Last day of school

First, good news: my friend from school who had an aneurysm is improving. She's awake and talking and even sent a few texts to the school group. Which I think is amazing! I am so, so happy! At school we have gotten some activities done on her behalf, to help pay for the bills, and my 7th semester students rallied together after I asked them to help me organize an activity, and they really, really touched my heart. They are a group a wonderfully caring kids, I m really glad I got to see them work together like this before the school year ends.

On that note, this is the last day of classes! I am soooo grateful this is almost over. Next week we have exams, and at the other school I have two weeks left. But this is it. I made it. Anxiety, stress, sleeplessness, depression, I made it through one trying semester. Not as the best teacher I can be, not with the results I would usually wish for, not proud of all my decisions, but I Made It. I am taking a bow and retiring from teaching for a while, and it's bitter sweet, because I love so much about it. The look of interest, that bright eyed look when something clicks, their pride in their work when it's well done, the rush of adrenaline when I'm loving what I'm doing and I feel like I'm making a difference. But the other parts, the ones I don't care for, those have become too difficult right now to deal with.

I have an impossible time trying to not take it personally when they don't pay attention. When the work they deliver it's shit. When they ignore me, lie to me, whine and complain every step of the way. Dealing with The Powers That Be, trying to justify my poor results when I'm trying my best and the students just don't care. Having one group working great and one doing crap, unsure of what I'm doing wrong. Wasting time and energy, when they are just too tired/overwhelmed to listed to me, work with me, engage with me. Perhaps I was putting too much emphasis on Me, and not enough on what they can do by themselves. I felt like I tried everything I knew, and failed them. At this point of my life, when my own balance is so, so brittle, I can't afford to fail others because I don't have energy to spare trying to snatch victory from defeat.

The game is over, for now. I feel very relieved.

Elias is teething, again. Sort of? Last time the third tooth never came in, so it looks like we're dealing with it again. It's been a couple of rough days, where all he wants is to nurse and be held and cry. Poor baby Peanut. I really want to be there for him more. He's now mobile, not crawling but rolling from back to tummy to back to tummy as means of transportation. He is a delight, always laughing, giving hugs, shakily waving hello.

He wakes up in our bed, with sleepy eyes and damp hair. He turns to me and smiles. He lifts one chubby hand, and slowly waves hello.

Hello, baby. School is over. We can stay in bed a little while.

Sad and worried

This has been a very difficult week for people I love dearly. Monday we had a national holiday so Cookie stayed home and I only worked half a day at the renovations, and no school.

Tuesday I found out my best friend had been through emergency surgery. She texted me and said, "So, I was two months pregnant..."

Was.

It broke my heart. I can't put myself in her shoes, I cannot imagine the fear and the sadness. Everything happened so fast, it was so scary. She was bleeding and they got to the doctor, discovered it was an ectopic pregnancy, and had the tube removed in an emergency surgery, apparently minutes away from a ruptured tube. I am so sad for her loss. Thankfully she's recovering well.

On Wednesday another friend, one of the few people I befriended at school, had an aneurism. It's very serious and still touch and go. She's young and always seemed so healthy, such a happy and positive, sweet and relaxed person. She has an 9 month old baby boy and a 4 year old daughter. I am sick with worry and sadness, I hope, I pray, that she recovers.

I had not prayed in a long time, my relationship with God being very complicated. When we married by the church I promised myself I would try for real, not just to get it done. I tried for a while but... It's hard to be a catholic when you are more liberal minded. I keep falling off the wagon. But I've been trying again, lately (mostly because if we are baptizing baby Peanut I don't want to do it just to get it done, I wish I could really believe), and so, here I am.

I pray my friend recovers. Her family needs her so much. The world needs more people like her, good and joyful people. More, not less. Her baby needs her so much. I cannot imagine.

I pray my best friend recovers quickly, that God gives her strenght and love to deal with her loss, that she is able to have more children if she so wishes.

I pray for the sick, for my pregnant friends and family, for my family, for myself. I don't know if it's hypocrisy, to fall back into prayer when things get hard, I suppose it is.

I don't really know what else I can do.

Guilt

K's house is... Done. Not done-done forever done, since I need to replace a lamp shade that broke when we unwrapped the lamp, and then I need to do some other small stuff, but it's done as in I turned the keys in and they (mostly) paid what they owed us. I say mostly because the past three weeks have been hell, since K decided everything was badly done, I had been very unprofessional and it was very unfair (???) that I would charge her for my services.

Rude exchange after rude exchange, we finally managed to get an appointment with her on Friday, except she "missed" it. We got to talk with her husband, who was a)very pleased with the results and b)not at all rude and c)did not think paying was unfair. So. We settled things.

I have been going over this for weeks now, at times really really angry with her and the rudeness and the situation, at times feeling very guilty. Because of course there are mistakes and everything isn't perfect, but it's the best I could do.

I keep going back to her wording. Unfair. Is it unfair to pay for a service you hired? Isn't that a weird complaint? Let me go back a bit. I started their project on February 2014. It never really got finished. I ran into her around October? November? last year, and she looked pregnant. I congratulated her and told her I was pregnant too, and I felt truly very happy for them, because they had had a lot of problems with infertility. She didn't look super happy but I thought nothing of it. She said we should try and finish the project, and I got in touch with her again in December. She said her baby was very sick, and eventually, by the end of 2014, she let me know they had lost the pregnancy. I don't know how far along she was, but I was around 23 weeks in, and terrified of something going badly. Soon after that she called and told me they wanted to finish the project and start building it.

I know they really wanted a family. And I know it looks almost impossible now for them to get pregnant again. I think this is a really difficult time of the year for her, though I don't know the specifics. I suspect that having Baby Peanut around is just salt in the wound, and I feel awful, but I don't know what to say. I can't not bring baby Peanut with me. Maybe that is unprofessional. I wonder if this is why she thinks it's unfair. And I feel guilty, and scared. Because my baby made it, because I can't imagine losing him.

In the end I don't know for sure if she's truly angry at me (or us, my partner faced her rudeness quite a lot) or if she's lashing out because she's hurting. I wish I could say something, but... I supposs we're not friends. I presume too much, most likely. I feel guilty when I'm around her, running around with my six month old in tow.

I wish she knew I'm thinking about her baby too, and that I wish her peace. All I can do is hold Baby Peanut tighter, and hope I never have to face how unfair life can be.

Hit the ground running

Baby Peanut is six  and a half months old. Almost 29 weeks, yikes! In ten weeks he will have spent as much time in my womb as outside, I can't wrap my head around that. I grew that baby! From scratch! He used to fit in my womb, whaaaat. Giant baby is now 9 kg, so we're a kilo away from tripling his birth weight. Or in another words, what the hell. It is super cool to know that I grew him from scratch (disassociated as I am from the whole birth/pregnancy) and that then I fattened this little piggy too, all with my body. It makes me feel really cool, to be able to keep a human being alive and thriving! I've been suuuuper lucky in that we had no glitches breastfeeding, for the most part. I have also been super lucky to have a friend who recently went through all of these, and who has been supporting me and helping me cope, and that I live in the information era, where all I need to do is google and read.

Which I have done. A LOT.

So much, in fact, that I am always surprised when I hear other people don't over research. My SILs don't even have a pregnancy app! Or a weekly pregnancy calendar! Or two dozen blogs about pregnancy/parenting/cloth diapers/attachment parenting/co-sleeping/the burning issue in me head this week. I have to laugh at myself and my neurosis, but it really does help. I feel like even if everything is new and challenging, at least I have some sort of safety line.

These mornings I've been starting to get to my pre-pregnancy weight. Not every day, and and more often than not I'm still half a kilo away from it, but I'm really happy aboit it. Everything changed, though. There's less in some places (ass, where did you go?) And much more in other places, at least temporarily (fun cleavage!), and lots of.. Looseness? Skin being... Weird? I guess I'm still a long way from my skin getting used to having less to cover. My abdominal diastasis is mostly recovered too, less than once centimeter to go. It was very creepy for a while, to have that hole between the muscles.

And then there's my chia pet head. Apparently by the lenght of the new hair I have, the moment Baby Peanut was born I started growing a new layer of hair. So I have this... Cap. Of sorts. Of an inch and a half long hairs, fanning everywhere. Like a chia pet. They cannot be tamed. I look pretty ridiculous and kond of unkempt, and my students already noticed them and ughh I almost died of embarrasment at their puzzled looks and comments of "you have... A lot of tiny hairs." YES THANK YOU. But I guess soon they will flatten out? If not, at least there's only 3 more weeks of school and then there will be no more 20 year olds commenting on my mommy style trending chia pet hair.

Teeth invasion

Two weeks ago I took the baby for his shots and had his 6 months visit with the doctor. He said the teeth weren't giving any signs of coming out yet, but that they could crop in a matter of days at any time. This was on Thursday, by Sunday the first tooth had broken his gums! Poor baby was all sorts of crabby. Next friday, bam! Second tooth! Yesterday I thought I saw a third tooth coming in, the first of the top ones. It's like baby Peanut hit six months and decided to Be A Big Boy in a matter of weeks!

There have been a couple of biting incidents. Not cool at all. Baby Center is all "babies that are properly latched and eating can't really bite because their tongue is covering their teeth" but keeping a wriggly baby eating and well latched at all times is not really possible. So. A couple of bites and mama is a bit paranoid.

I'm having a stressful (haaaa!) time with work. K's house is finished in theory but she decided that there are a dozen issues now, that my work has been unprofessional and that charging her for it is very unfair. After seven months. After everything is finished. She owes me around $180 dlls, which makes this the stupidest problem. I just want her to accept that the job is done, if she doesn't want to pay I don't even care anymore, but she also keeps stalling a meeting to see all these issues she has. It's been two weeks since she decided everything was wronnnngggg but she hasn't agreed to see us any day. This morning was to be it, but she excused herself very very early today and has not appointed a new time. It's driving me crazy. It makes me really sad. I know for certain that I did the best I could. I know things aren't perfect, because nothing ever is, but to the extent of my habilities I did my best. I wish she could see it.

H&C's house is alsoooo not finished because the electric door people have nooottttt finishedddd and it is going to drive me insane, to have all these things just hanging on forever. Work with Ms. Prado is going well, if a bit glitchy, and I'm starting a new job today, a cosmetic remo and some repairs for Ms. T. I am hoping so hard that all this work will be done by Christmas so I can take some time off.

I finally told my area heads at both schools that I won't return next semester, and they were very nice. They said I could return whenever I wanted, and one of them even offered to take over my class right now if I needed the mental space. I want to do things right and finish the semester, but knowing he understands makes a world of difference.