Ugly Cake

Let me tell you all about the cake I've been baking this week...

First Layer:
Monday, Jeff had an appointment with an endocrinologist for his thyroid problem. He found out that he must have a treatment with radioiodine. He has to be away from children & close physical contact for 5 days. So he'll be staying at my parents' house for 5 days, so as not to contaminate our growing children with his radioactive body fluids. This treatment doesn't have any major side-effects, so Jeff will be just fine. The biggest bummer about this is that we will not be able to try for baby #3 for at least a year. For those of you who know me, you know that getting pregnant is not the easiest thing for me. Last September I started to take birth control to help regulate my cycle. (With Claire I only had to take it for 2 months.) In October, I had a huge bleeding problem which may or may not have been a weird miscarriage. My doctor switched me to a different birth control to see if that would help, plus I had to take it for 4 more months. So 5 months of horrendous side effects: nausea (like unto morning sickness), fatigue, and a very short temper, just to name a few. At least I was able to maintain my current weight this time. (When I went through all of this when trying to get pregnant with Tyler, I gained 20 pounds & never lost lost it.) Needless to say, it is very frustrating to me that I went through 5 months of yuck for nothing. Unless I can get pregnant in the next week, it'll be 2010 at the earliest before another baby can join our family! But, seeing as I'm a week late & the 4 home pregnancy tests I've taken all reveal that I am not currently pregnant, I'm going to have to say that it will be highly unlikely that I can get pregnant by then. And, since the birth control has never regulated my cycle for more than a year, I'll have to do the birth control thing all over again when Jeff's little swimmers are no longer damaged by the radioiodine! I cried for 3 days about this. I haven't cried yet today, so maybe I can keep myself together.

Filling:
Probably made of rotten fruit. Tuesday I had to run to Stater Bros. to pick up a few things for dinner. While parking my car, I scraped the front passenger side against that thing you put your shopping cart in when you're done shopping. Does it have an official name? I guess someone found it necessary to leave an old rusty chain wrapped around the pole where I couldn't see it. It left a handful of straight lines about a foot long where the paint is scraped off of my car! Oh well, I guess I'm just going for the "distressed look."

Second Layer:
I'll just plop the second layer right on top of the gloppy filling. Wednesday, I got the long-awaited letter telling whether Tyler got into the only preschool that will agree to accept a child with severe food allergies, or competent enough to handle the allergies. Unfortunately, Tyler's application was not pulled out in the lottery. He is #5 on the waiting list. More tears for Colleen. I just want my son to be able to do the things that most other kids get to do. He is very smart & doesn't need the academic side of preschool. However, he needs the social side of school. He needs to learn how to sit still & listen to the teacher. So I decided to move on. I gave the local Tiny Tots Program one more try. I figured if I spoke to the teacher I might get better information than the teenage receptionist at Parks and Rec could provide. The teacher was dumb as a box of rocks, so she provided a bit of comic relief. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: I have a son with a severe milk allergy. Are you trained to handle children with food allergies?
Teacher: No not really, but we have kids with food allergies here & we keep an eye on them.
Me: Do you serve snacks during your school-day?
Teacher: We don't serve them, but the parents send snacks for their kids. They are required to be healthy snacks though, and we don't let the children share snacks.
Me: Do the children wash their hands after they eat their snacks?
Teacher: No, but we do make sure they wash their hands after going to the bathroom. We have hand sanitizer too.
Me: Well, hand sanitizer kills germs, but does not get rid of milk protein. If my son was to have a reaction at school, would you know how to give his Epi-pen to him?
Teacher: Oh, we aren't allowed to give any medications to students.
Me: So, you would just stand there & watch him die? You wouldn't give him his Epi-pen?
Teacher: We aren't allowed to give any medications, but he could bring it and give it to himself.
Me: He' s 3 years old, he can't give himself a shot. It sounds like your school would absolutely not be a safe place for my son. Thank you for your time.

Wow! Could I send Tyler there? No way on the planet Earth!!! It also makes me wonder about that lady's competence as a preschool teacher. Shouldn't a preschool teacher know enough about child development to know that a 3 year old won't be able to give himself a shot? Oh well, I'm just hoping that we'll make our way up the waiting list for the school district preschool. Every time I think about that phone conversation, I just have to laugh about the teacher's ignorance. It reminds me that not everybody understands just how dangerous food allergies can be & that I need to be careful with Tyler.

Icing:
This morning came the icing on an already crappy cake. (I'm picturing a cake that looks like it was created by Oscar the Grouch.) Tyler came in my room at 6:15 this morning saying that he had a stomachache. I got him the barfing bowl & sent him back to bed. He started crying saying he was hungry & needed breakfast. I told him it was far too early for breakfast. (He wouldn't eat his dinner last night, so he had to go to bed hungry.) I figured he was just hungry. When Tyler heard Jeff getting ready for work, he got up & begged Daddy to get him breakfast. Jeff did get him breakfast & left for work. I was still asleep, not really coherent of the fact that Tyler was already up. A while later, Tyler climbed up on my bed, saying that his tummy hurt & he was going to throw up. I said, "Not in my bed!" I told him to go to the bathroom, but instead, with me chasing behind him, he decided to walk out to the family room & puke all over the carpet! He got in the bathtub & I started to clean up the carpet. Then Tyler yelled to me, "I threw up in my bedroom too!" So even though he had the barfing bowl, he decided to lean over the side of the bed & puke all over the carpet & his Lightining McQueen slippers. Nice! What happened to that glorious boy who barfed in the bowl in February? Needless to say, I am buying a full size carpet cleaning machine TONIGHT! Does anybody have a machine that you like & works well? I love my Spot Bot, but for big messes, it takes forever to clean them up. It took me 2 hours to get all of Tyler's breakfast out of the carpet. 15 cycles of the Spot Bot in the family room and 8 cycles in his bedroom. Now Tyler says he feels fine and wants to eat & play. All I know is Claire better not start barfing!

I hope that I am done baking this cake! I don't want any sprinkles on top! Maybe now that I've written this, I can leave my pity-party behind & get on with my life. Maybe I'll go shopping for clothes tonight, since I haven't been buying any for myself lately. You see, I thought I'd be wearing maternity clothes any day now. But since that's not happening anytime soon, why should I keep walking around with clothes that are all ratty. Maybe I'll even go get my nails done! Have a great day everybody!