a snapshot of my day

This has been one of those really downhill days. K was up all night with a sore throat, which meant that I was up all night too. I had intended on being to work by 7a, but that didn’t happen because of the long night.

At the beginning of the year I donated money to a friend of my aunt’s that has cancer and needed a bone marrow transplant. At 7:04 this morning a detective called requesting all of the information I have about the woman and the donations. He said he sat down with her and she admitted that she never had cancer and he is in the process of prosecuting her. Just in case something like this happened, I had saved screen shots, emails and Facebook chats of everything that transpired. I sent him all of that plus the transaction records from my bank for the deposits. (He had emailed me yesterday and I looked up the non-emergency number for the police department and verified his employment before returning contact.)

At 7:40a I called my boss to let him know I would be in after K’s 4 year check up. Then I saw something that my mom’s friend posted on FB and I messaged her for a bit. She is the friend whose uncle molested me when I was three. I asked her if I could ask her a personal question about Bakersfield, where we lived at the time, and she said ok. Then I asked if her uncle Stephen ever did anything to her daughter and she said yes. I broke down and started crying at that one word. I had always wondered, but when I found my mom’s friend earlier this year, I was too afraid to ask. I asked her if it was just touching and she said yes (she had caught him in the act with her daughter and she and her daughter talked about it quite a bit). That was a relief, because I was too young to remember exactly what happened and I never knew. I also asked her if she knew who he killed in Florida and she said it was his roommate, an old man. She thinks the roommate saw him doing something and then he killed him in the bathroom. During this conversation I called my mom and she gave me more details about how the whole thing was allowed to happen. She said that when Stephen would take me to the bathroom and we would be gone awhile, she would say something about the time and her friend would say ‘maybe he’s just giving her a popsicle’. Then when we would come back and I’d be crying really hard, he would say it was because he gave me a cookie and I wanted another one but he said no.

At 9:45a we took K to her 4 year check up. The doctor gave us some suggestions for getting her weight down to the 90th percentile from 95th, because her height is 90th percentile and she wants them to match. So we will be switching to 1% milk and cutting back on a few things. She made several comments about how smart K is and was happy about the activities that we have her involved with. She said K’s sore throat is viral, so she can’t continue with her two camps at the rec center this week. K got a few shots, which she was not very happy about, but she did use her words and told us how much she hated them while she cried, instead of just screaming.

I got to work at 11:15a and grabbed something from the cafeteria on the way up to my cube. Then I called the rec center about the camps. One will be switched to a similar camp for next week that costs $22 more, but there were funds on her gift card to cover it. The other one will be refunded to my debit card tomorrow when J takes them the doctor’s notes, because there isn’t a replacement camp for it.

While I was on the phone with the rec center, my boss came over to discuss our attack plan for all of my work that piled up last week when I had my surgery. He’s helped me get caught up quite a bit, which is good, because his computer died this afternoon and now I’m back on my own. Now I’m at the end of a 30 min lunch that went by far too quick and I’m back to plucking away at work until 8p.

12 Aug 11: Friday
SM drove down from Seattle, we went to the bank and I transferred all of K’s money into a savings account in her name, we went to the dollar store and picked up some items for K’s birthday party, then the grocery store – since SM was with us, K wouldn’t go into Playland and stayed with us while we shopped. That evening SM and I went to Trader Joe’s to load up on snacks and the cashier said to us “I’m going to have to say that you’re my favorite customers of the day” because of the way we were bantering at the checkout and arguing over who would pay. I told SM that we were like Grumpy Old Men, but she corrected me and said we were like the Odd Couple. After getting our snacks we went to bingo to try to win big money, but all we did was lose little money instead. When we got home I did my Access test and submitted it an hour before it was due.

13 Aug 11: Saturday
SM and I walked to the farmer’s market to pick up fruits and veggies for the party. SM said it’s the nicest farmer’s market she’s ever been to (it’s the largest one in Oregon) and that it’s organized really well. We bought a watermelon while we were there, so we had J come pick us up. While we were in the kitchen prepping the food, J commented that SM and I are like the Odd Couple, which I thought was pretty funny, because we hadn’t told him about what happened at Trader Joe’s. SM and I left to go get the cake, ice cream, avocados and a table cloth. When we got back, my brother and his kids were there and playing with K in the living room. My nephew really likes her dragon castle, which is good, because we got him one to give him for Christmas.

Once everyone arrived there were over 20 people in our tiny apartment – it was pretty chaotic! We ate first: our friend MH and her husband brought tostadas, and we also had cheesy chicken soft tacos, chips with salsa and guacamole, veggies with ranch dressing, strawberries and watermelon. Then I told the adults to clear out to the living room and told the kids to gather around the table for their activity. They decorated tote bags and all of the kids, from 18 months to 9 1/2 enjoyed it. After that was cake and ice cream. When I was carrying the cake from the kitchen to the table it started sliding and my first instinct was to put my hand on it to stop it, so the top of K’s cake was completely messed up when she blew out her candles. I felt pretty bad about that, but nobody else seemed to mind. Finally K opened her gifts and she loved everything she received: a Dora the Explorer pillow pet, a lollipop, a beading set, food for her play kitchen, a dry erase preschool workbook, a Barbie, two outfits, a Barbie dinnerware set (like a tea set), three books, and from us a superhero cape, Go Fish, bath toys, a Lilo & Stitch sticker book, pastels, and a craft project. It was a great, busy, crazy, fun day and we were all exhausted when it was over.

14 Aug 11: Sunday
This morning J and I played with K in her room. She still has balloons in there, so we alternated kicking and throwing them at each other. Then we played with her kitchen and helped her identify and put away all of the food items. J rearranged the living room and took the TV stand up to K’s room to be turned into a train table at a later date. While K napped, J and I watched most of Winter’s Bone (hopefully we’ll be able to finish after she goes to bed tonight). The rest of the day has mostly just been lazy – we really needed the downtime after yesterday! I’m going to stay up late tonight studying, because my accounting final is tomorrow night. If I can get all of my notes written up tonight, I can relax and enjoy the day with K tomorrow while J’s at work.

Thursday

K and I took J to work this morning, so I would have the car to take her to preschool. After dropping her off at preschool I went to the library. It was still closed, so I sat in the car and went through the Fall parks and recreation catalog, marking things that I’d like to sign K up for. I got to the rec center about 30 minutes early and planned to read a book until it was time to pick her up, but first my mom called and then a friend called to RSVP for K’s party. When I picked K up I asked her if she wanted to go home and have lunch first or go to the grocery store first. She said the grocery store, so we went there and she hung out at PlayLand while I shopped. We went home and she had cereal for lunch and then went upstairs and took a nap. J got off of work early, typical for this job because the workload varies from day to day. I woke K up and drove over to pick him up. She wouldn’t let me put a diaper on her before we left, so when we got to Nike we parked and went inside so she could use the restroom and get some milk. We bumped into my old boss/J’s new boss in the cafeteria and talked to him for a few minutes. Then we took the long way back to the car, because K wanted to go for a walk. We stopped at Winco on the way home to pick up a ham hock, because there was a recipe online today for a pot of beans that looked really good. Then we picked up a pizza at Godfather’s and headed home. I hadn’t had anything to eat all day and was starving, but we wanted to have a salad with the pizza, so when we got home I got everything out of the fridge for the salad and started cutting the lettuce. And then it happened.. I sliced my finger. The ring finger on my left hand. It bled like crazy, but the bleeding seemed to stop after I applied pressure to it for awhile, so I wasn’t going to go to the ER. I had put a Band Aid on it and took it off to put on a new one, because the first one was pretty soaked with blood and the cut started bleeding again and was kind of gaping. Yay – an uninsured trip to the ER! Fun! I had a tetanus shot six years ago when Livia cut my eyelid open, but they gave me another one since it had been more than five years and I had an injury. I told the nurse I didn’t mind getting stitches, I just didn’t want the numbing shot because it hurts so much, and she was nice enough to let me have steri strips instead. She said it will heal about the same either way. I got two steri strips and a bandage and I have to keep it dry for 2 to 3 days. She said to leave the steri strips on until they come off on their own. I was walking out to the waiting room to get J and K and right before I walked out the door, K fell and bit her lip and it was bleeding pretty good. We went back into the ER and the nurse used a baby wipe to clean up K’s lip. Home now. Tired. I did manage to eat two pieces of pizza before going to the ER, so at least I’m not hungry any more. I use the word ‘so’ a lot.. sorry. Too tired to think of another word to use.

I plan on writing on this goal every day and every night I go to sleep without doing it. Here’s a summary of the last week:

29 Jul 11: Friday
We took K to the Washington County Fair and she finally got to pet a cow! She also pet goats, pigs and… what was the other thing… sheep. We paid $6 for her to ride a pony. She rode one once before, but that one was more confined. This one was free to walk on its own and it was a long ride, probably ten minutes. She had a huge grin on her face the whole time. We met TN and RN there and finally met RN’s dad for the first time (he lives in Utah). I took K on an obstacle course thingy and I won’t be doing that again anytime soon! There were two bridges and the brats behind us were jumping on them, the only thing keeping you from falling to your death were rope walls that didn’t seem very secure. I was happy when that was over. J, K and I played a carnival game together, sharing 15 balls for $5. The goal was to get a ball into a colored cup and K was the only one that did, so she won her first carnival prize. J tried shooting basketball into a hoop that was not regulation size or shape. He missed, but still enjoyed trying. I popped two balloons with darts and won a stuffed tiger for K. If I had more money I would have kept playing for a bigger prize, because I’m pretty good at darts.

30 Jul 11: Saturday
K was invited on Friday to a birthday party for Saturday, so she and I went down to Wilsonville for it. We picked up a radio controlled Cars 2 set on clearance at Target for the boy that had just turned four. When he saw it wrapped he said he wanted to open ‘the big one’ last. I went to high school with his mom, and for 2 1/2 days in July her sister-in-law cleaned my teeth (it was at a dental school, so it took forever). The SIL told me that she wasn’t allowed to buy gifts anymore for the boy, because she buys the best gifts. Well after he opened our gift everyone said the same thing about us :) After he was finished opening his gifts, we all went over to the fountains to let the kids play for awhile. K wanted to play with the boys, because they had a boat, but they completely ignored her and then started kicking water on her to try to get her to go away, but she just kept following them. Poor kid just wanted to play!

31 Jul 11: Sunday
We went to a picnic at Oaks Amusement Park that my cousin’s husband’s lodge puts on every year. This was our 2nd year going and it’s the first time we’ve seen most of the family members that went since Thanksgiving. There’s a raffle and I won a $10 Regal gift card. I won last year too, so that’s good incentive for me to keep going :) Last year my cousin and I won the water balloon toss. J and I did it this year, but we didn’t win. That’s what I get for switching partners! A couple of my cousins took K on some rides – not sure what they went on other than the train. Then J and I took K over to the rides. I went on the carousel with her.. she rode a zebra and patted it on the back of the head, saying “this is a good zebra, I like this zebra”. Then she wanted to go on the Tilt-a-Whirl. The kids get free ride bracelets from the lodge and the adults don’t, but the girl running the ride said she didn’t see anything and let both of us ride with K. When we were seating and the lap bar had been lowered, but before it started, I told K “it’s going to go fast and it’s going to be scary, but we’re right here and you’ll be alright” and she said “okay”. As soon as it started she started crying and screaming “it’s scary… I don’t like it!” Oy! She was fine as soon as it stopped, but that was the end of the rides for us.

1 Aug 11: Monday
We took K up to Mt. Hood for the first time. We went to Timberline Lodge, instead of going farther up the mountain, and there wasn’t much snow there. It was blazing hot and the sun was blinding off of the snow, but K absolutely loved it. She threw snow, she dug snow, she laid in snow, she slid in snow. I thought she was a beach baby, but I think she just loves water of all kinds (like her momma!). We’re going to take her again in a couple of months when there’s more/fresher snow to play in. On the way home we stopped at Dairy Queen and discovered a new treat for her: banana split Blizzard. She loved it! Normally she’ll take one bite of something like that and then lose interest, but she couldn’t get enough of that Blizzard.

2 Aug 11: Tuesday
Tuesday I slept in until 11a and J forgot to take K to preschool. We went to Costco to pick up a few things and to see if they had their holiday toys in yet (they have some, but not the full selection). J had class that night… that’s pretty much all there is to say about Tuesday (i.e. my memory is failing me right now).

3 Aug 11: Wednesday
J finally started work, only to find out that the last day will be August 22nd. So much for 6 to 8 weeks. K and I did a little bit of a glitter craft, but man that stuff is messy! When I set the craft supplies out for her birthday party, I’m hiding the glitter. I put away two loads of laundry, washed two loads of laundry and dried one load (which reminds me that I still need to take that load out of the dryer and put the load that’s in the washer into the dryer). I was going to take K to see Megamind in the theater, but the thought of trying to wrangle her by myself quickly changed my mind. She played in her room by herself for awhile, put stickers all over her right leg, then said that the stickers were hurting her leg, so she took a bath to get them off, then took a very short nap and woke up in a foul mood. I was planning on taking her to the farmer’s market, but it was so so so hot out (yep, 82 is scorching to me, I don’t know how you 112 people do it) and humid and she was in that foul mood. When J got home from work we had dinner… battered cod, salad and broccoli. J had cut up K’s fish and she was trying to get a piece with her fork, but it kept sliding around on her plate. She handed her fork to J and said “Can you do it for me? This is really embarrassing.” Then she put her hand up to her forehead and shook her head. After dinner we went to the dollar store to pick up some more wrapping paper and then we came home and watched Master Chef.

Thursday

There are a few more things we want to get for K, but other than that, our Christmas shopping is done, and we have gifts for DM, RN, AG and RL’s birthdays. All for $186. It’s money we don’t really have now, but the deal was too good to pass up and it’s less than we would have spent if we bought for these occasions separately. I’m grateful that J has a job, however short term, so we could do this. Target does a 75% toy clearance in January too with their holiday toys, so we’re going to put aside about $200 of J’s money from work so we can stock up then too.

We bought an entire cart full of toys at one store and then an entire cart full of toys at another store. There were so many bags.. we’ve never been able to shop like that before. It was kind of exhilarating. We even have toys to donate to the giving tree for Christmas. And we picked up a board game for us.. there were 41 items total.

I’m exhausted.

Wednesday

J went to work this morning and K watched Dinosaur Island after she woke up. I saw online that some people were reporting that their Target stores had gone 75% off toys today, so K and I took the bus to the Target by the mall to see if they had. I think this was her first time on the bus and she did pretty well, except she wanted to constantly change seats. The store was still only 30-50% off, so I told K that I would take her to McD’s for lunch. We took the bus to the transit center and while we were looking for the next bus to take, J called and said there wasn’t enough work, so they asked him to come back on Monday. He came and picked us up from the transit center and then we went to the nice McD’s for lunch. After that it was clear that K needed a nap, so we stopped by home and picked up a diaper, then went for a drive. We drove out to Forest Grove and then decided to just keep going to the coast. K slept for most of the trip and when she woke up she was in a foul mood. We took her by the evil nasty place to see the animals, but we didn’t feed them this time. Then we took her to the Tillamook Cheese Factory for ice cream. There was a family of five there that did the 38 flavor tour and all of the ice cream workers sang to them for it. We heard one of the boys say ‘this is like a dream come true!’ After they sat down with their huge bowl of ice cream, the mom asked an older lady to take their picture. It was pretty awesome. When we left the factory, we drove around the country a bit and found a Jersey cow farm with cows that were very friendly and we were excited that we may finally get to pet a cow, but the lady at the owner’s house told us that we couldn’t in case K got sick or the cow’s got sick and they didn’t have the proper sanitizer and blah blah blah. We should have just pet them and not asked and played dumb if they said anything. When we win the lottery and buy a farm we’ll have a Jersey cow, because now I am in love with them. We drove up the 101 a bit to the place that my family used to camp at when I was a kid and where J and I camped at the weekend after we met. We went down to the beach and looked for tide pools and ran up to the ocean and then ran away from it screaming when the tide would come in. We did this over and over and over again and it was the most fun any of us have had in a long time. Then we drove over to where the rocks are and found the tide pools that we didn’t find on the beach. We spent quite awhile flipping over rocks and watching the crabs scamper away. We left with promises that we will bring K back the day after her birthday party. On the way home we drove through a neighborhood in Forest Grove that we’d driven by before but never through. It is the type of neighborhood we’d like to live in and many of the houses back up to wetlands, which is a plus for us. There was a house for sale – 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, just shy of 2200 square feet for 279,000, but it backs up to 5 acres of wetlands and the 5 acres belong to the property that is for sale, so that’s really a fantastic deal. It was a long, great day and I’m too tired to break this up into paragraphs. Also, on the way home, J reminded me of something I said the other day that made him laugh and for some reason it cracked me up this time and I couldn’t stop laughing and my cheeks were aching when it was all over. We were on the freeway the other day and we drove by a billboard saying that John Michael Montgomery is going to be at the casino on the 13th, and I said, deadpan, “Looks like we’re going to have to cancel your birthday party, K; John Michael Montgomery is putting on a show.” J thought it was hilarious how flat and serious I said it. It was fun times. I also stuck my head out of our moon roof for the first time today while J was driving and K thought that was just great and told me to do it again, but J didn’t like it so I didn’t. The first day of the last two weeks of K being two really was special.

Tuesday

We were up early this morning because K’s preschool classes started today. She goes twice a week, two hours each time, for four weeks. I can’t believe that two weeks from tomorrow she will be three years old. I told her today that tomorrow will start the last two weeks of her being two and it gave me the idea to do something special each year for those last weeks – last three of being three, last four of being four, and so on. I don’t know what the special thing will be, but tonight I relaxed a little and let her climb on the arm of the couch and jump from the arm to the coushions over and over again, because she is a child and she is going to get owies and she was having fun and she’s not a baby any more, but I did keep telling her to be careful and she was. I have to let go a little so she can have a good childhood and not always worry about things. I want her to have the confidence to explore and to get back up after falling down. I don’t want to be a helicopter mom.

While she was at preschool, J and I went over to Target and bought a candle and a card for JBM. We also picked up a bunch of dollar preschool workbooks for K for when we start homeschooling preschool in September. The one I like the best teaches the meaning of same and different. I loved workbooks when I was a kid and I’m hoping K does too. She has already started saying that she wants to do homework and she’ll get out a book and say “I’m doing my homework”. I know she is only mimicing what J and I say when we’re doing our homework, but I also know that she really is interested in learning.

It’s rumored that Target is going 75% off on their toys on Thursday, so we looked at those too and found a few that we’d really like to get K for Christmas if the clearance does happen. After I drop K off at preschool on Thursday, I’ll head over to Target to see what’s available.

K and I watched an animated dinosaur movie while J was at class tonight. Then we did three puzzles and then started the dinosaur movie again. I tried to find another one for her on Netflix streaming, but she said that she doesn’t like bad dinosaurs (or was it mean ones? or scary ones?) and only wanted to watch Dinosaur Island, even though the ones in Dinosaur Island are bad and mean and scary.

I deleted a friend off of FB a couple of days ago. A friend that I’ve known for eleven years. Because his statuses are always negative and judgmental and then he posted a backhanded anti-gay marriage status and I deleted him. But I feel guilty about it, so I emailed him tonight to explain why I deleted him and to tell him he can still email me, but I don’t think he’s going to respond. I’m impulsive and I’m not a perfect person and I’m crap at keeping friends. But at some point, also, you have to ask yourself why you’re friends with a person. Is it because you really are friends or just because you’ve known them for eleven years? I’ve never been good at emotionally letting go of nostalgia.

Saturday

We were supposed to go down to Springfield this weekend to meet my cousin’s baby, but K has a sneeze and cough and I didn’t think being around a newborn was a good idea for her. She’s been feeling warm too, but the battery in her thermometer is dead, so I don’t know what her temperature has been.

We walked to the library this morning to return a few items, then crossed the street and bought a few veggies at the farmer’s market. We didn’t get to look around much, because K kept saying she wanted to go to the water, so we went over to the fountains and let her play in them for awhile. The poking boy was there again, but he was more mellow this time and K didn’t even notice him. After prying K away from the fountains, we took a new route home through the neighborhood. We stopped at a water fountain and K wouldn’t leave it until she had at least three drinks.

Later in the day I drove over to 7-11 and rented two movies from Redbox. We watched The Adjustment Bureau and I put a book of Philip K. Dick’s short stories on my hold list at the library. After the move, K went up to bed, but her pillow was downstairs. She asked me to throw it up to her and when I did, she immediately threw it back down. We had fun going back and forth like that for a few minutes before saying goodnight one last time and then J went in and read a couple of books to her.

J and I are sitting down to watch Unknown now.

Friday

Yesterday I was spotting, but my period was already two days late, so I was holding out hope that it was pregnancy spotting. My friend’s son was born on the same day as K and now she was 7 to 8 weeks pregnant… the thought of the possibility of me being pregnant and the chance that our kids would be born on the same day – however remote the chance – was really exciting to me. Even if they were just born close to each other. But I got my period today, so that idea went out the window, and then tonight she miscarried and I can’t believe how broken up I am about it. I can’t imagine what she must be feeling right now.

There were other things today… it’s my dad’s birthday, had a friendly chat with him, started a new book that a 43t’er posted about, watched X-Men: The Last Stand for the first time since May 26, 2006, put two puzzles together with K, took two baths, had J run some errands for me, did my Access test, gave K a bath… everything will be okay.

Thursday

We took K to Critter Cabana, a pet store that lets you hold almost all of the animals. A springerdoodle bit my hand and it smelled like diarrhea around the dogs, but I got to hold a baby opossum and that was pretty cool.

After Critter Cabana, we took K to the playground at Memorial Park. She played for a little bit, and then went running through the grass and saw a baseball field for the first time. She and J ran the bases, stomping on each one. Then she ran up a hill and we tried to get her to roll down it, but she wouldn’t.

Later in the day we went for a drive in the country, trying to get K to fall asleep for her nap. She finally fell asleep, but 20 minutes later we drove by two cows that were very close to the road… she’s been wanting to see cows up close, so we woke her up. She looked at us first with a ‘why did you wake me up’ look on her face, but when she turned her head towards the cows she was all smiles and moos.

Next we went to a berry farm and picked four pounds of raspberries. K had her overalls on and she looked so cute running up and down the rows. She spent most of the time stomping on fallen berries, making her shoes a hot mess that now need to be washed.

In the evening we went to the store for a few ingredients that we needed to make a raspberry crisp. K was throwing some major ‘I have a cold so I’m crabby’ fits. The crisp didn’t turn out right and I had a migraine by the time it was done. My first migraine in two or three years, but it was pretty mild compared to the ones I used to get. After K went to bed, J and I watched an episode of Criminal Intent… I fell asleep on the couch before it was over.