wow. maybe i’m a bit hormonal since this weeks has about bitches that piss me off. sorry sisters, i’m feeling a bit prickly this week. i love the rest of you. and lovin you is easy cuz your beautiful.

to continue the saga of my earlier post:

after i posted earlier, i sat here and stewed about the situation. then one of my other nurses called and i barfed out what happened to her and she ended up crying over the idea of someone being mean to the boys. so then i was comforting someone else not to be upset over the very thing i was upset about. after i got off the phone with her, i called nurse ratchet up and told her exactly why i was concerned about her treatement of our family. i told her i didn’t like her picking up my son by his arm because no one should ever pick up a child, especially a baby, by their arm since it is a good way to dislocate their small shoulders. she apologized at first but then got defensive and said “I thought I was helping you. You don’t have to worry about me ever touching those children again.” I also told her I felt like I had to walk on eggshells around her, making things just right so she wouldn’t complain to me but she did every. single. day. waking up to someone bitching at you right off the bat is miserable and i told her she needed to work on her communication skills. she spouted some other b.s. and i told her i felt it was best to end this relationship and i wish her well but i’m through. i felt like i was breaking up with someone.
i never raised my voice or cussed at her and i asserted myself and defended my family. my kids are wonderful, we are good parents and her sour attitude stood out so boldly because our house is usually filled with harmonius, caring, silly people. everything thrives here and when a poisonous person comes into the picture, it hurts us all.

so she’s gone.

moving on:

fourth of july is one of my favorite holidays. i like halloween more but fireworks rock. the kid is downstairs admiring his fireworks and we’ve already lit smoke bombs

and snakes today. later, we’re going to buy more parachutes and bottle rockets.

smoke bombs are stinky.

the boys are doing a quasi-crawl creeping thing and can get anywhere they want. it is only a matter of time before they realize they can leave the living room. child proofing? ugh. still working on it. you wanna come over and do it?

my coffee pot broke earlier this week in a spectacularly unusual way. it no longer pumped water through the coffee, it just turned it all to steam but did manage to brew 1/4 cup of coffee- enough to make the kitchen smell like coffee but not enough to effectively drink. i burned my hands twice on the steam and took the damn thing apart four times but it continued to chug and steam like satan’s mr. coffee machine. i called mr. coffee and told them their maker was possessed and they said they would send me a new one. in two to three weeks. yeah! mr. coffee for just giving me a new one and all but two to three weeks? you best be sending me a starbucks gift card you sons of bitches. i drank black tea for two days but it just wasn’t cutting it. i broke down and bought a replacement coffee pot (the same one but red!) at target because i need some damn coffee. so when the replacement comes, should i return the target one? yes, yes i should.

have a good holiday weekend, set off some fireworks, bake a freedom cake, get rip roarin drunk and make an ass of yourself but do it with a smile on your face.

We have a night nurse that has been with us since January. She can be the caregiver from hell with her cranky, judgemental attitude but she takes good medical care of Lil and she is dependable which is vital in a night nurse. It isn’t easy finding nurses we trust alone in our house while we sleep that does all of Lily’s dressing changes, medicines and proper care. But there is a price to pay because she can be incredibly difficult.

When I wake up in the morning bleery eyed and zombified (not unlike Shaun in the beginning of Shaun of the Dead where you think he’s a zombie but really he’s just tired), the first thing I hear is her admonishing me about something I did wrong. When she started, she told us she would help with the boys if they got up at night. This morning, she knocked on my door and when I walked out, the first thing she said was “I can’t watch your other babies when they are screaming if I’m taking care of Lily,.” Oh, okay. Every other morning you manage but today it is an issue. Yesterday you were thrilled because they slept till 7 and you didn’t have to “deal” with them. It is too hard to handle all three for an hour. I do it every single day. You told me that no one makes it easy on you by putting everything back the way you want it. Fuck off- I do it 24 hours a day, with love & affection, and I don’t get paid.

THEN, as I sat there feeding Jack, she went over to where Ethan was stuck (he has a bad habit of creeping to the two foot gap between the floor and the dresser, getting stuck and screaming), I saw her lift him up off the floor by his arm. She grabbed his one little arm, hoisted him up off the floor as I sat there and silently watched. I never pick any of the kids up like this because I know that it is a great way to dislocate a baby’s shoulder. She is an RN and should know not to do this. But here is the kicker- I didn’t say anything to her. Why? I don’t know. I’m so sick of listening to her complain and wanted her out the door as fast as possible? Am I intimidated by her judgemental B.S. where she acts like a better caregiver than me even though she absolutely is not? Now I sit here replaying her pulling him up by his arm in my mind and it is making me more and more upset. I am ashamed of myself for not yelling at her to stop it like I would have with anyone else. What is wrong with me?

today i took the baby boys and the kid to the zoo. this is the first thing we saw in the fragile forest, the new multi-million dollar outdoor habitat for the chimps and orangutans.

the baby chimp is furtively poking its mother’s butthole. the momma has a leaf on her head (yes, it is obvious but deserves emphasis) as if she is snoozing off a bad hangover. I WISH I WISH I WISH I didn’t have to shoot this through the glass and cause the freaky double vision of the kid reflected in the window but so it is.

am i completely warped for thinking this is hysterical? i mean- come on!

after a minute of anal probing, the mom had enough and swatted the young one away but hugged him against her.

she rested her hand on his back (or is she keeping him away from her nether regions with a firm grip?) i have sat like this with my own babies. my eldest baby is reflected in the window- causing the weird double vision thing. is it a kid? a chimp? a chid?

“oh my god, my mom takes pictures of monkey assholes.”

I really wanted to go off on the sarcastic, condescending woman in the Government Office right then and there. To make things worse, this all took place in the waiting room in full view of other people that I didn’t look at but could feel watching the transaction. After her stapled note comment “We wouldn’t have stapled it here if it wasn’t important”, I felt my blood pressure rise, my chest constrict and my cheeks flush- hey there fight or flight friend!

I replied “I was just here last month, I didn’t need to bring this and this and I am not dumb” She looked at me and said “Right, well I’ll go check your file to verify this” and walked away. I sat there for a moment and fought back the urge to scream and then decided that I didn’t need this bullshit. I walked back to where she was talking to someone- her supervisor?- and said “I will call and reschedule, I have to go.” The supervisor then looked at me and said “Sit down here” or something to that effect (no please or hello) and I said “No, I am leaving, I will call back, I have to get back to the kids.” She told me to sit down? Who are you and why are you treating me like a child?

I left. I didn’t explode on them, didn’t yell, didn’t cuss, I just left. And then I went shopping for my sister’s birthday present. I also called Mike who wanted their phone number so he could call and “Tell them to treat my wife with the respect she deserves” (how cute is that?) but I told him I can handle myself and he should know that women are more ruthless when solving problems anyway, especially when another condescending, ignorant woman is involved. I didn’t get my original task accomplished but I went and did something more fun and stress free which is what I really needed. I am still angry over this meeting and I’m going to complain to the highest official in charge of the organization.

But damn I wanted to go off on her. And I would have done it well too.

And no, the kids weren’t with me or I definitely would have lost it. I refuse to take them there because the place is crawling with people that do things like bring the “just out of the hospital newborn baby” in a dirt covered stroller that looks like it was parked outside the trailer since the older kid outgrew it. Seriously.

Here’s a scenario for you:

You go to a government office for a follow up appointment. You bring some papers with you but rushed out of the house and didn’t really read your reminder note so you are winging it and hoping you have everything you need.

After waiting for 20 minutes, a woman in her early twenties hands you a clip board and tells you to start filling it out and asks for your paperwork. You stammer “Um, I brought this but I didn’t realize I needed that.” She walks away to mutter at her co-worker and comes back with one of your papers and points to a stapled note on the corner that lists materials you were supposed to bring. Okay. Then, with finger still pointed at the note, says “We wouldn’t have stapled this to the paper if it wasn’t important.” And then walks away.

What would your reaction have been?

my dad and i have a lot of things in common. one thing would be that we both hate pictures of ourselves. having a high self image is not in our gene pool so we both cringe and mumble something about being fat when looking at our own photos.

i don’t love this picture but it is honest- no makeup, shirt most likely smeared with some pureed vegetable, surrounded by family. maybe it isn’t that bad because i am pretty damn lucky to have such good people and comfy surroundings and it shows. click on the pic to see the multitude of notes in flickr. i really love flickr- it is one of my most favoritist things in the world.i have 2,471 photos on my flickr site, most of them taken within the last two years. prolific, yes. like dizzawn says, some good, some not so good (at least that’s what she says when she’s not blathering on about the world cup. why won’t the soccer go away? bah! okay, i don’t hate soccer more than any other sport i guess. the only sport i don’t hate is baseball. well, and hockey but only in person, not so much on t.v. football? i don’t like. except for the superbowl and then only for the commercials, beer and dip).

must. get. camera.

If I take the babies swimming, do I have to give them a bath later? What if they still smell like sunscreen?

(Jack liked it and almost slumped over and fell asleep in his floating ring. Ethan liked it at first but then big brother decided to do a cannonball right next to him and splashed him in the face. After that, Ethan was freaked out and decided the pool was evil).

Remember the cute kid in Dazed and Confused? Wiley Wiggins?

I mentioned him the other day. i was compelled to find his web site and email him about the fortuitous t.v. circumstances that occurred one lazy sunday afternon:

“i had to tell you that waking life and dazed and confused were both on tv the other day at the same time. one of usa and one on ifc. were your palms itching? your ears ringing? i love both movies and was having a hard time deciding which one to watch again. waking life won.”

Ten minutes later, he wrote me back!
“Crazy… The planets must have been aligned or something.-w”

You see, I am a dork and excited by a one lined email from a stranger. But he was in Dazed and Confused! And the animated main character in Waking Life! Both Richard Linklater movies! Just imagine the stories from the set of Dazed- there were some great people in those movies. When I was 18, my friends and I went to the dollar show five days in a row and watched Dazed and Confused every night. In various states of intoxication, we stumbled in with Jr. Mints and Dots (aka Teeth Glue) and gleefully cheered when the beginning notes of Sweet Emotion played and the movie started. I still quote it often- “Lick me! All of You”

So excuse my glee and WW emailing me back- I think it is neat-o. Not as neat-o as when Chuck Palahniuk sent me a care package because oh my god! But neat-o just the same.

((one time i saw bob costas at a phish show. aren’t you jealous? i know dooce would be.))

Ethan is the most visibly happy of the babies. He loves to smile, laugh and jump around- a Mini-Mike. He has the best gross motor skills and can get up on his hands and knees to rock. Sometimes he crawls but only backwards because he is stuck in reverse and may need a new transmission. He is very snuggly but has also figured out how to wiggle off my lap and stand against my legs until he falls over. He is my snuggle butt mcscooterson.

Jack smiles more subtly and is wary of strangers. He constantly checks with me if someone new enters the room. He studies the details of every toy and seems to have the mind of a little engineer. He is a lot like Mike but in a different way. The boys look so much alike that these two pictures look like two photos of the same kid. Jack used to be the smaller of the two boys but he eats with gusto and has caught up to Ethan. Jack has the best fine motor skills of the bunch and likes to pick things up to examine them. He doesn’t crawl but has perfected what I call his zombie crawl. He leaves one arm down next to his side and reaches up with the other arm likes he’s emerging from the grave then he digs his toes into the ground and pushes up to throw himself forward.

Bumbo! Lily just got a Bumbo Seat from her physical therapist and while she likes it, she’s a little wary and gets shaky after 10 minutes. She is still working on her trunk and head strength. She is getting stronger and her lungs really seem to be working more efficiently than ever before. She communicates better than the boys even though she doesn’t have much of a voice due to the trach. She blows raspberries, smacks her lips and clicks her tongue when she wants something. She also stares at her victim until they look at her and then she commands them with her mind powers. She is very smiley and has wisdom behind her big blue eyes. You know what they say, “Ain’t no companion like a blue eyed girl!” okay, it is blue eyed merle but I always thought he said girl so I’m sticking with my interpretation.