I'm Going Crazy Because...

I feel like I can't sit still without getting depressed or anxious...sometimes to the point where my body aches. I've been trying to cope by writing out nightly schedules for the next day and weekly menus for dinner. It helps me to stay focused and keep busy so that I don't have a lot of downtime. It can be hard when I have no idea what to do next and my mind just floods with thoughts of all the things that are bothering me. I can't stand my roommate (a.k.a "Mother in Law"): the way she lives her life, the things she does, the sound of her voice all get under my skin. I can't talk to any of the people I'd usually talk to because I have issues with all of them right now (all 3 that is). I can't talk to my BF because most of my problem is with his mom so he doesn't want to hear it. My SIL is going through a quarter life crisis, so I feel bad calling with my own issues and I want to help but I don't know what to say or do for her and my own anxiety is making her personality a little annoying right now. My mom is pissed at me because I said we were going on an outing near her house Sunday and invited her along but then we changed our minds and went somewhere else without telling her until the last minute, so now I'm afraid to talk to her. She's been FBing me and texting me with "I miss you", "I miss my girls", "I want to see my kids"....for weeks now and I haven't done anything about it. But she works and goes to school 6 days a week and lives 45 minutes away, so it's not like I can just pop on over for a short visit. I feel like it's not my fault that she fills her time up with work and school and lives so far, so she can't get mad at me for not seeing us. I'm just sick of everyone wanting me to bring the baby here or there to visit with them. Sometimes I just want to move away where no one can guilt trip me about not visiting. If they want to visit, they can come to us. Besides, I had mixed feelings about my last visit with my mom because she spent the whole time oggling the baby and I felt neglected because I could barely have a conversation the way I used to have with her. I feel like now that the baby's a little older I should just drop her off at people's houses and go do something else because no one wants to see me anymore anyway. They just want to spend time with her.

Now, as for the roommate/MIL issue. We're both home all day long because I don't work and she works evenings. I can't even be in the same room with her without wanting to punch something. I try to get up and out of the house for the day before she wakes up, so I don't have to see her because she just drives me insane. She's 47 years old, parties all night and sleeps till noon, then gets up all bitchy and wants to complain about the night she had or the customers not tipping, or her STUPID FUCKING VOLLEYBALL. The woman is obsessed...I mean OBSESSED with her volleyball league. She's not only a player, but she "runs" the season...you would think that this year when she found out the company had hired professionals to run it and that she wasn't getting paid, that she would've just dropped it. Oh no....she implanted herself so far into it that they ended up firing the professionals and agreeing to pay her and another team mate to coordinate the rest of the season. My guess is they probably just wanted to get her off their backs. She cannot speak without complaining about something, she spends most of her day doing volleyball bullshit while trying to accomplish other household tasks and running errands, but she is incapable of multi-tasking. Every single day she says she's going to pool and then she never gets there because her days go a little like this...She'll fill the sink with dishes, then go outside to water the garden, come back in and do half the dishes, then go back to making phone calls. She'll start making breakfast (at 2:00pm), remember she has to get to the bank before their deposit cutoff, leave the eggs half cooked on the stove and run out the door to get to the bank, get sidetracked going to Walgreens and get back just in time to finish breakfast (4:00pm), more volleyballs calls, take a shower and leave for work....dirty pans on the stove, milk left out, never finishing the dishes. When she does finish the dishes, half the time I have to rewash them because they're all covered in grease from being left soaking in cold water all day and then quickly rinsed to get it done before she has to go. Then today she says to me "tell me again why you wash dishes that can go in the dishwasher, because I've read it uses less water to run the dishwasher than to actually wash them." So, I said, "because I'm already washing dishes to begin with and the dishwasher was full." How the hell can she ask me why I wash dishes if she's the crazy person who insists that not everything can go in the dishwasher? There's a pots and pans button on the machine for a reason!! And you wonder why I throw a couple plates and glasses in the sink with my load of dishes that you say can't go in the dishwasher?? What fucking planet are you from?!!

Another thing is, she has apparently stopped buying groceries...at least groceries for the whole house. She'll go to the store and get her personal items and mention that she was craving fruit or a green vegetable, but did she remember to get a gallon of milk? No. She bought beer, English muffins, eggs, 1 orange, and ONE banana. ONE! The baby eats a banana almost every morning and BF takes one to work a lot, so when he called her out on it and said, "Who buys 1 banana?" She says, "well I didn't have any money and I needed some fruit." What about all the fruit I buy for the house that she is welcome to eat any time? What about the 2 gallons of milk I buy every week that we always seem to run out of? I understand you're a waitress and your income depends on how well business is going and business hasn't been good, so you're broke. But I'm unemployed and on food stamps, so who are you to bitch? I haven't even told her about the food stamps because I feel like she'll figure "well, you've got government money. You go ahead and buy ALL the groceries." Even though I feel like that's already what's happening. And what about the meals I make 4 times a week and the leftovers you hardly ever eat? Honestly, I'm a little insulted that she never eats what I cook. I'm not a bad cook. I'm actually getting pretty good with all this practice. Any time she's cooked in the past I always eat it, no matter if it's something I think I'll like or not. She actually turned me onto fish which I would never eat before. But when I made fish and offered her some she made a face and asked, "is it fishy?" and when BF cooks something he knows she likes and we offer to make enough for her to join us, she'll turn up her nose and ask, "What's the vegetable?" Then she'll run out and buy a fresh veggie, cook it, and eat it with the leftovers that night but not sit down and eat with us.

OH...and don't get me started on anything she does involving my daughter. Ok, so here goes... she knows we have no space in this house yet she randomly buys things from garage sales that we can't even use yet because their too old for the baby. She and I both buy books at garage sales and then she just decides about the ones I bought that "she's not ready for those yet. They're too wordy" and puts them away in another room without even telling me until I ask her what happened to them. She doesn't hold back in telling her "Grandma's hangin" when she's hungover from the night before, or "Grandma's buzzed" when her friends drop her off early from a night of drinking. Excuse me, but my 15 month old daughter does not need to hear that bullshit--EVER. She constantly asks the baby if she wants to go swimming or wants to do this or that, then says, "Grandma wants to take you" or "Grandma's going to take you" but then never delivers. She said to me the other day, "I promised myself I'd go to the pool for my birthday because it's my birthday and I need to do what I want. Volleyball can wait. So, I don't know what you guys are doing that day but maybe you'd like to go over to the pool for a little while. I'd love to see the baby swim." I've offered several times for her to take the baby swimming without me, but she's never asked me to do that. I guess she didn't want the responsibility of taking her swimming herself. So, I figured that it's her birthday so I should try to make it happen. I asked her ahead of time if she knew when she might want to go to the pool. She said, "well it won't be first thing in the morning because I plan to stay out for my birthday the night before." So, I sat around all day waiting for her to get her drunk ass out of bed and by the time she did and I came up with a plan to get my errands done while still fitting in her pool time, it was 3:30pm and she says to me, "Oh, I'm not going. There's no time, I gotta go to work."

Thanks, bitch. Thanks for making my life miserable.

Coupon Nazi

WTH? This woman--my not-quite-MIL--is insane. She absolutely cannot give us our mail without looking at the return address and either announcing who it's from, guessing what it is, or getting involved somehow--especially if it's a recurring bill. On the Sunday's when I bring the newspaper in, I clip the coupons I want and put it all back together to give to her because otherwise she piles them up for months until she finds time to go through them, and by then they're usually expired. I even asked once if she could pass them onto me when she was done and I never saw them again. One day when I was going to the store to get a few things she says, "I was just about to get you some coupons from the paper and look! (holds up coupon pages) They're gone!" I'm like, "Yeah, I already got them yesterday." She exclaims, "Oh!! I thought the mailman was stealing my coupons!!" .....really? You actually thought the mailman chose our house out of all the others, opens up the paper and cuts the coupons before delivering the paper? Yeah, sure.

Yesterday she was going through them again. She had 6 piles going on the table and then had to leave for work. So, as I'm clearing off the table for dinner I moved them all into one pile, staggering so she could separate them where she had them. Then today she gets this tone and says, "now...do you know which pile was where because I had them sorted by (blah blah blah)...and the ones I was done with I put in a trash pile." Yeah, obviously you had them sorted by something, but I didn't know that ahead of time so I couldn't do much with it other than what I did. She says, "well, I guess I'll just start over. I should be able to figure it out." Ok, so then I say to her a little later in the day, "I was thinking, when you're done, don't throw out your trash pile. I'll go through it and see if there's any more I could use in there." Now, instead of just saying "Ok." She says, "Well, see the trash pile is mostly expired and I've already taken out any of the ones I thought you guys would use...like I keep all the baby ones and I kept one for your sour cream..."

I don't even know what to say to that and I've never seen a single baby coupon from her, so where she puts these ones that she thinks I'll use, I don't know. But my real questions is... how hard is it to just let us decide for ourselves what we want to keep? A lot of times I don't buy stuff until I notice a coupon for it and that will make me think, "Oh I've been wanting to try that!" So, how would she know that I don't want a coupon for something just because she's never seen it in the house? She does the same thing with our mail! If she thinks its junk mail she'll throw it out before even giving it to us. How does she know what our junk mail looks like?

Ugghhhhh! She is making me crazy! God, I wish we could just win the lottery and move out of here now instead of waiting until we're ready and able.

Grandma's Hitting the Pipe

BF asked me to pick up lawn bags today so he and his mom could team up and cut the extra long grass we have outside due to the recent onslaught of rain. She would do half during the day and he will do the rest when he gets home from work.

I just got home from the grocery store. Baby's fussy and doesn't want to stay in car seat or be put down while I put the groceries away. So, I have her on one hip and groceries on the other as I walk upstairs to put the perishables in the fridge. It straight smells like reefer up here. Obviously "MIL" and her loser boyfriend are getting tons accomplished on the living room today. When I put the lawn bags down she says, "Oh shit I totally forgot about the lawn!" (Well, yeah I could've predicted that one yesterday when you said you'd add it to your schedule...not to mention the fact that you just got done smoking a bowl.)

So, part of me is pissed that Grandma is upstairs smoking pot because I just carried my baby through that air. But its kind of hypocritical to be mad because I let BF sneak off to take a hit here and there and he comes back in with a faint smell of pot on him. Besides, they probably smoked while we were still at the grocery store and it's just a lingering smell that I noticed once I got home. I'm sure I wasn't actually walking through a cloud of THC when I went up there. Its just one more of those things to add fuel to the fire I guess. At least this time I can keep my cool about it.

Its the Principle

Most of the time I try to be cool about my living situation. Fact is, most things that bother me really aren't a big deal so I try not to make them into one. But everything just adds up and gets under my skin. Well this week just happened to be one of those weeks. The house has been a construction zone for weeks because they're painting the walls and putting in new carpet upstairs. So, we've managed to work around that most of the time with making pretty easy dinners, but we can't even eat at the dinner table. We have to eat downstairs in our bedroom which I hate because it means I'm eating while sitting on the super low couch, hunched over the coffee table. Then we have BF's mom and her loser boyfriend coming and going all the time trying to get work done in between running errands and going out partying at night. Its taken her 3 days to finish the dishes that they made the other night and they are still sitting in the sink. How long does it take to do one dinner's worth of dishes? The other night I heard them come home at 12:30 and I couldn't get back to sleep until they'd quieted down. It sounded like they'd finally stopped messing around in the kitchen and gone to bed around 3:30a.m. Then her boyfriend was up at 9:30am hanging out in the living room and making coffee for hours before she even woke up.... Then, this morning I woke and the bitch drank my Bacardi. She had a full case of beer in the fridge, why did she have to drink the rest of my Bacardi? Then when she finally wakes up today at 2:00pm she comes into the kitchen with that alcoholic hangover voice that people get, picks up the bottle and says, "I don't know whose this was but I drank it. I'll buy more." So I said, "Yeah, it was mine and it was a mix of 3 different flavors that someone gave me. I don't even know which ones they were." and I walked downstairs. So, she goes and calls BF and says she doesn't appreciate the snippiness from me, and then I have to talk to him about it too! WTF. I'm sick of talking about it or thinking about it, but basically its just the principle of it....and the fact that all my other annoyances have been adding up. That's all. I don't know what else to say about it.

Re-Entering the Real World

I did it! I made it through my first post-pregnancy social event. I had a bridal shower to go to and it was the first time I've left Baby alone with anyone for more than an hour. I started having anxiety last night while thinking about the things I had to do to get ready and leave the house for the shower. And after freaking out the last time I was supposed to have plans to go somewhere, I thought for sure I was going to back out at the last minute. This morning when I woke up I started doing what I had to do, I ran into a poop detour, but once I set my mind to get in the shower and get ready I was ok. I'm so happy that I did it. It sounds so dumb, but it was an obstacle. I was really starting to think that I'd become institutionalized by being at home with Baby all the time...like I couldn't function in the real world, having to be in a certain place at a certain time. Now I feel much better about it though.

Another thing is that its hard to leave your baby for the first time, especially after you've been with her 24-7 for the past 7 weeks. I'm sure any mother would agree with that. I wasn't even leaving her with a baby sitter. It was with her own Dad! But even that was hard. He's never been alone with her for more than 45 minutes. I was afraid she'd cry and he wouldn't know what to do and that can be so frustrating and tiring. Not only that but it was also her first time drinking from a bottle. I've been breastfeeding exclusively this whole time. Its important to me that she only drinks breastmilk so I had to pump, and that was a first as well. (And an experience I am not fond of at all!) Yesterday was the only chance I had to try pumping and I didn't even have a chance to try feeding her the bottle. We were just hoping she would take it today. Luckily she had no problem with it. We were pretty confident about that one though. We figured once she started sucking and realized there was milk coming out, she wouldn't refuse. She's such a good baby. We're really lucky.

Baby Hogging

I feel like I'm being burdened by both sides of this situation. On the one hand, I'm frustrated that I have no freedom anymore. Everything I do is such a drawn out process and has to be planned well in advance and around baby's eating schedules. I can't just run out to the store. I have to make sure its after she's fed but not too close to when she'll eat again so that she doesn't get upset while I'm out with her. Or I have to make sure I let Daddy know that I need to go out so he can take her right after I feed her and I can leave right away. And if I say I want to go to the store he has to ask me where and why. I can't just go to the store because I want to buy something? You have to decide if its something I need to get right now first? Maybe I just want a break or an escape.

Then on the other hand, it's nice that everyone wants to be part of the baby's life. But now that she's here we get so many visitors that we can't have a single weekend to ourselves. You would think that being with her 24-7 during the week would make me want people to come over and take her for a while so I could just be here with Daddy and not have to worry about her because I know she's just in the other room in good hands. But it doesn't. It just makes me tired and frustrated because nobody knows her cues like I do, so she cries so much more when other people are around. Nobody bothers to check her diaper, they think she just has gas or wants to be rocked. NO, what she wants is a clean diaper and to be put down for a while so she can have some time to herself to chill. Yes, I hold her all the time but she doesn't want to be held every second. From my point of view, it seems like she gets sick of other people and just wants to get back to her time with Mommy. My family seems to think that they are all going to have some huge part in raising her. They're always saying stuff about how they plan to influence her and it just makes me so mad. They can raise their own kids when they have them. I just want to be like, "Everyone leave us the hell alone! She's my baby and I don't want to share her!!"

That's a Punctual Baby!

So, it turns out that I went into labor the morning of my due date. Can you believe that? Cleaning and nesting for a few days, then an emotional breakdown because the father of my baby was drunk the night before the due date, then lo and behold it actually happens on time! Well, sort of....

I woke up in the morning with signs of labor, went to the Dr and was told it would happen "tonight", ate a light lunch and walked for an hour, then checked into the hospital around noon Saturday. Labor progressed slowly for the first 12 hours. Then around 1:00am the contractions got worse and I started dilating about a centimeter an hour until I got stuck at 6-7cm for a long time. As time passed, I was exhausted and hungry because they wouldn't let me eat the whole time I was there. My exhaustion didn't help me deal with the pain. The Dr wanted to speed things up since I'd been there at least 24 hours already, so she suggested breaking my water bag. I got more and more scared about what was yet to come. I started crying more frequently and thinking about getting the epidural even though I'd planned to go as natural as possible. I was upset that I was even considering the epidural even though I knew in my heart that it was ok for me to get it. Finally I decided to let them break the water and see how it went. After my water was broken the contractions got much more intense and after 30 hours of labor I decided to get the epidural. At hour 32 the anesthesiologist came in and numbed me up....an hour later my baby girl was born!

Dude... I'm a mom. Crazy!

And by the way, BF was amazing during the whole thing. He's the best Dad ever!!