Boy what a month

Holy crap. I don’t know if you check here very often or not, but if you do, you’ve probably been wondering where I’ve been.

It’s been one heck of a March here at Casa de Jorge. When we last talked, Mona was off work with depression, the Peanut was sick and I was busy and had a back ache.

The Peanut was sick for about 2 weeks with some kind of unpleasant virus that turned, as usual, into an ear infection. She had a visit to the ENT who wanted to schedule a time to put tubes in her ears. I didn’t make it to the appointment because of work, and Mona said she didn’t care for the Doc. I’m anti-tubes anyway, expect as a last resort. That, in my opinion, is the problem with surgeons in general. They just want to get in there and cut. OK, I get it, they are surgeons after all, but sometimes I wonder at point in med school do they have their humanity excised. So we did another round of antibiotics supplemented with an antibiotic shot and she seems to be fully recovered.

In the meantime both Mona and I got sick. We both had some kind of unpleasant bug, with all that generally accompanies your basic winter sickness. I was pretty miserable, and school was not easy. 14 hour days do nothing whatsoever to help you get over a cold. Or flu, or whatever it was. I finally broke down and went to the walk in clinic. The Doc there said it was a sinus infection (I still have my doubts) and wrote me for 14 days of Bactrim. After I left I called home and told Mona what he gave me and she reminded me that Bactrim has some really unpleasant side effects for me. So I called my soon to be sister in law and asked her to call in a Z-pack for me. She’s a physician, but as a specialist is not much help when someone is just under the weather. I’m sure she does great work in her field, but I doubt I’ll ever find myself in her office for treatment.

And in the meantime Mona, in addition to her depression, felt more or less the same as I did. So she basically spent nearly two weeks in bed. She went back to work last Tuesday and was basically miserable. While she was out they posted her job (she found it on Monster.com) and she pretty much decided she was going to quit. Then on Friday she had her evaluation. It was her 6 month review. She had a great 90 day review and this one was a complete 180. She had planned to give her notice that day, but after the review she decided that she would finish the day and leave. So that’s it, she’s now unemployed. I’m really glad she left when she did. With the recent snow here she would have been going in at midnight or two AM to dispatch the plows again. It worked out well I think. I told her while she was home that it was fine with me if she quit. She only took this job because it looked like it suited her and I was a) on the verge of losing my job and b) expecting to be going to nursing school full time right about now. Since neither of those things happened I told her it was pointless to stay there. This was the best time to look for a job, while I still had mine and we could afford to have her unemployed.

One of the lessons we learned was about working as a contract employee. She was contracted to an extremely large, locally headquartered company through an agency that rhymes with “smelly”. It turns out that they can provide employees at a lower cost because the benefit packages suck. To maintain coverage for the family it would cost almost 25% of her total pay annually. Add day care in and we would have been struggling while I was in school. Fortunately we don’t have to worry about that now. With 12 months or so to find another job I’m sure she can find something more suitable.

Last Wednesday she had an interview with another department at my company. She interviewed for a customer service job. I thought she would be a good fit and talked with the hiring manager who agreed to look at her resume. She was called for an interview and she felt it went well. I really hope she’s right.

Not only would it get her out of the industry she’s in (a less professional industry I can’t imagine) but it would mean we keep our same benefits when I leave. And I work for a Fortune 50 or so company, which means pretty solid benefits. Plus it’s a pretty good place to work. The people are friendly and the managers are all good at their jobs. In the field where Mona works now it is not unusual for women to go home crying. I imagine the men go home angry. I really hope she gets the job.

Right now, I’m in the basement with the TV on mute, listening to The Peanut absolutely howling. Her bedroom in on the second floor and I can hear her over the monitor in the kitchen. She really has no interest in going to bed and is fighting it with everything she has. This is very unusual. Normally we put her down and she goes right out. We even expect her to sleep a minimum of about 11 or 12 hours. But not tonight I think. We’ve been up to check on her a couple of times. We’ve changed her, given her milk, sang songs and given her as much comforting as we know how. We also gave her some gas drops just in case. But it looks to me like she is just pissed about being put to bed. We’re only 4 months short of having a two year old, and I think we’re getting a preview of the terrible twos. Man, you ought to hear her yell. She is really screaming up there. I expect to have to go up there again within the next 30 minutes at the most if she doesn’t settle down.

Wow, it’s really sounding bad. She sounds like she’s gasping and now it’s back to frantic. If I didn’t know better I’d worry there was someone taking a chainsaw to her. Mona is concerned, and I understand it. But I don’t think there’s much we can to short of letting her come downstairs to play. And I just can’t see giving in to the demands of a toddler. Even if it is 10 PM. We’ll see.

OK, just took a 20 minute break to go back upstairs. Mona gave The Peanut a massage after I checked her to see if she showed any signs of pain. She didn’t. So we put her back down and so far so good. I hope it sticks this time. It really is unusual for her to be so upset.

Anyway, that’s the short version of what’s been going on. I’ll try and keep up with the updates as much as I can. Hopefully I’ll have some more time now that Mona will be managing the house while I handle work and school. Let’s keep our fingers crossed, OK?