this is an essay. i dare you to tell me it's not...

Friday night. My family is at the church Christmas party. I stayed home to work on a research paper that is frighteningly closing in on it's due date. The wee one is still hacking up a lung so she stayed home too. I did not tell her Santa was going to be there. Actually, I don't even know if Santa is going to be there. I am workingworkingworking. Except when I'm not…. This is what I have learned on this very learned Friday:

-the LooneyTunes show is vicious. Like vicious to the point I worry about the future of the child watching it. That show is full of mean girls and weird ducks.

-I am not watching it. I am listening to it in the background of this here essayfest.

-gingersnaps are delicious but will give you a serious tummy ache if they are all you eat.

-I want turkey

-I have chin hairs that need to be dealt with. TMI? Possibly...

-I love my new slippers. They are rad

-the word 'rad' is rad. Youknow?

-I removed all video games with bad words from my house today. I am unpopular, to say the least. I did however replace them with new, more appropriate video games. I have been informed that I may as well return them since "they are for babies". I am returning them.

-kids are the worst.

-I feel really good about the fact that I had a class presentation this week and a final and both are done.

-I feel really bad that I am going to miss 2 of the 3 Christmas parties I have this weekend because of this paper I have neglected until today.

-On Wednesday I am technically done this semester and therefore I will celebrate with a movie.

-the Book Thief is out. Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhh. Did you read The Book Thief? Broke my heart. I love a good book. And THAT was a good book.

-I got my hair cut today and I don't like it. I even came home and took a shower to re-do it and I still don't like it. Oh bother…..

-I should be working.

-blogging is work, right?

-the phone has rung no less than 36 times today. I hate the phone.

-Amelia has sneezed no less than 306 times. I think her head might explode.

-I should be working. I am going back to work. What else can I tell you?

-What do you want for Christmas? I love Christmas. My kids will not be getting any video games for Christmas. Let's all feel good about this, shall we?

-My hairdresser yelled at Amelia today which was both crazy and fascinating to witness. She's from the UK. Nuff said.

-I am hungry. For turkey. I guess I'll eat a gingersnap….

sputum?

Yesterday I took Amelia to a walk in clinic to get her ears and throat checked. I have learned the hard way that when I ignore such aches and pains, accompanied by fever, the child gets violently ill.

One would think that being the fourth child, he or she would be smarter than to even bother getting ill because the odds are highly in their favour that he or she will be ignored by his or her mother who has "been there, done that" a few too many times and has lost all vigor for such shenanigans as going to the doctor and waiting for prescriptions to be filled.

Youknowwhatimean?

Well, clearly she doesn't knowwhatimean because she is sick. And because she is the sweetest lil thing in the history of sweet lil things she got a Beanie Boo out of the deal.

Safari, the Giraffe. She has lovely purple sparkly eyes and tiny little antlers atop her head.

Do giraffes have antlers? Or are they horns? Or what the heck are those things??

She also got a happy meal. Of which she ate exactly zero because she is so sick.

Soooo, anyway, this is the conversation between the walk in doctor and Amelia whilst I looked on, wanting to reach out and smack the clueless man and say things like, "You can see she's just a wee child, right? Talk to her as you would a wee child."  I was forced to act as interpreter since clearly, in med school, they do not teach young doctor wannabe's how to converse with the short and the literal.

Doc: does it hurt to pass water?

Amelia: well, sometimes when I drink water my throat burns and it feels like something is stuck in there and I don't like it.

Doc: oh. Well, I mean, does it, um, hurt to um, pass you-reeeeeen? (He is from a different land than I and has the accent to accompany it)

Amelia: ??? (She looks at me in sheer terror.)

Me: Does it hurt to pee, Amelia?

Amelia: oh, no.

Doctor: when you cough do you have phlegm?

Amelia: ?????

Doctor: sputum. Is there any sputum?

Amelia: Mommy....... (her eyes plead).

Me: (Nodding my head yes.)

Amelia: (nods her head yes, which to him means yes but to me means "I am not having fun anymore and you better get me outta here pronto!")

So I did. Poor kid.

And now, to all the doctor wannabe's around the world, I just want to say: I appreciate your inclination towards decorum and gentlemanly manners, but allow me to inform you of a very special language used by children. It's a real thing. And it involves words like pee and poop and greenish gunky goo from your lungs. And it's okay to say these things to little kids because otherwise they don't understand you and you scare the crap out of them with your hoighty toighty-ness.

Sputum?? Who says sputum?

olly obsidian

It's vlogging Monday! Which is still a thing, you know. Amelia is sick so it must be November. We went to the doctor and she has strep, or so we all suspect. Then we came home to vlog but she fell asleep on my bed waiting for me to get enough space on my phone to make the darn thing.

Finally, she's awake and she vlogged. She also let me be in it.

She's gracious like that.

when we reevaluate. part two. also, the end.

I wasn't fine and I don't know who I was kidding.

Well, I thought I was kidding myself and I truly believe that with an extraordinary amount of dysfunction one can kid themselves into all kinds of nonsense believing.

It was like I tripped on a pile of my own insanity and fell face first into a crap load of......

Well, crap.

I felt nuts. Out of control. I felt like I did before. Before the little white pill entered my life. I was yelly and screamy and angry. I was consumed with just getting through the day without taking anyone's head off. Without losing it on the kids. Without running anyone over when they were taking too long crossing the road. Without ramming into the side of the nonstop cars that were trying to drive me mad with their lack of skills.

Everyone was annoying, aggravating, wrong. Everyone was trying to destroy me with their behaviour. Everyone else was the problem. Just like before. It wasn't me....

....it was YOU!

Well, the rational side of my brain, as tiny as it was, was telling me this could not possibly be. But the irrational side, the side in control, the side taking over, was telling me that everyone needed to die. I needed to be left alone on this earth so that everyone else would stop DRIVING ME CRAZY!

It is exhausting, being like that all the time. Just trying to calm down when every single person has crossed me to the point of rage every 32 seconds is exhausting. I would fall into my bed at the end of the day and ponder all the people I actually despised that day. Some of these people even included the man. And my children. And all those insane young adults at the university always talking, saying stupid things and walking in my way. It never ended. The level of aggravation made my heart pound all day long and my chest hurt all the time. There were times when I stopped breathing for what seemed like forever. The world was heavy and I felt like it was crushing me.

I was not fine. This was the most discouraging notion. And frustrating. I still, simply cannot understand why this is out of my control. But until I can understand it I need to save the people.

From me.

I filled the prescription. I took the new pill. And then we waited. Again.

Almost a month has passed. I feel human again. There is a lightness. I can breathe. I am not angry anymore. I can be talked to again. People don't see me and walk the other way. And by people I mean my family. And my fellow students at the university.

Wait....yes they do.

Anyway, I am still stuck in this place where understanding what "this" is and treating it with means that are not of my making is frustrating and confusing unto me. I am not sure I will ever really get it. Unless I decide to go to school forever and become a psychiatrist or a neurologist, which I have no plans to do. So I guess I'll pop the pills that disenrage me.

Apparently, these pills do not prevent me from making up words. Disenraged is a thing. It is the thing that happens to Catie when she medicates.

And the world is a better place for it.

The end.

when we reevaluate. part one

The best way to procrastinate on writing a paper, or two, is Netflix. And once you are through trying to watch one third of every show on there and you've decided that nothing is as good as Sons of Anarchy and The Killing, but you've watched all of the episodes, then you think maybe you should get to the paper, or two, that need writing. But, you simply don't think you've pushed it to the wire enough so what else can you do to fill that gap between Netflix and writing a paper, or two?

Blog, that's what.

So, since it's been forever since I really sat down to blog, let's do that, shall we?

We shall.

I mean, yesterday I blogged, so I guess it hasn't been forever. It sure feels like it though.

Feels like forever when you live in a bubble of your own chaos. I think the bubble has a leak and air and light are working their way into my peripheral. I think I am ready to surface again. Maybe this is premature. I don't know. I don't feel like I know much but I feel the urge to blog and that only happens when I'm feeling pretty good.

So I must be feeling okay or I wouldn't be here, right?

We might be talking about mental health here. Or, more specifically, my mental health. But I sure hate those two words. I avoid them like the plague they are. I don't want to use them. I don't feel like I should be using them, or that I should be allowed to use them because clearly I am sane.

Clearly.

The last 6 weeks have been a bevy of emotions. And most of them bad. It has been up and down and then down again and more and more down until I was so down that the only option left was to go up because going sideways is silly.

I don't even know what that means.

Anyway, it involved weaning off a little white pill that was no longer performing as it should and introducing a multicoloured one that "should help" with the anxiety.

"Should help," said the doctor. "But everyone's different so I guess we'll see."

Oh, joy.

But then I did that crazy person thing. That thing where you tell yourself you're fine, you don't need drugs, you made the whole thing up, surely you did because there isn't anything you can't do, and that has to include choosing to be well in the head. I must be able to make that choice for myself. Right? I mean, happiness is a choice. A choice I willingly make. So that's that, I choose it and so it shall be. And for a few days after I was completely weaned off the little white pill I told myself I was well in the head. I was happy. I was okay. And that was that.

So, I did not fill my new prescription. I was convinced I did not need it. I was all better, as determined, by me.

It took three weeks to wean and it was one of the top 5 most unpleasant experiences of my life. I shook and trembled. I was ill. For one week I had a rage I had never experienced before. I wanted to hurt someone. All the time. And then it passed, just as they said it would. But it was replaced by a zombie who felt nothing. I felt an apathy I had never experienced before. I didn't care if I lived or died. I didn't care if you lived or died. I missed some school. I didn't care. I watched movies, alone, in the dark. I didn't care. I was here, but not present. And I didn't care.

I didn't care about anything. Not a single thing. I never want to feel that again.

And then it passed. Thank the heavens. A few more days and I was declared weaned.

Why would I willingly put myself through anything like that again? Who chooses that? Not me. I never wanted to take a drug that caused me to feel hate and anger and apathy like that. So I declared myself whole.

I was well.

Until I wasn't.....

a mad love affair

Remember when I wrote this?

And then I wrote this?

Well, now I am writing this. I love my Paisley so very much. Like I love her so much that I might die if she left me.

Just ask the man how much I love my weighted blanket. He'll probably tell you it has come between me and him. He'll tell you it weighs the comforter down and that I end up hogging the blankets. He'll tell you all sorts of malarkey, but what he won't tell you is that she and I are one in purpose. And that purpose is a good night's sleep. A sleep which is had when my Paisley in gingerly placed on top of me. And because I sleep better, I am more human when it comes to dealing with man things.

Like whiskers in the sink. And smelly bathrooms. And the grouchy.

Yes, the man can be grouchy. Just ask the children.

When I read I throw Paisley on my feet. When I study I do the same. She calms me, grounds me and comforts me.

I love her.

I think I mentioned that.

The lady who made this blanket for me is feelin' awful generous today and told me she is giving one away.

Huh, wha??

So that means you can own one too. For free. If for free so inclines you......

Go enter her giveaway and then cross your fingers. And toes. And I will cross all my things on your behalf because I really really really want everyone in the world to have one of these amazing blankets. They are helpful for all sorts of things, check out her website for a list of them.

Go enter now! And to you I say good luck!!

(Scroll down a bit to get to the giveaway, I can't figure this blogging stuff out.)


Hippo Hug Weighted Blanket Giveaway