marital eruption followed by AC and peace

This weekend was horribly hot and humid. I was hoping to not put our window ACs in until late June, at best. After an intense season of astronomical heat bills, I didn't want to jump into high, high electric bills. But so it goes.
Eamon seems to be very much like me in that he hates extreme heat and humidity. Poor boy was covered in heat rash after 3 days of 90 degree weather combined with 70-80% humidity. Vietnam hot. Where you sweat as you towel off from a cold shower.
Eamon was whiney and unable to sleep most of the weekend. He never whines. I didn't think he was capable. So he must have been truly miserable. Once we got the air in tho, he has returned back to Mister Mellow. Except for this morning when we were at Kate's house. We played outside and he became miserable again. He kept going back in the house and smiling at their wonderful central air. It was luxuriously cool in there. Outside, my boy cried miserably as if he were teething (which he's not, he's got all four 2-year molars now).
Sarah, on the other hand is very accomplished at whining but loves the heat. So at least one of them is happy.

In addition to the weather, we had an interesting Memorial Day. (no, not at all~ it was fairly awful) We had a Mexican bbq at my dad's house. I did all the cooking and sweat my ass off over the grill. The kind of sweating where you have sweat dripping down the backs of you knees in a steady stream. (I realize that part of my having issue with heat is my incessant bitching about it, but I just can't seem to be amazed at how HOT it gets.) On the way there, Greg asked what time my trial shift at the bakery was. I told him I wasn't going, I had called and cancelled. He asked why. I said I didn't want to sweat my ass off in a bakery for shite money and getting no sleep. He asked if I had talked to anyone about this before making a decision and I said yes. And then we didn't speak to one another for the rest of the evening. He was completely pissed but (later) admitted that he felt trapped because we were on our way to a family function where he couldn't discuss this with me. Instead, he drank 7 or 8beers, getting fairly drunk. This seemed fine, as everyone but me was having a few beers or margaritas anyhow. He was fine with my family, and cordial to me. But I knew he was pissed.
See, one cannot argue with Greg about shitty jobs or extreme heat or cold. He works outside all year long (but for good pay, at least). In the summer he's in 120 degree metal rail cars on 2 square miles of blacktop with not a tree around. In winter he's in the same metal rail cars that are iced over and freezing as the wind whips through the open rail yard. It's a losing argument for anyone but sewer workers and miners to discuss working conditions with him. And I respect that. I am grateful for him.
After dinner at my dad's house, we noticed my front tire of my car was flat. Completely flat. Greg told me to change the tire. All the men-folk thought he was kidding. I knew he wasn't. He looked at me and I knew he was thinking: If you're too good to work in a bakery, then fine. But take care of yourself. It's your car, you change the tire.
And my mouth said: "You're such an ass.." And my look said: Fine, I'll do it.
I saw my dad, brother and brother-in-law exchange looks. Really? He's making her change the tire? Hmmm.
My brother-in-law helped me and basically did the whole thing himself. It took 5 minutes.
No big deal.
We left soon after. Our house was 87 degrees inside. (The AC units not in yet) We all went to bed. Greg fell right to sleep but Sarah, Eamon and I were all sweaty and tossing and turning. The fan felt like a hairdryer on us. I finally fell asleep for about an hour and half but then was woken up by a bat flying 2 feet over Eamon and I in bed. Sarah had just come in our room to get in bed with us but then screamed and ran out. Just as I was covering Eamon with a sheet to get us out of the room, Fuzz the cat pounced on the bat. All the lights were on. It was 1am. Greg had to get up for work.
So I put the kids to bed in Sarah's room. I wasn't sure if Fuzz ate the bat or if it was stunned and hiding somewhere in my bedroom.
Greg and I had a nice argument in the kitchen at 1:30am. He was pissed that I didn't take the bakery job. I told him I would somehow bring some money in soon. Doula work. Hell, waitressing if I had to. But not working in that damn bakery. I'd much rather wait tables again and bring home half of the bakery paycheck for 6 hours of work.
At any rate, it was an awful night. I didn't sleep for most of it. And poor Eamon didn't sleep much either. He'd just wake up and cry miserably.
Blech.

So yesterday I went to an interview with an elderly home care place. This seems so much more up my alley. I'm actually a bit excited as I read over their magazine on emotional issues and health issues for the elderly. It's kind of the same passion as I have for midwifery. It feels good to have this reaffirmation that helping to care for others is what fulfills me. The woman was interested in my midwifery training and saw this an asset. The way their company works is that you get matched with a client, considering their needs with the hours you are available to work. So, much like doing postpartum work, you go for 3-4 hours a couple days a week and help them out. Granted, it's much less money that doula work. But that's all right. I hope this works out.
Greg didn't listen to me completely when I told him about this possible job. And in our argument he said he thought I'd be better off in a bakery than working in a nursing home with a bunch of scrubs doing disgusting work. No darling, not a nursing home. Individual's homes. People who can live on their own and can wipe their own bottoms.

I'm feeling much better now, although still really freaked out by not having enough money. I pray something comes along soon. A midwifery client, a doula client, a job helping the elderly. And of course, my trusty cleaning gig.

And I'm still waiting to sell my motorcycle. I've received at least 10 emails but no one has followed through. They usually just write: Is the bike still available? I write back: Yes it is. Let me know if you'd like to arrange to see it. And then I never hear back from them.

I'm off to go write childbirth education curriculum.
More up my sleeve on how to get rich at a snail's pace.

oh dear, what was i thinking?

So I went to this interview at the bakery yesterday. The guy I spoke with was very friendly and everyone who worked there looked happy. Blah blah blah~ only $8 an hour. But I was optimistic in the moment. And I scheduled to come back next Tuesday to do a trial shift. During the night and especially this morning, I realized that at $8 an hour, I would have to work nearly 160 hours in a 90 degree bakery to make what I make doing one doula birth.
And it's not light work. Y'all know how I hate the heat, but I told myself I could be Zen about it and manage all right. But working 40 hours and bringing home a $220 paycheck is insane to me. And I know beggers shouldn't be choosy, but bloody hell.
And it kind of pisses me off because everything this company sells is sooo expensive, as they should be. It's quality product, but damn, they've got some hard workers there and you can't feed a family on $8 an hour. Not in this neck of the woods.

So I'm floored. Don't know what to do. I called a senior home care place. It sounds like its a lot like being a post partum doula (except for $8.50 an hour instead of $20). Light house work, some cooking, running errands, etc. Except you don't have to teach anyone how to nurse their baby! Ha. I have an interview with them Tuesday at noon. The same day I'm due to work my 5 hour trial shift at the bakery.

I think I might try to camp my ass out at Kate's house, abusing her microsoft office publisher and make brochures and fliers for every possible service I can do, and them shamelessly plaster my name all over this county.

Say a little prayer for me, that all this falls into place and I can start bringing in a proper income doing the work I've trained to do. I feel guilty, almost snobby about my bakery realization. That is just not enough money for that kind of work, and then add on top of that me only getting 4-5 hours of sleep. Hmmm.

it's 3:45am, time to wake up apparently

Well I am up again in the wee hours of the morning. Agnes woke me up at 3:45am to open the bedroom door I thought she needed to go outside but no. When I opened the bedroom door my nose was greeted with a huge waft of just-very-recently fried breakfast sausage smell. Greg had already left for work, but his breakfast remained in scent. See, he's smitten with these breakfast sausages from some store called Aldi's downriver. I've never been, but judging by their strange products, and their modgepodge of mainstream groceries, they seem to be the equivalent of a German grocery store Big Lots. They sell meat, which I refuse to eat. The sausages are heavenly claim Greg, but they cost $2.29 for 18. And they're a scary non color, if one can imagine. That is,until fried, when they turn crispy brown.
So Agnes woke me up because she could smell heaven outside the bedroom. Greg had left her a couple sausages in her bowl which she quickly gobbled up. I laid back down hoping to fall back asleep. One of those: Don't think.Just sleep. But what about your NARM exam? I said, don't think. Go back to bed. Are you really planning on getting a job at a bakery this summer? You'll never see your husband. Your kids will hate you. I said, shut up. Don't think. Go back to bed. Sleep. No? Okay, ssssh! Let's read for a bit.....
and well, here I am. Reading didn't work. And nothing is worse than laying in bed trying to sleep. It just doesn't happen.
So here I am. I told myself I would get up, check emails and such, and then do the entire yoga DVD, which I normally don't get to finish because E. wakes up and nothing is more interesting to a toddler than seeing his mama doing inversions. And nothing is more distracting (and painful) than a 35 pound toddler sitting his big, diapered butt on your chest when you're in plow position.
And I've been feeling like I need to exercise. It seems my body needs 2 years to get back to its pre-pregnancy self. By this I mostly mean waiting for my lactating breasts to go back to normal (although small, I prefer) so that my shirts fit me better. So now I'm really back to my old self as we come up to E. turning two and I feel like my arms and shoulders are lanky and not strong. Although they should be from carrying around big toddler baby. And surely the exercise will give me a mood boost.
Off I go to do yoga for an hour. Which, when I finish will still leave me with an entire hour before the kids wake up. By that time I'm sure I'll be ready to sleep again and won't be able to and then will be a crab ass for the remainder of the day.

Fret

Okay, I'm gonna take a few minutes and be very mopey and annoying so do not read on if you're not in the mood for this type of thing. I know I'm not in the mood for this, but it's got me anyhow.
I stopped in this morning at the bakery after dropping Sarah off at school. Turns out they have a position opening where they need a night baker. The shift would be 5pm-1am. That would be perfect as far as the time slot where I can work without paying for a sitter. However, that would mean Greg having to learn to put the kids to sleep with some kind of routine (no Mama home to nurse Eamon asleep), so that he could get the sleep he needs. Which would most likely include getting the kids to bed by 7pm (an hour earlier than during the school year~ Sarah's not gonna like that). If we jumped that hurdle, then we'd have to consider me seeing very. very little of Greg. And I already see very little of Greg. However, the money is much needed.
AND, I do have my one client (friend)due in early September. Granted, she has a history of 3 hours or less labors. But what do I do if I am working at the time? If I get an interview do I disclose this information? "I can work all summer but there might come a day in early September whereI have to drop everything and leave. Very quickly. Without notice."

I am reminded of the time when all I wanted in the whole world was to get an apprenticeship. I was so ready for it. I was advised to become a doula first. I did. I did hospital births. I didn't like it a whole lot. I wanted to become a midwife. So I read everything I could get my hands on pertaining to birth and pregnancy. I drove all over metro Detroit to attend any lecture or class onnatural birth. I took every damn class P. Brennan offered. I joined a study group. And despite my determination, I saw 3 different women friends all get offered midwifery apprenticeships Just Like That. Out of the blue, without too much effort. Just fell into their laps. And it was so very hard not to be jealous and depressed. It was the same as when I tried for 3 years to get pregnant with Sarah and women all around were getting pregnant, even when they didn't want to be. And it was heartbreaking. And it took a lot of patience and practicing non judgment on my part to get through it. Greg told me again and again: "Just wait, the right apprenticeship will offer itself to you. Be patient." And it did. My apprenticeship was the one I most dreamed of.

Well now I feel like I'm back in that space. I'm witnessing a lot of really cool and exciting things develop for friends and it is so, so hard not to want to shut myself into my house and not talk to any of them. And I really want my midwifery practice to take off. And it's not. At all. And I realize there's a lot of work involved in making a business work, but its further compounded by being broke and struggling to pay bills. And I am hoping its just the same phenomenon happening again.
Waiting to get pregnant. Waiting for an apprenticeship. Waiting to be the midwife I've trained to be.
Last night I woke at 2am with Greg. I laid in bed for 45 minutes having a min anxiety attack. I was thinking things like: I'm not getting clients because I'm not ready for this work. Will I ever get clients? I'm not good enough. Maybe I've just wasted 4 years of my life! What am I gonna do?! Greg will hate me. My family will hate me! I've put them through so much already! And now this! I'm going to be making bread?! WTF? You know, along that stream of I Suck-isms.

It's so hard to have faith that everything will work out. It will. It always does.
It just stresses me out to have a normal job and to be on call. Add to that finding quick child care and it pushes me over the edge.

Okay, I need to go. We're having a family picinic with Sarah's Brownie troop and I so don't feel like it. This means I have to bring some kind of food and I have no idea what to bring.

Motorcycle for sale~sniff!sniff!

http://annarbor.craigslist.org/mcy/161568433.html

Let all your rad cats know that the best bike in town is for sale.

summer job?

So I'm officially looking for some kind of filler job. This sucks.
Well no, I guess it's not so bad. The hard part is when to work? Greg leaves the house at 3am, sometimes 2am. I would love to work so job starting in the wee hours to get home late morning and hang with the kids for the rest of the day.
I saw one ad that asked for evening help for an elderly woman with dementia. 5-11pm, $14 an hour. Not bad. Of course, I'd probably not see much of my husband, but at least our bills would be paid...on time.
I also spoke to a CNM who does academia research stuff who said they might need help with data entry that I could do from home. However, summer is their slow season. I need something for the summer. A summer job. Damn, I'm 32 and I need a summer job.
Some days I feel like such a loser. Sheesh.
And I figured that women who are just finding out they're pregnant now aren't due until January. So I have plenty of time to try to eek a small income from somewhere. And I'd rather have some part-time job than take on doula clients. Especially for summer.
So I am putting out my prayer to the universe to help everything fall into place as it always has.
And more importantly, to help me to remember this.

Weekend cap

How nice, it's 8:30pm on Sunday and everyone in my house is sleeping except for me and Fuzz (the cat). Lucky goil.
Yesterday after hanging out at Crispin's birthday party we came home and planted our vegetable and herb garden. Greg made the raised rows for me while Sarah and I planted and Eamon just ran around like a mad man with a croquet mallet (surprisingly, no one got whacked in the head or ankle).
We've planted potatoes, red cabbage, cataloupe, cukes, pear tomatoes, roma tomates and grape tomatoes, dill, cilantro, parsley, basil, mustard greens, green beans, red peppers, green peppers, jalepeno peppers, some corn (never works b/c we don't plant enough but Sarah always wants to plant it), garlic, more lemon balm...I feel likeI'm missing something. Bought a nice little red raspberry bush that I have great faith in. It's very healthy. I also got some apple mint and some shade-loving flowering perennials of some sort. We have so much shade in our yard that I try to pick up any kind of shade-loving plant in the spring whenever I think of it or have the extra money.
I'm so happy the garden is in. I really love the garden. The house is looking good. We've come a long way. Feeling very blessed. I was remarking to Greg how much nicer the garden soil is since our first garden planted 6 years ago. The dirt was crap then. There was tons of buried trash from long ago. Broken clay pipes, bits of glass, spark plugs, you name it. And lots and lots of rocks. But we built screens and sifted and sifted. We have turned the soil over so many times and change the direction of our rows every year. We plant different things. We rake all of the autumn leaves onto the garden to sit throughout winter and then work them all in come Spring. And this year we had the extra boost of manure from the Cobblestone Farms crappers!
The soil is gorgeous.
Yaay for growing things.

Went out for dinner with Kate, Sarah and Erin Thursday night. Had a great time. Loads of laughs and a great dinner, an awesome dessert and two Smithwicks made me a happy girl. Full belly and an aching face from laughing so much.

Ypsi had their Ypsi Pride Day this weekend. We were schmucks and didn't help. The Riverside district had the responsibility of clearing out and replanting the triangle of land in the Cross St/ Huron St intersection. Not somewhere I can be with my two kids. Plus, Greg did the crazy thing of actually not working his day off, so it was nice to hang out as a family. We guiltily walked past the good citizens on the triangle as we pulled our wagon down to market. Today we walked by as we checked out the VW car show and saw their good work.
I love Ypsi. Despite all the shady stuff that happens at times, I'm very proud to live here.

At any rate, I'm just wasting time and typing away without much to say. It's not often I'm up alone and free from the call of MAMA!or HEY KID! (that would be my husband calling)
But I'm off to bed to read more Wyrd Sisters by Mister Terry Pratchett. Again, hilarious stuff.



Here's Eamon in his favorite jammies (they're covered in pictures of balls). He's being a turkey and peeling my well-done bananas, forcing me to make banana nut muffins when I really didn't want to. And gee, doesn't that look like a safe place for a little toddler to be sitting?
Put down the camera, bad Mama!

my boring week and it's only Tuesday

So I just listed my motorcycle on craigslist in high hopes that it sells, thus providing me with the money needed to (please, God) send in and pass all NARM stuff.

Bittersweet. But when do I ever get to ride? My alter ego is screaming to ride again. But my alter ego isn't so good at finding a sitter.

Greg came home for a bit. Long enough to grill some burgers before work called and asked if he wanted to work an evening shift. He asked me what I thought and I grumpily consented. We need the money. Grrr. Yesterday I didn't get to see him because he went to bed at 3pm. He went to bed at 3pm because the night before he didn't sleep til 10:30 and woke up at 1am for work. So he was dead tired and I pushed him to just go to sleep. So today he's well rested and working a double. So I won't see him til tomorrow afternoon really. Haven't seen him since Sunday. At least we spent time together then. We took a really long walk with the kids and Agnes all over the park and downtown. Then we had Dalat take-out. That was Mother's Day.

I'm still all strangely vulnerable feeling. I don't like it. It's annoying but I can't help it. And if my cycles are continuing to do its weird thing, then I am probably about to start my period (they're getting closer and closer together). Which, obviously contributes to the vulnerability thing.
I'm trying to trust whatever process is going on right now. Namely, trying to be patient yet efficient about getting my own clients and starting this business. We went from 2 practices in town to 8 all in 6 months or so. It's very frustrating to me to be financially struggling and yet doing nothing to contribute. I feel like a schmuck. But I am patient and being as proactive about marketing as I can be in the moment.

Friday I'm attending a nearly free cranial-sacral workshop for newborns, for midwives. I'm pretty excited about it. I don't totally get the cranial-sacral thing on adults because it's just different pressure on the skull. But for newborns whose skull bones are not fused together and have just experienced the trauma of squeezing through their mama's pelvis, it just makes good sense. Because if their heads are molded in an asymmetrical way, or they were crowning forever, it makes sense that they would have a greater chance of nursing difficulties and even pain. I've seen babies who went through long pushing stages react almost magically to some Arnica 200C. They stop fussing and crying and latch on. Amazing. Midwives would benefit from this knowledge, surely. Besides, you can never have enough tricks up your sleeve.

We borrowed the original Herbie Goes Bananas from the library and both Sarah and Eamon think its hilarious! Eamon doesn't focus in on much, but loves to see a car somehow communicating. I never got into it as a kid. I think I remember it as being boring. But it was fun to watch the kids giggle throughout the whole movie.
I also got a John Waters film (the name is escaping me right now), with Tracey Ulman, Chris Isaac, Johnny Knoxville and Selma Blair in it. John Waters is goofy and twisted but his films are just so dumb and funny. You either love them or despise them. Ah whatever. I'm waiting for some time where Greg and I are home and awake at the same time the kids are sleeping to watch it. Don't know if that will happen this week. Also got a French movie called Fat Girl, which looks dark but interesting.
Our library rocks. Someone in there must have a lot of fun ordering all the music and movies.

What else in my long, boring day? The sun came out! Yes it did! After 10 days of rain or whatever its been, it was glorious to see sun! I'm so sick of rain. My grass must have grown 12 inches in one week. The dandelions have all expired and look hideous in their 8 inch tall, spindly, bald-headed way. I'm itching to mow the lawn but felt the grass was still too wet. Saw a lot of people mowing today though. Had Greg been home I would have. Mowing is my self-proclaimed job. I think it must have started when Sarah was a wee babe and it was my only opportunity to make Greg watch her so I could have some down time (that was rough 2 years). Nobody can talk to you and you can't hear a baby fussing when you're pushing a mower. Its like meditation. I really enjoy mowing. What a dork. Taking the garabge to the curb along with the recycling also became my job because I'd volunteer to do it for the same reason. We generate so much recycling that the job takes a good 10-15 minutes to gather and drag to the curb.

Oh, one more thing. I came to a veryfunny realization today. Sarah went (yet again) to the Scrap Box as someone's dumb idea for a field trip. I realize it's not so dumb because the kids love it, but it's my blog and I can say what I want... for those of you not in the know, The Scrap Box is this place where businesses and I guess people in general take just about anything not dirty or destroyed to be craftily recycled. Things like 3,000 binders that say "Go for the Gold in 1984!" or little cardboard tubes, thousands and thousands of them. I've actually never been because Sarah has been with other people in the past, and today with her Brownie troop. She came home with the dreaded (at least I dread it) bag of crap. Seriously, she has about 23 paper clips, 4 stamp wetting sponges, about 10 very wrinkled ugly fabric scraps 4" X 8", an ancient looking Christmas stocking that someone in 1963 glitter wrote the name Chuckie on (this thing was hideous, why it was "recycled" is beyond me), a long strip of stickers covered in bar codes and a couple of mailing labels.
In the past she has brought home huge grocery bags full of crap. And I mean crap. I have no use for bright orange cardboard tubes that are 1 inch long. I have no use for rolls and rolls of stickers that are covered in UPC codes. And I definitely have no use for a ratty Christmas stocking that belongs to Chuckie.
The Scrap Box epitomizes everything I hate. Rat-packing crap that I have to try to find a temporary home for. Crap that despite my prodding, no one will ever craftily create a darn thing with and will end up with me hauling it to the curb in our red Ypsi recycling box 3 months later.
I am far too anal to find joy in useless business garabage. I clean our closets every few months to get rid of things no one has used in a year. Excess crap makes me crazy. Like, really crazy.
And believe me, we have junk. We're not perfect. But the Scrap Box is my nemesis.
I swear I could feel a facial tick developing as Sarah dumped her bag of goodies onto the table. As Eamon swept 23 bent up paper clips all over the floor and into the radiator.

But I said nothing. I feigned joy at all the goods (except the stocking, which I sneered at and said that it looked dirty) and we had a nice time talking about the field trip. I will say she made a nice rocket out of cardboard tubes (I don't know which company makes so many of these, or makes so many mistakes of these, but there's always tons of them there) and bits of foam that's sticky on one side. It's a very nice rocket. We of course, had to immediately put it way up high before Eamon destroyed it. But we enjoyed it.

All right. Off to bed.
If this rain stays away I have high hopes of finally planting our garden this weekend. Can't wait to play in the dirt!

cable idiocy

So I called Comcast. After agood 3 minutes of pressing 1 for this and 8 for that and 3 for a shave, I finally got through to someone. I explained my situation, saying I'm receiving channels I'm not paying for and do not want. So this guy takes another 3-4 minutes looking up my stats and then tells me someone will be out tomorrow to take a look at it. And THEN he asks: "Mam, can I ask why you only have the basic package? For just blah-blah a month you could have so many more channels. I mean, what do you watch?"
Interesting this. I'm always amazed at who they let answer the phone at some places.

I explained again: "I'm getting all the channels that I would get in a much higher priced package. I'm getting them for free and do not want them. I'm telling you I'm getting them for free and do not want them. I called you a few weeks ago and asked you to fix this situation. So why would I pay for this package when I'm currently getting it for free? We don't watch much tv. I've got little kids and they don't need 24 hours of cartoons. Seriously. We get movies from the library and we watch PBS in the morning. And when we're not in front of our Tv we do crazy, zany things like GO OUTSIDE."

Argh. Now you know that the icing on the cake to all of this is to have 6 months pass and then get a fine from Comcast saying that we received the full channel package without paying for it and if we don't pay the fine we'll be sent to jail. Grrrrr.

Just had to update this before I exploded.

Off to marketing land. That would be self-marketing. Yes, I would much rather go shopping.

Monday morning

I recently foind this blog. It's all food with lovely pictures. Really good sounding food. I haven't tried making anything yet.
http://food-forthought.blogspot.com/

Speaking of food, we were at Target yesterday quickly getting toilet paper and diapers. I went down the snacky food aisle to get fruit cups for Sarah's lunch (or rather, chunks of old fruit preserved in high fructose corn syrup~yumm). We were hit with shelves and shelves of squishy fruit snacks (that surely contained no fruit), strangely colored twisty "fruitty" things and pudding that required no refrigeration. Sarah immediately went into ooooh and aaah mode and started beggin for just one box of something. My dad was with me and thought the whole thing was funny. He would've bought her 5 boxes of anything she wanted. At any rate, I let her pick out one box of something, telling her I'd never buy them again. So she picked out these things called Twistables or something like that. They were that gross "green apple" color/flavor squisky sticks braided together for a lunch time snack. She ate one in the car and frankly, seemed a bit disappointed.
I've got nothing against sugar. Not a darn thing. However, gelatin made with high fructose corn syrup stuff is surely made by Satan himself. Satan dressed as a Keebler elf.
I prefer my sugar in the form of home made cake or a bar of nice dark, dark chocolate. Or even a tub of really good ice cream.
We'll see how long the Twistables stay on our shelf. Two years ago my MIL gave us a box of fruit snacks. They stayed in the pantry, minus one package, for about 18 months.

All right. It's after 9am so I can now do all my business calls for the day. Unfortunately not pertaining to my business. With the purchase of our new TV 2 months ago, we found out we are getting all these cable channels we don't pay for. I promptly called Comcast to tell them. I don't want them! Take them back!
Sarah told me how much she loves our new TV because it came with all these channels like Cartoon Network and Nick Jr,Disney. Argh.
I want my 15 channels back. PBS the morning Arthur viewing before school. The Style channel and Discovery Health for the rare night I watch TV by myself.
Comcast told me they would send someone to fix the situation and that I needn't be home for this magic to happen, but we still have all these channels. And Greg has no problem turning it on for her.
Oh, also need to call the water department to schedule payments for our whomping water bill.
Grrr.

And then I'm off to hopefully write a rough draft for a brochure.
And to clean this trashed house.

Another Sarah love letter

I found this in our marker box today:

I LOEK MY MOM BE KOZ SHE IS
GRAT AND SHE LOEKS ANOMOZ AND I DO TO
SHE IS THE BASD MOM EN THE WORD

isn't that so sweet?!
I love ANOMOZ! and BASD!
How cool!

Doula job done, more house obsessing

Where is my personal chef? I'm very hungry and don't have the imagination to come up with a good lunch. I love food. I even love cooking most of the time. But right now I'm very hungry and I want some savvy nutritionist/chef to whip me up a fine green salad and a tasty wrap sandwich.
However, at the moment I have questionable ham ("eat or freeze by 5/10/2006" um, that's today) and no greens, but plenty of wraps. Some cheese but in a big block. Too lazy to slice it.

My doula client had her baby yesterday. The called me from the hospital at midnight and the baby was born 4 minutes later. I arrived 15 minutes later. She labored entirely at home and gave me updates throughout the day but never needed any home support. She was trying not to push in the car and when they tried to check her in triage, they found a baby crowning.
I was a little bummed because it was a rare occasion that I had excellent child care (my mom came at 9pm and stayed the night) and I had someone coming in the morning to take Sarah to school. I ended up back home by 3am and up at 7am anyway, getting Sarah ready for school. Hell, I was even showered and dressed by 8am. A little disappointing when I have all my ducks in such a perfect row and then I miss the birth.

Ah well. I stayed for the immediate post partum period and helped mama in the shower and baby nursing (acutally the smart little girl knew just how to nurse!). I did realize that even the best hospital birth situation (namely, birthing as soon as you get there so no one throws all their interventions at you) left me cold. The nurses work in this detached routinized (is that a proper word?) fashion that made me want to scream.
I realize nurses are totally over-worked and under-appreciated, but they also have the emotional tact of a greasy spoon, chain-smoking waitress with no time for sentimentality. I get this. However, birth is such a huge, intimate event, and no one there treats it as such.
I'm not gonna go into details, but it made me really realize that I'm not cut out for hospital doula work anymore. They treated the mom in this horrid, condescending manner and then wouldn't help her with basic care things like walking to the shower (her whole body trembling from the hard work of labor), getting into a shower that she was forced to take only because the nurse wanted to make the bed. Argh. It was annoying and I was astounded at how no one cared about the mom once the baby was out. Not to say they treated the baby much better. The baby could have been a large sausage roll for all the nurse cared. Ugh. I'm far too home birthy to hang out in the assembly line of detached hospital care.
So note to self: even though you're broke, re-think taking on doula clients.

But please send me some home birth clients that are normal, healthy, joyful beings!

And there you go. That's been my last 2 days. I cleaned the windows inside and out with soapy water followed by vinegar and water. It's a task I hate but the windows look so good! and I laid down a bunch of ground cover tarpy stuff to kill the weeds in this one bed near the fence topped with new mulch. I've been going to town around here lately. Just need to get the veggie garden planted. Maybe this weekend I'll get back to Coleman's (hurray for Ypsi Colemans! so cheap, so nice!) and get the rest of my plants. I've not got the patience to plant seeds. I can never tell if it's the plant coming up or weeds coming up and end up pulling out everything.

All right, I'm off to eat something before I keel over.

Whining

I've been feeling incredibly vulnerable and emotionally squishy lately.
I've lost a lot of steam. I'm back to being broke again. With no prospect of money in the near future. This weekend proved shitty as far as money goes.
I was planning on sending in my finally completed NARM packet but realized that I didn't have enough money. Not only do I not have enough money for the first half payment, but we got slammed with this huge, nearly $600 water bill. It is correct. However, by no fault of our own. The water department has been doing estimated reads for a year and a half and has recently realized they've been way under-estimating us. So guess who gets the kick in the balls? We do.
And it's due in 2 weeks. Lovely. I need to call them and set up a payment plan (the stupid shits should give me a year and a half to pay it).
And to make matters worse, Eamon dunked my cell phone in to my coffee yesterday, rendering it completely jacked up and useless. It happened just as my dad was coming in the door. I was a wreck about it. After all, I have a doula client past due. My initial thought was that I wouldn't be able to leave the house til she went into labor since I no longer have a pager. We went to the Verizon store to price new phones. Oy vey. Crazy expensive! I've never bought a new one without re-signing a contract. Ended up paying $210 for the same phone(and it's totally bottom-of-the-line). My sweet dad paid for it saying it was my Mother's Day gift. So nice of him.
By the end of the day, I felt more depressed. A complete fuck up. How have I managed to get this old and not have it together? I realize there's a lot of good in my life, and a lot of nice things even.
Ack. I just want to work and make some money and pay our bills and not be left breathless when stupid bills come in.
And I'm trying to read these dumb marketing books and they're just crap, for the most part. A little too tacky for midwifery. I'm not selling encyclopedias, I'm offering midwifery care.
So I've been immersing myself in yard work to feel somewhat accomplished. But doing yard work doesn't leave me with a pay check.
Speaking of, the cleaning company I work for shorted me a day's pay. I need to call them, again.

and I need to wake up Eamon so he will go to sleep at bedtime tonight.

fabulous phoenetics

so Sarah is starting to write letters (not alphabet letters but correspondence). she sounds everything out. this has proved interesting since she still can't say some letter combinations properly, like "th" comes out as "f".

I've been saving these new letters she's written. This is a new development and I'm loving this developmental stage. I can't be bothered to correct her for fear of making her self-conscious and as a result squelching her keen desire to write all these crazy signs and letters.
Here's her first one to us:
DER MOM AND DAD
I MESH YOU VARE MYK
YOUR DATR
SARAH
I LOVE YOU
HOW IS EAMON

and one more from when she stayed the night with our neighbor:
TO MAMA AND DAD
AND EAMON
DER MOM AND DAD
TODAY I AM RADE TO KUM HOME
HOW IS EAMON
LOVE SARAH

isn't that so cool? I love DATR for daughter!
she made a sign for school that said something about remembering to recycle and to throw your garbage away. but because she can't say "th" she wrote "throw" as FUROW.
it read FUROW YOUR GARBEJ AWAY
it took me a few minutes to figure it out. i had to imagine her voice sounding the words out to guess what it was. even her teacher didn't get it until I told her to pronounce the words as Sarah would. how fun!

Early morning photos

Early morning, before the alarm goes off. These two like bugs under a rug. They're so sweet (and quiet) when you catch them like this. And man, they look so much alike when I see them this way. (my sarcastic cynical side can't help but comment how they look like conjoined twins in this picture~terrible me!)

And this here is not a filthy body pillow. This is Agnes. With her stout physique, stumpy legs and delightful snore. Also before the alarm goes off. But then again, Agnes usually doesn't wake up until 10am or so. A girl needs her beauty sleep.

Weekend

I went to the Michigan Midwives Conference Saturday and it was lovely. The topics discussed weren't too riveting, but the company was. It was well-attended (well, as well-attended as home birth mdwives can get, there aren't so many of us) and there was just a general air of acceptance and love and no egos.
Michigan will be hosting the MANA national conference in Traverse City in 2008. I'm very excited about this and think I will look into working on some commitee or another to help with it. There's also talk of working more to gather thoughts on writing our own legislation for midwives in Michigan before it gets written for us. I'm also very interested in this and think I'll take a stab at joining the board to help with that.
I'm hoping to have everything together to send out my portfolio by Friday or next Monday. What it will take is me spending a good half hour at Kinkos minus any child. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Yeah. Which is why it's been 4 months and it's still not together. Simple chores can become beasts of burden when you've got kids. I told Greg I HAD to get this done this week. I will enforce this.
My doula client is still pregnant. I called yesterday and left a message to check in, but I've not heard anything yet. I'm freaking out about night time (or rather, wee morning hours) child care because my mom has a couple doctors appointments this week that will make her unavailable. I'm praying it will all just fall into place like it usually does. It'd be especially great if she has her baby when childcare is very easy to find (middle of the day), a nice quick labor (asking for too much here) and then I get paid the other half of my fee. Making the task of sending off the $700 with my NARM portfolio that much easier.
There. I've put in my request!

Off to do some actual work.