Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Living Large

I am already a HOUSE at just 16 weeks. I already get a sore back and sore joints sometimes. I get out of breath fairly easily - sometimes for no apparent reason. Sometimes it feels like the baby is pushing up on my stomach and I can't eat (though you'd never know it by my appearance). And I haven't even hit the four month mark!!! I am afraid, seriously afraid of where I am headed. I have BIG boobs and my stomach has almost outgrown them. This could get ugly...

I was going to post the 16 week picture of when I was pregnant with Ruby but I look so much smaller and younger and less... matronly, that I didn't want to shame myself any further.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas

Ruby is tight with Santa this year. He asked her for a high five and she gave him one so she's pretty sure she's going to get everything on her list. We hope that you all get everything on your list too - if not at Christmas than sometime in 2010.

Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Starting over

I got Ruby into a new daycare. She starts in January. My fingers are crossed that it is going to work out for her. I think it might. When the woman met Ruby she started talking to her and Ruby gave her a big grin and giggle. When I brought her into the daycare I plunked her onto the floor and she immediately dug into a bin of toys and started playing. There was another little girl there who was a bit older than Ruby and they actually started passing toys back and forth to each other. Such a miracle considering Ruby is so “poorly socialized”. *growl* Ruby was also handing toys to “P”, the new daycare lady. She had absolutely zero hesitation interacting with P. Of course, I was there but still, it just had a different feel from the first daycare.

P is a very calm, soothing, seemingly kind woman. I think Ruby liked her.

I liked her. We talked about the “issues” that the other daycare had with Ruby. P seemed horrified. She said that Ruby can have two naps a day if she wants and she can take them whenever she likes. She said that Ruby is at the age of having some separation anxiety and she has no problem giving her some extra attention if she is sad when I leave. She won't kick her out if she isn't fully adjusted within 5 days. She also won’t get annoyed if Ruby poops more than once a day. She currently only has 2 other children in her care so she will be spread less thin than the other bitch who had 5.

The place isn’t the fanciest. The house is old and the daycare area hasn’t been updated in some years. I’m sure this would turn some people away. But I found it to be clean and Ruby was quite comfortable there. And sometimes it’s the heart that’s more important. In this case, it certainly is. It’s a little more expensive than the last daycare as well and she doesn’t provide any snacks. But if it’s a place where Ruby feels comfortable and happy and is well cared for then that’s all ok with me.

For the remainder of the month Ruby is being bounced from friend to grandparent to grandparent, and I have modified my work hours somewhat to make things work.

The past two weeks have been an extremely stressful time and I’ve really struggled. On one hand it’s a good thing that this happened during the Christmas season because people have been able to look after her due to being on Christmas holidays – but on the other hand it’s been a bitch trying to deal with Ruby’s birthday, the basement tenants (who are gone now but left some “issues” behind), trying to get into a groove with returning to work, and uh… oh yeah, CHRISTMAS and all that goes along with trying to prepare for that. Throw in there that I’m now 15 weeks pregnant and I’m just so totally exhausted both mentally and physically. I vowed that I was going to enjoy my Christmas this year but it’s been hard to get into the spirit with all that’s been going on.

Tomorrow is my last day of work this week and I only work 3 days next week. I’m hoping the extra time off will help to relax and rejuvenate me. And I have my fingers crossed that January lives up to it’s reputation for being the perfect time to get a fresh start. A fresh new start is just what we need.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Birthday Clone

Ruby's birthday was over a week ago and I never did post any pictures.

So just for fun... here are pictures comparing me on my first birthday and Ruby on hers.







Friday, December 18, 2009

Proof

I got my proof today that the problem was the care provider and not Ruby.

I took Ruby to my girlfriend’s house this morning. She ever so kindly offered to take her. She has a little guy who is only a couple of hours older than Ruby. Oh how I worried about this. I knew that she would be in great hands, but I worried that Ruby would have a day-long meltdown and refuse to nap and be the demon that the daycare lady said she was. I worried that by the end of the day my girlfriend would be frazzled and never want to see Ruby or me ever again.

However… I dropped her off this morning and she apparently cried a bit when I left. But she was given some TLC and her soother and within a few minutes she flung her soother across the room and started playing with the toys. Then an hour later she crawled over to her bag and pulled out her blanket and started rubbing her eyes, so M (the good M – my girlfriend, not bad M – daycare lady) laid her down and she had a nap (WHAT??? Allowing her to nap when she needs it??? What a concept!) She got up an hour or so later and started playing with M’s little guy. Not antisocial whatsoever. I’ve had little updates throughout the day and it sounds like Ruby is having a great day. I am so happy.

All she needed was someone to care for her and be gentle with her when she was feeling a little bit nervous. Although this is what I suspected, now I know the truth.

(Thanks so much, M. I owe you big.)

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Done

Ruby was officially done at the daycare yesterday at 8:45am. When I dropped her off she was clawing away from M. I don’t blame her. That woman is a bitch and I am seriously disappointed in how she handled things.

So I came to work, discussed the situation with my boss who told me, “Go get her. You don’t leave your kid with someone like that.”

I called ahead to let M know that I was coming to get Ruby and she wouldn’t be coming back and that I would like a refund for the remaining days of the month (she hesitated but agreed to refund me). When I got to M’s house 20 minutes later, she had Ruby’s bags packed and a cheque sitting by the door for me.

When I first got there she was holding Ruby on her hip. Ruby didn’t see me at first but I saw her. She had a blank, distant, sad stare on her face. THAT is not my daughter. She is happy and funny and giggly and smart. THAT broke my heart. I KNOW something is not right with the way M treated her.

And when we left and M was saying goodbye to Ruby, I swear to you Ruby glared at her. She would not smile whatsoever. She just glared. I’ve never seen her do that before.

And minutes after I got her in the car she was fast asleep - which broke my heart (again) because obviously just being there was taking a lot out of her.

My theory? Ruby had to get up early on the day she started daycare so she was probably tired to begin with. Then M refused to let her nap until the “scheduled” time at 11:30 – which she tells me is when all the kids nap for 2.5 hours (and she gets her precious break). I think Ruby was probably overtired by that point and couldn’t do much more than cry. I think that M didn’t appreciate Ruby cutting into her break and got frustrated and probably mean to her. (Yes, I do think she was mean). Ruby would pick up on this and it would upset her even more, perpetuating a bad mood into a bad situation.

And somewhere along the line one of the kids bit her hard enough to leave their dental impression on her leg for a week. That can’t have made Ruby feel great about the other kids. Also, M had no idea that this happened… which kinda bugs me.

After that, I’m sure Ruby was nervous and sensed the frustration with M. It just made things worse and worse and worse. Ruby didn’t like it there and she didn’t like M. And as far as I’m concerned M did nothing to make it better. As far as I’m concerned she didn’t do her job.

She even had the nerve to complain to me one day that Ruby had pooped 3 times. She was really annoyed by that.

I am so glad to have her out of there. I’ve got some help for the next few days from my mom and my girlfriend and Steve to take care of her while I search for someone to take her in January.

I just worry about finding another place. I worry about finding somewhere/someone good. Clearly I fucked up the first time. I don’t want to make the same mistake. I swear this woman came across as a very kind, loving, fun, compassionate caregiver – and I was so so so wrong about her. I am doubting my instincts now and haven’t started looking for a new place yet because I’m scare of putting her in the wrong place again. Especially on such short notice. I know though, that the longer I put it off, the harder it will get. I really have to get on it soon. There’s just so much stress weighing my heart and my brain down right now, I want to be feeling fresher and sharper before I go ahead with my new daycare search.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

What does a nervous breakdown feel like???

When I went to pick up Ruby today at daycare, M avoided eye contact with me for the first few minutes and busied herself with tidying the room. When I finally locked eyes with her I asked, wearily, how the day went. She told me there was little to no improvement.

And then she said, "I give her til friday to make some improvement and if there is none by then, you'll have to find someone else to look after her."

Fuck if the tears didn't start rolling down my cheek right then. I couldn't help it but I hated myself for it.

She told me that she just can't handle it that Ruby's not adjusting. She's only happy when M is holding her and M has other kids to care for so she can't hold her all the time. And Ruby doesn't want to nap when she's there. She only napped for 20 minutes today.

After she blithered on about this or that thing that Ruby did that was so crappy she then said to me, "You know what the worst part is??? I work a 10 1/2 hour day and I'm not getting a break!"

Well, I'm so sorry for you. I pay her $650 per month to take care of my little girl. She's got a total of 5 kids so she's making some good cake to miss a couple of breaks. Ruby's gone there a total of 5 days and she's already asking me not to bring her back. Is 5 days enough time for a baby to adjust to something so new? Has she never had a baby that needed time and maybe a little extra attention to get used to the new arrangement before? Seriously, what the fuck?

And so I am a wreck right now. It took me months to find this daycare. I researched and looked around until I found what I thought was the perfect daycare. Now I'm supposed to find a new place within a week? While I'm working full time? Oh I'm sure there's loads of openings on such short notice. And I don't want to just drop her off somewhere that I know nothing about just because they have an opening. I need to try to find her a good, kind, caring place that is going to understand and help her with her separation anxiety.

I really don't know what I'm going to do. Crying my eyes out certainly isn't going to find me a daycare, but it seems that that's all I can do right now.

Struggle

So much going on right now. The stress level is somewhat “elevated”. I’m struggling. I’m overloaded. I’m pretty sure I’m depressed.

Work has pretty much smoothed out. Maybe too much. It’s gotten easy and I’m usually done “work” by noon, with nothing left to fill my afternoon. It drives me crazy. I’d like to be busy. Sitting here watching the clock tick is not my idea of a good time.

Ruby hates daycare. It’s been baaaad. And that makes me feel baaaaad. And if I’m going to be honest, I don’t like the way M (daycare lady) is handling it. When I picked Ruby up on Friday she said, “I hate to tell you this but today was the WORST day yet. Worse than her first day. And I am exhausted!” I picked up a hint of her being pissed off about it. She then went on to tell me that Ruby refuses to nap and it’s causing the other kids not to nap because she cries and wakes them up. She also told me that the other baby that’s there never cried and now that Ruby’s crying all the time she cries too. She also suggested that I haven’t socialized her enough around other kids because when the other kids go near her she cries. She said when she puts on music the other kids dance and Ruby cries.

I cannot help but to take this personally. I have done my best to be the best mother that I can possibly be. Ruby is obviously having a hard time adjusting to spending the day with strangers and I don’t know how I could have better prepared her for it. Should I have started dropping her off at the mall for a few hours each week and let her hang out there on her own??? You know, get her used to being in a strange place with strange people? She’s a fucking BABY for crying out loud! When do I leave my baby with strangers???

When I picked Ruby up on Friday she had dried snot on her face and when she saw me she started frantically signing “milk”. When I got her home I looked in her bag and I saw that the morning bottle that I send with her was still in there. She hadn’t been fed it. She has other smaller bottles there so I’m hoping she got one of those. But this morning I wasn’t going to take a chance so I fed her the bottle before we left. I mentioned this to M when we got there this morning and she got all defensive saying that she feeds her right away in the morning and her problem isn’t hunger. She “guarantees” it. I then mentioned to her that Ruby had a bite mark on her leg and that perhaps that’s why she cries when the other kids come near her. She got all defensive and said none of the kids that go there are biters… Maybe she fell on a toy. A horseshoe shaped toy the same size as a kid’s mouth with little notches all around it. Maybe they play with false teeth.

I also talked to her about Ruby having just spent the weekend around other kids and she was fine. She’s very social. She said that was just because I was there. Well, I was “there” but I wasn’t sitting beside her holding her hand. I was busy doing other things in the house.

She then went off about her university degree in child psychology and Ruby’s problem isn’t hunger or anything else other than she misses me during the day and can’t adjust to being around new people. Well then I wish she wouldn’t suggest that I didn’t socialize her properly or tell me how disruptive she is to the other kids or how “EXHAUSTED” she is after looking after Ruby all day. Because I pay her a LOT of money to do this job. And she has a “university degree”. And she’s done this for 8 years. So suck it up lady and help make my kid comfortable. And quit fucking making me feel bad! (or is that just me making myself feel bad?)

There has been a bunch of other stuff going on too. Like it was Ruby’s birthday on Sunday and we had a little birthday party for her. Steve’s family showed up two hours late. The rest of us tried to wait around to open gifts and have cake but in the end I said Fuck It and went ahead without them all. It was frustrating and put a gray cloud over the party.

And our fucked up, weirdo, asshole tenants moved out of our basement on Sunday morning as well. I’ve never been so happy to see the back end of someone. It was a super stressful morning though – particularly when Steve nearly came to blows with their “moving guys” (stoners with tattoos on their faces, reeking of pot). This also put a “tone” on our day. Not to mention the money we now need to spend to have the carpet professionally cleaned and Steve has to do some repairs to a broken door. I still don’t feel like the place is all mine yet. Renting out my basement was one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in a while.

And Christmas is creeping up and I haven’t been able to get stuff done. We don’t even have a tree yet. I haven’t done all my shopping. Thinking about it makes my head want to explode.

I guess everything else wouldn’t be such a big deal if everything was ok with Ruby. She’s my number one concern and it rips my heart out to know that she’s having a rough go of it. But put it all together and I’m fucking fucked. I just want to cry my eyes out. The past few nights I’ve done just that but not until Ruby’s gone to bed, the dishes are done, the house is clean, lunches are made, dinner for the next night is planned and a load of laundry is in the washer. Shit still has to get done.

I know there's bigger, badder worse things going on in the world but in my little world this shit is tearing me down.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Not off to a good start

Daycare was a bust. Ruby cried all day and refused to nap and therefore prevented the other kids from napping. She clung to the daycare lady all day and hung from her pant leg when she wasn't being carried. This is so out of character for my girl - she's so independent. Breaks my heart.

I got yelled at at work yesterday. Yes, because apparently I am five years old. My boss was helping me figure out which printer was which and when I realized that I sent my print jobs to the broken printer, I went to clean out that print queue and she yelled at me and flipped out thinking I might delete some important print job of hers. Except I don't have her print jobs in my print queue - and each job is clearly labeled with my name and the time that I sent the print job to the printer. Then she felt dumb and stomped out of my office.

I don't have a lunch today because I didn't have the fucking energy to do fuck all when I finally got home last night. Guess I'm buying lunch today. And maybe a cup of coffee while I'm at it... the coffee tastes like it is directly filtered in from the sewage treatment plant that is just down the street from my new office. The air is lovely here...

Today has to be better. It has to be...

Sunday, December 6, 2009

The end of an era

I go back to work tomorrow. After having a whole year off.

Everything has changed with my job - including location, office, bosses, coworkers and the actual work itself. And the only person who knows how to do my job resides halfway across the country and her boss doesn't feel that it's necessary to fly her out here to retrain me.

Awesome.

One good thing is that Mondays are Steve's regular day off. So at least on my first day back I don't have to worry about daycare and all that shit. I can save that for my second day.

I feel like tonight is dragging on forever. Like I've got something looming over my head and I just want to get there and deal with it so I can feel better but time is dragging and I just have nothing to do but sit here and think about shit.

Of course there's lots I SHOULD be doing to get ready for tomorrow - like figure out what to wear, do laundry, make my lunch, get Ruby's daycare bag ready for Tuesday... but... ugh... the anxiety, it paralyzes me a bit.

And it's nothing that I won't tackle and deal with and kick ass at... no, I know I'll do fine. It's just the anticipation of it all. It's the contemplating how my life is so drastically going to change overnight. Literally.




Also, my heart is heavy for Cece. If you haven't already, go visit her and give her some love and support. She is dealing with the unimaginable right now.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Turning the corner

Can you believe I'm almost in the 2nd trimester? I'm now 12 weeks pregnant. (I'll actually consider myself to be in the 2nd trimester when I hit 13 weeks.) That went really fast. I guess that's because I have a load of other things on my mind and being pregnant isn't the foremost thing in my mind like it was the first time. Now I have a little girl to look after and she takes up most of my brain power. Not to mention getting ready to return to work, getting prepped to take her to daycare, thinking about her 1st birthday, Christmas, etc.

It's actually kind of nice to have the distractions so I don't obsess too much.

I'm feeling much better about the pregnancy now. Once again, it's not that I ever regretted becoming pregnant, it was just hard for me to get my head wrapped around something that I was convinced would never happen. I had worked hard to accept that fact. A doctor told me once that we covet and make a life out of what we have. So true. I thought Ruby was going to be an only child and so I worked hard at making that a very cool thing. I made myself accept that that was going to be our life and I made myself ok with it. Even though we did want more kids, it seemed that it wasn't in the cards. And why torment myself thinking about something that I believed I would never, could never have?

So the surprise was a big one and it was a lot to digest.

But I think I'm there now. Or getting very close to being there. Being able to talk to a few really close friends about my situation sure helped. And a chat with my midwife also really helped. She told me that what I am feeling is completely normal. That even fertile women who PLAN their second pregnancies feel a little bit detached in the beginning. Go figure.

I stepped on the scale this morning and I've only gained 6lbs. By this time when I was pregnant with Ruby I had gained 10. Actually, more than 10 if you count in the IVF 3 or 4 before I even got pregnant. That made me happy. Just not sure why I LOOK like I've gained 20lbs. I'm trying not to worry about that though, I'm just happy that my weight gain so far is 40% less than last time.

I've also officially let the cat out of the bag. Everyone I've told has been really excited and really supportive. That feels good. It feels good to not keep this big secret inside me. Everyone's happiness and excitement is very uplifting.

And so I soon move into the 2nd trimester. Feeling better about myself and about my life. Looking forward to the rest of this pregnancy.