A little bit about dirty socks and underwear...

Honestly, how hard is it to change your socks and underwear after wearing them for a day? Bailey seems to think that if they don't run screaming from his body, they're still clean. I hate the thought of requiring him to bring me his dirty socks and underwear every day when he has to change clothes, but he had 2 pairs of socks in the laundry last week! GAWD!

A little bit about algebra...

I hate algebra. I've failed it twice and gotten a D once. The D didn't transfer to a different school, so I had to take it again. So far so good, I'll probably end up with a high B or a low A...until we get to word problems a.k.a. problem solving. I SUCK at problem solving. I'm REALLY good at solving for x. Or y. Or n or whatever variable you want as long as you give me the equation and don't make me formulate it on my own. But if you tell me that the speed of a boat in still water is 5mph and then you want me to figure out how fast the current is if it goes upstream in a certain amount of time, then downstream faster in the same amount of time, then screw you. Buy a speedometer for your frickin boat or get a GPS unit. Same with Angi and her brother raking leaves, because Angi can do it pretty fast, but her brother takes more than twice as long, so how long does it take them together, fire the brother and have Angi do it faster in the first place. GAWD!!!

This was my last test until the final, which is a week from tomorrow. I'm sure the final will piss me off because I can do all of the practice homework, but then he screws with a question and makes you find a variable you haven't done before. In theory, if you have all of the known quantities and the equation, it should be easy to come up with the answer. But since I won't have the equation, I'm screwed. My next class is problem solving, which will be 6 LONG weeks of word problems where I have to figure out how to formulate the equation in order to get the answer. I.Can't.Do.That. I'll be SO glad when I'm done with these damn math classes. Thank god Bill is smart and can help me with the online tests and hopefully I can get enough of the final done solving for x (or whatever) to keep a decent grade in that stupid class.

A little bit about my job....

I am a secretary. An Administrative Specialist. My bosses right hand. Example setter for the newer personnel. I hate it and I'm not good at it. I have 16 months maximum until I can quit. I haven't quit yet because we're getting a 5.5% raise and a raise towards market pay this summer. I also haven't quit yet because my boss is willing to work with me if I need to be out of the office for Bailey. No job has ever given me that kind of freedom. So I've stuck with it even though I don't like it and I'm not good at it.

When I took this job, I REALLY hated the last job I was in, it was truly beneath me. I answered the phone for every line in the building and transferred to the appropriate party because the boss was too cheap to have the phone lines routed to individual desks. I was bored all the time there because there were no challenges and only enough work to keep me busy for 3 of the 8 hours a day, other than answer the phone. I don't do well with boredom.

So, I interviewed for the job I have now and got it. In the interview, I kind of made some promises that I'm not keeping. Not because I don't want to, but because I'm simply not capable at the moment. I told them I was super-organized with a fine attention to detail and that was exactly what they wanted to hear, so they gave me the job. I am organized, but not in a way that most other people understand. I do have an attention to detail, but lately, it's started slipping. If you've been reading my blog, you know that I have been under a tremendous amount of stress in the last year, with failing to get pregnant and the the problems Bailey is having. It's taken a toll on my professional life. That, and I simply don't care anymore. I don't care about applying for money to give to ungrateful people who make our lives difficult and talk about us behind our back. I'm tired of doing work for people who aren't in my department anymore but still expect me to do their bidding because it's what they're used to. I'm tired of the backstabbing and the drama that comes with working in an office full of women as well. I printed out "trust no one" in French and taped it to my monitor so it would remind me to keep my mouth shut, and no one else would be able to read it.

On Friday, my boss called me into her office and chewed me out for her getting chewed out by HER boss the previous day. Over me. She wanted me there so she could yell at me in person and I was unavailable because I was taking Bailey to therapy. So she yelled at my boss instead, and in turn, my boss yelled at me. She told me my attitude stunk and that she didn't like getting chewed out because of something I did, even though she is directly responsible for her employees' behavior. Then, I talked to the big boss. She told me that it's not fair of her to do, but now was the time since it hadn't happened before, and she was putting me on notice that the bad attitude I've had FOR A YEAR is starting to affect the whole office. I'm setting a bad example for the rest of the lower level staff. I'm spending too much time talking about my personal life, therefore giving the impression that I'm bored. I also throw "temper tantrums" if I don't like something. Remind me to tell you about the green folders. And, I'm being two-faced by acting one way with coworkers and a different way in front of management. Those last three things are true.

A) I do spend a lot of time talking about my personal life. I'm stressed out. A couple of coworkers understand what it's like to have problems getting pregnant and what it's like to have a problem child. So I've sat at their desks and bent their ears for support and advice. And when other people see me doing that, apparently it goes back to the big boss as I don't have enough to do. Sometimes, I don't have enough to do and now they're going to fix that by giving me projects from different departments that no one else has time to complete. Great! I welcome that! So much so, I've outright asked other departments if there was anything I could do for them and told them to let me know if they needed help with something. No one has ever taken me up on my offer except for the big bosses secretary. I will help her do anything she needs. She hasn't asked me lately though.

B) Is it not human nature to act differently with coworkers than you do around management? I've never seen a manager slap their boss or that person's boss on the back after telling a dirty joke, but it's acceptable to do that with their employees.

C) The green folders. The administrators secretary wanted a new routing system for paperwork needing to go to upper level management, so she decided that each section should have their own color file folder to make it easier to determine who wanted signatures. The color my boss chose was too close to the color another boss chose, so I was asked to find new folders. Unfortunately, there are enough sections, that the standard color folders were all used. Folders of unique colors are not easy to find, they're generally special order and out of stock. I did manage to find a pale green, almost grey, folder that was vastly different than every other color folder in the divison. I brought them back and introduced them as "my ugly green folders". But before that, I told my boss that I was going to the office supply place to get folders because our folders were too close in color to someone elses and echoed her eyeroll with an eyeroll of my own. I let the executive secretary know that it was silly to buy all new folders because I had clearly distinguished my folders from the other green ones by plastering my sections' logo all over our folders. She said it didn't matter, she wanted a different color, so I rolled my eyes at her as well. I will own the fact that I blow off steam over irritants by having mini-meltdowns. They've been more and more frequent lately, and over stupider and stupider things. So I'm going to stop doing that. It's immature and it does set a bad example.

It really makes me angry that this problem was brought to her attention a YEAR ago and she didn't feel it important enough to tell me about until it until now. Yes, it was my responsibility reign these things in and behave like an adult. They let me get away with it for long enough that now it's become a REALLY bad habit that is going to be hard to break. One of the things I stated in my interview and at least a couple of times since then was, if you have a problem with me or something I'm doing, tell me immediately so I can make sure it stops. Don't wait for 6 months, then come down on me like a ton of bricks for continuing to act in a way that's unacceptable, but was never conveyed to me. Again, it was within my control the way I behaved, but there is some responsibility in management for it.

So now I have to decide what to do. That conversation is stuck in my craw and is not motivating me to change a thing and do better. However, I don't have a choice. I can't get fired from this job and I can't quit. At least, not now. I requested that my hours get cut back to part time in the fall so I can go to school for the next year for 6 hours a week so I don't have to do it at night. I can't lose my benefits or the freedom I have, at least not yet. Bill would KILL me if I got fired. He's also kill me if I quit for a job that paid less than what I'm doing now, and with a big raise on the horizon, I'm making quite a bit of money. On one hand, I hope that my request to go part time gets denied because I'd get to quit this August instead of next August. On the other hand, quitting this job and moving onto another job, then school full time, then into the nursing field, with the attitude and work ethic I have right now, isn't going to hep me in the long run.

So, I will again accept responsibility for my behavior recently, express my displeasure for not having it brought to me sooner so it didn't get to this point, and make every effort to not throw temper tantrums over stupid things, keep my personal life to myself, and treat everyone the same. For the time being, that's going to be with me sitting at my desk and not leaving it other than for a break, to pee or when I'm asked. I'm going to keep my mouth shut and my head down and not trust anyone to have my back, because even though I work with 15 people in my section, I'm truly alone. I will ride out the next 16 months as the model employee and set a good foundation for myself to be in nursing school. I will ask people what I can take off of their plates when I'm in a period of downtime before work can be assigned to me. I will be a model employee who will be VERY hard to replace when the time does come for me to quit.

A little more about Bailey...

We had Bailey's annual IEP meeting this week. For those of you who don't know, IEP stands for individual education plan. It's for kids who are mentally, physically, or emotionally impaired. Bailey's classification is "other health impaired". ADHD and Oppositional Defiance fall into that category. He needs special accommodations to be educated. His first problem is that he thinks that what he wants in any point in time is more important than what anyone else wants him to do. His second problem is that he thinks rules don't apply to him. He can always justifiy why he did something that he knows is against the rules. His third problem is that he doesn't accept personal responsibility for ANYTHING. He will not admit fault and he will always find someone else to blame if it's possible. Nothing is ever Bailey's fault. His last problem is that he has no pride, and therefore, he has no shame. It doesn't matter to him if he should be embarrassed that he talked back to his teacher or that he ran away from school or that he hasn't learned a single thing in 4th grade, he just doesn't care. He has no accomplishments to be proud of, so he really has nothing to be ashamed of either.

Bailey is going to get what's coming to him. Instead of continuing his IEP in a normal, mainstream classroom, he's going to be placed in a therapeutic learning environment where teachers are specially trained not to give in to bargaining, threats, manipulation, begging or any other kinds of emotional outbursts. They continually redirect students back to their task and make sure that it's finished. There is no choice for the student. They also have no privileges including lunch or recess with mainstream students, no art, music or PE at all unless it's been earned, and no field trips or special treats either. They must work and do what they've been told to do without question, manipulation, bargaining, arguement or refusal to work.

He's begged to not go to a classroom like that but what he doesn't realize that this consequence is a direct result of the choices he's made. He's been escalating these behaviors each year he's been in school and now we're to the point where behavior plans and special accommodations won't work anymore. He has won every mental and emotional battle he's faught with every teacher he's had because none of them have been willing to fight back and not let him win. They think they can love him into complying. Bless their hearts for it, I appreciate the effort, but we have warned every single teacher for the last three years that he's not like other kids and needs to have the line drawn early and often as to the boundaries and their expectations. Once they give in to him, it's over.

And now he's going to meet people who won't let that happen. Forgive me if I sound happy about it, but I kind of am. I'm kind of glad that he's finally going to be shown the boundaries between right and wrong and that he will be forced to make the only decision available to him: comply. I'm afraid that if we don't stop this behavior right now, he will continue to disobey rules and those rules will become laws and in 10 years we'll be visiting him in jail. So yeah, I'm happy. I'm happy that I won't have to dread answering the phone every time it rings with the schools phone number. I'm glad I won't have to dread opening emails from teachers complaining that they can't get him to do his work. I'm glad I don't have to reward or punish anymore at home for what happened at school. I'm happy.

A little bit about my best friend...

Let me tell you about Shelli. I've known her since I was 8 years old. We've been best friends through thick and thin. I've watched her suffer through her own parents alcoholism, emotional abuse and eventual divorce. I've been with her as her mother continued to berate her into adulthood, then finally die and leave Shelli in some peace. I've witnessed her brother go from juvenile delinquent with violent tendancies to an adult having been convicted of a felony and is now in jail. I've been with her through two failed, abusive marriages and single parenthood. Most recently, I've tried to council her against marrying someone she's kicked out twice because he is controlling and careless with money. She married him anyway.

Now, she says he wants to have a baby and even though she doesn't really want another, she's thinking about it because it'll make him happy. She tried to compare that to my relationship with Bill in that I had previously decided that I didn't want anymore babies because I was single and even if I weren't, I probably couldn't rely on any man I was married to to be able to pull his fair share in the parenting arena. When I met Bill, that attitude changed because he's not like most men. He's a good person, he has high standards for how he expects people to behave and is a GREAT step-father to Bailey. I changed my mind about having more babies because I want him to have the experience of having a child and I want to have his babies.

Shelli thinks that having a baby to make Pat happy is the same thing as my changing my mind about having another baby with the right person. In the next sentence, she's saying that she doesn't want to go through what I've been through with infertility and repeated miscarriages. She's afraid of birth defects. She's scared that another child would be so vastly different from her daughter, who is a really good, really even tempered, smart little girl, and she would struggle with a kid who is higher maintenance. I'm afraid that in 6 months or a year or two years, she's going to get sick of Pat making demands and wasting their savings and being passive/aggressive with her and she's going to throw him out. Their marriage won't last. I hope it does, for her sake, but I know it won't.

That's a horrible thing for me to say, I've been her best friend for 25 years. I think I have the right to say it, no matter how horrible it is though. She's asked for my advice over and over and over and gone against my very good council every single time. I never once told her what to do, I counselled her to take her time making a decision and to stick to it once she figured out what she wanted. She constantly waffles and gives in and blames herself for relationships failing. It probably is her fault, indirectly, because she has walls and unreachable standards and then repeatedly chooses men who are doomed to fail.

I want to be happy for her, and as long as she's happy, I'm happy. I know that even though she says that she doesn't know what she wants and they should wait until she's ready to make a decision, I'm certain he will talk her into it or she will give in to "make him happy" and end up regretting it later. She will resent him for "making" her have another baby and she'll probably end up resenting the baby when she's finally had enough of Pat, or he bails because marriage and parenting is too hard.

I guess it's a good thing that I'm the one person who will never abandon her. No matter what decision she makes, no matter what happens to her, I'll be there to keep giving her good advice. I'll be there when she ignores it and makes a poor choice anyway. I'll try to stop judging her for making what I consider to be poor choices, but it's hard. I love her like a sister and I only want good things for her, so I hope the culmination of all of these "poor choices" is eventual peace and contentment.

A little bit about Bailey...

Bailey frustrates me. For weeks, no, not weeks, for MONTHS now, he's been wasting his 4th grade education. Since the beginning of November, he's had maybe one day out of every 10 that he's been compliant and put effort into his work. I'm not talking about being disobedient now and then, and then getting to work after a warning. I'm talking about accomplishing NOTHING for the 2nd and 3rd quarters of this school year, and well on his way to wasting the 4th quarter as well. Until we can get him a special placement in a therapeutic classroom (a highly restrictive environment) for kids with behavior problems, we're trying the tough love approach. He doesn't get anything he doesn't earn. In the last week, he's lost access to his TV, his Gameboy, his MP3 player, and his handheld solitaire game. He's putting zero effort into his work, even when he is compliant and working. He's just answering the questions to get them done, he doesn't care if the answers are correct or not. Y'all, he's 9. He's a 4th grader. There's no excuse for any of this behavior except he only wants to do what he wants in that immediate second, consequences or rewards be damned. So I told him this morning that if he could have a "good day", he could have either his TV or Gameboy for the evening. A "good day" by resource room/IEP standards is 80% achievement. He got it. He didn't have to work hard to do it, he didn't have to struggle to get there. He just decided that he wanted the Gameboy bad enough to perform to get it. He can turn it on and off at will, and most of the time, it's off. I'm really frustrated with him and what makes it even worse is, nothing we do has any effect on him at all. Until he learns that making the correct choice is the only choice, nothing will ever change. We have a meeting with school next week to talk about how this is going and I'm going to push for therapeutic placement. I'll go past the school board to the state superintendent of public instruction if I have to.

A little bit about my exhusband...

I don't even know where to start on this one. Just about the time I think Bailey's father has "seen the light" and is going to do the best he can for Bailey, I get a phone call. Usually from my mother. Usually about having seen him in Casper when he told Bailey he was somewhere else. And this time was no different. She called to say that my sister in law, Carrie, who works at a very popular watering hole in Casper, the Beacon, saw Kyle with his exgirlfriend last weekend. Said exgirlfriend kept him from Bailey (because he's a HUGE dumbass and cracked under her influence) for 4 years until I got remarried and moved away. He followed and broke up with her. But he keeps going back. Carrie says she's a bar whore, who is at the Beacon every night of the week with a different guy and recently, she was arrested for being in a fight. A pillar of the community, that one. In the last two weeks, Kyle has started a new job where he can spend more time with Bailey, been involved at home and at school, helped back us up regarding dicipline and problems at school. He wants to have Bailey live with him part time after he's done with training in the new job. And then I hear about him being in Casper with a woman who doesn't deserve to have ANYTHING to do with my son, and being involved with his father and influencing his decisions is involved enough. Even worse, he's in a pretty serious relationship here with a nice enough woman who has a son. So not only is he a detriment to his own son, he's a detriment to someone elses as well. I'd LOVE to ask him if she knows. I'd REALLY love to ask her if she knows. I'm definitely going to point out to him that Carrie said she saw him with Cheryl. I can't wait to hear what he has to say.

A little bit about Izzie and Denny....

I'm laying here in bed watching the Grey's Anatomy retrospective sobbing my eyes out. You know that scene at the end of the episode where Meredith dies and finds Denny and Dylan in the light? Denny and Dylan, that's another very delicious post. Anyway, Denny tells Meredith she has to go back because all you get there is a moment every now and then, with the people you love, when you just happen to be where they walk through. A chance of a moment. It's enough for him because he's not ready to let go, but it's not enough for Meredity because she didn't have enough to begin with. So she goes back. Denny and Dylan are still dead. But Meredith is alive. And so is Izzie. She's walking down the hall and pauses and the camera pans around to show her shoulder to shoulder with Denny *sob* I can't even type that sentence without tearing up. Anyway, she's shoulder to shoulder with Denny and he says her name and the look on his face is perfect bliss and love for her and then it's gone. She feels the moment, the fraction of the moment and you know she knows he's there, and then its over and she starts walking again. The next shot of Denny's face is utterly heartbreaking and it's making me cry again. I bawled like a baby when Denny died the first time. I've bawled again every time I've seen it in rerun. Just about the time I was starting to get over Izzie losing Denny, they bring him back and it kills me all over again. The voicemail his dad gives Izzie kills me because she has to lose him all over again. And then just about the time I get over THAT, Shonda Rhimes, that GENIUS I worship, brings Denny back AGAIN. Denny AND Dylan *drool* THEN, we have to watch Denny lose Izzie every time he feels her presence. And then we moved on. Derek and Meredith are together *sigh*. Izzie and George slept together *um, ick*. Burke and Christina are going to get married *yeah right*, and we have to have a retrospective. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is adorable. Adorable and charming and makes you want to do really sweet things with him. Then he brought up all of the s-e-x that happens on that show and McDreamy makes you want to do NAUGHTY things with him. McSteamy in that towel makes you want to do REALLY naughty things with him. Then they show that last scene in the episode where Meredith dies and finds Denny and Dylan *drool* and Denny and Izzie in the hall and the expression on his face has me bawling again. I think I need therapy.

A little bit more...

I wanted to expand upon what I posted yesterday. In terms of not trying to get pregnant anymore, that's really the thing. "Getting Pregnant" and "Having a Baby" are not the same thing. Getting pregnant became an obsession. The end result, a baby, stopped having as much importance as two pink lines. I really don't know how to say it any better than that.

April 10

Thank you, Sara, for telling me I should blog. It seems like a good idea....but I guess we'll see if it really is or not.

So a bit of me in a few words...well, this will probably end up being more than a bit and WAY more than a few words. Women speak 2000 more words in a day than men and I talk a lot more than that. I'll probably talk about my job, my son, school, and whoknowswhatelse. Today, I'm going to start with whoknowswhatelse.

I've been married for almost two years. My husband said that he always saw himself with a wife and kids. Before I met him, I was SO not interested in anymore children, the one I already had was enough of an offspring experience for me. But Bill is an excellent step-father and a really good man and he deserves to have his own kids. So we started trying right after the wedding.

I went balls to the wall full force on this exceedingly complicated science experiment. I read everything I could find about timing and cervical mucous and basal temperatures. I was shocked that it didn't happen after 3 months. So, I went to see my doctor. He said there was nothing wrong with me and to come see him in a year. So I did more reading and joined a fertility group and tried all kinds of supplements and voodoo and chicken sacrifices (well, not really chicken sacrifices and voodoo, I don't want my neighbors to talk). Then, the day came. A positive test. And it all went downhill from there. Numbers that were supposed to double in a short period of time never got more than halfway there. Hundreds of dollars of blood tests and vaginal suppositories later, an ultrasound showed an empty gestational sac. So I had a D&C the same day.

In the midst of all of this, no one (other than online friends) knew we were trying, so it was a BIG shock to our mothers. The secret was out. The secret was out and the pressure was on. I waited. And waited. And waited. And my period never showed up. My doctor put me back on the pill to regulate my hormones. Wait a minute, aren't my hormones screwed up because of the pill in the first place? Ok, whatever. On my own accord, I had a CBC blood test that showed my thyroid was not functioning correctly. Ten days after I started Synthroid, my period returned and my doctor prescribed Clomid.

Let me tell you about Clomid. If you're interested in hot flashes, headaches, wicked mood swings, tennis ball sized ovaries and stragetically timed love making, then it's the drug for you. I've lost my marbles on Clomid. I've lost my marbles because of Clomid. I hate it. HATE.IT. I had one biochemical pregnancy that never implanted on Clomid and lots of false hope. I've nearly bled to death on Clomid and lost all of the physical components of fertility imperative to sperm meeting egg on Clomid. After 7 rounds of Clomid, I've decided it's not helping.

In there somewhere, we decided to consult a fertility specialist. He did $1500 worth of bloodwork to rule out clotting factors and genetic problems and immunity issues. He did a vaginal ultrasound in front of my very squeamish husband. He did a uterine x-ray that was really interesting, really expensive, and in the end, really a waste of time. Other than the fact that my estrogen is low, which is causing a weak ovulation and weak progesterone in the luteal phase, there's nothing wrong with me. The damn Clomid should have fixed that, and it did, but alas, not for a 9 months stretch.

So that brings me to the next part of this story. We want to go camping. We want to buy a travel trailor and go camping. That means we will have to take out a small loan from the bank to pay for it. Compounding that, I'm a mere 3 semesters from applying for nursing school and upon acceptance to the program, our income will dramatically decrease for a few years and I don't want to put it off any longer. And then there's Bailey. I'll talk about him later because that's an entirely different subject. I'll state it simply though: Bailey-stress is bad for my eggs and I can't handle one more thing on my plate right now.

Which brings me to the dramatic conclusion of this first bit of me...we are done trying. We're not done wanting it to happen, but we've passed the point where we are going to TRY. I just put my OPKs, my thermometer, my supplements, my packets of "baby dust", my litmus paper (don't ask), all of my "science experiment" equipment, in a shoebox and put it in the guestroom/nursery that may never be. If it's going to happen, it's going to have to happen on it's own.

Bottom line is, Bill doesn't want to be over 60 at his baby's high school graduation. I don't want to be pregnant past the age of 35. I want to have my RN license before I turn 37. I want to "fix" Bailey. And ultimately, I would like to have a baby. But I've reconciled it in my heart that it may not happen, so I'm going to have to be ok with that. If you go back up a few paragraphs, you'll see that this wasn't really what I wanted to do again before I met Bill. If he's ok with not passing on his DNA or the family name, then I am too.

It's a little bittersweet and it will probably take me a while to get used to not worrying obsessively about my cervical opening or my vaginal discharge or my melon-hard breasts that bounce painfully when I walk right after a Clomid-induced ovulation. I'm relieved as well. I'm glad to be looking forward further than my next ovulation date and waiting for a period that will probably show up, but you never know. I'm glad I can take a Benadryl to sleep without worrying what it will do to my cervical mucous. I'm glad to be able to have an alcoholic beverage when I'm really stressed out and have PMS without thinking "what if?" with every sip. I'm more than happy to keep taking my prenatal vitamins because they make my hair and nails REALLY strong and I'm too vain to give that up. Besides....just in case....