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 |  A continuation of my criminal blogging behavior. |
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IN THE WRITING.COM DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN Criminal Action No. 96-938-2 WRITING.COM Plaintiff, vs. Melissa is fashionably late!  Defendant. ************************************************************************ REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT (Trial to Jury - Volume 222) ************************************************************************ Proceedings before the HONORABLE The StoryMaster  , Judge, Writing.Com District Court for the District of Michigan, commencing at 8:49 a.m., on the 5th day of April, 2007, in Chambers C-234, Writing.Com Courthouse.PROCEEDINGS (In open court at 8:49 a.m.) THE COURT: Please be seated. The jury has informed that they have arrived at their findings and recommendation. I caution all present to avoid any reaction to these findings and the recommendation, either audibly or visibly. And if anyone violates that, we'll have to remove them. Obviously, it will take some time to read these findings, as the recommendation is the last thing read; so please be careful and comply with this request. We'll return the jury. (Jury in at 8:53 a.m.) THE COURT: Members of the jury, have you arrived at your special findings and recommendation? JURORS: Yes. THE COURT: If the foreman will please hand that to Diane , who will hand it to me.Members of the jury, you will please listen to the reading of your Special Findings Form A. These findings apply to all 1184 counts. Under Section I, Obsessive Ranting: The defendant intentionally ranted without ceasing for multiple blog entries. Answer: Yes. Section II, Repeatedly Beating A Dead Horse The deaths or injuries resulting in death occured during the commission of an offense under 18 Writing.Com Code Section 844(d), flogging a horse until death. Answer: Yes. Section III, Unnecessary Use of Curse words The defendant used language to be found offensive during multiple occurences and showed no regard for taste or appropriate expression of emotion. Answer: Yes. Section IV, Boring Daily Recounts Death or injury resulting in death occured during the commission of an offense under 22 Writing.Com Code Section 413(c), recounting daily activity to a point of extreme boredom. Answer: Yes. Section V, Pointless Entries The defendant shared needless details of her life via multiple entries, often multiple times in a row. Answer: Yes. Section VI, Contradictory Statements The defendant often confused her readers through contradictory statements. Answer: Yes. Section VII, Recounting Toilet Actions The defendant needlessly reflected on bathroom activities. Answer: Yes. Section VIII, Overdramatization Of Insignificant Things The defendant made several mountains out of single molehills. Answer: Yes. Section IX, Overreacting To Meaningless Gestures The defendant showed a propensity to fly off the handle for actions deemed appropriate and helpful. Answer: Yes. Section X, Unnecessary Temper Tantrums Death or injury resulting in death occured during the commission of an offense under 18 Writing.Com Code Section 312(a), throwing a temper tantrum in a public forum. Answer: Yes. Section XI, Cruelty Towards Animals, Superiors, Peers, And Inferiors The defendant showed no regard for life in general. Answer: Yes. Section XII, Repeated Bad Grammar, Spelling, And Opinionations The defendant shows no respect for her college education. Answer: Yes. Section XIII, Mitigating Factors (1) Melissa is fashionably late! believed herself to be in the right each time she commited one of the 1184 counts. Number of jurors who so find: 0.(2) Melissa is fashionably late! received encouragement and support from others to commit each of the 1184 counts. Number of jurors who so find: 4.(3) Melissa is fashionably late! is a reliable person in work and in her personal affairs and relations with others. Number of jurors who so find: 7.(4) Melissa is fashionably late! is a patient and effective teacher when she is working in a supervisory role. Number of jurors who so find: 5.(5) Melissa is fashionably late! is a good and loyal friend. Number of jurors who so find: 12.(6) Melissa is fashionably late! is a good mother and wife. Number of jurors who so find: 10.Recommendation, XIV: The jury has considered whether the aggravating factors found to exist sufficiently outweigh any mitigating factor or factors found to exist, or in the absense of any mitigating factors, whether the aggravating factors are themselves sufficient to justify a sentence of life in prison. Based upon this consideration, the jury recommends by unanimous vote that the following sentence be imposed: The defendant, Melissa is fashionably late! , shall be sentenced to a period in prison not shorter than 18 years and not longer than life.The Special Findings appear to be signed by all jurors and dated April 5, 2007. XV. Certification: By signing below, each juror certifies that consideration of race, color, religious beliefs, national origin, or sex of the defendant or the victims was not involved in reaching his or her individual decision and that the individual juror would have made the same recommendation regarding a sentence for crimes in question no matter what the race, color, religious beliefs, national origin, or sex of the defendant or the victims. Apparently signed by all jurors and also dated April 5, 2007. Mr. Foreman, was these and are these the jury's special findings and recommendation: JURY FOREMAN: Yes, they are. THE COURT: And so say you all? JURORS: Yes. THE COURT: Section XVI. Sentencing Melissa is fashionably late! , the court finds you guilty on all 1184 counts of blog criminal activity. You are hereby sentenced to life in prison, with no chance of parole for a minimum of 18 years. Court is in recess. (Recess at 9:37 a.m.) ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
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| Work has been crazy. My boss tried to get stuff done, but it was so busy she was barely able to get it done. In fact, I have about a week's worth of work to catch up along with the work that I have to do right now along with the stuff that I have to anticipate. Not to mention that my boss missed work today so I was stuck on the phone all day today. That, and J decided we should go for a walk at the Flats yesterday and mosquitos were out in force. They didn't attack J or the kids. Only me. I have mosquito bites everywhere and they itch. I had a really great entry I was going to write yesterday but I was too tired to even open my computer. I'm tired tonight, too, but I had to put the finishing touches on my newsletters. I had two due this week and got them both done, along with working, along with kid-rearing. If that doesn't say that I rock, I don't know what does. Oh, yeah. I know what does. I'm planning a special surprise for J, but I can't talk about it here because I don't want him to find out. Let's just say that we'll see how good at being sneaky I am. I'm not sure if being sneaky is something to be proud of, but if the power is used only for the purpose of good, I would classify it as a super power. Otherwise, you're doing something bad like cheating on your significant other or being a theif. I don't want to do that kind of stuff. I will not convert to the dark side should this latest endeavor be successful. Enough of that. I have to go to bed now. I'm exhausted. |
| We measured and weighed Cameron tonight and he's 13 lbs, 1 ounce and 23 3/4 inches long. My little chunky-chunk is almost into 3 - 6 months clothes already! Geeze! We went to Wal*Mart and one of the cashiers asked how old he was. When I replied that he was six weeks, she said, "Oh my! That baby eats well!" LOL. True 'dat. True 'dat, indeed. We went to the Celery Flats tonight and walked for a bit. I think it was actually close to 2 miles. CJ slept the whole time in the Moby and E rode in the wagon. My feet hurt because of switching from carpeting to the laminate hardwood and the ceramic tiles. Even my New Balance shoes didn't help them that much during the walk. Anyway, enough boring stuff. I need to go to sleep. We have another wedding this weekend. I don't know if I mentioned last weekend, but my youngest sister Cassandra got married to her baby daddy.This week, one of J's cousins is marrying her baby daddy. Except he's been her baby daddy for something like twelve years. Cassandra's baby daddy isn't even her baby daddy, yet. But he will be and that's close enough. |
| You know what else? Why is it that everytime he just starts getting to sleep, someone in this neighborhood does something assinine like setting off firecrackers or the ice cream truck drives by? Ugh! He's a light sleeper and if he isn't asleep enough, it wakes him up like it did just now! ASSHOLES! |
| I don't mean to brag, but I have five minutes to sit down and do whatever I want. I decided to blog since I'm not sure if I'll get the chance later tonight. Ethan's "resting." We had to stop calling it napping because he fights that but if I tell him, "Mommy needs to rest," he'll reply, "Ethan needs to rest so Mommy can rest." Then he usually will settle himself down and eventually go to sleep. Some days, it takes an hour. Other days, it takes a matter of minutes. It depends on how tired he actually is. I think this weekend, we're going to start potty training again. We've completely stopped trying since Cameron was born because he wasn't having any of it, but I think it's time to start going back to the regular routine. I'm thinking we're going to make a potty schedule, where he knows he has to go to the toilet at a certain time so it's not such a fight. We were able to do this with lunch and dinner. He knows that it's lunch time and all of his toys need to be put away and the same at dinner time. He knows he has to stop playing in order to eat and that he can't start playing again until after he gets done eating. We were having problems with him bringing his toys to the table and then he wasn't eating, only playing. Now he's eating again, so everything is working back to happiness. I figured we'd buy an egg timer and start it out once every two hours. That way, it'll help him to know it's time to stop playing and to sit on the potty for five minutes. Adding some structure to it should help him, since he's very rule-driven. Plus it'll help everyone to be consistant. The only problem I can see is that nobody wants to make him do something because he's supposed to. I can't tell you how many times I've heard Jason or J's Mom say, "If you do this, I'll give you ____________." No. He shouldn't need to be bribed to sit and eat his lunch. If he doesn't sit down and eat, he goes to bed. If he finishes his lunch, he gets to read stories with Mommy and Cameron for a half hour before it's time to go to bed. There shouldn't be any of this, "If you sit down and eat, I'll rub your head."  And everybody seems to think they need to lay down with him anytime it's time to rest. I don't understand this! He needs to be able to calm himself down and go to sleep on his own. I seem to be the only one who thinks it's OK to be "mean." By mean, I'm not yelling and screaming and throwing things and calling names, of course. By mean, I'm giving consequences for bad behavior and rewards for good behavior. Rewards aren't huge, but they're still things he likes to do. If he takes a nap, when he gets up, he gets to color. If he doesn't take a nap, he doesn't get to color and he gets a bath instead of a shower at bedtime. If he doesn't eat lunch (when eating lunch I don't require his plate to be clean, I set goals for him - eat 3 chicken nuggets, eat 1/2 of your banana, eat the rest of your yogurt), then he has to go right down for a nap and doesn't get to read. If he does eat his lunch, he gets 1/2 hour of book time with Mommy before nap time. If he eats dinner, he gets to watch a DVD of his choice after he's done eating. If he doesn't, he doesn't get the DVD and he goes straight to the tub for his bath/shower and doesn't get to play with his toys before bed. It sounds strict, but it works. We've been getting places with it. He's been picking up all of his toys before lunch and dinner which he wasn't doing before. When I say it's lunch time, he starts picking up. Or if he decides he's hungry a little early, he starts to pick up his toys and then comes to me and tells me he wants to eat. If he doesn't want what we've made for dinner, he'll tell me what he does want and will eat that so he can have his DVD of choice. Now I'm going back to work and all of it will probably go to hell in a handbasket because J's Mom isn't as stringent on the rules as I am. I don't compromise on the rules in that if he doesn't pick up his toys, he doesn't get to eat. If he doesn't eat, he doesn't get the things he wants to do after he eats. I have to figure out a good reward system for potty training, though. And a consequence if he doesn't sit down for five minutes (or until he goes potty, whichever comes first) to try to go. I'll probably buy some stickers and make him a little chart to hang on the wall back in his play area. If he sits on the potty for five minutes, even if he doesn't go, he gets a sticker. If he goes, he gets another sticker. Something like that. Although, he really loves M&Ms. But the only problem with that is that J's Mom was giving him M&Ms just to get him to sit in the chair which is not the intention. He gets ONE M&M for sitting in the chair. Not one per minute.  How in the hell do I get the rest of these people to understand that we all have to do it the same way in order for it to work? It's like the world is working against me when the rest of them don't do it in a consistant manner. I just want my child to know that the rules are the same whether Mommy's there or not. How do I train the people that deal with him? It isn't quite as easy as training him. |
| So I go back to work on Monday. I'm both looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time. I mean, it'll be nice to get away from the kids and get some adult time, but we are really having a good week and have finally gotten a routine down and now I'm going to mess it all up again. I've actually been enjoying staying with them this week, which I have been determined to do if it kills me! Cameron is finally starting to come around with the lactose-free formula. Fifty percent of his poops are hard and fifty percent are soft, so I guess that's a pretty good improvement over the week. I know it could take up to two weeks before everything works itself out, and the fact that he's actually smiling and cooing instead of screaming his head off when he's not eating or sleeping is a vast improvement over last week. The only problem he's having now is he seems to either reverse-cycled or has developed a snacking habit in just two days. He'll sometimes eat four ounces per bottle, sometimes two ounces. If he eats four ounces, he'll go about two and a half hours between bottles. If he eats two ounces, he'll only go an hour between bottles. It's kind of frustrating because I do everything to try to get him to eat the full four ounces, and he won't. He usually falls asleep and, if I wake him up, has no interest in the rest of the bottle. I never had formula issues like this with Ethan. You stuck a bottle in his mouth, he ate it like he hadn't eaten all day. Even at night, when he goes four to five hours between bottles, he'll sometimes only eat two ounces and sometimes will eat four. He's getting enough to eat, though, so I'm not too worried about it. But if anybody has any ideas to get him to stop this, please let me know. I'm not about to let him cry and cry because he's hungry, but I don't want him getting into a snacking habit. Anyhow, that's the jist of how everything has been and is going. If I wasn't bleeding from my IUD, I'd go have sex with Jason. But since I got the hormonal one and my cervix got knicked again, I'm a little crampy and spotty. It never stopped me before, but it hurt like a MFer when she put the thing in and the last thing I feel like doing is sticking something else up there for the time being. I hope you all have a good evening! Pray that my week continues to go well, otherwise I might need a pity party in my blog on Friday. |
| I'm alive! We got the floors done in the living room and the furniture rearranged. Now I just have to figure out how to get time back for myself because it's been lacking. All I've been doing is taking care of babies and laundry. lol. At least my clothes are all almost clean, anyhow. Jason hates the way I arranged the living room. He said it makes it look smaller in there, as opposed to longer, when all of the furniture was against a damned wall. Now there's an adult section and a kid section, which I like because I don't have to look at all of the toys all of the damned time. Maybe I'll take a picture so you can see how I arranged it. It'll also work out great, too, because I can use the TV to drape sheets on to take photos of the kids because it's right next to my big light window. That's my life in a nutshell - nothing exciting. Just flooring and moving furniture. And painting. The front room still isn't done. But I am. I have to go to bed now. |
| Let's see. We've now tried Similac Advanced Nestle Goodstart Similac Isomil Similac Organic And now we're on Similac Sensitive. It's a lactose-free formula. I tried him on the Organic. After two ounces on the first bottle, he spit up a large amount which he never did before. Then he got through the bottle and spit up another huge amount. It was enough that I had to change my shirt because it soaked through the burp rag. With the second bottle, he cried the entire way through it, and also spit up again. At least with the other formulas, it didn't get better or worse on the first day - it just stayed the same. I'd gotten an email from Soul sister  with commiseration and she said once she put her son on lactose-free formula, the problem cleared right up.Instead of calling the doctor to get the OK, I just went ahead and changed it. I'd rather give this a try than spend my last week and a half before I go back to work not enjoying my kids. Dr. A wanted me to wait two weeks to see if the organic formula helped and if it seems worse after only two bottles then there's no way the next two weeks are going to be enjoyable for either one of us! After just one bottle, he's sleeping, which he hadn't really done much of all day - and without being held, which he hadn't done at ALL today. He also let some really big farts and didn't cry about it. I think maybe his stomach is passing through the stuff from the past couple of weeks and it's taking off some of the pressure. I also started thinking about daycare for Ethan. It might be better for him just so he can get some social stimulation and around kids his age even if I just put him in for half a day. I'm going to look into the preschool daycares in the area so at least he's getting something out of it other than a babysitter. It's just really expensive. Full time at the one I'm looking at seriously is $164 a week. I only make $200 when I'm working part time ($320 when I get to my full schedule) so I don't know if it'd be worth it. Part time wouldn't be that much less than the full time price. If I get stressed out with the both of them by noon, I doubt Jason's Mom is going to be able to handle the both of them. Plus we've been getting nowhere with the whole potty training thing and the daycare works with them on that, too. They put them on the toilet every hour and a half, so even if I only keep him in there for a short amount of time, at least he would get that on a consistant basis. I haven't had time to work with him on potty training at all, and it doesn't matter because he's reverted and doesn't even want to wear the pull up diapers right now. Oh, and one more thing. I have to thank Jedi Moose for this:![Merit Badge in Inner Strength
[Click For More Info]
It can't be easy being a parent to a child, but to see how you are dealing with another in the house I am amazed. It takes a lot of work and a lot of love to hold it all together and from the insights of your blog I'm sure you have what it takes to raise some wonderful children.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/general-Inner_Strength-1150.gif) I really have been getting down on myself because I can't be perfect and the encouragement that he and the rest of you have been giving me has really helped. Sometimes it takes someone else who isn't in the middle of the situation to let you know how well you're doing. I love you all.  I mean it! |
| So in the past week, Cameron has developed colic. If he isn't sleeping, he's crying. Yesterday, he cried for nearly 2 1/2 hours straight. Today has been slightly better, but only because he actually had a poop that was nearly normal for a newborn. Since we switched him to formula, he's had pretty much solid stools. They look like adult poops, and newborns don't have the muscles to be able to push that stuff out! I tried giving him two ounces of water one night to help him out, and he acted like I was trying to poison him. It took me a half an hour to get him to drink most of it, and it did help in that he passed the biggest clump of shit later that night. So I put him on soy about a week ago, and nothing seems to have changed. Of course, I call the doctor today and ask what to do, and they say switch his formula again, this time to organic. I'm sick and tired of this formula shuffle. In all actuality, the doctor has no damn clue why he's pooping like he's pooping, so they tell me to switch formula. I think it's the iron in the formula, which means that no matter what formula he drinks, he's going to have hard turds. But I have to do the formula shuffle for a month before they'll rule out that it isn't the formulation of the formula - just the iron - and that pisses me off because every time that I change his formula, it takes two or three days before he is nearly happy. Of course, you can't really call crying every time he's awake as nearly happy. It's stupid, and I know it's normal, but I'm so disappointed about how this whole situation has turned out. If I weren't such a perfectionist, it probably wouldn't be that bad for me, but I am. So it is. I mean, I thought I had all of the answers this time around, and nothing turned out right. My MIL became completely unavailable the minute we came home from the hospital. I didn't breast feed, which was a big deal for me. If I did nothing else right, I wanted to breast feed. Now I can't even seem to have a baby that's happy unless he's asleep. I'm not disappointed with Cameron. I'm disappointed in myself. I feel like a horrible failure. At least I can take good pictures. When Ethan lets me. But I can't even post them because Cameron is awake and guess what - he's crying. Not that it matters because ya'll are probably tired of seeing my kids anyway. lol |
| Has anybody heard anything from Susannah Deschain ? She hasn't updated her blog in like 2 weeks. I'm assuming she's had her baby, but I was just wondering if she's OK. We got the front room painted and the kitchen tiled. This weekend is the laminate hardwood in the living room. We decided to laminate hardwood the hallway in addition, so we're -almost- done with the floors in the house. Then we just have 1234567 square feet of painting to do. We did get the front room walls and ceiling painted this weekend, though, so at least we're knocking it off a little at a time. 2 more weeks until I go back to work. I'm kind of looking forward to it. |
| Andre champagne sucks. It tastes like ass. I guess that's what $3.84 a bottle is supposed to taste like, though. I don't know what my access is going to look like through the weekend. We're redoing the floor in the kitchen, which effectively cuts our house in half. I can move my laptop to the bedroom, but I don't know if I'll even bother, since I'm going to have to spend more time doing things like washing bottles in the bathroom sink. Did I mention that we won't be able to walk on the kitchen floor until Monday at the earliest? It takes the adhesive 24 hours and the grout another 16. Then we have to seal it. I don't know how long you can't go on the floor while the sealer is drying. Well, I thought I was going to have a minute, but Cameron seems to be waking up a half hour early. Damnit. |
Cameron is a month old today!    I put this onesie on him today because I thought it was appropriate, given the fact that everytime I walked away from him, he would start screaming:  And this one is just a result of his gas, but I'm so glad I had the camera in my hands for it because it's pretty hilarious:  At least I can still have a sense of humor about it all, right? Ethan turned 2 1/2 on Tuesday. In the past week, he appears to have gone up a shirt size and a shoe size. He's now in 3T shirts, 2T pants, and size 8 shoes. He's smiley and happy, even though sometimes Mommy is grumpy and disagreeable:  That's all I have time for now, it's time for everybody to go to bed. |
| So after two nearly sleepless nights in a row, I'm going to try switching Cameron to soy formula to see if that helps. It makes me pissed at myself even more because I quit breastfeeding. I probably wouldn't be going through all of this if I were breast feeding. He's got such bad gas that we spent an hour and a half in the rocking chair trying to calm down enough to go back to sleep. At one point, I was so tired that I took him into the bedroom and dumped him off on J, who basically laid in bed patting his back, which didn't help at all. I ended up taking him back and bringing him back out to the living room to be rocked again. I held him straight from about 1:30 am until about a half hour ago, when I finally got over it and put him in the swing to sleep for a minute. Now he's waking up, so we'll see how long it'll be until he starts screaming. Ugh. Ethan is being pretty well behaved today, which says a lot. He just ate his lunch and now he's sitting in the chair with a blanket and his Gigi watching his Old McDonald's Farm DVD. We'll see what happens when I try to get him down for his nap, though. On top of it all, J thought that just because he took me out to dinner, that meant that we could come home and have sex. I had been cleared to reconvene my sex life after 4 weeks, which was Monday. I wish I had never said so to J, but at the time having sex seemed like an exciting idea. lol. Now I'm just like... all the boys in this house don't care about anybody but themselves. I seem to be the only one who feels bad for being selfish by doing something for myself... like making this blog entry or taking a shower or even taking a poop. I'm getting over that really fast, though. What's insane is that I still feel like I want to have another baby... in like seven years. lol. |
| J took me out to dinner tonight and we left the kids with his parents. I had a White Russian and one of those small bottles of M&R Asti Spumanti. I wasn't lit, but it'd been since the last convention when I'd last had any alcohol, so I was feeling quite spiffy by the time we left. That's even with the fatty-ass cut of prime rib that I ordered, along with the asparagus, baked potato, stuffed mushrooms, and ultimate turtle cheesecake that got stomached along with the booze. So I did what any good mother would do when faced with having her children see her in an intoxicated state: I went to Wal*Mart and walked off my buzz. Oh, and I bought Ethan the DVD he wanted, plus we bought the complete season of Heroes, plus we got Jason an outfit. All of that, plus what I bought at the Gap today for the boys. Ethan got a new pair of jeans, plus four or five shirts. (He's gone up a shirt size, so I'm having to scramble to find him a bunch of clearance 3Ts for summer plus stock up on 3Ts for fall/winter.) I got CJ a couple pairs of jeans. (They had them buy 1, get 1 half-price and those jeans fit E the best, so I figure they'll probably fit CJ best when he gets big enough to wear them.) I also got him a little jumper outfit. Anyway, yes, I was insane and took both of the boys with me to the mall. It wasn't that bad. It was the naptime thing again that got my blood boiling. I just want him to lay down and take a nap, and it's probably that he knows I want him to do so that makes him do the things he does when naptime hits. I've had to remove any piece of furniture and any toy from his room that he can use as a ladder because he will use it to get over the baby gate and then will sneak out the back door and run amok outside in the back yard which scares me half to death because he's done it twice now. I've tried to explain to him each time that he can't go outside without Mommy or Daddy because it isn't safe to be anywhere outside by himself, but he doesn't get it. I just want him to not stand at his bedroom door, crying and begging for me to let him come out and watch tv instead of taking a nap. It's enough to make my nerves frazzle in a matter of moments. It would also help if my neighbor across the street didn't spend 4 hours mowing her postage-stamp lawn. I mean, come on, there's only so many times you have to go over the long grass to make it short: just once. The rest of the time you're just keeping my kid awake and making me want to ring your stupid neck. |
| I cannot stop laughing at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMNry4PE93Y  |
| I feel like I'm losing my damned mind. I talked to Jason yesterday and told him that there's no way I can keep going at the pace I've been going for the past month. He stayed up with CJ until 12:30 last night so I could get 4 hours of straight sleep. It wasn't quite straight, but it was less interrupted than it normally is. I could have kept on sleeping at 8 this morning when Ethan got up, though. Part of me was tempted to just let him play in his room for another half hour or so while I laid in bed, but I didn't because I can't bring myself to do something like that. Instead, we came out in the living room and watched a movie and I dozed on and off the whole time while Ethan, CJ, and I all lounged on the couch. Ethan was so good this morning, but then when noon hit, it was like he morphed into a different kid. I ended up putting him in his room to nap at quarter to one, and fought with him to go to sleep until almost 4 o' clock! At about 3, I felt like I was going to go into his room and kill him, so I picked CJ up and held him so I would have a way to make it less convenient for me to do so. I love both of my kids, don't get me wrong. And I'm sure that every mother goes through this, but I am feeling like I don't even want my 2-year-old around right now. He's become a huge pain in the ass, and I don't know what to do about it. I spend all day trying to balance between him and CJ to the point where I'm almost tearing my hair out because all I want to do is go pee but I can't because I'm either reading a story/feeding a bottle/preparing food/playing legos/trying not to go insane because Ethan is climbing the furniture like it's a jungle gym. He's probably tired of seeing my fat face day in and day out, too, but what can I do? I don't even go back to work for another couple of weeks. He was begging me to take him to Wal*Mart today. He says he wants a new DVD. LOL. Anyway, I have to figure out how to keep myself from going insane. |
| Jason and I may have to have a "Come to Jesus" conversation, as Deelyte- Chillin' calls it. I stay up with Cameron until 11:30, when he takes his last bottle for the day. Then, at 3:30 and 6:30 am, I get up with him again. Sometimes, he gets his bottle schedule all screwed up and ends up taking a bottle at 9:30, so I end up getting up at 12:30, 3:30, and 6:30 with him. Ethan wakes up between 7 am and 8 am, so I have to get up with him. If I'm lucky, CJ will have just finished his bottle and went back to sleep. Then I get up, get E his breakfast, turn it on PBS, get CJ out of his bassinet and lounge on the couch for a half hour or so. After that, I'm busy juggling my attention and energy between E and CJ. E goes down for a nap between 1 and 2. CJ sometimes will go to sleep during that time. If he does, I also try to get some sleep then, too. I sat down and figured it out this morning. If I'm lucky, and CJ goes right back to sleep after his bottles during the night, I get about 5 hours of sleep, total. That's interrupted sleep, usually with CJ sleeping with me most of the time because after he wakes up for his 3:30 bottle, he won't go back in his bassinet. With CJ being as fussy as he's been the past couple of days, I'm lucky if I get time to do anything, let alone go pee or clean up the house. I try to do some, but I am just running out of energy too soon in the afternoon to keep up with it anymore. In the meantime, Jason claims to be "so tired." From what? He gets up to make the bottle, feeds CJ while I change his diaper because otherwise he'll scream and wake up E, then goes immediately back to sleep the minute I say I'm done doing what I need to do, all of which takes maybe 5 minutes if I move slow. He gets up in the morning, does jack shit, then goes to work, does what he does there, then comes home and does jack shit again. Unless, of course, he's bitching because the dishes are sitting in the sink and there's toys all over the living room floor and laundry unfolded in baskets. And you know what? I'm to the point where I'm so tired that I don't give a fuck that he thinks I should be able to keep up with all of it. The only thing I need him to "come to Jesus" about is the fact that I'm up just as long, if not longer, than he is during the day, plus the half hour to fourty five minutes per bottle overnight, and then the added time of getting back to sleep because I'm not one of those people who can just close my eyes and go back to sleep when my head hits the pillow. Then if you add in the fact that I don't sleep as soundly when CJ's in bed with us because I'm waiting for every move and sound that could possibly come from him. It's no wonder I have a yawn problem these days! I'm just like, he knows that I'm doing all this staying up all of the time and I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I mean, I'm not ancient, but it isn't as easy for me to go without sleep as it was when I was 18, 19, or 20. I keep praying that Cameron will start cluster feeding during the day so that he'll stop taking a bottle at night, but I also know that as long as he's sleeping with me, that won't happen. But I can't put him in the bedroom with Ethan because Ethan's such a light sleeper that he'll be woken up all of the time. So I'm sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place and until I manage to get unstuck, my husband NEEDS to be more understanding and, if he doesn't get up with the baby, fine, but he could at least do the dishes, fold the laundry, and clean up the living room so I don't have to. Or maybe offer to watch both of the kids so I can go take a nap for an hour or something. But why would he want to do that? It means he'd have to be in my shoes for that length of time. We all know that he'd rather be ignorant of how hard it really is than to have any ounce of sympathy for how I might be feeling right now. |
| I'm now reading a book called Parenting From the Inside Out. It's about how to develop a better understanding of yourself in order to be a better parent and raise children who thrive, rather than children emotionally stunted by all of your emotional baggage that you bring with you as a parent. I'm on page 26 so far, and everything I've read so far makes sense. I hope that I can read it and become a better parent because I choose to be proactive, rather than reactive. We got nothing done around the house today. We're supposed to get the front room painted this weekend. We haven't even started it yet. It looks like maybe Grandma and Grandpa will be called upon to watch the kids, otherwise I don't think we're going to get it done. |
I got my Moby today, so wore Cameron around the house: We also got the boys to pose for some photos last night:   I actually took the boys out by myself today for the first time. We went to Sam's Club and Target. For the most part, it went well, but getting out of the house was the part that made me feel like I was going to go insane. I got Cameron ready, put him in his carseat, then tried to get Ethan ready and couldn't find one of his sandals. I'm hunting all over for it, then Cameron starts crying. While I'm trying to calm Cameron down, Ethan pulls off all of his clothes. I finally get them both ready, and Ethan decides that he doesn't want to leave yet. I ended up having to chase him all over hell in the house. Then Cameron got fussy again. I felt like screaming at the top of my lungs, "WILL YOU BOTH STOP ACTING LIKE ASSHOLES!" I refrained, though. It was just frustrating because I had wanted to get out of the house by 11:30 and I ended up not getting out until about noon. Once we actually got out, though, it went pretty smoothly. I did lose a receiving blanket in Sam's Club, but I didn't feel like retracing my steps through the whole store to find one blanket when I have 27 others at home.  I'm starting to wonder if I'm ever going to get the chance to get 4 hours of straight sleep. Not for a while yet, I'm sure. Who needs sleep, anyway? It's totally over rated. |
 Five years ago, on this very day, I googled "free journals" and found Stories.Com. After thinking about it for about 30 seconds, I signed up for an account, created a journal, and there you have the creation of my portfolio:
Not long after, I posted my very first static item: an autobiographical piece.
And the third item, my first shared poem:
I couldn't tell you what the fourth or fifth items were. I've probably deleted them since their creation. Anyway, life has been so crazy that I didn't even realize my account birthday was today, let alone that I've been here for five whole years! I think it's the longest commitment I've ever made to anything... except Jason, of course. We're going to be married 4 years next June and together 6 this coming September. So... happy account birthday to me!  |
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