"It is all too easy to break a child"

An excellent article I saw at Sherry's blog

Science shows up Supernanny

I'm currently emailing that link to all of the relatives, in-laws and aquaintances who look at Jonah and make super-nanny comments. Consider this an official "Bite Me".

Can't talk

My sucky job just got WAY suckier, but I'm still too upset to blog about it. I'm going to spend the weekend fretting and crying, and hopefully will be articulate enough to talk about it Monday.

Have a nice weekend.

Hugs and Prayers

Hugs and prayers for Daniel (felicity's littlest lad) who has a pretty big owie. Take care little man, I'm sure you'll be back up and running sooner than we imagine.

Just a picture

Just a picture of my pretty girl

Tell me again why I shouldn't quit my job?

Tell me again why I shouldn't quit my job?

Ridin' the Stress Train

I'm an internalizer, I take all of the stresses I encounter, bunch them up into a tight little ball and shove them down deep as I can. And for the most part this really works. Sure, there's the two or three times a year that the dam bursts and I have a huge migraine and a two day crying jag but it buys me more than 11.5 high functioning months a year.

Sounds stupid doesn't it? Sadly it's true, and when it comes to workplace stress I feel like the dam is damned near breaking.

Why does the workplace have to be dictated by workplace politics? Or specific to my workplace why do policies have to be written and rewritten at the whim (or cowardice) of my boss?

"You have to approve this case, and all cases like it"
"But it's a fraudulent claim, I've outlined my research for you, it's clearly fraud"
"Yes but I'm too chicken shit to deal with the asshole who committed the fraud so I'd rather stand around flushing buckets of the public's cash down the toilet".

Perhaps that's mildly paraphrased but it's frighteningly accurate. I haven't been a public servant long enough to be comfortable wasting money this way (it is after all MY MONEY, I'm still a taxpayer here!) and even though I am one teeny tiny amoeba in the cesspool of government I stress BIG TIME about these issues. C keeps reminding me that there is only so much I can do but I get so upset! This department is so pathetically badly run to begin with and it's managed by a person with no real clue. They nickel and dime legitimate claims TO DEATH yet they throw money at blatant fraud. It INFURIATES me. But really what CAN I do? Even bitching about it here is borderline since there are privacy rules dictating what I can and can't say about my department and the stupid asses who run it. So I stress and stress, and I get light headed and nauseous, and weird spots swim in front of my eyes, and my hands shake so badly that I can scarcely type.

I think I'm headed for a nervous breakdown but I have no way of getting off this train. This job pays well (very well for my field) and it has good benefits. Most civil servant (rightfully) have a reputation for not giving a damn, for coming in, occupying an ergonomically correct chair for 7.5 hours and then going home without ever doing anything of use. How do I learn to be like that? How do I learn to abandon work ethic and responsibility?

The hundred and seven steps

I live in a townhouse condo, it's small but for he most part it suits my purposes just fine. It's cheap to heat, it's well located, fairly quiet, the taxes aren't bad. The one thing that I hate passionately though is the one hundred and seven steps from my front door to my parking spot. One hundred and seven steps to schlep diaper bag, briefcase, purse, lunch bag and two squirming toddlers every morning at 6:15am in the -25C temperatures, one hundred and seven steps to get said baggage and toddlers back into the house every afternoon. One hundred and seven steps to haul groceries, dryers, luggage and equipment. One hundred and seven steps to guide UPS men and pizza delivery boys along. Oh how I covet a driveway of my own.

I pay well over $200/month in condo fees, part of which is supposed to pay for maintaining those one hundred and seven steps, but this year in particular they've failed miserably. Instead of shovelling the snow they've just been hardpacking it down and throwing buckets of salt and gravel overtop. So during our recent thaw the hundred and seven steps became a giant toddler sucking cesspool of cold slushy water. Of course you can guess what happened when the temperatures plunged again. Now we have to navigate one hundred and seven steps of traitorous ice. Poor Katie lost her battle to stay afoot yesterday and smacked her head hard enough to draw blood (and head wounds, even minor ones, bleed a LOT). Today's snowfall has covered the ice with a layer of extra slippery disguise, it's impossible to tell which areas are hard pack and which are sheer ice.

This too shall pass. Soon we'll be back to dealing with flooding, puddles 5 inches deep and the challenge of keeping two toddlers reasonably dry for one hundred and seven steps. And I'll keep dreaming of a driveway of my own.

Catching up

So on the weekend our dryer died...again. C took a good look at it and determined if he tried to fix it again we'd be risking a fire. It was a good dryer, but old and we were constantly overloading it. So we bought a new one on Tuesday, we live near a Sear*s outlet center at got a GIGANTIC ken*more scratch and dent fairly cheap (I have no idea why it was a scratch and dent, looks perfect to me and it's warranted). It's a super capacity, it's so nice to be able to fit a whole washer's worth of laundry into the dryer all at once! For anyone counting that's 4 major appliances that we've replaced in the past 18 months. All we have left are the stove and chest freezer. I'm crossing my fingers that they don't die just yet, 4 major appliances equals one majorly broke family :)

Things have been improving with Jonah at a rapid rate, he's picked up so many words just over the past two weeks. It's like a dam broke and now the language is starting to pour out. It's not clear yet but a lot of it is recognizable. He's started gesturing too - clapping, pointing - again, things he wasn't doing just a couple of weeks ago. With these huge leaps the tantrums are in decline (oh he still has them but they're less frequent and dare I say milder, and the repetitive head bashing is almost non-existant) and the sleep is improving (again not perfect but so much better than before, he's waking generally once a night and is sleeping all the way through 2 or 3 times a week). I don't know why things are changing so quickly but I'm grateful. I'm so relieved that he's acting more and more like a typical toddler. In fact, in some ways he's incredibly advanced - you should see this kid wield a fork! He does it better than his sister, maybe better than his big brother! Perhaps that's because eating is one of his favourite things LOL!

Tomorrow is a mama and babies day, the sitter is off so I took a vacation day to spend with my babes, I can hardly wait. I see poster paint and baking muffins with only one quick errand (to have the nosepiece on Katie's glasses replaced), the rest of the day is just us. Bliss.

It's my freakin' name moron

My name is Valerie. It's 3 syllables long. It's NOT Val! How freakin' hard is that? Does it really take that much extra energy to say "Valerie"??? I don't really care how you pronounce it, French, English, Swahili, whatever, as long as it contains 3 SYLLABLES! I've never invited you to call me Val, I don't like Val, I've pitched numerous fits at numerous individuals for using that truncation. I GRUDGINGLY tolerate a few friends calling me that simply because they are people who are not going to change their habits any time soon and their friendship means more to me than two syllables but YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND! You are a professional, and as such please address me PROFESSIONALLY using my full name.

There, I feel better now.

Bliss

C and I enjoyed a WONDERFUL evening away Saturday, with many many many thanks to our friends Dan and Katie. Dinner at Works Burger, then a movie (Phantom of the Opera). We were home by 10 'cause we're old foagies after all, but it was so nice to be able to chat and eat without a little one climbing on me (not to mention going several hours without being treated to an almost-4-year-old's sense of humour Know what a _____ says when ____? No, what? *Insert rude noise* Really? That's nice dear.) I really enjoyed the movie too, though I saw the stage version many years ago with Colm Wilkinson, therefore no one they could have cast as the Phantom was ever going to measure up. I did enjoy Emmy Rossum as Christine, I thought her youth worked well and her voice was perfect (but is it just me or are her eyes really, really crooked?). You know though, I could have watched Freddy Got Fingered and would have enjoyed it since it was an evening with my honey sans bébés.

The birthday boy at home with his gateau...


Works Burger in the Glebe


Me and the "Tower of Rings" (every bit as greasy as it looks, oh my aching stomach.

it's the little things

Part of my job (OK the lion's share of my job) involves reading (and interpreting) forms and letters written by doctors. Today I received a form from a doctor who was describing his patient's throat infection. He had written on the form in big letters "pussy". It took far too long for me to figure out what he meant was "pus - y", as in puss filled. I've spent the entire afternoon laughing. Small things amuse my small mind quite nicely :)

Just a pic

How can one so adorable be such a handful?  Look at those eyes, don't you just melt?
(And yes, that's paint all over him, face included. Thank heavens it's non toxic)

How much???

Holy Smurf the naturopath charges $150 for the first consultation! What are the odds my insurance will pay for any of it? Crap. Crap crap crap.

It's all downhill from here

Sunday was wonderful, Monday was not bad. Tuesday the screaming started again and Wednesday was back into the full-blown tantrums. This morning was so awful I cried part of my drive in. I feel so guilty for being relieved to drop him off with the sitter, but he's so miserable and I'm so far past the end of my rope.

I talked with one of the doctors I work with and she suggested I take him to a naturopath friend of her (he's a medical doctor who has limited his practice to naturopathy). I don't know if it will help but I'm at the point where I'm willing to grasp at any straw. I'm also going to take him back to the paediatrician and try to get him to understand that I'm not an anxious drug seeking Munchausen-By-Proxy mom, I'm a worried mom with a legitimate concern.

On a positive note the mornings are getting brighter. Look at the sunrise I was treated to coming into work this morning.

Click for larger.

That can only signal the coming of Spring. It's been a long, dark, dreary winter.