Time to get ill

Jacob started throwing up Sunday morning, and it went into Monday. Zoe threatened to throw up all day Monday, but went back and forth between, "MOMMY MY BELLY HUUUUUUUUUUURTS!!!" to, "Mommy, can I have a lollipop?"

She never did get the lollipop, and she never did throw up.

But she woke up shortly after falling asleep tonight with a barking cough that is unmistakable croup. I couldn't believe it -- she is 6 years old and should be out of the magical age of getting it -- so I called my sister and as soon as she heard that cough over the phone she knew it too.

After getting over my initial reaction to go down to the garage, start my car and lock myself in the trunk, I laid on the living room floor and let Zoe writhe and moan and bark. There's nothing like a kid pulling out the German ancestry when she's sick.

She finally fell asleep, but I have a feeling this night is long from being over.


On Saturday, I cut Jacob's hair. I have agonized about this for weeks, because I know it is one of his firsts, and I've been split on involving Joe or just waiting for him to do it. Or going for it.

Much of my decision was based on a lot of input. Joe wouldn't do the same for me. It's just a haircut, Joe won't care. Jacob is constantly scratching his ears because of the wisps of hair tickling them. It's practically in his eyes!

It didn't help that Joe took the baby to the doctor on Friday, never told me about the visit, the diagnosis, the prognosis, nothing. I had to hear it from the day care: Another diaper rash.

It's just a haircut, I told myself. He needs it. Joe will pick him up from day care Monday, get mad, get even, and it will be over.

Then Jacob got sick, I took Monday off, and I had to hand him over to Joe at the bottom of the driveway in the evening. It was then Joe set eyes on the amazingly great job I did with a squirming baby and a jar of baby squash.

But he didn't exactly see it that way. After swearing and cursing at me -- in front of both of my children -- he marched his way back to his car, claiming he had a police escort he was going to report to. (I looked up the street, and there was no such police escort.)

But it didn't stop there. He went home and stewed about it -- A FUCKING HAIRCUT -- and delivered to my inbox one of his best insults ever:

Only an insignificant, filthy piece of human flotsam would do what you did to that baby's head of beautiful hair.

I'm ashamed I called you a "fucking cunt." Not because it's inaccurate, but because it's too banal a description for the hideous and hateful creature you are.

Art by Z.O.E.

Using Photo Booth on our laptop. She set up the lighting and position.

First haircut

Before



After

Pens' first game

Jacob objects to Carolina's FOURTH goal.

And in unrelated news, THANK GOODNESS Isaac Hanson is OK. Now I can have a peaceful weekend.

Our emotional family

"I miss you
Like the deserts miss the rain."

-- Missing, Everything But the Girl



Tom and his kids came over for dinner tonight... the kids played and we ate and Tom and I sat and shot the shit and it felt like I had an old friend over.

It's hard to believe sometimes that we've only been dating for a few months.

I have to remember that when he loads my dishwasher all wrong and my OCD kicks in.

Everyone had lots of homework, so we had to part at a respectable hour. Zoe is normally upset when we all have to leave, and tonight was no different. Except that she seemed to get unusually withdrawn. I have understood her objection to her playmates leaving, or the fact that it's actually time to get down to the business of the nighttime ritual, but tonight she was particularly forlorn. She paced around and then started bawling before I even told her it was time to apply soap to her skin.

I was sitting on the living room floor with Jacob when her crying began. And I recognized that cry.

And it all came flooding back: The night Joe told me to leave, one of the few times he had the guts to actually say it to my face instead of over the phone or through email. One of the nights we were going to bed and he hadn't spoken to me for a week. The Night I went and sat on the steps and cried until I couldn't cry anymore and held my belly all full of Jacob and wished I might get even a little sick so I could be hospitalized and get away, get a relative to take care of Zoe and get her out of that mess.

And Joe just let me cry. Alone. Slept through it, probably.

Her cry tonight, that was my cry then. Sitting on the steps. Not knowing what was going to happen next. Desperate.

Normally I let her cry it out in her own way, or I try to distract her or otherwise nip it in the bud, but this time she crawled into my lap, shuddering, and Jacob climbed up and embraced us, and we just let her cry. And we held her tight. I know she hates when Jacob is not with us, and that this is an extension of that fear that the next night he won't be with us.

I don't know what is next. I didn't know what to tell her. Normally I have all the answers, but tonight, I just let her get it all out of her system. And we just loved her through it, held her and let her sob.

Because that's all I ever wanted.

That, and knowing what's next.

Basketti!

The dogs had a treat before this was all over.

Tuesday's crisis

A conversation at work:

"Why is she so crabby today?"

"I think she broke a nail."

"Oh. My. Gawd."

A fucking joke

Joe STILL has not given me the court-ordered money he's supposed to give me for day care for August. It's now onto October, and I'm supposed to be all nice and sweet and give him the bill for September.

Sometimes I think, what's the point? Why subject myself to 300 reasons why he shouldn't give me the money to help pay for his son's care?

His latest reason is that I took off days in August and he doesn't want to pay for them.

They are days he PHYSICALLY PUT HIM IN DAY CARE. Two days of which we both attended legal proceedings together.

While we are sorting this shit out, I've been putting day care on my credit card. We're talking almost $800 a month. While I'm paying interest on this shit now, he gets to pay it back to me at $100 a month.

NICE GIG.

I wonder what he will come up with for not helping to pay September's bill. Because I'm not in bankruptcy yet? That I smell so bad I deserve to rot in hell? That the day care is personally responsible for the mess in Darfur?

I got a great link today from someone who seems to get just when I need a little comic relief. Let this be over soon.