Bittersweet

My mom and my brother came over last weekend and helped out.  My mom didn’t feel well but was able to enjoy her granddaughters.  Her primary goal was to watch them while we moved but those girls are active and demanding and she did not feel well, so she had a nice visit.  My brother and Daddy moved the heavy, two people things.  My brother made a bunch of other plans while he was here, so it was a rush job and it was too hot in the afternoon.   Some things didn’t fair too well, some things were broken and bruised.  Daddy was left to do the majority of the moving by himself.   He worked really hard too.  I tried to help what I could, but working with one arm days after surgery didn’t work well.  Everything is so disorganized at the new place, it’s overwhelming.   With the over 100 degree temperatures and no central air, things are not getting put away.  We have a window air conditioner, but that means one cool room and it’s hard to leave it.   

We finally received a letter stating we had 20 days after the sale of our house to be out.  It came three days before the 20 days were up.   We left behind a few plants and some of the garage shelves that we wanted to take, but temperature and time necessitated it.   I did go back and get the white rose I was digging up before the bee so rudely stung me (unprovoked) on the finger.  (I felt like a huge wimp - that sting hurt like crazy and kept hurting for hours later.   I agree with Paige’s family, they must be killer bees from
Africa!!!)

First, my surgery went well.  They think they excised all of the tumor and a little bit of healthy tissue as well.   I have a huge bruise and lots of soreness.  Vicodin has been my good friend.   The girls don’t understand that Mommy can’t pick them up, so it’s been a tough adjustment.  Wait, that makes it sound like I’ve been good and haven’t picked them up.  That’s a lie - I have picked them up…a lot.  I need my snuggles.  I went in for all my preop stuff at 6:30 a.m., then it was over to the breast care center for the wire and dye.   Lucky for me they had a new machine, so the company rep, the ultrasound tech, another tech who wanted to watch it in use for the first time, and finally the doctor.  It was a party!  Ha!  Because the tumor is so deep, he had to keep giving me lidocaine to numb the area, then go deeper and numb some more and then deeper and so on.   Then they thread in a wire that is tiny and flexible which they left in.  Then they inject the tumor with a blue dye (which I have come to associate with bad things - remember back to the botched amniocentesis and blue dye).  After the blue dye,  I went in for another mammogram to make sure the position was good.   The mammogram tech wouldn’t let me look at the wire site.  She said it would upset me seeing about 3 inches of wire coming out of my body.   I managed to get a sneak look before she pushed my chin in the opposite direction.  Trust me, nothing is worse than seeing either the ginormous amnio needle or seeing screws and hardware sticking out of your foot for several months.  A thin wire was nothing. 

Then it was back to same day surgery for the actual procedure.   My doctor was behind on his cases, so I had to wait for a while.   I didn’t mind a bit.  They had me wrapped up like a mummy in warm blankets and I couldn’t stay awake.  Who needs anesthesia when you’re super tired and all snuggly warm.  I kept calling it my “spa treatment.”  Daddy managed to drop off the girls and get there in time before my surgery and was able to talk to the doctor afterwards.   After the relaxing medication in the OR, I was out.   The first thing I remember as they were waking me up is that they said I snored!!!  Must not have been that delicate snore.  How embarrassing!  As long as they got a good laugh I guess.  I can always deny it since I didn’t hear myself snoring.   I hope, though, they didn’t put that in the chart.  Back in the recovery room, it was so hard for me to stay awake.  I just wanted to catch up on my sleep.  They were ready to ship me out, but the recovery nurse was nice enough to let me sleep for another 45 minutes or so.   They had me gone by 2:30 pm.  I kept up on my Vicodin and ice, which also meant I slept a lot that first day.  If I had my way, I probably would have slept 24 hours straight.  Since we were living in the new house, there was chaos everywhere and both girls wanted snuggle time with Mama.  I still slept a lot, but I felt guilty about it. 

I have to start out with the park.  It is a beautiful park and the girls loved the swings and playground, the dogs loved the trails and being able to run free and to chase rabbits and squirrels, but the fun ended there.  It was host to a number of homeless who camped out in amongst the bushes and trees.   Last year a guy parked in front of our neighbor’s house and slept in his truck.  Also the perverts liked to hang out.  How do you know which ones are perverts?  You know, the ones who hang out along an isolated trail who look like they are waiting for someone, eyes constantly scanning those who walk by.  Or they walk out of the bushes and you just know.   Of course there is the occasional pair of underwear laying on the ground.   The park is also a hang out of a local gang.  This keeps the Sheriff’s Department in our neighborhood pretty frequently, several times a week, sometimes daily.   Don’t forget the people who park at the park, walk down the street, in front of our house an then over to the drug dealer’s house.  Also, from time to time there is the abandoned, stolen vehicle dumped across the street.  

Oh yes, the pitbulls.  The neighbor’s lovely, aptly named after Tony Soprano’s wife.  That freakin’ dog has been a problem since day one.   There are several other pitbulls around and have done things like jumped the fence into our yard and stare at us through the back French doors.  

Hopefully today, or at the latest, tomorrow afternoon, we will hear about the rental house.   The owner came over to our, rather the bank’s, house Friday afternoon to get the money for the credit and background check.  We never cleaned our house and property so fast in our lives.  Since we know we are moving, the yard has been very neglected and the girls had a bunch of paper to color on outside, so it was scattered all over the back yard.  We had half an hour before he came.  The front yard was already mowed, so Daddy mowed the back and cleaned up a bunch of stuff.  I strategically placed big toys over holes the dogs dug and picked up papers.  I also cleaned up the bookcases and the desk inside.  We had done a bunch of house cleaning earlier, so that was a big plus.  Apparently we passed as he asked for the money for the credit/background check.  He told us who he uses for this and I work with the owner’s daughter.   I wish that had some influence, but it was just a funny co-incidence.   The owner called back again on Saturday to see if we wanted to see the property again or if we had any questions.  I think the real reason he called was to find out more about the free flight simulator on Google Earth that Daddy told him about  the day before.  I think it looks good.  We were totally honest about our credit and why we are losing the house and that our credit report will look absolutely horrible.  He said he would work with us as long as there were no surprises.   We couldn’t have been more honest.   Maybe my 17 years of continuous employment at the same place might have helped too.  It certainly didn’t hurt.  

During our mad dash to clean up, Daddy rammed his knee into the edge of the fender on the trailer.   It was so bad, he went to the doctor and they are wondering about it being a damaged ligament or something.  He’s supposed to stay off of it….ummmmm, excuse me, but we are supposed to move soon!   Like I say, things will work out one way or another. 

The girls are growing up so fast.  I know I say that frequently, but I’m constantly amazed at it.  Last weekend Nana watched the girls for a little bit so we could do a few things.  When we picked them up, Bug started calling me “mom-mia.”  Not just once, but constantly.  Now a lot of words have “mia” attached to the end of them, even “da-dia.”  Weird.   She is saying just about everything in sentences now, sometimes rather strangely worded, but intelligible.  Well that is if you are Momma.  I translate a lot of things for Daddy.   Bug is a very good mama.  Last night she bathed her dolly, dried her, put on lotion and then dressed her for nigh nigh.  She is very gentle with her babies….to a point.   Sometimes she throws them.   Last night she got mad at me for making her stay in bed so she threw her baby.  Later she was sad because baby was gone.  Once we found her, she quietly scolded  her baby - “No-No, No-No Baby” and rocked her at the same time.  I guess baby was in trouble for being lost.   She is such a sweet, loving, little girl most times, but two is such a hard age.   I thought of it this way - she is expressing her emotions of anger, fright, disappointment, etc. that she is learning about as a toddler.  It’s the same way I feel like acting as a hormonal woman at that time of the month or when I was pregnant, I just hold it in more.  Trust me, if I could get away with throwing myself on the floor in a fit of anger, I would! 

Littlest has been doing great.  We actually went two whole months without taking her to the doctor!  We were going pretty much weekly.   She now weighs 22 pounds and is walking around like crazy.  The ear infection threw her off, but she’s a trooper.   She is such a tease and is ready to laugh.  If you tell her that you love her, she will shake her head and say “no, no” in that raspy baby girl voice of hers.  Then she will say “I wuv you!”  She says thank you and “Pooper” instead of Cooper like her sister does.   She says all kinds of things now.   She also has 8 teeth now - all the better to eat!  I gave her cooked broccoli last night thinking she would toss it on the floor.  Nope, she ate all of it and wanted more.  She’s like a garbage can and will eat just about anything.  

I went through a period of time when I thought I needed to have another baby and it was a real struggle to convince myself that two was enough.   Littlest started walking and immediately I thought, “I don’t want anymore babies!”   It’s so much easier when they can walk and communicate.   (I think I heard a collective sigh of relief out there.)

I had my surgical consult Wednesday.  I’m scheduled in two weeks to have the tumor removed.   It’s just a same day surgery and it won’t be too bad.   The surgeon strongly encouraged me to have it done sooner than later because of the type of tumor.   I’ll elaborate more later.

We looked at a house yesterday that was clean and wonderful, I hated the location though, but it will do.   Hopefully we will hear something today.  

**Today was the auction for our house.   The minimum was some crazy high amount that only an idiot would bid (and there are some out there).   It happened this morning, but I don’t know the outcome.  My suspicion is that the bank still owns it.

**House hunting sucks.  Everything decent is too expensive.  Everything in our price range is small, scary, and frankly, I wouldn’t want my best enemy to live there.

**We found a place we could live in, but the yard is a disaster. 

**I hate my new birth control.

**I swear I can feel my rapidly growing breast tumor rapidly growing!

**My husband is being REactive instead of PROactive to the stress and it’s stressing me out.

**Dogs are expensive, especially if you want to rent.

**People, acquaintances rather, are asking about why we are trying to rent when we bought a house.  Epic fail - that’s why. 

**One of my med changes or the Vitamin D pill is causing major B.O. and I can’t help it!  TMI, I know.

**Too many changes at work and it’s driving me crazy.  I’m already ready to explode and I’m very worried that if someone jumps my sh*t one more time about something incredibly stupid I’m going to lose it completely.