Jersey Shore Truck Driver vs 9 Month Pregnant Mom & Little Sister

I know I have mentioned this before, but my sister is about to have her second child, miss Lyla Townes. She is due next week and I can't wait. With her first pregnancy, the 9 months consisted of us reading blogs about funny kid stories, learning what size the baby is each week that goes by, what we think she will look like and what to expect. This oddly enough was just as fun for me as it was for her. I am the biggest lover of kids and it tends to weird people out. If you look at my facebook pictures or my 1,600 pictures on my phone... 90% are of kids. And since I am not anywhere near having kids, I take my job as "auntie," very seriously :)

My sister is probably the funniest person I've ever met. And by funny, I mean funny in the most untraditional way. She is very sarcastic, dry, obvious and oblivious. I don't think she has any idea how funny she is.

Ever since Gracie Bay came into the world, all of our lives have gotten a whole lot crazier. Gone are the days of Sheelah and I laying on the couch watching endless episodes of Grey's Anatomy, Project Runway, The Bachelor/Bachelorette, or anything else on E! or Bravo. And since Gracie has inherited my sleeping disorder, her one nap a day, if we're lucky, is an hour. So now we take our once was, lazy tv watching butts, on outings to Target and Costco.

I don't know about you, but when I think of Costco on a Sunday morning, I think of families and elderly people filling the parking lot and taking up every open space in the aisles. Right when we pulled in the parking lot, we were amazed at how empty (for Costco) the parking lot was. We drove around looking for a close parking spot, because, well.... my sister is 9 months pregnant. As I'm unloading Gracie out of the carseat, I hear Sheelah's sarcastic tone, but can't hear what she is actually saying. I rounded the corner of the van and she is pointing to the biggest/lifted ugly truck either of us has ever seen and said "I literally couldn't get in that truck even if I wanted to." We mosey on into Costco and are in and out in record time. We load up the car and I started looking for Gracie's MUST HAVE car toy, but can't seem to find it anywhere.

All of the sudden I hear a man's voice and see my sister's famous, deadly eye roll. She opened the door of the van and said "No, you're not being patient, you just said 'fu***** and Jesus in the same sentence as patient." Then I hear him say 'fu***** bit**."

She quickly responds saying "I'm 9 months pregnant, I have a baby in the car, and we're looking for something, just move around us."

He finally gives in and starts unloading his groceries after calling her a "fu***** bit**," just one more time. This jackass, who by the way, looked like he drove straight to Costco from Jersey Shore, had to of course BACK his truck up into the parking spot. A very impractical way to park your car, while unloading costco size groceries.

I nervously looked at Sheelah, shrugged my shoulders and said I couldn't find Gracie's toy. She sighed and said just get in the car. But I had to get one quick word in and yelled over the car some sort of shenanigans about him having small man syndrome with his big ugly truck.

We started driving away and burst into laughter at the image of a 9 month pregnant- minivan driving sassy mom with her little sister yelling at a Jersey Shore GTL ugly truck driving jerk! All the while miss Gracie is patiently sitting in her carseat watching it all unfold.

It may have been a low point for us, but we agreed that our Mom or Granny would have done much worse :)

My Little White China Doll

Yesterday when I got on the bus I was looking forward to reading my insanely sappy love story book, but everyone on the bus wouldn't shut up about how we're on a new bus, which no one has been on. Being oblivious to the design of the bus, I don't notice the lack of seating. Apparently this bus only seats 35 people, which for a 4:30 bus from Seattle to Tacoma, may as well be like a high school having one school bus for all 4,000 students. Anywho, the bus is quickly filling up when I hear a man talking loud enough for the people on the bus next to us to hear. I assume he is on his phone because as weird as the bus riders may be, they normally have the decency to talk quietly on the bus. Well, turns out it was a crazy Asian man talking a bunch of nonsense. He starts making his way toward the front of the bus to ask the driver something. He passes a nice looking woman yelling "ooooooh weeeeeee!!!" and a decent man quickly gives up his seat to her to avoid the wacko. The closer he got, the harder my heart pounded because I could see he had eyes for me. I nervously looked down at my book to avoid any interaction but since he was still talking loud enough for the whole city of Seattle to hear, I couldn't escape. He began telling me very loudly, that I was the white china doll he wished for from the magic genie he met last night. At this point he is standing DIRECTLY in front of me, leaning on a pole and sizing me up, while talking about his little white China doll. I was anxiously looking at anyone who would make eye contact with me to try to lure them into helping me. Not one person. They all were just staring at me with the most confused and blank stares. At this point I am in full hysterics, laughing uncontrollably, sweating, and crying from laughing so hard. He then switches gears telling me how I look like his granddaughter Emily, then asking me my name and saying how I "done grown up and got me a job." FINAlLY he gets off the bus announcing he needs to find his black queen. The second he got off the bus, EVERYONE erupted into laughter and asking me why I didn't want to tell him my name. Needless to say, I'll be buying some mase this weekend.

Sincerely,

Your Little White China Doll

Insomnia Meltdown

Hello hello! It has been a while, sorry for those of you who I know have just been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for my next post.... haha just kidding :)


Well, I started my new job at Fred.Hutch and it's been going great! I have been learning a lot, but also I have been doing a lot of mindless tasks in the mix. Part of my job is getting the participant's packets ready for the research study and a large part of my job is to enter the data when it is returned. The data I enter is HILARIOUS. The women (72+ years old) are to keep a sleep log, while wearing an pedometer type device (accelerometer), to track their activity. If they are to take it off at any point, they need to write down the time and explain why. A normal example would be "7AM-8AM for bathing." But these women LOVE to write every single detail of thier day like "Stayed up late watching the game!" Or "Drove 150 miles to see family, then drove 75 miles here, and 45 miles here. Then I walked a lot and volunteered." And starting tomorrow, I am to call the participants to remind them to return their logs and check in on how they're doing. I see a lot of very long conversations in my near future.


I haven't really had any wild bus experiences lately, which can only mean one must be coming soon. I have been reading a lot and also trying to catch some sleep. Sleep has been a huge issue lately.... and by lately... I mean the last 3 years. Now that I have benefits, I set up a bunch of doctor appointments. I went to see a specialist yesterday about my sleep problems and she asked me a variety of questions. When she asked how long it's been going on, I was embarassed to tell her it had been years, and when she asked how many times I wake up every night, I was embarassed to tell her 2, 3, 4 times a night. I explained to her how I've tried taking natural sleeping aids, warm milk with nutmeg, turning the clock the other way, etc. Exercise also doesn't effect my sleep. Blah blah, so she asks "Have you been feeling anxious or depressed?" I quickly replied, I have felt both of those before (I mean let's be honest, who HASN'T felt depressed or anxious?), but definitely not at this stage of my life. And she said "Well, people with anxiety have a hard time falling asleep, while people with depression have a hard time staying asleep. So, we will have you fill out a questionnaire to check. Have you ever done counseling?"


If I could have prevented what happened next, I would have, but now it makes me laugh. I looked at the specialist and burst into tears. She was trying to console me and I said "I don't know why I'm crying. I'm really not depressed or anxious... I swear. And now you think I'm even more crazy or depressed because I just burst into tears out of nowhere. But I swear I'm not. I'm just tired of being tired." And the more I tried to explain how NOT depressed I was, the more it made me sound depressed.


Does she think I'm depressed or anxious? Maybe. A hot mess? Definitely. Am I depressed? No. She offered me ambien and explained that people tend to eat and drive and have no recollection of it. After I explained to her that I already have been known to sleep walk and sleep talk, I should probably pass on the ambien. But, she referred me to get a sleep study done. I called today to get it scheduled and I don't even have my consultation until the 19th of JUNE!!! I said "A month and a half is a long time to figure out why you can't sleep, but who am I kidding? I haven't been sleeping for 3 years." Unfortunately, not having normal sleep has become normal to me. But HOPEFULLY things will be changing very soon!