The fact that gift card boss called me the damage control is going to my head a lot. I love it. My husband and my daughter told me to ask for a raise. Her cap pay rate is $2 more than I make now. I could ask for that and get it. 

I have been HEAVILY conditioned to never negotiate or ask for a raise. The “no one will ever hire you” narrative was strong with me. I was taught that if I ever asked for a raise, I’d be fired immediately and replaced with someone who will do it for less. Negotiating higher pay during n an interview was absolutely out of the question in my upbringing. If I ever did that, I just wouldn’t get the job. When gift card boss hired me, she had already hired me before discussing wages. She was LITERALLY prompting me to ask for more. She was. She’s not going to fire me and replace me immediately if I ask. She also just said she wishes she could clone me. 

I still have a lot of “dread” about going to see the racist guy tomorrow (Remember, he saw me and said “finally a white girl), not sure why I am experiencing the dread when I already met his family. I usually have this level of day before dread with new clients. 

Reminds me of the meme. “Do a rep for every lie you believed”. Haha. I’d be ripped. 

There’s another thing I want to mention. I’ve been married one year and one month. People always tell women who get married, “Have a plan for when he dies or leaves you.”  That’s good advice!  I also think you should have back up plans in case literally anything else doesn’t work out. But, the times I’ve been told this lately, I feel like I’ve explained Plans B, C, D, E, F and G and they all get shut down. Most of the back up plans I’ve mentioned are things I’ve done before and was successful at. I hate being told to have a plan, and then getting six whole plans criticized as if they aren’t good ideas. 

Then last night, I tried to tell my husband, “Let’s..” and then suggested he come with me to do some of the “if he died or left me” things. He actually said maybe if his mother was to die before his stepfather, and his stepfather wanted us to move out of the guest house. That’s actually more likely to happen than him leaving me any time soon, so maybe I gave him some ideas. 

As far as writing, I’m still doing the spiral notebook with the skipping five lines. I am working on three major writing projects. Only one of them is The Child Advocate. 

I Had The Last Laugh

 It’s only about 40 days until my daughter Anna turns 19 years old. (And oh yeah that must mean that it’s the 19th anniversary of the disappearance of Madeline McCann), but I was thinking today how, when it comes to motherhood, I really had the last laugh. 

I started working in a daycare as a teacher’s aide when I was 16. In order to keep that job, I had to take child development at my high school during Saturday school. Saturday school was from 8-noon and could be either detention, or classes for kids who were behind or wanted to get ahead. That used to make me say I wanted to have kids someday, and I got a lot of opposition to that. I think most people my age and younger did. The exception would have been if they were devout Catholics or Mormon. 

When I think of how it ended up, there are just so many things I could bring up about my daughter and my experience raising her. Let’s start with the fact that I was one and done. Isn’t that the next best thing to being child free?  (I guess to some it is, and some it’s not).  But I waited until I was 28 to get pregnant, and I got an IUD right after my 6 week postpartum exam. Contraceptives have always worked for me. I went off one time, and that’s when I got her. My mom’s story with this issue was exactly the same. She stopped taking the pill one month, the next month she got me, and she also had an IUD right after I was born and was also one and done. 

Fast forward to today. My daughter Anna is studying at the University.  She’s a STEM major. She has been to four anti-ICE protests and two No Kings protests on her university campus this year. She is in the animal sciences club and has done service projects in groups at shelters and sanctuaries. She is coming back to town this summer, will split her time between me and her dad, and is most likely going to work as a camp counselor. 

She was volunteering at the local animal shelter in her father’s neighborhood starting at age 14. 14 year olds could volunteer only if a parent went with them, and I did. She started going alone at age 15. She has always put herself on the line to stick up for classmates being bullied. She doesn’t date, because she hasn’t found the right person, and that’s ok with her. She’s very emotionally intelligent and therapy savvy. She was an easy newborn, a hilarious toddler, and a smart and eager school kid  

I mean I really did win the lottery with her. This could never be said out loud, but I really wish I could go back in time and brag that I did everything right, even the things that were hard. 

Maybe if I had a second, third, fourth etc child, it wouldn’t have been great. When she was about a year old, I had a friend who was remembering her younger brother who died by suicide. She said once, she and her mom were sitting across a table, and her mom said that if she had known early in her pregnancy that his life would be so difficult, she would have had an abortion. I could see that. We wish we could go back and do a lot of things differently. As for me though, nothing with parenting would I have done differently. I would have had more kids- but only if they were guaranteed to come out equally as wonderful. 

But then again, assuming this about any future kids I had is just wrong. They also could have been great just like Anna. I always had to assume things about different aspects of life that were just assumptions I made to pacify someone else’s narrative 

Freaky Friday

 I went to see this new client today with “bad caregiver experiences”. His daughter opened the door and had attitude immediately. I sighed, but didn’t let her see me sigh. She didn’t leave for work until about an hour after I got there, and in that hour’s time, I did my damage control Magick, and she was talking to me cordially. She pointed to a closed door and said, “We’re in the process of moving my son into that room.”  Across the hall from that door was her dad’s room. She introduced me to him, and he said, “Ugh finally a white girl.”  Oh gosh. Now that begs the question. Were they bad caregivers, or is he racist?  Both things can be true. His daughter later apologized for that comment and said, “It’s the generation.”  I told her I understand, but in my experience, most elderly people who are racist will at least try and hide it. 

About four hours later, I was rinsing dishes, turned around, and there was a creepy bald guy about 30 years old just standing there awkwardly staring at me. I did not hear or see him come in. I immediately screamed bloody murder.  The guy said, “Hello!  I live here! Didn’t mean to scare you!”  I would have gotten a kitchen knife if the old man hadn’t said, “That’s my grandson.”  Oh- I remembered his daughter had told me they were moving her son into the one bedroom. I guess I just assumed her son wasn’t currently in the house. 

I apologized for screaming. At 1:00 pm, the old man’s granddaughter showed up to take over. She is his caregiver until the evening and probably gets paid through one of those agencies that does all the paperwork to allow people to get paid to care for family members. 

As of right now, 6:00 pm on Friday, I am scheduled with him next week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7:00 am-1:00 pm. I think that’s when his granddaughter has classes?  I could be wrong, but those are our only hours with him. I was actually kind of hoping they’d call GCboss and be like “nah we don’t like the white girl either.”  But it’s ok. I should buy a shirt that says Damage Control. 

I dislike that I’m doing this with my life again, but it is what it is. I do not know what else to do with my life anymore. I recently found out that someone at the company I used to work for (that my husband still works for) actually said I called out once a week when called for my references. That is a lie. However, it didn’t prevent me from finding employment, nor do I have access to old timesheets or schedules that can prove that isn’t true. Even if I did try to do something about what I heard they said, they might retaliate against my husband if I do. I was really shocked when I found this out, because for so long I thought things were going great there. 

I do have to eventually redo my resume so that it leaves the inventory service completely off. That sucks. At least I met a husband there.