Sunday, March 18, 2012

A Sick Baby and a Cat Attack

It's been another hectic week here.  Goober started throwing up on Monday and he's been sick all week.  I don't understand how he gets sick so much more often than the other kids.  Even as babies and toddlers, T and Princess were rarely sick.  It seems like Goober gets sick at least once a month.  I feel so bad for him.

He finally seems to be on the upswing, though.  He managed to eat crackers and some chicken nuggets today, and now he's asleep.  I hope he doesn't wake up crying every hour or so tonight like he has been.  I'm barely functioning with my sleep so interrupted, and it doesn't help that I have awful insomnia and I'm lucky to get 4 hours of sleep a day.

My cat Little Fart had an accident this week.  The boyfriend told me that he saw him outside and he'd been in a fight but wouldn't let him near him.  When I went to get him, he looked gnarly.  His nose was bloody and torn up, he had bite marks on his face and near his ear, and he was a mess.

I took him to the vet and found out things were worse than I imagined.  They took him to the back to clean him off and examine him because he had an accident and peed all over himself in the carrier.  The vet came in and asked me if I lived in a high rise building.  I was confused, since I live in a 3 story cape cod, and the cat was definitely outside when he got hurt.

It turns out that not only did he get attacked by an animal, but it appeared that he fell out of a tree or off something else high up.  His nose was bleeding because he split his palate and broke some bones in his face.  He also had brain swelling and damage from the fall.  I had to leave him there to get steroids and pain medicine.

The good news is that his x-rays showed all his internal organs are intact.  I got to bring him home with antibiotics and pain meds.  They can't do anything about the palate or the broken bones in his face-they should eventually heal on their own.  He got some stitches in his lip, and I probably have to take him to get a fractured tooth pulled at some point. 

I'm just happy to have him home and doing alright.  I was so scared when I found out he fell so hard.  I never realized he would try and climb a tree to escape from an attacking animal.  It kills me that I will never know what the heck happened.  The vet also told me his back claws were shredded from trying to escape.  He's happy to be home, laying on the couch, and attempting to eat with his cone collar on (so he doesn't pull out his stitches).

Yeah, it was a crazy week.  I made corned beef hash with poached eggs and brownies with irish cream swirls for St. Paddy's day today.  The kids loved helping me make the brownies.  The best part is that they turned out gooey and under baked-I love half raw brownies, but I'll give the kids the more cooked edges.

In the morning we're going up to the house in the Catskills for the first time this season.  I'm excited because I love it up there.  It is my favorite place to be.  There's a huge parade in my town tomorrow and I can't be far enough away from it.

I always hated the parade growing up because my town is mainly Irish Catholics who get crazy drunk all day.  My parent's house was one block away from the parade route, and I hated that no matter what I did, I couldn't escape it.  It was a little better as I got older, and I even went and watched it from my old job (across the street from my parent's house) a few times.

Then I moved.  My landlord and his son throw a party every year on the parade day.  This wouldn't bother me so much if the parents who were there gave a crap about what their kids were doing.  Last year was a disaster.  Kids were opening the gates to my backyard and running around all over it.  I asked them nicely to leave, since my daughter was getting upset with strangers on her turf.  A couple minutes later, they would be back in my yard.

The kids weren't too young to know better either.  They were 8-14 years old.  Their parents were too busy getting drunk to do anything.  It got even worse when the kids started terrorizing my outdoor cats and attempting to come in my house.  I stood in my backyard for the entire afternoon, chasing kids away and getting frustrated.  I don't know what the kids or the parents were thinking.  I would never let my kids run wild and aggravate people like that.

So this year, T, Princess, and I will be gone and I won't have to deal with the urge to smack someone's poorly behaved child (or a poorly behaved drunk adult).  The boyfriend is staying home with Goober (I don't want him to throw up in the car-it's a 2 1/2 hour drive each way), and hopefully, he'll scare the kids from the yard.  I'm sure his BB rifle can help with that.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Spaghetti Pie


This month's Crazy Cooking Challenge is spaghetti!  I love pasta, so I knew it was one I would really enjoy.  The only requirements were that we use spaghetti (not ziti or other pasta shapes), and red sauce.  I found a great recipe for Spaghetti Pie from That Skinny Chick Can Bake, and decided to make it.  I'm from New York and have never even heard of Spaghetti Pie, but it looks yummy!


Ingredients:
-8 oz (or 1/2 package) spaghetti noodles
-3 eggs
-1/4 to 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (I used a handful and didn't actually measure)
-8 oz sour cream
-1 package Gimme Lean ground beef style (or 1 pound of real ground beef)
-1/2 jar tomato sauce (I used Ragu)
- 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella

Egg and Parmesan mixture
Directions:-Preheat oven to 350
-Cook and cool spaghetti noodles.  Heat Gimme Lean in about a tablespoon of oil until it is lightly browned and crumbly.

Sour cream on top
-Add spaghetti to a 9 inch pie plate (or a 1 1/2 quart oval dish-I have no pie plates).  In a small bowl, mix eggs and Parmesan together.  Pour over noodles and mix so noodles are coated.

Gimme Lean (or beef)
 -Add sour cream on top, followed by the Gimme Lean, the sauce, and finally, the mozzarella cheese.

sauce layer
-Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Cheesy

I did change a few things from the original recipe.  Firstly, I used vegetarian meat because I don't eat beef.  I also used 3 eggs instead of 2 because the spaghetti in the picture of the original recipe looked a little dry, and I was afraid the noodles would get crunchy, and then my kids would refuse to eat it.  It turned out really well. The pasta wasn't dry at all, and it was a totally new take on spaghetti for me.  My kids loved it, and my boyfriend thought it was so good, he ate half the casserole dish.  We will definitely be making this again.

Baked and bubbly-yum






Monday, March 5, 2012

Sensitivity

When I was 9, I had a hamster.  His name was Brownie, and he was a long-haired brown and white teddy bear hamster.  He was awesome, and was the first pet I really loved.  Brownie used to sit in my shirt pocket, and I spent hours with him every day.  He had a neat plastic cage in my basement with an attached wheel, loop, and attic.

One morning, Brownie was gone.  Vanished.  I enlisted my family to search for him, but we had no luck.  I cried for hours.  I held out hope that he would show up again.  My family encouraged me that we would find him.

They were all lying.  Brownie got out because my dad accidentally forgot to close the attic part of his cage when he fed him that night.  He found him less than a week later, after smelling him.  He ate into the exposed insulation in the basement and died.  My dad and younger sister buried him in the backyard with the rest of the pets that had passed on. 

It was over 6 months before I found out what really happened.  It crushed me.  I dug up the body and cried some more.  I guess I'm trying to say that my family has always felt the need to protect me from things that they think will upset me. 

I've always been really sensitive.  I still cry regularly over the death of my dog 4 years ago.  I get upset incredibly easily, and I can stay upset for a long time.  Even my boyfriend keeps things from me if he thinks they will bother me, and everyone who knows me well agrees that this is the right thing to do, even though sometimes it comes back and bites them in the ass.

I know everyone has my best interests at heart, but when I really think about it, it bothers me.  It stinks that even though I am 27 years old, the people closest to me hide things from me on a pretty regular basis.  I wish I had a thicker skin, and could take things in stride like everyone else.  Instead, I take everything to heart, and it can eat me up for days, weeks, or longer. 

When I get really upset about things, I just go through the motions of taking care of my kids, and I can be lax about it.  I've used TV and junk food as a babysitter so I can sit and cry and dwell in bed.  It's not like this happens all the time, or for no reason.  I'm not depressed or anything.  I'm just really sensitive, and things affect me a lot more deeply than they do to others.

It can be isolating.  But do I really want people to just shove the truth at me if I can't handle it?  I don't know.  I guess it's good in a way that the people who care about me try to protect me.  I've been through so much crap that sometimes, I think it's good to live in my own little world where people try to keep me happy.  On the other hand, I'm never going to be really independent if everyone does this for me forever.  I'm super happy being a mom and not having to work, but at the moment, I'm financially dependent on my family.  The boyfriend has no job at the moment, so his mom and my mom cover our part of the rent.  My parents pay my credit card and gas bills.  They buy diapers for my kids.  They're the ones paying for my groceries, since I can't afford it. 

When I think about it, I have never been financially independent.  Throughout college, my parents paid for everything, from my shopping sprees to my luxury apartments.  After that, my ex and his family paid for everything, from my dinners out to vacations, to expensive clothes.  When I was working, I could afford groceries, as long as I only bought the store brands, and that was it.  Now, they pay for everything again. 

On a good note, the boyfriend is supposed to start working for his dad again soon, which  means he will have his old job back.  The one I asked him to quit after T was born because he was at work so much.  At least it will pay for the groceries and maybe give me enough money to start paying back my parents for everything they've paid for over the years.

I'm not sure where I really intended to go with this post, or how it ended up here, but it feels better to have gotten it all out.