Leaving on a Jet Plane

Tomorrow morning we leave on our first big trip. Tonight I want to pretend it isn't happening...even as I pack. I have wanted to back out every day for the past month but can't quite make myself do it. Fear is something I have fought my whole life and always am fragile in the face of it. I don't want my anxiety to keep me from living a full life or experiencing amazing adventures but I still find it hard to fight the urge to just hole up in my house....with some armoured windows and a strong security system.

Alannis Morissette's "Ironic" keeps playing on repeat in my head. How reassuring. If you think of it and your a praying person please pray for me and my family in the next two weeks while we are away. Pray for peace, protection, and that we will make good memories and come home refreshed and ready for the busy fall we will likely be facing.

Hopefully we will have a wonderful time...I may even write while we're there. If not, I will write when we return. Provided we return. Please God let us return.

Anyway, Love you all, talk to you in two weeks!

sanity check from a one year old

Walking down the same grocery aisle for the tenth time in the past ten minutes in search of another important item I forgot on my previous pass through the produce section I am definitely noticing the effects of a rather exhausting week. "Why oh why didn't I write a list?", I think to myself. I didn't write a list because I was only supposed to be purchasing a small amount of items, surely I could remember the few things I didn't yet have for dinner. Apparently not.

"Where is mommy's head today?" I mutter under my breath as I make yet ANOTHER trip down the same aisle I was on just seconds ago.

My daughter, stretching her little arm out from the cart seat, pats my head. Reassuringly and with great gusto she announces, "There you are!"

Ah yes. There I am.

Moan

I can't find a more accurate way to sum up the way I feel this morning than the word "moan". Somehow it always seems like just when you get past one hurdle and think you will have a bit of breathing room you run head long into the next. This long weekend was supposed to be a break from the back to back busyness we have been experiencing. Prince Charming has from last Friday 'til Wednesday off giving us what was supposed to be a great four day long weekend unwinding at the cabin. After several months of studying, working on major projects, pouring over University applications, and a number of events, we were ready to relax before being bombarded with how to prepare for our Italy trip in the last week before leaving.

However, as it turned out Prince Charming decided he needed to work late Friday so I spent the evening trying to clean up after a terrifically hyper toddler and helping my younger brother with university applications (since we here at this house have become extremely skilled at this again over the last few months). Then on Saturday instead of heading out to the cabin first thing Prince Charming decided to go to work again, feeling that since we were leaving for Italy soon he wanted to make sure he wouldn't fall far behind. Once we arrived at the cabin my husband took off golfing for the rest of the afternoon and evening, leaving me to take the Little Lady who was lamenting all day for her Daddy since she now understands about Saturdays and is furious when he isn't around as planned. After she was in bed and the husband was back from golf we spent a semi-stressful evening with my family trying to decide on excursions during our cruise.

Then on Sunday the big stress hit. We had just arrived back at the cabin after church and Little Lady had been sleeping sweetly in her car seat with no sign of trouble. When we arrived she awoke looking happy and fine until suddenly she started to cough...but it wasn't a normal cough. She was honking/barking and gasping for breath. By the time I got her into the house she could hardly breath and couldn't swallow. Expecting an allergic reaction because I occasionally suffer from them myself I quickly gave her a shot of Children's Benadryll which, thank goodness, I had on hand. After about half an hour she was back to normal with only slightly swollen blue lips and looking very tired. Within an hour she was back to her happy self and so, after calling Health Links and being told that as long as it didn't happen again we could stay where we were and just take her in to a Dr. in the next few days to try and discover the trigger, we tried to relax and enjoy the rest of the day. Last night she went to sleep normally with still no signs of a relapse until around 10 when the nieghboring cabin began shooting off fireworks. This, by the way, is illegal in the park where our cabins are located AND they were shooting them practically right over our deck...for over an hour. At first I wanted to politely let them know the law and ask them to stop, not just for the sake of our cabin but also for the sake of Little Lady who I REALLY didn't want to wake up. However, my parents who are born and bred mennonites and sadly have very little backbone were too afraid of confrontation to speak to the offenders...or even to let me politely make my point. After an hour of constant explosions...basically right in our ears and not being allowed to do anything about it, I was past slightly irritated and into all out furious. Then a series of especially loud bangs woke my baby...and she began to bark again. Knowing we were an hour away from the nearest hospital Prince Charming and I grabbed her, and whatever of our bags we could snag in two seconds, and took off in our car. After a fitful and very frightening drive which should have been an hour and was only a little over half, we arrived in emergency just before midnight. Thankfully the night nurses on call were unusually nice and the Doctor saw her immediately. Telling us that it was not an allergic reaction or asthma as we had thought but rather Croup. I had heard of croup before but never realized it would look like this. Anyway, we spent quite a bit of time at the hospital while they administered a variety of drugs to my sometimes compliant daughter and when we finally did come home we had to have her sleep on the floor in our room with a humidifier and basically kept our eyes (or at least I did...it was surprising Prince Charming was even awake till that point because he basically sleeps through everything) on her all night. She is now on a five day double course of medication and we have to watch her like a hawk. Thankfully she seems quite happy about the fact that she gets to sleep on the floor in mommy and daddy's room and in fact, despite missing most of her night, didn't even sleep in this morning. She was awake at her regular 7 a.m. asking to play with her play-dough. It helps to have her happy but as I was already feeling over-tired I'm unsure of how I'll navigate the next week while simultaneously trying to tidy, pack and plan for our trip. Speaking of which...I was supposed to go shopping today to pick up new suitcases and it's time to administer another dose of disgusting medicine that my daughter refuses to take...."Moan."

The cat came back...

Anyone remember this? Well...it wasn't "the very next day" but it does seem that the cat could not stay away. Yup, that's right.....the creepy, scary cat that caused me to tell the world my cosmo confession CAME BACK!

Last summer we built a fence in our backyard for the express purpose of keeping cats and other critters out and the kiddo in. Since I have such a fear of flea infested strays and the diseases they carry through their excretion I was terrified at the thought of having my toddler run around in a yard where there was any animals. So far this summer I have felt quite satisfied with the fence and felt it was serving it's purpose quite well. That is until the other day.

It was a quiet evening and I was standing at the kitchen sink scrubbing some supper dishes when I glanced out the window...and had to stifle a scream. There sitting quite smuggly in the middle of my backyard was a cat. It had managed to scale our six foot high fence and somehow felt it could make itself at home on my lawn. And it wasn't just any old cat either. I swear it was the same ugly orange possessed pussy cat that invaded my garage just about a year ago.

My husband eventually chased it out as I muttered threats of murder under my breath. Prince Charming thinks the impostor belongs to the neighbors and therefore it wouldn't be nice to kill the disgusting cat. He warned me to relax before I did something I regret. But I'm still considering buying some cyanide.

On our way to an MBA

One of the reasons, among many, that I haven't been posting in the recent past is because I have been a bit more of a single parent of late. My husband has been studying to take his GMAT...sort of like the LSAT's for law school or MCAT for med school. This exam determines whether or not he is excepted into the prestigous business schools to get his MBA. Well, I still don't have time for a lot of details, but he sat for the exam today...and did exceptionally well. In fact he ranked in the 78th percentile for people across the world who have taken this test! We should find out in a few months which University he will be attending!