Up All Night

When my kids were younger I used to write a lot more.  The material was better because they were cute and all the stories were cute and charming.  Now that they're all teenagers the stories are no longer cute and charming.  Probably, 9 times out of 10, I don't publish what I write because I'm just spitting vitriol.  It would mostly be angry rants at the object of my ire, depending on the day and the hour.  

For example, it's 1:51 am and I'm put off by my husband because I took my daughter to the ER and it was going to be a 3+ hour wait.  I have to sit in the godforsaken ER because he is worried.  I could throttle his neck.  In our ER, we always expedite people who work there or who have family who work there.  I asked if we could get seen a little sooner b/c we both work for the institution and Lee has a bigger role and the nurse smugly said, "Now that wouldn't be fair, would it?  There are people who've been waiting here for 3 hours.  We can't just move you to the front of the line, can we?"  Princess, that is exactly why I'm asking!  She and I both know that if there are 20 people in front of us, not all 20 have the same level of acuity.  And based on my daughter's symptoms and vital signs, she would have been a higher acuity and should have been taken back sooner.  But she's a teenager and there is automatic bias towards teenagers in a children's hospital.  They probably looked at her and decided she was an eating disorder patient or had a sexually transmitted disease and so they'd make her wait a little bit longer.  I could have punched someone in the face.  At least the registration lady was helpful and nice.  She took us out of the system so we wouldn't be charged.  When I had asked the nurse she acted like it wasn't possible to take us out of the system.  I knew it could be done.  Why do people have to play games like that?  Do I want to be at a children's hospital in the middle of the night.  Absolutely 100% not!  When I call Lee to tell him we're coming home he says he's sorry I had that experience and, yeah, why don't we come back home.  Dammit!  Why did you tell me to go to the ER in the first place? Now she's asleep and he's asleep and I'm up processing my rage.  

I have the week off of work and it figures that one of my kids would get sick.  Whatever plans I might have made are just delusions.  That's the most frustrating part of all this.  Not that I don't want to sit with my daughter on the sofa and watch bad TV with her and make her chicken noodle soup out of a can and do mountains upon mountains of laundry while I try to keep the house remotely clean.  But it was just one little week all to myself and now that is gone.  And I still have all the expectations and obligations to fulfill.  Yesterday I went and did some volunteer work with a friend.  I mentioned that every time the kids know I'm not working I get sucked into doing something for them or, like today, taking ibuprofen and feminine protection products up to school for my daughter.  I remember those days and how embarrassing it was to start your period at school and to be unprepared.  But, shitty me is thinking, "ughhh! how inconvenient! Now I can't do what I want to do!" I'm thinking this to myself as I explain my tiny tale of woe to her, about having to take something to school for my daughter.  And she has the audacity to say this: "I know, but aren't you so glad that you have the flexibility to do that? To be able to to take them their stuff in the middle of the day?"  I'm thinking, "Hell, no! I don't want to be running all over town for them."  But I just nod and tell her, "you bet!" or something along those lines so I don't seem like a complete asshole.  

Well, I'd better try to get some sleep.  Morning is just a few hours away and no one is going to care that I was up half the night and there will be more stuff to do.  

PS, for the record, pediatric related health care providers can be so damn passive aggressive.  It's pathologic. 

I Suck

I'm sucking it as a mom right now.  My middle kid, a son who is almost 17, wants to get his ears pierced.  I say no.  It devolved into his feelings being hurt and I feel like I've been gut punched repeatedly all day.  It started at 10:30 this morning when he texted and said he didn't feel good and he wanted to get out of school.  

Birthdays

I turned 50 yesterday.  It was a nice day and mostly a normal day.  Lee was out of town.  Part of me is upset and part of me doesn't care.  My oldest son turned 18 the day before my birthday.  He missed his birthday too.  In my mind, you don't miss birthdays.  You just don't.  Even if you don't have big plans for the birthday, you're present.  I'm trying to be supportive because it's an important conference for work and he's in a new role and he wants to do well and his boss wanted him at this conference.  For the record, historically, we don't make a big deal out of birthdays or Christmas or our anniversary or Valentine's Day.  So I'm sure, in his mind, he didn't think it was that big of deal leaving town for my 50th and Evan's 18th.  I know he's conflicted and he feels bad and he'd rather be with us.  But part of my crazy mind can't help but wander to this place; is he having an affair?  Is he up there with some woman?  On my birthday.  I texted him at 5:30 this morning and asked him if he was sure he was up there alone.  He's in NYC so it was 6:30 am up there.  He was asleep and he texted me a picture of him in his bed with his computer and bible next to him.  She could be hiding behind the curtains, I thought.  Or just out of the range of the photo.  It would have been better if he had face-timed me and given me a tour of the room and all the places a female could be hiding.  But my daughter was asleep in bed next to me and I didn't want to inconvenience her.  

The kids and I spent the afternoon at my mom's house w/ my brother and his family eating BBQ which is exactly the way I'd want to spend my day regardless of whether Lee was here or not.  We sat around my mom's big dining room table and the teenagers told stories about how they learn nothing in high-school and how all of their teachers don't speak English and how they watch ASMR videos of a woman eating pickles.