Ramblings in my head

It's been too long, and I have so much I want to spew... If I even come close to hitting the topics I want to I'll have to give myself a pat, my brain is fried.

If you hadn't guessed, R is gone today. He's out fishing offshore, not the best seas or weather, but having him around here moping around and fucking up work, is NOT good. So off he goes to fish and come back with a smile and better attitude.

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I had another OB appointment this past Friday. All is seemingly healthy. Meaning my bp was good and my OB wasn't concerned with any of my questions/issues. Apparently I measured within the proper realm and since I hadn't grow an extra arm they sent me away after a quick 5 minute ordeal. Of course, just because they didn't have any issues didn't mean it was smooth. The first thing they do is have you hop on the scale. I gingerly stepped aboard, and much to my shock had gained 7 pounds since my last appointment. So, I peed in their cup, went into the exam room and cried. Lame, I know. I am fully aware pregnant women gain weight, I'm not that vain. I-just-wasn't-ready. I had been sick, hadn't eaten much and honestly need to save my weight gain for later on in the pregnancy. Being obese to start gives you very little weight gain room to fall within the "healthy" pregnancy category. So, it just hit me wrong. I cried, and was over it.

Over it until I got to my vehicle to leave, answered the cell, to have R on the other end wanting to know where the quarterly paperwork was for our accountant. (yes, it was done, no it was not organized for R to find or gather together.) So, I tried to explain where the important stuff was and all R was able to find in my filing cabinet was an old envelope with our accountants name on it. (It must be hard to look at all those alphabetized file folders, see the one with our accountants name on it and pull the papers out of it.) Granted, it IS MY job, not his, so whatever. He sent the accountant home empty handed while I tried to drive back home while fighting off the new batch of tears. YES PREGNANT WOMEN ARE EMOTIONAL.

I screech into the parking lot and get into the shop to save R from the phone. (He hates to answer the phone while I'm gone) I tell him all is healthy with the baby, and we have our ultrasound scheduled for 5/12. He sees the remnants of my cry session. (my eyes turn a very fluorescent green color and take a while to calm down after I cry) He gets upset. He rants about it all day about how even when all is healthy his wife still bawls her brains out. How unhappy I must be since I fucking cry all the time. Crying is always an issue. His mother did not cry. So, he doesn't think it's normal at all unless there is a death or something equally upsetting to cry about. Happy tears don't cut it, I cried the night he proposed to me, he still jabs me about that. In his defense, Friday was a really unpleasant day all the way around. Nothing went well in the shop and it was a rough day customer wise. Plus, the seas pumped up making our planned Saturday offshore fishing trip go down the tubes, frustrating R all the more.

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I had a call from Mother last Monday. She wanted to make a time to come in to talk to me. She said she had some things we needed to discuss. Part of it has to do with how she passed out (?) at the grocery store recently. I don't know if I have alluded to how different Mother is now compared to when I was growing up and through my college years. She has turned into a hypochondriac. She seriously always has some malady. Sadly, you can tell something is really wrong with her by just looking at her swollen gray/yellow skin. She does not go to doctors, she does not have health coverage, she does not work. Which when added together would qualify her to get assistance if she did enter a doctors office to find out why she feels the way she does. But, I can not lead her life, I make suggestions to have them shot down with the you're-being-ridiculous-glare. So, while I spent several days last week contemplating what kind of serious health issue Mother may actually have, R came up with a very possible reason for her need to talk to me.

She needs money. I have had a hard time with money issues and Mother for years now. I just find it difficult to feel sorry for someone who does not try to make their own way, then they complain about it. Mother would call me crying the blues about how she had no money, and I would suggest the unsuggestable... get a job. At which time I would rattle off several businesses I had seen help wanted signs up, etc. This was always followed by some lame excuse. My favorite is when she says she's too old. (She will be 56 next month) Florida is full of people well into retirement working away. They don't have "bag-boys" here, they are a group of people into their 70's that put your groceries into the carts. Besides I have a hard time feeling sorry for her when I'm working an easy 50 hours a week to make enough to keep this place running and keep us a half a step ahead of debt. But in the end, I do feel sorry for her.

So, there's where this whole thing becomes too complicated. She is my Mother. Regardless of how I feel about her life choices, she is still my Mother. So, she may need money or she may just want to cry wolf again about an ailment... or maybe she really is sick. Any way you look at it, the conversation will not be easy.

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On a completely different note, I witnessed someone race through an obvious red light the other day. Luckily no one was pulling into the lane from the other direction. It turned red as we turned a corner prior to the intersection. I couldn't believe the person kept driving right through it. Not that I haven't "squeaked" through on a yellow-turned-red as I am positioned in the middle of the intersection, but I don't blatantly fly through red lights. It actually made me flash back to Hurricane season last year. Did you know that if the power is out or the traffic lights are blown to smitherleens, all intersections become four, six, eight, twenty way stops? My best example of this was driving back after the first Hurricane. I was on the west coast, and drove across the state to get home. The closer I came to the east coast, the more buildings, trees and general demolition was visible. As I approached a larger town near the major east coast interstate, I found myself stopped at an intersection facing 15 other drivers wondering who should go first. No police officers to help guide this cluster fuck, just everyone looking wide eyed at each other. After a few brave souls made their way from one side to the other, I decided I had to try. I was driving a dually truck with a 24ft travel trailer behind me. I gazed at the other awed expressions as I slowly picked up speed, and made it to the other side. My heart pounding, never knowing if someone would loose their cool and slam into my truck or not. I made it and became rather skilled at negotiating my way through these obstacles as they became more and more frequent on my journey home.

Once home, surviving through weeks of no phone and no power became taxing at best. All the while, having to remember to stop at all intersections and do the grueling wait as everyone tries to get their turn. (I actually love four way stops, they still have a few locally that I travel through. It is amazing how polite people can be.) Though when thrown into a crisis situation, people don't tend to have the amount of patience required to safely navigate around town. The other thing that most people don't think about is railroad tracks. No power, no flashing lights or arms blocking the road. So, stop and look. I found it again just amazing how many people could not grasp this concept. To me it was worth my life to stop and look. Apparently other people just never thought of it, as I'd see them fly through it just like a normal business day.

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We went to an art festival Saturday. There were hundreds of artists and live music all day. We stayed until just shy of 10:30pm. It was fun to people watch and listen to the music. Tide loves to shake his booty. R brought him out right in front of the stage to dance away. There was a little girl out there, and the two of them had so much fun dancing. I unfortunately did not have my camera with me, they would have made some adorable pictures. She had her hair up in pony tails. Too cute. I stood propped against a tree watching them, R was out on the floor dancing making sure Tide didn't run for it. I enjoyed watching them all. Including the little girls mother who was a tall graceful black woman with this long flowing dress on. Her dancing style was so fluid, gorgeous to watch. Once the song was over, R and Tide came back over near me, we ended up going back to look at more art booths or something. (brain isn't firing) Needless to say we walked away from the music for a while. This was when R started in on my not dancing.

He couldn't believe I wasn't the one out there with Tide. (who me, the pregnant woman who had just gone through a couple of hours of sitting in the rain watching bands? who before that was walking carrying Tide and making her feet very sore?) So, I told him I would dance later, that I enjoyed watching them all dance. R was a little buzzed at this point, so would not let it go. He mentioned it all of a dozen times, each time elaborating on how he has lost his "hippy-chic". (a nickname he used to call me when we first started seeing each other, not peace-love-hairgrease hippy, but just different in a good way, to him.) He went on about how I just stood there like a lump with this black sweater on looking like an old lady. On and on he went. I tried to ignore him and when he'd start in about it again, I'd say not this again. Toward the end, I just started getting mad. Come on, give me a fucking break. It was the first dance, just because I wasn't out there didn't mean that I wasn't having fun or that I wouldn't dance later. Whatever, it put a damper on things. I told him several times that he needed to drop it. Which fell on deaf ears. So, we tallied out our evening with this building wall.

Of course, I don't think he remembered much of it the next day. Which is fine by me. So, I told him he was being mean. (which he always wants to know the next day) Which led to a whole batch of self pity and him saying I need and deserve someone better... Always makes me feel like an ass. Sweet, eh?

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Tide has been in another whine phase. He is such a little brat, then turns around and does something utterly adorable. He does listen to R better than me. I try to be stern and he ignores me. Yet if R is stern he actually will start doing what he is supposed to be doing. I guess I'm the push over or something, though I'm trying to not be. I just end up coping out so I can get things done. Most likely a big mistake I'll regret. In general he really is very well behaved. Discipline is hard, he thinks time out is a joke, spanking does not work, we've resorted to putting him in his room away from us, or taking loved toys from him. Not exactly text book.

I need to figure out a way to get him to stop needing me to carry him everywhere. He is 40 pounds, and being pregnant makes it feel like 80. He starts to melt down if I tell him to walk then his legs turn into spaghetti. So, I end up carrying spaghetti leg child out from the middle of the parking lot or whatever bad place he decides to melt.

We are also making no progress with potty training. He knowingly pees or poops in his diaper and tells us about it once he's done. Ugh!

But hey, he can count to ten and count ten items. Who cares if he ends up graduating high school in a diaper.