This week has been so ridiculous, it is hard to be annoyed by all the annoying things that keep happening. If it were a sitcom, it would seem unbelievable. The rundown:
- Over the weekend, Mr. A was shaving and when he pulled out the sink plug, all the water fell on the floor. The pipe had come unattached.
-This gave me the motivation to call the plumber. I also asked them to fix the sink they installed a few weeks ago that had a problem too (which had required two visits and three sinks before it was finally installed).
-On Monday, they didn’t show up when they said they would. I called them 3 hours later and they said they would come the next day. On Tuesday, the plumber came and fixed one sink then said they couldn’t ever fix the noise the other one was making. Uh, no. Fix it, I said. Miraculously, there was a part that could fix it. They went to get the part and then didn’t come back. I finally called three hours later and they said they would come the next day, first thing in the morning. Wednesday, by 11:00, they still were there so I called and yelled at the owner. That afternoon they came and installed the part. 20 minutes after they left, I found a leak. This morning I called an the owner came and fixed the Emmer Effer himself.
-Each time the plumber came (but not the owner) they tracked mud all through my house so I had to mop. The owner wore booties and I told him he should make his other guys do it too. Possibly that plumber is going to be fired for all the yelling I did about him. To fix two sinks, it took four days and three visits. Seriously, I am over the plumbers.
-We also had an ongoing water problem in the basement. The downspout guys (love them!) discovered the downspout was completely clogged which probably explained the waterfall off that side of our house every time it rained. Finally, the is much much less water in the basement. Hooray! Now, with a little grading, it might actually be dry down there.
-Yesterday, L fell asleep after school and woke up with a 103.5 degree fever. Then she puked on me. Today she said her throat hurt, so I took her to get a strep swab. The tech swabbed another kid right in front of L, which freaked her out. She absolutely refused to let tech near her. I ended up having to swab her myself. Luckily, all that effort was worth it, because she has strep.
-This morning in the shower, I saw a spider big enough to be visible without my glasses. It was walking all over the place and it really freaked me out. Apparently, I was so bothered by it, I forgot to wash my hair. All day today, I look like I rubbed Crisco in my hair.
-Last but not least, I decided on a whim to paint my kitchen. I have had the color picked out for several months. I painted the whole kitchen this afternoon, but as soon as it started to get dark, it was obvious the color was not going to work. It was a light bluish gray, but looked dark and purplish as the sun went down. Apparently, I didn’t learn anything from the Living Room Blue-Gray Paint Debacle of 2010. Tomorrow, I go to buy more paint and try again.
I am ready for this week to be over.
I have been scouring the internet to try to figure out what kind of house we can build that will a) fit on our very tiny lot and b) work within the guidelines of the architectural review guidelines of our historic downtown. In the process, I discovered the house I was envisioning simply won’t fit.
It is tricky, because I like modern houses. Unfortunately, the lot we own is on a street where a modern house stick out like a sore thumb. Most of the houses on our street were built around 1920. There are many bungalows as well as a few other kinds of houses jumbled in. Many of these houses have Arts & Crafts details or are straight up Craftsman style. The house we live in now is a Colonial Revival with Craftsman accents.
I was envisioning a bungalow with a modern floorplan, but because our lot is both narrow and short, as well as constricted by buildings on the adjoining properties, there is no way to make it work if we want a two car garage (which we do!). I was becoming very disheartened as I searched and searched different house plans.
Then, I stumbled upon this plan. Not only do I love the exterior, it has an L shape that would work very well to solve a number of problems with our lot. I would shuffle around the interior floorplan, but I love the outside so much, I wouldn’t change much at all. I also love that the back yard is a courtyard rather than grass.
Best of all, as long as we don’t try to include that arch by the sidewalk, I don’t think there is a single thing the architectural review people can find fault with.
I love this house so much I want to make out with it. Mr. A likes it a lot too. If only we could afford to start building it right now! Instead, I am going to likely spend the next couple years obsessively drawing models of it on graph paper and furnishing it in my imagination.
I spent my afternoon rocking catatonically in the corner after barely surviving L’s preschool field trip to a farm. I was matched up with a group of two other moms and together we were in charge of eight five year-olds. Can you say BIRTH CONTROL?
Normally, a farmyard visit would be uneventful. I have taken my girls to farms millions of times, but never have I feared they wouldn’t survive to return home that night. Not so with the preschool field trip. In this trip, survival for the children was questionable. In addition to providing thousands of cowpies hidden into, around and inside smushy mudpuddles for children to stomp in, the organic farm also provided Death’s own playground.
I started to get nervous when we discovered the electric fences that ran all over the farm were still on. You could hear them snapping and popping. Trying to shepherd eight hyped up preschoolers down a 15 foot wide path with electric fences on both sides is not something I ever want to experience again. The old guy who was showing us around helpfully noted that “Electric fences have a steep learning curve. You only touch it once, then you learn you don’t want to touch it again.” Thanks old dude, but I don’t think these kids parents signed an electrocution waiver.
We managed to avoid losing life and limb on the fences long enough to eat lunch. I don’t know what kind of lunches those parents packed, but I am guessing they all included sugar. Or caffeine. Or Meth. Because after lunch, the eight kids were bouncing off the walls, just in time to take them up to the hay loft.
This particular hay loft had very, very steep steps. And a rather rickety board for a handrail, which none of the kids wanted to use. They wanted to hang on my body so I could drag them up the stairs, except they were too hyper to stop jumping while I was dragging them. It was precarious, to say the least.
When we got to the top of the stairs, we discovered the “railing” along the edge of the loft was a small board. The board right around preschooler head level–No vertical boards below it –as in providing no protection to the children who were climbing all over the hay bails and randomly bolting towards the edge/trying to chase each other/ jumping around wildly/ thrashing around yelling complaints and basically acting like maniacs who wanted to plunge to their death in the goat stalls below. The other moms and I had to form a human shield to keep them away from the edge. Our guide said “Wow, I usually let the kids go near the edge and look down at the goats, but these kids seem a little too wild to try that.” You think, old dude??
After we managed to get them down the stairs of doom, we went back past all the electric fences (narrowly avoiding death yet again) to the pond. You know what preschoolers think when they see a pond? They think it is a giant puddle to jump in. You know what is a bad idea? 8 maniacal preschoolers running and jumping around a large, slippery, muddy/opaque body of water. Exactly how far into the water can you go without technically being “in” the water, there were many strategies to learn the answer to that question. Not all strategies were unsuccessful.
Then the old dude upped the ante by inviting the kids onto a slippery floating dock with no railings…but not until he showed them how it lurches if you jump on it. Of course that is what they did, narrowly avoiding slipping in their muddy/cowpie covered boots into a watery grave by hanging on my arms and nearly knocking me over repeatedly.
We also managed to survive a walk along a cliff, a near run-in with a patch of poison ivy and a path where the only dandelions to be found were located where? You guessed it, right beside the electric fence.
By the time we got back on the bus, I vowed to never have more children AND to never go to another organic farm with children again.
Both girls are going on different field trips to two different farms tomorrow.
For one girl, we have been given very strict instructions to bring zero garbage packed lunches. No plastic bags, no paper bags, nada. Nothing but reusable containers that will be packed up to come home with us.
For the other girl, we have strict instructions to only bring lunch in disposable wrappings. No lunch box, no tupperware, no water bottles. Nothing will be sent home.
Crazy, no?
It is funny, I spent the last two weeks feeling angsty whenever I thought of L’s family(mostly thinking about their sadness) . And I won’t deny I was avoiding direct contact by not logging on to QQ. This morning, I bit the bullet and logged on.
I was surprised that L’s mama messaged me right away. I haven’t QQed with her before. She wanted to know about America. She asked about L. Then she wrote something that made me catch my breath:
“Thank you for adopting L.” she wrote. “I love her very much. If you didn’t adopt L, I would never know what happened her.”
I answered with the truth, “I am a mother too. I knew you must be worried. So I tried to find you.”
Then I had the chance to tell her what has been worrying me: “I worry that knowing us will make you sad. We are far away.”
She replied, “Before I was sad. Now, I am more calm because I know L is ok.”
I went on: ”It will be difficult for us to communicate. I will try my best. It is good for L to know her family in China. When she is an adult she will be happy.”
L’s mama said, “I worry that L will be sad.”
I said, “Sometimes she will be sad. It is still better if she knows you.”
I believe that, I really do. It is nice to share, even in a small way, the mothering of L and the burden of her future happiness with her other mother.
All it takes is one choppy google translated conversation and I feel much better.
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