people are bad

While I really wanted to post about my new serger and the fabulous world it has opened for me, sadly, I have a tale of woe and a word of caution to pass on. Garlic cheesy biscuit in hand (needed a little comfort food given the day I've had) I'm prepared to embark on my sad journey.

The joys of serging will be forthcoming.

Money is tight for most people these days. If it's not for you, good for you cause every day must be Christmas, but for the rest of us, we need every little bit in order to pay bills, diaper our children, and eat.

If your employer was sending you a check, and you are like most people, you can be sure that you'd be looking forward to it. Standing by the mailbox, even. And I was. Trust me. I'm a teacher. Our pay has been frozen since 2008 (and it wasn't that much to begin with).

A paycheck from my employer (301 money for all you educators out there) was sent through the mail. Normally, all my checks are direct deposit, yet this particular one was a live check and my employer sent it throughout the mail rather than contact me to pick it up. It was stolen out of the mail (or out of my employers office) and cashed. A check for $923.15.

I found this out this morning from my employer as I was inquiring about the check I had been expecting for weeks now. She called her bank to find out what happened. Initially, everyone--my employer, her bank, and the bank that cashed the check--refused to take responsibility.

My employer reassured me saying "This has never happened before. None of our checks have been stolen from the mail before. There's nothing I can do about this."

Wait a minute, this sounds familiar. OH WAIT, I heard all this before when in my 3rd week teaching at said school, a student took out a whole lotta rage on Mazda3. She said the same thing. This never happens and there is nothing she can do to help me. Luckily, I'm no pushover and I was not about to let over $900 that I earned while keeping teenagers from committing felonies slip through my fingers.

After 2 visits to different banks, dealing with about 5 bankers, making about 10 phone calls, and breaking down into tears at the Bank of America and sobbing to the banker about my crying 4 month old at home, trying to buy a home, and sad story I read in the news (hormones suck), I finally got somewhere.

 I found out that the person deposited it into their own account through an ATM. The person banks with Wells Fargo---as do I---and was able to deposit it. Ironically, once we knew the check was cashed but before we knew which bank cashed it, we went to our bank, Wells Fargo, to ask about what they recommended for us to do. They spoke about how the bank that cashed it should take responsibility and by the way could we interest in you in fraud protection. Well, turns out we need protection from Wells Fargo's ineptitude.

Long story short--and trust me, it's long--I should be able to get the money. My employer has to file a claim through the bank that issued the check. They then will have to go after the money from Wells Fargo. They will then give my employer the money back and she can then re-issue the check. But that wasn't enough for me.

I filed a police report because I want the jerk to pay and I would like to stop said person from doing this again. The police officer came, took down our info and gave us some bad news. Basically, this happens ALL the time and the fraud detectives are buried under thousands of claims. People actually follow around the postal delivery workers to steal mail from unlocked mailboxes. Also, banks usually refuse to hand over any information to the police unless subpoenas (usually issued by a judge) are involved forcing them to hand it over. Wells Fargo straight up told me they know exactly who did it because they deposited my check into their account, but that the info was confidential and they would not give it to me. The officer told me that if he walked in, badge and all, they would do the same thing. Police request fraud info from banks and rarely get it without extensive legal action.

The take home for me all you folks:

1.) Banks are kind of evil. 

2.) People are bad and they can and will steal your mail.

3.) It's easy to commit fraud using ATMs. People can deposit checks using ATMS without even needing any information about the person to whom the check is actually written. They will get away with it from the banks unless you go in and freak out on them.

4.) The po-po's can't do much. Fraud is so rampant that unless it's a huge amount of money, the police's hands are tied. Banks will not actually give the police information about people THEY KNOW are thieves without a subpoena and police CAN'T get subpoenas for everything given the sheer amount of fraud. Banks would rather pay out the cost of the fraud than take more money and time to stop them.

Be careful, guys.

P90X

I've just started my 3rd week of P90X. Weight lost: ZERO POUNDS. But hey, apparently I look better. At church on Sunday, a lady in her 80s commented on how I lost all my pregnancy weight. I responded that, alas, there was 10 lbs that refused to budge. I blamed breastfeeding (but all those DQ Blizzards can't be helping). 

"Well," she said, "the rear looks just darling!!!" 

So yes, I felt pretty dang good after that, 10 lbs and all. But good grief, I've never had such a hard time losing weight! I am loving P90X, though. It's intense and awesome. I'll keep you updated. 

But having my stomach stretched like pizza dough was worth it for this little lady.

 She's turning over both ways and is SUPER active. I'm gearing up for her to be all over the place. 

 Oh my gosh, don't you love that face?

If you'd like to cry a little...

...just watch this video. I admit, I pretty much always cry when watching soldier coming home videos. But I don't know if it's being a mom or what, cause I was crying even before the video came up. The title alone drove me to tears.

Watch. And tear up.

Cold Case

Here's some updated pictures of my little lady. She's adorable and is just a little miracle.

In other news, I've been watching a lot of TV these last 8 weeks of Eleanor's life. I guess that just happens when you're suddenly home all day spending hours nursing. I've become totally obsessed a few programs. Like Dr. Drew's Lifechangers. Obsessed. I love Dr. Drew. I also think Kelly Ripa is adorable. I have a few guilty pleasures like Cheaters. Oh my heavens, that show is awful. Awfully awesome. It's basically a bunch of trashy people who suspect their significant other of cheating so they send out private detectives to see. Well, spoiler alert, they're always cheating and it's usually someone particularly gross. Like I need to wash my hands after just watching them. Then they catch them in the act and confront them with a camera crew and Joey Greco. Punches, swearing, and tears inevitably follow. It's 30 minutes of trashy fun. 

But my all-time favorite new show is Cold Case Files. They are real cold cases that get solved and serial rapists and kidnappers from the 70s end up in prison. It's making me a scary parent.  Like, I automatically assume everyone is a serial killer. Like the old people on walks while I push El in the stroller on runs--all drug pushers and serial killers. I swear, I'm never letting Eleanor out of my sight.

So in Love

Okay, I could hardly help it. She is just so darn adorable. Just a few more pics. I just can't get over how fabulous she is. And don't hate, you other mothers out there, but she is a ridiculously good baby. I fear having more children who are less lovely and easy to take care of.

Our little Nora

I said I'd update once I started wearing clothes again. Well, I haven't. Though I did actually manage to put a bra on halfway through my mom's visit today, so there's been improvement. With a c-section incision and breastfeeding for the first time, it's been a struggle to wear much of anything.

Well, without going into many details (because I know I certainly don't care about all the details of other people's births) I'll briefly outline our little adventure that brought baby Eleanor home to us. Man, I love that little lady.

Here I am at about 2:30am Tuesday the 28th. We're about to go into the hospital to be induced. This was the last time I was fully dressed.

I reacted really badly to the IV (heart rate and blood pressure plummeted) so they had to wait til 6:00 to start the pitocin. It was the worst vagal response my nurse had seen in a healthy adult. I felt ridiculous. My nurse worried the epidural would do me in. But it didn't. Twenty-two hours later, after not having a progressing labor (I've inherited some body parts that don't work well with labor, hence this ending up a 3rd generation c-section) I went in just after 4 am on Leap Day for a c-section.

The c-section was scary. Not going to lie. And it was really hard to be the last to see and hold my sweet little baby. I had started shaking because of hormones about 30 minutes before the surgery and was shaking horribly through the entire thing.

After getting stitched up really quickly, I was whisked away to post-op where my little peanut breast-fed like a champ. Anyone who says that epidurals and medically assisted (c-section) labor do not produce babies who latch on and suck is beyond ridiculous. I was pumped so full of crap and that little miracle got to work right away--the nurses said she was easily a better nurser than 85% of babies they see born. So there. Since then, she's wreaked absolute havoc in my nipples. TMI, maybe. But really. Painful. We've since had a heart-to-heart and she's being kinder to them. Or perhaps she's destroyed the nerve-endings.

Here are some more pics. We need more of them while she's awake. But I promise not to put up too many. Cross my heart.

Hello World

Eleanor Maxine Reeder, 6 lbs 10 oz born 4:18am (after 22 hours of labor) via c-section on Leap Day! I am so very in love with this girl. I love the pic of her coming out. It's like she is saying "Hello World! Here I am!" I'll do a better update once I am feeling more with it (i.e. actually wear clothes again). Though the delivery was a bit crazy, it was so worth everything. Oh my heavens, I love being a mom. I have hardly slept for almost a week and I don't even care. I WANT to be sleep deprived if it means I get to take care of my little sweetheart. I know, it's a little sick how cheesy I've gotten. No really, it is. But I don't care.

Happy daddy just after delivery. He held her before I did. That was hard. At this moment, I was being sewn back up and was strapped to a table and getting demoral injections because I was shaking so much. I met up with them a little later.
Eleanor's 1st pic. I couldn't see a thing. I just heard "Oh, she is so tiny!" and "She is beautiful and has so much hair!" I cried (tears of joy) when I heard her first cries. Shaking, scared, and so very happy. Hormones are weird.

Deliverance

Being 37 weeks pregnant means I've had a lot of people touching my belly. And to be quite frank, it hasn't bothered me at all. Friends do it, ward members, family, my students...and it doesn't bug me. When I see pregnant belly (well, before being pregnant) I want to rub it. I think it's human nature. So it hasn't bugged me...until my strange neighbor stopped me and started REALLY rubbing my belly. Usually, people ask to rub, then just rub it a little in the middle for a second or two and leave smiling. This lady rubbed ALL OVER and wouldn't stop til I backed away. And she didn't ask. Sorta strange.

But not as strange as the interaction I had with her EVEN MORE odd husband this afternoon. I rarely see him. He is a short, stubby, 60-something guy that is usually holed up smoking various things in his apartment. In fact, the only times I'd seen him before was smoking on his balcony staring at people and walking his dog at 3:00am.

Today, he asked how the pregnancy was going. He also offered to deliver the baby. Yes. Deliver the baby.

Joys of Teaching

Strangely enough, I've actually really been enjoying my last several weeks of teaching before baby Eleanor finally arrives. Well, everything but the constant smell of pot coming from the kids in my morning class. With pregnancy hormones further fine-tuning my already keen sense of smell, I can basically tell people what they had for breakfast with 98% accuracy. The last 3 weeks have been obnoxious as nearly every morning, someone comes in reeking of reefer. Instead of doing what I wanted (call out the entire class and shame them endlessly for forcing such foulness on a pregnant woman, I instead pulled aside the likely culprits. Yes culprits. There are multiple students who would rather wake up early and get high than sleep in 15 more minutes. I really don't get that. Well, the smell got better, and even had 2 days in a row without pot smell. But then came yesterday. Schmelly central.

Near the end of class, I mentioned that I only had 2 weeks left and in the general moans, students expressed a desire to put on a baby shower for me. I saw an opportunity and took it.

"What would you get my baby?" I asked, perplexed. "She can't smoke pot."

The class gasped unanimously.

"Oh, you guys think I can't smell it on you everyday? Seriously guys," I said pointing to my nose, "this thing smells everything."

I then starred directly, one at a time, at about 4 students who all shrunk before me.

"Guys, I'm pregnant. Really, I'm not going to preach to you about screwing up your lives, but please don't disrespect me and make me and my baby breathe in that stuff. I love you guys, but really? Come on."

Class=Chastened

A few students hung back after class to give personal apologies. I don't think they had realized they carry the smell with them. Hopefully, my last 2 weeks brings cleaner air. Here's to hoping...

I really do love them, though. And I will miss them. I will miss teaching in the classroom (looks like I'll be teaching online post-baby). I will miss getting my kids who've always hated school riveted with The French Revolution, The Civil War, and Magna Carta. Yeah, Magna Carta. I know. Weird, right? I will miss starting debate on whether the A-bomb should have been dropped on Hiroshima and students on both sides of the aisle getting fired up.

I will miss thug guys coming in to my class at 20 years old, 3 high school credits and forcing them to wear sparkly stickers that say "good job!" on them when they do well on assignments and then threatening them if they don't keep it on all day long.

I'll miss seeing those same thugs not only getting the first "A" in their life, but having the highest grade in my class because they suddenly realized that they actually could. I will miss seeing kids turn their lives around.

Sure my kids look like this:

And not this:

But I wouldn't have it any other way.

I thought that I'd be ready to kill students my last weeks teaching, but I'm not. Don't get me wrong, I'm uncomfortable. And tired. And I have to pee ALL THE TIME. But it's like I'm trying to cram in everything I'm going to miss. I'm even adding to my curriculum this next week (I have 2 weeks left officially). I'm showing them Manchurian Candidate (the original one with Sinatra and Lansbury) after our extensive study of the Cold War. I have pretty bright students and I finally feel that I have a class whose minds will be blown entirely by this film. I love blowing minds. But I'd rather blow them with Manchurian Candidate than by telling them that "New England" is not it's own country, but actually part of the US (True story. Sad story. Needless to say, I incorporated map activities and quizzes into my curriculum after that day). Anyways, so excited about introducing them not only to a brilliant movie, but also Angela Lansbury, the embodiment of fabulous.

I guess I feel like I've really got this stuff (teaching history to low-SES, high risk teens) down and suddenly I'm going to be devoting my life to doing something about which I AM CLUELESS minus all the books I've been reading about infant care. That wobbly head thing still scares me. I'm told that "holding a baby is natural" but it still freaks me out a bit. And diaper blow-outs? I can't even wrap my head around that.