Why I'm not returning your calls

I know I have not been the best blogger lately, but I mostly only like to blog the funny stuff and I get tired hearing myself bitch in real life, so I don't need to write it in my blog too. Frankly this last week has not been fun or funny. It has swung from obsessively creating a budget and floor plan for our kitchen (this is where the Celexa is supposed to help out apparently) that came to a head with me threatening to lay down in the parking lot of the IKEA and let one of the horrible Chicago-area Lexus drivers run me over (seriously, what is it with Lexus owners?). To new babies (I have pictures of Rachel's new baby Camden and will post them soon) and the death of my grandfather's long-time companion that I worry will send him into a depression that he may not come back from at his age, I consider he and I to be very close and this is worrisome. Olivia has been going through a very difficult phase, not eating, not sleeping, a lot of weeping and melodrama and Chad is out of town this week and since he and I tend to overcompensate when he is out of town I have been running all over town with Olivia who started two new classes this week. Oh, and indeed, that cat is still not using that litter box properly. She also now likes to sleep on my face, so on top of Olivia not sleeping, neither am I.

So you lucky, lucky people get to read my bitching because my husband is in North Carolina and my two girlfriends who I regularly bitch to are either knocked up and have no tolerance for any kind of whining or too busy having a baby and are definitely not interested in any of my petty bitching. So if I have not returned your call it is because I am hiding in the shower, the only place where I can get away from that f!@$ing cat.

What do you mean, I'm Crazy?

The following post contains no references to pap smears, but contains frequent references to anti-depressants.

SO the second half of my doctor's appointment goes like this: Olivia calmly but deliberately coloring my feet with marker while I desperately try to convince my doctor that I am not losing my mind. It all started with the to-do list. You know I likes my to-do list. So the doctor is asking me all the usual questions, how am I sleeping the cat crapped four inches from head last night at three AM and Olivia is on a sleep strike so not great, am I getting enough exercise does nine thousand trips up and down the stairs to do all the extra laundry count, how is my diet (I think I ate a Peeps marshmallow today, ooh and a glass of juice-definitely the juice and she asks me to schedule a cholesterol test, blah, blah, blah so I pull out my to-do list and write it down.

That is where it all goes wrong. What is that, she calmly inquires, too calmly. My to-do list. That is a rather long list. Well, you know how it is when you have kids. Let's review your family history she says non-chalantly. Then I notice all the questions about substance abuse, then it is questions about my alcohol intake at which point I make the tactical decision to exclude last weekend's bender from my statements. She asks me how many times a day I feel anxious. Are you kidding me? I am the mother of the brainiac who just answered your developmental questionnaire in three different languages and tried to fly this morning. It is anxiety inducing, okay. That's when I realize she thinks that I'm crazy. She tells me that I am, indeed, crazy.

I know that I should be a little more calm about such things, no biggie, clinical depression is an easily managed medical condition that requires little more than daily medication and bi-monthly check-ins with my physician. However, I am really just kind of pissed about the whole thing. First of all, compared to most people I am related to that make up my, oh so important family medical history, I am doing pretty damn good. I have a happy marriage, a house, I have not yet completely fucked up my kid and I am a relatively together person. Second, my being a little type-a is hardly news and I have been scoring off the charts on those stupid depression questionnaires for decades so what if like to-do lists and think about killing myself on a daily basis? So do, well, other people, I'm sure they are out there. And I bet they don't have to take something as lame as a medication called Celexa. Who makes these names anyway, what does that even mean? Celexa?

I say thanks, but no thanks, even if I am crazy I have gotten this far without Celexa. Then she does what a dozen doctors before her never got the chance to do, play the mommy guilt card. She beats me down with the long-term health effects of depression, how I am depriving my child of a complete person. That's when I hated her, more than a little. Now it sounds like I am crazy, vindictive person if I say no, a terrible mother. So I take the fricking prescription, I pull out my day planner to make a two week follow up, she looks at my calendar, can I make it three weeks I say, I am all booked up. You are going to feel so much better she says, that is a really full schedule, what keeps you so busy? I have a life, I say. Being crazy takes a lot of hard work.

The prescription is sitting in my purse, unfilled. My husband was totally ambiguous towards the diagnosis. Whatever, he says, do it if you want to. Aren't we all a little crazy, he says? You definitely are, I say, then we fight over whose family medical history is spottier. Olivia is really screwed, I hope when her turn to do family medical histories comes that the drugs have cooler names.

Proceed with caution

The following post contains a tasteful reference to my annual exam with includes a pap smear. It is a hilarious story, but if the thought of me getting a pap smear is just too much to handle, then page away.

So one of the realities of having no childcare during the day is that you take your child with you to the doctor. She and I booked our annual exams together, which I was a little uncomfortable with, but I thought, well she knows what I look like naked, what's the difference? The difference is a forty pound pre schooler sitting on your stomach, looking over our knees saying, "That's interesting, what does that do?" Totally detached, deadpan. Then having your physician laughing so hard that she falls off her stool.

They get you every time those interwebs

So I blame Brad for this because he made me his friend on Digg last week and ever since i have been doing nothing but cruising Digg-like sites. My newest one is skirt. This was started by the woman who does Design Mom and she has been foisting it on her readers for months. At first, it was too much info and too much celebrity gossip for me, but once i got the hang of sifting through Digg, skirt actually had some gems, here are three:

George Clooney interview-God how I love his interviews.
Onion AV Tolerability index-I'm sure my more pop-culture savvy readers have already found this hilarious little gem, but here it is for the rest of us.
Some new travel sites-For those of us who feel like they do nothing but troll for better prices on airline flights.

So, yeah, all that work I am supposed to be getting done, not so much.

Baby boomlet

So today I got pictures from Angie who looks really great and is due around the 4th of July, and e-mail from my friend Rachel who was due yesterday and last week was shopping with Ann who is due in September, I am bursting with excitement at my imminent baby boomlet. All of which will need lots of love and kisses from auntie Liz. i was worried that I might be sad about not having another baby when i saw all of these sure to be gorgeous babies, but i'm not. just really excited for all my friends who I know are going to be great parents. Maybe a little nostalgic for my own pregnancy. That's when you know that you are destined to not have another one, when seeing adorable infants only makes you want to be pregnant with the one you already had.

Workaholic

One of the down sides of working at home is that when work piles up on your night stand, your desk, your kitchen table, you never get away from it. This week I am drowning in it. The holiday weekend and a cat that will not stop crapping on everything has put me seriously behind. When you have an office, it doesn't stare at you every waking minute, but here just keep moving it from room to room. Plus, all the time it is going to take to deprogram Olivia from a weekend at my mother's.

I need a nap just thinking about it.

Her name would be Miu Matsuoka

Yesterday Olivia dressed herself in something striaght out of manga. I was disappointed that I never really got a complete shot, but trust me, I spent two whole summers with a desk right near those anime freaks at the student activities, I can spot a Japanese animation heroine from a mile away. She declared herself a supermodel in this outfit and spent the rest of the day randomly posing while walking down the sidewalk. So Ifelt it only fitting that I take her photograph in front of some very Asian-inspired art.