Exhaustion

Well....I'm off today. Which is good. I just finished up a four day stint at the job. And I'm not knocking anybody here, I'm just saying putting in four ten hour days straight at my job is a trial that has few equals. Especially when you're pregnant. And when three of the four you're stuck TPN'ing. Not only are you there for 10.5 hours-which means you spend more waking hours there than with your family for four days-but you spend 5-8 of those hours on your feet. Pulling and shooting anywhere from 6-20 additives, checking weights and temps and refractive index's and flame photometry measurements, and hoping to GOD that anything that you've missed-the pharmacist will catch because someones life and well-being are in your hands. And we don't want any contamination so SPRAY, SPRAY, SPRAY-douse your hands and hood in alcohol CONSTANTLY-and don't be shy with the bleach in product introduction............
Oy! My back has been killing me. I tried those thermacare patches....they were ok-but they didn't last as long as I would have liked. I tried icy/hot-and that so last no where near as long as I want it to-PLUS it's incredibly difficult to put on your own back-PLUS everybody at work started calling me "grandma" cuz they said I smelled like Bengay. I beg Van for the painful relief that comes from a good rubdown. I want to soak in a piping hot bath soooooooooo bad-but my midwives say tepid to lukewarm are the only baths safe for the baby right now.
Am I bitching and moaning? Maybe. Just a bit.
But I'm also trying to make sense of this damn dream I just had.
It HAS to be from just sheer exhaustion. I can't explain it otherwise.
In my dream I'm in my house, cleaning the kitchen. Dancing around a bit. ANd my kitchen is way huger and so is my whole house-it's beautiful and extravagant-but basically the same layout-just bigger and better.
So I'm cleaning. And the twins are taking their showers. And Nina comes in and I ask her about her shower and she says something like "mommy helped me" or something-but it just doesn't make sense so i brush it off. Then I hear all this noise. And I walk down tho the girls room-and it's full of KIDS. The twins little cousin is running around in there with trin and there's this little girl who's their stepdads illegitimate half sister-so i guess it's like their half-step-aunt or something like that-but she's only 13 anyway so she's running around in there too-and there are some other little kids I don't even recognize and Nina is in there but Jessie is not and she's not in the shower so I walk to the frontroom and Jessie is sitting on the couch watching "Everybody Loves Raymond" with THEIR BIRTHMOM-who is also SITTING ON MY COUCH-IN MY HOUSE-OHMYEFFINGGOD. She's wearing this little jacket thing over her head and I make some random comment about it and she goes "O they're new coats for my girls I just came to drop them off. I just bought them today." An so I'm just like o, ok , whatever" and I walk back down the hallway to the kitchen-but the hallway has suddenly become long as HELL and my mind is just ALL fucked up. I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that the heifer is in MY house on MY couch and I'm just like in a daze trying to figure out-what the hell do I do?????????? I can't kill her-I have a house full of kids. So then I go yell at Nina for getting gum on the rug and all the while my mind is running a million miles a minute trying to sort this crazy shit out. Finally I decide to call Van-but he doesn't pick up so I leave him a message like-your crazy baby momma is in my house on my couch watching my TV-I have no idea why or how she got here-HELP!
And then I try to call back but all the sudden she's COMING and she's like I'm gonna go now but I wanna take some pictures of the girls in their new coats first. So I finally get a good look at these "new" coats-and I see that they are exactly the same as their old coats-only a lighter shade of brown. An let me tell you all-the coats she has bought these girls for winter are ridiculous. Not in the dream-I'm talking real life, people. They are PAPER THIN. They were made for a California winter-NOT a chicago winter. They're terrible. They're not ugly or anything. Just not functional at all. So I went and bought them REAL winter coats-like BIG faux down coats with removable fleece liners-cuz thats what you NEED to live here man. It is 19 degrees outside right now-and she's got them running around in a little jacket no thicker than your average sweatshirt. And we just found out they don't even have snowboots-so I guess I'm gonna have to handle that as well.
Anyway-back to the dream-I see these coats are exactly the same as the other ones-and so I say something to her-like they are too thin-they need bigger coats-and she says something about how christmas is right around the corner and winks at me-and as a general rule I HATE when people wink at me-just bad childhood memories and whatnot-but all of the sudden I like, felt, her. So I jump up and grab my new dig cam and I start snapping pictures, and she like, actually, compliments me on the camera, and the girls are fucking CONFUSED because we're getting along-so all the pictures come out fucked up but it doesn't matter. And I walk her to the door and all of the she's not 300 lbs anymore-she's like normal, human size. And her hair isn't all greasy and dull and in that half-ass bun/ponytail thing. It's shiny and gloss and an almost blond color and it's done in this professional looking pretty fauxhawk/ponytail thing. And her face isn't all tired and gray and greasy and all those little bumps are gone and she looks.....NICE. She looks like a decent human being. She looks like a good mom and a nice person. And in that moment, as her entire being changes-so does my perception of her. She's no longer phony or greedy or stupid or untruthful. And then she says something kind and leaves. And two seconds later Van bursts through the door all like, what happened? where is she? what did you do? and I'm trying to describe to him what just happened when all of the sudden someone is knocking on the backdoor. And it's her and she's saying that we can share christmas day and she's being kind to van too and i can tell he is in shock and I want to tell him to invite her to christmas dinner but I can't get the words out b/c her alcoholic husband is there and he no longer looks all beat up and bloated and drunkish-he looks like a decent human being too. Like young, and presentable and not some random piece of inebriated hood trash. And they get in to a car and leave. And then I woke up.
And this dream has me all fucked up now. Cuz I wish it were that simple. I wish it were so easy for people to change from bad to good. But it's not. It's takes years and events and growth and all that good shit. But I wish it could be. Cuz the idea of it all just seems so nice. And I am so not an idealist.....so I can only blame this on exhaustion.