Tis the season for giving...

I have learned to keep expectations low.  Maybe, for some of you that seems like a cop out.  For me it is a survival mechanism.  Much like my comfy bed and security bound comforter...low expectations make it possible for me to survive.  Everyday brings with it really only 3 expectations.

#1 Shower.

#2 Don't kill self.

#3 Don't harm children.

Usually I only make #'s 2 and 3.  But with medication and severe ridicule from family members and friends I am bound to make all 3 at least 5 out of 7 days of the week.  Jon refers to these achievements as baby steps.  Much like his asking me to "please clear the laundry from off of the kitchen table" earlier this week was met not with it being folded but instead shuttled into our eldest daughter (who happens to be visiting her father for the Christmas holiday) bedroom.

Ummm...I put this in the win column because he left in the morning and there was clothing in the kitchen and he came home in the evening and there was....ta da....no clothing in the kitchen.  Apparently I lapsed on the part where he actually expected the clothing to get folded and ready to be put away by it's rightful owners.  Whoopsie!

As much as I give Jon a hard time for his past indiscretions I cannot seem to properly put into words how it is that he manages to stay so calm with such a deeply depressed spouse.  He leaves and I'm asleep.  He comes home and I'm asleep.

He'll poke a head in the bedroom from time to time and asks if I've eaten.  Asks if I need anything.  Asks if I want to talk.  He says that since I've tried to stand by him in his short coming's and the fact that one day he is COMPLETELY certain that I am going to have to care for him and wipe his ass (what an impressive and heartwarming picture to create in one's mind)...he says that because of this and his love for me he just keeps pushing along.

The kids try to wrap their minds around it all and even though I know they would give just about anything (well except their cell phones, computer, Nintendo DS, time with friends and possibly cable) to have their mom up and participating in the daily goings on of their life.  I live for the little moments that the clouds of depression clears and I get a glimpse of what our life used to be like all of the time.


Today and tonight was one of those glimpses into how our life used to be everyday.  Of course it wasn't a continual stream of feeling okay.  It never really is anymore.  I'll get moments when I am okay and then moments when I have to tuck away into the bedroom because the anxiety becomes so high that it literally feels as though it will grate apart my head.  Jon has learned the signs and takes over parenting if I am in the middle of doing something with the kids.

But for the most part....today was a good day.  One that defied low expectations but was made even sweeter because I really had no expectation of it at all.

I wrapped gifts and Jon cleaned.  Yes...ladies...my husband cleans.  Why I bitch?  Who the hell knows.

Later we cooked dinner together.  Some gorgeous pork tenderloin that I had been marinating with BBQ sauce, orange juice, honey and seasonings.  It's super good and makes the juiciest meat!  While Jon grilled I made both mashed potatos for dinner and potato soup for whenever.  It was the normal rhythm of a house and it felt both foreign and comfortable in the same moment.

Feeling the opportunity to keep things light and make me laugh Jon took a hair piece that we had purchased to pretty much torture Penny with and while I diced onions and got ingredients for dinner he waited for the absolute opportune second to catch me off guard and scare the piss out of me.

I was in the fridge getting butter and just as I was about the close the door I heard him scream out, "oh my god...noooo"...I peeked up just in time to see something dark and furry flying at my head.  I screamed like a little school girl.  Threw down the butter that was in my hand and flew across the kitchen while batting my aledged assailant to the ground.

Turns out the "attacker" was none other than the fake hair piece and the next sound I heard was the cackling of Jon and Hannah as they celebrated the fact that their little prank had gotten me so good.  All I could do was accept defeat and make my way to the bathroom because as with any good joke at my expense...I now had to pee.  Thankfully I didn't pee in my pants...but it was a close one...a very, very...VERY close one.

After dinner was done and cleaned up we preheated the oven for the ceremonial making of the Christmas cookies.  That was going to be all Jon and Hannah because once again the anxiousness was taking hold and it was time to excuse myself for a cooling off period.  This consist of going to the bedroom and usually sitting in the quiet.  Sometimes I have to actually go and take a shower to take my mind off the anxious thoughts.  I used to go and run or walk when I became anxious but found that it actually prolonged the anxiety.  Sucky find because for a while there it was a GREAT way to get in shape.  Figure 6 or 7 anxiety attacks a day...a month or so later I'm down close to 10lbs.

Thankfully this one was quick lived and I was back in the mix within a thirty minutes.  Just in time to torture the dogs and catch a few pics of Jon and Hannah's Christmas crowns.

So here is my gift to you my readers...a few pics to show you how our Christmas Eve was spent.

Yep ladies...he's mine...ALL mine!

Jon and our baby girl.  You'd think the crowns were her idea...NOPE...it was all him!

The great thing about being a man in a house full of girls...LOTS of kisses!

Usually she just leaves a note...this year, she means business! In case you can't read it, the cookie says "Dear Santa, I want it all.  If that isn't possible then leave the cookie and no on gets hurt.  Love, Hannah."

And because no holiday season would be complete without my dogs....

....remember...if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all because Karma is a real bitch....

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Love, Hugs and Kisses,

~JP

 

And the countdown to 10...continues...Part 3

Part 3: This is where you stop mocking me and start doing WHATEVER IT IS I ASK OF YOU!

I really hate hospitals.  But if you had to be laid up in one for a long period of time...this one was pretty damn good.  They had fabulous ice.  I'm a self professed connoisseur of crushed ice.  On my list of "best ice EVER" this place was towards the top trailing only mildly behind The Great American Cookie Company (back in it's heyday at Clearwater Mall).  Another perk was the fact that they would make me grilled cheese with bacon for like every possible meal and they never frowned at Jon for bringing in Chic-fil-A or Marble Slab ice cream.  Even when it was well after visiting hours.

My secret suspiscion is that he bribed them in the hallway with treats but as long as I got what I was craving in the end I could give a rats ass if he was actually performing sexual favors out there.  When you're pregnant pure rational flies out the window in the face of meeting the demonic voice of satisfying whatever it is that your body wants at that precise moment only to be dissappointed 3 seconds later because now you have what you thought you wanted but your mood has changed, thus perpetuating the vicious hormonal cycle.  

Before having to be whisked off to the hospital for being in a "beautiful contracting pattern...shamefully at the completely wrong time" I was plagued by horrible cravings.  The only thing worse than my cravings was the unbelievable sickness I had.  It wasn't morning sickness.  It was 24/7 sickness.  This was NOT how I was when I was pregnant with Olivia.  I had the textbook first trimester morning sickness that would shut off at exactly 12p on the dot and once I hit the second trimester I never had issue with it again.

Not the case this time.  I would wake up nauseated and start vomitting once my feet hit the floor.  I slept with a bowl by the bed.  It was horrid.  And it didn't let up throughout the day and into the night.  Usually the last thing I did before going to bed at night was throw up.  It was magical.  Jon thought he had impregnated the exorcist.  Minus the spinning head...it was kinda true.

I would be throwing up and crying.  Then 10 seconds later I would be begging him to get me whatever it was that I was demonically craving.  It wasn't ever anything unusual.  The biggest thing was Chic-fil-A nuggets with boat loads of pollynesian sauce.  So much so that the people at our local Chic-fil-A knew him by face and would just put it into a separate bag.  Sheepishly asking, "is this enough" as if for some reason if he returned with an improper amount he may be harmed and it would be ALL their fault.  Let it never be said that those people aren't smart.

Every once in awhile he would get some zit faced punk of a teenager that would try to give him a hard time and he would be forced to say, "my wife is pregnant and if you don't give me a shit load of that sauce she may infact kill me for putting her in this state of utter misery therefore you will have blood on your hands you little fuck"...or at least that is how I imagined the speech going.  He always came home with the sauce.  Thank god.  I was too tired from throwing up to actually have to physically harm him for forgetting it.

As soon as I would start to eat I would begin to feel sick.  Again.  And then I would spend the next 30 minutes negotiating with my body in something reminiscent of the movie "The Negotiator" to just keep the food down.  I was all Kevin Spacey to my body's Samuel L. Jackson.  Finally Jon got so tired of this routine... me crying for something...getting it and taking a few bits...then crying because I was now throwing up the very thing that I had craved and begged for.  His suggestion to end this problem was instead of continuing the madness he should just take money out of his wallet and flush it down the toilet.  He said that way he wouldn't have to leave the house, drive to wherever, pick up the food, bring it home, watch me take a few bites and then have to listen to me throw it all up.  He felt it was only logic.  I did not find this funny.  He however thought it was downright brilliant and somewhat hysterical.  I punished him by making him go and get me ice cream because that is what I wanted right then.  Stupid man.

I was well into my seventh month and "morning" sickness was still a very active participant in my day.  While in the hospital the nurses tried to make me feel better saying that every pregnancy was different.  I took little comfort in that while I was heaving my guts.

Every day spent in the hospital was a roller coaster of emotions.  I felt helpless because I had another child that needed her mother.  You begin to feel torn between doing everything in your power to get the child in your belly to full term and also not neglecting the one that is already here.  I did a lot of crying.

Jon on the other hand...did a lot of juggling.  He was having his first taste of full time parenthood without someone else there to break up the stress.  He was running on all cylinders.  He'd wake up at the crack of dawn get Olivia up and off to pre-school...call and check on me see if there was any news from the night before that had occured since we talked before he had gone to sleep...then head to work...sometimes he'd sneak in to see me before he went to work...if he could break away at lunch he'd come to the hospital usually bringing me whatever I had been craving when he placed the call that he could make a stop by...then back to work...pick Olivia up from school if it wasn't a day that her father picked her up or if my mom couldn't grab her...then swing by the hospital...if Olivia was with him we would try to eat together so at least she had that interaction of family dinner, although it's not the same when monitors are going off every 5 minutes...then home for the bathtime, bedtime routine...he'd get Oliva in bed then do laundry, make lunches and call me to see how things were going since he left the hospital...if it was a night when he didn't have Olivia because whe was with her dad or staying the evening at my parents he would come back up to the hospital and stay with me for as long as the nurses would allow.  Then he'd sleep, get up and do it all over again.

I spent just over two weeks in the hospital.  Everyday I would hope this would be the day I'd get to go home.  I stopped asking after day 5.

I spent most of the time hooked up to what I have now deemed to be the 2nd most heinous drug in the child carrying and bearing experience...magnesium sulfate.  A step down from the horror that is pitocin, is this drug.  While I appreciate how it, combined with the efforts of terbutaline, stopped my contractions and kept our little peanut in the womb it brought with it horrid side effects and I felt worse being released from the hospital than I did going in to it.

The day that they released me I thought they were joking.  My day nurse came in and asked me the same question she did every day.  I had begun to hate her for taunting me.  She'd walk in, take my vitals and say, "wouldn't today be a beautiful day to go home"...I'd be all like..."yeah, that would be great"...to which she would say, "but I bet tomorrow would be even better".  What kind of fucked up mind game are you playing here sister??

But on this day when I solemnly said, "yeah that would be great" she said, "yeah I thought so too so I'll help you pack".  I was like...huh...what???  I thought I had won the lottery.  The doctor came in and declared that I had been contraction free for 3 whole days which I knew just from watching the monitors and said that I was good to be released albeit with strict precautions.  Bedrest.  I could get up to pee and could walk around a total of 30 minutes every 24 hours and no more than 10 minutes at one given time.

On the day I was discharged I was 29 weeks and 1 day.  I had to stay on bedrest until I was at least 35 weeks.  This was gonna be the longest 6 weeks of my life.  And on top of that it wouldn't be like being at the hospital.  I mean who would bring me yummy crushed ice or make me grilled cheese with bacon at the drop of a hat??

Jon tried to assure me that things would be fine.  He could handle it.  He would make sure that everything was taken care of.  There was only one small four legged problem.  And her name was Max (this is what happens when you assume the dog is a boy and let your child name it only to be advised it really is a girl and said child REFUSES to change the dogs name).

We had adopted a puppy for Olivia for her 5th birthday in June.  We had wanted a dog for awhile and now that we were in a bigger place it seemed perfect.  Knowing that a baby would be coming in the next few months we figured get the dog now, get it trained and comfortable in the house and it's surroundings so that there would be no issues when the baby arrived.

No one ever imagined that a little over a month after getting her I would be put on bedrest and although at home, I would not be able to care for her.  When I was in the hospital we had her staying at my parents house.  It was only gonna be a short term thing.  Or so we thought.

After finding out that this was gonna be a long term situation there was no way to expect my parents to keep the dog.  Foolishly I thought, they will stop the contractions and things will go back to normal.  I will go back to work and regular routine.  This was not part of the plan.  None of what was happening was part of how I had imagined things to go.

We attempted to have the dog stay with friends and family.  The only one willing to take her on such short notice was my grandmother who had a huge yard.  After transporting her down to St. Pete, about 30 minutes from us, we were called 2 days later to come and pick her up.  "She's too rowdy" was the chief complaint.  I didn't have it in me to argue that she was a puppy and didn't exactly prescribe to having to go to bed at 7pm.  It was a pointless argument.

I had only been home from the hospital 4 days before Jon declared we would have to find her a new home.  Another 4 days went by with no bites and me sneaking to take her out for pee breaks...Jon caught on and called me out.  It was the baby or the dog.  Olivia was heartbroken. Years later she would tell us that she blamed the baby for the fact that she lost her pet.

I bawled, partly because I felt like I had let the dog down and partly because I was a tightly wound ball of emotions.  A day later we took Max back to the shelter.  The lady who had handled the adoption was a complete bitch and made me feel like a speck of dirt on the sole of her shoe for returning the dog in order to preserve the health of my unborn child.

The baby wasn't here yet and it had already pissed off it's sister and offended the ASPCA.  Great.  Just fuckin great!  What next?

I was too exhausted to think what could possibly happen.  I began to stop planning anything and just looked at my life in a moment by moment turn of events.  My only goal became getting to the 35 week mark.  My only plan was what I would watch on television to pass the time and what list I would make for Jon to stock the fridge for my few precious moments of time moving about to forge for food.

35 became my new favorite number.  I had it locked in my sites and the countdown was anything but exciting...

~JP

The Laundry Standoff...

The standoff between me and the clean laundry that I am told needs to be folded and not just chucked into each determined owners room has now reached day 3.  I'm pretty sure the clothes are winning as it seems they have a quality of kriptonite to Superman effect on me. 

Every time I attempt to go near them I am overwhelmed with frustration and the strange urge to drink my weight in alcohol. 

I've contemplated burning everything and starting over, but Jon has brought up the very obvious financial liability that this possesses.  God, I really hate when he is all logical.

I'm wondering what ever gave me the idea that being at home and not at a full time job was such a brilliant idea for how I should spend my time.  Then I am reminded of the debilitating illness that brought me to this place.  And for once I'm not talking about the depression.

I can hear the laundry taunting me from the couch and I am forced to remind it that A) I am NOT on facebook and B) I am more than capable of folding it all but I am choosing not to.

This internal exchange is room for pause and makes me think that being cooped up all day with inanimate objects may not be the best thing for someone of my mental capacity.  This realization makes me tired and therefore I announce that I am going back to bed.

There is an audible groan from the laundry piles, which I realize is actually Penny rustling about underneath the stacks of shorts, t-shirts, towels and socks.  Just when I worry that I will have to launch a search and rescue team for her safe return from the depths of clothes mountain she wriggles free albeit inside the pant leg of one of Jon's pairs of boxers and looks longingly at me.

I am pretty sure she is telling me to fold the laundry so she and the other dogs can reclaim the couch as a jungle gym. Or maybe she is asking me to rescue her from the boxers.

Great....now I am being mentally scolded by piles of clothes and 3 dogs.  My day is going down hill fast.

~JP

Because humiliation is inevitable...I keep liquor on hand at all times.

So I am supposed to be folding laundry.  Like enough laundry for at least 7 households with 4 people in each home.  Where the fuck did we get all these clothes?  Jesus did we just buy new stuff cause I didn't wash the dirty stuff?  I totally think that is what happened.  I mean I remember rushing out and buying socks...oh yeah and underwear...at like midnight because I hadn't done laundry and I didn't feel like sorting, then washing, then re-sorting, then folding, then placing lovingly into piles that my kids and husband would never put away and then dog or cat (back when we had a cat) would lay on said piles or worse pee or puke on them and then the whole vicious cycle would repeat itself and we'd still have no clean socks or underwear.

I do definitely remember buying a few choice items in a manic fit at least a couple hundred times over the past few years...but seriously...this is ALOT of clothes.  It covers my couch. 

It was covering my dinner table and part of my kitchen counter but then I decided to be all "domestic goddess" and cook dinner.  But I couldn't cook dinner without going to the grocery first.  I did that after I decided that moving laundry from kitchen to living room was HUGE improvement.  But then I was like "oh shit I totally won't have all this done before Jon gets home, must create a diversion...oooh, I know...I'll cook".  I figured it was cook or offer up more sexual favors.  I was still kind of tired from the last go around and plus figured I should do something where the kids could benefit too.  I'm so giving that way.

So I went to the grocery and spent WAY too much money for our one income household.  It was all necessary items like fruit, veggies, chicken, pasta, stuff to make lunches, breakfast items, laundry detergent (for when I finally do fold laundry and it inevitably gets dirty again) and wine....yeah, can't forget the wine.  Then I remembered that Jon was going to play poker last night and I scrapped huge dinner that I planned on cooking as a diversion to the huge pile of laundry now taking up residence on out couch and coffee table. 

I decided on just pasta with veggies and chicken.  I'd do some garlic bread too.  It would just be me and the girls, so it would be fine.  Liv had been begging for this pasta for a month now so I knew that she would be happy.  Han's only concern was that there were pea's in it.  I told her to pick them out and she seemed content.

We got home from the grocery and I made Han sit at the newly cleared dinner table to start her homework.  She was more than slightly pissed that her original work space of the coffee table, planted firmly in front of flat panel t.v. was not up for use.  I reminded her that homework time was for homework and NOT getting caught up on all that has occured on Disney Channel for the last 8 hours that she hasn't been watching it.  She rolled he eyes in that over exagerated way of tweens these days and I'm pretty sure that she silently flipped me the bird from behind her backpack.

I mean I can't prove that she did that.  But then again I can't disprove that she didn't do it either.  I could have just asked her and been all "what are you doing with your hands behind your backpack"? And then she would have been "nothing...gawd...I didn't do anything".  And I would be all "did you just shoot me the bird?"  And she would totally shoot back "no-ah...gawd...why are you so paranoid?  Why do you think everyone is out to get you?  Why are you busy wasting time trying to figure out what I was doing behind my backpack when you could have folded some damn laundry?"

It really was best that I just let it go.

I set to putting away the groceries and Han set to talking up a storm.  I know where she gets it from and God do I wish that I could PLEASE stop being punished for all the times I literally set my mothers ears to bleeding from all the chattering I did.  I swear she has a quota of words that she is determined to meet on any given day and she won't stop until she hits it.  I'm not sure what that number is but when I find the fucking dial I am turning it down to a 3 digit number.

In between cleaning and putting away groceries I kept having to say "Hannah homework"....literally every 15 minutes was marked by that phrase.  Then came the homework related questions.

Hannah:  Mom, are you good at social studies?

Me: Depends.  What do you need to know?

Hannah: It's questions about the government and the Constitution.

Me:  Hmm....you can try me.  If I don't know we can just wait for your dad to get home.

Hannah:  Well are you good at math?

Me: Depends.  What do you need to know?

Hannah:  Are you good at anything?

Me:  Well, I'm making you dinner.  So yeah...I am good at that.

Hannah: This is the first time you've made dinner in awhile.

Me:  Hannah...do your homework.

When Jon got home I put him on homework duty.  They knocked it out before he left for cards.  I knocked out a bottle of wine shortly thereafter. 

I later got a text from a girlfriend of mine regarding dance team tryouts that both her daughter and Hannah will be attending this afternoon.  It had to do with the FAME forms that Hannah was so desperate to have me fill out but then left on the couch.  In the packet they requested a copy of the first 9 weeks grades.  That's all fine and great....only 1 teeny tiny problem...the kids have only been in school for 4 maybe 5 weeks.  Jacklegs.  How can we give you something we don't have??

She was just as confused as I was about it.  I told her that given the fact that they are the school and they should know that we can't possibly have this that I am sending the packet without it.  I swear if there is a problem because that is missing I am totally pulling my kid out of public school and putting her in private.  If I have to pay $10,000 a year so that the school can use common sense then so be it.  I mean...really book smarts you can learn but common sense...that shit is priceless!

By the end of the night I was drowning my sorrows of possibly being stupider than my 5th grader yet smarter than the public school she attended.  It was a bittersweet revelation.  All I could do was sit back and watch the Jon Gosselin interview on Pritime Family Secrets.  It made me laugh that it was on a show with the words "family" and "secrets" in the same sentence since outside of knowing what color underwear him or Kate are wearing that day we, as a viewing public, are pretty keen on what these two train wrecks are up to at any given moment.

I just can't feel sorry for the guy.  I can't feel sorry for Kate either.  I did however realize that in one of the clips that they played of him and her in a toy store from a few years back that I TOTALLY talk to my own Jon that way.  At times.  I vowed to stop that behavior immediately and then toasted my new found change with a shot of Firefly sweet tea vodka.

Apparently...though....I toasted one too many times cause when my Jon came home a few hours later and hadn't brought the promised McFlurry from a text he'd sent me, I went off.  Kate Gosselin style.  It was "Jon & Jess plus 2" in my bedroom.  Thankfully I fell asleep a few minutes into the tirade.  Not so good for the husbands ego, but at least we didn't have camera's, witnesses or our children involved. 

I did have to swallow my pride, choke down the dry mouth sensation that follows any night of ill fated shots and apologize.  He forgave me and thank god for that....I mean, I'm pretty sure Hannah is gonna have way more homework tonight and I just can't bare to be humiliated two nights in a row.  I don't know if I have enough liquor for that.

~JP

Well that is just ALL kinds of wrong...

UPDATE ON BEING THE SMELLY KID

I made it out of the shower feeling "so fresh and so clean".  Slipped into my "Colorado: How's your Aspen?" over sized (meaning it belongs to the hubby) sleep shirt and gave my hair a quick toussel with a little curl product.


I pulled back my covers on my beloved bed and hopped in.  I slid my feet down to the cool end of the bed and they landed in PISS!!!  What the fuuuuuucccckkkk?


Seriously...I didn't just bathe so that I could sink my feet into dog piss.  It seems Olivia's dog decided to take a leak in my bed as I was getting my shower ready.  I swear that damn dog is about to find her ass stuck back on that tree that we found her on.  That will teach me to dognap a self professed stray!

This is the appreciation I get??


I swear charitable acts are NOT viewed and coveted the way that they used to be.

Ugh...this just about ruined my mood to be able to partake in "Project Runway".  I need a calm, serene and more importantly NON PISS laiden bed to watch it in.

A quick strip down, febreeze, febreeze, FEBREEZE...new sheets and throw sodden ones into the wash and I am ready to kick back and relax.  I finally get my Penny and we nestle down to "make it work" with our main man Tim Gunn.

Who knew that bathing could be so damn dramatic??  Only in my life people.  Only.  In.  My.  Life.

~JP