A chuckle for the morning

I was driving home from dropping something off at Nate’s office earlier, and I passed a McDonald’s.  It has one of those electronic marquees with a scrolling/changing message, and it is HORRIBLE.  It can only fit two short lines of text, and it seems like something is always being broken up between screens at an odd place.  (This is a McDonald’s I drive by regularly.)  However, today took the cake.

Screen 1:

Play Monopoly

Win $1

Screen 2:

Million

Happy 1st Birthday, Gus the Bus!

As much as I still can’t wrap my mind around it, my baby boy turned 1 today.  And I was so proud of myself.  I did really well all day.  No tears, good spirits…yay!  We had a simple, fun day.  No big party, just dinner and cake as a family. 

After devouring cake – his first sugar ever! – and making a thorough mess in the process, he got a bath, and we put our big boy to bed.  Nate and I watched some TV, and then he headed to bed, too.  I decided to stay up just a bit longer because I was trying to remove all the tags from the MASSIVE amount of clothes his Grandma gave him. 

When I was done, I hopped online for a few minutes.  I had posted birthday threads on a couple of my favorite message boards, including a brief retrospective of pictures: hours old, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 2 from today.  I checked the threads to read the new replies, and again I had to go back to my original post and look at the pictures.

And suddenly, it just washed over me.  My chin started to tremble, and my eyes welled up.  And I just knew that I needed to have a good cry.  So rather than try to gather myself back together, I succumbed to the inevitable.  I went to my online photo album and perused all the pictures from Gus’s first month and cried my eyes out. 

It was funny seeing how much he has changed, and yet how essentially Gus-like he was from the very outset.  Even as a days- or weeks-old newborn, he had certain expressions and habits that he still has now.  So often, people think that all newborns look alike, and most of the time I wouldn’t really disagree.  They just don’t really seem to have individual personalities at that age.  And yet here was photographic evidence that Gus was Gus long before we all thought he was Gus.

So there are my birthday ponderings.  It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that this is likely my last 1st birthday.  Even though lately I feel more and more comfortable with the idea of being done with two, much moreso than I ever expected to, that also means coming to terms with the idea that all of Gus’s firsts are now the last firsts I’ll ever experience.  I want to hang on to these baby days as long as possible, but I’m inexorably swept along by time.  Everyday, he changes a bit more, becomes his own person a bit more.  And although it’s delightful to see, I won’t pretend it’s not bittersweet.

In closing, I’ll post the photo retrospective I mentioned earlier, as well as a few wonderful pictures from present time and cake time.

Day 1

3 months

6 months (and hatching a plot to rule the world…)

9 months

1 year!!!

With all his gifts:

Loving his brand new playsilks:

Kisses from Mama:

My horribly embarrassing attempt at cake decorating (I swear, it looked even worse in person), including Gus’s own little personal cupcake:

Clearly enjoying his first taste of sugar!

The aftermath:

So, what’s new?

I’m sure I could write a novel here, but I’ll try to keep it brief.

In which I reveal myself as the melodramatic person that I really am

Regarding my last post, in my defense, I’d like to say that it was entirely true.  I really could see in Gus’s eyes that something was different and he knew it.  And frankly, he seemed to behave differently for a couple of days.

But the good news is that he has the lovely short memory of a 6 month old, and he’s forgotten all about it.  I’ve made up for it as best as I could with lots of love and snuggles, and he’s back to his old self.  I’m sure having tons of family in town all of last week for his baptism – family who doted all over him, of course – didn’t hurt matters.

In which I reveal myself as the terrible person (and hypocrite) that I really am

As you may recall, I’ve complained before about how Gus’s naps and Maggie’s preschool always seem to conflict.  I believe I’ve also mentioned the problem I have many mornings when I drive Nate to work, which is that Gus falls asleep in the car (inevitably within 2 miles of home) and then won’t go back to sleep.  Once he’s good and out, it doesn’t matter how long it’s for; if he wakes up, he thinks he’s had a nap.

Well, today, for once, I was going to get a break.  Due to a convergence of several different coincidences, Gus was going to get the perfect nap schedule in.  First, he woke up earlier than normal, at 7.  This meant he’d be ready for a nap between 9 and 9:30.  Still recovering from my stomach bug, I’m not yet up to driving Nate all the way into work, so instead, I just took him to the bus stop today.  Perfect.  He needed to be at the bus at 9, and the stop is close enough to home that Gus wouldn’t fall asleep in the car, so I knew he’d nap at home.  Hopefully, he’d sleep for a couple of hours, waking around 11, which would make him due for his next nap around 1.  Perfect again.  Maggie’s preschool starts at 12:45, and again, it’s so close to home that he wouldn’t fall asleep in the car.  Then we’d come home, he’d nap again until 3-ish and be up all on his own for us to get her at 3:45.  And I?  I would have 2 or so blissful hours entirely to myself; I can’t even remember the last time that happened.  And after we picked Maggie up, Gus would be due for a final, short nap around 5, which would mean he’d wake up about 6:30.  Again, perfect.  This is the time we need to leave for Maggie’s dance class.

On books

Thanks to my dear friend, Stef, who lent me the book A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore several months ago (and I’ve just now gotten around to reading), I’ve come to an important realization:

The best books tend to be the ones you can’t possibly describe.  If you can fit it into a neat little package, it’s probably lacking a lot in creativity and imagination.  It might still be a decent read, especially if the writing is good, but it’s not going to leave any deep imprint on your brain. 

I think of it sort of like good food.  Sure, I might get a really good burger at a chain joint, but am I going to think of it in again in a week?  Unlikely.  A month?  Probably not.  A year?  Almost certainly not.  But I can still almost taste in my mouth the fabulous lamb chops at a local Middle Eastern restaurant.  The way they almost melt in your mouth.  The hint of garlic.  The buttery rice it’s piled on, loaded with tiny, slivered almonds.   

And I gotta tell you, I’m not even halfway through A Dirty Job, but right now, I’m expecting to remember that melt-in-your-mouth literary flavor and tiny, slivered bibliophile almonds for a long time.

I know it’s trite

But my kids light up my life.  Truly.  Any given day with them must give me a zillion different joys.  Even today, when I’m running a 102 degree fever and battling a terrible stomach bug, they still find ways to delight me.  This list only scratches the surface:

* I woke up earlier than Gus this morning.  About a half an hour after I got up, I tried to sneak into the room for a second.  He was already up and hanging out quietly, but when he turned his head to smile at me in the half light, it was brilliant enough to light up the room.

* I was nursing Gus at nap time, getting ready to put him down.  Maggie knows we have to be quiet during this time.  All of a sudden, the kitchen timer that I had set 45 minutes ago and forgotten about began beeping.  And beeping.  It’s a constant beep.  In horror, I tried to shield Gus’s ears, so he wouldn’t be awakened.  And I looked up, to find Maggie looking at me with a big “oops!” face, covering her mouth with her hand, eyebrows raised.  Such a knowing look, at the same time paired with her silky Ariel jammies, a reallllly badly done ponytail created by Daddy that she insisted on leaving in, and a bright red bow thrown in for some color zip.  It was simply too comical.

* Gus woke up from his first nap just as I got another Urgent Call to the Bathroom.  With no prompting, Maggie ran back into the room to keep him company until I could come get him.  As I sat miserably on the toilet, I still couldn’t help but smile as I heard Maggie, mimicking my own interactions with Gus, saying in this exaggerated baby talk, “Hi, little man!  Aren’t you just so cute?  Yes, you are!  You’re such a Sweet Bo-oy!”  And when I was finally able to get to the bedroom myself, I found her still prattling onto him as he stared up at her in complete awe and worship.  They absolutely adore each other.

* Maggie wanted me to open the curtains, but I said no because the sun comes in really badly and makes it VERY hot in here.  A couple minutes later, she walks over (sad ponytail now gone, but Ariel jammies and bright red bow still in place) and says, “Mommy, I’d like to be warmer.”  And I said, “Well, you could put on some warmer clothes.”  And she shot back with a very patronizing, “Oh no, no, no,” complete with hand waving.  “I believe I need some sunlight.”  How could I say no to that?

* Maggie asked me for something that I can’t even remember now, and I told her no.  So she gave me her favorite retort of lately, “Fine, then, I’m going to go to my room!”  And then she downright STORMED down the hallway, nose held high, arms swinging, hips swaying, feet pounding, while saying to her doll, “C’mon, Baby, let’s go to my room!”  I’m glad her back was turned so she couldn’t see my laughter.  She’s going to be a handful as a teenager!

* Maggie nursing her baby doll, using my Boppy.  She did this a lot when Gus was first born, but hasn’t done it in awhile.  It always warms my heart to see it. 

Ouch!

The universe seems to have decided that it’s really fun to kick us when we’re already down.  Nothing all that big has even happened, but it’s just that all this little stuff keeps piling on.  Last week, I got my first ticket since I was 16.  And it was for a really, really bogus offense.  The officer claims I ran a red; if I did, it couldn’t have been with much more than my tail pipe.  And he was very nice, but instead of writing me a warning, he’s insisting I come to court and he’ll “work with” me on the points.  Of course, the problem is I’m still gonna have to pay court fees and all that jazz.  Not to mention that it will likely raise our insurance. 

But today was the real kicker.  I’ll preface the story by saying that it all turned out OK in the end, but I didn’t know that as we were going through it, and I spent most of the morning as a sobbing wreck.

Nate has been our bill payer for years, and although I’m not totally incompetent, it’s also really intimidating to try to insert yourself into someone else’s flow on something like this.  So when he had his surgery, he set up online payments for all of our bills for the next month, hoping that he’d be able to see well enough to do it again the following month and I wouldn’t have to try to fill in any gaps.  Fortunately, things worked out well and he was indeed able to keep going the next month.

However, as the weeks have passed, we have realized that there are some problems.  The big one is that Quicken (which we use for all of our record keeping) can’t be blown up and he was making some small mistakes recording things when he couldn’t see them well enough.  So we decided I’d have to take over at least this part of bill paying, but it actually hasn’t happened yet.  We decided this right before we left for NYC, and receipts just haven’t been entered since we got back.  Which isn’t a good thing, but we also knew how much we had in there and how much we were spending and that we were OK.  Which we were – except for one unexpected problem.

Nate accidentally paid our mortgage twice this month.

He swears he cancelled one payment, but somehow they both went through.  So either he THOUGHT he cancelled one but missed some important onscreen notation that it didn’t go through, or there was a hiccup in the system after the fact.  Regardless of the cause, our mortgage (which as you might imagine is our biggest bill) got paid TWICE.  When you live paycheck to paycheck, you can see how this would be a problem.

So we noticed this problem Sun night.  At that point, we were supposedly $180 in the hole.  On Monday, Nate called our mortgage company to see what could be done.  They said they couldn’t issue a refund, but they COULD transfer the excess to our HELOC, and then we could write a check out of that to deposit into checking.  So with this knowledge, I went to the bank and deposited $300, which should’ve been more than enough.  I should’ve known better.

The rate at which things show up on the online banking system is painfully slow.  This includes NSF fees.  Yesterday, we checked our account again to see if the check had cleared.  It hadn’t, but mystifyingly, our balance was now $300 in the red, even though no new major expenditures had gone through.  (Indeed, there was nothing more than $20 outstanding anyway.)  We finally found out today that it was because we were assessed 4 NSF fees for a total of $130. 

So again, Nate swung into action on the phone.  He called the bank and was told that they can’t discuss accounts on the phone because the lines are “insecure” and that we had to call an 877 number.  Oooookey dokey.  So Nate called them.  And wouldntcha know, it was an offshore center and the employee could barely speak English.  Given the chance, I’ll speak with the bank employee on an unsecure line than try to sort out complicated financial matters with someone whose English is less than stellar.

In any case, after a lot of hassle, Nate got them to waive 3 of the 4 fees.  However, these fees were all apparently assessed on Monday, and SIX more (remember, these are $35 a pop) were going to be assessed yesterday, and they refused to do anything about it. 

At this point, I was nearly in hysterics.  We just can’t afford this.  Our finances are completely out of control, and we’re barely making ends meet.  I didn’t know how we could possibly cover this. So we decided we had to go to the bank and talk to someone in person if they couldn’t do it over the phone.  We hoped that a local bank employee who could actually see us would help.

Well, when we got there, both Maggie and Gus were asleep.  (Maggie is still sick, too.)  So Nate when in by himself, hoping he could work it out, and we decided I’d join him when/if the kids woke up.  And after about 10-15 minutes, Gus did just that, which also woke Maggie up, so we headed inside.  At that point, Nate and the bank employee, Kim, had gotten to the bottom of how many fees were out there and were trying to figure out if we made a small cash deposit today if we could avert those fees.  It turned out that was a no-go because the fees were actually going to be assessed for transactions that posted YESTERDAY, so adding money today would do no good. 

Finally, I butted into the conversation and said, “Listen, we’re asking for a favor.  We’re asking you to waive the fees.  We’ve been with this bank for 3 years and never once had an NSF.  In fact, in all my banking life, I’ve never had an NSF.  We’ve had a horrible, horrible year.  He [pointing to Nate] had surgery in Januar.  He [pointing to Gus] was recently diagnosed with scoliosis and we’re going through some scary testing.  Two or more members of our family have been sick at all times since the beginning of January.  We’re asking you to please, based on good faith, cut us some slack.”  By this time, the tears were streaming down my face, and although Kim had been as helpful as she could to that point, she clearly softened.  (It helped that Maggie was looking as pathetic as possible, curled up on my lap through the whole diatribe, haha.) 

She finally said that the only person who could probably help us was the regional manager.  She dropped big hints at us to let us know that we had to ASK for his number for her to give it to us.  When we finally figured out what she was getting at, Nate asked for the guy’s number, and she willingly gave it to us.  She said she’d email him and explain what had happened and what our extenuating circumstances were, and that we should call him. 

Well, the bank is right by home and Nate needed to swing by there to grab something off the computer for work that he had forgotten.  So we went home, and he did that first while I nursed Gus.  It took about ten minutes, and he had just gotten up to grab the phone to call the regional manager when our phone rang.  Our bank’s number was on the caller ID.

It was Kim, who had spoken to the regional manager herself.  And he’d agreed to waive the fees!  So all $210 were wiped out, thank goodness.  So we’re all good.  But this morning was super scary, and I’m just starting to realize what dire financial straits we are in again.  We got this HELOC last summer, but it didn’t get us far enough out of the hole.  And we didn’t get rid of Nate’s car quick enough, so we’re still essentially living in the red right now every month, slowly building more and more debt.  And we’re just about maxed out on debt, which means we’re going to be SOL soon.

I’m really starting to freak out here.  I feel like everything that can go wrong is.  (OK, not everything.  No one has died, and we haven’t had any debilitating or expensive accidents.)  The big and the little.  And I just wonder how much more I can take.  I feel like I wanna throw my hands up in the air and say, “I quit!  I’m done!  Game O.V.E.R.”  But I can’t.  There’s no such option in real life.  (And no, I’m not suicidal or anything.  Don’t freak out on me.  I could never leave my kids.)  But the sick thing is that we can’t even declare bankruptcy anymore under the new laws.

So what DO you do when you literally don’t have enough money to pay the bills but you can’t declare bankruptcy either?  What on earth happens?  I don’t really want to find out, but I fear that day is not long off…

No one expects the Spanish Panic (attack)

I just watched Once Upon a Mattress today, so this post title makes total sense to me.  Humor me.

Anyway, the title is my witty segue into saying that I had my first panic attack in almost 2 years (and only my 3rd panic attack ever) tonight.  To explain why, I have to back up to Gus’s PT appointment yesterday.  His therapist was concerned that his back seemed worse and worried about the amount of pain he experiences when placed on his left side.  She suggested we see the orthopedist again soon, rather than in late May, as originally scheduled.  She said she’d go talk to him (they’re in the same building) and either call me or talk with me next week.  I didn’t think this was that big of a deal.  I just figured it meant another X-ray. 

Then today, the phone rang unexpectedly, and our pediatrician’s office was on the line.  After talking to the therapist, our orthopedist (who is also in the same building) walked down to the pediatrician’s office and said that Gus should get in for an MRI ASAP.  Apparently, our therapist is more worried than I realized, and the orthopedist doesn’t like the fact that he seems to be in pain.  I guess scoliosis is typically painless, and the presence of pain could indicate that something more nefarious is causing the scoliosis.

One of those more nefarious things?  Tumors.  Like maybe the spine tumors VHL patients get?  Um, yeah.  Now granted, this is only one of many possibilities, and VHL verrrrrry rarely manifests this young (and never has in my DH’s family), so it’s unlikely.  In fact, it could be that Gus’s fussiness during therapy, which is being interpreted as pain, is more from crankiness (he’s always nap deprived when we’re there) and there is nothing at all.  That’s probably the most likely scenario.  But just the possibility of all these other things is frightening  nonetheless.

Then to make things even better, one of the nurses from the MRI unit at Children’s Hospital, where Gus will be having the procedure done, called to get some intake information from me.  It turns out that because Gus has scoliosis, which can place pressure on the lungs, he may not be a candidate for the standard mild sedation they use on children.  He might need general anesthesia.  We won’t know for sure until tomorrow, but for some reason, this idea chills me to the bone.  Actually, I know exactly why it does: general anesthetic produces an unnatural stillness that, in my mind’s eye, looks too much like death. 

Which I did OK with at first.  I mean, really…adults, kids, and babies go under general all the time.  Yes, it’s a risk, but most of them come out just fine.  Getting in the car each day is a risk, too.  So I thought I was doing fine.  But then something got me thinking about it, and all I could do was keep picturing his motionless little body being slid into the tube.

And that did it for me.  I just lost it. 

Actually, at first I thought I was going to be OK.  I had some scary breathing, but I got it under control.  However, just as I had to post this here, I found myself needing to get into writing what had just happened, so I shared it in my journal on a message board.  In my post, I said that I was afraid if I was this freaked about an MRI that I was really going to go off the deep end if we get any bad news back.

And then I really lost it.

This time, there was no fending it off.  I was having a full-blown panic attack: hyperventilating, sobbing, heart racing.  And I knew that I HAD to talk to someone.  For some reason, I needed a human voice.  But Nate was still at work, and I knew he was crazy busy.  (He wouldn’t have been there if he wasn’t.)  So finally I gave in and called my mom, even though it was 11:30 her time (12:30 mine).  I didn’t want to because she gets up very early for work, and I knew she’d be in bed.  But she’d told me earlier today to call her at anytime, and well…she’s my mom.  So I called, and I could just barely croak out, “Mom, I’m having a panic attack.”  She was really wonderfully calm and talked me through it.  She kept entreating me to breathe deep, but I literally couldn’t do it at that moment.  Still, just hearing her voice was enough to help the attack subside after about a minute.  I was still kind of gulping and hiccuping at that point, but the worst was over.

It’s funny, though, how long the consequences of a panic attack last.  It’s been an hour and a half now, and I still don’t feel entirely back to myself.  My heartbeat is a bit fast and shallow, my head is swimming gently (with occasional moments of outright vertigo), I’m mildly nauseated, and my limbs feel tingly, heavy, and slightly numb.  But my mental panic has quieted down.  And for now, that’s good enough.

Well that’s a strange toy for a kid’s meal

Nate had a really late night at work last night, and my head was killing me from my sinus infection, so we just decided to pick up some fast food on the way home.  (He still can’t drive, so I’m picking him up from work every night.)  However, we had one other errand that had to be run: buying a new plunger.  Ms. Maggie repeatedly clogs (or clugs, as she says it) the toilet by using way too much toilet paper, and it happened again yesterday.  But we’d thrown away our plunger recently (let’s just say it’s an incident involving a severe “clug” and Drano and leave it at that, mkay?), so we needed to run by some place to pick one up.  It happens that Lowe’s is right behind an Arby’s near our home.

To save time because it was so late, we decided to drop Nate at Lowe’s to run in and grab the plunger and have me drive through Arby’s and then come back and grab him.  We had assumed it would take him longer than it would me, but we’d forgotten one crucial factor: this is the slowest Arby’s on earth.  So when he called me to let me know he was done, I still had one car in front of me in the drive thru line.  It was a decent night out, and all Nate needed to do was cross the big parking lot, so we decided to have him walk.  But here’s the rub: he didn’t get a bag with the plunger.  He had assumed I’d be picking him up.

So he walked across the dark parking lot.  Plunger in hand.  Then walked up to my car in the drive thru line (where there were now 2 cars behind me).  And got in.

The two of us laughed almost to the point of tears at what the people in the cars behind us must have thought.  And the poor girl at the drive thru!  She’d been admiring the kiddos and chatting with Maggie when we first pulled up.  Then she walked away to get our food, and Nate got in the car in the meantime.  You should’ve seen the look of surprise on her face when she noticed him.  She was in mid-sentence, and stopped short, and said, “Oh, I didn’t even see you there before.”  We explained to her that he’d just gotten in the car after walking over from Lowe’s.  She looked at us like we were a little bit nuts, but she laughed good naturedly.

It’s a good thing she didn’t see the plunger.