Too Damn Long!

Yes, it's been too damn long since I've been here. I've tried to stop by here and there and write a few words, but it's become increasingly impossible.

Let's get you up to date on the doings in my life. Baby is Toddler now! She's 17 months old, walking, running, you name it. Super independent, extremely sweet and very smart. It's daunting, how deep the love is for your child. Glad I didn't miss out on this. Still debating over whether to have one more, but thinking most likely....no. I'm very happy with our life the way it is, and so is the Italian. Just worried that one day Mag will say "why don't I have a brother or sister?" Don't know if it's entirely fair to her. On the other hand, would it be fair to have another child that I wouldn't get to see as much as I'd love to? Split Maggie's quality time when there isn't enough of it now? Blech. Big ass adult issues to deal with.

Work is fine. Offices moved and I'm quite happy. Family is smaller, my uncle passed away a few months back. I'm down to one living aunt now apart from our immediate family. New friends - yay!! How nice to have people around who are funny and interesting.

No real creative stuff happening apart from watching my daughter grow and learn day after day. And that is mighty creative!! Haven't seen a movie in a long long time. But I'm loving Dexter on Showtime. Season ended last night, so now I have to wait a whole freakin year for more! I'm nearly finished reading the 3rd Dexter book right now as well. I'll be in Dexter drought. I really think Michael C. Hall is a truly fine actor. Wow. What a range!! And he's got a hot little body too! Heh heh.

I hope you are all well and happy. I hope your holidays are great, and that you have a truly healthy, prosperous and love filled 2008. Talk to you soon!!

Tuesday

I always think of the Pogues song "Tuesday Morning". Ever hear it? It's lovely. It isn't Shane, however, it's Spider. You may have no friggin idea what I'm talking about. Once I was scheduled to do a Tarot reading for Shane and an A list actor. But it didn't happen. :( Oh well.

I was thinking of my past clients this week. One was an artist here in the city. She'd get very angry with me when I'd tell her what I saw, and it didn't coincide with her plans. I nearly made her a t-shirt of my constant mantra "this is what the cards say. it is not necessarily what will happen. you CAN change this". Unless of course it's detailed with Major Arcana. Then you're pretty much stuck.

I love the Tarot. My cards are packed away and I don't know when we'll get back together. We have a love/hate relationship. I am wrong on occasion, but it isn't often. They've been very good to me when reading other people. If I read for myself, it generally tells me I'll be dead in a week, so my question doesn't matter anyway. I figured out when I was 13 that they just don't like me reading for myself.

Good lord i need a vacation. How about you guys - any travel/stay at home plans?

Be back when I can. :)

Well hello.

Hope everyone is doing well. It's the beginning of June. I cannot believe this year is flying away. Maggie is 10.5 months old. She's turning into a toddler before my very eyes. I see changes in her nearly everyday.

We are currently living with my sister. Gave up the apartment I had for 10 years. It's a stressful time, but it's okay. It's only temporary. The Italian says there are people living in our apartment already - they loved the colors we had painted it and put up fuschia curtains in Maggie's pink room. I hope it's a good space for them - I did a lot of growing in that apartment.

Work is crazy. Non stop. At home I don't get to see TV anymore - and I miss it! I didn't know how much I liked it I guess. I love being with the baby, but she needs an earlier bed time. My sister is great at wearing her out. The baby is great at wearing us all out. She loves having a back yard to play in - it's a beautiful thing.

We're all healthy and doing the best we can. Childcare is a bit of an issue at the moment. We lost our beloved babysitter to grad school, and have since hired 2 more sitters. I came home one night and everything seemed great. Baby was happy, babysitter said she loved being there with her, great. And then we watched the nannycam. And saw my baby left alone on the couch. And saw my baby fall off the couch backwards. It was all I could do to keep my husband from killing this girl. Thank god Maggie's okay. Can you imagine putting a 10 month old child on the couch and then leaving her there? She can't walk, she climbs all over the place exploring...what an idiot! And she left her to get a coke. And beyond all this, she didn't tell me what happened. So when I called her, I said "look, I know Maggie fell off the couch", "oh" was her response. I could hear her shaking. She told me she thought she had lost our keys and was frantic looking for them. I didn't call her on the lie, she was really upset. I just said "please do not ever leave a baby alone, not for any reason ever. promise me this" and she did. Then I told her that what really got me was that she neglected to tell me, which gave me no other option but to fire her. Awful feeling.

It's a nightmare. Truly. Now we're interviewing again, but since we'll be at my sister's for the next few weeks, I'll be coming home early to care for the baby.

So that's the news on our front. What's happening with you guys? I hope you're healthy and happy. I hope you'll check out the new links on the side. My current passion is the site where you can get books you want for free, and get rid of the books you don't want anymore. And the other site I love is a click to donate site.

Much love to you all. I hope your summer is starting off nicely!

What's Up In PeonyLand....Well, we're moving. My kid's room smells like pot smoke too many nights a week. The apartment isn't big enough for the three of us afterall, and it's time to take a bigger step in life, so that's what we're doing. Wish me luck and pray for us!

We did find a great babysitter who we love, and who is graduating from college and moving away next month. Dammit. We had hired one woman to fill in for a week the regular sitter was away. Came the first of the two days we hired her for, didn't show up the second. Nice. Had to race home from my job so hubby could get to his. Maggie thought it was all very funny.

Then we hired another sitter for another week our reg wouldn't be in town. Seemed so sweet and loving to the baby. References checked out. She came in, seemed fine, wasn't. Let me just suggest to you that you get a nanny cam. They are invaluable. I know our current sitter has no idea why we love her so much. But what I saw on those tapes when we first hired her made me so happy. She dances with the baby, plays games, sings, watches videos with her...she loves her. The baby is happy with her. This other sitter? Holy shit. All smiles. Then my husband is out the door and she's planted on the couch ignoring the baby and reading my books, going through my cds and dvds. I think she looked at the baby three or four times in the span of an hour. That's it for her.

It's terrifying, isn't it? You don't know what happens when you leave your child with someone so you can earn enough to support them. I have a rule. If I like a sitter, I ask her what she charges. And that's what she gets. There's no haggling, no counter offers. We can barely afford to pay someone, but that's okay. We will pay you to take great care of our child. But shit, don't ignore her. For god's sake she isn't a brat or a pain in the ass at all. She wants you to clap with her, to make her laugh, she wants to make YOU laugh. She wants to hand you things and have you hand them back. We buy all kinds of snacks and sodas and juices for people to make sure they're comfortable. I don't know what people are supposed to do for sitters, so I do what I liked families to do for me when I babysat as a kid. I was GREAT at babysitting. It was a natural thing, and I had no training. It helped 100% when I had Maggie.

Anyway, moving and finding a great sitter is a lot of stress. Let me tell you what else is stressful.

I had to check my credit. I had a bad feeling about it. And I had a reason to feel that way. My identity was used for a cable and phone account in Florida. Collections on my reports. Terrible scores. Really bad news. So I started writing letters, doing the investigations. One collection came off, the other stayed. I spoke to the collection agency and they agreed to remove the item and assured me they knew I was not the person responsible for these bills (I have never even BEEN to Florida). They did not. I called the agency again and the managing dude was all "this is your debt, make good on it". I'm telling you, I lost it.

"This is not mine. I swear that it isn't. Your company told me they would remove this and you haven't." After about 10 minutes of me explaining what I needed to do, and how this collection was keeping me from doing it, he breaks down. Tells me he realizes this is the truth, but there's nothing he can do without some form of proof. Says I should go to the police station in my town, fill out a police report. Send it to him. Send it to the credit bureaus. So I called the local cops yesterday, and they came to me. Filled out a report, and now I'm praying that these people will remove this crap from my name for once and for all. If they don't, I'm in such trouble, I can't tell you. Light candles. I don't even want revenge, just clear of collections.

I have gotten my FICO scores up an average of 40 points each. I'm really hoping they'll go up about 40 more points. I hate this crap!

The job is good, but much crazier than ever. We'll be moving soon and that'll suck but I'll roll with it.

The baby has 3 teeth on the bottom and 1 or two top front teeth coming through. She's ridiculously cute. She has the best temperment and the sweetest soul. Her sitter cried before she left for vacation last week, said she'd miss her. I know she did. Last night she and I watched American Idol from my bed. Akon came on and sang, and she whipped her head around to see him. She smiled from ear to ear and began to clap her hands and made a really excited sound. Then I realized that she knows him, that he sang to her when she was in my belly shortly before she was born. That really freaked me out and nearly made me cry.

She was so ready to be born long before she actually was. So anxious to actually be part of everything. I'm nuts about her, I know. I keep wondering about having another one. I see people who have two and they're total brats because no one has the time to really spend with them, and then of course I see people with two and three who manage to do such a great job of handling it all. I have to make up my mind soon whether Maggie will be an only child or not. I just LOVE the dynamic we have as a family of three. Hmmmm. Lots to ponder.

Enough rambling about dynamics and Akon and dynakons. I'm outta here. I got rid of Perezhilton.com from my links - just really negative, mean spirited shit of late. We don't need that, do we?

See you all, but I don't know that it'll be soon! :)

I was gonna quit this here blog...and then I got a comment. And an email. And I have yet again changed my mind.

I love this blog. It's a testament to my pregnancy which was basically and honestly a miracle. You know, I loved being pregnant as much as I love being a mother. I was very very lucky. I know this.
I have decided to post here when the feeling strikes me. I will absolutely start another blog that I will alternately write passionately and freely for, and then ignore.

I'm staying. Won't be around much, but I'm staying.

Thank you!

Fired The Babysitter...

Oh I have much to tell you fine people this morning.

I came home from work on Wednesday night, and I nearly stopped to get something to eat before getting there. I decided not to, and came right home. I couldn't wait to see the baby.

I walked up the stairs, and I heard her crying. Screaming. I fumbled with my keys and opened the door. I could see the babysitter sitting on the couch in the living room. She was asleep or unconscious. It looked like something was wrong with her. I did not see the baby, but heard her screaming from her room. I thought to myself "let me go tell her I'm home and make sure she's okay, then I'll go check on the babysitter". As I walked toward her crib, I saw something moving on her changing table. It took me a moment to digest the fact that my child was on her changing table. The strap was buckled. A blanket had been on her but was now kicked onto her face. She was struggling, screaming, twisting as far as she could.

I do not know how long she had been there.

I took the baby off the table, calmed her down, made sure she was okay (as best I could) and walked into the living room, where the sitter was still sleeping. I had to call her another 5 times, and finally shook her. Now, she has been sleeping through my calling, yelling, and the baby screaming like I'd never heard before. I was scared. I thought...is she dead? Did she have a stroke? Finally she woke up and appeared totally disoriented. I would have thought she had been drinking if I didn't know her as well as I do.

She jumped up, told me she had gotten a terrible headache, that the baby was tired, but didn't want to sleep. She tried everything to help her sleep (this is true during the day, Maggie needs to be put in her crib and left alone for 10 minutes and then she falls fast asleep for upwards of an hour. The 10 minutes are full of crying and it's hard as hell to do). She said that as she was changing her diaper, the baby fell asleep, so instead of chancing it and putting her in the crib, she buckled the strap and....left her there to go sit down for a moment. In another room!

I understand that you don't feel well. I get it. But my sister is 10 minutes away and will be there in a flash if you call her (all numbers were given to her and posted on the fridge). It took a very long time for me to calm down and get past the fact that had I not come home when I did, my child would most certainly have either been on the floor or suffocated on her blanket. I'm still not past it entirely. My head was swimming. But the babysitter just didn't leave. She stayed, she apologized, then she tried to talk and talk and ask me questions and calm me down. It was all I could do not to say "you need to go. and please don't come back". I needed to sort out my head and my feelings.

Once she finally left, I spent time with Maggie and eventually put her to bed. The Italian called and I told him a diluted story of what happened. I gave him both barrells the next day. I didn't sleep well, I had dreams of black magick and terrible things. When I told him the undiluted truth, I had already made up my mind 100% to fire the babysitter. He agreed. We told her this morning. She didn't take it well. I felt so bad for her, but I know that Maggie's safety has to come before anything and everything else. She said she understood, that she knows we wouldn't be comfortable. I told her she could come up and see the baby, and she said she couldn't, it would break her heart. I don't understand that part, but I have to do this. It's going to be hard living there now, with her working downstairs everyday. I've known her for nearly 10 years.

And now we need to find someone who can work 2 afternoons per week and who we can trust with our child. I'd love to know if any of you have any suggestions on questions to ask and background checking tips. I'd greatly appreciate it.

Wow. So THIS is stress. Now I get it! :) Hope you're all well.

Not a fan of people today. Nope. Not one bit.

It was a rough weekend. My husband and I had one of those "one fight after another" weekends. I think we came through it alright, but man, when they tell you that having a child changes things, they ain't lying. 98% of what's been changed is for the better, and the last 2% is us having to really redirect ourselves and grow up. Whew. What a process.

But here I am, back at work. It's Monday, and I've been here for about an hour and fifteen minutes. My boss is giving me the cold shoulder (I was about 10 minutes late this morning and missed nothing). The president yelled and cursed at me for something that had nothing to do with me. This other stupid guy starts talking to me while I was on the phone to the pharmacist to refill my script and discuss my daughter's new prescription. I had to release the call to answer his incredibly stupid questions. Then, when I called the pharmacy back, the pharmacist was an asshole to me.

My daughter is 6 months old today. I want to be with her. I want to watch her face light up when Elmo comes on the tv and sings his song. But instead, I have to earn a living and get the benefits of being here everyday. It's not easy. I know most people have it harder than I do. I just wish I still had a friend to call who has been through all of this, but the only friend I had like that turned her back on me. Wow. I just wrote a whole passage about the end of that friendship and then deleted it. I was saying how this did not bother me anymore, and how I had grown used to it. But the tears streaming down my face seem to be saying something much different. Ridiculous. I need to grow up and get over these things. So what? You have a 20 year friendship, you make a mistake and are cast aside. It's 4 months. Whew.

Okay. Enough for now. I'll be back later. Hope your week is starting a little less chaotically!