I think this might end up being the worst Christmas, ever. My Uncle Steve isn't going to be here. Now Jason's cousin has cancer and is on a ventilator. They don't expect her to make it through the week. She's close to my age and has two little girls.

I'm not sad for myself. I'm bummed for her kids who are now forever going to relate to this time of year as the time their Mom was taken from them. I feel horrible for her husband. I feel horrible for Jason's Uncle and Aunt.

I'm not even sure if I feel like being in the spirit, right now. This year has totally sucked since October. I feel like I don't even have the energy to try to pretend like I'm happy and excited about Ethan and Cameron having their first Christmas together.

This year has been so crappy.
 

So I had already done this but I got it from someone else so I wanted to share mine. I'm a little drunk right now. Gotta love Christmas parties and free alcohol!

Anywho, here it is:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1249225390
 

I'll update later. These emails are killing my inbox and I haven't had time to talk. Sorry!
 

If you want a card from me, let me know your address and I will send one your way!

Please send your address via email. I don't think it'd be smart for the rest of the universe to be able to see it in my comments section.
 

So to elaborate without complaining too much, J came about three seconds away from becoming my ex-husband this weekend. He gets grumpy and selfish and I try to let it slide because he's a spoiled, only child, but it got to the point where I swore I was going to punch him. He was upset on Thanksgiving because we didn't eat until after 5 pm. Then he was upset on Friday because he stayed home all day with the kids and I did a craft show openhouse and was gone until 4:30. Then he kept on me because the house was driving him crazy.

I had told him to be quiet, to shut up, and finally I threw my bowl of leftover, cold green beans at him. He threw his tortilla chips at me. I threw them back. Then I left the room because I was going to end up doing bodily harm to him if I didn't.

After that, I packed an overnight bag for myself and the kids and started putting Cameron in his carseat. J figured out that I really was upset and apologized. I didn't leave, but I was still upset.

Saturday night, he started in on me again about the house. I told him that if he knew what was good for him, he'd stop it right then. So he did.

I'm still irritated with him, but not to the degree that I was on Saturday night. He sometimes acts like I have no right to do anything that means having a life where I get to go do something by myself. I have to remind him that I'm not his servant, just because we're married, nor am I bound to the house, just because I'm a mother.

I keep trying to tell him that if he wants me to be involved in housework and cooking dinner and all that, then I need to feel like I'm doing it because I want to, not because I have to. Whenever he gets on one of his fits about how little he thinks I'm doing around the house, it makes me want to rebel and do nothing at all. Because when I do nothing, then he sees how little gets done.

It's call Mommy strike. And I'm still in negotiations of coming off the picket lines. We'll see how it goes this week.
 

All I have heard since Thanksgiving is complaining from one person or another, and I'm sick of it.

I'd go into more detail, but I'm not going to because I'm sick of people complaining so why in the hell would I do it myself?

I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday.
 

Haircut today! Woohoo! I'm so excited!

I'll probably have her wax my mustache, too. Damned dark hair of mine.
 

I did have this interesting bit to share this morning, through the sleep dust in my eyes, but I got sidetracked by my complaining. So what else is new, right? (Just saying what Problematic Content is thinking, is all.)

Anyway, last night, I decided I was tired of looking like a hairy ape and tweezed my eyebrows. I was going to pay someone to rip my face off, but I decided to torture myself and do it one hair at a time, instead, because who knows when I'll be able to afford another haircut, let alone a facial wax. (I'm going to call and get an appointment today for the hair. It's been falling out and I don't know why and so I may just chop it all off or maybe even shave it.)

So's I goes about dumping the baby off on Daddy with the false premise of having to go to the potty, which wasn't a total lie because I had to go to the potty to get the tweezers and the magnifying mirror out of my cabinet next to the sink. I dig out the necessary equipment and park on the couch and start to plucking.

Let me tell you, I didn't think it would be that bad because I've done it many times before. The thing about this is that I tell myself it wasn't that bad last time as a lie to myself so that I get started and then I remember how much it sucks. But I've already started and I'm not going to walk around the world with a bald spot in my eyebrows, so I have to finish.

I got through with the first eyebrow, and I must say that I was impressed with myself. Shapely, not too thin, and not too thick, either. But then after finishing the first one, I was tired and didn't want to do the second eyebrow. I thought for a very small moment about leaving the other that way until tonight and just walking around the world with a lopsided brow, but I'm too vain for that and so I continued on.

The first brow took me nearly an hour to pluck. The second one came so much easier, although evening the two out put me at about a half hour total for the second brow. I look better, though, and because I feel like I look better, I also feel better about myself.

Jason, after I whined for a moment about the fact that my brows were still swollen, said that I was being a big baby and to be quiet. So I grabbed a couple hairs out of his brow and plucked them out. And he cried about how it made his eyes water. So I doubt I'll ever have him call me a baby again.

Now, to do something about my mustache, and the world will be well again.
 

Cameron scared the holy crap out of Jason and me last night. We were both in a heavy sleep and all of a sudden, we shot up in the bed. CJ was coughing so hard that he couldn't breathe. I had a moment of panic where I thought that maybe he'd caught the whooping cough, but it didn't really sound that bad. It just felt like it because I was in a hard sleep and got woken up and my brain couldn't think straight.

Then we got in an argument at whatever-o-clock in the morning because CJ is fussing some and I'm tired and he won't go back to sleep and Jason asked how his diaper was. "It's fine," I snapped at him. J made a bottle, CJ drank it, and still fussed.

J snatched him from me and changed his diaper while I went to the potty. Then proceeded to bitch me out for not changing his diaper earlier. It really wasn't that full. It's been ten times more full and he's slept fine.

Anyway, I basically told him to shut up because he wasn't the one being kept up for hours a night because once he got the bottle made his happy ass was back in dream land while I was stuck doing all of the long-term stuff, like feeding and getting him back to sleep. If he wanted to complain about the fact that I don't do shit in the evenings after the kids go to bed, and he wanted to complain that I won't lay down with him, then he needs to ensure that I get more sleep than I have been getting.

It didn't do any good, though. It never does. And he'll bitch at me tonight when the dishes need to be done and the living room needs to be tidied and I'm not moving my ass off the couch because I've been awake since 4 am. But whatever. At least he makes the bottles for me.

And I can't complain that hard. When I was doing it all by myself this week, even with the help my MIL gave, I was so tired by the end of the fourth day. My husband does help me preserve energy, otherwise I'd always be in that same state.

Both of the kids are getting a saline rinse tonight. That's going to be fun. But I've got to get rid of these colds somehow.
 

Our DSL has been shoddy the past month or so. Today it died completely. It was our modem that was the culprit. The power cord was shorting on it, apparently. So we went to Best Buy and put a new modem on our credit card. Because we're losers who can't be without the Internet for more than a few hours. LOL.

Anyway, we got it set up and it is working a lot better for me. J isn't having such luck. His link status is pretty much nonexistant. Not my fault!
 

Here's irony for you. The headlines on one of the local tv station's web page read like this:

Second one down is a story about homelessness, entitled The changing face of W. Michigan homelessness ( http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7375864 )

Just a few stories below that, Help for Bangladesh coming from West Michigan ( http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7377700 )

Now, the first story is about how the stereotypical homeless person is not the case anymore, although it hasn't been the case for quite some time. But you'd have to work with the homeless to know what the actual typical homeless person is; a school-aged child. Anyway, in that story, they're talking about how one of the food pantry places is having a hard time getting food on the shelf, and then the next story is about how this international aid organization is collecting donations to send across the pond to aid the people whose lives were affected by the cyclone.

Yes, I think we should help other countries. But we simply cannot afford to right now, especially when we can't even help our own to get food in their bellies and whatnot.

You know, there are three main shelters in the Kalamazoo area. There's the Gospel Mission, which is the largest. Then there's the HRI Family shelter, which is the size of a house. Then there's the YWCA, which is only for victims of domestic abuse. There's also the Ark, which is for minors, and several other youth houses in the area, but we don't work with them as much as we do the main three.

Now, my point about talking about those three is that they all house families. The Gospel Mission is known to never turn families away because they want to make sure that children have a place to sleep no matter what. And they've had to because they simply do not have the room to house all of the homeless families that have needed shelter in the area this school year. There's actually a waiting list to get in, which I've never heard of happening before. The Family Shelter is always full, but the waiting list there is weeks long. And the YWCA, even though it's a domestic assault shelter, is spilling over off the foundation, too.

The face of homelessness isn't changing. The frequency is and the media coverage is. People keep talking about how homelessness is rising, and it is. Last year, this time, we'd only identified about 250 homeless students in Kalamazoo Public Schools. This year, we've identified almost 500 students. I added 30 students just this week.

I just hope that, maybe instead of donating stuff to International Aid, they take the money they would've spent or the clothing they would've given, and find a food pantry or a homeless shelter to donate to. Or give it to your local Red Cross. Lord knows that we've had 3 families in the past couple of weeks who've lost their homes to fire and didn't have renters insurance and lost everything.

It's getting worse up here, what with job loss and our economy the way it is. I wish we could move out of state, but Jason isn't into it. People say it's not better anywhere else, but I don't think it could be any worse than it is here.
 

Five minutes to myself. I think. If a baby doesn't wake up crying or a toddler screaming with the realization the Grandma isn't in bed with him anymore. Jason comes home tomorrow, and I'm as excited as one who is sleep deprived and punch-drunk can be.

Everything was funny today. Even things that weren't really that funny. I spent a lot of time laughing about stuff that doesn't make normal people laugh.

I could go to bed ten minutes early, if I wanted to. But what I really wanted to do was blog. About how tired I am, as usual. I have nothing interesting to talk about because all I do is go to work and work and come home and work as a Mom. Or my mother-in-law's. Same difference.

We have had no money extra at the end of the week every week for the past two months because we're still trying to catch up from my maternity leave and summer sabatical. I'm so tired of being paycheck-to-paycheck although the light at the end of the tunnel is finally starting to shine.

Next paycheck is the loan payment on the van and the phone bill. The paycheck after that, when I get paid, too, is the mortgage payment, for the second time in two weeks. No more house payment at the last minute on the 15th to keep from having to pay the $30 late fee. No more shuffling bills around to try to make this payment and that payment before the shut-off notice expires.

Then I can start paying my hospital bills from childbirth.

Eventually, we'll be out of debt. Probably when we're retired. Because something always comes up. That's just the way life is.


 

No sleep sucks. Jason's going north to hunt today. I'm a grouch. He thinks its because I don't want him to go north. No, you bastard, it's because I want to go to sleep. I'm bitchy because I'm tired, so deal with it or kiss my ass.

Ethan's cold is pretty much gone, but of course CJ had to get it because people don't believe in washing hands around here. Ethan sneezed on Cameron. What do they do? Nothing. It was on his sleeve, not his hand, according to them. Well he still puts that sleeve up to his face. Change his shirt. Duh.

I hate the sickness. I wish I could kill it dead.
 

I'm now sharing my blog with Facebook because I'm just cool like that. I wish that I could do that with all of my blog sites so that I only have to write one entry a day. I'm lucky if I can do that much, anyway.

If I'm right, my grandparents are on their way down to Florida right now to get Nikki and her "stuff" and her cat to bring her back up to Michigan. It'll be both a good change and a bad change for her. Good because it'll get her away from the ape-man, Jerry. Bad because Michigan is currently #1 in unemployment. Our economy is horrible. Our housing market is impossible. But that's all beside the point. It is possible to succeed, you just have to take jobs that pay less and squeak through by the skin of your teeth.

Ethan's cold is finally starting to let up, but CJ has had a stuffy nose the past two mornings. By noon, they've disappeared. At night, though, he can't breathe and it makes him one pissed off baby.

I'm scrapbooking again, too. Only digitally. My scrapbook room still isn't back in order, yet. But here's the layouts I've done, if you care:

http://www.scrapbook.com/galleries/101158/view/1124259/-1/0/1.html
http://www.scrapbook.com/galleries/101158/view/1124099/-1/0/1.html
http://www.scrapbook.com/galleries/101158/view/1113733/-1/0/1.html
http://www.scrapbook.com/galleries/101158/view/1112295/-1/0/1.html

That's it for now. I've got to get ready for swimming class.

And just to update on a milestone that just happened:

CAMERON JUST PUT HIS OWN BINKY BACK INTO HIS MOUTH!!!!! YAY!!!
 

Ethan's had a cold since the weekend, and we'd been giving him Benadryl to help with the stuffy nose, which helped with the cough, which helped with the vomitting. The only problem is that when you give E any medication for an extended period of time (that being more than 2 days), he starts to have behavior problems. We went through the same thing when he was taking the codeine for the burns on his hand.

Now, he had been on the Benadryl for 4 days. Things hadn't been bad until Tuesday, when it made him incredibly hyper active, which is a known side effect for Benadryl in young children. Anyway, he basically tore the house up and drove Mary near insanity by the time I got home from work at 2:30.

All of a sudden, she couldn't do this anymore and she couldn't watch him 32 hours per week and I couldn't work that because she just couldn't do it. I called around to a couple of daycares, and it would cost us almost $400 a month to put him in just a couple of days a week. I called her and told her that and she said there was no way we could afford that. Well if I can't afford $100 a week for daycare, I can't afford to work 12 hours less and lose $120 a week.

Things are better now that he's been off the Benadryl, but I still think he needs to do a preschool daycare a couple of days a week so that he isn't bored all of the time and wanting to get into stuff.

So that's the whole story. My kid isn't too much most of the time. Just when he's sick.
 

I think I found a solution. At least to the daycare situation. Thankfully, the school district I work for has a childcare program because they have a grant from the government called CEYF (Continuing Education for Young Families). Part of their community service part of being in CEYF is to take parenting classes and help supervise children in a daycare facility. They have one at the high school that's close to my house, and it comes highly recommended from several other KPS staff members. They've won awards from the state of Michigan and the best part is that they only charge $22 a day! I'm going to tour the facility tomorrow and discuss contract options with them. The other awesome part is that they also follow a school-year schedule, so I don't have to worry about contract options that exclude the months of July and August. Ethan would automatically get the summer off and I won't have to worry about there not being any room for him because the contract would carry over to the next school year if I chose to renew.

The only hitch is that I've got to get him potty trained at least to the point where he will go if put on the toilet. I can't even get him to wear pull-up diapers without a huge battle. I'm not planning to put him into the preschool daycare until after the Holiday break, so I'll have those 2 weeks to work with him, but I have to figure out something to do in the meantime.

He's going to be 3 in February, so he qualifies for the preschool-aged area. I just need to figure out how to potty train him. It's so different to train a boy than a girl. And to make matters even more difficult, he doesn't mind sitting in a dirty diaper. I tried that angle once. It didn't work very well. He just sat in a pee diaper until it leaked through. Then I tried the pull-up diapers that get cold, and the same thing. I even tried the terry training pants with the rubber pants, and got the same result. He will sit in wet pants because he would rather do that than stop playing.

Ugh. It really is impossible. But it's something affordable and realistic. And the plusses outweigh the minuses. I sat down and talked with my boss about it this morning, who called her boss, who brought me over all of these pamphlets that show why a pre-school setting will put Ethan ahead of the curve for actual school preparation.

And $22 a day isn't bad at all. It's only 2 hours of work a day to pay for it. It was $45 a day for the other place. The only difference is that they would actually potty train whereas this place won't.

I just pray to God that he'll offer me a solution on the potty training issue. We've tried everything. Even Cheerios in the toilet for him to shoot. He doesn't care. He just wants to play.
 

Something's got to give. I'm so tired of having everyone pull at me from every direction and feeling like if I try to balance being a Mom and having a job that I like then there's something wrong with me.

We can't afford daycare, yet if I cut back on hours I might as well put him in daycare. Either way, we're out at least $100 a week. I'm damned if I do and damned if I do. This rock and hard place is really chaffing my ass.
 

Well we didn't get thrown up on last night, but mostly because we were proactive about it. Everytime he so much as coughed one of us was up and in his room sitting him up to keep the drainage from sitting in the back of his throat. It meant considerably less sleep for both J and me, but at least we made it through a night without vomit. Blah.

No wonder my Uncle's fuel bill for heat was $400+ a month, too. We walked into his house and it was like 700 degrees in there. J turned the thermostat all the way down and we opened the windows and the front door and let the house air out a little because it was so stifling and stuffy in there. We also drained his water bed so that can be hauled out to the dump or whatever.

The garage is pretty well empty now. We tried getting the lawn tractor fixed so we could get it in the paper and sold, but something more is wrong with it than just needing a belt so my Dad is going to have to take a longer look at it. On the downside, it took us destroying a brand new, $35 belt to figure out that it was more than just in need of a belt. On the up side, we think we found another belt yesterday that we will be able to use. I hope so, because $35 a pop is a lot for us to put out of pocket and wait for reimbursement.

Otherwise, I hope this week goes better. If I'm lucky I might get to catch up on some sleep, even. Yeah. Right.
 

Ethan has a cold and has now thrown up twice. Each time, his cold medicine has worn off, his sinuses start to drain, the drainage runs down his throat, and he gags. We were able to catch him and prevent it at about 12:30, but then at about 3 there was no preventing it. He's ended up in bed with us Friday and Saturday night. Cameron, too, because he hears all the fuss and then won't go back to sleep otherwise.

My Dad told me that my cousin, Dusty, is back stateside. They aren't exactly sure what happened to him because he won't talk about it, but it either involves 2 gunshot wounds or 2 injuries due to a bomb explosion. Nobody can get the true details. We just know that he's in New York at the hospital for rehab.

Right now, I'm counting my blessings about that. I don't think my family can handle another tragedy. Granted, this is my Dad's side of the family. But when I say my family, I really mean myself, especially because Dusty is younger than me. My cousin, Josh, is still over there. I just keep praying that they both stay safe and sane.

We're going out to my Uncle's today to help my Grandpa clean some more. My goal is to get his bedroom cleaned up, the waterbed drained, the stuff in the corner sorted. I dread doing it. I don't want to find anything that makes me emotional. But Grandpa ended up being out there all by himself yesterday, which I hate worse than the idea of sorting through my Uncle's things and decided what's worth keeping and what's OK to throw away.