A Week Better Forgotten Than Memorialized

If I could have gone to sleep last Thursday night and erased (most) of this past week, I would.  It was that kind of week.  One I really hope not to repeat again.  And the only way I can effectively communicate everything that happened this week without breaking down is in list format.  If I mention something that you want more information about, please ask in the comments.  Otherwise this is just going down in history where – hopefully – it will remain.

• Bug developed a bacterial eye infection last Friday night, which necessitated an ER trip but which we circumvented by going to see the Battalion Surgeon for Tony’s unit at 8pm instead.  Saved us probably two hours, and his eye’s doing much better.
• Tony had taken my car into a garage last Saturday for an oil change and to have the tires rotated and balanced, and on Monday they called to tell us those repairs had been done but we needed new CV boots(?).  Normally we might have let it slide but we know we’ll be selling the car this summer and it will need its bi-annual inspection before that happens.  So we agreed to have that done, but it wasn’t ready at the end of the day and we didn’t have any time Tuesday or Wednesday to pick it up.  Which meant that we had just one car between the two of us until Thursday evening.
• Tuesday went by much more smoothly than I expected.  Tony and I had worked together the night before to make The Critters’ lunches for the next day; I set up my rice cooker to have porridge ready before we left the house; Bear had laid out her clothes to put on when she woke up.  The morning went perfectly, the day went well for Tony and me, and when we returned home Tony brought Bear to her karate lesson while I picked up Bug from next-door (with a “he’s the easiest two-year-old I’ve ever met” report coming from my friend with four kids of her own), made dinner and got ready for Wednesday.

  It was going so smoothly I even composed a post in my head to publish that night.  And then after baths we were playing the airplane game where we propped The Critters up on our feet and “flew” them through the air.  It was boys versus girls at first, then I proposed that we switch.  Tony’s legs apparently aren’t as strong as mine, given that he lifted our 40 lb. Bear into the air and promptly dropped her backwards.  Onto her head.  On our concrete floors.  Two days before (the second of two) school picture day(s).That night all four of us slept in our bed.  And as of today (Saturday) Bear has a lovely, large green bump smack dab in the middle of her forehead.  Thank goodness for bangs.

• Wednesday was the busiest day of my life, I swear.  I woke up at 6am, showered, dressed and makeup-ed, got The Critters to my friend, Beth’s, house at 7:10 and got myself to our Army post for the conference I was participating in by 7:35.  Sat in our classroom until lunch break at 11:15 when I traveled 1/4 mile to the on-post chapel to sit in on the tail end of Beth’s baby shower (for her third child, a son after having two girls who are our Critters’ best friends).  Got to see my baby for about 20 minutes before getting him buckled into Beth’s car and headed back to the conference until 3:40, when I left early to hurriedly get changed into my Dragon Boat gear and raced to the marina for practice from 4 to 5pm.The moment we finished our final drill at 5pm I slid into the water (which was way over our heads this day), swam to shore and dried off minimally in order to drive home.  Arrived home at 5:15; stripped and put wet clothes in the washing machine, showered in 2 minutes (including re-washing my hair), got dried off and dressed and called Beth to inquire about Tony and the Critters who were all supposed to be home by this point.  Tony hadn’t picked them up yet (he rode his bike to/from the conference because we only had the one car) so I applied makeup and did my hair for the second time this day, rushed up the hill to pick up The Critters – during which time Tony returned home and showered – and arrived back at the house just in time to meet our babysitter for the evening at 6:45. (Did you get that?  I drove from the marina to home, showered, dressed, re-did my beautifying stuff, picked up kids AND made it to the other side of base in ONE HOUR.  It’s like a world record or something.)  Tony and I rushed to the other end of base to get in a van which shuttled us to dinner with the full bird colonel who basically runs the operations of all Army personnel in Japan (mainland and Okinawa) and who also happens to be an acquaintance of ours from 8 years ago.  Had a nice dinner catching up with him and his wife before returning home at 9:30pm.
• Then Bear woke up at 2am screaming about ear pain.  My alarm went off at 5:45am and Tony and I had a quick tete-a-teteregarding who would stay home with her on this day to bring her to the pediatrician.  Since he was obligated to be there for work purposes I had to miss the final day of the conference, which I was really bummed about because I wanted to see how the presentations went.  I brought Bear to the doctor at 9am, confirmed that she does have an E.I. and also maybe asthma.  *sigh*  Had the pediatrician check my ear, which was feeling blocked, but she couldn’t see my ear drum because of the “wax”.  Went home, cleaned my ear slightly, then had to call Tony to come home from his meeting because I was in horrible pain.  He brought me in to see the Battalion physician’s assistant because the family clinic where I’m normally seen didn’t have any appointments until Monday.  P.A. took one look at my ear and said, “I wouldn’t have known that was an ear drum if I didn’t know better.  It looks like a mushroom cap, and there’s tons of fluid behind it.  Don’t be surprised if it ruptures later.”Which it did later that night.

  He had asked me to describe my pain level, and I said, “Well, I told Tony it was worse than childbirth, but then again my labors were easy.”  The P.A. said, “I think I’ll give you a strong numbing solution, then.”  Along with my lack of an ear drum I also have a lack of sense of taste and a lack of appetite, which also has led to a lack of energy.  Even if Bear’s temperature Friday afternoon hadn’t been up over 102 I still wouldn’t have been able to make Dragon Boat practice, but I’m bummed because I’d been going for perfect attendance and need to keep up.

• Tony took Friday morning off from work “to take care of his family”.  Which meant that he poured bowls of cereal for The Critters for breakfast, administered my two sets of ear drops, and played chess on his computer while laughing about the fact that Bug was playing with the bubbles in my supposed-to-be-relaxing (and private) bath, and made them PB&Js for lunch.  I, on the other hand, washed and dried the dishes from the day before, stripped The Critters’ beds of all linens and stuffed toys, washed and de-cat-hair-ified all said linens and toys, and made a big pot of beef stew and blueberry muffins for dinner, and then did all of those dishes while he bathed our babies.  Did I mention that our power also went out three minutes into my bath at 10:30am and didn’t turn back on until after 3pm?  Which means that while he was at work my electronic babysitter wasn’t available and I actually had to entertain my children.  With no eardrum.  (Sorry – I don’t like cheese but I will take some chocolate with my whine.  Dark, preferably.  I’ve heard it’s good for the heart…)
• This morning there was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake 50 miles out to sea from us.  Tony woke me up at 5:30am and I couldn’t figure out why he was shaking our bed, until I realized what was happening.  We went into The Critters’ room, where Bear had woken up but Bug slept through it (which is a total role-reversal for them; she normally sleeps like a log and he’s the light sleeper).  Once Tony knew that his children were okay he immediately went to stand next to his plasma TV in case of an aftershock.  There was no damage at all to our house or yard, and as far as we know no damage to the island.  But then again we’re inland; there may have been some big waves or damage closer to the eastern shore that we’re not yet aware of.There have been six or seven earthquakes that others on the island have reported feeling since we arrived 19 months ago, but Tony and I have slept through all of them.  This was our first, and even though it wasn’t scary or even panic-worthy I’ll be happy if that’s the last one I experience.
• The best thing that happened this week was the email sitting in Tony’s in-box when he went into work yesterday.  Long story short, this past December we were told we’d been slated to go to Fort Lewis in Washington State.  In mid-January we were told that there was a priority-fill assignment open at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, which would be close(r) to Tony’s family but would mean that after his initial schooling in Colorado for ten weeks he’d only be with us there for about two months before departing for a year-long deployment.  Not ideal, given that this particular post was last on our list for various reasons, the public school systems being one of them.  So we were batting around several different scenarios in case this ended up happening, but when we hadn’t heard anything for about a month Tony emailed the guy to figure out what was going on.He returned the email this past week with the news that he had found someone else willing to take the Fort Bragg assignment(!), and that there’s a possibility that an assignment has potentially opened up in Colorado(!!).  At the installation five minutes from our house, which we were planning to sell because we’re not so keen on the idea on continuing to pay (significantly) more on our mortgage than we take in for rent.  Our house that we already know our furniture fits into, and who our neighbors are, and all of its quirks and details.  In the city that we fell head over heels with and to which we desperately want to return.

  So we’re not getting our hopes up about returning there but… well, if you believe that I’ll tell you another one.  We do have high hopes that we’ll be able to return here and right now there’s about a 50/50 chance that this will end up happening.  We still very well could relocate to the Pacific Northwest, however, and that would be okay too.

• So the news in that last bullet didn’t quite negate all the AHHHH! of the previous week, but it is at least a bright beacon in what was otherwise not such a great week for our family.  Somehow Tony escaped from being as much of a head case as the rest of us, and even got a tee time at the brand new golf course that opened today.  PLUS he basically got three and a half days off from work.  Which, I guess, isn’t that great since now he has three and a half days’ worth of work waiting for him on Monday.  I guess you can feel sorry for him, too.  But not too much.

PS – Those of you who know me probably know that I normally check my email ten or twenty five or six times a day. This week I turned on my computer for about an hour on Tuesday afternoon, and not again until this morning.  That’s three whole days.  My inbox needed some pruning and my blog reader was overflowing.  So if I normally comment on your blog and haven’t this week, please use this post as my excuse and apology.