Family

For the girl's birthday this year, we decided to do a party with her classmates instead of a big family one. After noting we did not want 20 five and six year olds running crazy in our house, we chose to go to “The Blast”. It is an indoor playground, kind of like McDonalds, but about four times the size. We invited about ten, to make the pricing manageable, and no one seemed to care that the other students weren't there. They provided a cake and use of a party room. I thought this seemed like a great option, better than Chuck E. Cheese, which can get expensive with all the tokens.

The only thing was that there were two other parties going on at the same time, and others that just walked in. It was an absolute zoo, but the kids had an extremely fun time.

The girl got many, many nice new toys, most of which came lots of small pieces, unsuitable for the boy to play with. I can just imaging him eating some Barbie shoe like her cousin did about a year ago, and think nothing about it. I packed away some of her toys while she wasn't looking, and will save them for another holiday, and she will hopefully see them as new. I will give one to her for Christmas, and then for Easter and any other reason to be proud of her, like when the next report card comes.

We did end up having a celebration with the family, but it was just immediate family. We went directly after we left The Blast (where clean up was a breeze, since there we didn't have to do a thing) we went to our favorite pizza place, the Ole Piper Inn. My parents, my MIL, and SIL were there, FIL was out of town with family hunting. My sister had a very tired girl to deal with; she just went home when the party was over.

Daughter got some more presents at the restaurant, and MIL brought a very chocolately cookies-n-cream cake. She mostly got clothes, and she was very excited about them, especially because she got a fancy new “party dress” and a shirt with Hello Kitty on it.

Over all, it was a crazy, busy day and the girl was extremely satisfied with it, which I guess is the biggest reason we did all this.

Tuesday was a     day
The monster decided not to sleep in, and was actually awake before Daughter left for the bus. I was still feeling unsure of myself and depressed, and needed to get out of the house. The problem with this is that it feels like too much to get ready to go, so I just want to stay home. This adds more stress of needing to go but just can't force myself. I talked with Husband on the phone, and, of course, urged me to go to the “Y”. Since I didn't feel I couldn't go, especially because of nap time, Husband suggested taking the monster for a ride in the bike trailer and then go have lunch with him downtown.

This ate up a good chunk of my day, and when we got home, Monster and I both were very tired and laid down for a nap. The in-laws showed up about 2:00, I let them into the house, then I went back to sleep. They were stopping by to wait for Daughter to get home from school, and then take both kids with them to run some errands before dinner at SIL's house.

BIL is out of town for work, but that didn't stop SIL from announcing that she is pregnant! I am happy for them, but she is still being her annoying, know-it-all self about all this. I doubt she will ask for any help or advice from anyone but MIL, who has not been pregnant for over 30 years. The problem with this is that so many things have changed, old ways are no longer endorsed by doctors and new studies have been done, providing better, safer methods.

Wednesday, the in-laws are taking the kids back to their place in Eau Claire, WI, and the plan was for Husband and I to go out Friday night and stay the rest of the weekend. SIL and BIL are also coming with, but not until Sunday, and staying for just the day. I think I have 100% decided to stay home by myself. This is a huge thing for me, I don't think I have done this since before Daughter was born. I have issues with feeling safe, and then there is also the boredom and depression that will come into play. I am not expecting depression, and not convinced it will come, but I know the odds. If things get bad, I can always drive out to Wisconsin and spend the rest of the weekend there with the family.

Saturday was a three star day
I haven’t gone back and counted yet, but this is the first three star day in at least three weeks! I’ve only been on Lexapro for two days, so I don’t know if that is the source of my feeling good or not. In the past, it started helping in two to three days, so it is very likely. Usually when I spend a lot of time with my in-laws I get stressed and annoyed and just overall have a hard time coping. I don’t know if it is because I am at their home instead or mine, it could very well be.

I haven’t felt the need to escape and isolate over the last two days, but I also haven’t been tip-top shape. There have been a few instances where I was starting to feel some panic, and I took a pill right away. However, there hasn’t been a time when I was feeling bad that I had to call Husband for support. I have a hard time being independent from Husband when it comes to big responsibilities such as driving two hours away with the kids, on my own. It makes me nervous and I get the feeling that I just don’t know what I am doing and need him to take control. I can’t (or should I say “won’t”) spend the entire evening home with the kids while he is out. I call for backup, either I go to my sister’s house or invite someone over for dinner.

When Husband was teaching for a local college and was gone one night a week from straight after work until about 9:30pm, I panicked and made arrangements. Since my BIL works only 15 minutes from my house, and he was staying with his sister while in process of selling their home and moving here, I took advantage of the situation. Every Wednesday night, I had him come straight from work and I would make him dinner. He would hang out as late as possible, then I would try to put the baby down to bed for the night, and hope that Husband would be home really, really soon. BIL was a real comfort for me.

While here at the in-laws’ house, I have my computer, and that helps pass the time. I got really bored Saturday to the point that I didn’t know what to do other then go to bed a little early. Today is Sunday, and I am driving back home, hopefully at a time that I feel awake, and the baby is tired so that he will take a nap. I don’t have any coffee here, from my own fault, so I am pumping the caffeine with my diet dr. pepper. I woke up early, so that probably means I will be tired about 10am, about the time I would like to leave. There is a lot of packing up to do, so perhaps we won’t be able to leave until after lunch anyways if we tried.

It seems we have come to an agreement over the name of the kitty. Daughter is stuck on Meow-Meow, I wanted Li-Lu (as in Li-lu Dallas, multi-pass) and Husband wanted Sissy. I was fine with Sissy, but Daughter is stuck. With a bribe, we came to this...

We will call her Sissy, but her real name is Meow-Meow, and Daughter is still able to call her that if she wants because really, that is her true name.

Here are more cute photos:

Reading and searching for blogs and articles that appeal to me has in fact inspired me to more with my blog. I don’t know what yet, but it will probably involve some video and me moving away from just a description of my day and more stories and articles that really mean something. This may mean I will be stopping the every-day routine, but I think there will be some more worthwhile things to read.

Today I have not done well emotionally. I spoke with my doctor and so I am now backing off the full dose of the new imipramine to the middle one and letting my body adjust for a little while. Apparently the regimen doc put me on was aggressive, but he believes I need to be at the higher dose. In the meanwhile, I am depressed, wandering aimlessly around the house (pretty much just pacing) and thinking and thinking in circles that don’t make sense. I’m not having the racing thoughts, but I just can’t stop and say what it was that I was just thinking.

I feel unproductive and guilty about doing nothing today but moping and napping until Husband got home. Little Monster slept about 3 hours until we woke him, so that was a weight lifted. The kids and I had plans to go to a park with friends, but I called it off due to my lack of interest in the world, basically.

Sitting here Tuesday night, I do not feel safe with myself, meaning I am thinking of hurting myself in some way, and don’t think I can fight it off. I don’t know if I will hurt myself, but I am fighting. If it does come down to that, I will be back in the hospital, and that hurts everyone around me. I would be going to a different hospital, and this one will be very close to a lot of family members. My fear is that they will want to come see me, and I just can’t let that happen.

Most of the family doesn’t even know that I am bipolar, and possibly even that I have been admitted into a hospital for this. I don’t know how I could keep it a secret, my husband wouldn’t tell anyone, but I would need to tell my mom, who would tell my sisters, and hopefully no further than that. I shouldn’t say that, my mom wouldn’t go behind my back, and tell a secret like this. The iffy part is that my step-dad would find out, which happens to be staying with my grandma. She is a blabbermouth, if she knows, the entire family knows within a day. I guess I can refuse all visitors by my husband, but then again, who would want to go see someone in a “mental hospital”. The family is very quiet about any type of problem, there are things that I have heard hinted at, but never outright confirmed. “Possibly” my aunt has been admitted for depression more than once, and the other one has had issues with depression.

The women in the family seem to have a knack for picking men that turn out to be @ssh01es. On the surface, and for quite a while into the relationship, then something happens. Sometimes alcohol, cheating, or in three cases, drugs got involved. Some of them had two or three of these issues. This includes my two aunts, my mother, grandmother and sister. One of them even had it happen in two marriages. These people tried to hang on and try to make things better, but fail. I can see how these situations could cause a lot of emotional problems, but of course, they hide it and just have no way to deal.