Life is a Diaper

When did that happen?

There is a little trailer around the corner from my house. It had been empty for a while, but a couple of people moved in recently. I drive by that trailer every day. I can see it from my back porch.

On my way to work this morning, I noticed that the trailer has burned. There is nothing left but the framing on over half of it. I know for a fact that it was fine yesterday, because I remember seeing the people that live there out in the yard. It must've caught on fire some time last night.

How did I miss that? The trailer is basically in my back yard. I didn't hear sirens or anything last night, and neither did anyone else in this house. I must've been sleeping like a rock. That unusual for me, though. I'm a light sleeper because I have to be able to wake up when I hear the girls.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things

Gracie is hilarious sometimes. She says things I don't expect her too. Like today, she and my stepdad were sitting on the tailgate of his truck. Everytime Gracie moved, the truck made a noise. She kept moving and making the noise. I guess she was trying to figure out why it was doing that, because after a few minutes, she looked up and said, "Papaw, I know why it's making that noise. It's because I've got a big ass."

That cracked me up. I never expected her to say something like that, because she never uses words like that. She knows she's not supposed to talk like that. I didn't get onto her about it, though, becuase she was sorry right after she said it. She's been worried that God is mad at her since she let that slip.

Gracie worrying about God being mad at her reminds me of something else she said. On Thursday nights while I'm in class, the Girls go to church with my dad and stepmom. My dad has two churches in his charge, so he has Bible study at the smaller of the two on Thursday nights, and at the larger one on Wednesdays. He just got moved to this charge in June, and was at another church for the past three years.

When I was at my Dad's house today, my stepmom told me something Gracie had said when they were on their way to church Thursday night. She said, "Why can't we go to the bitty church? Why do we always have to go to this big one?" She was talking about Whiteside UMC, the church my dad just moved from. I think I should take her back there to visit everyone. I don't know if they still have Thursday night service since my dad left, though. They didn't have it before he came.

Oh Boy

As if crawling wasn't enough, Arien is now officially cruising. She started off going around her crib, but now she's all over the house. Nothing is safe anymore.

She learned a new word, too. If I put her in her crib or her exersaucer, she'll hold up her arms and say "out". If I ignore her, she keeps saying it louder. That kid just doesn't like to be confined. I spend a good part of my time (when I'm not at work or school) chasing her down. She wants to be anywhere other than where I put her. Her current favorite place to go is behind furniture.

Gracie is becoming a mama's baby again. She used to be really attached to me, but when we moved in with my mom, she started being a Nana's baby. But since I've started school, she's all over me. When I leave, she cries worse than Arien does. I guess it's because I'm gone so much. I'm either at school or at work until about 8 p.m., and she misses me. I miss them when I'm gone too, but I know that going back to school was the best thing for all of us.

Well

They found my sister. I'm not sure what was going on, and I'm not going to say anymore about it. My little sister called and told me they'd found her, but she wouldn't say anything else. I get the feeling that she doesn't like talking to me sometimes.

prayer request

To anyone who reads this: Please pray for my sister, Quneta. My younger sister just called and told me that she has been missing since yesterday. Please pray for her safe return.

I haven't forgotten

About this blog, I mean. Really, I haven't. I'm just a lot busier than I used to be. I've had a ton of schoolwork lately, and tonight is the first night I've had time.

Arien has finally started crawling, and she's wearing me out. As soon as I put her in the floor, she heads straight for somewhere she's not supposed to be. She wants to go exploring behind the couch so bad she can't stand it. She follows me around the house, too. If I go into another room, I don't have to pick her up and carry her with me because she crawls right behind me. It's kinda like having a puppy, a chubby blond puppy with a knack for finding anything that the vacuum didn't pick up.

I think Gracie is coming down with something. She woke up a while ago and said she was sick. I took her temperature, and it's 100.3. Maybe she's just getting a cold.

I think I hear Arien waking up now. That kid just doesn't sleep good anymore.

Yawn

The girls are at their Dad's. They should be home sometime within the next half hour. I'll be glad when they get here, because I'm bored to tears right now.

The people where Wayne works told him I called. He said "It ain't none of your damn business where I live or where I take the kids. They're my kids."

I was quick to correct him on that one. I have talked to both the lady at the child support office, and a friend of mine who is an attorney, and they both told me that he has to tell me where he lives, and where he takes my girls. They're my girls. I have sole custody. All Wayne has is vistation rights, and I don't have to let him take them unless he tells me exactly where he lives. He hasn't done that yet, though. When I asked him, all he said was, "Alabama".

I know exactly where he lives, but that's beside the point. He needs to tell me. He wanted us to be friends, but how can I be friends with someone who keeps things that I should know from me? I tried being nice to him, and this is what I get. So, the bitchy ex-girlfriend/babies' mama has returned.

Mwahahaha

I've been a bad girl. I found out something about Wayne today that he didn't want me to know. He moved out of his mom's house, and he got a job. He wasn't going to tell me either of them. He was afraid I'd report him to the child support office. Guess what? I did.

He told his cousin ,who happens to be married to my cousin, that he got a job and moved, but he wouldn't tell him where. He's been moved for a couple of weeks. He took Arien the other day and was still having me believe that he lived with my mom. That really pissed me off. I have a right to know where my children are going when he takes him. And he wasn't planning on telling me he had a job.

Since he didn't tell where he was living or working, I made a call to one of his friends, who told me he was working at some golf course, and was living in New Hope. Well, I first called the Child support office and asked what to do about it. They told me that since he would not tell me where he lived, I didn't have to let the kids go with him. And they would find out where he worked eventually, but if I could find out and tell them, they'd really appreciate it. He was supposed to have reported it when he got a job.

So, I called every golf course around, until I found the one he was working at. And, I just happened to find out that he is living next door to it, too. The lady there was really nice to me, and gave me just the right information. She said she didn't particularly like him. She thinks he's selling drugs.

I called the child support office back and let them know everything. You know, I probably wouldn't have done that if he'd just told me. I don't like being lied to. He ought to know by now that messing with me is not a good thing. I always end up winning in the end.

Please make it stop!

I'm losing my mind. No, really. The people that I live with are driving me nuts. Gracie came home extra-whiny today. She needs a nap, but every time I try to send her to bed, my mom tells her she doesn't have to go. So, she keeps whining and crying over nothing.

My mom has been on me non-stop since I let Wayne take Arien yesterday. If it's not one thing, it's another. She even went so far as to say, "I don't know why you wanted to go to college. You'll never finish. You couldn't even finish high school." Yeah, and things like that are part of the reason I didn't finish high school. I'm not going to listen to her this time. I'm a thousand times smarter than she'll ever be, and I can do this.

She's convinced that I'm on drugs, too. I can't get it through her head that I'm not. Just because everyone else I know is, doesn't mean that I am. I'm not like everybody else. I will be so glad when I can afford to get out of here. But what will they do when I leave? They won't have a phone (I pay the bill), and they'll probably starve because I'm the only one that ever buys groceries.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, going out was a big flop. Jenny couldn't get out of the house without her husband. He's just not much fun to be with. We rode all over creation, to a bunch of places I've never been. I think I could've had more fun at home, though. I only drank 2 beers. Didn't even get a buzz. Jenny acted more drunk than she really was, just to annoy Justin. I don't think he'll be wanting to go out with us anymore.

Everything went well with Wayne today. We didn't talk much. I told him what days I needed him to keep the kids, let him take Arien with him, told him when to have her back, and got myself out of there. I was so nervous I was shaking. Why does he make me feel like that? I've never been able to figure it out.

My mom threw a fit when she found out I let him take Arien for a while. She's 8 months old, and has never been to his house. His mom has only saw her once. I figured it was about time I got over my "psychoness" as Wayne calls it, and let them see her. My mom didn't see it that way. I didn't think I was ever going to hear the end of it.

Now, I've got to get some rest. I've got church in the morning, and then I have to finish a paper that's due Monday. I should've had it done by now, but I've been putting it off. I really need to stop doing that.

now I know why I feel so old

My inner child is forty-five years old!

I've never really liked children, not even when I
was one. I want things neat, ordered, and
adult--fine wine instead of french fries, pina
coladas by the pool instead of beach sand
between my toes. Now if only my fellow adults
would stop acting like such, well, children!

How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hmm, my inner child is older than my mother. That probably explains why I act more like an adult than she does.

4 days

There are only 4 more days until my birthday. Yay (said in my best Ben Stein voice). I've never really celebrated my birthday. I can't remember ever having a party. I think the most celebrating I've ever done was going to buy a beer on my 21st birthday. I took about 2 sips of it and threw it away. Beer is nasty.

This year, I'm going to party. Not really because it's my birthday, but just because I can. Gracie will be spending the weekend on Signal Mountain with Wayne's Granny, and I somehow talked my mom into keeping Arien all night Saturday. Since I'm going to be childless for at least one night, Jenny and I are going out. I'm not sure where yet, but it'll probably be somewhere with a lot of alcohol. I plan on spending the night watching Jenny get inebriated and laughing at her. She's hilarious when she's drunk.

I'm not sure if any of that's going to happen or not, though. I've got a little meeting with Wayne at 3 Saturday, and I guess it will all depend on how I feel after that's over.

Since I'm having so much trouble keeping babysitters, I decided that I needed to try and get along with Wayne. I wouldn't have to pay him to keep the kids, and he might actually end up getting to be a good father again. He called the other day, and I told him that we needed to get together and talk because I needed his help. I think I said something like, "I need you. I can't do this without you."

I meant that I needed his help because working, going to school, and raising two kids is really hard, but I'm not sure that's how he took it. I'm afraid that he thinks that I want us to get back together, because when we were done talking he said, "I love you. Bye, baby." He hasn't told me he loves me in over a year.

I don't want us to get back together. At least I don't think I do. I'm happy with the way things are now. I still have feelings for him, and I guess I always will. I spent 5 years of my life with him, and I have two little girls who look just like him. I don't want to go through all of the crap again. Believe me, there's a lot of it where he is concerned.

I hope I'm just reading too much into this. I'm prepared to have a conversation about the girls, but I'm not sure how I would handle having to talk about "us". I wish Saturday would just hurry up and get here so I can get this over with. Dealing with Wayne makes me nervous.

don't hate me because I'm smart - revisited

I don't feel so bad about being the smartest person in my Spanish class anymore. Everybody else in that class (except one guy) is either just plain stupid or lazy, I haven't decided which yet.

We had a test today. A major test. Again, I made the only A, and only one person made a B. All of the stuff on the test was covered on Wednesday, and I didn't go to class that day because I was in the ER with Arien. So, I didn't get the material until I went to class today. I had about 15 minutes of study time, and I made an A. Everybody else had since Wednesday (the class on meets Mon. and Wed.) to study, and still couldn't pass it.

So, to everyone in my class: Study, people. This class is easy, and there's no excuse to not pass. If you're not going to study, maybe you shouldn't be in college anyway. It's not my fault that my grades are better than yours.

ugh. research.

I've finally come up with a topic for my research paper. That's really good, because I have to have a topic by tomorrow. I probably never would have come up with anything on my own, so I asked my dad for help. He suggested that I do a paper on how the Ten Commandments influenced the laws of this country. I've done a little preliminary research, and I think that it will make an interesting paper.

As for the rest of school, I love it! I wish I had gone back sooner. Why couldn't I have enjoyed high school this much?

Arien's Wednesday drama

Arien was sick earlier this week. She had a low grade fever Sunday night, but it was gone by Monday morning, so I didn't think anything about it. Monday evening, she started running a fever again, and it went up to 102. But other than that, there wasn't anything wrong with her.

Tuesday morning, she still had a fever, so I took her to the doctor. She told me that it was probaby caused by a summer cold, and she may be getting an infection. I was instructed to bring her back if she got any worse. Wednesday morning, she still had the fever, but it would go away with Tylenol. So, I went on to work, and I had a class at 1. I'd been in class for about 10 minutes when some guy comes in and tells me I have a phone call in the office.

It was my stepdad. He told me that Arien was having a seizure, and I needed to come and take her to the ER. He'd tried to call my cell phone, but I left it in the car when I went to class. I was scared out of my mind. Arien looked terrible when I got there. I got her ready and took her to the ER as fast as I could. When we got there, her fever was 103, but it went down quickly. She'd had a fever seizure. We were there for about 3 hours because they had to run so many tests on her, and it turned out that she has a urinary tract infection.

I took her back to her regular doctor Friday, and she's setting up an appointment with a neurologist because of the seizure. She just wants to make sure that it was caused by the fever, and she doesn't have anything wrong with her. That is a possibility, because of all the complications during her delivery. The doctor should call me tomorrow and let me know when the appointment is. I'm pretty sure that there's nothing wrong with her. Man, I hope I'm right.

thank you, thank you, thank you!

I'm back, thanks to chattablogs.com! Who knew that being from the Chattanooga Area would pay off?

Since my hosting company erased my account (I guessed that's what happened, still no answer from them), I have none of my older entries. Hmph. 10 months worth of entries, gone! I guess it's my fault for being an idiot and not backing everything up. Oh well. I think I might have most of them in the form of a mysql dump on this computer somewhere. I'll just have to look around until I find it.

When this first happened, I thought about looking for another hosting company and just moving my site. I had quite a few hostees, and I felt bad because there sites were gone (I still do, y'all. I'm so sorry!). They all had backup plans, though, so everything turned out okay in the end. So, I've decided to give up the domain for now, and just have my blog hosted here for free. I've found that I have a lot less money since school started, anyway. Actually, money is kinda tight right now, but I'll get into that later.

Now that I'm back, I guess I need to go let everyone know where I am. I need to finish working on the layout I started last night, too. I just don't like these default stylesheets at all.