Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

Well, huh. Here we are. On the other side.

Lisa the Loud came home from the kitty hospital yesterday as a dope fiend. I guess she meows non-stop and displays some neurotic behavior when not on painkillers. They hope it's temporary until the pain recedes as she heals. I sure hope so. I don't need to send he to kitty rehab. Maybe she'll bump into Lindsey Lohan's puppy there though. They'd be fast friends.

OK, we went away for a week's vacation. And it was lovely. Simply lovely. We did Julia's I-Spy list. The whole family enjoyed it. We even wrote down unusual things we saw that weren't on the list (Car on Fire, Parasailers).

We went to the Ozarks in Missouri. We took the boat to restaurants for dinner. We swam, we went to the pool, played tennis, hiked the hills pushing 100-pounds of child(ren)+stroller, played dime skee-ball, went to a children's museum with a Zip Line, rode bumper cars and go-karts. It was fun in a way that taking your kids on vacation where you went as a child is. Things, of course, have changed some since I was a kid and I told everyone all about how it was when I was young.

We went with my father, the kids' grandfather. I used to go there with my grandparents when I was a kid (though we went with my mother's side of the family back then). It was relaxing, which is odd considering it was still a vacation with our kids. In 3 weeks, we are going away again with my in-laws.

I am a totally logical, scientific person whose life is based on reason and fact. So, I haven't mentioned my nanny search much lately for fear of jinxing myself.

When I went back to work when Chuckles was 2.5 (August 2007), he went to the same day care he started at when he was 11 weeks old. From August 2007-May 2010, Chuckles had the same teacher for all but 10 weeks. Mrs. Marie. Other teachers used to tell me about how well Mrs. Marie and Chuckles got along. In fact, when I was on maternity leave, Mrs. Marie would save certain activities for the entire class until a day when Chuckles would be at school because she knew he would find the activities especially amusing. She would save certain stories with subtle humor for Chuckles days. If he was out sick, she always inquired after him. One time, Chuckles actually turned to me and called me Mrs. Marie. I found it funny (I'm sure there are some moms out there who would not find it amusing, btu I took it to mean he had a bond and loving relationship with her). When Mrs. Marie found out that I was pulling the kids from day care (and interviewing teenagers to be our new nanny), she started crying. And from there, we hired her away from the day care. She had been there 18 years. She started with us yesterday morning.

We had a kid in that day care for almost 5 years. During that time, our entire extended family had come to know Mrs. Marie. And it turns out her mother was my mother-in-law's Avon Lady back when that was the thing. Her brother went to HS with my sister-in-law. These things came out over time, since she is married and had a different last name. Mrs. Marie's sister is going to be our back-up, fill-in nanny for when Mrs. Marie is on vacation or sick (unless they want to go on vacation together, then I'll just take a vacay day). We know Mrs. Marie's sister too since she used to work at our day care as well and also went to HS with my husband.

I told a few men at work with whom I was in a meeting, that I am living their reality now: I have a SAH wife. I am so happy. Relieved. It's like one giant pool of relief the last two weeks after the previous 3 weeks or month of total chaos. I trust Mrs. Marie. Priceless.

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