Linda Blair

Your Falafels are fine…
Mine are fine…yours are fine.  Just eat.   I don't want to be here all night.

But they taste burnt.

Olive, they are fine…they are fried, not burnt.

I sip my wine, and wait, and wait, and wait.

"Mom, Olive has so much food in her mouth she can't swallow it", Ilin says.

Jeesus Christ, I think to myself.  Why can't anything be easy?  What the hell is wrong with these kids?  They are making me nuts, driving me to drink more than even my liver wants, and they are sucking the life out of me mentally.
I glance over as Olive's cheeks are about to explode, eyes bulging from her head.

Damnit Olive…just eat it, quit playing around!

Ilin's giggling and trying to look unamused.  Olive has a big tear hanging from the corner of her eye.

I look away and take a big gulp of 5$ wine, which I have plopped an ice cube in.
Vacation sounds good.  mmmmmmbeach.  I look at the TV in the Falafal place.  X Games are on.
There is a 12 year old kid who just did a back flip on a motorcycle.   My kids can't eat a proper meal with out choking.  great….Great job I did.

Olive excuses herself to the bathroom where I assume she spits the food into the toilet.  I gulp the remainder of my wine.
Let's get outta here.  I wanna get home and sit…just sit and knit.

Home is hot.  It's been 103 here all week.  Dry and miserable and even more without air-conditioning.  The fires make the air hard to breathe.  We all just melt into the furniture for a while then I say its time to hit the hay.
My bedroom is hotter than hell.  Above the garage with no wind to cool it.  Even with the fan and nakedness I'm still burning up.  I fall asleep sweating, cranky and tired.

MOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!

What was that?  Ilin!  What was that noise.
wait, I know that noise…what
Oh My Effin God….no…

MOMMMMMMMMMM, Olive is Yaking every where!….

Fuck…fuck …arggghhhhh…

The spray was phenomenal.  Epic at best.

Her bed was covered.  It was sprayed on the wall (i followed the path), on the fuzzy pink rug she loves so much, onto the hardwood, into the hall, onto the new carpet "The new FUCKING CARPET!!!!!!",
on the wall in the hall, into the bathroom, in the bathroom drawer(which just happened to be open),in the tub, then she obviously remembered we puke in the toilet….which is where she was, head draped over the dirty toilet bowl.

"Goddamnit!, Fuck!  Come ON!  What the…. I don't want to cleant this shit up!"
My eyes filled with tears as the anger filled in my body.  True anger.
I looked at Olive who looked at me with tears, gasps, and a true apologetic look of fear.
How can I feel like this?  I could hear the curse words streaming from my mouth, unable to slow them, let alone stop them.
My head raced with every old lady crotch I wiped that day.  Every old man set of balls I powdered.  The messes I cleaned all day.  Nursing kindness I established with each of my patients through out the day.

I walked from the bathroom, took a deep breath, then turned around.  "I'm Sorry, Olive"
"Mammoo, I'm sorry, I didn't know it was going to happen"
"yes, I know"

I got the mop, steam cleaner, vacuum, and sponge.  Turned the shower on and put her in it as I started to clean.  I'm a bad, bad mom.  I know that.  
"here's a washcloth…use soap."

I cleaned it…I sprayed the febreeze, I took deep soothing breathes to right my mind….then I spent the rest of the night, holding Olives head and telling her I love her and her saying the same thing to me, and secretly praying this is not the one thing she remembers.  How awful her mom treated her when she threw up all over the house….Even though her mom is a nurse.

xo,
m

One Step forward…you know the rest

Things have been moving along at normal household pace, which is fast when you want it to be slow and slow right when you are thinking, "come on all ready!"

Ilin Blue has been getting a bit or hair regrowth on the top of his head, how exciting is that?  contain yourself…He has enough that he says, "Hey Mom, when can we dye it?"   Uhmmmmm…. when you are 21, period.  This is a perfect example of lack of frontal lobe in teen boys.

He heads back to the doctor………

sooner than later, and here's why:

Hair growth good.   

Tuberculosis, not so much.  

Yes, you read it it correctly. 

 My kid got TB. 

 I don't know where you live, if its a 3rd world country then you know all about how TB works.  If you live in Ohio, probably wondering what kind of ghetto do I live in.

Our High School had an outbreak.  Just like the movies.  You can google Longmont High  and find all kinds of info.  Just like the movies, they did the best they knew at the time by only testing the kids with direct contact of the Student, and waiting to check the lower classes.   Oh happy day.

As and RN.  I freaked out right away, started running around like I had one short leg (in circles)  thinking , "they need to close the school, NOW, before everyone in town has it.  Shut that shit down like a Stephen King novel".  But did they listen to me?   No.  And that is partially my fault because I never attened any community meeting.  

Well…3 months later and the fact that my scrawny kid appears to be getting sicker instead of healthier we get a call from the hospital with a kind voice saying, "you need to bring Ilin to the ER for chest X-rays, he tested Postive for TB"

Fabulous.  Now, why wouldn't they have thought about the few kids who have auto immune, or comprimised systems?  they wouldn't.

So, here we are.  One scared kid with access to the internet, looking up death in the 19th century from TB and the rest of both of our households, heading to get our tests and chest X-rays.  I've been banned from work until I am cleared because who wants a nurse hacking TB onto them while she places an IV in your arm?  

This too shall pass.  

As usual, just another bump on the highway of life.

How does it happen?

You know, I try to be compassionate, loving,and such but I guess I just can't!  I'm a bitch.  Really.  I woke up this morning in a foul mood even though yesterday I kept it together quite nicely.

I was put on call for Wednesday night so I didn't have really any stress for Thanksgiving, which was quite nice.  A friend from the hubs work emailed and wanted to know if we could join them at their parents house.  Great!  That sounds fun. Eat with them Tday, then cook ours the next day.  It will be nice to be around family, even if its not ours.  

As luck would have it, and every other Thanksgiving or Christmas, Bobby was "sick".  It's a common theme around here.  He will never admit it but I believe it might be psychosomatic.

More Holidays than not, he is sick with a cold or runny nose or cough or flu.  

So, yesterday, he stayed in bed until 11am.  I made him call his friend and say we couldn't come over.  He stated that maybe he would be better later....hahahahahaha

As the day went on.  I did notice he was a bit too sick to actually help me with anything, but he appeared to be able to drink cocktails and talk on the phone.  So as my mood stayed up, because I swore I would be  nice, I could feel it boiling below the surface.  Olive helped me with the Thanksgiving meal.  You know we had to go through the normal hoopla of making that huge bird for Bobby, who only eats white meat, and I end up trying to figure out how to utilize the rest for the next week...we made our tofurky...and we watched daddy hobble around sniffling.  We made it through dinner and Olive and I stayed up to watch all the holiday specials and daddy went to bed.

Last night,here's where my foul mood quadrupled....Olives alarm clock went off at midnight, because she is trying to stop wetting the bed at night.  The issue is she doesn't hear it, I do, so I have to get up and yell and scream for her to go potty.  Bobby snorkled in his own snot all night keeping me awake with his snoring and turkey farts.  This morning at 430 am Eddie, the dog, got up and started doing crazy ass laps up and down the stairs  until I threatened to lock him in with Olive.  

I got maybe 18 minutes of sleep.

now everyone is going to pay.

Damn this holiday.

Ok, thanks for letting me vent...I'm sure it is going to get better.

I'll go read everyone else's blogs about how awesome their families are, and how they set the tables with designer dishes and hand blow glasses that they did their selves while breastfeeding their cherubic, non vomiting infant.  

Enjoy your day

love 

m

The Mighty 18 Wheeler

Spent the weekend at CD release Parties.  Fun.  Got some good pictures of the guys.  Glad that it 's over, because I'm tired.

My son is sick with the flu...and not the oinky one, so today I am cleaning the house and care taking.  It's weird being a nurse and having to take care of your family.  I never know what to do.  I feel bad for them...here have a cracker...sip some flat gingerale....For this I went to school?

Knitting under the influence

I walked in the door last night, a bit late but not bad, I did have to stop and feed a friend's cat, so not too late. "How are you?" I feel fine, I guess. I'm tired. I didn't sleep last night....my mind races when I'm sleeping. I often wake with a start, like the feeling when you have overslept the alarm. "I dreamt I could never potty train Olive and she had to go to college still in Pullups, then I chopped Ilin's head off for not cleaning his room and in the midst of all of that I was trying to take my NCLEX, but couldn't remember anything....so besides that , I'm fine" I popped open a beer. "Yeah, but how's the anxiety?" ........Oh yeah, that.
You see this Saturday I woke up fine. I actually had a pretty good sleep, no worries, just sleep. When I woke I felt a bit dizzy and my knees were a bit weak. Odd, but I am almost 40. I took a shower and could barely stand upright...and then a bit of tingling started in my arms....my chest hurts, right in the middle. "Bobby, I feel weird." "What do you mean weird?" "I feel like my chest is doing something weird...I can't breathe right"
I got out of the shower and just kind of tried to suck it up. I'm fine...I'm fine...about a an hour later we were sitting at the carwash waiting in line. "Bobby, I need you to take me to urgent care...I'm having a heart attack or something...I don't know...I feel,... not right." "Can we do the carwash first?" "I guess...just get me to the Urgent Care as soon as we are done"
By the time we got around the corner to the urgent care my head waas spinning, I was shaking like a leaf, I couldn't breathe and I really thought I was a goner.
They got me to the back hooked me up to the EKG...ran some tests and let me rest. The Dr. came back and asked me a few questions and then handed me a prescription for Xanax, told me to follow up with my Primary, and try to figure out what triggers it. "you mean I'm fine?" yup...Panic attack. Just realize you aren't going to die from it...that is the first step.

Well, that was pretty anti climatic, which is good I guess. We left, went to the mall and finished my day.
When I got home last night...the flutters in my chest were there again. Bobby wanted to eat Sushi so I drank my beer, said my "I'm not going to die" mantra in the back of my head and went to the Sushi place. I ordered a wine...relaxed, thought about the thin line between whack job and normal...the line I now appear to be wavering on. My life is normal, I'm busy, I do things, but my head races. Full of things I should do or haven't done....thoughts of cleaning base boards in the bathroom as I sit here and drink my wine....It's not normal....or is it? It's like having sex and thinking of the laundry that needs to be done...normal, yet not normal.
I ordered a saki..."How's the anxiety?" Stop IT...I'm fine...it's normal. Maybe I just need a few more lists, or a vacation or something. But in the back of my mind I know that I'm the person on the vacation who is fine the first day then starts thinking that I have only 5 more days of vacation...4 more days of vacation, 3 more days of vacation, gosh in 2 days we have to go back to crappy work... and how relaxing is that...maybe it's normal
Just let it go...breathe...I'm not gonna die, I'm not gonna die, I'm not gonna die....Xanax won't let me.

Just in case you weren't familiar:

• Palpitations, pounding heart, or fast heart rate
• Sweating
• Trembling and shaking
• Sensations of shortness of breath or smothering
• Feelings of choking
• Chest pain or discomfort
• Nausea or abdominal distress
• Feeling dizzy, unsteady, lightheaded, or faint
• Derealization (feelings of unreality) or depersonalization (being detached from oneself)
• Fear of losing control or going crazy
• Fear of dying
• Paresthesias (numbness or tingling sensations)
• Chills or hot flashes