Monday, April 24, 2006

4-24

Ear tubes were successfully inserted this morning into Mr. Zachary's ears. He made life a little miserable for the adults this morning at 1:30am and 4am, but I would probably be miserable too if I hadn't eaten in six hours.

He is happily playing on the rug right now, crawling after my Mom.

Friday, April 21, 2006

4-21

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I have some...well...self esteem issues. When I was pregnant, I would readily call myself a giant whale with a large fetus inside my swollen uterus, supported by 2 x4s that used to be ankles. Now that I'm not pregnant, and the Z man is healthy and happy, I try to be kinder to my body. I mean, it created life. I don't want to take that for granted. I know that I will never have perky breasts (I never did to begin with) and I know that the stretch marks over 75% over my body won't go away anytime soon, or really ever.

On most days, I'm ok with that. As I'm getting older, I'm getting more comfortable with myself: my sarcasm, humor, bluntness, and ability to love those that are important to me. Conversely, as I'm getting older, I'm getting more and more uncomfortable with my weight. Everyone told me that I if it took nine months to get that big, then it would take nine months to take the weight off. Well, it's been nine months and I'm not back into my pre-pregnancy clothes, most of which I don't even own anymore because I had to buy new clothes to wear to work.

I also saw this picture, which made me cringe.


This was taken last weekend when Ms. 110% and Melissa were in town for a wedding. Now, I get it, I have really skinny, feminine friends that anyone would look big in comparison. HOWEVER, I am not comfortable being this weight. I'm afraid to look in the mirror before I get in the shower and I'll step into my bedroom to avoid catching a glimpse at myself while putting on lotion.

I fantasize about having this surgery and losing 60 pounds, although since I'm not 100 pounds overweight, I don't qualify. I probably don't have to tell you that there are dark days where I've thought that since I'm so good at gaining weight, I could easily gain 30 or 40 more pounds and have my health insurance cover the surgery. Then I get real. I don't want to do that.

I do want to take steps to get control over my eating habits and my weight. I joined the cult also known as Weight Watchers. I've been to two meetings, with Zac babbling at the top of his little lungs during the second. I've started counting points and I've lost 1.8 lbs so far. It's a start.

I've never wanted to turn this blog into a "weight loss" blog because people complaining about their weight is only interesting for so long, which isn't very long at all. I'm sharing this part of myself with you all, though, because I'm asking for your support along this journey. Now, pardon me, while I go shred some carrots for today's lunch.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

4-20

I haven't gone A-WOL, I'm just tired. Tired of being tired. Tired of the stress. Tired of trying to do everything right and in the end doing nothing right. Tired of going to the g-d grocery store eight times in the past week because I've forgotten a light bulb four times, even though I had a list, which I forgot in the car. I'm tired of forgetting things.

Today, well today I dropped my son off at daycare without his diaper bag. He got a lukewarm yogurt, a bottle with some formula, and last night's pjs in case he pees on himself. That is what I dropped him off with this morning. That is what he gets to sustain him for the next ten hours (edited to reflect that while I may be a crappy mother with a huge guilt complex, I'm not CPS-worthy. The daycare facility is on a low-income, food program, which means that they provide baby food and formula.)

I got to work late, after stressing in the car. I will have to leave work late, at 6pm, and pray that I can get over to the really expensive-far away-but at least nice and safe daycare facility before they close at 6:30pm.

No amount of caffeine or blogging is going to make today much better.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

4-16

In honor of Easter, I'm trying out some new technology of another of Jesus' major milestones. Let me know if everyone can play this in a continuous stream, or if it buffers every few seconds. If it doesn't work, I'll try and find another free website to download video.

This is Zac playing in wrapping paper on Christmas morning, with Grandpa in the background talking to him.

Friday, April 14, 2006

4/14

I gave Flickr some love today and found an easy way to post pictures to my blog. Some folks had asked me for a picture/more information about S. so I stole a couple pictures from his myspace website. He works as a warehouse manager in the east Houston area. That might not sound too exciting, or down right boring to those not interested in warehousing, but I was excited when he first told me what he did. You see, I work in a warehouse. My office looks over the product recovery area, where salvaged food product come down the conveyor belts and are sorted into categories by volunteers, who may or may not be Texas Department of Criminal Justice Inmates. Let me tell you, nothing says, "Monday morning" like watching a group of thirty inmates tackle 20 pallets of salvaged food. The program with the TDCJ guys is really amazing; they volunteer to come here and earn a warehouseman certificate so they can get a job when they are released. Usually my organization hires them, at least temporarily.

Anyways, S. and I talk about warehousing quite a bit. Sometimes he forgets that I know more about pallet jacks, fork lifts, and dry storage than the average 25 year-old woman. I occasionally have to remind him that my warehouse has a bigger distribution dock than his warehouse and I'll get into a pissing contest with him if that will help solidify my credibility as being "down with warehousing". It's nice that he has some concept of some of the programs I'm trying to fund in our warehouse and for our agencies.

Onto Myspace, however....I think that other bloggers share similar feelings as I do - when people ask if I'm on Friendster or Myspace. I'm like, "No. I've already got one website. How many more do I need?" Of course if I was really serious about blogging, I would set up my own domain name and go to town, but I'm not ready for that kind of commitment yet. I do regret choosing a url that focused on being pregnant, especially since I'm not pregnant now. Not a whole lot that I can do about it now, however.

Friendster is something that, sooner or later, I might just have to join. It seems like EVERYONE I know has a Friendster page and they're always asking me to set one up, or join their Friendster network, and marvel in the connections between people that know other people that possible know people that I know. That's too much knowing in my book. I'm a bit reclusive if you haven't noticed. I like being annonymous on here and I like that if I ever got tired of publishing my random thoughts, I could quit. I already have too much guilt without having to worry about messing up anyone's network.

Edited: Forgot to give you all the update that I have another infection in my throat/ear and am back on a course of antibiotics. Also got on the Pill yesterday that is supposed give you one period every three months, "like that changing of the season"(!) I was worried that it was going to be more expensive than the regular Pill, but it was covered my insurance and cost $50 for three months. Hell, I'd pay $50 to not get my period every month. With the amount of cramping I have right now, I'd pay $50 for someone to take out my uterus once a month and put it back in with the whole, shedding-of-the-uterine lining thing was finished.

I did appreciate when the pharmicist kindly told me that taking antibiotics and birth control at the same time would decrease the effectiveness of my birth control. I looked at Zac, who sat in his stroller, chewing on my cell phone, and throwing Cheerios on the ground (he can multi-task!!). I smiled. I told the pharmicist that she was about eighteen months too late for that warning and walked out into the beautiful Texas afternoon.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

4/13

I'm so tired that I'm sitting here at my computer, willing my eyes to stay open. I only got about five hours of sleep, filled with sexually graphic, inappropriate, upsetting dreams.

S. came over last night for the first time since he helped me move in two weekends ago. I assembled my dining room chairs in honor of his visit. I only have one living room chair, two dining room chairs, and tv sitting on the floor in my apartment. Zac's chair (a rolling highchair) is one of the nicest in the place. His chair rolls around with me from room to room, which delights him to no end.

Last night, after work, Z. and I were in the kitchen, just waiting for S. to arrive, and I reached into the pantry for a rice cake. I pulled out a package that I had opened yesterday and took a bite. When I set it down on the counter, I realized that the entire package of rice cakes were crawling with ants. I immediately spit out the piece of rice cake that I had in my mouth and rinsed with water. I looked in the pantry and saw ants (the small, brown kind - not the fire ant kind, which would have been a travesty in the making if I had eaten those) crawling throughout my pantry. Ants disgust me. They are by far my least favorite insect, ranking somewhere between spiders and cockroaches. Damn I hate ants. I hate that where there is one, there are two hundred.

S. finally got to my place and we cook shrimp gumbo together, I bathed Zac, and we all watched "Lost". All and all a good evening until about an hour later we heard a car alarm. I jokingly asked if it was his car alarm going off. He listens for a moment and says, "I don't know. It sounds like mine, but then again, a lot of car alarms sound like that." We talked and kissed some more and around 11:30pm he goes to leave. He has his car keys and leftover gumbo in hand and walks out the door. Z. is screaming because he accidentally scratched himself in his sleep and can't figure out how to go back to sleep. I'm holding him, trying to get him to take a little bottle when S. knocks on my door. He said his car had been stolen. It is gone.

Even at 11:30pm, I managed to string together enough coherent thoughts to know that we should call HPD Towing before we called the Houston Police. Sure, enough. His truck had been towed about an hour earlier. S. was fuming, but had to quickly calm down when I thrust Z. in his arms and asked if he could feed him his bottle while I went upstairs to put some clothes on. Z, S, and I all pile into my small Saturn and drive to the impound lot. $185.89 later, S. got his truck back. I finally got back into bed around 1am, exhausted. Zac woke up two more times in the night. This alarm went off this morning way, way too early.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

4/12

Scary, scary times I tell you. I just shared this blog with S. It's crazy to me that although I put out this blog out there for anyone to read that might stumble upon it (or those that I have harassed enough to read on a regular basis), that I still might be nervous to share this part of me with someone that knows me in "real life". I don't really know what "real life" is, except that it has something to do with farting in my sleep, uterine cramps at my office computer, and possibly seeing me naked.

My uterus is out to get me. I think it's still mad from that whole, 9-pound child thing. I've been having bleeding mid-month lately. This can only mean one thing if I go to the doctor, time for the Pill. The Pill and I have been friends since I was thirteen - WAY before I was sexually active and needed a form of birth control (98% effective, my ass. Or should I say MY CHILD!). There is just something upsetting about needed to be hormonally regulated, especially when I'm already regulated in so many other ways. I'm hyper regulated. If it wasn't so annoying to be constantly bleeding, I would say, "Screw it. Hormones be damned," but then there is that whole, "Sex in 06" thing and even though I got pregnant on the Pill, it would be nice to be on it again to make extra, extra sure that it doesn't happen again anytime in the near, semi-near, or in the same ballpark as near, future.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

4/11

Yesterday I freaked out a bit about the whole daycare/living by myself/raising Zac thing, which I think just proves that I'm normal. It would be more upsetting if I was completely confident in the decision. Confidence usually proves that I'm heading toward a huge mistake.

After I got off work I toured a franchise daycare facility in north Houston that is 8 miles from my apartment. Unfortunately, 8 miles in Houston equals a 30 minute commute time. There is a franchise right next to my place, but they only accept kids that are walking. Zac still has a long way to go before he gets to that stage. Don't get me wrong, he scoot with the best of them. Walking, though, not so much. Basically, if I register him at this location, his registration fee is covered at all of the franchise locations. When he starts walking, I get to stop driving 30 minutes in traffic (which is why I moved in the first place).

Houston, like most other highly segregated cities, has areas that are predominantly black/Hispanic or white. Friendswood was almost all white, with a little bit of racial diversity just for kicks. My new neighborhood is almost all black, with a little bit of white thrown in around the fringes. I actually had to ask about racial tolerance at the daycare facility. I hate to be the obnoxious white person asking a room full of women of color about race. I'm liberal enough to know, though, that racial intolerance exists and it won't go away if I squeeze my eyes tight enough and pretend that it doesn't exist. I think that people need to engage in dialogue about race, rather than letting fear of appearing politically incorrect stymie the discussion.

Anyways, they said that the daycare didn't have any other white kids and for those of you that haven't seen a recent picture of my son, he's not just white, he's blonde hair, blue eyes, there-is-no-mistaking, white-white. Embarassingly shiny and cute next to me with my dark, bedraggled hair and puffy, sleep-deprived eyes. The daycare providers all thought that he was the most unique thing that had walked through their door in quite a while. They all got down on the floor to play with him and told me how cute he is (I already know, but it's nice to hear anyways).

Needless to say, the place has a very professional staff with a safe, loving environment. Zac would be fortunate enough to go there next week, even if I may have to start referring to him as, "the white boy scooting across the floor, drooling" when I go and pick him up.

Monday, April 10, 2006

4/10

Apparently, I'm a total asshole. When I switched my template over (does everyone like the new design? I realized that I wasn't writing as much on my blog because I didn't like the way it looked), I enabled the "Comment Moderator" button. It is a really small little button that tells the blog to store all comments until the "Comment Moderator" (a.k.a. me) published the comments. All weekend I was getting crap from friends that had tried to comment, only to be told that their comment had to be approved by the "Comment Moderator" (I like to put it in quotations because it makes me sound like a superhero. Dadadaduhduh, "I am the Comment Moderator. Fear me, oh, humble commenters. You must be approved!!!!".)

OK, clearly that part isn't serious. I love reading the comments, though. Evne my Mom likes to tell me when people have commented on here, as in: "Wasn't that nice of XXX to say that she supports you?" or, "It sounds like XXX doesn't have a very high opinion of you." She loves the commenting feature even more than I do. Not only does she get to read my personal thoughts, which I may or may not have shared with her before publication, but she gets to read what people think about the thoughts. Then she gets to think about them and we are all thinking together in one happy cyper community.

I'm itching at the seams to go and pick Z up from the new daycare lady. Something doesn't seem right. Last night was the first night that Zac and I had spent in our new apartment. The air conditioner was still broken (the maintenance folk at the apartment complex tried to tell me that they fixed it last week. HA!! I know the difference between "heat rising" and "the bloody air conditioner is making noise, but not cooling a damn thing and I'm laying on my bed sweating and praying that it drops below 70 degrees at night") so I spent a rather uncomfortable evening wondering where I might have packed my eye glasses and questioning the sanity of moving one lightbulb from room to room (yes, I only have one lightbulb right now. It follows me wherever I go. I plan on getting some more this evening.) This morning I dropped him off at the home daycare and had a bad feeling about the whole thing. I even went and checked on him at lunch, which I've never done before. Granted, I've never lived less than 6 miles away from work before either.

It's funny how I start to take advantage of Zac being in my life. I get annoyed when he drools on me constantly or whines for my attention. He even crawls after me when I leave the room and will only be perfectly content when I'm holding him. Separation anxiety can test even the most saintly of mother, which I'm not. Then I have days like today, where I would move the Earth to be with him and keep him safe. I think about what it would be like if he weren't in my life anymore and it causes a jittery, panicked feeling to race throughout my whole body.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

4/04

So, lately when I've talked to my friends on the phone or over e-mail, I've been getting, "Oh my God! Really!! You didn't even mention that on your blog," which makes me wonder if I should stop communicating with all my friends, or stop writing on the blog.

Clearly, the blog posts are slowing down as Zac is speeding up. He is scooting across the floor on his elbows, dragging his legs behind him. If I had to gauge his speed, I would say it was somewhere between a three-legged dog and turtle, until he sees cat food. My child loves nothing more than putting his whole hand in cat food and scooping up five or six pieces to thrust in his open mouth. I know when he's trying to sneak over to the cat food bowl when he suddenly goes quiet. He's going after cat litter when he shrieks with joy. Lately I've been contemplating fencing him in in the middle of the living room so I can make dinner without wondering which orafice he's going to try to put something.

The big news is that I moved all of the major pieces of furniture this weekend into my new apartment in north H-town. I signed the lease and put down the deposit back in March and somewhere along the way, I neglected to post on here that I was preparing for the big move out on my own. S. and two of his friends, all with pick-up trucks, came over on Saturday to help me move my furniture. Is it odd that not only S., but his two closest friends would have pick-up trucks? I guess it's only odd in places other than Texas.

After four very hot hours, we finished the move and went out to sit in air conditioning and drink beer. I should be more grateful that these large men, who I barely know, came over to help me dissemble my son's crib and carry a very heavy, old dresser.

Things with S. are going....well, they're going. I would say good, except that we had a long conversation last night about "our relationship". I would normally rather chew nails than talk about "our relationship", but a few of the more aggressive people in his life had really been getting under my skin lately: primarily hordes of needy women. Literally, his phone rings off the hook. If he doesn't answer his cell, they'll call his house phone and keep calling until he picks it up. If someone did that to me, I'd answer the phone with a growl and an expletive, if I even answered the phone at all. He doesn't seem to see a problem with this behavior, nor does he seem to see a problem that he and his ex are taking a "break" from friendship (they broke up six months ago).

I'm afraid to care about him. Afraid to get involved with someone that has emotionally shady people in their life and, although I'm inherently trusting, I'm afraid to trust someone. Will I ever fully trust someone again? I feel like the FOB broke me.


P.S. - The lack of comments have really hurt lately. I didn't want people to stop commenting, just to respect that I didn't want my name up here. I LIKE hearing from those who read this piece of myself.