Snowpocalypse Now!

We are quickly zeroing in on our 19^th month of Quinn.  It is a strange and beautiful thing to watch, frustrating though it may be at times.  I continue to struggle in coping with his general ‘toddlerness’ which is a bit more constancy that I can tolerate without a break or two.  Oftentimes that break comes in the form of his nap (and if luck is on your side, you might get 2+ hours).  Sometimes that nap doesn’t happen at all.  Or, in the case of Wednesday, it gets interrupted after a scant 20 minutes = no rest and an unhappy toddler.  By the time Tia gets home, I am generally bleary eyed and exhausted and Quinn is going through his now routine 5pm meltdown.   It isn’t pretty.  

What am I doing to combat this, for lack of a better term, ‘failure’ on my part?  Well, running into roadblocks mostly.  I was able to see a therapist on Monday, but the next available follow up isn’t until the 28^th; nearly 4 full weeks away from the initial visit.  He also offered that they have classes I might participate in, though they are held at times and on days that only someone who either had flexibility that my job does not, or have no job at all, could manage to attend.  The other options are financially tough to accept.  Therapists seem to range in cost from about $100/hr up to around $150/hr, with most settling somewhere in the space between.  I can get a 90 minute massage for less than that and I assure you I will enjoy that far more, but, it might be the only viable option soon.  Even to further discuss my medications will take a while, as my primary didn’t have an available appointment until the 24^th.  The Kaiser system is clearly not set up to deal with mental health. 

Our bathroom project continues to be rife with complications but, thankfully, none appear (thus far) major.  Our tile is delayed until the 10^th.  This after our samples were ‘forgotten’ and had to be re-ordered delaying the whole process by a week.  Then, the day our plumber came and unwrapped the new tub, it had a crack in it.  Thankfully Tia was able to get George Morlan to figure something out and they were able to wrangle up a new one (ours took 2 weeks on order initially so we weren’t terribly hopeful).  Now the weather has further delayed things as the inspector’s office is closed and our contractor can’t make it to our house.  On the upshot, it might make it so the tile delay will work out.  It seems like every day leads to yet another delay.  If we only had the one bathroom I would be quite pissed. 

Weather has been crazy, with Portland no longer being spared the artic weather the other parts of the country have been enduring.  A few inches Thursday, another few Saturday, and then a bit of freezing rain to top it off.  Looks to be about over now.  This is yet another reason I like living close to work (and having a relatively flat commute at that).  A lot of people were stuck sleeping at the hospital.  

One thing we learned for sure, Quinn is not much a fan of snow.  Also, Quinn hates to be stuck inside.  Creates quite the dilemma as you might imagine.  So we spent a LOT of time huddled up in the house with him.  Also, Tia was ill on Saturday.  Surprisingly it went pretty well all things considered.  Just the same, I will be very glad indeed if next weekend's weather is more accommodating.