What ever happened to the good ol' days...

**Before blogging I would love to know how to stop the Chinese porn spam that is constantly being left on my blog. I have the word verification on, and still these Chinese comments that lead to Chinese porn sites continue to spring up. How do I get them off?? Bastards.**

I have an obsession with watching 60's or 70's sitcoms, especially in the middle of the night when I can't sleep {which is often}. As a child of the 70's & 80's, I recall most of these shows from when they aired as re-runs at 5PM during the week. {How else could we explain my complete knowledge of "Bewitched"? Hell, I believe the show was cancelled before I was even born}. I also love to watch shows based on the 60's or 70's, even though my favorite decade of the 20th century was the "Roaring 20's"...

Anyhow, since I have become a mother, I am even more obsessed with these show. Late one night while I was having a huge battle with Boxer {she refused to sleep at all}, I began to reflect on my childhood, and how life used to be. It seems like it was 100 years ago, but it really wasn't. I recalled the huge family gatherings every Sunday for macaroni; the cousins, Aunts & Uncles who were always around; how all the "Grandma's & Grandpa's" were old, cuddly, lovable people who LIVED for their families; my parents friends whom we would go to visit on the weekends, or they would come to us; the large amount of kids that lived on the same block as me; the way those kids and their parents would come on over to our yard in the summer {or we would go to theirs} and the adults would sit and have a drink and a smoke as the kids would play in the pool or on the lawn; the block parties where the neighborhood would shut the street down to traffic and put their picnic tables out for one big party; sitting on the stoop with my friends once the streetlights came on; playing in the street during the day after school; sense of extended family; sense of a close-knit community; and yes, I do remember the god-awful outfits that our parents would dress us up in {Plaid pants with a polka dot shirt anyone?}

I got up to look through some old photos from when I was a child {and boy, does Boxer look EXACTLY like me, except for the eye color!} because I wanted to see if the memories I had from when I was 5 or 6 were a good indication of how life was when I was Boxer's age. It was. I then began to feel a tad bit sorry for Boxer. Because that world doesn't seem to exist anymore. At least, not in NYC. Or Long Island for that matter. It certainly doesn't exist in my life. Poor little Boxer; she never has any visitors! Aunts & Uncles she has never seen; cousins she doesn't know; Grandparents who are always traveling or working or getting manicures or surfing the Internet, etc, etc. A neighborhood in which everybody keeps to themselves; barely any children around during the day; those who are around normally hang out in their house watching TV {yes, even the ones who are as young as Boxer!}. No sense of family or community. Having to pay money to join a "mom group" so you can connect with other stay-at-home mom's and allow your child to have friends their age. Fellow moms who reject you because you do not eat organic goat balls, blah blah blah.

No wonder why Boxer gets so excited every time she hears the theme for "Bewitched". I bet that her & Tabitha could have been best friends, while Samantha & I chit-chatted on the patio. Nobody would have passed judgement on us for choosing to stay at home with our kids. Nobody would have chastised us for disciplining our kids while munching on non-organic goat balls, or being friends with a person who.. **gasps** smokes cigarettes. Shit, I think if that scene were to happen today, people wouldn't bat an eye over the witchcraft, but they would put police tape around the person who visited us smelling like cigarettes {sorry...this irks me..smoking is not illegal..unless you are blowing the smoke directly into my kids face on purpose, I feel no need to treat you like a common criminal}.

{And don't get me started on the pre-teens and teenagers of today. I actually cringe when I see them walking around with their cell phones and Gucci bags while getting pedicures and talking to their mother with zero respect. Ugh. I wasn't an angelic teenager or anything, but damn, I didn't act like that, and I knew how to appreciate the little things in life. My high school years rocked. We actually had to communicate with each other in person, as opposed to facebook or online video games....and if I did talk back to my parents, well....you wouldn't see me for months..}

Anyhow, I was still in grade school when this song came out, and although I liked it, I didn't really connect with the lyrics. Until now. {well, not all the lyrics, but the general meaning behind the song...} Makes me want to go to the old local bar, sit down, have a drink, and talk about those glory days...

Now back to the present...

Since I last wrote there have been great improvements in Boxer's gross motor skills. She has become not just a walking maniac, but a RUNNING maniac. In fact, I believe she completely skipped over the walking, and went directly to running. Of course, she is not experienced enough to be a fast sprinter, but that is all she wants to do. This leads to many falls, cuts & bruises for her, and lots of heart-attacks and Motrin for me, 'cause my knee is having a hard time keeping up with her! She loves to grab things and then run with both her hands up across the room. She looks a lot like ET {when he meets Gertie for the first time, and she screams, and then he runs past her with both hands up in the air. This is Boxer. All day long}. She has also mastered climbing, and is getting into EVERYTHING. I cannot help but sit back and stare at this little person in awe. Last year at this time she was barely 5 pounds and strapped to an apnea monitor. How far she has come!! She continues to kick ass in so many ways! However, we are still REALLY behind in speech. "The Gorn" has continued to be her favorite method of communication, along with "Chewbacca". She becomes very pissed off when she is trying to tell me something because all she can do is point and grunt, and I am not Captain Kirk or Luke Skywalker, so I have no clue what she is trying to tell me. This always results in whining, crying, or tantrums. She completely stopped babbling, rarely even says "mamama" anymore. So I called the early intervention people and asked if we could re-evaluate her and possibly add another day of speech therapy, as this is where we are having the biggest delay. In fact, I think she has regressed, which is always a bad thing. Regardless of her inability to speak, she certainly understands everything. I can no longer count how many words she knows. She is one smart cookie. She also will get something and bring it to me if I ask her to. Fuckin' A.

Our days have gotten longer here, since SB's job decided to change his hours and days. Don't get me started on the Sunday shift. Sunday is supposed to be family day; instead, he leaves on a train at 7:15AM and doesn't get back until almost 10:00PM, and this week, won't be home until 2:00AM {DAMN YOU SB's job, DAMN YOU chic from SB's job who made a fuss over nothing and caused this horrible change, and DAMN YOU Sunday schedule for the train}. My knee is in BAD fucking shape, and I can barely make it through the day. Hell, I was having problems making it up until 6:00PM {if you refer back to my last entry, you'll see why}. So now add in walking, running, climbing, and SB not returning until 10:00PM or 2:00AM. Holy hell is it rough. And it's even worse when it rains. Because I can't even distract her with a trip to the local Starbucks for some interaction.

On the financial front, the hours are a good thing, because we are flat broke. I'm not talking "we have no money for a pedicure" or "we only have $200 in the bank". I'm talking broke. Really broke. I just found out how bad it was when I went to use my credit card for some crap at the drugstore, and my card declined for a $42 purchase. I kept trying to get it to go through, until the cashier said she would have to take away the card if I ran it through one more time. Fucking embarrassing. And fucking annoying. Because I do not go anywhere or do anything, and if I do, it's normally free or fairly cheap. I went through all our bank statements and credit card statements trying to figure out what did this to us, and a big portion of the dent in our cash flow is due to the fabulous change in Insurance coverage from SB's job {yet another thing I would love to thank them for}. Hello Mr. $1,000 deductible for pharmacy. What.the.fuck. Hi, Mr.$7,000 deductible for medical. Again, What.the.fuck. SB had told me there were some changes, but I didn't know it was this bad. $177 for an asthma pump? Thanks a bunch big, huge-ass company that SB works for. You have royally screwed us. I pondered over going back to work part-time, or even full-time, but when I checked the rates for decent day-care, almost all of my salary would go towards that, so what the hell is the point? Sometimes, life kicks you in the ass and just continues to kick you in the ass. Personally, I'm getting tired of it, even though I know it will "make me a stronger person in the end". After all the ass-kickings I have received, I'm already a strong person. If I get any stronger I'll be a goddamn super-hero.

Speaking of ass-kicking, my leg wouldn't be able to kick a pebble right now, that is how bad my knee is. Besides the fractured fibula, recent x-rays have shown that I also have NO cartilage in my knee. The strain of walking on this crap every day, all day, for months on end with no medical intervention, is pretty much breaking me. I'm working with the shitty insurance company right now to get approval for shots to the knee that is an alternative to long, expensive, painful surgery that requires 2 months to recover from and then lengthy and painful Physical Therapy. Not only can we NOT afford it, I do not have anybody to come and help me out while I recover. So that's a no-go. Injections it will have to be.

As of a few days ago, Boxer's sleeping habits have taken a turn for the worse. I'm not too sure what caused this change, but napping no longer exists, and bedtime is a never-ending war. She screams as if Michael Meyers from Halloween is in her crib next to her. As soon as I put her down, she screams. Sometimes she attempts to fall asleep, but as soon as she begins to drift off, she bolts awake, stands up, and screams. I have watched her do this on the video monitor. I have also seen her do this as I hold her sometimes in the rocking chair, trying to calm her down. I have no idea how this child can be as energetic as she is, with barely any sleep at all. Yesterday she went 14 hours without a nap. Not even a power nap. I did everything I could to get her to sleep; it just didn't work. Then at night, it was just as bad. She has no fever, is not tugging at her ears, and I do not see or feel any teeth coming in {we still only have the bottom 2 teeth}. I thought that perhaps she was developing a bit of separation anxiety, as this started the day after I left her with my in-laws during dinner & bedtime {first time she has been put to bed by anybody but me}. However, I'm pretty sure that is not the case as she won't even sleep in my bed or with me on the couch. Tomorrow, SB will be gone for the 7:00AM - 2:00AM shift, and it's going to rain, and it's going to be a long-ass painful day. I've been dreading it for days!

Ah, if only it were still the 1970s. Perhaps Boxer would still be a insomniac, but at least I would have the family over for Sunday dinner. Maybe the macaroni and "yelling" at the table would put her at ease and help her sleep better. Perhaps my knee wouldn't resemble the Garbage Heap from "Fraggle Rock" by mid-afternoon, cause' I would be able to sit for 10 minutes while Boxer socialized. Oh well. I'm thinking tomorrow I will dress her in a flowered shirt with some plaid bell-bottoms and only allow her to play with my hand-me-down toys that my mother gave me {yes, she kept them all these years, and yes, they work better and last longer than ANY of the "new" toys we have gotten for Boxer}. It may make me feel like we're back in the good ol' days, or that we're actually experiencing what Boxer will one day consider her "good ol' days"..even if she's dressed like a dork.

Til next time