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June 21, 2004
Wow, how the weeks seem to be flying by! What a good week I had, mostly... maybe because I had fun preparing for Father’s Day and even made the time yesterday to go to a scrapbooking event for a big chunk of yesterday.
We had a couple of really bad days this week, starting Monday. Ana had stripped herself naked in her bedroom when she was supposed to be fetching a clean diaper (I thought she was only wet). Well, when she appeared in my office naked, I was irritated. Veronica went to get a clean diaper and when I was putting it on Ana, I noticed her bottom was a bit dirty, if you catch my drift. Well, I had no idea what kind of mess I was walking into in their room – stuff on the floor in two places, she had climbed onto the toybox to get on Veronica’s bed, so it was smeared along both of those pieces of furniture and all over Veronica’s bedding. Ugh. I will take this moment to remind you all how sweet and loving Ana is most of the time, something that I had to remind myself about 17,000 times that morning as I carefully cleaned and scrubbed and washed and bathed and reassembled their room. Oy, but I was angry that day. I don’t remember why I was upset later in the day, but I told Veronica that I wanted a break from being mommy and when she asked why I simply said “I don’t want to be mommy anymore”. Oh, goodness, what a bad day.
Later in the week when Ana did something else that set me off, Veronica came to me for something and I just told her that I was angry and would appreciate if she would go in the playroom for some quiet time while I had a time out. Well, poor girl, she turned and ran. I must have made some kind of point on Monday that she was not willing to subject herself to. I think it was that evening Veronica was talking to her Mimi on the phone and Ana threw something on the floor in the kitchen, making a big mess. I yelled at her to get in her room and heard Veronica telling my mom that “mommy doesn’t want to be mommy anymore”. Oh boy…. I won’t be saying anything like that again, it made such an impression on her.
After all that, I was determined to salvage the coming days and went at it with a vengeance. We went to storytime on Wednesday, where the stories were of frogs and princesses. Afterwards, we ran some errands and bought supplies to make some Father’s Day gifts. Veronica wanted to make a gift for herself, so I bought tiny canvas purses for them to paint after we painted T-shirts for their dad and grandfathers. We had lunch then went to work on the shirts. The girls got paint on their palms and stamped their handprints on the fronts of the shirts and then we wrote names on the breast (where the logo would be on a golf shirts, for instance): Pop pop, Pop, Best Daddy! The girls loved the shirts and couldn’t wait to see daddy wearing his today and I am sure they will insist that their grandfathers wear their shirts while we are visiting next week. Even though Veronica made a mess of her little purse with the fabric paint, she loves it and has decided that she will make purses when she is a mommy.
Friday, we went back to the library for a make and take craft day for Father’s Day. I am so impressed with our library – they really get a lot of donations from local businesses. For the Father’s Day craft, there were baseball caps (donated by KFC) that the kids got to decorate with foam shapes and letters and buttons and all kinds of little adornments. There were also bookmarks to color and tie ribbon to, and a fill in the blank story sheet “A Story About My Dad”. It was a lot of fun doing that story with Veronica – she filled in the blanks and I wrote what she said. She said that her daddy’s favorite thing to eat is vegetables and when he goes shopping, he buys fruit. It was hysterical – neither of those things is true, but he got a kick out of it, saying she “makes him look like a great father, concerned with getting enough fruits and veggies”. I also got him shorts and a shirt and had a picture of the girls enlarged and framed and made him a card. I am happy that he felt like we went to lengths to make his day special.
Oh! Forgot to talk about job stuff: I guess I should preface all this by giving a little background on Adam’s job situation. We moved to Atlanta last summer because Adam was promoted to Assistant GM with his company, but the position was in Atlanta (not Tampa, where we lived), so we moved. After just a few months, they fired the GM at a hotel nearby (same management company) and they asked Adam to go for “a couple months” to babysit, so to speak, until they moved someone else to be the GM there. Well, they offered the position last September to a man who was currently a GM with the company, but at a hotel (which was for sale by the owners) in another state. This other guy didn’t want to move unless he had to (he has a family) so he has stayed put, waiting out the sale of the hotel. Adam’s two month stint has turned into nine months and amid some weirdness (he was never made official at this other hotel, but he was given a pay increase so he would be compensated fairly as a GM), his own future has been put on hold. Noone seems interested in working out some sort of career plan with him, in spite of recognizing that he has done a bang up job running this hotel. Well, a couple weeks ago, Adam got a call telling him that he would be going back to the hotel in Atlanta as the assistant GM. They also said he will go back to his former pay ($15k less!) since the position is a lower one. In the company bylines, they state salary should be protected if you were at that salary level for more than 6 months (he was) and you are moved for reasons other than performance (he is). Apparently the hotel in the other state has been sold and they are finally going to move this other guy here to assume the position he was offered last September. Adam was given a tentative last day at his current assignment and a firm first day to report back to the other hotel. After talking to someone in corporate, Adam found out that he may be sent temporarily to a new hotel (under his company’s management, not a newly built hotel) in Chicago to help get it transitioned to his company’s systems, etc. We would be okay with this if it meant an opportunity for him to be a GM somewhere within reason (we don’t want to move further away from FL and our families). So, he emailed the incoming GM to nail down a date when they could expect him (he wanted to make sure to clean out his personal things from the office and have housekeeping prepare a room for the new guy). So this is how the story has panned out in the past week: No response from P on when he would arrive to assume his position as GM, R (corporate-somebody-or-other that lives locally and has gotten to know Adam well) calls someone in the sold hotel who tells R that everyone on the management team is staying with the company that bought the hotel, including P. Well, R emails P and says “I hear you are staying and I wanted to confirm the rumors – people in the Atlanta area are confused” and gets no response from P. Adam emails the regional vice pres. and says I haven’t gotten P to nail down a date. RVP responds immediately (really unusual for him to even respond same day) telling Adam there has been a hold up and he will be in touch when he gets more info himself. So, it appears they have held this position open for 9 months for someone who is obviously not going to take it now that he has been given an opportunity to stay in his current city. This is the question: If P doesn’t come here, will they finally give Adam an official position as a GM at the hotel he's been running for 9 months? If not, how do they expect him to really view his future with the company? Will they try to force us into moving to Chicago? Oy, things are mighty confusing right now.
Anyone know how to deal with night terrors? Ana has been waking a few nights a week screaming like someone is attacking her and she won’t calm down for quite a while. I get her out of her bed (to prevent her from waking Veronica, but also because I tried a few times to comfort her just by rubbing her back or laying with her and she just doesn’t calm down) and hold her on the couch. She usually is shaking and babbling, not making any sense. It is as if she is still asleep and in a nightmare, but she is clearly awake and kind of stares at us pleading to make it stop. I recognize the expression in her eyes as being pretty much the same as I would feel in the past when I had panic attacks and I am fearful for her as she grows. I hope she is not plagued with these kinds of attacks for many years.
I am really starting to carve out some time for scrapbooking – it has allowed me to feel a bit calmer and when I take a little bit of time for myself each day, I find I have more patience with the girls and am generally happier those days. So, since cropping is something that is really just for me, that is what I am focusing on for now, even if just a little every day. I did go to an all-day crop on Saturday, though I only stayed a bit over 4 hours. I could have stayed longer, but I had a lot of things to do and since we had a birthday party on Sunday (Father’s Day), I wanted to get some things done around the house so Adam didn’t feel compelled to do housework on Father’s Day weekend. I am excited about a trip in late July to Chattanooga for a scrapbooking convention. Since it is only an hour and half drive, we will drive up and back the same Saturday, but I am going to get the word out to my friends and at our Moms Group at church and see if we can get a whole group to go up. I think it will be so much fun and a great field trip. :)
Please pray that something good happens this week with dh's job. And that when Ana's ears are checked Thursday evening, they are clear and she doesn't have to have tubes put in. And that my renewed spirit continues and that I have much patience with the girls and I continue to feel better.
Well, this entry has really had very little direction, so I will close for now and say that I wish for you all a lovely, peace-filled, fun-packed week.
Many Blessings,
Holly
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