Mandajuice

Poor David

When this whole water damage debacle happened, lo those many weeks ago, we immediately hired a local restoration company on the recommendation of our insurance agent.  They were quick on the job and within a day we had fans blowing everything dry and a concrete plan of action in place for how to get the house back to normal as soon as possible.

The crew the company sent out was excellent.  David, the foreman, made an immediate impression on both Dave and me.  He was incredibly competent and seemed to be amazingly thorough in everything he did.  I only wish I'd taken a picture of the plastic bubble-boy tent he built to help get the final little bits of moisture out of our bathroom. 

He was awesome, but best of all he was totally likable.  He spent over a week at my house, coming and going several times every day.  By the end of the week, I was inviting him to eat dinner with us and I knew all about his five kids, his religion (Lutheran Orthodox) and the fact that several years ago he and his wife had carried a baby boy named Alex full-term before it died only hours after being born. 

He seemed like such a good citizen, the kind of guy any company would be thrilled to have as a foreman, mostly because he instilled such confidence in us and we're pretty difficult people to please.  (Just ask the clean-up crew!)  Twice, I called the company just to tell them what an excellent job he was doing here.

Yesterday I found out that he was no longer with the company.  I spent all day worrying about him and his five kids and wondering what possibly could've happened to his job.  I couldn't imagine that he'd been fired because from a customer's perspective, he was an excellent employee.

But he was fired.  One of the other workers told me that he was "basically canned."  Apparently he was a little too loose with the company gas card and he had a history of yelling at the boss and telling him he wasn't doing things right.  I can hardly imagine him acting that way.  Dave's response to me was that he "bets David was in the right."  Apparently he was also a bit TOO thorough and tended to have too much overtime, which I guess I can understand.  But STILL.  The whole thing has left a very bad taste in my mouth.  It's strange to get only one side of a story, but it sure seems like the company sold him short. 

Part of me wants to find his old business card and see if I can't try to get a hold of him.  If nothing else, I'd be happy to let him use me as a reference.  Would that seem weird, though?  Calling him at home out of the blue?  How weird is it that I'm so worried about him?

Bad boys, bad boys, whatchagonnado?

First off, that other mom at the park did absolutely nothing wrong, and within the context of being a two-year-old boy, neither did her son.  She was quick to correct him and did make him apologize to Genoa in his own two-year-old way.  Two-year-olds, especially big tall boy ones, live to test limits and he was just acting his age.  I just really thought he was older.  And I was in a really bad mood.

Today my mood continued to be much improved.  The house is almost done and I got a lot finished this morning both before and after Genoa took a nap.  She was only up two times to nurse last night, so that was about as good as it gets for me.

Unfortunately, Alex had a TERRIBLE afternoon, over which I am still horrified.  If you're so inclined, you can read all about what a bad boy he was over at the Mom Street Journal.

Also, I've decided to do NaBloPoMo on all THREE of my blogs this November, which means three blog posts every day for thirty days.  That's NINETY blog posts, people.  I'm going to have to put my big girl panties on for that.  Basically, here I'm going to do the regular posts, plus a daily kvetch about something that's pissing me off.  I've decided to move the happy daily gratitude posts to Disney, where they belong, and I'll be posting our daily spending at the Naked Ledger.  It's going to be a busy month, but I'm already looking forward to loosening up my blogging chops again. 

Back to my happy (but still sleep-deprived) self

My bad mood continued to whip itself into a frenzy on Saturday when at the peak of my angst, I grabbed the arm of a boy who shoved Genoa down at the top of the squiggly bridge at the park.  First he yanked her by the arm and tried to pull her across the bridge and then pushed her down hard with both hands and it just filled me rage.  He could've knocked her right off the top of the play structure! 

I reacted exactly as I would've reacted had it been Alex who did it, which was completely inappropriate.  Not only was he NOT MY KID, but I had him by the arm and was firmly demanding that he say sorry to Genoa when his mom approached to inform me that her son was barely two and couldn't technically apologize yet.

I was MORTIFIED.

I apologized profusely and told her how embarrassed I was for so completely overreacting.  She said her son is often mistaken for being older than he is because he's so tall.  But still!  I was HORRIBLE.  What is with me lately!?!?

Of course Genoa continued her constant-nipple-in-the-mouth streak all Saturday night as well and I lost count of how many times I had to nurse her after about five.  MY GOD CHILD.  Anyway, I woke up exhausted and the bad mood persisted until Dave made sure I got a two hour nap in the middle of the afternoon.

Thankfully we were invited to Tana and John's for dinner and whatever was left of my bad mood completely disappeared the second we walked through their front door.  I can't believe my luck to have made such good friends here already!  Three chick beers, Tana's delicious chicken dinner and a slice of chocolate cake later and I was practically skipping my way through Winco where we went afterwards to buy full-sized candy bars to give out on Halloween.  (Dave's idea! I think he's trying to suck up to the neighbors.)

The house is ALMOST finished.  It looks like everything will be done tomorrow and after the final contractor leaves, I might just have to get down on my hands and knees and french-kiss my house.  It will finally be back to its virgin glory - fresh paint, clean floors and a family room with an actual ceiling.   And only then can we laugh about this whole stupid ordeal.

It's been a rough week

At first we seemed to be busy having fun - a trip to the pumpkin patch, a trick-or-treating thing in downtown Camas, but then Genoa got sick with whatever Alex had (which I think is our good ol' buddy Roseola back for yet another visit) and was up with a fever for several hours on Wednesday night.  We had company last night for dinner, which was fun, I got to catch up with Christoffer, the Swedish exchange student who lived with us during my senior year of high school, but did I mention we have NO DOWNSTAIRS right now?  We would've just all gone out to eat, but Genoa was sick and she's bad enough at restaurants when she's feeling peachy.  Entertaining with a house full of sheet rock dust was FUN.

The construction is frustrating the hell out of me.  I'm basically stuck upstairs all day with the kids and no access to the kitchen and no place to spread out.  Every time I pick up the computer to try to work or get anything done, Genoa insists on seeing dogs or doing that annoying toddler drive-by-keyboard-punching from the side of my chair.

Normally, I seem to have the patience for all of this and would let it all roll off my back as a just a rustic week of using the bathroom counter as my office, but I'm sleep deprived and it's making me cranky.

I haven't had a solid night of sleep for almost TWO YEARS.

So now that she's feeling better, I decided to try and night-wean Genoa.  Instead of rushing to her side at her first wake up call at 10PM, which I should note for the record was the first of what is usually at least THREE per night, I sent Dave in to try and get her to fall asleep without me.  She screamed MOMMY at the top of her lungs for 45 minutes with steadily increasing intensity, despite the fact that Dave was right there with her on the bed.  Finally I got sick of listening to it (can anyone say NAILS ON A Mother-F-ing CHALKBOARD?!?) and went in and nursed her back to sleep.  So much for that plan!  Looks like I'll be getting a solid night of sleep right around when she's goes off to college.

Genoa's daily Dooce

Every time I open the laptop, Genoa rushes over shouting, "DOGGY! DOGGY!" wanting to sit on my lap and see pictures of dogs.  Chuck is her favorite and his daily photo is always much anticipated.  (I apologize for the  weird blurring - I have no idea why my camera is doing that.)

104.5

Alex came home from school today and went straight to bed in spite of the fact that it's one of those glorious sunny days that makes you want to believe in God.  I thought he was just tired because he'd had an extra long weekend and that first day of school wiped him out, but he woke up with a temp of 104.5. (!!!)

It's down to 103ish now and I just gave him some Tylenol, so we'll see.  I hate when he's sick like this because he's so sluggish and quiet, he almost feels like someone else's child.  I hope this is just his body's way of fighting something off and he wakes up tomorrow back to normal.

They're putting up the drywall today and we expect hope they'll finish by week's end.  If I had to bet, though, I'd say we'll be done with construction in at least two weeks, if not longer.  These things never go according to plan.  For now, I'm getting used to the idea of having cable in my bedroom since we had them move the couch and the TV upstairs.  We've always been a one tv family, so who knows.

We went to the OMSI instead

Which was WAY more fun than tromping around in the mud.

Doh!

For two weeks we've been looking forward to going to the pumpkin patch with some friends today.  I spoke with Tana Thursday and we agreed to go even if it's raining.  Rumor has it that people in the Northwest basically ignore the rain and go out anyway. 

It didn't occur to me until I woke up this morning to the sound of the rain on the window that Northwesterners probably find it easier to go out in the rain because they, I dunno, actually own RAIN GEAR.

DOH!

Now we have to stop at Target on our way to the pumpkin patch because obviously rain coats/boots/hats are in order.

Being married to me is no party either

Have you ever had one of those days where you'd like to, I dunno, hang your husband naked from a bridge and pelt hot flaming rocks at him, but you can't write about it because everyone you know reads your blog?

Yeah.  Me neither.

(I'm sure he'd say the feeling was mutual.)

(And I'm exaggerating anyway.)

Anyway, at the Mom Street Journal, I've written the first of what will likely be a long and enlightening string of posts about THE RAIN.  I'm sure my family and friends in California and anyone else who is considering a move northward will read it with curiosity.  The truth is that so far I'm enjoying the weather.  We have seasons here!  The leaves are turning and the trees are on fire and yesterday I took an afternoon nap with the kids and woke up to the sound of a thunderstorm.  It was lovely and cozy and I feel quite adequately prepared for, if not excited about, the upcoming winter.  I'm already hoping for a white Christmas.

I'm also doing a lot of cooking to help us stop eating out so much.  I blew a chunk of change on groceries yesterday and this morning I was told they'll most likely be here on Monday to re-sheet rock our family room ceiling, which means I won't have access to my kitchen for about a week.  What superb timing!

Apology not accepted

After I took Alex to his classroom this morning, I poked my head inside the school office to apologize to the teacher's assistant from yesterday.  I said something along the lines of, "I snapped at you yesterday and I'm really sorry.  I feel really bad for being so rude.  I was such a monster."  I didn't give any excuses, mostly because I didn't have any, but also because an excuse is basically a dismissal and I wanted my apology to be sincere.  There was really no excuse for my behavior.

She nodded her head and said, "It's okay," but I could tell the damage was already done.  I offered my hand then and introduced myself and she told me her name was Linda, but it was a very cold exchange.  I can't tell which thing offended her more, the original slight or my apology.  I'm glad I apologized; it was the right thing to do, but I certainly don't feel any better from it and it was pretty obvious that she didn't either.