stuff

[shainachantake2]

Lmao, I showed up to my weekly meeting (as suggested by my boss and specifically that time was picked by him) to find him MIA, and all our email accounts aren't working because Microsoft hadn't been paid yet, and his secretary ended up going to his house to get a code from him to get something done.... Everyone was commiserating how frustrating it is to work with him, the charity that's trying to become independent has apparently been trying to get my boss to fix the paperwork for ages now and he keeps pushing it off or forgetting to, so that's just... Yeah. Finally he answered my message querying where he is with "sorry I forgot" 🥲😂

This job is frustrating enough without him making it impossible to do the job.

[shainachantake2]

After a few months of silence and calm, family drama is back.

(other than the reunion I suppose which I was completely excluded from and nobody bothered to send me pictures or anything, and even when my cousin pointed out it was just like the reunions from when we were little - 2 cousins, parents, aunt and uncle (my father's brother), and my sister - nobody bothered to mention "oh but without Shaina", like I literally didn't even exist lol)

Anyway.

As everyone may or may not know, my mother has been taking courses to get her bachelor's degree. In theology. She's also 74 this year and is not involved in her local churches at all. Also, they separately mentioned they have less money to send to us in their yearly gift of a couple hundred, and they never talk to us, or call, or send us anything, they even stopped the 2 postcards a year with 2 stickers in them. And they also couldn't sponsor my PhD for me when I ran into funding difficulties. Which would have cost less than this bachelors. After I went to the cheapest undergrad and I was completely self sufficient for my master's. And my sister went to the most expensive options and they paid for all her schooling. And again, they are not poor.

Okay, with that out of the way, she's graduating this year, and she has a choice of locations. Last time she visited, she said she'd go to London because her "friends" would be there. Now she's announced that she changed her mind and wants to do it here, so we can "celebrate with her". 🙃🙃🙃 Also she wants to invite my aunt and uncle, and my sister invited herself too. Which is all kinds of...... Yeeeaaahhh............

Also lastly, it's in October, and at no point has she acknowledged that it's also E's first birthday in October, and it would not surprise me in the slightest if we find out she completely forgot about that.

[shainachantake2]

Great news going into shabbos:

*SALFORD:* After being missing for nearly four months following a robbery, the two historic Sifrei Torah stolen from the Beis Medrash have, B”H, been recovered. The Sifrei Torah were discovered abandoned outside a Methodist church and were returned intact and in good condition. The circumstances surrounding how they ended up there remain under investigation by GMP and Shomrim. Shomrim are now seeking CCTV footage from the surrounding area as part of efforts to identify those involved.

[shainachantake2]

We're at that time of year again when all the zmanim calculators go "the sun never sets far enough for us to calculate this", and of course that's the perfect time to go to the mikvah. What do you mean you don't want to traipse around town at 11 PM? Bonus strange man lounging on the wet grass in the dark.

[shainachantake2]

🙃 I hate working.

Long story short, I'm working for a nonprofit and they want me to apply for grants. Except I'm completely set up for failure because all the policy documents and accounts are outdated or wrong, and there's some weird situation where it's a separate company but actually a subsidiary of another charity, etc... And when I told my boss about it he started interrupting me to tell me I should ask the funder how to fix all the issues with the documents. 🙃🙃🙃 How is this possible. And then he keeps going on and on about how my predecessor made £30k in the first 3 months (for a different charity that he no longer has control of, though). I'm notttttttttt having a good time. I asked my husband about quitting and he waffled for half an hour until I figured out he was saying "no", so that's been fun too.

[shainachantake2]

Also just wanted to shep some nachas, look how well Z does on tests, I'm so impressed with what she can do at 8 years old... Although the spelling is somewhat hilarious, dictace is apparently distance 😂

[shainachantake2]

A huge wedding in our shul community this week, the son of the rabbi got married to a local girl whose mother is S's teacher. So much fun celebrating with everyone. And apparently someone who used to be active on jumblr is good friends with the kallah so she was there too.

Z made a new friend at the chassunah because of course. She's so outgoing lol. She's upset she probably won't see her again because the girl lives in NY.

There was a funny mistake with the seating at the dinner, some of the men had been left off (including my friend's husband and my own husband lmao) and they were wandering around. They had to put in an extra table in the end. My husband wasn't there yet cus we switched halfway through.

Anyway I can't hear anything anymore because it was so loud, lol.

[shainachantake2]

We picked up threadworms again somewhere 🙃 and of course baby E got it somehow. Going to be a fun 6 weeks....

[shainachantake2]

Well according to the BNF (the British national formulary, sounds super fancy as usual), you can give mebendazole from 6 months so I gave her some. G-d-willing she's okay, haven't seen any issues yet. However, she basically didn't sleep last night at all so I am exhausted. Also, on the way to school S threw up all over her clothes and she's running a fever. She had her MMRV and DTaP vaccines yesterday which is probably why. 🫩 I'm supposed to work too somehow.

[shainachantake2]

We picked up threadworms again somewhere 🙃 and of course baby E got it somehow. Going to be a fun 6 weeks....

[shainachantake2]

I hate working. 🙃

[shainachantake2]

Someone asked for the ladies from our shul to have their own WhatsApp group. No one was doing anything so I just went ahead and created one. (Note to self: bad move). I added a whole bunch of people who I had seen at shul recently (but I don't really go often so I'm not entirely up to date on who goes etc, however, these are people who I've seen interact with the shul). I made all of them admins, so anyone has all powers necessary. Since then I've been inundated with complaints about who I've added. Incessant complaints, like why her, and I don't recognise this and this number, etc etc. And in the meantime nobody uses the group because....... these other women are in it? Just mindboggling.

Anyway, after I was approached once again by someone (who even tried to call me about it last night at 10pm!!!), I just went ahead and removed one of the ladies in question who was causing the most """confusion""", and after that I quit the group because many people made it clear they don't want anyone on there who doesn't come to shul. Since I don't come to shul regularly, as I have a baby BH and don't use the eiruv. I also just despise how this was done and I'm not really wanting to be a part of this.

I actually had a similar issue when I first moved here, there was a WhatsApp group for lubavitch ladies, but I wasn't allowed to be part of it because it was only for women with school age kids. After that the rules were made less strict, but I didn't know about that and nobody bothered to add me until quite a while later. I guess this community is horribly cliquey 😪 less bad than London but still just way too much for me.

And anyway, this is exactly how Brexit went too. "We don't want foreigners to come here and be on benefits. Oh, but not YOU, YOU'RE totally fine." Uh huh.... 😑🫩

[shainachantake2]

I finally got one where you can't actually see her face.

[shainachantake2]

Some proselytisers came by and handed my 8yo a bunch of pamphlets specifically geared towards the Jewish community with quotes from yeshaya and some Hebrew. She looked at them and gave them to me, saying I'd definitely want them because they have Hebrew on them. At least she didn't have the chance to read them fully... If only they'd leave us alone.

[shainachantake2]

Aaannnnddddd my body decided it's time for the first postpartum period. Like yay I guess my body works as usual even though I had the section (exact same time frame as the previous times), but I'm so so so not ready for the monthly mikvah visits and the constant mental math and harchakos..... 🙃

And we can't even get pregnant until it's safe, which is still about a year off. I've been trying to decide if I want hormonal birth control or not because it hopefully means no periods, but I looked at all the side effects and I was just like... that sounds scary.

On the bright side, with the return of my normal hormones comes usually a better metabolism. Maybe I'll get into better shape soon. If I can find the time to exercise...

[shainachantake2]

On first day yt we went out for lunch, which seems to always be just too much for 3yo. She played a ton there and was super happy, but when we said it was time to leave, she was not happy (understandably of course). Still, she walked/ran home (around the corner lol) happily enough until she tripped right in front of the house. That appears to have been the straw. She ended up in bed at 5:30 or something (and the sun doesn't go down till 10 ish here at the moment, so picture bright sunshine). Then, she inexplicably wakes up absolutely screaming an hour later, waking up the baby, shouting "I don't need" over and over. We offered her the toilet a billion times, offered her food, etc, took her outside for cooling off, nothing worked. Finally I literally just put her on the toilet because body language is telling me it's time, she proceeds to make a poo while screaming (not sure how that's comfortable...) and then she went back to sleep all happy 😂😂😂🙃🙃🙃 Most stressful poo experience ever.

[shainachantake2]

Ughghgghhffghgh

I'm struggling so much with this situation and I'm currently completely overwhelmed. I don't have the tools I need and I can't figure out how to access them. For reference, my husband is inattentive AuDHD, my current boss is completely unmanaged hyperactive ADHD, and my daughter appears to be inattentive ADHD, so I have a lot of stuff going on.

Everything feels very gatekeep-y, with support only available to people with diagnosis. But on the other hand, I can't actually get to the diagnosis? Because apparently the UK is on a "overdiagnosis myth" bender...

My first point of contact has been the school. They sent me on to the mental health help team that helped Z with her emotional regulation (and can we just acknowledge that I've asked them for tips, advice, and support many times without getting anythinggggg). I've messaged them, I have the direct number of the woman who worked with her, but she's ignored or didn't receive my message. My next point of contact has been the GP, because every single website and UK ADHD or ASD charity says to contact the GP. GP said it sounds like it, but that GPs no longer do referrals and that it needs to be done by parents and SENDCos (school special ed team basically). Z's school is tiny but she does have a SENDCo, so I'll need to go back to them. I went on to the CAMHs website (children's mental health team) because I wanted to see what the referral process is like since Z attends school in one council area but we live right across the border in a different council. This matters because to be referred to the local CAMHs, the council we live in requires you to be registered with a GP in that council, which we are not, we're still with our old GP in the other one. In the other council, the CAMHs sounds like they're actively trying to prevent assessments taking place? In order to get an assessment, we need to first try other things specifically for the symptoms, have an educational plan in place, before they'd put us on the waitlist, and at every opportunity the website reminds us that there doesn't need to be a diagnosis for us to access help. Which is all fine and dandy except that I can't access support for myself (and by extension my child because my parenting affects her strongly)! On top of that I'm managing my husband's interactions with her because the whole reason she's overwhelmed and feels she hates herself is because he seems to think he can just tell her to stop forgetting things or avoiding things and that will fix everything....... Reminder that it's my husband with the neurodivergence so helllooooo a bit more patience and understanding would be great..........

Anyway I found the UK ADHD subreddit this morning on which someone mentioned their own struggles getting their child diagnosed in the same area of the country we are in, that this area apparently just kicked everyone off the waitlist and said "problem solved"! Hopefully I can get some advice from this person. Seems like they went the private route which is definitely not ideal because it's expensive and also the lack of care sharing between NHS and private doctors....

[shainachantake2]

Someone in our community did a deep dive into what would happen insurance-wise if her house was damaged by an act of terrorism. Turns out that terrorism and war are almost never covered for a house you live in and own, but you can get it for rented properties.... And also, as long as the government doesn't label it as a terroristic act, it falls under hate crimes which is under the malicious damage part. Perhaps this is why the government is so careful with its wording? Giving the benefit of the doubt, anyhow lol