I Will Survive?

Hello everyone,

I realized that I feel like I can't send an update unless I'm going to sit down and spend a huge chunk of time writing a complete summary of all the events of our life complete with detailed analysis. (Hence, the growing amounts of time that have passed in between each update.) I was planning to write an update detailing the absurd craziness of our past week, but I have realized that some things are best summarized.

So after Dave's horrible 90 hour work week, he was rewarded with... a 100 hour work week (oh wait, Dave tells me he DID get a hearty thanks from his boss). But unlike the last week, I met the challenge with extraordinary equanimity and calm. It helped that Dave told me up front that I basically was not going to see him until the product shipped on (last) Monday. So I just accepted my fate instead of bemoaning the fact that I could be having fun with my mom in California instead of abandoned on an island of solo nursing, subsistence-meal-making, messy-house-enduring, cranky-kids-whining, early-morning-bus-getting-ready, and preschool-dropping-offing-with-baby-screaming-and-wailing. Thankfully, most of the details of the past week are lost in a foggy haze of fatigue.

Rather than delving into the unnecessary details, I will use two illustrations to summarize our lives for the past two weeks:

1) One night, unexcited at the prospect of being home alone at 10:00 pm yet again, I called my mom to chat. A few minutes into our conversation Dave walked in the door. "Mom! Dave's home! I gotta go," I said as I hung up the phone. Wow, this was great! The chance to actually talk to my husband for a few minutes! And I wasn't even asleep yet! I asked Dave how his day had been and we started to catch up, when his cell phone rang. A tool at work needed to be inspected so he had to go back in to work. Now. So I bid Dave farewell and called my mom back.... "Hi mom, I guess I can talk after all...."

2) My friend Ranell was having a cookware party at her house at 7:00 on Friday. I had planned to bring the kids and let them watch a movie in the basement with her kids. But 5 minutes before I was going to walk out the door, Dave called and said he was coming home. He said it would probably take him 15 minutes to get here, but he would watch the kids while I went to the party. This was great! The kids would actually get to see Dave! They would even be awake! I wouldn't have to take Jackson to the party and nurse him the whole time! By the time Dave ACTUALLY got home and I ACTUALLY got out the door, I got to the party at 7:50. But that's OK. I made it and I was there without the kids. But... as fate would have it, Dave got a call and had to go back in to work, so thirty minutes after I got to Ranell's, he dropped the kids off there. Easy come, easy go, I guess.

Suffice it to say that the kids and I have been in ultra-super-survival mode. I have discovered that I am capable of being extraordinarily flexible-- maybe even a contortionist-- when it comes to trying to plan anything involving Dave. Luckily I have learned when other people want to plan something involving him to say, "I don't know if he's available, call HIM."

After surviving two crazy weeks, when the product Dave was working on finally shipped (a day late) on Tuesday, I expected.... well, something. Come to think of it, I'm not quite sure WHAT I expected. Maybe a couple days off? Or a half day? Or a very long lunch break? But after crashing in exhaustion at 9 pm on Tuesday, Dave went back to his 8-8 work day the next morning as if nothing had happened. I was hoping for some kind of adult reinforcement in some department (cleaning, child care, take your pick) and was somewhat disgruntled to find that none was coming. Despite my attempts at unflagging cheerfulness and fortitude (OK, fine, my attempts at not COMPLETELY losing my mind), by the end of the week my fortitude and good cheer was indeed beginning to flag. In fact, I was about to bitterly resign myself to life as a single mother with a perpetually messy house and endless fatigue. But then the weekend came.

On Friday we traded babysitting with some friends and went out to dinner at a nice restaurant for a late Valentine's Day (we even left Jackson!). Any meal ending in creme brulee is a good start to improving my morale. On Saturday I left for 6 hours and went to the Portland Regional Church Music Workshop. When I came back, Dave was jumping on the trampoline with Jared and Camryn, while Jackson was sitting bundled up in his baby seat on the deck. The house was spotless (we're talking the stove cleaned, floor vacuumed, mopped, I kid you not). Wow. Let me say that again: Wow! Suddenly things are looking up.

Karen

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Quotes of the Week:

(our minivan makes a loud beep when you press "unlock" on the remote) Connie (Jared's friend):"What's that noise?" Jared: "It's the car barking."

Jared: "Any meal with garlic bread and salmon is a feast!"

Camryn (trying to describe something REALLY big): "It's like a million and 66."