Pregnancy is not agreeing with me this time around.  I haven’t been sick (at least not since Christmas).  I’ve been more tired, but nothing unbearable.

I’m just BIG.  And I hate it.

I almost wore a pink shirt for Easter.  And then I looked in the mirror and saw a giant Easter Egg where my reflection should have been.

I did not wear a pink shirt for Easter.

I took a “six months pregnant” picture today.  I’d post it to prove my point but I think there’s some reason I don’t post pictures of myself on this site… though I can’t quite remember what that reason is right now.  Anyway, I look at least 8 months along.  It’s discouraging.  I don’t think I’ll be taking a “nine months pregnant” picture this time around.

In a short time I will be going to HAWAII for my MIL’s birthday celebration.  And I cannot believe I am doing this voluntarily.   When I was pregnant with Button, my best friend got married.  Why do people always plan important events when I’m 7 months pregnant?

Oh trip, how I dread thee… let me count the ways:

• 8 hour plane ride there… with swollen uncomfortable pregnancy legs
• 8 hour plane ride there… with energetic 2-year old. Who maxes out at about 3 hours.  And refuses to sleep on planes.  And who can only survive those 3 hours when allowed to watch Dora on laptop.  And whose grumpy factor increases proportionate to how much TV she watches.
• Maternity swimsuit
• Maternity swimsuit
• Maternity swimsuit
• 8 hour plane ride back… more swollen uncomfortable pregnancy legs
• 8 hour plane ride back… same 2-year old

Somebody just shoot me now.

Remember all that data entry I did?  Well, I just got informed that they’re really revamping their product line and discontinuing a lot of stuff that was previously on their website.  Namely, the 300 items I had already entered.

Figures.

Things have been busy recently.  Work has been frustrating.  Today I spent 8.5 hours doing data entry.  It’s a good thing Texas is flat, otherwise I would have walked off a cliff by now.  I’m rebuilding a company’s website and there is NO WAY to transfer their shopping cart from the current database into the new one.  Which is ASININE.  But perhaps that’s why their current host is going out of business.

So I’m getting to manually enter over 500 products.  So far I’m about 3/5 of the way there.  Sigh.

In addition, everything else I’m dealing with at work is frustrating.  I’m rebuilding another company’s website and their IT guy WILL NOT give me the information I need.  After numerous phone calls and emails, I’m currently 2 weeks behind because I’m waiting on DUMBASS to cooperate and give me the stupid DNS information - a totally simple request that apparently he’s too busy to handle.  After ignoring my phone messages and emails for a week he tells me he’ll get me the information in a few hours because he’s busy.  It should take him all of five minutes to get the information I’m asking for.

He never comes through.  I email him again.

Then he says he’s decided he would “be more comfortable” meeting me before sharing the information.

Um, sorry.  This is not a good week for me to drive 2 hours for a meeting at the office (see aforementioned data entry project).  And I can’t sit around for another week waiting to meet with him so I can get started on my project.  Had he mentioned his paranoia WHEN I INITIALLY ASKED FOR THE INFORMATION, I could have arranged it last week.  But he’s not the only one with a busy schedule.

He was supposed to call me today.  Didn’t.  After waiting for 45 minutes, I called his office.  Was told he got held up in a meeting and would be free to call me in 10-15 minutes.  He never called.  Big surprise.

In addition to dealing with Dumbass, I’m also in charge of a couple of tasks that are seemingly simple - but have taken a ridiculous amount of time to make headway on.  For instance, switching the bank account information for one of these companies I’m doing work for.  Sounds relatively straightforward, no?

It’s not.

There’s Company A, who is the processor for the manual terminal.  Then there’s Company B, the processor for the website transactions.   Company B doesn’t pass information on to Discover or American Express, so I have to update information individually with them as well.  This would have been nice to know at the beginning - when I asked the Discover rep that very question, I was told that I had to do the updating through Company B, and not through Discover directly.  Apparently not the case.

Company A, who is sometimes called Company C,  has some sort of affiliate - Company D - who apparently I have to update with the information separately, but nobody tells me this until I find out by accident 2 weeks later.

Company B, who is sometimes called Company G, does not receive the information we faxed them.  We send it again, via mail.

Then I get a  phone message from “Melody at the Credit Card Processing Company,” regarding some of the information I’m trying to change.   How helpful.  When I return the call, Melody doesn’t quite remember why she called me.  I ask Melody which Credit Card Processing Company she’s calling from.  She says she’s calling from Company E.  I haven’t had any dealings with Company E and have no idea who they are.  She says she also works for Company F.  Again, not ringing a bell.  After a lot of questioning, I am able to determine that Melody at Company E and Company F has some relationship to Company A, but I have no idea what that relationship is.

Company D has not received the information we faxed them.

Company B/G, has STILL not received the information we sent them, twice.  Though they point out that apparently it takes them 7-10 business days to check their mail.  Go figure.

I get a phone message from Erica at the Credit Card Processing Company.  Why do they do this to me?  After much trouble, I am able to determine that Erica is from Company D.  She is calling to tell me that Company D has received the information after all … but has not processed it.  Nobody knows why, or when it will be taken care of.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am ditching all of these companies in the near future in exchange for dealing solely with PayPal.

Ok, I know I’ve been wordy today but before I sign off I have one more thing to say.

I freaking hate Facebook.  It used to be a neat, normal, SANE program but now I wish I had never signed up.   Today I’ve been knighted, poked, super-heroed, warbooked (WTH?) and petitioned.

And I thought MySpace was annoying.  Somebody please make it stop …

Ok, I upgraded Wordpress so hopefully it will start working for me again.  I’m doubtful though, since it’s still not letting me add categories.

This has been a difficult week.  My mom has been ill with some sort of excruciatingly painful nervous system disorder that the doctors were unable to diagnose for weeks.  They’re medicating her, and it’s working to take the pain away, but the medication makes her crazy.

She’s usually a really emotional person anyway, but when she’s on this medication it’s like being around a bipolar schizophrenic with Alzheimer’s.  I couldn’t let her watch Little Button for her normal 2 days this week because she’s seriously not herself and I was too worried about her judgment.  When I told her I would be keeping Button home this week, I might as well have stabbed her best friend, run over her dog, and published a book on “why my mother is a failure.”

The other day I went over to my parents’ house to wrap all their Christmas presents (I was trying to be helpful in any way they would let me, since my mom has been ill) and I totally overdid it.  I was useless and dead by the time I got home to J.

Though I’m now in second trimester, I’m not getting my energy back.  This is different from the first time around, and much more inconvenient with a toddler.  A toddler with rampant energy who can sing at the top of her lungs and spin in circles and dance for 4 hours straight while I sit on the couch staring at her in disbelief.

I think I finally got all my Christmas shopping done.  This season has absolutely kicked my butt.  Last year I ordered everything online and was done several weeks before Christmas.  I had a giant spreadsheet detailing gifts purchased and to-be-purchased for each member of my family and J’s family, as well as automated price totaling to ensure that money between each person was balanced and that no one was left out.  Last year, I was the ultimate anal-retentive Christmas Elf.

This year, I’m more like the Christmas Sloth.  I only sort of remember what I’ve gotten each person, so I hope it’s somewhat balanced.  Since I waited so late, I couldn’t order anything online so I’ve had to leave the comfort of my home to actually SHOP.  Which is more of a challenge with aforementioned 2-year-old.  Ok, “challenge” would be putting it mildly.

The other day I was especially low on energy, but we had to go shopping so I packed up Little Button in the car and we made several stops.  At each and every store, she made every effort to run away from me, refused to use her “inside voice” and had a total temper tantrum when she had to give up her lollipop to enter one particular store.

Nearing the end of my rope, I decided to cut the trip short - but we HAD to make one more stop to get a very necessary gift for J.   While inside the store, I had her by the hand so she wouldn’t go running off - and she somehow managed to end up sprawled on the floor while I was trying to make a difficult decision about the merchandise.  I pulled her up by the arm, but she slipped out of my grasp and banged her eyebrow on the tile.

Total.  System.  Meltdown.  You would have thought she cracked her head wide open.

With everybody staring, we left the store for the sake of the other shoppers.  We walked around outside.  She cried.  People stared.  We sat on a bench.  She cried.  People stared.  We stopped and ate lunch.  She recovered.  We re-entered the store in the hopes that I could FINALLY get the 10 minutes I needed to make the purchase and go home.

The second we entered,  she immediately broke away from my grasp and went running through the store, tripped on her own feet, crashed and burned, and went careening into a display case.

OH. MY. GAWD.

As the hysterical crying ensued, and once again everybody in the store stopped to stare at the bad mom with the crazy child, I snapped myself out of the open-mouthed stare and went to pick her up.

At this point, I became THAT MOM who refuses to take her screaming kid out of the store.  I was getting that gift, dammit, because I COULD NOT ENDURE coming back here again.

Through the remainder of the time at the store, Button intermittently cried, sang at the top of her lungs, tried to get away from my death grip, squirmed, talked excessively (loudly) so I could not hear the salesperson, batted at my hair, wiped snot all over the place (did I mention she has a cold?) and threw tissues on the floor.

In the end, I walked away from salespeople who couldn’t wait to see me go, with a gift that I paid entirely too much for because I couldn’t think clearly enough to make a sound decision.  I put Button in the car, sat in the driver’s seat, and cried.

I’m so tired every day.  I really need to go grocery shopping.  I really need to finish painting my mom’s Christmas present.  I really need to buy something for Button from Santa.  I really need to do laundry and finish cleaning in preparation for the inlaws who are coming on Monday.

I really need to visit a friend in the hospital who just had an emergency hysterectomy.  And I need to make some meals for her family because for crying out loud, they have 5 toddlers (no, that’s not a typo) and her husband is having to be Mommy and Daddy and Nurse and Santa.

So there are obviously people in this world who have it much harder than I do.  But somehow that doesn’t stop me from wanting to curl up in bed and wish it would all just go away.  In the meantime, I guess I’ll go on complaining.

Thanks for being my audience.