girlfiend

Yesterday I went back to school shopping for Boyfiend. Gap and Old Navy were both having great sales that I was able to combine with discount coupons, but they didn’t have much in the way of dress shirts or pants in the sale section. I ended up at Ross where I purchased the majority of the stuff on his list- socks, underwear, shirts, slacks and ties- and my major impulse buy, the counter top composter.

Of course almost none of it fit him. So I went back to the stores today to return the ill-fitting items and buy some stuff that fit. Gap was easy, Old Navy was crowded and the lines took forever, but the returns took no time (even the bathing suit purchased in July that I’d lost the receipt for) and I found a variety of pants in different styles that I’d dismissed yesterday. Ross was a nightmare. The store was mobbed. I planned on picking up a belt for him since I accidentally bought a child’s size belt yesterday, but the line was so long and so full of angry looking people that I decided B would do just fine without.

By the time I reached the front, the line behind me stretched across the store and the cashier in whose line I was stuck clearly hated his job and wasn’t very good at it. He was muttering, sighing and rolling his eyes. Not at the customers- he wasn’t blatantly rude or anything, but he was exasperated and asking his coworkers why there weren’t more cashiers working. He moved as slow as molasses and each customer seemed to take longer than the one before. Finally, after what seemed like hours, I handed him my receipt and the return items. He slowly, slowly looked at each tag and highlighted the corresponding item on the receipt. It seemed to tax him as though he was doing quadratic equations. He then scanned each item, making sure the scanner and the tag were aligned just so, until the register made a noise and spit out a receipt. “You can’t return this,” he told me and went back to his meticulous scanning. I asked why and he shrugged and told me he didn’t know.

Another employee who seemed to be in charge of returns came over and he asked her why I couldn’t return the shirt. She looked at the receipt, looked at the shirt and told him she didn’t know. They called over another employee. She didn’t know either. Then another. This one figured out that the highlighted item did not match the tag on the shirt. None of the items on the receipt matched the tag on the shirt. It took another ten minutes of poring through the receipt before someone came to the conclusion that I hadn’t actually been charged for the shirt the day before, hence the register’s insistence that it could not be returned. All of that confusion and endless waiting for a shirt I didn’t actually pay for. Shit, if I’d known I would have had him keep the damn shirt and wear it anyway. Instead they took the shirt, processed my return, and I left. In the rain.

I am obsessed with the Boden catalog. Obsessed. I want to buy one of just about everything in there, especially the Carnaby Trench and the Rainbow Coat. I would also like this top.

I organized my closet earlier. I think I counted 8 pairs of black Mary Janes in various brands and styles. Aside from the Danskos I don’t think I’ve worn any of them in years. I bought yet another pair of Mary Janes yesterday, only they are pewter. Now I have a huge bag full of shoes to get rid of. I’m not sure if it’s worth attemtping to sell them or if I should just give them to the Salvation Army and get the tax deduction. Some of the shoes have never been worn (I went through an unfortunate bulky suede shoe purchasing stage in the early part of the decade but was wise enough to never wear any of them.) Others just don’t fit. I don’t know what ever compelled me to buy shoes in sizes 6 and 7 when I am solidly a 6.5.

This morning I had a perfectly middle class Craigslist transaction. A father came to purchase my old Oreck vacuum cleaner for his kids going off to college. Middle class Craigslist transactions (where people tell you when they are coming, show up on time, and pay the agreed upon amount for the item in question) are the best kind.

The Fiendling is officially using the potty and I am pleased with his progress. I had absolutely nothing to do with his decision to stop peeing and crapping in his pants. The Flyers cup idea was brilliance on B’s part, but the transition to the actual potty was all F. This unexpected turn of events means that F will be welcome in preschool and I (excuse me. In a timely fashion F has informed me that he thinks he may need to pee and poo in the potty only I shouldn’t say anything and dada won’t say anything because he is outside.) don’t have to worry about him being trained by summer’s end.

Bad news: the preschool we ended up choosing is run by a local rec center. Fuuuuuck.

Good news:the cloth diaper laundry has decreased significantly.

Other news: I accidentally bought a Happy Day book for F at a yard sale. I did not realize that Happy Day books are Christian. Sam the Special Puppy is the heartwarming story of Mistie the dog who dies and makes everyone sad. Dean, a small boy, probably from the midwest, wants a dog. His mother tells him to pray for one and just a few weeks later his Aunt Wanda shows up while he’s watching TV and gives him the orphaned dog. He thanks God and everyone lives happily ever after.

A few days ago I went to log in to my breastfeeding website and found I was locked out. I feared that I had been fired for not posting for months. I tried to log in to the food site and found I was locked out of that one too. My name had been removed from all of the posts and I was no longer listed as the author. I did a quick google search and found nothing, but a search on Twitter came up with a tweet about 451press going under. A day later there was more information. Some people had even received official emails about the network closing. I had not. So it’s a good news/bad news kind of thing. I’m out $50 a month, but at least I wasn’t fired.

My plan, once I’m able to force myself through this dry spell, is to put the assorted breastfeeding and cooking posts back here where they used to be. There’s someone who gets to this site using my meatloaf recipe as a bookmark, and I still get several hits a week for Lidia’s Eggplant and Country Bread Lasagna. Great recipe. Cook it when it’s not so hot using all of your fresh garden tomatoes for the marinara. I also have a giveaway for an alcohol test strip kit for breastmilk.

I don’t what I’m going to do about the small income. It wasn’t much, but it did fund all of the outrageously expensive phthalate, paraben, sodium lauryl/laureth sulfate, PABA, formaldehyde, Polyethylene glycol, Octyl methoxycinnamate, and oxybenzone (among others) free soaps and sunscreens for the children. I’d add ads here, but I don’t think I’d make any money.

In other news I still can’t drink. Well, to be fair, I haven’t tried to drink since last Thursday when four sips of wine made me violently ill and I think I may wait a few more days to try again. I am bitter and I fear people are starting to think I am pregnant. I am not pregnant.

My small intestine was infected. I don’t know how it got infected, or why my symptoms did not include the diarrhea that would lead one to believe that one’s intestine could be infected, but infected it was. And after two weeks of mild indigestion, random vomiting, and sporadic excruciating pain, I went to the ER. I was doubled over in pain for hours before I got there and hours until they got me back to the room. Of course by the time I was back in a room the pain had subsided and I was convinced that it was nothing. My white blood cell count was way high so they did a CT scan and my small intestine was enlarged and there was fluid around my stomach. It was not just my fibromyalgia acting up, as B joked.

Because an infected small intestine wasn’t bad enough, the two antibiotics they gave me made me feel even worse. I was on clear liquids and bland foods for days and I had no energy and could barely push the stroller to the playground, let alone play with my kids once I was there. One of the antibiotics made me more susceptible to sunburn. The other had an alcohol warning which I ignored. Who knew that this was the one antibiotic you really can’t drink on? About an hour after a very weak drink I started spinning. Then I started puking. It was alcohol poisoning without the binge drinking. I avoided food and drink for another few days until the course of antibiotics was over.

Two days after I finished the antibiotics we took an overnight trip to the Strasburg Railroad. We stayed at a hotel with both indoor and outdoor swimming pools. The plan was to enjoy a glass of wine in the courtyard after the kids were asleep. At dinner I had about half of a Margarita. Within half an hour I was spinning. 20 minutes after that I was puking. The antibiotic was out of my system, but the alcohol-processing enzyme that the antibiotic destroyed had not yet been replenished. Will it ever be replenished? I am scared of a glass of wine.

Back at home the next night I heard a crash from upstairs, the expected tears, and the unexpected, “Oh shit, oh my god.” B yelled for me to come upstairs and he and F were both covered in F’s blood. I grabbed a washcloth to blot F’s forehead and see how bad it was and my god, it was bad. I packed a bag, pulled the car out of the driveway, and grabbed a popsicle for the ride. We dropped the baby off at my sister-in-law’s and drove to CHOP. This was our first CHOP experience- we’ve see CHOP doctors at satellite offices- and while I certainly don’t wish to return their ER, we are very lucky to live so close to such an amazing place. The doctors, nurses, residents, and front desk staff were all fantastic. F was calm and easy going throughout the entire experience- even while they stitched up his forehead.

F also managed to pee in the potty two times while we were there. Unfuckingbelievable. He’d been peeing in a Flyers cup for the past week, still refusing to use the potty, but with no Flyers cup available he chose to use the toilet, not soak his underwear.

To recap, I was sick for two weeks before I went to the ER and now, two weeks later I’m still feeling like crap, only less crappy than I felt a week ago. F is using the potty, only it’s not a potty it’s a Flyers cup, and he’s got three stitches in his forehead and can’t get wet. I have accomplished nothing on my to-do list and the summer is flying. I miss drinking.