Back on the Zo.

This was a weird week, and I'm glad it's finally Friday. TGIFF.

Summer is one of the busiest seasons for us in the catalog proofreading business because we're eyeball-deep in production of fall catalogs. I've been working my tail off.

Ben had a checkup on Tuesday as a follow-up on his weird, funky rash last week and his bronchial spasms a month ago. I was brave and told the doctor that we couldn't easily afford his Pulmicort, and she suggested a new treatment plan. So now he's on Singulair every day, Pulmicort once a day when he has a cough, Pulmicort 2x a day and Albuterol when he's wheezing. The Singulair is a quarter of the cost of Pulmicort, so we're very happy. Hopefully, Ben will respond well. So far so good.

Ben and I had a power struggle over dinner last night. It was the first time I served him chili because I wasn't sure he'd like it last time I made it. I took a chance. He refused it point blank when I offered it to him, so I just told him that no, he wouldn't be getting more graham crackers, and I turned my back and did some dishes. I peeked a minute later, and he was wolfing it down. He's not that great with a spoon, especially for entrées with liquid content, but he managed. He loved it so much that he picked up all the pieces he dropped and ate those as well. He let me help him scrape the bowl, and then he devoured another bowl of the stuff. Homerun for mommy. Nice, full belly for the Ben Boy. It was a little messy, and he ended up with chili juice in his neck crease and he had to be stripped immediately after, but we survived.

As for me. Well. This week sucked. It started off badly when the 10-pound bag of Idaho potatoes we had on the kitchen floor decided to start leaking. One of the potatoes at the bottom was bad, and it liquified during the night, causing a moldy ick slick across the kitchen floor. We threw out the bag and mopped, but the smell remains. It's disgusting. I'm going to get a stronger floor cleaner this weekend and hope that takes care of it.

I've also been having baby issues. I'll tell you my symptoms, but first I'll tell you how I treated them. I called the doctor's office, and I went back on Zoloft. I kept growing more and more tense this week with fear over losing the baby, and I was suspicious it was that old anxiety disorder resurfacing. It's a chemical imbalance, and I can't just relax it away all the time. So I'm back on the happy drugs. We'll see how things change. The symptoms can all be normal pregnancy symptoms, but spun the wrong way can spell danger. I took the risk and labeled them "normal" and my feelings about them "abnormal."

I've been having across-the-belly contractions where my whole abdomen tenses up suddenly and holds the contraction for minutes at a time. It's hard to walk when it's happening, and it leaves me with a very sore, tender belly. They don't come on a regular basis, but I haven't been keeping track.

Let's make that a bit scarier by adding the tingly feeling I get in my cervix after the contraction eases. Try looking that symptom up online and all you'll find is warnings about genital herpes. I teased my husband about it, but he didn't find it funny.

And yesterday, I swore I was spotting when I wiped after peeing. In retrospect, I figured out that it was just bleed-through from the recycled content of the toilet paper.

I've still felt the baby moving. And it feels like there's a balloon resting in my pelvic bone that keeps trying to inflate more. My anxiety rests more in the concept that my body won't be able to carry the baby to term, not that there is anything wrong with the baby. And the anxiety is overwhelming. I'm hoping that the Zoloft will help me have a better perspective on things, and I can start really looking forward to the baby rather than just hating the pregnancy. I'll let you know how that works out.

Quick gossip about Ben's old daycare. We saw a couple of his old daycare teachers at the grocery store the other day, and they had quite the stories to tell. Ben's favorite teacher had her paycheck bounce. Twice. Which of course caused her rent check and car payment to bounce. The director was unwilling to make amends over any of the late fees, so the teacher quit after her shift. Another girl is still working there, but desperately trying to find a new job so she can quit. And Ben's other teacher already put in her notice. A lot of people are really disgusted with what's been happening during the "transition" to the new way of running things. We're glad we're gone.

Our current daycare lady has a history with the director of the center. The director started out by having an inhome daycare, and that's where Amber sent her kids when they were babies. Not for that long, though. The director kept raising the rates every other month, insisted on a security deposit for each child, and kept raising the amount needed for the deposit. The current children had to make additional security deposit payments. It seemed like she was always have financial difficulties. And those difficulties seem to be a lifelong trial for her, since that's what's troubling her with her group center. I'm glad she's out of our life, even though we never actually met her.