Bush announced to the world "Mission Accomplished" in regards to major combat operations in Iraq, declaring that the operations have ended.
May 1, 2009 Sweden legalizes same-sex marriage country-wide.
May 1, 2011 President Obama announces that Osama bin Laden has been confirmed dead, at the hands of United States Armed Forces.


Yes, the terrorist leader that was in charge of the attacks that occurred on American soil, by using American jets, has been proclaimed and confirmed as being dead.

There is much cheering, Hoorah-ing, and shared patriotism across this country...Democrats & Republicans alike standing side by side, each supporting the team they're on, but shoulder to shoulder, with the same chants. Both Democrats & Republicans are not sad to hear of the death of Osama bin Laden. This manhunt & issuing war started almost 10 years ago, under the direction of a Republican President and now the manhunt has ended under the direction of a Democratic President. This is not a victory for Bush, nor is a victory for Obama. BUT it IS a victory for both of them. As Commander in Chief they are in charge of directing the Armed Forces and it is under that direction that they are in the Middle Eastern deserts to begin with.

Now, I do not agree with all or even many aspects of this particular war. It has, in my non-essential opinion, been a war that was started not only in a country hundreds of miles away from the supposed target, but had the feel of just being a grudge fuck to finish the job started by a man's daddy nearly two decades before. This war has left us shamefully in debt, the country deeply divided along party & racist lines, and THOUSANDS of young men & women lying in graves.

Of course, I'm not discounting the role self-entitled assholes played in this country going into severe debt by their scandals, billions in bailouts to companies that never deserved such in the first place, who have no intentions of repaying their debts, whether outright paying their debts or by paying taxes. Tax cuts for companies and individuals who net millions of dollars every year so that they can own luxury items en masse and do nothing really for anyone else.

All that aside, the news of Osama's death did bring a feeling of closure to my being. See, I remember the morning of September 11, 2001. Ironic as it may sound I actually wrote this poem before going to sleep around 3am that morning, before the attacks...and it would seem that I have not actually typed it up into this blog, so I'll have to find my written copy and type it up for you, unless I can find it on Poetry.com...and it would turn out to be that poetry.com is shutting down on May 4th...ironically my 29th birthday...and searching for myself turns up tens of thousands of poems, either by a Stephanie or that mention Stephanie in it. I also tried other search variations to no avail. So, I guess for the purpose of this paragraph I'll include a typed version of the poem at the end of this post, so to keep myself on track with this post, and then I'll also create a completely separate post for that poem. I keep telling myself I'll get these all typed up and stuck in my blog, and I keep slacking on that.

As I was saying, though, I very distinctly remember September 11, 2001. I was just barely 19 years old, living in Decatur, Arkansas, in my cousin's grandmother's attic. I had met my (now) ex-husband just a few months beforehand, he was away at truck driving school - heh, what a waste of time & money - in fact he graduated with his CDL on September 11, 2001. I was working at Ruby Tuesday as a server during the evenings and worked at Sonic during the day as an assistant manager. When I got home from work it was well after midnight of 9/11. I called a dear friend of mine to see how he was doing, etc...he told me of his nuptial exchange earlier that evening and pending deployment to Iraq, scheduled for the next morning. Keep in mind this is before the fateful attacks.

My parents were both sitting in a county jail roughly 100 miles away, one of these days I promise to tell that story, it's been almost 10 years and I still am boiling angry over it all. My brother, Daniel, was also sitting in the jail for being a punk. Samantha and Duke were living with my dad's oldest sister & her husband.

My head & heart were both quite heavy with everything going on in my personal life, I reflected back on my life, and started deeply missing my late husband...he'd been killed in a car wreck roughly 18 months before. He inspired the poem I wrote that early morning.

After a few hours of tears I passed out and slumbered, I didn't have to be at work until 4pm at Ruby Tuesday, I was off work from Sonic the next morning. I had plans of sleeping until well after noon.

My plans were shattered with a phone call. Since I shared the house phone line with Grandma Wanda I generally allowed it to ring several times before I answered it early in the mornings. This particular morning I answered the phone around the 5th ring. It was my Aunt Renae, Wanda is her mother, Renae is also married to my dad's older brother. ((another tidbit, Renae's older brother is married to my dad's older sister)) That's how tight my family was - folks marrying their in-laws(heh heh).

Renae was in a panic, told me to turn on Good Morning America, something about a plane, and asked where her momma was...I looked out my window, saw that her car was gone, it turns out she was taking a friend of hers to a doctor's appointment that morning.

I sat there in a sleep deprived state and turned on my TV, flipped to the appropriate channel, and then sat there confused by what I was seeing. The reporter (and her name escapes me at this moment) was reporting about a plane hitting one of the Twin Towers directly behind her open window studio, you could see the smoke pouring out of the building. My heart stopped cold. My late husband's father had just received a job position that put him on the 103rd floor of the North tower. The first one hit. As I sat there watching the coverage I no longer was tired from being up until well after 3am. I sat there in shock attempting to absorb what was going on, not really hearing what was being reported. I just remember holding the phone to my ear in stunned silence.

It was as I was watching the coverage of the first building being hit that I saw, as I'm sure hundreds of thousands others saw, the second plane fly into view and hit the second of the Twin Towers. For the next several hours I sat there in the middle of my bed in stunned silence as I watched the events play out, live. Later in the afternoon I gathered up the courage to call my late-husband's father's cell phone...to no avail. I only received a recorded message telling me that service was unavailable at this time. I called his wife, who was still in Decatur, Georgia, having given birth to twin girls not but a few weeks before, she stayed in their home there until he was able to find a place for them to all move into. She had no news of him either. We grieved for him and so many other victims together, hundreds of miles apart. We kept the phone conversation short in case by some miracle he survived and tried to call.

I went to work as scheduled. The restaurant was empty all day sans a few customers here and there. We went down to a minimum staff and I stayed there in an effort to keep busy. Parts of me later wish I had not been the one to volunteer to stay. I spent part of that evening being interrogated by 'important officials'. See, I worked at the Ruby Tuesday that was just down the street from the Wal-Mart Home Offices, in Bentonville, Arkansas. There's not too many decent eating establishments nearby, at least not then, so it was an ideal easy place to get to. Traffic was also a bitch because there were lines for miles of persons attempting to get gas for their vehicles...and of course price gauging was rampant! Everyone was in fear of there being no gas by morning, so everyone was willing to pay $5-8 per gallon - I count myself fortunate that I was too broke to even attempt nonsense and I still had enough gas in my car to make it home & back to work, I'd wait until the lines weren't atrocious, at least. The gas prices went back down to the low $1.20 range again by morning, so I missed that expense. Back to my interrogation...It really wasn't more than a 20 minute conversation that left me feeling like a small pile of rubble. See, you have to understand, I really don't notice things like a person's skin color, private conversations, accents, the like...I'm not lying, I really don't, or didn't, since that day I've done a wee bit better about paying closer attention to folks, but nothing significant. My job was to serve food, refill drinks, and then clean-up afterward. If my customers engaged me in conversation I was polite, conversed, and went on my way. Over time I'd recognize regular customers, but most folks were only there for 30-45 minutes and I'd never see them again, to the tune of a hundred folks or more a day.

There was a particular table of two men that I waited on, they sat in a small booth, in the next booth sat another man who, from there side he was sitting on, was able to see these two men converse. According to the single man, the two men in the other booth spoke a foreign language, but their gestures & overall body language suggested to him that they were happy about the attacks of the morning. I know I waited on the two men, as I was the only server on duty for the non-smoking side of the establishment, but I honestly have no recollection of anything regarding them, not a few hours later, not now. I found out, just prior to being questioned by the officials, from my manager that the gentleman I'd complained about as being a crappy tipper & squatter, actually waited until the other men left, then followed them out. Apparently they were driving a white, unmarked van, with Canada tags.

I also found out the next day that the van was full of explosives, much like the ones used in the Oklahoma City Bombing, and the intended plan was to take out the Wal-Mart Home Office building...or maybe the elaborate satellite system that Wal-Mart has in that area...hearsay is a wonderful thing, isn't it? I was questioned because I had served these men and they'd been in the establishment, talking, for quite sometime. Again, I reiterate, I pay no attention, whatsoever, to someone else's private conversation, unless a word or phrase catches my attention. On Sept 11, 2001, nothing really caught my attention. I went through the motions of doing my job, I smiled, I was friendly, I did everything under the roof of that building to attempt to keep myself from watching any of the numerous televisions in the building.

I was interrogated nonetheless, I remember my manager making a huge deal out of it, telling me I needed to pay attention when such things were going on, or something to that general effect. Of course I told him the same things I told the officials, or told the officials the same things I'd told him. I had absolutely no clue, I didn't exactly remember serving them until I lined up the table number with the approximate time and went through my sales record. They ate some salads and drank tea...I recalled them because there had been some sort of issue with one of the salads, they were both polite, and had left me a fair tip - outside of that I had/have no clue.

Later that evening, as I was sitting in my bed, glued to the television, willing the phone to ring with news of my late-husband's father, I got a call from my (now) ex-husband, telling me that the bus schedule was completely out of whack, and he'd like for me to make the 8-hour drive out to Springfield, Missouri, to pick him up from the truck driving school. To which I obliged, after taking a very short nap. I made the drive out there, then made the drive back because he was drunk when I picked him up and slept the whole way back. I slept for a few hours at his place before driving the hour back to my place so I could get ready for work again the next morning.

My hopes of hearing anything about my late-husband's father dwindled down to near nothing as the hours ticked slowly by. Every hour I wasn't asleep from exhaustion I spent glued to a television set or going through the motions of doing my job.

At 8:49pm, September 15th I received the phone call. Hearing the voice of what should have been my (step)mother-in-law on the other end of the phone stopped my heart. She was hysterically crying and incoherently speaking. I was finally able to register the words she was trying to say. He was alive. Later I learned that he had come down with a stomach virus or food poisoning of some sort that rendered him unable to leave a bathroom for any length of time, so had missed work that particular morning. He also said it wasn't until the next morning that he even knew what had all transpired while he was sick & in bed, or the bathroom, as he was 'getting ready for work'. He'd flipped on the news, per his normal morning routine, and saw that he had no where to go to work. He'd relentlessly tried calling, but he was getting many of the same error messages we were getting.

I left out on the morning of the 18th to join the clean-up effort. I still cannot even think into words the impact that experience left me with. The images in my head haunt me to this day.

That is why it saddened and angered me as I was reading posts on Facebook upon the announcement that Osama bin Laden was confirmed dead, at the hands of United States Armed Forces.

Statuses such as :
"hopefully there won't be as much coverage about Osama as there was on Michael Jackson..." With a follow-up comment of "I watched it when I was about 11 but don't remember it hardly at all. "

Then others who, are older than myself even, so they definitely remember the day, posting that they won't believe it until they see his dead body, suggesting that President Obama and such are just lying about Osama's death. Of course they're the same persons who don't have enough faith in this country to verify that the President is actually legal to be President...Trump & Palin supporters to put it mildly.

Then of course you have the persons who are angry with President Obama for him being proud of this accomplishment...because it's, in their eyes, President W. Bush's victory, even though he was at the helm of the search for 7 years, but he was searching in caves & deserts, instead of the country, two countries away, where Osama was actually staying, in a mansion.

THOUSANDS of lives have been lost during this war that has been going on for nearly a decade now. More than half of that time we've been at war in the wrong country to even begin to search for Osama. Yes, we got Saddam Hussein, 20 years after the original war to find & destroy him had started, and almost 15 years since that particular war 'came to an end'.

This isn't an accomplishment to be taken lightly or for persons to fuss petty bullshit about. Real women, men, daughters, sons, wives, husbands, mothers, and fathers all lost their lives in the efforts for this day to be seen. Others are now afflicted with lifelong handicaps - mental & physical - as a result of working towards seeing this day come about.

My own baby brother, although only 14 or so at the time of the attacks in this country, proudly worked his tail off to be able to serve as a Marine. He's had surgery on both his feet and a knee as a result of a roadside bomb that went off near his convoy while he was in Afghanistan. He was in the desert and mountains working to accomplish this goal, as his wife, another great Marine, was pregnant with their first child, on base, in Japan, and then North Carolina. He was only of the luckiest ones of his convoy to escape with only a few scars now to show for it and a second baby now on the way, just a year later.

But, as the world, and more specifically, citizens of the United States, rejoice and squabble at the news of Osama's death, Duke's job has not been declared done. At any given moment he could be called upon to make another trek into the deserts and mountains on the other side of the planet. He could potentially, again, miss the birth of one of his children, this time a daughter, as he fights to ensure that we are each able to safely see our own children come safely into this world.

I remember being completely overjoyed when my parents brought him home from the hospital, days after he was born. I was barely 5 years old but there was nothing so exciting as having a new baby brother to look after. When I became pregnant with my own children I was given great birthing stories from my mother, who endured four pregnancies and labors, without the aid of pain meds. The story of her pregnancy & delivery of Duke is nothing short of a miracle. By all rights he cheated death at birth. The placenta detached and pieces were being delivered prior to Duke making his appearance. By sheer luck or a miracle Duke was born without any other issues. The odds of him surviving were slim to none, if you go by the 'rules' of child birth, but he did it.

Mikeal completely idolizes his Uncle Duke. He'd do anything for or with Duke, happily. The part that makes me a 'bad' mommy or big sister is when the two of them are together I often confuse their names. I'll call Mikeal Duke and Duke Mikeal and I would fight to the death for either one of them. Truth be told, when I found out Duke was considering a military career I threw my hat in to join the military as well, I was denied though because I was a single mom at the time...I think the recruiter also wasn't terribly fond of me telling him I wanted to join because I wanted to be President and I thought that it'd only be fitting if I had some service experience on my resume. He's one of those hard-assed uptight Republicans that thinks a woman in office would be the worse thing to ever happen to this country, period, end of story.

I digress though. I'm at peace knowing that the mission to capture & kill Osama is now accomplished - only 8 years after someone claimed some mission in this pursuit to have been accomplished. However, it is with a heavy heart that I continue to move forward. My prayers and thoughts are with all the dedicated service men and women, both those still caught in this mess, and the families of those who have died as a result of this mess. May each of them be greeted with the respect and honor they each rightfully deserve and have earned.

♥ I love you Duker!!! ♥
((and Amanda))

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First the Insanity...

This has been plaguing me for the last month or so. You'll have to click on the picture to see the whole thing....and do feel free to leave me your own personal opinion, either here or on Twitter.



I'm at the point I don't know what to think. One of these tests shows a fairly faint blue line...the other test shows a 'maybe' it's there not quite though slight blue line...almost, barely, but enough of a barely for me to think negative...but the other one is just there enough for me to think positive...IN addition to the actual test lines not being consistent the control lines also are not consistent. One is thin and drawn looking, the other is thick and smeared looking.

I took both of these tests using the same urine, 5 minutes apart...exactly as told in the directions...

I'm really glad my doctor will be back in the office on Monday. I'm going to have her do a blood test so that I can just be done with the wondering...

I would splurge for a digital that would say in black and white "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant" but I don't currently have the cash for that because we're in the middle of the great truck rebuild that has spilled over into 2011....

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