None of these things happened to me this past weekend, but I was involved in each to a certain degree. The original plan for this past weekend was for our whole family to have a visit up in Salem to see everyone, especially my little sister April's brand new baby girl, Savannah Faye, born March 22nd. Midweek though, plans changed when we learned it would be a much fuller house with the addition of my older sister Heather's family who would also be staying at my parents house until their new housing was available. Also, my mom would be completely wrapped up with a big donation/exchange event at the church until Saturday evening.
Matt's solution: "One adult with no kids would be a better help than two adults with three kids. You go and I'll stay while you help your sisters." Not only that, but he suggested I take the minivan because it's safer and gets better gas mileage than our truck. I was torn between that more comfortable option and the seemingly more responsible one of driving the '94 Ford Pickup so Matt at least had transportation. But he assured me that he didn't need it. Taking three young kids anywhere is hard! Staying at home is much easier. What a wonderful husband to make such an offer.
So it was decided. I left early Friday, drove 4.5 hours and spent the afternoon holding a dainty little 7 pound one week old Savannah. A treat in many ways. One, my babies are never that tiny. Another, holding a newborn is simply precious. I got to be the proud auntie and accompany April to Savannah's one week check-up. It was fun to catch up with my sister in person, who is doing amazingly well considering this is her third child.
In the early evening I drove the 40 minutes to Heather's apartment and helped pack her kitchen before crashing on a mattress there. The next day I helped pack and vacuumed before taking Katy, my 2yo niece, shopping with me. We stopped at Babies R Us, ate lunch at Baja Fresh then spent awhile trying out strollers at Segals, a local baby outfitter type store. The purpose of the trip was to choose a sit and stand style strollers (another post entirely) but I soon grew distracted by all the cool (and expensive!) baby gear: super maneuverable double jogging strollers, one even has an extra seat so you can push three! Nevermind that they all started at $400++. The Valco for 3 kids was almost the same price as a year's gym membership!
Although Katy was having almost as much fun as me trying out different strollers (she kept directing where to go once she got all buckled in), I could tell she was getting tired and I still wanted to stop at Trader Joe's. She fell asleep on the way there and I took a wrong turn. While turning the car around I decided to pull over in a parking lot and let her sleep while I made some phone calls.
I called Heather to see how things were going with unloading the moving truck. When she answered her response was, "I just totaled our new minivan." What I heard first was that she was driving down Liberty Road where it goes down a steep hill and "this guy dumped marbles all over the road" and she lost control and went in a ditch. Later we had a laugh when I told them how confused I was about why some guy in a pickup truck would dump marbles on the road and why that would make her go off the road. Of course what she'd said was "the sky dumped marbles all over the road". It had been hailing/snowing on and off all weekend in sudden bursts.
She was okay and was with my dad, but could I go pick up Oswaldo from the truck rental place since I was only 20 minutes from there? No problem. I knew there was a reason I was just sitting there waiting to decide where to go next. We all met back at their apartment a little while later and finished things up so they could do their final walk through with the manager. What a day!
Needless to say I drove back down I-5 much more carefully on Sunday afternoon than I did coming up. It wasn't exactly a relaxing weekend away, but it felt good to help my sisters out and spend some time with my nieces and nephews. And it made me miss my kids just the right amount so that I was an energized mommmy on Monday morning. And that is always a good thing. Thank you Matt for making it all possible. You are wonderful.
I didn't have the camera with me, but you can see pics of Heather's totaled car on her blog.
2 comments:
I really don't know what we would have done without you! :)
Oh, this is SUCH a good example of what a "dilemma" I often feel. I ENJOY having those help-everyone times, but you can't really do it with the kids you have to help 24/7. What a great thing for Matt to do, so you can remember how great YOU are, when you get to open the door for others rather than thank them for opening it for you and your kids in the stroller.
Glad no one was hurt!
Post a Comment