Whoooo, boy. We made it. We got everyone (and the presents) to Boston, we had a fine Christmas, TTD had three interviews in three days (gack), we flew home a day late (thank you, American Airlines), I went straight from the airport to a ten hour shift in the ER, and Normal Life started up again.
Well, sort of. I leave for Mali on Sunday the 7th, so there's a lot of Organizing going on, and a lot of Guilt on my part, about the extended leaving of small children. But today the Rabbit is in preschool and Urp is at toddler storytime at the library with the babysitter, and I am futzing around on the computer, so as I said, Normal Life is back.
Which is kind of nice, because flying with small people through O'Hare at Christmas in bad weather? Not so good. The day before we flew, all flights were cancelled out of Cedar Rapids, so the morning we left the airport was full, full, full, and so were the planes. Ours was two hours late because of weather AND a crew delay (what, one delay wasn't enough?), and we disembarked in Chicago exactly at the departure time for our next flight. We RACED through the airport, me madly pushing Rabbit in the travel stroller and TTD lugging both Urp and the million-pound diaper bag, and of course the gate we wanted was in Tierra del Fuego and we nearly had heart attacks by the time we got there. There was the plane...with the jetway just pulling back from it and the door closed for all time. And we knew, from investigations in Cedar Rapids, that there were no seats to be had on anything until Christmas Eve at the earliest. I put my head on the desk and heaved a teary sigh of despair.
And the gate attendant had pity! More than pity: she reached up to heaven and pulled down THREE SEATS ON THE NEXT FLIGHT TO BOSTON, TWO IN FIRST CLASS AND ONE IN THE FIRST ROW OF COACH. How that happened, with most of the population of Chicago on standby for that flight, I don't know, but I wasn't about to ask irritating questions. Instead, clutching the tickets to my sweaty breast, I leaned over and kissed TTD. Then I kissed Urp. Then I kissed Rabbit, and noticed that he seemed to be on fire.
Oh yes, everyone got sick for Christmas. Urp and Rabbit both featured fevers, ear aches (Urp with bloody gunk pouring from his tubes), and coughs like sixty year old, three-pack-a-day smokers. They had a hell of a time sleeping, and were quite pitiful when not dosed with Tylenol, so we did something we don't usually do and called in antibiotics for them ourselves. I mean, it was Christmas Eve, and I didn't want to spend it in the ER, when I was perfectly capable of diagnosing bronchitis and otitis myself.
So we spent Christmas where it should be spent, with the grandparents, and had presents and a fire in the fireplace and a proper turkey dinner and various friends and relations about, and it was lovely. Exhausting to the bone, because of the non-sleeping, sick, excited children, but good, because there we all were, crammed into the same house, alive and kicking and mostly compos mentis. Also, TTD went off on his own and bought me jewelry! Which he has never done before! Wow!
Then began the nonstop interview process, about which I don't want to write too much because really that's TTD's story, not mine, to tell. Suffice it to say, at least one place pretty much came out and made him an offer, and a very generous one at that. Reasonable schedule, not very stressful practice, start date as soon as he can get his MA license, which, knowing the MA beauracracy, probably means sometime in 2010. He is currently in the midst of nitty-gritty negotiations with them, and I am trying to sit back and take my sticky fingers off the controls, as Anne Lamott says. I hope she is better at it than I am.
And then, after all that, we had to fly home. Bags packed, children stuffed into decent clothes, everyone to the airport, bags checked, everyone through security (shoes off, coats off, stroller folded, computer out, plastic baggie with Tylenol and Motrin bottles out, everyone through, reverse process), everyone fed and watered and tinkled and cleaned up, to gate, flight still showing on-time on the board...and huh? The sign at the gate, at noon, said something about a flight for DC departing at 11am, and there was a discouraging knot of passengers around one VEEERRRRY SLOOWWWWW gate agent. Discreet inquiries produced the news that yes, our flight was leaving from this gate; the knot was from a cancelled flight earlier.
I refrained from shrieking, "Well then move the bloody passengers somewhere else to rebook them, lady!" and returned to the boys, who were playing robots with some other kids. Our flight didn't board and wasn't called. Eventually it emerged that the captain was going to be late coming in from another flight, and rather than board us and have the plane ready to go when he arrived, they were going to wait for him, THEN board. Meaning we would miss our connection in St. Louis. The gate agent was the opposite of the heaven-sent one on our outward flight from O'Hare: she stared at me as though I were an idiot when I asked about alternate flights and rebooking, and all but said, "Lady, you are wasting my time and I wish you'd spontaneously combust." So I cut our losses and rebooked for a 6 am flight the next day, and we called the folks and they sent my brother, bless his heart, to drive through the suddenly-developing snowstorm and pick us up.
So we got up at 3:45 the next morning, did the whole thing all over again, and this time it worked. We even got an earlier connexion out of O'Hare, because...oh, who cares, at least we got home. Or the boys got home. I got home, took a shower, and turned right back around to drive to Cedar Rapids again for ten hours of ER. I don't think I managed to kill anyone, but it was probably close. Then I got home at midnight (1 am Boston time) and fell first into the shower, then into bed, after a 22 hour day.
Mali should be no problem.
Or so I tell myself. Really, I am thrilled to be going myself, and not at all worried about the trip, because this is easy stuff....ten days, a schedule, someone to meet me on the other end, no problem at all. But leaving the boys for ten days makes my heart ache. Not for me, because honestly? After four years I am looking forward to a real break from them. No, my heart aches for them, because I remember how deeply I missed my mother when she went on trips when I was small. I remember the long ache of her absence, and how the world was tolerable but not right, and I remember how the day of her homecoming was like Christmas, and how every day of her absence was slow, slow, slow. I am being selfish to ask my children to go through the same thing--and Rabbit will, I know he will, though I think Urp will be fine. Five days visiting the grandparents with their father is no problem, but ten days at home without me, even though their father and their usual babysitters will be with them the whole time, is big.
Tell me it's going to be OK!