Business Trip Woes

Well, I had to go to Pittsburgh for a couple of days to the headquarters office. They wanted me there all week, but I refused. I simply can't be away from my baby that long - my breasts would mutiny, as would my daughter! She hates the bottle and will only take it after she's practically starved herself. Besides, my husband is part-time, which means he can take all the time off he needs - all of it unpaid. With our outrageous bills we've been socked with in the past few months, that's simply not possible. So I said "two days" and my poor hubby had to take 1 day off work. Beats the 3 days off he would have had to take if I absolutely HAD to go there all week!
So I drive to Pittsburgh Monday morning. I know everyone's waiting for me, so I don't waste time getting something for lunch. I get there, and my breasts are screaming to be nursed. Turns out we're all still waiting for someone else, so I steal away into an unused office and pump. Surprise! The breast pump is on its deathbed and can't suck to save its life. I'm bursting, so I just start hand expressing, trying to help the pump along. I've never missed my daughter so much! I didn't bring a hand pump - why bother when I brought the automatic pump? So I spent the 2 days pretty uncomfortable, hand expressing every chance I got. Yuck.
My husband was never so glad to see me when I got home around 11pm on Tuesday night. He and I actually were talking on the phone for the last 20 or 30 miles because I was having serious problems staying awake. I don't sleep well without him around, and I put in a full day at work and then drove back the 300 miles home. I was beyond exhausted. He was whipped too - our son ran him ragged. I haven't traveled for work in almost 2 years. I used to beg to travel for work because I loved traveling so much. Now, I just don't want to travel. Maybe when my daughter weans in a year or so.

January Already

I can't believe another year is already here.
2007 started out with the birth of my daughter, and was the highlight of the year. I wish that the rest of the year was filled with joy and happiness, but it wasn't. It was filled with speech therapy, special instruction, frustration and disappointment. I'm glad it's over. We're still struggling mightily. Every day is filled with huge barriers to seemingly everything.
However, I have hope that in 2008, we'll have crossed many barriers and possibly will be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We've had huge financial and legal setbacks, and are hoping to scrape our way out of our doldrums in 2008. I had to pause from my college to concentrate on helping my son overcome his significant speech delay, and now with daily work, he's speaking at the 18-24 month level. We still have a lot of work to do obviously, since he's 3, but considering at 2 years old he wasn't even babbling and was evaluated as communicating at the level of a 9-month old when he was 26 months old, we've made some progress. Unfortunately, he has now moved to the "intermediate" unit, and his amount of service has been cut back severely, and it's definitely showing. In my nonexistent spare time (read: cut back on sleep), I've been researching speech and language delays in order to be able to provide daily instruction to help my son with his expressive language skills. I wish I could send him to preschool, but with our enormous legal bills at this time, it's at the point where we must seriously consider selling our home in order to stay afloat. While we don't have any debt other than our mortgage, we don't have any liquid assets either. So we'll be scraping along with ramen noodles and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for probably all of 2008.
Perhaps I'll make it my resolution this year to attempt to blog at least once a week. Perhaps.