Too close to the bone

I haven't posted in a long time, but the insurance debate in congress is really getting to me. I'm a person that early in the election process would have voted for McCain, but now I'm feeling hatred towards Republicans. All Republicans. That sweet sweet woman who buys all the Glen Beck books in our store. I hate her tonight.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/health/policy/06health.html?_r=1&hp

Republican Senators saying it is hubris to determine the plans insurance companies can offer, saying we should let the public have a choice in their plans; let the public decide. Well between my choices of bad, and just as bad, I would like to have no insurance. And looking at the cost of my health plan and the fact that they consistently deny coverage for everything, I think I choose no insurance.

Isn't this what they are trying to prevent?

One Senator said it was hubris to tell insurance companies what to do. Hubris. I guess he doesn't have any middle or working class relatives. Maybe he doesn't know anyone who has to have an individual plan. Maybe it is just really really bad in Bishop, maybe I just live in an extra tough area. But I don't buy it, I can't believe there aren't millions of others like me. Millions who could never afford their deductible, can barely afford their premiums, and can't actually afford to go to the doctor.

And So

Oscar's crawling, and I have $250 of house safety items in my shopping cart at diapers.com, just waiting for my next paycheck. This last paycheck I used to buy some photos and mats, because I'm going to try to start selling photos at Spellbinders. It is not that I think I'm that good, it is more I realize that other people who sell photos aren't gods, and I could use some extra cash. Tom got a 10% pay cut. He's doing a great job, working hard, but in hard times people don't advertise - a radio/tv station depends on advertising... Here are some of the photos I'm selling.

We're Back! And not much has changed...

We had a lovely vacation in South Lake Tahoe. I'd post pictures but our new CD ROM/DVD player/burner for the computer did NOT arrive while we were away, so I have no way to upload all the photos I took on my new camera.

Oscar wouldn't sleep in the pack & play, so he slept in bed with Tom and I all week long. Yes it is cute to have a snugly 6-month-old snuggle closer and closer to you during the night, but in general I felt like a boob pacifier and would like my own bed back...So now that we are home, and we have a new clock for the bedroom (thank you Mary!) we will officially be trying sleep training!

Speaking of sleep, the little cutie pie now consistently rolls over and can wiggle in a crawl-ish way backwards! Soooo, no more naps by himself on the bed, which was the one of the ONLY ways I could get him to take a nap during the day. The other way, giving him a bottle in his car seat. In fact he is in his car seat right now. Of course giving a bottle to a child to get them to go to sleep is not recommended. So the truth is that when it comes to naps, I am screwed!

The house is the same mess it was when we left for our vacation, except now we have unpacked bags to add to it. About the only thing that has changed are the tomato plants, which have little green tomatoes on them - I'm looking forward to daily tomatoes soon!

Any recommendations for getting a child to sleep without a bottle are welcome.

Life is good, but I'm tired.

Life can never be bad with such a teething, non-sleeping cutie-pie. I haven't cried about spilled diapers except for once. In the top photo he is wearing a bathrobe given to him by D, the woman who takes care of him along with her 13-year-old daughter K, her son, and her husband R, who also happens to be trash man. Sometimes, if we are dressed and about early on Wednesdays we wave to R as he drives by.

I like the bathrobe photo, Tom looks at it and says he has a new mini-me, but I see more of myself in Oscar every day. When I tried out Mpix (because Kodack quality sucks) I ordered a bunch of different size photos of the bathrobe pic to test out the different photo options (metallic, or no?). They haven't come yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I just wish you couldn't see how dirty the carpet was. But I'm happy it is a was. Thank you Zach for letting us borrow your steam cleaner, which we have used 5 times, and I would like to use 5 times more. Zach has a steam cleaner because he has tortoises, they poop and pee on the carpet. He said we could use it for a while though, because he only steam cleans about once every 6 months. I like Zach, a lot, but personally I think tortoise poop & pee trumps spit-up stains. YUCK!

I asked for a raise at work, and I didn't get it. They don't have the funds, it is a no-hurt answer, but I'm nervous as Oscar's health care is covered by the state, and it is on the chopping block. They did offer to pay $100 towards Oscar's child care a month, which I jumped at, and am thankful for. Speaking of Oscar, I gotta go.

Surprise You're Sobbing!

I had a true breakdown once. I was working on a campaign, and there were many things that needed to be done, and a manager that wanted things done, and wanting and getting aren't the same thing. And one morning, after staying up all night working on the managers nice, but not needed graph charts, the computer froze and I lost it all. And I couldn't stop crying. Really couldn't stop crying. And I never went back to the campaign.

I quite my first job in the Eastern Sierra because after close to two years of constant stress, one Saturday it made me cry. I was managing three programs for a non-profit and the director wanted me to lie to parent volunteers (without even giving me a reason why) and I didn't know what to say or do. I kinda quit because it was stupid to make me lie, but really I quit because the stress of it made me cry on my day off - and I though "Screw This!". After I quit I found out the director's reasoning, and it was so lame; if he had just told me the truth we could have come up with a reasonable solution. He wanted me to lie because he didn't have an answer, I could have worked with that.

Last night Oscar didn't let us (or really me) get much sleep. I was the boob pacifier, and when I got sick of it he just woke up. And was awake from 3 AM to about 5:30 AM. Finally he fell asleep-ish, but woke up for good around 7 AM. Tom took him so I could slumber some more, but I don't think I got much sleep; I put my shirt on backwards this morning.

The advantage of waking up early is that you have more time before work. Well, for about two weeks I've been wanting to wash all my wool covers (in fact I hadn't been using some because of it). So I washed the covers (5 total) before work, with a bar because that is the wool soap that I have. I rolled them in towels like I was supposed to, and put them to dry lying flat on a folding rack in the yard. Then I went to work.

If I had really thought about it, I wouldn't have left them out when I wasn't home. But I put my shirt on backwards this morning, thought process was not my strength today. I came home, and though it wasn't windy in town, apparently there was quite a blast at the house. The drying rack had blown out of our yard, over a gas tank, and into our landlord's yard. The wool covers were scattered. Some fared better than others, but one actually was filled with dirt. Oh, and it also rained.

By the way, I have a boob infection. And Oscar has Rubella, which isn't so bad but now I have to tell to all my friends with kids that we hang out with that he has Rubella and I'm scaring everyone. And my milk supply (maybe because of the infection?) had dropped; where I was making a measly 8 ounces of pumped milk (with 4 pumpings) during the day at work, today I made LESS THAN 4 (not enough for a single feeding). And Oscar & Tom weren't home when I got home at 6:45 PM, and I didn't know where they were.

I got to the sink to wash the diapers, and as I was trying to pick the sticky twigs off them I started sobbing, sobbing and laughing at the same time. If I had a tape recorder it would have sounded really interesting. I was amazed at the sounds coming out of me, and didn't really know where they were coming from. After some weird moans the needing to find out where Tom & Oscar were took over and with communication with the world (which kinda maybe knows where they are) I'm fine. They still aren't home, but I'm pumping with a glass of wine as I write this (yes I know wine inhibits letdown - oh well). Somehow I will make milk for my baby, maybe not enough milk, but some will be okay.

Oscar has Rubella

Oscar has Rubella. I noticed a bumpy red rash yesterday morning on his abdomen and back, and thought that it was a heat rash. But this morning it was spreading to his face and down his limbs, so we went to the doctor. Rubella. The doctor asked if we had been around and 12 month olds, because she thought he probably got it from a child who had recently been vaccinated; it is a live virus, a recently vaccinated child is contagious. Well, no we have not in fact been around any 12 month olds. But funny thing, two weeks ago we were in the doctor's office, and the incubation period is 14-23 days. I wonder where Oscar caught it?

Anyway he is fine; no fever, not even itchy, just rashy. But he can't be around any pregnant women because rubella is dangerous for fetuses. And he can't be around his other little friends, because, well, he is contagious. A bit of a bummer, and annoying. Not the end of the world, but it has been a whirlwind of a day, and I'm tired, and I'm at work, alone. I hate being at work alone.

One Hell of a Week!

(The last of the bumbo chair photos)

Well, if they gave grades for motherhood, I would have gotten a C- this week. I'm tempted to fail myself, but then I actually used to work with abusive households, and happily we are not that. But after almost killing my child this week (by accident, and thank his guardian angel he is okay) I can only just squeak by with a C-.

1. On Monday I went to the pool with Oscar, and while there I was chatting with other mamas, and had him sitting up on the table (he's such a good sitter) with my hands on him while I was sitting. He was doing so well, never even tipping...I stood up and instead of keeping my hands on him, I had my hand behind him, but not touching. I turned away to hear what a friend was saying and out of the corner of my eye I saw my son fall off the table. It was a possibly fatal fall.

He started screaming right away, and my close friend, who is also an ER nurse immediately checked him out...and he had barely a scratch on him. He calmed down quickly, I did not, and thus picking up on my angst he screamed his head off for a bit longer. After all was calm a gentleman asked if he was okay, and told us what had actually happened (none of us had really seen it). Oscar lurched backward at an angle, avoiding my hand, fell off the table, hit the plastic chair, and fell on the concrete ground on his side. The chair broke his fall. Thank you chair.

I would have taken him to the emergency room, but lovely ER nurse friend said it was not necessary, and though I kinda wanted to go home, we went swimming. Oscar loves the water.

2. I feel the need to share this story with EVERYONE who has a child, which in Bishop is quite a few, there is baby boom going on. I share the story not only to punish myself (yes let me tell you how much I suck, and no it is not cool), but also as warning. When Shauna bought a bumbo chair at a consignment shop the seller made her promise not to put it on a counter because her friend did and her friend's daughter fell off. At that time Tom & I put Oscar in the bumbo on the counter all the time. He was fine - I scoffed when Shauna told me this woman's story.

I scoffed because I did not know the woman who's child fell off the counter in the bumbo, I didn't know her house, I didn't know her situation. She was a myth to me. Well I am not a myth to my friends here, and Oscar's extremely close call is not mythology. I could have lost my son. Oscar is not longer allowed to sit in his bumbo on counters, in fact he is never sat anywhere other than the floor, and I am even wary of that now because of bad mother reason #3.

3. On Tuesday Tom was lifting weights and Oscar and I were home alone. Oscar pulled one of his boob isn't good enough & I want bottle tantrums, but we didn't have any open formula in the house. We did however have a box of unopened formula one the front porch. So screaming child in hand I kicked the box into the house, got a knife to open the box, and looking for the largest clear spot on the floor, set my child down. He was two feet from any object, but as soon as I set him down and turned to pick up the knife, he lurched (further than his body length) and hit his head on the brick base of the wood stove. He was not okay, he had a lump, and it hurt (but at least it wasn't near fatal).

Here I had actually thought about the safest place to put my child, and I was wrong. The gentleman at the pool had said he had lurched off the table, but I had never seen it before. Unlike the table fall, I didn't hate myself for this accident, but I sure wasn't proud.

4. THAT NIGHT Oscar pooped in his sleep, something he hasn't done since he was a newborn. We didn't smell it, and he sat in his poop for a couple hours and got a TERRIBLE diaper rash.

5. The next day, I took Oscar to work with me for a couple of hours. He was facing forward in the Baby Bjorn, and at some time he pooped without me noticing again. I didn't wait a long time between changes, no more than two hours, probably less, but he was in that poop for a while, resulting in a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE diaper rash.

6. I had been letting Oscar play with the key chain & keys to the shed while I was on the computer. Thursday Morning I woke up wondered if the key chain was safe. I tested it for lead (I bought a lead test kit while pregnant). Sure enough the key chain had lead in it. I let my child mouth and play with lead.

Motherhood Grade C-.