The Bad News Bears

We got a call from my MIL today. They got some test results and it looks like my FIL's cancer is back. He meets with his oncologist tomorrow, but they already know they're going to start radiation. I don't know when or any other details. She had to sneak us a call today while he was out because he's upset and doesn't want anyone to know. Hopefully, we'll learn more tomorrow.

This week is my mother's last at work. She's been very blessed that she was able to stay this long. She's one of only five people in the entire building. Since she was still there in January, she IS entitled to 4 weeks vacation pay which will help. She'll have to apply for her remaining vacation pay from 2008 in the courts (her company filed bankruptcy), but she is guaranteed her vacation pay from this year. She has applied for Social Security and given her age and the fact that she's been working since she was 8 years old, she qualifies for an amount not too far off from her salary. That should help as well.

As always, positive vibes, good thoughts and prayers are appreciated.

But the boobs get in the way.

I'm a big fan of altering random songs to better suit my needs (or odd sense of humor).

So lately, I've taken liberties with this little gem:


Just change the refrain to, "but the boobs get in the way."

I don't know how many sizes I've gone up during this pregnancy, but I know that DD bra I just got is a bit snug (DD is my usual nursing size).

At this point, I can still sleep on my stomach with some maneuvering, but damn it, the breasts are loudly protesting that position. My uterus can deal, but my breasts scream in pain. They can just shut the hell up, though 'cause I thoroughly enjoy sleeping on my stomach.

After my daughters were born, when they were still in the NICU, I got horribly excited when I realized I could once again lie on my stomach. Too bad I forgot about the whole surgical birth thing. I was fine in that position, but experienced excruciating pain when I tried to get back up. Dh worked nights and slept during the day, so my attempts to call for him were in vain. I wound up falling off the couch. Horrible pain and complete humiliation, those are two side effects of a c-section that no one ever warned me about.

Anyway, back to the boobs. My sister (who is under 5 feet tall and 90-some-odd pounds) went up to an H or an I while nursing. We used to laugh when we got those "Increase Your Bust Size" spam e-mails. I once suggested that we open one and follow the advice because then we could have our very own shelves right there under our chins and honestly, that could be very useful for a new mom.

I've always been larger during pregnancy than nursing, but I've never been quite this large this soon. Only time will tell where the boobage will take us.

Until then, I'll keep humming my own version of that little ditty under my breath. Feel free to join the conga line and sing along.

But the boobs get in the waaaaaaayyyyy.

How do I stay sane when this is the soundtrack to my life?

From the other room, I hear a loud thump followed by a moment of silence. Then Girl1 says,
"I guess that wasn't such a good idea."

Don't tase me, bro.

Oh my word. The stupidity is hilarious.

In case you needed a reason to avoid tasering yourself, here you go.

Here's an excerpt to peak your interest:

The cat was standing over me making meowing sounds I had never heard before, licking my face, undoubtedly thinking to herself, "Do it again, stupid, do it again!"

Come out. Come out wherever you are.

I am miserable. I got something stuck in my eye and it's still there. It burns like crazy. There has been a virtual deluge from my eye, but it's completely in vain (unless the goal was to soak the collar of my shirt). Whatever has wedged itself in my eye is hanging in there.

Nothing is working to get it out. This sucks. If you have any tips at all on how to get this thing out, please let me know.

Lack of sleep, old writings, familiar problems and Military OneSource

I got 30 minutes of sleep last night. Same shit with dh. I'm recognizing more and more signs of PTSD. I tossed and turned as everything ran through my head. Finally, after 3 hours, I decided to get up and just write it all down.

Last year, the therapist suggested I journal about the situation. I mentioned that I blogged about it, but she suggested I journal it privately with no intentions of anyone else reading it. I did just that and I remember that it was a bit of a release. So I thought maybe if I wrote down everything I was thinking/feeling last night, maybe I could finally let it go and get some freaking sleep. I wrote for 2 hours straight. I felt a bit better, but when I went back to bed, I still couldn't sleep.

I remembered where I kept last year's journal, so I searched for that and did my writing in there. I was surprised to find only one entry from last summer. Although, in there, I found something that is very very true even now, a year later.

I miss him...I miss knowing what to expect. I miss being able to say with certainty, "He would never do that."

Yeah, it's the same thing now.

Lots of things raging through my head and heart right now.

One thing I kept writing, thinking and worrying about is the fact that last year, when I asked him to get help, he was willing to cut us off rather than do that. He chose his silence over his family. I still don't understand. He has no problem with therapists. He's not the type who fights tooth and nail to avoid them. I never in a million years dreamed he'd be willing to go without contact with us rather than just talk to someone.

So now what? It's obvious this marriage isn't going to last without outside help and I so desperately want this to last. I love my husband like crazy. I know he's still in there somewhere. But the last time I asked him to get help, he opted to shut us out rather than do that.

I called Military Onesource. They set me up with my therapist during this whole fiasco last year. Since dh is no longer active duty, though, I didn't know if they could help him. They said they can for 6 months after separation (he's still in that window), but he would need to call. He won't do that. So I asked about couple's counseling. That I could set up and so I did.

We shall see where we go from here.

It's really interesting that the signs are getting worse a year later--9 months since he came home and 3 months since he separated from the military. Don't ever let anyone tell you the "war" ends with the homecoming. It just means you have whole new battles and your home becomes your combat zone.

When he was deployed, he could look forward to coming home. Now where is he supposed to feel safe?

What NOT to do.

Don't ever use Nair or one of it's cousins without checking the expiration date. This is particularly important if you intend on using said product on more intimate areas. It's even more important when you stumble across an unfamiliar bottle of product and can't really remember when/where it came from.

OUCH!

It bears repeating: OUCH!

Feel the love.

I must take this moment to rave about just how very much I love my husband and my kids.

I wound up going to the ER as soon as dh came home last Thursday. What started out as a bothersome ankle became very painful. It got to the point where I couldn't walk on it at all. So we all headed to the ER. No broken bones (woo hoo), but I had soft tissue damage in my ankle and in my foot. I went home with an oh so fashionable orthopedic shoe and a pair of crutches oh and some pain medication. Can't forget the pain medication. I tend to scorn much of Western medicine, but bless them and their pain meds.

My husband is the most wonderful man in the world. Our house is designed for tiny little people (I'm not just talking about the kids), so trying to get crutches to fit through doorways, hallways, and around furniture was not fun. My amazing dh not only brought me whatever I needed, but he wrangled all three kids. Without being asked, he took off from work on Friday because he realized (long before I did) that I couldn't take care of the kids when I couldn't even pick The Boy (who isn't yet walking) up. Dh didn't complain once. I adore my husband.

And now we move on to my kids. I must say thank you, Irim, for your lovely compliment the other day. That really made me step back and realize that even though my kids have a tendency to drive me nuts, they are very sweet and very polite. We went out the other day and dh got annoyed with them over something. I told him, "Someone on the blog commented on how polite they are and you know what? They really are. We need to remember that." He agreed and wasn't nearly as annoyed with them as he had been.

Yesterday, they came home from Sunday school with a note from their teacher. The girls have homework. They discussed the things you find in a Jewish home. So we're to take them on a tour of the Jewish items in our home and they're to bring one in to class next week. We went on a tour and they have some ideas for what they want to bring (I'm going to cheat. In addition to whatever they pick, I'm sending them with their Mizpah necklaces. The Mizpah means "Watch-tower." It's taken from Genesis: May the L-rd watch between me and thee when we are apart from another." I said that prayer when dh was gone before we had kids, I said it when the girls were in the NICU and I taught it to the girls and we said it every night in dh's absence. They got their necklaces at their naming ceremony when they were tiny).

After our tour, I asked them, "What is the most important thing in a Jewish home? What is in our house that REALLY lets people know we're Jewish?" Girl1 blew me away when she answered, "G-d." I was thinking, "The people," but you know what, I like her answer even better. I made sure to tell her that and then we discussed how the people are important too and how our behavior is important because we reflect G-d.

Oh and on that note, I want to share this discussion with you. The girls left me a struggling a bit the other day. In the car, they asked, "How do we hear G-d? Because we can't hear what He's saying." I was taken aback, but I told them that we don't really need to hear Him with our ears. His words are in the Torah and by learning Torah, we can learn what He wants us to do. Then, we can hear him in our hearts because we know how He wants us to behave. Girl2 protested, "But I can't read Hebrew. So I can't read the Torah. Then I can't hear G-d." I explained that they're learning Torah every day. When they share and play nicely, they're learning Torah because they're learning that's what G-d wants them to do. When they go to Sunday school and they learn about shul, Hebrew, and our ancestors, all those things are found in Torah. When we say prayers, those are all from the Torah. Once I explained that, they were quite pleased with themselves for being so very smart. :-)

I love my kids. They may leave me exhausted, but they also leave me giggling, beaming with pride, and in awe.

I fought the curb and the curb won.

This could also be titled:
When concrete attacks
or
Oy Vey.

I'm taking a page from The House That Jack Built. or perhaps I'm thinking of Bringing the rain to Kapiti Plain . Either way, follow along.

This is the zoo where we went today (I purposely covered the sign 'cause I like to at least try to keep my location fairly ambiguous. Although, I must give credit where it's due and tell you I didn't take this picture. I stole it from someone else's site and then altered it).

Here are the elephants playing in the zoo where we went today.

Okay, so I admit I didn't actually get a picture of the elephants. You can all deal.

Here is the elephant statue where I took pictures of the big kids across from the elephants playing at the zoo where we went today.



Here is the curb that I tripped over and sprained my freaking ankle just after taking a picture of the kids by the elephant statue across from the elephants playing at the zoo where we went today.



Here are the giraffes that I managed to walk to insisting I was fine until my ankle hurt too badly to go on a long ways away from the sonofabitch curb that attacked me just after taking a picture of the kids by the elephant statue across from the elephants playing at the zoo where we went today.

This is the ankle all swollen and sore which achingly carried me all the way back to the car from the giraffes that I managed to walk to insisting I was fine until my ankle hurt too badly to go on a long ways away from that evil evil curb which damn near tried to kill me just after I took a picture of the kids by the elephant statue across from the elephants playing at the zoo where we went today.



There's no picture of me all embarassed and annoyed because it's all myown damn fault that I injured my freaking ankle all swollen and sore which achingly carried me all the way back to the car from the giraffes that I managed to walk to insisting I was fine until my ankle hurt too badly to go on a long ways away from that wicked evil curb of death just after I took a picture of the kids by the elephant statue across from the elephants playing at the zoo where we went today.

To be continued...

FTR: Yes, I did go back and purposely take pictures of the statue sans kidlets and that CURB OF DEATH. The only thing that kept me from crying as I was hobbling my way to my car was the thought, "I'm so going to blog this."