Making Decisions

LAX Diva is my biological daughter and Daddy D's adopted daughter, she has never met her biological father even though she is very aware that he exists. I have never said anything bad about him except that he wasn't ready to be a father. He was the type of guy that had been in trouble with the law for petty stuff and didn't want to have to fight for visitations or custody. He especially didn't want to try and do it in my hometown where my family was well known and he was an outsider. His idea of being a part of LAX Diva's life was to drop off diapers on occasion and take her for the weekend. Of course none of this ever happened because I told him I wasn't going to do it, he could either get visitation rights or custody. I wasn't going to play games with my child and therefore I wasn't willing to let him come and go in her life as he pleased.

So when I was pregnant he called me from jail several times to talk over the pregnancy. I was honest with him the whole time and told him I wasn't willing to live like that and that he would have to make the changes. The last time I heard from him he had sent me a letter telling me not to shut him out and that he wanted us to be together again. I never heard from him again.

I really wish that he had been able to be a part of LAX Diva's life because he wasn't a bad person he was just a kid who didn't have anyone to give him any guidance. I was able to keep him from getting into too much trouble when we were together but I was never able to get him to change. Probably because he was too young and so was I but in the end I knew that no matter what I did he was not going to grow up and do the right thing. I found out later that he was doing steroids and possibly some drugs while we were together which was most likely a big factor in our breaking up.

Long story short LAX Diva asked me for the letter to read tonight. I had told her years ago that she could read it when she was older. Daddy D had never read it and I let him read it tonight so that he wouldn't be broadsided by anything later on. She is reading it now and I am typing this to keep my sanity in case she turns it on me later. I don't know if I will ever know what is right but she will be 15 in a few weeks and she deserves to have at least a small part of her father. I have told her when she is 18 and old enough to handle it I will help her track him down if she wants.

How will I ever know if I am doing the right thing with this?

Torture

Daddy D is in the army and we have been married for 11 years. During the entire time we have only been stationed in two states. Now don't get me wrong it makes it a lot easier when we move because we generally have an idea how to get there and what the name of the local cable company is but....I married a man in the military to see the world! So yesterday after weeks of waiting and being told that we were finally moving to Colorado or Washington State we got orders sending us right back to the same state we just left.

I am so pissed! Daddy D has been busting his hump to get us somewhere different and I think he may have pissed off the guy who makes the decision but poor thing he was just trying to get us somewhere new. We have to provide the military with a list of the top 4 places we would like to go so we knew when we put the old place on the list it was a possibility. But it was number 4 on the list and we had been told the top two were a shoe in so we only put it down because we had to complete the list. Since it was such a remote possibility we thought of it almost like a joke.

Well as normal the joke is on us. We are moving back to the same damn state once again and to top it off they don't have a lacrosse program. Maybe you guys remember LAX Diva and her love of only one thing! I know she is young and she can find something else to do but being a military family you have to give up so much that it seems cruel to ask her to give up the one thing her 14 year old hormones still allow her to love. Right now it is looking like the closet LAX team is over 30 miles away and mostly at private Catholic girls schools that I highly doubt we could afford even if we are willing to commute it.

Top all this off with the great news that we will be in a beautiful country area, I will be able to keep my job, and it is close to both sets of in laws. If it weren't for LAX Diva's sport and my desire to see the world we would be excited.

So now I am torturing myself trying to figure out how to make all this work. Should I kill myself commuting an hour each morning to get LAX Diva to a lacrosse team or should I say this is just one of those things she is going to have to live through?

Dissapointment

Sometimes I wonder if I am a really bad parent. I mean I love my children and I am proud of all their accomplishments but how do you ignore it when you see your child doing something you aren't proud of?

Let me start by saying that about a year ago we instituted a family policy that each child would do something aerobic all year round just to try to help them stay healthy. The kids are allowed to pick what they want to do and it can be anything from swimming lessons to full on contact sports. We don't force them to play a sport hell they can chose to walk the dogs for 30 minutes a day just as long as they are active. Our only rule about this is that once you sign up for a team sport you are not allowed to quit, you must play the entire season.

LAX Diva came home one day a little over a year ago busting at the seams about a game called lacrosse so we signed her up and she has been playing lacrosse for a little over a year. When she started she had never played a sport and had to learn everything from scratch. So we spent the first season watching her grow and being so proud of the improvements she made. This year we were hoping to watch her continue to grow but it has not happened. She thinks she is the best player on the field, and she probably is, but she is not putting in half the effort of the other players.

I have tried to be as supportive as possible and not say anything about her lack of intensity. I mean I don't want to be one of THOSE mothers who is constantly fussing at their kid if they don't score the winning goal. BUT a few games ago the whole team played poorly and they lost again. LAX Diva comes off the field bawling and proceeds to ignore us and give her sister dirty looks when we try to tell her good game. I have never been so embarrassed in my life!!! I know I have taught her better than that. Here I am sitting in the stands cheering her on and she is acting like a 4 year old. Hell she cant even be bothered to be a good sport and congratulate the other team decently.

Bug on the other hand has no athletic ambitions. She is a couch potato and has picked up my families genetic tendency towards having a bit of a gut. So we asked her what she wanted type of activity she wanted to do and she picked lacrosse for this season. I wondered why since she hates going to her sisters game but I bit the bullet and signed her up anyway.

Well guess what? We have to drag her to every practice/game kicking and crying. Daddy D hates it and so do I but I refuse to let her quit especially since I am the team parent and expected to help throughout the season. Needless to say she is not an enthusiastic participant and the team would probably be better off without her. She spends most of her time trying to make friends with the other team. HAHAHA

I think I am living through the season from hell!!! Both girls are putting as little effort as they can into it and I am busting my ass trying to make it to games and coordinate parent volunteers. At least Bug doesn't act like an ass when her team loses. Of course it might help if she actually payed enough attention to know whether they won or not. LOL

Its Amazing what goes on in a parking lot

Tonight Daddy D and I stopped off at the grocery store on the way home to pick up some beer. Normally this would be a boring little snippet of my day and not worth mentioning but tonight while I was sitting in the truck waiting for him to return I noticed something a little unusual. No it wasn't the homeless lady that always sleeps in the bushes or some wild kid running around in his karate uniform. A lady was sitting in her car directly in front of me drinking small bottles of liquor. This was especially disturbing since she was sitting in the drivers seat having an emotional breakdown.

I hate to say it but since she was screaming at the younger lady next to her and obviously having an emotional moment I called 911. They asked me to identify her and to give them all kinds of information so I did. Then the 911 operator says "how do you know she did this?" I said I am sitting here watching her. I was literally 10 feet away just talking on the phone in the car and trying not to stare at her. She then proceeded to get out and go into the grocery fussing all the way so I got out and gave them her license plate number.

Now I am just hoping I don't get called to court as an eye witness or anything. I have never called 911 before and know I should have called the police instead but I didn't know if I would have time to look up the number before she left and possibly killed someone driving in that state. Talk about turning a boring little trip to the grocery store into a major event.

Annoying Coworker's

OK so I know we have all had one, but how do you deal with them? Right now I am working in a job that is basically a temporary position. I am not a temporary employ but I am a contractor and I was transfered to a contract that ends in September. Now I am due to PCS (military speak for move to another state) around July so it is highly doubtful I will be here long. Needless to say it has been hard for me to break the short timers attitude and really want to dig deep for this position. Unfortunately my coworker has short timers attitude much worse than I do and she is driving me nuts.

First off she comes to work late and leaves early. Second she doesnt do shit because she is too busy building her new house in Kentucky. Third she just flat has an attitude about doing any work she doesnt think is important enough for her attention. Fourth she has slacked on so many projects we basically just leave her off the list of people to do things. Fifth she is smart as hell and could be a huge help but drives us nuts by using her knowledge like a weapon instead of a tool. Sixth she isnt afraid of losing her job because of the short time she has left (less than a month) and therefore is pulling shit left and right. Seventh she magically has a few days a week were someone is sick, was in a car accident, the daycare is closed, or some other shit comes up that is moronic and she has to work from home. Eighth how the hell do you not know that your daycare is closing for the entire week of spring break and then are unable to find anyone to watch your kid for even a single day so you could come to work.

All of this should be enough to drive an anal rententive worker like myself to tears but top it all off with the fact that I am at work listening to salsa music through the cubicle walls and I am about to scream. Pour an extra helping of constantly being on the phone arguing with her building contractor is spanish and I am about to jump out of the 9th floor window. Now dont get me wrong I have nothing against Peurto Rican/Hispanic people but I try to be respectful of others and keep my music down and not spend the whole day yapping on the phone. We work in tiny cubicles people! I can hear everything everyone around me says and does. Speaking in a foreign language doesnt hide the fact that you just spent two hours discussing 'mi casa' while I have been busting my ass covering for your lack of work.

OK I feel a little better now that I have blown off some steam! LMAO

Monday Madness

I really hate Monday's! I hate getting up in the morning and having to put on dress clothes for work. I hate having to fix my hair and wear makeup. I hate having to wake up Bug and get her moving. I hate paying to eat breakfast at work when it is cheaper at home (I am still to lazy to make it). I hate having to sit at a desk all day and stare at a computer and last but not least I really hate MONDAY'S!!!!!

No nothing is notably worse on Monday than any other day of the week, it is the simple fact that I can't sleep in and not fix my hair. To top it off I have to wear fancy schmantzy clothes and shoes. ARGH! Some days I wish I worked in a pharmacy again so I could wear scrubs all day every day. OH yeah and tennis shoes! OH how I miss wearing tennis shoes to work. I think I could write a sonnet about the joys of wearing tennis shoes to work everyday.

The absolute worst part about Monday's is waking up Bug. She hates mornings and no matter what you do at some point you have to stop playing nice and get her moving. Then it really hits the fan. She is the kind of kid that you have to wake up slowly by rubbing her back or snuggling her and talking to her. Lord forbid you have less than 10 minutes to get her out of bed.

Here is a sample of how the mornings are with Bug.
1. 630AM spend 10 minutes rubbing, talking, and coaxing
2. 640AM she enters the shower and lays in tub sleeping
3. 650AM I go in and tell her to get a move on and actually wash a body part or two
4. 700AM I make sure she washed and is finally out of the tub.
5. 705AM she is laying in bed soaking wet wrapped in a towel sleeping AGAIN!
6. 710AM I start asking her nicely to get dressed about every 5 minutes.
7. 730AM I stop asking her nicely to get dressed and start getting a little more forceful about it.
8. 735AM I stop being forceful and start threatening
9. 740AM I lose all semblance of sanity and tell Daddy D to deal with it
10. 741AM Daddy D loses all patience and the fight begins for real
11. 745AM Bug is in tears and screaming
12. 750AM Daddy D is threatening to make her walk to school if she isn't ready in 5 minutes.
13. 755AM Bug is still in tears and screaming and Daddy D is two steps away from completely losing it.
14. 759AM Bug remembers to ask us to sign some type of paper for school
15. 800AM Daddy D and Bug are out the door, in the car, and on the way
16. 801AM optional stop at McDonalds if steps 10-13 dont occur.

Needless to say I don't think Bug likes Monday's either! LOL

Almost a family outing

Yesterday we ventured out of town to an aquarium I visited as a child and thought was pretty cool. Of course LAX Diva did not want to go because she had a sleepover planned for that night. We would have been home on time but as usual if she couldn't get there the minute she wanted she would just DIE! LOL So we took a friend of Bug's who I will call Loud Mouth. Now let me just say that I love Loud Mouth and have a lot of sympathy for her needing attention at home. She has a sister with some major medical issues and I always try to give her a little extra attention at my house to help make up for the lack of focus at home. I just wish she would realize that getting attention at my house doesn't require talking at sound decibels that break glass.

Needless to say the day started off on a sour note. I had a migraine, LAX Diva wasn't participating, and Loud Mouth and Bug were breaking my skull apart talking in the car. They weren't really being that loud but in an enclosed space with a migraine I was about to throw them into oncoming traffic. Top that off by the fact that we missed the turnoff to go eat so we decided to drive the rest of the hour to the aquarium before eating. I DO NOT DO WELL WHEN I AM VERY HUNGRY!!!!! I get mean and pissy and just downright evil. So by the time we arrived I was RIPE! Thank God we were able to get some food in a reasonable amount of time and even though I was in such a bad mood the only problem we had once we reached the aquarium we me spilling a drink because the lids were under lock and key? Why would they need to protect the drink lids?

The Bug and Loud Mouth had a great time and really enjoyed themselves. I only had to fuss at them a couple of time and tell them to stop running off. For the two of them that is a major accomplishment, it may just be sinking in for Loud Mouth that I only go so far before pushing back. I gave them both 20 bucks and let them lose in the gift shop where they bought a ton of junk just like I knew they would. On the upside I got a really pretty glass starfish necklace and a glass bowl for display.

Daddy D wanted seafood for dinner (how ironic) but Loud Mouth doesn't eat fish so the girls picked Hard Rock Cafe. I find the food to be overpriced and not that great but it is a pretty cool place. We got LAX Diva a shirt there and Bug and Loud Mouth picked out a Best Friends necklace to share. All in all it was fun but considering I was still recovering from a migraine I could have done with a little less rock and roll.

So the day went from bad to good so what else can a mom ask for? A teenage daughter who comes with us.........

Ignorance is bliss

LAX Diva is driving me nuts tonight. She came home in a bad mood and is taking it out on everyone around her. God I hate when she is like this. She gets in her head that she is pissed and nothing is going to go well until she is in a better mood.

Lately I have been giving her the silent treatment and only speaking to her when I have to. When I do speak to her I have been keeping it as simple as possible and saying as little as possible. Basically she has been getting one or two word answers from me for about two weeks now. I am not trying to punish her I am just trying to stop all the fighting. By not playing her games and arguing with her I have been able to not have a fight with her for the whole two weeks. I have been making Daddy D handle all the issues since he is generally much calmer that I am.

Well tonight I had decided I needed to talk with her about her grades and her lack of effort with pretty much everything. I kept my calm but I made it clear I was disappointed with her efforts and let her know that if she continued on this way she would have to work a lot harder to get what she wants out of life. Well guess what! my kid doesn't want anything out of life. She is perfectly happy being a B,C,D student and has no goals to achieve anything out of life. She apparently will be happy working at McDonald's and struggling until she dies. She said "I will just have to live in a crappy house and my kids just wont have all the things they want."

So being the wonderful parent that I am I told her that as long as she keeps her grades A,B,C's and shows us respect then I will stay out of her way. She can do it however she wants and I am going to back off as long as the respect is given to us and the grades don't drop below a C. Once the respect becomes an issue and the grades drop then she will have to deal with me. I told her I felt Daddy D took it easy on her when he gave her the punishment for bringing home a D and that had I been the one making the decision her punishment would have been harsher. She took her attitude and went to bed.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

A little background info

Since I am new to blogging and you guys dont know who the hell I am I thought I would give you a little background information to help us get to know one another. I was born and raised in Kentucky and am proud to call myself a redneck, hillbilly, true blue Wildcat fan. Yes that does mean I dont cheer for Louisville even though they are technically a Kentucky college. Now to be honest I am not a huge sports fan for anything other than UK basketball and occasionally football and I dont know the names, averages, and technical information on every player. But I do know my team is in UK blue and white and I will cheer my heart out for them to win.

I suffer from depression and am fat but other than that I dont have much going on. Right now I am in the process of getting bariatric surgery so that I can finally move past the FAT part of life and get headed into a healthier lifestyle. As for the depression it isnt life threatening and I have been seeking therapy for a few years to help me deal with my issues. Mostly I just worry I am going to turn into my mother and I need a unbiased third party to tell me I am not crazy on occasion. I am somewhat artistic but dont have any hobbies other than gardening which I have to admit I am semi shitty at but hey I try right! I get points for that dont I? LOL

My parents have been married for 35 years and I have a younger brother who lives in New York City (yep you have to say it just like they do in the PACE Picante commercials). Of course we are the typical southern family and we all talk to much (except mom-more on that later) but I guess you could say in typical southern style family drama has caused some pretty big rifts that have never quite healed. Us southerners have a good memory for holding grudges with. My father owns a small family business he runs with one of my aunts and that when I was little I hoped to run one day. Now I am not so sure about moving back to a small town to run it but I still love the idea. My fathers family was large but due to some malfunctions became much smaller a few years back. Now I basically only have a nice aunt who I dont know well and a aunt I used to spend alot of time with who has become very bitter and resentful. My mothers family on the other hand decided to cut ties with us about 25 years ago and has only started coming back into my life in the last two years or so. My mother has been speaking with them for a long time but honestly I think once they abandoned me because of bullshit I didnt have much interest in getting back together. I mean honestly I was a grown married adult by the time they actually started having any type of family events with us and I didnt miss them by that point. Makes for some lovely family gatherings.

My mom on the other hand is her own ball of fun. She is bipolar schizophrenic and has had a gastric bypass. Lets just say she is paranoid about everything and has major mood swings so she doesnt have much to say most of the time and then when she does it is all twisted and dramatic. I describe living/loving her as walking on eggshells. Top it all off with the fact that she had a gastric bypass but doesnt follow any of the rules that go along with that and she spends the rest of her life laying around sick to her stomach. I will backtrack a bit and tell you that growing up she was a wonderful mom. She took us places, went shopping, talked to us, and even threw in the occasional fun event. She was always there for our activities and while she worked she made it to every parenting event possible. Of course we fought, that was moms and daughters do during the teen years but we never ever hated each other. Then her mental health got bad and all the treatments/pills/therapy turned her into a different person. She no longer likes anything she used to like, eats things she used to eat, or enjoys well pretty much anything. Needless to say we dont talk much but I still love her and I know she didnt do any of this on purpose I just wish she would get some willpower and work on getting past it.

My father is the ever patient bill paying member of that household and yes he deserves an award for insanity for putting up with it all. I dont think anyone would have blamed him if he had run far far away and never come back after the first suicide attempt my mother made but he didnt and I am pretty sure he is in for the long haul at this point. He is a talkative, funny, and downright wonderful person to be around but he is southern and stubborn about things like politics, religion, and race. I have learned to just turn my opinion off when it comes to things like Obama and mixed race dating. LOL I just sounded so old fashioned there didnt I.

Now on to important stuff....
I have been married to Daddy D for 11 years now and he is a wonderful man. He puts up with my insanity and even manages to keep me from totally losing it on occasion. Daddy D is in the military and therefore we move quite a bit which is something I love. I think it is cool to have the option to move every 3 years or so and start over even though so far I have only moved from KY to VA back to KY and then back to VA. My world tour is sorely lacking at this point but I am working really hard to make sure we get a third state in there before the end of 2010.

LAX Diva is 14 almost 15 now and while she may drive me crazy I love her dearly. She has never met her father (his choice) and she knows that Daddy D adopted her. We have always been open with her about her father not being here and I am supporting her fully when the time comes for her to reach out. She tends to be angry all the time which is probably why I feel the need to blog here and not just scream at her all the time. LAX Diva is lazy and doesnt put much effort into anything unless it is harassing me about some outfit or haircut she wants. She is smart but makes mediocre to bad grades because it takes too much time to do homework or study. Fortunately for her most things come naturally so she doesnt have to put in much effort to get by. I have tried to push her to do better but nothing I do seems to work and most things are a total failure (I will never be forgiven for pulling her off the cheer team because of her grades). One of these days she will wake up and realize that life will not just come to her and maybe then she will put some effort into it. I can only pray.

Bug is 10 and growing into a diva as I type. Lord she is a whiny child. I cant say I shouldnt have expected this because she has been different forever. Pregnancy was awful, labor was awful, delivery was awful, and the first few weeks were a living nightmare. And before you ask no there was nothing wrong with her or me medically it was just everything was difficult and therefore misserable. Then came everything after that and most of it was awful. LOL The child just has a way of beating you down until you just give in and find a way to work around the issue. Now that she is getting older she is required to take on some responsibility and she HATES that. She honestly thinks the world should just adjust to her way of thinking and get out of her way come hell or high water. So you ask, what is her saving grace, you know the thing that has kept me from losing it and killing her in her sleep? She is the sweetest most kind child you will ever meet, and she is cute if I must say so myself. She is the little girl who hugs you and tells you she loves you when you are sick and too tired to make her PB&J sandwich. She is the kid who brings you flowers home from school and kisses the dogs smack on the lips when they are behaving. SHE IS FREAKING CUTE I TELL YOU! Plus she can tell you a story that will make you roll laughing. I wish she wasnt so shy in front of large groups because she would make one hell of an actor or comedian.

Anyway that is enough to get you started.

Didnt I just say I should trust my gut?

Well I took the bait again. HOOK LINE and SINKER! LAX Diva dragged me back to the DR today for a migraine that just wouldnt quit. I wasted all morning and what was left of my chance in hell of passing this Accounting test I have tonight to find out my daughter is a FAKER! No they didnt call her out I am......how can you have a migraine and we playing with the radio station in the car? How can you have a migraine and be able to joke around? How can you have a migraine that makes you sensitive to light and not wear sunglasses the whole time?

Honestly I dont know because when I have them I just want to crawl in a hole and die.

They gave her a shot of Toradol and sent her on her way with some Maxalt to treat any future migraines. She hates shots so I am guessing she was in some pain because she actually voted for it instead of something that would take a little longer. I just dont think she actually had a migraine or even knows what one is. Now she thinks she is going to her lacrosse game this afternoon and it is not going to happen.

So I fell for it again, but I am catching on to her new game. LOL

Lets see how she deals with tonight when Daddy D see's her report card. I told him he is in charge of dealing with this one.

Finally getting somewhere!

Well today I learned to trust my gut when I think LAX Diva is being a diva. LOL The Dr prescribed her Motrin and an allergy pill that she was already supposed to be taking but never takes because she forgets. So once again I wasted my time to try and get her to a DR's appointment for NOTHING!

However, I did finally get the DR to listen to me about wanting to consider bariatric surgery which is amazing considering the military's point of view on weight loss. So she put me in for all the referrals needed and all I have to do is jump through hoops to try and get as much done as I can before we move. It will not be fun and it will not be easy but I am determined to do whatever the hell I have to. This is my life and I am tired of living it in pain, exhuastion, and depression simply because I am fat. I refuse to fail at another diet or another excersize plan or even another family event because I have let my weight get so out of control. All this failure is just making the cycle worse.

So even though I wasted time taking LAX Diva in to the DR my appointment went better than expected and things are actually moving in the right direction.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming!

LOL, alot has changed since I last blogged.
* First off I have a new job but it is BORING! so guess what I am back on Google trying to save my sanity.
* Second I am getting ready to move to another state thanks to the US military and hopefully they will give me an answer about which state that is to be real soon.
* Third, my youngest daughter now officially named Bug for this blog is now 10 years old and turning into a teenager.

Other than that life hasnt changed much.
* I am still in college and plugging away one class at a time to reach the final goal of an associates degree in Business Admin.
* I am still working in a job that has no point with people who seem to have no work ethic.
* Iam still raising a 14 year old teenager now officially named LAX Diva for blogging purposes and yes I am still lost about how to continue parenting her.
* I am still married to my wonderful hubby who we shall call Daddy D and yes he is still alive cause I have yet to kill him even when extremely annoyed.

Anyway now that we are all caught up I thought I would ask for some opinions from my non-existent blog followers?

How do you determine when to take a kid to the doctors office?

LAX Diva is the queen of injuries and she is driving me crazy with them at this point. You all should know that my mom has had major mental and physical illness for years so the kids see her being sick all the time and emmulate that when they want attention. I have always dealt with this by being attentive when they have major complaints and trying to downplay things when they have minor complaints. Unfortunately with two daughters who have grown up around someone who is constantly sick this is becoming a major issue now. Anyway LAX Diva has been injured multiple times during the last two years while playing Lacrosse (LAX) and while almost all of the injuries have been NOTHING!!!! she has had a major ankle sprain, broken nose, and now a concussion. Each time she has had an injury I have taken her in to the doctor for care and 90 % of the time it has been nothing. Litterally they prescribe Motrin and rest and send her home. The last injury she had was a knee injury that required x-rays, bloodwork, and a MRI at 3AM and then it turned out that nothing was wrong and she had no injury at all. I took time off work drove all over the place and even got up to take her to a 3AM appointment for an injury that didnt exist.

Now she has a concussion! She got it last Thursday and the team trainers said it was mild to just let her rest and to take her in to the DR if she had any of the major symptoms. Well guess what as soon as she heard the trainer list the major symptoms she had half of them! She immediately said she was sick at her stomach and then that she couldnt remember the date and blah blah blah! So we have been letting her stay home when she has a headache and letting her rest instead of help around the house and all that, but yesterday she couldnt get out of bed due to her major headache. Of course when it came time to put together the pasta dinner for the team and go have some fun she was FINE! Today she has the same issue and is calling me from school to be picked up. So I made her a doctors appointment even though I think nothing is wrong and am going to see what the deal is cause I am sick of this crap.

How do I know when she is faking and when she isnt?