Travel has become a regular, albeit irregular, part of life, but the more routine it becomes the more difficult.
Eric’s family is generally amazing at stepping in to help with the kiddos while I’m away, but in the last month I had two week-long trips instead of my usual one-nighters. For the first, the grandparents were also away so I had to orchestrate early morning care so Eric could still get to work on time, and the one day there was no space his sister-in-law came over early enough to see all of them off to school. He got to be a single parent while I hopped around from airport to airport, logging flights on three different airlines.
This week everything was organized and should have been seamless, but at the last minute my mother-in-law had a minor emergency. Not enough to keep me home, but enough to throw a wrench in things. So each morning a different family member helped out, and apparently the girls never made it to school one day because one had a fever so they both stayed home. Additionally, the dog had an upset stomach and messy illness which kept folks up at night and cleaning out her crate in the morning.
I’m starting to rethink all this. I love my job and don’t mind the travel when it’s not hard on everyone, but when it’s becoming a burden for everyone else I’m wondering if I’m on the right path.
Not to mention I’m burning through suitcases. My long time travel buddy of 15 years had a blowout in the middle of O’Hare. I didn’t understand what was happening as I saw bits of plastic trailing my wake until it started ka-clunking as we went. I dragged my little bag along in noisy shame until I found a seat in an empty gate and proceeded to tear apart the wheels until it was an even smooth hard plastic left that didn’t draw so much attention.
Then as I was walking to the gate for my multiple night trip with my bigger bag, I noticed the wheels on that bag too are starting to split. I don’t know what I’m doing to these poor suitcases to cause the such distress.
This week I ended up doing a lot of walking and on the brief walk back from the restaurant to the hotel, my wedge sandal started clapping as I walked. I was with a co-worker who was new to the company so tried to play it off without drawing attention to my noisy shoe. I did end up having to stop to look at it, but he kept talking and didn’t really notice. When we were within sight of the hotel the bottom half of the wedge literally fell off. I took a step and stumbled as my shoe didn’t come with me. He noticed my issue and chuckled and tried not to be appalled and asked if he should get me an Uber… We really just had to cross the street so I picked up my heel and gimped across the road. He called me hop-a-long and said goodnight once we were in the doors. At that moment another group of colleagues were passing through, noticed my dilemma but called me to come over to the bar to socialize with our VP of Sales. It was the only opportunity I was going to get to voice some concerns I have, so I gamely waltzed over as unnoticeable as possible, set my heel down, placed the shoe part that was still attached to my foot on top, and casually slid my way over to him. He never noticed. I stood there and chatted for a few minutes, then when he, and everyone else, was distracted I calmly reached down, picked up the heel and sauntered over to the elevators to go hide in my room. One of my coworkers who had seen me when I first got back to the hotel said I played it off so well no one noticed.
It was awful and hilarious all at once.
But yeah, I need a break from traveling for a bit. Maybe once I invest in some new shoes and suitcases I’ll be ready to go again.
Wednesday morning: Lisa and Aria asleep in bed all snuggly.
Eric wakes Lisa up with, “Lisa… You might want to take the baby and leave the room..”
Lisa, all sleepy and unperturbed, “why?…”
Eric, casually, “there’s a bat in here.”
Lisa, now awake, alert, confused, “what!?! …Are you sure? How do you know it’s a bat…?”
There it was, hanging from our black curtains, sound asleep at 7 in the morning as the sun was just beginning its ascent.
As I gathered up my little one and Eric searched for a container we pondered how it had gotten in, how long had it been there, was it even still alive… Eric caught it with minimal effort into a little bug container, and we snapped some pics and marveled at how weird it was that we had a bat in our house.
We took it outside, and I wasn’t brave enough to open the container so Eric let it go and we watched it swoop away. Then Eric went off to work and showed off his pics. We showed lots of people and never thought anything of it – you catch something in your house and take it outside and let it go.. Like the bunny I captured in our garage, or birds found terrified on top of a door looking down at the cat that dragged them in, or the armadillo Kristy and I trapped under the recycling bin in our driveway as kids. It’s what one does. And so that was our exciting event and then it was over and forgotten. I did wash all the curtains on super hot, however.
I kept meaning to share on Facebook but didn’t until Friday.
Saturday: Eric and Lisa kicking butt and getting all kinds of chores done. Aria was strapped to Lisa, and baby hand-offs would occur as needed to maximize efficiency between Eric and Lisa.
Then Lisa checked her phone and saw a notification of a Facebook text message from her aunt Sherry.
Sherry, written in a panicked sort of way, explained that bats in one’s home is not normal, or safe, especially with a baby, and we should check her all over.
To be honest, I thought she was overreacting but started looking online anyway. The first thing I found was how rabies symptoms start off like the flu, and once someone shows symptoms the disease is fatal and all that anyone can do is attempt to make the patient more comfortable and watch as it attacks and destroys their brain.
What!?
OK, so how do you know if you’ve been bitten?
The most common type of bat here is the small brown bat, whose teeth are so small and sharp it may be impossible to tell if you’ve been bitten.
“Eric!! Come here for a second please”
I share with Eric all that I’ve just learned and he quietly goes into the study and sits at his computer. He asks me to call our insurance nurse help hotline to ask what we should do, while he makes his own calls.
The nurse recommends some places to call, like animal control to see if rabies is an issue in our area, our pediatrician, our doctor or the emergency room. Everyone was closed except the ER who gives me the number to poison control. The lady there was awesome, she gave me numbers to the city, county and state health departments and advised I contact our on-call pediatrician instead of waiting until Monday. Then throughout the day she called me back to see if I’d gotten the info and help I needed and if not she made more calls. The health departments were all closed with someone just taking messages.. No help and no info to offer me. Actually, the county health department guy read some stuff but basically said I should just try back on Monday – later Eric tells me he found something issued by that same health department from last month about how rabies cases are on the rise in our area.. but that was much later that we learned that.
I called the on-call nurse for our pediatrician practice and she called a doctor and called me back with, “take the baby to Children’s Hospital ER. They’ll advise what you and your husband should do as well.”
We had been told now by poison control, the pediatrician, and the insurance’s nurse hotline (after calling back to see if they could tell if it would be covered, which they couldn’t) that we should be safe and get vaccinated, and after reading TONS of stuff online about rabies, bats, bat bites, and the exorbitant price of rabies shots, finally decided it was probably a good idea.
I was so hesitant because we didn’t know if we’d even been in contact, had no idea how expensive this would be, how it would affect our little baby, plus you hear about people getting bats in their houses with no issue. But one thing we kept reading was that if you wake up to a bat in your room, it’s much more dangerous. Especially with a little one.
So armed with all of our terrifying knowledge we fed the baby, gathered up her stuff, and headed to Children’s.
Surprisingly we were called out of the waiting room very quickly and, after being all checked in, her vitals checked, lots of questions asked, were put into our own room. Found out later they like to get tiny babies, especially those who haven’t had all their shots yet, out of the public areas. Very thoughtful. Also kept hearing about other families who had found bats and just had everyone vaccinated. After hearing that a few times I started to feel a lot better and less nervous. I also learned that a two-week old had had the shots and was OK. An entire family of five had been through it earlier in the week.
Once it was determined that Aria was going to be getting the vaccine they collected Eric’s and my information and said we could/should get them as well at the same time. Aria did pretty well while we waited. She wanted to be held most of the time, but was very alert, curious, and quiet. She refused to sleep, even after we nursed. We were there for over three hours because they were so busy, and also the vaccines take awhile to prepare.
Finally three nurses appeared with apologetic expressions and explained the shots were by weight. Aria would get two, one was the pre-thing, the other the actual vaccine. I got five.. Eric got seven. The majority was the pre-stuff which was super thick and burned.. They kept apologizing as they gave them, and offered to spread them out over our bodies. I got one in each arm, each butt cheek, and one in my leg. And was squeamish the whole time. Eric was a trooper and did all in his arms..same place he’d had his two allergy shots that morning. Way to make me look like a weenie, Eric…
We let Aria go last. Eric asked if we could wait outside, and we both fled. Then I heard my poor precious little baby scream in pain and confusion and broke down in tears. My poor little baby.. Eric held me until they called us back in. Her eyes were sooo red from tears and tiredness as it was now after ten at night.
A little more waiting as they needed to keep us to make sure no one had a bad reaction, then we finally got to go home. At this point Aria was pretty upset and would only angrily suck on her paci if it was dipped in this magical sweet stuff they gave us to put on pacifiers – apparently sucking helps take their mind off of pain.
So now we just have to go back three more times over the next two weeks for the follow-ups, which will only be the less painful vaccine stuff.
Yay for making new family memories. Pretty sure everything was covered, but even if it isn’t, it’s worth whatever price to know we’ll all live.
I’d kinda like to keep this little cutie, who was such a trooper.
Yesterday was the bombing of the Boston Marathon. I had a friend there who was running for Children’s Hospital. Eric called me at 4:30 and said, “did you hear about the bombing?? Call Jen!” which I immediately did, but it went straight to voice mail At the same time emails were flying around from friends we have in common, so I did manage to hear that she was ok.
On my drive home our bible study group leader called me to see if I’d heard from her, and apparently the girls were praying for her.
Today I managed to get a text from her, and she and her family/friends who came to watch or run are all safe and sound.
Unfortunately that’s not the case with so many others; the count of injured and dead is still going up, and the question keeps being asked, “why would someone do this?” as it was asked in other tragedies of late. It’s scary to think of the world that I’m bringing my baby into, but through it all, we always see good come from every circumstance. There are so many more good people than there are evil ones, the devil hasn’t won yet. God manages to make good things come from each of these devastating events. One really bad 30 seconds will occur, followed by hours, days, weeks and even months of loving, giving, compassionate acts from the community. Which gives me hope. I want my daughter to be one of those who loves, gives, shares, and shows compassion during the bad things that will happen during her life.
So on a happier note, God has been blessing me tremendously, which I have done nothing to deserve. At work things are changing and it has turned out to be very good for me. And I got to come to work this morning to cupcakes, which could never in million years be a bad thing. Even if I had to drink sugar stuff for the gestational diabetes exam this morning… followed by a reward of a Starbucks frappaccino because what goes better with sugar than more sugar? (I earned it because I let someone take my blood on my birthday.. I earned it) So yes, I’ve fed on sugar all morning and I’m sure the baby’s going to remind me of it later. Or maybe I’ll just crash at lunch time.
Plus yesterday I took advantage of my free ice cream cone from Marble Slab on my way home, and the guy was super nice and said, “21 again?” to which I replied, “every year!” Strawberry ice cream in a waffle cone.. mmmm. (yup, livin’ on sugar.. won’t my OBGyn be proud!)
And to boot it’s a beautiful day outside and the trees are finally starting to burst into flowers. I love Eric and he loves me, and the baby’s attempts to destroy my insides can’t destroy my mood 🙂 (TMI warning: I try not to make it a habit, and I don’t drink very much when I do drink it, but a little coffee goes a long way in getting your functions moving better. They make such a fuss over drinking coffee when pregnant, which I avoided like the plague during my first trimester because of the increased risk of miscarriage, but now I hear it’s safe to drink once in a while and I love it because it makes life more pleasant.)
Here’s my happy tasty cupcakes from my co-worker Nancy (she meant one for me, one for the baby and one for Eric… I’m thinking three for me..):
Last spring, around this time, I came home from work and pulled into the garage. I went upstairs through the basement and did my normal evening stuff.
For some reason, which I cannot now remember, I later had to go back into the garage.. probably to get something from my car.
As I opened the door from the basement into the garage something furry scurried past my feet and ran behind a ladder propped alongside the wall to my right. I of course, the brave being that I am, immediately decided to inspect.. by screaming, “ERIC!! There’s something FURRY in the garage!!!”
He came flying down the stairs to see what it was, barefoot, because he actually is brave.. or dumb.. And I pointed to the ladder and said, “it went that way!”
He tip-toed over and squatted down and was quiet for a second. Then he said softly, “it’s a baby bunny.” To which I responded in a very high pitched squeal, “a baby bunny!!! I want to see!!!”
He decided I was safe so went back upstairs to whatever he was doing, and I spent the remainder of the evening chasing the bunny around the garage trying to catch it. Every time I had him cornered I would stick out my hand to pick him up, then decide that he would bite me, so I would flinch at the last second and he would scurry off to another safe haven.
I knew he was hungry because part of my luring techniques were to toss him carrots and celery, and while I often couldn’t see him, I could hear nom nom nom.
Finally I got him cornered inside of something, so I blocked the only way out, ran and found a tall container, and then put that so that he would either have to go into that or stay inside.
With the help of some nummies, he hopped into my container, and then I, the proud new owner of a wild baby rabbit, ran upstairs to show Eric. He was soooooooooooo cute. Once he was safely in the container I was more brave and reached in to pet him, which he let me do because he didn’t have much choice (poor thing). And then I decided he needed to be moved to a larger container, so I prepared a large cardboard box, which utterly dwarfed him.
(Look at those widdle ears!! So fuzzy and snuggly)
He had water, carrots, celery and all the room he would ever need. But not really. Eric eventually convinced me that he really needed to be with his mama bunny and that the cats would probably not take too kindly to him.
So I took him into the back yard and said a very long and drawn out farewell. I let him out of his box and he didn’t go very far… it took him nearly ten minutes to gradually hop away under the nearby bushes. I was very sad, because he was the mostest cutest thing everest.
I tell this story because when I was looking for pictures of carrots for the baby’s current fruit/veg size this one showed up and it brought back fond memories of my little cutie pie pet for an evening. I believe I’ve seen him in the backyard a few times since then.. though we have a lot of bunnies so I can’t be too sure if it’s him or one of his multitudes of brothers and sisters and cousins. Pretty soon you’ll read about me cursing them all for eating all my garden before I can harvest anything, but my one little bunny will always be forgiven.
Little Z's 