I can dress them really cute, but I cant take them anywhere

Today I took the kids to the train table at the bookstore, where we hang like all the time. Its free, it keeps the kids busy, and I can drink my coffee and read. Well kinda, I mean really I read like a paragraph and then look up and see my kids dumping milk on other kids and then regulate, sit back down and read another paragraph and then pull something non edible out of their mouths and repeat. Its actually sort of exhausting. But I guess its free? But come to think of it they always see something they want and I end up buying milk at the coffee place inside, so hmmm........crap. Maybe I should stop going there all the time. Anyways we went there today per our routine and everything was going good. Nobody had any potty accidents, or fights about which train to play with and they hadnt even tried to eat the trains or anything. I was quietly reading my trashy book ( I am on the 2 nd book in the 50 shades trilogy) and hoping none of the other parents there would see thats what I was reading.

And then Amelie starts dumping her really overpriced Horizon organic vanilla milk with the cute straw all over someones baby and saying "here you go, here you go." And the mom looked completely freaked. So I  apologized, offered a baby wipe and drug my kid away from her baby and quietly told Amelie no. And that was when shit got real at the Barnes and Noble train table. Amelie lost it like a fed up postal worker. She threw like this rock star temper tantrum, complete with head butting, screaming, and kicking. So then I had to convince Sawyer to leave, while carrying coffee, diaper bag, keys, wallet and my screaming kid and being watched by some particularly judgey moms. I think one tsk-tsked at me. But no one helped, they just judged. And then I realized I left my trashy book sitting there after I had finally made it halfway to the car. I thought about leaving it, but I am so close to finishing it and I totally want to see what happens. So I dragged the screaming toddler parade back to the train table and grabbed my trashy erotic novel with as much dignity as I could muster up while carrying 2 screaming kids and all their stuff. I think if the bookstore had security they probably would have escorted me out.

Soooooo we are getting ready to try to take the kids to the Dinosaurs thing with my family this afternoon, and frankly with the way Amelie's tantrums have been going we may end up on the news. Hopefully she has gotten it out of her system for the day. I think all these kids places should have like cash bars for the parents, they would make alot of $$.

Normal is just a setting on the dryer

Just a disclaimer: if you dont want to read about my feelings about my dad's death then by all means stop reading this and go to youtube and watch some videos of kittens doing adorable stuff like eating spaghetti or something.I mean its not very uplifting or even funny. This blog more for the people who feel his absence in their lives, but anyone is welcome to read it if you care. Or even if you really dont care but have nothing better to do for the next 2 minutes.

Dad has just been heavy on my mind this week, because this past week was the 2nd year anniversary of his death. And thinking about how he died makes me sad and so I thought maybe writing about how I feel may be therapeutic. I tried really hard to think of a light and funny way to write about it but suicide is just not funny. I mean, I googled "suicide jokes" and they really disappointed me. There was this one about why did the chicken commit suicide (to get to the other side, harhar) that was ok, but mostly I was really let down by the quality of suicide jokes available on the internet. So if you ever want to know some I really dont know any. Sorry to let you down.

But yeah so I have been thinking about him alot this week. I wish I was all zen and said stuff like "Well I bet he is just looking down at me and my kids and his family from heaven and just smiling. I bet he is fishing with Papaw. He is with God now so thats peachy" But the truth is when I think about him my thoughts are mostly sad, angry and regretful. Its been 2 years and frankly I am still so mad at him. Mad about the fact that he thought the only way out of his pain and misery was to end his life, mad that he never met his grandkids, mad that he let me down so much as a teenager and later young adult, mad that he wasnt there when I needed him over and over again, and mad that he didnt try harder in general. I am not saying its completely fair to him to be so angry but its just honestly how I feel. But the  after the anger comes out, comes the sadness. I am sad that I will never get to repair our relationship, sad that Sawyer and Amelie wont get to grow up knowing him and seeing him at birthday parties or on Christmas, sad that I cant make any of it fit into this idea in my head of what its supposed to be like. Sad that I am never going to have this "normal" 90's sitcom family life.

The only comfort I have is that I genuinely have some great early childhood memories and he is the reason for alot of them. Dad really loved us kids for real. I really believe that even when things got so fractured between him and us that he never stopped loving us really.So if the Beatles are right and love is all you need well at least that part is covered. I think if he was still around he would love my kids too. I mean Sawyer loves fart jokes almost as much as dad did so they would have alot to talk about. So dad, if you are in the afterlife hanging out reading my blog, then I am mad at you still, but I forgive you for everything and I miss you and love you,  and I really wish things could have been different.

Chuck Norris's tears cure cancer. Its too bad he's never cried.

So it turns out working with a bunch of patients who are like mostly dying from cancer is sorta depressing. Who knew? When I was first offered the job I have now in oncology, they were like"This can be a very sad job, are you sure you can deal with it"? And really I wasnt that worried about the sadness part at the time. I was way more concerned that these people wanted me to do bone marrow biopsies on actual breathing people. I mean ME. I was all-" have these people met me?" I mean sometimes I dont have the coordination to make it across the parking lot without tripping a few times, and I dont have the technical skills to change a light bulb. I mean, hello, thats why I got married. And you want me to stick this giant needle where? The fact that I was eventually able to to not only learn how to do them well but also without throwing up all over people still amazes me to this day. Although I do kinda feel sorry for the first 25 or so people I did. Ok, really sorry. If I could send them a "Sorry you got a sucky bone marrow biopsy" card I totally would. But I doubt they make those.

The more I learn about cancer and treating it, the more comfortable I get with my job as far as having an idea of the whole picture and getting things done. Which is great and all, and I am really glad I no longer have that really bad anxiety about not having a clue what I am doing that people new to any field have to go through. The problem is, the more I understand, the more I am starting to feel like I should take a Prozac just to come to work sometimes. The other day I was seeing this younger woman who has this terrible cancer and we were talking about pedicures, shoes and stuff. And then she was talking about her child and I started talking about my kids some too. And all of a sudden it just hit me like a punch in the face that she probably wont live to see her child grow up because of the type of cancer she has. And suddenly I understand what all that means and I understand that she is absolutely going to die. And its like we are the same age so maybe thats why it felt so intense, but I got so nauseated and faint I had to sit down. I think I mumbled something and left the room and had to like cry somewhere.And I am not a cute crier. I am like one of those people whose whole face swells up like a marshmellow afterwards, so its a bad situation to cry at work.

 I keep having more and more of those moments lately. The stupid thing is, is that I am genuinely surprised by how sad it is to take care of people dying from cancer. <insert joke here about rocking but not being made of stone. I am sooo freaking funny> Seriously though, sometimes I am just like I am not going to even get to know these people because they might die and it will make me sad, but since I am not capable of shutting up for more than ten consecutive minutes I am not very successful at that approach. No I ask about their jobs, families and lives and then get surprised when I get sad that they get sick and sometimes die. I am really not sure what to do about all of it, but I am not really sure that anyone who works in this type of field is.