May Day - Man Down

The plague hit us. The preschool plague finally hit us. We made it two full weeks before Liam got sick-sick. He started a cough last Monday. By the time our friend Kara and her 5 month old, Aidric, came to visit us on Wednesday, Jon and I had sore throats; Liam started having coughing fits during the night. I was sure we would be getting them sick too, but as she lives in Washington and we might not see them again until November, we had her visit anyway. Well, she forgot her coat and since I had to go into Roseville to pick up a note from my doctor, I volunteered to bring it to her on Friday. I drove down with Colin and the 4 of us went out for Cheesecake Factory lunch. I also brought her a book that is by one of her favorite authors (she turned both Jon and me on to him when we were up visiting them last June). I tried desperately not to cough on her since I was having awful post-nasal drip attacks.

I got home from Rocklin around 4pm. Liam had only been up from his nap for a little bit and he looked awful. Jon said he had been out of sorts and kinda tantrummy at preschool. When he got home, he proceeded to barely eat any of his lunch and headed straight into bed. He had a fever. A mild fever, but one nonetheless. He vomited while in bed. This is awful for us since he doesn't get sick like that at all. With Tylenol and love, Liam's fever had passed. But just at bedtime, it picked back up again. In fact, I could tell when it happened. He was sitting next to me on the couch watching Olivia and by the time it was over he had slumped onto me and was just staring at the television. The side of his face that was leaning on me was 103.4, but his forehead and other temple were only 101 so another dose of Tylenol he got and went to bed. Saturday, he was cool all day, but obviously out of sorts again. He spent the whole day on the couch when he wasn't napping in his room. And of course, by bedtime, he had another fever. He woke up in the middle of the night from a coughing fit and Jon spent the majority of the early hours sleeping in his room in the recliner because "he was just staring into the dark and breathing so pathetically. It freaked me out."

Sunday . . . cool and active all day. No fever. Officially ready for preschool on Monday. But oh, his nose runs and the snot and coughing are oh so bad. And he tells us everything hurts.
Liam: "Mah finger hurt. Mah knee hurt. Mah elbow hurt. Mah heh (head) hurt. Mah eye hurt. Mah ear hurt (this one makes me concerned because I don't want this cold to turn into an ear infection). Mah toe hurt."
Me: "Does your brain hurt?"
L: "Mah bain hurt."
Me: "Do your pants hurt?"
L: "Yeah, mah pants hurt."
Me: "Does your shoe hurt?"
L: "Yeah, shoo hurt."
You can see where this goes. I continued to ask him more and more inanimate objects that have nothing to do with him. Apparently everything hurts.

He was up at 6:30(OMG!!!) for Monday morning. He went to school and had a great day. He fought going down for a nap, but I slept with him and did okay until I woke him up with my coughing. Then he got into such a coughing fit that he vomited again. It was mostly mucus (you're so lucky you get to hear all this). End of nap.

Yesterday, up at 6:00am (OMFG!!!) for the day. But at least he was eating his cereal (he was fighting eating breakfast at home last week). He had a great day and was "so HAPPY!" according to his teachers. Nap was easy. He was being pleasant, but when I got out of the kitchen and took a good look at my child's pallid face with faint shadows growing under his eyes, I sent him in. He didn't argue or fight me. A definite sign he still feels awful. And by 6:30 in the evening, he grabbed his blankie and sang a made up song with "green ghost" as the only words (that's his blankie's name). He disappeared. I was nursing Colin so I figured he was just quietly reading when he didn't come back out. Nope. When I checked he was awake, but laying in his bed, facing the wall. When he heard me he looked me square in the eye and said "Mommy, I so sick. I so tired."

Breaks your heart :(

Today's been another day of miserable coughing and running nose. He and I slept at naptime again until, again, I woke him up with my own coughing fits. He's probably gonna have to have eye drops for pink eye (more on that in the next post) thanks to his well-child check-up today. Not looking forward to dosing my child with eye drops. I am already have horrid memories of my own parents having to do the same to me.

I'm going to drop off the infant in his daddy's arms and take the little man to the shower. I think we both need to get rid of these plague germs we have all over us (seriously . . . I'm sure you've seen a snotty toddler so you know how gross his face and arms and hands are right now).

halfway through leave

Yesterday I got a delightful surprise . . . lunch with my coworkers. Well, the lunch idea wasn't so much of a surprise because Katherine and I were planning on it. She gets her hair and nails done here in Colusa and had a nail appt so we were planning on lunch. But then we decided to ask two more work friends along, Emily (6th grade) and Cynthia (SpEd). Cynthia lives down the street and was the wonderful coworker who cleaned my house/babysat Liam so Jon and I could go out for our anniversary. Emily is my animal-lover-crazy friend who volunteers huge amounts of her time to the Yolo County SPCA (in addition to teaching the animals of the 6th grade). While we were there, another teacher who teaches 5th/6th combo at our small school, Kelli, and her family came in (she has a daughter a year older than Liam and worked at JJH the first year I was there).

We tried a little diner here in town that everyone's been raving about, Tommy's. I had a tri-tip sandwich that was fan-freakin'-tastic. We all had great conversation. Katherine is keeping the AVID program going at work and we actually have enough upcoming 7th graders to go back to teaching 2 sections of AVID next year; alas due to the giant size of the current 7th grade (next year's 8th grade), we don't have enough teachers to allow bringing back that 2nd section. Bummer.

I'm apparently going to be teaching a section of 8th grade US History next year. The principal announced this at a staff meeting the first week I was gone, but he and I had only had one discussion of it "as a possibility." This is basically because the 8th grade history teacher is NOT retiring this year (although I knew he wouldn't) and still wants to teach his "reading comprehension" intervention that he's teaching this year (although, I'm actually more qualified to teach an English intervention than he since I have a credential in English since last March). Katherine and Cynthia were a little aghast when the principal announced this but I am looking at it as a positive. IF I stay at this school, I see it as a challenge to really show the administration that the 8th grade teacher is totally out of touch and a poor teacher. He's boring, lectures all the time, derides the kids on their comprehension of US history, and frankly has pissed me off since he made a negative comment about my curriculum to the students (TO THE STUDENTS - who, precious cherubs they are, promptly reported back to me). So, IF I stay, I guess I'll not only be putting on another medieval festival, but I'll also be needing to find ways to show up the lazy/lousy teacher in my department.

That being said, my leave is now a little more than half over. I'll be honest, I'm a little bored. But that's because I haven't really made the decision to whether or not I'm going back for the remainder of the year. My leave officially ends on the 6th of May and basically has me going back for 18 school days (the last week of school has a holiday and ends on Thursday). I know I won't be the best teacher for that last month because I'll be very very tired doing the working-mom thing. I also don't want to jeopardize the work Colin and I are doing on breast feeding (something I felt happened when I returned to work with Liam). But I can't really find an angle to get my doctor or my psychiatrist to give me the rest of the year off with medical leave. That would allow me to continue to draw on my disability and get "paid" during leave. Legally, according to my contract and FMLA, I can take 5 months off from my job, but only with differential pay which means I have to pay the sub out of my check and still pay for health insurance and taxes on my whole check (even though I'm not getting all that money). I think if I knew I was not going back (since I'm still undecided), I would be starting some projects with Liam and Jon in addition to my bonding time with Colin. But I don't really want to start anything too much now since I don't know if Jon will keep up with it if I do go back to work. Another problem is we still haven't put Yam in daycare yet, although we've found a school I think I like and he's certainly ready to go, even for partial days/weeks.

And then there's the overall, shadowing question (made all the more real when Cynthia confided in me that she really may not be returning next year - entirely not her choice and a stupid mistake on our principal's decision making part) . . . what else am I going to do because I really really really don't want to work in Arbuckle anymore?

random thought on a tweet I read

The key to getting older (and wiser) is to learn from your mistakes, not repeat them, and to keep making new mistakes for the sake of novelty.

Him: So you're saying we were a mistake?
Me: No.
Him: So you're saying you're just going to use me for entertainment?
Me: You're assuming you'd be a mistake.

sweet heart friend

I just have to say I have a most wonderful friend in WA. When I got home tonight, Jon said Kara had sent me a package. I thought it might be some of her maternity shirts since she gave me 2 while she was visiting over New Years. She's smaller than I am and definitely not as wide across the shoulders, but still...free clothes right?!

Well, I open the package and there's a shirt, a PINK sweater, and a cardigan all with tags still on. Oh man, stuff she never even wore? Jon found a gift receipt and said it must have been some stuff she was gifted at Christmas and didn't want. But NO! The receipt was dated 1/10/11. She literally just bought the shirts on Monday and sent them to me. Holy cow! What a friend! I feel like a little bit of stress has come off my shoulders - someone heard my woes and responded with a super surprise.

LOVED!!!

Pregnancy update: 28 w

This is probably gonna be more of a life update than a pregnancy update. Depending on who you talk to/what book or website you read, this is the week I got into the third trimester. I don't care if it was last week or this; it has become painfully obvious that I'm now in tri 3.

Yesterday afternoon was so so nice. We got to see our friends from Washington and their new little Baby Boy, my de-facto nephew, Aidric. I've known this couple for years. I went to high school with Kara and met Mark when the three of us started working in the cafe at Borders Books. I went off to college and Jon, Mark, and Kara followed me up to Chico the following semester. Kara only managed one semester before going home; Mark lived with Jon and me for the next 3 years. Mark would have been in my wedding as my "Man of Honor" if the US Navy had let his butt fly back home. Jon and I helped to break off Mark's ill-fated engagement to a true harpy of a woman just 1 week before the wedding and, within months he started dating his old friend Kara. Just a week before my due date with Liam, they called us from S. Carolina (where he was stationed and she was visiting) to say they were getting married that weekend. They've since been stationed in Bremerton, WA (across Puget Sound from Seattle). They called us first before their parents, to make the official announcement that Kara was pregnant. We visited them before our cruise this summer and our official start to trying to get pregnant with Baby B. Kara had Aidric on December 2; because her sister had to push her wedding up early, they made the stressful trip with a 4 week old on a plane in the holiday travel season to fly back home to Rocklin, CA. Hence, we got to see our little nephew and hold a tiny baby (and of course visit with our dear friends one more time before Mark goes on a year's worth of multiple deployments with his carrier).


Kara was kind enough to give me some maternity shirts that are long sleeved and I could possibly wear to work. One is a little too small in the shoulders (I'm broad like a swimmer and long waisted to boot so shirts any time of the year is next to impossible for me to feel comfortable in) but I'll make do. It was amazing holding a little baby again and knowing that I'll be holding my own in just a couple more months.

Kara is also getting pretty good at the mom thing, although I love how they've barely even gotten to hold their little guy while being home and visiting all the grandparents and greats. They were also ecstatic to leave their little guy at home while we all went out for lunch at Boudin Bakery - ahh it was so nice for me and Kara; she's been missing "real" sourdough bread and I've been missing bread in general. We got soup in breadbowls, yum!

Liam was charming and delightful. Us grownups had a wonderful gossipy time and of course the guys had to suffer through all the gorey details of a woman's body postpartum. Mark is also starting to get comfortable with his little boy. He didn't fall into the fatherhood role as easily as Jon did, but you can tell it's growing on him.

Update: So today, I've gained back some of the weight from being so sick on Thursday (and again blech on Sunday). I'm only up .2 lbs from my first appointment. My blood sugar levels have been really good for the last two weeks. I even felt really good during the first week of vacation and I attribute it to keeping my sugars under control. This week was a little weirder since I was trying to just keep food down for a couple days. Baby B is the size of an eggplant now: about 14.5"-15" long and a little over 2 lbs. He kicks the crud outta me at night, right at bedtime when I'm trying to read and get settled. I'm getting a twingy nerve pain in my lower left spine - praying it's not a return of my pregnancy sciatica. The belly itches. The boobs aren't growing much (but the ass is much smaller and my maternity jeans are slip-slip-slipping down to the point of distraction). Heartburn has shown up during bedtime or sleep a couple of nights this week, but it's been controllable with a single Tums (did you know I have to have sugar-free antacids? sheesh!). Still no name yet. My depression has been getting harder to deal with, but that's "a whole 'nuther" post. New development: I haven't worn my wedding rings all week! I had had to have the diamonds upsized for our anniversary last year because I was hovering around 200lbs and my finger was just too fat. Well I'm still right around 200lbs but I've lost so much due to the GD diet that my diamonds just spin around my finger and even my wedding ring is getting too big. Note that I'm wearing them in the pic below, but that's because we were going out in public. I don't even know if I'll be able to do even that much longer.

The Mathesons and the Rogerses with our little boys. Mark, Kara, Aidric (1m), Liam (29m), Jon, "Baby B" (28w in utero) and me!I also love how Aidric and B will be close enough in age to be pals if their parents can ever be in the same location at the same time again. Liam will be old enough to hate his tag-along brothers, but you know they will idolize him as younger siblings should.

It's the thought that counts, right?

Warning: this is a pity party. - Do not read on if you're not open to being sympathetic because I don't need criticism right now.

Money's tight this Christmas. It's been tight all school year. In order to save my job (and 2 other teachers and a couple of classified staff) we all took a 2.73% paycut in the form of 5 furlough days. Honestly it's not that much. But over the summer we all took a devastating blow to our paychecks in the form of health insurance increases. My plan went up almost $200/month and no, there was no way in Hell I was changing my plan because I'm lying to the insurance company about where I live just to keep my HMO; my Ob/Gyn has been my primary care physician since I was 12 and lost my ovary to a 30lb cyst. So what was only gonna be about $110 cut from my monthly check (there went my thoughts of joining a gym) is now $300+. Ouch.

We already had to skip out on a Thanksgiving party we were invited to because we just couldn't afford to drive to Sacramento twice in one weekend (it's a 90minute one-way drive now) and bring a dish to share with a whole housefull of people. We're sorry, was our excuse, but money's tight. No problem, don't worry about food, was the response. But then the follow up reminder emails (mass mail) reminded people that not enough people had offered to bring main dishes and sides. Obviously it was about the food. We skipped it and felt like jerks.

Next Sunday we are supposed to go to a friends' house for a Christmas get-together. This time, the hosts are feeding all (different couple and much closer friends) and we've all been asked to only bring something if we want/can. But the emails went out that we should only bring gifts for the children attending. I sent a text to our friend saying that, although we'd love to bring gifts for the kids, we just can't; and that Liam really doesn't need anything because our families will be giving him enough. We are bringing 1 gift for the hosts' son because it's his 1st birthday (she had him 2 weeks early last year on Christmas Eve, the day after we all gathered at their home for a holiday get-together). She replied that they understood, but since she'd already mentioned it in the email, would it be okay if people still brought gifts for Liam. Well, how should I respond to that? . . .

I broke down into tears over this conundrum. I don't want people bringing us gifts for Liam. I know it's the thought that counts, but our group of friends is not exactly honest about their financial struggles. We are honest with them. But we don't know if the others are struggling; I know one couple certainly isn't struggling, but they're also the type to hold grudges. I feel awful getting gifts for our son and not bringing anything for the other children. But I feel obligated since it already went out in an email (like it was expected that we'd all bring gifts). That's what I was trying to say in my text to the hostess; we just can't afford it. I know I'm being selfish, but I can't even justify going out and buying maternity shirts for myself so that I have tops that fit and I can wear to work without looking like a total slob (all my clothes from my previous pregnancy are summer weather). When I can't justify spending that kind of money on myself and my job, how can people expect us to buy their children gifts?! I'll feel like a total asshole if we go, eat other peoples' food and get gifts for our child without bringing anything with us. But I CAN'T afford it!!! Sure I'm sure we can economize somewhere else in our lives, but not soon enough to buy gifts. Basically I feel like a complete and utter asshole!

Jon sent another text to our hostess to find out exactly how many children would be there and said maybe we could figure out something small for each child. There will be 4 + our Liam. That's like a minimum of $40 - a maternity sweater, a tank of gas, milk and meat for my diabetic diet. I was seriously sobbing over this and I know that my feelings are a combo of pregnancy hormones + depression. I guess my zoloft hasn't quite taken the edge/sting off of things yet. But I feel guilty and selfish and disappointed in myself for not being able to provide enough for my family. I also feel really upset at my friends for being so inconsiderate and making something like gifts for the kids be a social obligation and not just a nice thing to do.

If it's the thought that counts, then my counts are mired in low self-esteem, frustration, stress, and friendlessness.

Couple of triumphs today. 1) started a calligraphy project with my 7th graders; they like it. 2) just wrote a great letter to help a friend's son start K early

baby news/suspicion

Here we are, about to go to the doctor this week and I swear I've got some major baby on the brain. Mostly because I'm thinking everyone is getting pregnant right now. Well, by everyone, I mean 2 people. Friend #1 recently posted a cryptic FBook post about her "insides" and a comment she got from a nurse practitioner and tests. We saw her at a BBQ this weekend and I don't recall a single alcoholic drink in her hand all evening. Hrmmmm. Friend #2 is the wife of one of my college roommates (she was a roommate at one point too). At the aforementioned BBQ, my old roommate called to ask what a good Mother's Day gift would be for his wife. Squeeeeee! So he says she's definitely preggo and I was the first person he told (only fair since he was the first person we told with our DS). They haven't even seen the doc yet, but she'd be 6 weeks or so now. Awww man. How awesome. They're looking at an Xmas baby.

So, yeah. I'm really getting the itch now.