Bi And Large

We get back home, I go back to work, and I get sick. Where is the justice in that?!?!

Anyway it was a good trip. My mom is doing so much better just in the past week or two. All of a sudden she has some strength back and she has her 'personality' back - she seems like her old self. And it used to be that the littlest things would wipe her out for an entire day. Now she is up and around for a full weekend and not looking back! Yes she is still in the full cast and doing the IV thing a million times a day. BUT that can be managed as long as there is an end in sight, right?

On Friday I worked in her garden, mainly on her roses. She has maybe 18 big rose bushes around her patio, and all of them were just past their peak of bloom. I deadheaded the blooms that were gone and cut the rest to bring in so she could enjoy them. And my GOSH. I filled every container in the house, literally, with long stemmed roses. Purples, pinks, whites and yellows. Single and double blooms. The smell worked through every last inch of the house and was so wonderful! Anyway I got everything deadheaded back, a couple of leggy ones topped, a few with powdery mildew pruned and sprayed, and everything well watered. I felt good about it. We spent the evening introducing our girls to Loards ice cream - they were suitably impressed! (aside: Heather will be as appalled as we were to know that they no longer have menus and they no longer will let you order at a table, even a party with 2 little kids and a wheelchair. We had to drag everyone up from the table and go wait in line at the front to order off the board, which my mom couldn't see and the kid's couldn't read, wait for them to make 6 sundaes while a line formed out the door, then cart it all back to the table. Stupid!)

Saturday was the day we went down to Santa Cruz, where my grandparents and some aunts and uncles live. If you're not familiar with the area, they have a famous boardwalk there on the beach, with rides and games, and it seemed like after visiting family it would be fun to walk through it with the kids. And it was! Corn dogs and salt water taffy and rides. For some years Pete has been the go-to-guy for rides with our girls, because I am fat and unwieldly on them, but he wasn't around. So I did it, and I am very proud of myself for doing so. I managed the log ride with Amy, and the tilt a whirl, and the cave train. Iris went on the kid's rides like the whales and boats and airplanes that go around in a circle. Papa was very proud of her that she was the only kid that kept her airplane up in the air the entire ride! After that my parents decided to go for a walk with the wheelchair on the boardwalk and let me take the girls down to the beach for 15 minutes or so to see the ocean, and we'd meet back.

This started out as a great idea. My kids so infrequently get to see the ocean, and it's so important to us. They loved the waves, and jumped right in the cold water, and made sand castles, and I showed them how to dig for fiddler crabs with their feet. We found one with bright orange eggs under her shell. Iris got totally bowled over by a big wave, dunked under water and thrown up on the beach, and didn't even mind. She just popped back up and grinned and said, "I can't breathe under water!" lol. It was sunny and perfect, and the beach was pretty crowded, but we had an excellent time. So after a while I called the girls to start walking back up towards the boardwalk. Iris started up, and Amy was putting the last touch on a sandcastle and dawdling just a little, but was coming. I started walking and there were maybe 5 feet between me and each of the girls. I turned to Amy, down at the water line, and told her to come along. She stood up and started after us. I turned to Iris, up the beach, and told her to get her shoes. I turned back to make sure Amy wasn't too far behind me... and she was not there. I stopped. I called after Iris to come back. I called Amy. I went back to the water. She was gone. I was confused - 10 seconds ago she was RIGHT THERE and was following me. Where was she? I looked all over the beach, no Amy. Then I started to get worried. We looked EVERYWHERE, and she was just gone, just vanished in a sea of people. We called and called. We walked this way and that, no Amy. People who had been around the area we were noticed we were missing a child and started to help us look. I told them what she was wearing and her name and they started calling and looking, too. No Amy. Have you seen a little girl? Blonde, pink shirt, black shorts? No, no no. No one had seen anything. I looked in the water, nothing. I looked up the beach, nothing. I heard kids calling, "Mama!" and I would flip around but it was never her. She was gone in an instant. I took Iris and headed over to the next manned lifeguard tower to let them know my daughter was missing. I started crying when I told them. They took her description and sent out the trucks back and forth all along the beack looking for her. I walked and called. My dad came looking for me and he ran all over the beach calling for Amy, and couldn't find her. The lifeguards started checking the water in case she had drowned. All I could think was, someone must have taken her. If she had gotten distracted - as Amy does - I would have called her and found her, looking at a shell or seaweed or chasing a seagull, not far away. She would be somewhere on this beach. She wouldn't just be GONE. The thought made me sick. I cried. Iris asked me if we were going to have to leave Amy behind forever. A group of people on the beach started to gather and pray for Amy as news spread. We walked and called and looked. I kept yelling her name. After a while I figured I should take Iris up to the boardwalk to my mother so she could change out of her wet clothes and sit with Grammie while I kept running all over the beach. I went up there, sat down next to my mom defeated and crying and terrified. My mom was crying too. I had no idea what to do next. What do you do???

After getting Iris changed and making some phone calls I was dialing the phone to call Pete and tell him he needed to come out because Amy was missing. And I looked up into the throng of people on the boardwalk, and I saw a policeman walking towards me, and from behind him came a blond girl in a pink shirt and black shorts. It took a minute to hit me, and then she started running towards me crying. AMY!!! I sobbed and grabbed her. He said, "You must be Sonnet?" and I couldn't even answer him. We just hung on to each other and cried.

So APPARENTLY this is what we have been able to piece together. After Amy started up the beach towards me, she fell and her hands got covered in sand. She ran back to quickly rinse them off in the water, but when she did she moved away from us down the beach a little (waves do that) and I didn't see her when I turned back. She didn't see me either when she came back up, and thought we had gone on ahead, so she ran up to the boardwalk trying to catch up. She must have gone behind my back while I was turned the other direction calling for her. Then while she was up there, we were all down at the beach looking for her. She realized she was lost, and spent some time walking back and forth trying to find our meeting place. When she couldn't find that, she walked out of the boardwalk and found a policeman. (How she did this, I do not know. I also have never told her to, a la Gift of Fear, I have always told her to find another mom to ask for help - but whatever it worked.) She told the policeman her name was Amy F___________ and she was lost. She told him my full name, my parent's names, and that my mom was in a wheelchair so it would be easier to spot her. I wish she had stayed in one place like we had JUST talked about that morning, once she realized she was lost; but even so I am also proud of her for knowing all that info and knowing how to tell someone who could help what they needed to know. So I guess this policeman took her back to the boardwalk and was walking through it with her checking in with every woman in a wheelchair they saw. Lucky for us, eventually they happened to check in on my mom, and right when I was sitting there too. THANK GOD for taking care of my baby, I am so grateful, and I hope it never happens again!

Phew!

Sunday we spent the day at Pier 39 with my sister, who was massively hungover and not much fun to talk to but hey I still love seeing her. We got to see the sea lions which are always amusing, and I bought the girls sea lion puppets which they love. Rode the big carousel. Looked at Alcatraz. Ate shrimp, did all that stuff. That evening we went to a quick dinner with our very good old friends T and J, and it just made my heart so happy to see and hug them both. They are such good, good people and I love them so. It had been too long and it struck me how withdrawn I have really been the past 2 years. Since Sam died I have pulled into myself a lot I know, and have let a lot of my good friendships lapse, and that's not right. I need to start talking more!

Monday was our flight home, which did NOT go through Denver as I thought but through Phoenix. I wish I had noticed this before and had arranged a longer layover, and I could have seen H! As it was we had like a 30 minute layover, and the kids missed lunch, and tried to run for a plane while carrying pizza and it dropped, and they both HOWLED, and so I went across the airport dragging 2 screaming kids and almost missed a flight. Good times. But we made it home. By like 11pm. And I was up for work at 6:30 this morning!

All in all a very action packed and wonderful weekend. It was so good to be with my family and help out even a little. Do some laundry, make some meals, provide some entertainment, whatever. I am really glad we went.

On a different note, I think all the stuff with our summer nanny was just adjustment-related. Things seem to be going super now and I am so glad! The kids are happy, I'm happy, I hope she is happy... I think it will work out just fine. Swim lessons start at the end of the week! Let's hear it for summer, safe at home all together and glad to be here.

We are safely home again!

It was an amazing, packed, and wonderful trip, full of fun and great memories. Well, except for the hours that Amy went missing. Yeah I'll tell you all about that one later. I hope to never experience that one again. But whatever, she found a policeman, the policeman found us, and we are all home safe together again.

And I have to be at work at 7:45 tomorrow morning, which means I will be getting maybe 5 hours of sleep if I am lucky. Yay!

Nothing like hitting the ground running....

Ugh, what a long hiatus. I hate being silent so long, but when sttuff gets so hectic and stressful it seems like I just don't have the energy to talk. SUPPOSEDLY life should start to settle down somewhat now into a summery pattern (*supposedly* is the key word here, so far I have not really seen it, and I am not holding my breath!) so with any luck I should be around more to not only catch up with everyone but to get back into the swing of things with the activist part of this blog.

OK. What has been going on. Let's see.

Work is fine, going well. I do love my job! It is so exciting to find a niche where you really excel and get strokes for it. Double cool to be one of something like only a dozen people in the world (probably less) who can do what I do. I wish it paid more! But c'est la vie. You can't have everything all at once, so they say, and I am happy with this much. I have FINALLY gotten my hours cut back, and that makes life a little easier to handle. I don't mind being there full time, but the pressure of go go go go GO and running from patient to patient with no down time, and no time to just be myself at home, and always having to be cheerful and chipper and UP talking to patients, was making me crazy manic. I was overwhelmed, irritable, and exhausted. So this should be way better. I'm working about 5 hours a day now. I'm also almost fully taking over the new 12 watt machine, which is one of only 2 in the world (!) and I get to run it. SO cool. We're getting excellent feedback from patients on it and it's really exciting.

Home life: Good. I can finally say that. It has been a long road the past year or two. Especially the first few months Pete was back, I think there was a lot of resentment and a lot of rubbing each other the wrong way. Now? It is good. Honestly good. I am happy, I am secure. I think - hope - he is too. We came through it. I enjoy Pete's company. He brings me flowers, he does things to make my life easier and take care of me. Not many women are as lucky as I am and I know that. There is a lot of peace in our home right now, and I like it. I hope it stays forever.

Nanny Sitch: Mmmm, not so good. Manageable, but not exactly ideal. I am really frustrated, maybe especially because it's hard for me to come out and tell people when I think they're not playing fair. I hate to ever chance being disliked, I'm such a wuss. I just had a lot more in mind for this and, based on previous childcare, I don't think I was too far out of line. I think the kids are safe, so hey. That's a plus. Downsides: The nanny talked big during our interview process about how much she liked to clean, and when she had free time during the day she would clean up, and so on. But since being here she has every day left a huge mess behind her - dirty dishes, toys and books, whatever. Now our house is already a huge mess, granted. We made sure she understood we didn't expect her to clean up OUR mess. But come on. Even when I was babysitting at 10 years old I figured out quick that you clean up your OWN mess when you are in someone else's home. It's just common courtesy, or you don't get any more jobs (and for good reason.) Other issue that makes me feel lied to: she is both afraid of and disgusted by the dog. Yes, the dog is big. Yes, the dog sheds and slobbers. But I made sure I put that in the original ad when I went looking for a nanny (we have a big drooly dog!) I specifically questioned her about it before letting her through to the interview stage - I pressed the issue that we had a st bernard and she assured me she was fine with that. Obviously, she is not fine with that. The dog is suffering, I am stressed out, if I had just known this before hand we could have avoided this whole problem. I'd say 5% of the people who meet Charlotte hate her or are afraid of her, and 95% absolutely adore her. We know this and we are always *very* careful to never assume people are going to like her (and then we revel in it when she gets the praise heaped on her at the park, or the vet, or walking around the neighborhood, or whatever. People are so drawn to her and she really is a beautiful, awesome dog!) If you don't like big dogs, just SAY so, and we won't inflict our dog on you. We do it all the time! Lastly the nanny has no experience with childcare, and it is really showing. She is the oldest child in a large family, and I thought that would count for a lot, but it must be different than actually working with kids. She seems confused by our girls more than anything. She knows how to feed and clothe them, and thats good. But she doesn't really get how to interact with them or play with them. Most of the activities during the day seem to revolve around her infant. Some of which is going to happen as par for the course, understandably - nursing, changing diapers, and so on. I have no problem with that part of it. But if your job was to entertain 2 preschool / kinder aged kids, wouldn't you organize stuff for them to do? As, you know, part of the job? Maybe even the main part of the job? Take them to the park, think up crafts, play games, cook, sing songs, dress up, have picnics, play music, draw pictures, take a nature hike, learn about something new, create, whatever. Just do something. It makes me sad that the kids are so bored during the day. It will be easier next week when Amy and the other kids in the neighborhood are out of school too, and they are easy going kids who can entertain themselves a lot. I am just a little disappointed in the lack of effort being put into this. If your goal is to relax, play with your baby, and surf the internet all day, then that is fine. But if that is the case, you'd be better as a stay-at-home-mom, not getting paid to be a nanny. I'm just sayin'. My hope is that maybe this first week has just had some growing pains. It's always awkward in a new situation. Maybe as we get used to each other, things will get much better. Fingers crossed!

 Moving On....

Memorial Day was fun, Greg came over! We haven't seen him in ages and the girls especially had really missed him. We headed down to Famous Dave's and ate ourselves sick on ribs or rib tips together. I hate that we go so long in between getting together when we're in the same state. He's one of the most important people in the whole world to me and I should really show him more often.

Pet drama: Ohhhhh the drama. Let's see. Around Memorial Day, Amy's largest / oldest hermit crab, Una, passed on to the great seashore in the sky. And started to smell. Amy was sad. We weren't sure the other, smaller one was living either. But she had done a great job keeping them alive and well since Christmas, and the big one was huge and old when we got it, so I think she did alright. Then one day she came upstairs and said she had gone to pick up the smaller crab and 'it's skin came off!" Ewwww. So we looked at the leg that fell off its dessicated little body and figured something hd gone wrong and they were goners. Pete prepared to bury the unfortunate crabs, Amy cried, and a couple days later we headed to the pet store to buy new crabs and fresh substrate for the cage.

At the pet store Amy suddenly says hey, you know, maybe I don't want another crab after all. Maybe I want a frog. Or a lizard. Or a gerbil. Or or or... I said OK as long as it lived in a cage - no more dogs and cats. She wanted something she could handle and interact with. We ended up coming home with a parakeet! It is (if I am getting this right) a 5 month old male sky blue greywing that she named Obi (like ObiWan!) and he is delightfully tame. He isn't thrilled about being handled yet, but he will do it. Amy is fantastic with him and has spent a lot of time hand training him and talking to him. His cage is in the computer room where a) it is warm and b) we can close the door to let him out in the room on her hand without the dog or cat being an issue.

So we get home with his parakeet and walk in the door and say hey Pete, we got a parakeet. And he says hey guess what, the little hermit crab isn't dead, he molted. !!! Sure enough, the little crab Ooni was alive and well and aware enough after a bath. Bright red, with new skin, but had just molted. So now Amy has a hermit crab AND a parakeet. Bringing our grand total of pets in this house to 10, counting the 5 guppies. Good Lord, it's like the Fitzgerald's Wild Kingdom.

California: We leave on Thursday! Amy graduates that day and we leave late that night. I can't wait to see my family, strangely enough. We'll be there until Monday morning. I'll be able to help my mom out with all the things she has been struggling with and hopefully the girls will cheer her up while she's stuck back in her wheelchair.

And I specifically didn't fly United, the bastards.

OK that is plenty for now! I shall be around more often this summer. Hope you are all well!