the vampiric bibliophile

We still haven't received our new chair yet, as you can see. Floral with wood accents - yum! Our living room is so close to being 'finished' but not quite. The other day Oona took every available book on her shelf (we've cleared the built in bookshelves of our books except where she can't reach them) threw them on the chair and hopped up to ready. This was a rare, unpredictable moment of calm. She is such the personality opposite of Owen it's amazing. She's a dear little girl but quite a handful and prone to tantrums if she doesn't get here way. For all her wants she screams, 'Mommy' louder and lourder until she gets what she wants or she devolves into tears and flailing. And I'm with her all day every day and she's sucking the life right out of me at this point in her development. I went to bed at 9:30 last night, woke up at 7:30 and was still tired. My body has reached some critical point because I ache in various places all the time and last week I tore my rotator cuff trying to push Oona's damn stroller with the bald tires and locked right front wheel. It's time for a new stroller but I push on with this four year old contraption, stooping over to position the wheel with my hands, it's akin to pushing Oona in a shopping cart with a bad wheel - fun right?! Elise's recommendation of Dr. Sarno's book is next on my list but I'm already worried about what I do if I read it and I'm still in pain? I feel like I tend to fail at epiphanies - therapy, medication, life altering forums or life changing books. This morning I schlepped two huge laundry baskets full of old baby clothes to a consignment store in Squirrel Hill. I had taken them weeks before but they had a sign saying they wouldn't be taking anything until after May 16th. So this was my first chance to get there. I park right near the store, put money in the toll, drag out the baskets and put them near the door, run back to get Oona out of the car and go in to ask the sales lady for help bringing them in. The saleslady is talking on the phone while walking around the store. She's eastern european, at least I'm pretty sure of that. She's must speak some slavic language because she has an accent that I notice alot among slavs, flat and somewhat sexy sounding, at least compared to my accent. She wears short shorts that show off amazing legs that you can just tell do not require any trips to the gym, it's the dumb luck of genetics, and she has a headful of blonde pre-raphelite curls. I ask for help when she looks at me, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. She walks out with Oona and I to the door where the baskets are and looks in one briefly before saying 'You been to another store with these? There's stickers on them.' I see no stickers but say that I was at a store with some of the clothes well over a month ago. She then refuses to see my stuff telling me 'It's not fair, they already picked out the best stuff.' I'm getting angrier and more frustrated over being told I'm unfair with a consignment store. 'There's stuff that's never even been worn' I tell her. 'Half of one basket is stuff that's already been seen, I've put in a bunch of new stuff that's never been looked at.' She just shakes her head at me, and starts redialing her friend on the phone while turning back into the store. This is one of those critical, insignificant moments where I just start crying because I'm so frustrated by this lady telling me I'm not being fair, and it takes so much effort to schlep these baskets with a kid and it's all so pointless since I'd be lucky to get $20 for the stuff. Life's too short to feel bad and I feel worse and worse lately.