Life Struggles and Life Lessons

I sit here, after 10 pm, my mind a jumbled mix of thoughts and feelings. This has been an incredibly trying week for me emotionally. As I sit and watch my little boy sleeping peacefully, I am reminded of what I live for every day. I see how forgiving he is, even when I might have reacted too harshly to a little boy just being bored. He smiles at me when I am having the worst day and parts of me smile inside too (and even ocassionally, the parts on the outside will smile too.)

As I sit here, just hours after dropping my husband off at the airport, I am reminded of how lonely it is to not have someone by your side. I get so used to having things a certain way, and when things aren’t that way anymore, it’s hard. Just so I won’t feel lonely, JJ and I will be sharing a pillow tonight. I could only imagine the loneliness that John is feeling at this moment, knowing that this time will be the last time he will see his grandmother. I know he is hurting tremendously inside. I rarely see this man cry and he was extremely emotional as he was packing for his trip. I can only hope that he made it in time to tell her goodbye and that he loved her, even though she won’t remember who he is.

She is an absolutely amazing woman who has beat the odds so many times in her life. She has always been positive and a lover of life like you’ve never met before. She had such a tremendous love for her family. We will all miss her.

John and I have been struggling, on many different levels, for a few months now and have made the decision to take part in a Dynamic Marriage course through our church. Sometimes I think that we’ve both forgotten why we got married. There’s no doubt in my mind that we still love each other, but right now we both seem to have our focus somewhere else. We’ve got caught up in the day-to-day struggles and we’ve let it come between us to the point where we’re arguing over dumb stuff or irritating and annoying each other. I really miss how we were a couple years ago and I want to know how to get it back and how to open my mind up to any and all suggestions.

One of my friends from work said of her late husband that they had so much fun, it should’ve been illegal. That’s what I want to look back on my marriage and say when the time comes. I don’t want to say it’s mediocre or that it’s decent. I want to look back and say, “Wow, I would do that again in a heartbeat.” With the probable passing of John’s grandma this weekend, I am reminded of the one and only thing that is really and truly important in life and that is relationships. Although things are not spectacular with my husband and I right now, I know that my time with him (and everyone else, for that matter) is limited and that I need to do my part to make it the absolute best.

To top all of this off, John hasn’t received a worker’s comp check in 3 weeks and has just been informed that should he continue to see the doctors provided to him by his lawyer instead of the ones provided to him by his company’s worker’s comp list, that his payments will be stopped effective Wednesday. As if we don’t have enough on our plates now.

Fattening up my skinny bones Jones

So, as my loyal readers know, I have a little 19 month old on my hands with zero appetite who weighs barely anything 21 lbs 2 oz–under the 3rd percentile. I found this great recipe that he absolutely loves. It’s for homemade granola bars. Here’s the recipe.

2 cups oats

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup additives (raisens, chocolate chips, cranberries, almonds, whatever…)

Toast the oats at 400 degrees for about 5-10 minutes. Melt the peanut butter and honey over low heat in a saucepan, stirring continuously. (I added a little vanilla to the mixture for some flavor.) When the oats are done, add  whatever additives you have chosen to the oats. (I picked graham crackers crushed and raisens.) Add peanut butter and honey mixture to oats. Line a pan with wax or parchment paper and pour mixture into it. Wait a few minutes to cool and then enjoy! JJ loved them and they’re full of healthy calories.

Getting better…

So as my loyal readers know, things have busy and kind of rough around the Jones’ residence lately. I decided with the help of my husband, that if things are going to get better around here, I have to make it happen. It’s not going to just happen on its own. So, that’s what I’ve been doing. While I can’t control what goes on around me, I can control how I react to it and I CAN control making myself a better person. That being said, I’ve recently started working out again. I’ve been going to Curves three times a week and doing their circuit three times each visit, even though two times around is considered a full circuit. I’ve also been portioning my food…i.e., not eating two or three times what I should be. Speaking of food, I’ve been making better choices regarding what I eat. While we still do go out to eat, I’m eating healthier when we do. I’ve also been more diligent at my skin care routine. To be honest, these changes have not been hard at all and I’ve felt a lot better because of them. During my first full week at Curves, I lost 2.5 lbs. That was a huge motivator. I’ve been sleeping so well too…it’s been great. This weekend, I’m taking time off to jumpstart my relationship with John again. We’re having a baby-free date night AND Jj will be spending his first night away from home in his almost 18 months here.

A whole lot goin’ on!

So this past month that I’ve been back to work, things have been really busy on many different levels. As regards to work, I’ve stayed busy with good ol’ Adams keeping me there at least once or twice each week. There have been 25 work days so far and I’ve worked 20 of them (taking 3 of them off by choice.) I’ve secured at least a 7 week position teaching 5th grade at Adams, most likely starting in October. After this, I will have taught (or student taught) in every grade except for 3rd. I also recently went to a district level job interview at San Bernardino City Unified. It went really well. I didn’t even have to think about how to answer any of the questions. They just came naturally. He asked what my classroom management plan was, how I handle behavior problems, what’s one thing I’ve learned about myself, how I’d explain to a parent why there’s never any science homework, etc…He said my letters of rec were great, as well as my experience. Unfortunately, there’s only 3 vacancies at the time, two of which I’m not in consideration for. One is for a bilingual position, one the principal knows who he wants, and a third is not an official vacancy yet–but when it becomes official, he said he will send me out to that school to interview for it.

On the work front with my husband, he’s been home on worker’s comp for almost a month now. We only get 66% of his pay, which really makes us try to be frugal as much as possible. It’s trying him insane having to be at home for so long because he really wants to be doing something productive at work, but right now he can only work for about 2 hours at a time before he starts hurting. Right now, it’s up in the air as to when he’ll return, so I need to work as much as possible.

JJ and I have recently started attending a once a month playgroup. Our first meeting was a pool party. There were two little girls and two little boys. They played with some toys, then went swimming, then dried off and had a snack. It’s a really nice get together. The mommies are all from Gymboree and everyone is within a few months of each other. Next month’s theme is Music….JJ will love it!

On the medical front with JJ, we have found a doctor who is willing to work with his possible susceptibility to malignant hyperthermia. The doctor is at Children’s Hospital of LA which has extremely good ratings for the urology department. He was very friendly and I feel like I can trust him with my baby. They will be doing his orchiopexy laporoscopically (sp.) through his belly button. It’s generally an outpatient procedure, but because of his special needs re: anaesthesia, they’ll do it as an in patient procedure just as a precaution. Most likely, we’ll be getting it done in December while I’m off work so I’ll be able to be there to take care of him.

On a final extremely frustrating note, we’ve been having major issues with our car and mechanic. We took our car in ten days ago for a 90K mile service and a possible radiator leak. Our car kept overheating and it would go back to normal after we added coolant, but that would only last a couple days before we had to add more, but we never saw any on the street. Anyhow, $875 later we were told the car was fixed….and it was for 3 days. Then the overheating went from gradually to all at once–we took the car back immediately because the radiator was supposed to have a lifetime warranty. We were told that most likely we had blown a head gasket and it would be another $939 to fix?!? Excuse me…I don’t think so. We were also told that the guy who worked on our car had screwed up other people’s and the lead mechanic had to fix a lot of his crap. Well, we managed to haggle down the guy to about half price because of the major hassle. We were told the part had to be sent to a shop to be worked on which takes two days…I called back four days later and was told the part was still in the shop. I was absolutely fuming! Meanwhile, we’ve been having to have a rental car ($140 so far out the window…) while waiting for these idiots to get their job done…who knows how long it will take, but I’m getting awfully annoyed waiting for them and it’s inconviencing a lof of my family to have to drive me around everywhere. I’m going to be filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau as soon as we get the car back and I am never taking my car there again!

All grown up!

Well, my baby is officially all grown up. He hasn’t had a bottle in almost a week. Today, he had blood drawn and barely even shed a tear. I can’t believe how brave he was. He’s my little trooper. He’s still little though. He’ll be 16 months in like 3 days and he weighed 19 1/2 lbs yesterday. Well, I officially go back to work on Monday and he’ll be starting with a new babysitter whom he loves and adores.

Had to call poison control Saturday….

Okay, so I wonder how many parents have actually had to do this before–calling poison control. It was actually quite a funny situation, turned potentially scary, turned not-a-big-deal in a matter of about 2  minutes. A couple days ago, I noticed JJ had a little blister on his behind. I searched for a tube of diaper cream, but couldn’t find any. However, I did notice there was a little sample pack of some Desitin. I opened it up, put some on his sore and then put it up. Fast forward to almost a day later….John and I have just woken up and are checking email. JJ comes over to my chair with this gigantic grin on his face…and white cream all over his smile. Little bugger had found the half empty pack of Desitin and was sucking on it and had made himself a Desitin moustache and beard. So I grab the pack away, thinking, “Oh crap,” and give it to John. He reads it and it says if ingested, call poison control immediately. John searches for the poison control  number while I’m having a mini freak out session thinking I’ve made my baby sick or something. John tells the lady what happened and she’s like, “It’s not toxic, wipe out his mouth and give him some water.” What?!? That’s it?!? Why does the pack tell you call poison control and get all freaked out if it’s not toxic? Well, turns out diaper cream is made of zinc oxide and zince oxide is generally only toxic is its gaseous form. Oh well, crisis averted.

I’m impressed!!

So anybody that knows me knows that I hate housework. When hubby and I are both working full time, sometimes the dishes can sit in the sink for 2-3 days. The chores I hate the absolute most are dusting and vacuuming–mostly because they’re so time intensive. You have to move everything away, then dust/vacuum and then move everything back. It’s tedious! Well, I have been majorly impressed with myself this summer. Our vacuum has gotten more use out of it in the past two months than it has in probably the last year (or maybe even two!). Every Wednesday is free play gym at Gymboree from 3-430 and my mother has been kind enough to take JJ off of my hands and I vacuum each week! That’s a huge improvement because usally we might vacuum once every 6-8 weeks. It happens to be a chore hubby hates just as much as I did. I’d rather mop any day of the week, but since we don’t have any tile in our home (except our maybe 25 sq ft bathroom), there’s no mopping going on! I just hope I can keep  up the vacuuming at least once every other week once school starts up again in two weeks!

Don’t know what to write…I’ll just put pictures!

It’s funny. Day to day as things happen, I think, “That would be a good thing to blog about.” Then I forget about it, don’t blog and the thought has left my mind. Now that I have time to blog, I can’t think of a dang thing to blog about. Maybe I could blog about all of my pregnant friends. There’s four of them now I think. Nah, been there done that, nothing exciting. Maybe I’ll just put some pictures up if I can find them on my hubby’s computer. Yeah, I think I’ll try that.

Gymboree!

So about a month ago we decided to take a free preview class at Gymboree. They have classes specified for different age levels. JJ is in level 3 which is for 10-16 month olds, so he’s a little more adventurous than most of the others in his class, seeing as how he’s almost 15 months old now. Needless to say, he loved it! I thought it was great too. They have lots of little things to play on that are arranged in different ways every two weeks. The instructors are great and have lots of energy. The only thing I don’t like is that the classes themselves are almost identical every week. There is bubble time and parachute time and time to call out Gymbo, as well as pushing the big air log. Other than that, there is usually one or two unique activities each week. The activities themselves are not very long, which I think is smart because attention spans aren’t that long at this age. It is $65 a month, which I think is kind of a lot, but it also includes free gym time 3 times a week. So you get 45 minutes of class time and up to 5 1/2 hours of free play gym time each week.

Something’s gotta give…

…but what? I warn you right now that this blog is going to be long. I have a lot on my mind at this moment and it’s been almost a month since I’ve given an update. I went to bed over an hour ago dog tired, but found my mind wandering in many different directions. I figured since I was up that I might as well do something and here I am…ready to get all of these thoughts and ideas out of my head, off of my chest, and onto this “paper” so to speak.

It all started with my husband starting a political discussion in bed. He said he didn’t think it was fair that people who do not have children have to pay taxes to support education. This, of course, I wholeheartedly disagreed with, being a teacher and all. I thought of all the ramifications of this…like how everyone who does partake of the educational system having their taxes raised and, heck, while we’re on the topic, why should anyone have to pay taxes to support anything they don’t partake of–for instance, the welfare system. The only people who partake of that system don’t pay into it…the system would totally collapse if we used the same reasoning my husband had for education on everything else. Anyhow, enough politics. That’s just what got my brain going and it hasn’t stopped since then.

I’m a busy mom, like all other moms. I work full time outside of the home. I have a one year old at home to take care of, a husband and a household. That doesn’t leave me much time for anything else. Most days I’m able to handle the stresses pretty well, but occasionally, I just break down. I’ve always been a list person and I find great personal satisfaction in marking things off my list. It’s been so difficult to get anything marked off my list anymore. I seem to find more and more things being left undone and it’s very frustrating to me. Our home, for example, sometimes gets to the point where both my husband and I are disgusted with the messiness and unkemptness of it all before we do anything about it because we are both so busy. I’m out of the house at least 9 hours a day and my husband 11, so after we get home, make/eat dinner, and shower, we are wiped out.

My husband has always been the type of person who is very affectionate. He believes in letting others know how he feels often. He tells me how he loves me numerous times during the day–sometimes to the point where I tell him that I haven’t forgotten and that he doesn’t have to let me know any more that day. Granted, I tell him I love him every day too, just not 400 times a day. I never knew why he felt the need to do this until I had my baby. It’s funny…it’s like the emotions just pour out and the words follow. I tell my baby I love him more times a day than I can count. It’s like there’s just this need to verbally express the overflow of my heart. I can’t NOT say it. I totally, totally, understand how he feels and why he needs to say I love you many times a day. To the one who taught me that you can never be told I love you enough, I love you.

I guess there’s really only one other major thing on my mind at this time. It’s my work. I have so many conflicting emotions right now and I don’t even think that there’s one in particular that trumps all the others at this time. I feel stressed, jipped, excited, sad, and joyous all at the same time. I am so excited to see how well my students have done this year. They have grown so much and they have made me so proud with all of their accomplishments. I am joyous because I know they are going to be doing well when they go on to first grade. I am confident that I have prepared them for the academic challenges they will face next year. I am happy because I love coming to work each and every day and getting the opportunity to affect other people’s lives in a profound way. I am also happy because I get to see their smiling faces each day and they are (mostly) happy to see my as well. I am sad because this year is coming to a close and I will be saying goodbye to my first class and because I don’t know when or how long it will be until this opportunity comes my way again. I feel stressed because it’s the end of the year and there are so many things going on–benchmark testing, report cards, filling out cumulative files on each kid, skills day, spring program, packing up all textbooks, tearing down my classroom and that’s only the half of it.

My last emotion is feeling jipped. It’s an emotion I try and fight because I know that it has the capability of taking over and I start to feel bitter when that happens. I have worked my behind off this year, doing a job that very few people would do for the pay I have been getting for it. I feel jipped because I was promised something that didn’t come through. I know I have been given a wonderful opportunity this year. Everyone tells me how dedicated and determined I’ve been this year and how I’ve been such a trooper…easy for them to say. Their salaries are fair…I guess I wouldn’t mind so much, but that fact that our superintendents who already made over 6 figures a year gave themselves a 15% raise during this “budget crisis” just plain pisses me off because I couldn’t be hired on a temporary contract for 3 months that would have cost less than 3 grand total. I’ve actually thought about writing a letter to the superintendents or to the editors of newspapers complaining about what I consider to be an injustice, but then I just think of how it could possibly affect my future and my ability to get a job anywhere else and I stop myself. I just can’t help but wonder, when will I ever catch a break?

It’s depressing…I’m a college grad with two bachelor’s degrees, a teaching credential, and half of my units towards a master’s degree and I’ve never held a job paying more than 20 grand a year. Top that off with 9 years of student loans (and a few credit cards) and I’ve amassed over 67,000 in debt. It’s really sad. I love what I do so much….why can’t I get a job? What can’t I take some of the pressure off of my husband? I just want to make what I’m worth. Is that too much to ask? I’d really like another baby, too, but with all of the extra expenses that having a baby brings (especially the new home and vehicle that would be required to house and tote around a two little ones), it’s not going to be feasible for quite some time.

I just get through my days by knowing that I come home to an amazing family each and every day and even though we have our share of problems, we’re happy and mostly content and right now, that’s more than some people can say. I’m thankful I’m healthy. I’m thankful for wonderful friends and family. I’m thankful for the roof above my head and the food in my refridgerator. I really do have so many things to be thankful for…I just need to reminder to count my blessings more often than I throw my pity parties.