Insufferable Douchebaggery

Nothing starts the day off right like a totally pointless spat with your husband.

As he was leaving, I told Charlie I'd call him when I was ready to come swap cars. He took El Heep today; he had to drop Austin off at Grandma's. That leaves me driving the truck, which I hate. Why, you ask? Well, where to begin: the cracked windshield? the seats encrusted in dog hair? the radio preset to god-awful "rock" stations? the sticky shifter that pops in an out of gear at will? Or maybe the defective parking brake? Charlie drives it most every day without complaint, but he also has his OTHER car, and his motorcycle. I have only the Jeep.

So when Charlie told me I should just keep the truck all day, I said I didn't want to. He said it'd use less gas, and I whined that I didn't care, I wanted the Jeep. He said something else, and I snapped "FINE! YOU KEEP ALL THE CARS AND I'LL JUST RIDE A BIKE." I stomped inside like a three year old (or a 13 month old, if he could walk) and fired off a Tweet about "insufferable douchebaggery." At the moment, it did seem as if he was being rather douchey.

After an hour and another cup of coffee, I of course have realized that there was no douchebaggery on his part -- just me being a spoiled brat. It would save gas, it would be less of a headache to just keep the truck instead of wonking up his day with a vehicle swap. So why is it so hard for me to just suck it up? Dunno. I like getting my way, I suppose, but who doesn't? I think it really boils down to my control issues (SHOCKER!).

So my question for today is, what do YOU have trouble "sucking up"? Am I the only one who battles Ye Olde Raging Ego?

I always get the raw pancake.

Charlie is the master of breakfast...usually.  This morning was Pancake Sunday, which we normally don't have, but since a certain person (*cough*ME*cough*) overslept on Pancake Friday, Charlie called a do-over.  I  came downstairs with the wee one and sat at the kitchen table, telling everyone about my insane dream (my mom shacked up with a crazy dogsitter and a 20-year-old Rasta boyfriend, doing cocaine.  WTF?!) while the Hubs handled bacon and flapjack duty.

Something must have been a bit off with him, because first, he burnt the bacon.  That never, and I mean NEVER, happens.  Chubby rednecks do not let pork fat burn.  It's like a Country Commandment -- "THOU AIN'T GWONE WASTE NO FATBACK" carved into the hood of a Monte Carlo and propped up in front of Cracker Barrel.  I said nothing, just sipped my coffee and talked to the baby.  Baby's pancake came first, beautifully round, golden-brown, like something off an IHOP menu.  Of course, it was promptly hacked to pieces and then gummed to death in between bites of banana.  Like a three year old, I thought, "OOOOOOH! ME NEXT, ME NEXT!"

I was handed a plate with two not-so-perfect cakes, cooked well past golden-brown.  More like the skin of a teenage girl who got a little overzealous about tanning before Prom.  No worries, I thought, looks are not everything.  And sure enough, the first few buttery, syrupy bites were fantastic.  (I think heaven must be a never-ending stack of perfect pancakes.)  Then it happened:  cold, wet, gooey...batter.  Oozing out of my perfect pancake.  I said nothing, just scraped it away and tried to eat the outer ring of good stuff.  I can't bring myself to complain when Charlie does something as nice as cook breakfast for us (and clean up after himself).  I'm not THAT much of an ungrateful beyotch.  I have to say, though, that it kind of ruined the rest of my breakfast.

It got me to thinking about a conversation Charlie and I have on a regular basis, about how I usually get shafted on the little things.  Like at a restaurant, mine is always the order that gets f'ed up beyond belief -- not because I'm picky, mind you, but because that's just how it goes.  Maybe I clubbed baby seals in a past life?  Maybe I was John Wilkes Booth's BFF and sat around drinking with him, saying, "Do it, you should totally do it, man!"  Maybe I knocked over Gandhi trying to get a cab?  Could be anything.  All I know is, I get the shit end of the stick when it comes to basic retail/restaurant/customer service experiences.  Perfect example is my nightmare trip to BJ's Wholesale, where after shopping for two hours (with baby) I realized I didn't have my membership card.  The cashier spent fifteen minutes trying to look up my info in the computer, then told me it couldn't be found.  They'd "let me" use a guest pass for the day, but I'd have to pay in cash or with a credit card.  I had only checks.  I ended up getting treated horribly by the manager on duty, and left in a huff.  I wrote an email to customer service, but before I'd even finished firing off my rant, Charlie had already gotten on the phone and talked another manager into upgrading our membership for free.  No fuss, no fighting, just ... done.  It's like Jedi mind shit or something.  Or, alternate theory:  LIFE IS EASIER WHEN YOU HAVE A PENIS.

Any thoughts?  How do you deal with life's raw-in-the-middle pancakes?

ZOMG Day off!

I have been granted an official "DAY OFF." Holy crap!

Charlie is still off work, so I get to spend today picking up my new glasses and shopping for some new clothes. I have not made the bed; I have not gotten dressed. So far my day has consisted of reading blogs, drinking coffee, and eating a Twinkie. (Okay, two Twinkies.) I slept until almost 9 AM. And as I type, comfortably ensconced in a reclining leather sofa-seat, wrapped in a warm blanket, flanked by two pugs, I can hear my wonderful husband upstairs tickling Austin and making him laugh.

This, my friends, is a good day.

WHEW.

I'm almost two weeks out from my surgery, and things are finally getting back to normal.  It feels like it's been a month, so much has happened.  

The day after I got home from the hospital, we got hit with a stomach bug.  Charlie got it first, which meant I had to take care of the baby (even though I was supposed to be resting and not lifting anything heavier than 10 pounds).  He didn't seem too sick to me, at the time, so I got pissed.  I seem to always get the shitty end of the deal -- it was supposed to be my recovery time, time I'd planned to use on video projects, photo projects, reading, and oh yeah RECOVERING FROM SURGERY.  Instead, I was playing nurse to a whiny 35 year old baby.  The worst was when I came in from wiping down the windows outside, and saw Charlie running from the den with his hand over his mouth.  He threw up EVERYWHERE.  And when I say everywhere, I mean:  on the couch, on the floor, and ON THE GODDAMN BABY.  Austin was literally covered in vomit.  It was the most horrific thing I've ever seen.  I snatched him up, stripped him, gave him a bath, all while he was screaming and crying, all while Charlie kept barfing.  (Why he chose to barf in the kitchen sink, I have no idea.)  

So after cleaning up Austin, I had to come downstairs and clean up nine million gallons of barf.  I sent Charlie upstairs despite his protests (he was trying to clean up barf with paper towels and nothing else).  I think my exact words were, "Charlie, this is one of those times when you need to just shut up and do what I say."

Of course, he felt a million times better after barfing, and was on his way back to normal within the next twelve hours.  But who can guess what happened next?  That's right...sick baby.  Austin was throwing up the next day, and poo-sploding through his diapers, and not eating, and getting borderline-dehydrated.  He refused to drink anything, couldn't keep down formula, and had no interest in solid foods.  Can't say I blame him!  

Austin had been sick for about two days when I started to feel lousy myself.  And sure enough, I ended up barfing and pooping and not wanting to eat...I ran a fever for days; when it finally broke I sweated so badly I had to change pyjamas twice.  I'd like it noted for the record that none of my barf ended up anywhere except a trash can or the toilet.  I've also realized that I am officially a Mommy because I cleaned up after everyone without so much as gagging once.  Barf is now just another neutral bodily fluid.

Here we are on Friday, and everyone's well (knock wood), the house is getting back under control, and it's all starting to feel pretty normal again.  It's not really how I wanted to spend my first two weeks of recovery time, but oh well.

In the midst of all the sickness and poop, Charlie and I had a pretty wicked argument that involved a lot of yelling and crying on my part.  I was really upset by how little effort he was making to take care of me, despite the fact that I was taking REALLY good care of him.  I don't like to play the martyr, and I really don't do things for other people just so they'll do things for me, but it's nice when there's a balance.  And things have been very out of balance here for a while, not just during our week o' sick.  

It was my choice to stop working, and I knew full well the financial consequences we'd suffer as a result.  As I've said a thousand times, I am happy to sacrifice and scrimp and pinch to stay at home with Austin; I'm NOT willing to do it just so I can hand him over to a day care facility and go spend 40 hours a week at a soul-sucking job I hate.  I'm just to a point now where I feel like there's nothing else I can give up -- I haven't bought clothes for a year, I don't splurge on groceries (at my best I can get us all fed for about $100 a week), I don't insist on eating out or dates or movies, I don't ask for ANYTHING.  And yet Charlie often treats me like I sit on my ass all day thinking of ways to make us broke.  His behavior was making me think that he felt I didn't do any work.  During our argument, I explained to him how I felt, and how I needed him to understand that I actually work a lot.  To his credit, he seems to have taken the conversation to heart, so all I can do is hope that things get better from here.  I know there are things I need to work on, too, like being OCD about housework.  Charlie told me that he often just doesn't do stuff because he thinks I will criticize how he's done it.  Of course my first instinct is to say, "Well, if you would just do it my way, you'd be fine."  But that's not terribly productive, now is it?  I do feel like I should have the final say on housework, since I'm the one who does most of it and I'm the one who spends the most time at home, but I have to compromise.  Have to.  Don't want to, really, but have to.

In other news...Charlie's now sporting a buzz cut.  I found out that he's been spending $20 a month on haircuts.  It's not a lot, I know, but every dime helps these days.  So we picked up a set of clippers at Target, and I gave him a haircut myself.  I used to cut all my NAVY guy-friends hair, so it actually turned out pretty well.  I'm also hoping it will help him stay motivated to work out; it's a very "fit guy" haircut.  He has to cut his body fat percentage in half by August in order to get back into the military, and I am determined to do whatever I can to help.  We're supposed to be reorganizing the gym later today so there's actually room in there to work out.

I'll be spending the rest of the day doing indoor work, seeing as how we're back into drizzly March-grey weather.  Bleh.

Recovering

Well, yesterday was my big day: hernia repair.  Woo hoo!  Fortunately, my surgeon explained at my pre-op appointment that the repair would NOT prevent me from having more kids; I just have to wait a year before I can get pregnant again.  So I checked in yesterday with a light heart and really, no worries about surgery.  It was my first time getting general anesthetic, and only my second surgery ever (first was my c-section this time last year).  The nursing staff was fantastic, and so's my doc.  How can you not like a guy whose first name is "Basil"?

Anyway, everything went well.  Doc said the hole was about the size of a baseball, and he had to move my bladder out of the way for something (I can't really remember that part, as I was still coming out of the anesthetic).  They put in a pretty big piece of mesh to hold everything where it's supposed to be until my body grows tissue back to cover the hole.  I had the option to stay overnight, but I really wanted to come home, and I felt okay.  We left the hospital around 3PM, and I was home and comfy by 3:30.  My mom had been at our house all day taking care of Austin, so Charlie popped out and got Starbucks for us while he got my Rx filled (oh Percoset! How I love you so!).

This is probably not my most eloquent or coherent post, but I wanted to update so folks would know what's going on.  Everyone has been very helpful and loving, and I am feeling very blessed to have such wonderful friends and family.

the lonely scrapbooking Jew

Well, I tell ya.  When you ask for a sign, YOU GET ONE.  Or in my case, three.

Last night, I went to All About Scrapbooks for an "open crop."  This is when all kinds of ladies go sit in a tiny back room and cut up paper, and glue it to other paper, with EMBELLISHMENTS.  Wooo!  I went because I was hoping to get some quiet time to work on something crafty, and also because I thought they'd have free stuff to use (they did, but it wasn't anything fantastic).  I ended up only staying about an hour -- it just wasn't for me.  Too many women in too small a space.

Anyway, while I was there, I noticed that a lot of women were working on religious-themed pages (Xmas, Easter, etc.).  There was also a lot of talk about pastors, "my" church, and Veggie Tales (which I've since learnt is a Christian-themed kids' show).  Don't get me wrong, I thought it was great!  I love it when people are excited about their faith.  But instead of that sad, longing feeling to be like them, I felt kind of proud to NOT be like them.  Does that make any sense?  Proud doesn't seem like the right word, but I can't think of something different.  I kind of wanted to whip out a Passover-themed scrapbook layout -- do they make a gefilte fish die-cut? -- not to be all "I'm Jewish, in YO FACE!" but ... I don't even know what.  It just made me happy.

When I got home, Charlie had cleaned up all the dinner mess, Austin was in bed asleep, and everything was quiet.  After a little TV (and reorganizing my craft stuff, which had gotten all messed up on the way home) I headed upstairs with my latest Real Simple magazine.  I flipped around and found an article called "Good Advice for Tough Times."  It featured five people talking about how to survive crises.  The second page of the article had advice from Rabbi Niles Goldstein, who leads the New Shul in NYC.  His advice:

"View life itself as a condition without guarantees, one in which anything can happen to anybody at any time."

-and-

"Muscle tissue gets stronger after being broken down.  I believe the same is true for our souls.  Feeling broken from a crisis opens our hearts and helps us appreciate things we previously took for granted."

I got tinglies up my spine when I read this.  It was EXACTLY what I needed to read.  So, Rabbi Goldstein, if you're reading this, THANK YOU.  And yes, I will be getting off my heiny to count my blessings.

It occurred to me that I've been whining a lot lately, and whining about things that I totally have the power to change.  Weight?  Yeah, I can fix that.  Spiritually hungry?  Yeah, I can fix that.  I just have to do some work.  It's not going to fall in my lap, and I certainly won't get much help if I don't make some effort myself.  And as far as the stuff that's beyond my control (i.e. surgery, no more bebes), well, I can't control that; I can only control how I deal with it.

My third sign actually happened before I went out last night, but I didn't put it together until this morning.  Right before Charlie came home from work, I was flitting around, finishing up dinner and straightening up the house.  I looked around and didn't see Austin.  The downstairs of our house is baby-proofed, so he has free run, but I still like to keep him in sight (or at least in earshot).  I walked over to the front door, because sometimes he'll sit there with 'Bama to wait for Daddy to come home.  He wasn't there.  I turned my head, looking up the stairs, and he was HALFWAY UP THE STAIRS!  My first reaction was, "Holy sh*t, I'm a terrible mom, he could totally die if he fell! And it would be my fault!"  I ran up and got behind him, but I didn't stop him climbing.  He kept on going, and got all the way to the top without any help from me.  I couldn't believe it.  My little guy, not even a year old yet, not even WALKING yet, climbed up a steep flight of stairs all alone.  This little tiny person used all of his effort and will and did something that probably seemed terrifying and impossible.  He did it without whining or crying.  He did it without help (just a watchful eye behind him).  If he can do all that, I can, too.  I HAVE to.  Otherwise, what kind of example am I setting for him?

an update, long overdue

Well, it's been almost a full month since I posted last.  There's many excuses I could make, but what it boils down to is that I totally fell of my fitness wagon, and I've been too embarrassed to write anything about it.

It started with my birthday dinner at Rajput, where I ate a huge and fattening Indian dinner.  Then we hit up Doumar's, where I inhaled a root beer milkshake.  The following weekend, I had my birthday party, slammed down Jack n'Cokes and cake like there was no tomorrow.  I kept saying, "I'll start over tomorrow."  But the next day always ended up with me stuffing myself on leftover party food, and shoving my Jillian Michaels DVD into the back of the disc wallet.  

This is my standard cycle:  I eat crap, which makes me feel bad, so I eat more crap, which makes me feel worse, so I eat still more crap.  It feels like it never ends.

And to top it all off, about a week after my birthday, I visited my doctor to get a mystery belly-bulge checked, and he said I couldn't work out any harder than walking on the treadmill until he determined what it was.  I have, of course, used this as yet another excuse to do absolutely no exercise and to wallow in pity for weeks.

Fast-forward to the first week of February, and I've now had a CT scan of my belly which shows that I have an incisional hernia.  Basically, a loop of my bowel (intestine) is sticking out of a tear in my C-section incision.  I have to meet with a surgeon to decide if we need to operate, and if so, what sort of repair needs to be done.  If you don't know anything about hernias, or rather incisional hernias in particular, it's caused by tension on a previous surgical incision.  So they can't repair it with regular sutures or staples, because that creates more tension which will usually lead to another hernia.  Most of the time, they put in a piece of surgical-steel mesh to cover the hole, and your body grows tissue over that mesh.

Sounds pretty straight-forward, right?  Go in, throw in a patch, get out, boom, we're done.  Here's the kicker:  I will most likely not be able to have another baby if they do this.  The mesh will not stretch with my abdominal muscles as the baby grows.  But if they DON'T fix it, and I get pregnant, my whole C-section incision could rip open and cause my uterus to flop forward and potentially kill the baby (or me).  

So I'm basically up poo creek in terms of having any more kids.  I have said many times that Austin is the perfect kid, and if I was only going to have one, he's the one I'd pick.  But ever since I was pregnant with him, I knew I wanted more babies.  I have always imagined myself with three rough and tumble boys, Austin taking charge of his little brothers as they do all sorts of little-boy things.  Six little feet slapping along the floor, six little hands pulling on mine, three little voices yelling "MOMMMYYYYYYYYYY!" from the other end of the house.  And now it seems that dream is going to stay out of my reach...and all I can do is wonder why this is happening to me.

It's times like this that I really envy my friends who are what I lovingly call "Churchy," people who can give their worries up to God, pray, and be okay.  I don't have that kind of relationship with my faith.  My faith says that good things happen to people who lead good lives, and that's pretty much it.  So what does this mean, that I'm not a good person?  Or that this is a good thing and I just don't see it yet?  I'm sure I could dig through the Torah and find passages that make sense, that help me see what I'm supposed to see.  But I don't even know where to start -- I had to put my studies on hold so I could work on Sundays.  I feel very disconnected, adrift, sad, lonely.  I wish I could have some sort of sign or experience that would say, "Hey, see this Jesus guy?  He can work for you."  I have thought numerous times about calling Peggy, going to church with her, letting her pray with (and for?) me.  I don't know what that means, or what it means that I'm embarrassed to even mention that I'm considering NOT being a Jew anymore.  It's like being excited about a new boyfriend, talking about him constantly, and then not wanting to tell your friends when it didn't work out a couple of weeks later.  Not the most respectful simile, but that's all I've got.

So, here we are.  A little hopeless, a lot fat (again), and desperately wanting something, ANYTHING to change, but with no idea how to make that happen.