West Coast Serendipity

So far, while the benefits of The Boy's new job have been numerous, the benefits of his traveling for said job have not.  Mostly, for the three of us left at home, it has made things much harder. While I have the odd moment of mothering greatness, I hear myself getting impatient with the girls more often than I'm comfortable with. I am tired of working. I am tired of turning down jobs at work while bringing up my personal life again. I am tired of drawing attention to myself.  And, really, I'm just tired. I don't sleep well when he's away, staying up way too late (like I am now) for no good reason.

I mention this because this month is particularly bad.  This week and next, six days away, one night home, seven more days away.  Now, of course I know there are plenty of people who have it much harder than this.  I never intend to compare my life to that of actual single mothers or military families-- I know that's a whole other thing.  But this is new for me, and it's not what I'd prefer.  And even though it's not the hardest thing, it is still hard.

The second leg of three in this trip is four days in Anaheim at a conference where both my parents and my sister will also be.  We wondered if we could make it work for the girls and me to tag along. We could pay for half of the airfare with points, and then would really only need incidentals for the girls and me, the things that were not expressly for The Boy.  It was a small amount considering it was a cross-country trip, but we are in the midst of planning our anniversary trip and dealing with other financial challenges.

As I drove on the day the trip would need to be booked, I prayed a strange prayer. "Lord, if we're meant to go, please just let me find the money."  I don't really know what I meant, but I know I didn't mean "let me find it in our budget."  I was not comfortable with the idea of spending the money.  I never pray like this, but I meant something along the lines of winning a contest or a corrected bank error-- something I didn't have the creativity to imagine.  I really didn't think we were going to go.

Not 20 minutes later, visiting with a dear family friend, I mentioned we were debating the trip.  "Why wouldn't you go?" she asked.

"We're just not sure it's the best way to spend the money," I said casually.  I don't like talking about money, and this friend and I talk about many things, but that's not one of them.  As I gathered our things to go, she told me she wanted me to go to California.

"How much does the ticket cost?" she asked.

"About $300," I said, "so we'll see."

"I want you to go," she repeated, and she handed me $300 in cash.  She would not let me refuse, though I tried, dumbfounded, several times.

I called The Boy and told him to book the trip.  We had been toying with the idea of taking Mirabella to see Disney Princesses on Ice, so when we asked if she wanted to see the princesses, she thought that's what we meant.  "No, Mira," I said, "do you want to see them at their house?"  We showed her videos on Disneyland's website.

"Ohmygoodness...." she said lowly-- she could not believe such a place existed.  So we are excited to go, if for no other reason, to be somewhere we've never been and to be sleeping in the same place.  I am far less excited about a six-hour flight with a squirmy and screechy one-year-old who is inconveniently getting her canines. I'm thinking of wearing a shirt that reads "I'm sorry."

We are grateful for unexpected time together. I feel so loved-- because of our friend's generosity, for sure-- but also because God heard my ridiculous prayer and chose to bless us in this way. I'm grateful for the trip and the accompanying peace I have about it.  Now I just hope some of that peace rubs off on Emerie.

Pre-School Mutiny

Everyone's favorite Irishman, our wonderful neighbor, knocked on the door at 8:30 last night. "I'm here to take your bins out," he said, referring to the recycling. The dog could not contain his excitement, and and my wet-haired kids were decidedly not in bed. We had just finished reading Eloise, quite possibly the least appropriate children's book ever. I thanked him profusely, since taking three large bins of recycling, damp and heavy from melted snow, over the fence and down our dark, narrow alley was more than I felt capable of handling.

"Don't be daft, Christina," he said, "This is a good time to be sexist; this is a man's job."

It was nearly two hours later before the giggling then crying coming from the girls' room finally ceased. After 11:00, while I lay in bed reading my beloved Nook for a precious few minutes, I heard crashing aluminum cans. I nosed through my blinds to see a sweatsuit clad 20-something man up to his waist in my recycle bin. His comrade shouted from the corner, trash bag in hand. And we don't even live in a deposit state.

This morning around 6, as I headed to take a shower, Mirabella screamed.

"MOM-MY!" I raced up the stairs to see if I could address her concern before she woke her sister. No such luck.

"My nose is yucky," she whined. I handed her a tissue and scooped up Emerie, her eyes only half open, already signing for milk.

Welcome to our house, halfway through The Boy's inaugural trip of the new year. He's in frigid Milwaukee and snowy Chicago. It's going to be 1 there tonight. I mean, really.

So after calming Mirabella down and feeding Emerie a bottle, I placed Emerie and some toys in the only safe place in the house for a new walker-- the crib-- so I could finally take my shower. After that I negotiated each step of the dressing process with Mirabella, shamed the dog for eating a Pull Up, finished getting ready for work, listened to a story Mirabella told about Dora and "the doll that has this hair" (said as she pulled up a lock of her own hair), shamed the dog for eating half my English muffin, made another English muffin and loaded everybody in the car. A good 20 minutes later than I should have. I laughed at the glowing gas light. Mirabella wanted to know what was so funny.

Feeling over dramatic and sorry for myself on the bumpy access road to get to the tunnel, I tried to snap out of it and find my perspective. To finish a sentence that started with "at least." As I merged into the EZ Pass lane, a compact car cut me off. The utility van in front of him, realizing he did not have an EZ Pass, abruptly threw his car into reverse, slamming into him. A bad fender bender, but not for us.

A few minutes after I got to work, our daycare provider called to tell me, when she went to unbuckle Emerie from her car seat, she realized she was never buckled in the first place. In my haste, I bundled, but didn't buckle. And she was fine.

Ah, there it is.

Flying Solo

"Mommy, tell me de story of when Emerie was bor-ren," Mirabella says again. Bed time, with Daddy away, is a little different. I sit and feed Emerie in the red chair while Mirabella sits up in her bed. I tell her stories, but these are her favorites.

"So we waited for the bus, but it didn't come, and we had to walk the whole way," I tell her.

"You forgot, Mommy!" Mirabella interrupts me. "De car was COVERED in snow and we had to wait while Daddy cleaned it off." Maybe we need to find new stories.

The Boy has taken a new position-- one we prayed for and are excited about-- and it has brought with it serious changes. In the month of November, we have spent six nights at home together. We've been together, for another week or so, but it was in Connecticut and the Poconos visiting family. He has ventured all over Virginia, to Chicago twice and to Charlotte and I've been trying to manage our normal life alone. I have cut back my hours at work by a day, and am often able to work one day per week from home. I know we will figure it out, but we haven't yet.

There are certainly good things. I feel like I am spending more time with my girls, and though many days are tough, being able to work at home on occasion is fantastic. I have been incredibly blessed with friends in the neighborhood who watch my children and park my car in the rain and offer to cook me dinner even though they have a newborn (seriously-- want to move into my neighborhood?!). But I cannot figure out how to leave the house less than two hours after I get up. I can't manage to get home before it's dark, which matters when you don't have off-street parking and three to five bags to go with the two kids. Oh yeah, and this whole marriage from a distance thing is taking some getting used to.

During the first trip to Chicago, The Boy called to tell me he was headed to the Bulls game-- to sit in the private box. I was painting Emerie's face with sweet potatoes. I could not relate. Tonight, while The Boy was sitting in Chicago's Ritz and we were driving past the airport on the way home, we told him about the first 6 steps Emerie took today, and how Mirabella peed on the potty and is going to have a gymnastics birthday party in a couple weeks. We talk to him every night and count the days. We divide and conquer well, but the coming back together is harder than we thought. We know it won't always be just like this.

"Mommy, I want to hear de story about when God was bor-ren," Mirabella said in the car the other day. I think I need backup.