Happenings

In our Exciting Event of the Week, Jack crushed his fingers in the trunk of the car.  We were heading to baseball practice, him and me and Craig (Professor has been out of town for ten days in a row, but he comes back soon – and he took Liam with him for the latter six days of that, leaving me to handle only two kids which made it easier)(fully supportive of the trips, just . . . phooooo, it’s a lot of lonely nights watching Gilmore Girls solo on the couch).  He was putting his baseball bag in the back, which he normally does, but somehow he closed his three fingers in the thing before he got it fully open.  He was screaming bloody murder, and I could not get the gate to open, and he could not pull them out.  It was a stressful 60 seconds, but we finally managed to pry it open and get them out, and my frantic inspection revealed that not much damage had been done.  I think his screams had more to do with fear than pain.  Meanwhile, the baby, placed into his carseat but left un-strapped when I left him to dash toward Jack, was having a great old time climbing unrestrained all over the car and very nearly toppled headfirst out the open passenger door onto the cement.  It was definitely one of my less-favorite happenings lately.

I think he’s fine – the gap between gate and bumper is pretty big, and his fingers are pretty little, so I don’t think he’ll lose the nails.  But we obviously skipped practice and instead sat at home and watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 for the eleventy billionth time, while he put a back of frozen vegetables on his fingers and mournfully reported on the status of the injury from time to time, before he eventually forgot the whole thing in the thrall of dragon lore.

This past weekend was a nice one, weather-wise and otherwise.   Jack and I spent some time Saturday watching movies together on the couch, reading Harry Potter, and going to Mellow Mushroom to split a very small pizza and play tic tac toe on the placemats.  After I had a video chat with my family on Saturday afternoon, we went to the park, and he caught a lizard, while Craig toddled importantly, filling his tiny toddler shoes with mulch.  He really digs the slide.  Sunday I had a speaking role in our Palm Sunday services, so I had to go to both – the boys spent three hours in the nursery.  We napped in the afternoon – I had had the actor’s nightmare all night the night prior, and after no sleep and my three hours of talking, I was too tired to even make lunch.  Sunday after our naps, we went to the grocery store, and then I cooked a lot of stuff – Jack requested chicken pot pie, so I made one of those, and also a quiche, and that broccoli cheese quinoa which was really quite amazingly good.  I know I’m quinoa-crazy these days, forgive me.

Monday morning we missed the bus.  At about the time we have to leave, Jack came up to me, put his tiny paw in mine, and said in a very small voice “Mom, can we cuddle just a little bit?”  There was no saying “no” to that, so I pulled him close, and our three minutes of cuddling (Craig, too) cost us a bus trip.  I had to wait around 40 minutes for car-line, but it was worth it.  With the Prof out of town, I also had to pick up Jack in car-line after school, at 3:00, and I had a conference call scheduled for 2:30, so I took it on my cell phone while driving, then took him home quickly so I could do some this-must-be-done-instantly work that arose out of that conf call.  Then we were getting ready to go back across the bay to get Craig from daycare, before returning to our side of the bay for a late night baseball game, and I get a call from a friend that she can’t get to her kids in time due to traffic and can I possibly pick them up?  Even as I stressed about getting them picked up and getting to Craig on time, I secretly thrilled at being on someone’s emergency contact list.  🙂  I picked up her girls and took them to her neighbor, then raced over to get Craig, getting him 2 minutes before closing – he was the last kid there.  I explained why we were so late – that I was helping a friend – and the daycare ladies were like “yeah ok whatever, we just want to clock out and go home.”

We got stuck in the traffic jam ourselves coming back, so I bought a burger at a window (between baseball and my crazy work requirements, I am getting so super fat), fed Craig little bits of chicken nuggets by reaching them back to him from the front seat, and we inched our way down the road and through the tunnel to get back to our side of the water.  What normally takes fifteen minutes took forty, and we were late to baseball, but everyone was fed and together, so I called it a win.  I dropped Jack off, and when Craig started to lose it due to the late hour, I asked a friend if I could leave and she would bring Jack home.  SECOND time in one day involving moms-helping-moms, which made me feel a little more optimistic about living in this tough-to-welcome-new-people town.

Craigsy went to bed, Jack came home thrilled with his game, and that takes us to today, which was going quite well until the whole fingers in the trunk incident.  I, as usual, have more work to do after I finish this, so I’ll say good-night.  It is 9:15 pm.  Last day of March.  April’s coming – Jack will be SEVEN in twenty-five days.  Hold me.