Queen of Rambles

One of the advantages of breastfeeding is supposed to be a break in the womanly cycle. Life has been formed. Life has been birthed. Life is sucking all the energy right of of its mommy’s teat. The cycle is supposed to come to a stand still as the life is nourished and grows. The mommy is not supposed to need to deal with the possibility of another life so soon.

Ha.

Ha I say.

I had my first womanly cycle at six weeks postpartum.

The sucking of life didn’t seem to help.

So now it’s time to lock myself indoors, have Mike chain me to the radiator and try not to eat any small children during my time of peevishness.

Now is not the time to go out lunching with a group of women I barely know, but that didn’t stop me doing what I know I should not do. I went and was suitably nettled by all manner of things that wouldn’t have stung so badly if my hormones weren’t raging.

One lady’s daughter had bit a whole in her teething ring a few days ago and the lady was completely panicked at the time so was telling us her tale of woe. This irritated me, as things are wont to do when I’m wearing my full on Moody Regalia. Does this woman not know how to read? Every teething ring I’ve ever bought clearly states that the magic liquid stuff in the middle is merely distilled water. Perhaps I am not a good mother, but I don’t think I could get myself worked up over the idea of my child drinking a swallow of water. Of course, for all this woman knew her daughter could have just taken a swig of arsenic laced vodka, but I was irritated none-the-less.

Even more irritating was the short, aggressive woman who went on a tear about the complete and utter irresponsibility of the company that would DARE make a teether that could be broken. They must pay. PAY! Pay I tell you! This is a lawsuit in the making! Heads are going to roll! Her husband is a lawyer and he’d be drafting up a nasty letter! Why doesn’t the woman send in a letter telling about the horrible case of diarrhea that almost killed the child thanks to the defective child-killing teething ring.

I have no patience for overreactions like that. People who sue over non-issues are the kind of people who make life harder for the rest of us. The crazed aggressive woman shot me a look of pure evil when I pointedly asked the mother if her daughter had actually suffered a bout of intestinal discomfort after ingesting the distilled water. I was informed that the actual facts were not the point. It was the possibility. Ugh.

Then guess who showed up and sat across from me (it was the only chair available)! It was the rude lady. I said hello to her and her daughter and then ignored her for the rest of the meal. She didn’t say three words to anyone so I just can’t figure out why she even bothers.

Then I came home and decided I should put my fury to good use so I called the hospital. Can you believe they are still giving us the run around about our birthing bill? All they have to do is call the insurance company and tell them the DRG number (I have no idea what that is) and they’ll get $9,000. It seems like a simple phone call would be easy in light of that much money. Instead, they send us rude, completely unprofessional missives (one was three words on a post it note) that will not net them any money. The woman I talked to was extremely rude even though I started out trying to be polite. She did change her tune somewhat after I asked for her name and its spelling, but this whole mess is unbelievable. First she told me it was my fault because I didn’t send in the proper work to the insurance company which is a lie. I’ve talked to them about it and they don’t need anything from me. Then she tried to tell me it was the insurance companies fault, but again I am sure this is a lie because they have paid every other claim that we’ve ever had with zero problems at all. It’s just ridiculous and I’m drafting a nasty letter that will be sent to whoever seems to be in charge (I need to look it up). I tried to get the woman to give me the number so I could call it in, but she refused. Bah.

I go back and read my entries and it seems like I must be really aggressive and hard to get along with at times. I’m not, really. I just don’t have any reason to tell you about the things that go right. I manage to get through my daily life with a minimum of fuss and inconvenience. I generally believe that people are good and will do the right thing and that everyone just needs to be considerate to each other. In fact, I sometimes think I am almost too considerate to other people. I don’t want to be a door mat, but I do believe that as a human I have a general responsibility not to cause any unnecessary hassle for other human beings. I wish everyone felt the same. Life would be a lot easier.

I hope my dander isn’t in such an uproar tomorrow. MisterE has his six month checkup and I don’t want to go. I really don’t like other people to tell me what to do with him and it rankles when the doctors start asking questions and giving advice. I know that is their job and they deal with a lot of people who don’t do as much research as I do, but I read a whole heck of a lot and have developed my own Erik-rearing philosophy. I feel like they are accusing me of being a bad mother when they lecture me about his sleep. Then, to add insult to injury, they stab my sweet baby with needles. No wonder I’m irritable.

P. S. After the lunch my walking buddy and I went to the park and walked for a good 90 minutes. We were drenched in sweat and it was good. I wasn’t irritable at all, so it didn’t fit in the theme of my story. Look at me, caring about themes. Next thing you know I might actually proof-read an entry.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 10th, 2006 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.