January was Suck Month

I don't know what it was about January, but it just sucked royally. I should be a little careful though, the month isn't quite over. Better look out for saws dropping from the ceiling or the like.

Right now, the kids are sick - they are coughing a great deal, first hitting Alex and then moving through to Zoe. The doctor ruled out strep throat and is testing for whooping cough, but it's still pretty inconclusive. One night was so bad that he'd cough and wake up crying, leaving my poor wife to stay up with him most of the night, sitting in the rocking chair consoling him. She definitely earned a Mother of the Year award for that one. I slept mostly because I knew I couldn't do any less than 5 and a half hours of sleep. I would implode or have some structural failure if I tried.

So now Zoe has it, but we're laying on the cough medicine, which he hates, to at least let them have some rest at night. Being sick and sleep deprived makes for a very cranky and irritable kid. They're on the mend, but we're kinda trying to take it easy, stay indoors, and watch Daddy waste away his weekend with PS3 goodness.

Work was hard. I'm on my feet for the 10 hour day, walking back and forth, doing lifting and sorting and the like, and holding in repressed anger at my co-workers for redefining the personification of "Lameass". In addition to that, we had a few 58 hour weeks, and either one or two days off. I don't care who you are, but after you work that much, you really start to lose sight of everything else, like who you are and people around you. I was dreaming about work, it was so bad. My coworkers and I got into a high tension discussion about my supervisor taking roll call in the morning, and marking people up for tardies and ultimately firing the repeat offenders with as little as one warning.

Their argument was that it was just a few minutes, and that shouldn't matter. I argued that if it was a big deal for them, then just show up on time. Work starts at the same time everyday. My co-worker accused me of living too closely to work (7 minute drive), and that some people had to commute on the freeway and traffic was what it was. I said again, work starts the same time everyday, and a lot of people show up on time or early. Then I put it to him this way, if the supervisor came to him and said, I'm going to take a few minutes from your lunch today, how would he feel, since we were practically stealing time when we show up late but still filled in the timecard as 40 hours. He said it doesn't matter, since we leave work a few minutes early anyway.

At that point, I do this thing when I'm done talking to him, which is to say, "I don't know." repeatedly until he leaves me alone, then I just put on my earphones and walk away. It's much like aruguing with children when I'm at work. They want it their way, have no logic to back it up, and can't see more than 2 seconds ahead of what the consequences will be.

One of my other projects in the new future, in addition to finishing the wedding, planning the trip to California, and all the other daily crap that I ignore, will be to go through some emails from my wife and pull up excerpts of kid adventures. I've neglected to report a lot of their shennigans and so I'm trying to remedy that.