Friday, March 6, 2009

back home





I'm so glad I posted that before we left because Maui seems like that dream you had that is sort of real-feeling, but not really?
It has been flat-out crazy since we got back, at least on my end. The trip was not so great - Thea opted not to sleep for most of the night, so the only one of us who got any shut-eye to speak of was Liam, who seems to be able to sleep through anything.
We arrived in Anchorage around 5 a.m. and Matt went off to find the car, only the hotel shuttle forgot to come pick him up, so it was well over an hour before he even left. Then it took about another hour to get the car thawed and the two surf boards strapped to the top. I built a pen with suit cases and benches so I didn't have to chase Thea around for two hours.
At 7 a.m., the sky was getting light and we retrieved our cold-weather clothes and got on the road. Thea was asleep within two minutes, so we opted for a wonderful McD's breakfast instead of something more substantial and less dairy-influenced.
Thea and even Liam slept most of the way - I got a little sleep, and took the final shift into Homer. We drove pretty much straight through - and got home around noon to a clean-ish house and animals who were very happy to see us.
There's always a wonderful thing that happens when children are returned to their native environment. It's like Christmas - long-forgotten toys, fond food, books, and of course the pets. Both kids were very jovial. I headed into town to get some groceries and try to get my feet on the ground. It seemed sooo cold. But it was great to be home.
Then it was back to work for me, preschool for Liam, and after a temporary panic that there would be no daycare options, a space opened up and presto, she was back at Nikki's. Whew. The other day I went to pick her up early and she actually ran away from me. No independent steak there, right?
Thea started having stomach problems as soon as she got home - probably a mix of virus and the dairy I ate the final week I was in Maui plus the McDs. It got pretty pronounced for a couple days, and she's still having problems. I want to take her to Anchorage for testing, but I have to leave for a week to do that, and I can't find the time or money to do so.
A week after we got home, Matt was back at work, and went up to Soldotna for the week for training. In the middle of that, I got the stomach flu pretty bad, actually, just about the worst stomach bug I've ever had. But it was fleeting, luckily, and I wound up opting to go to work rather than try to stay home with two children bouncing off the walls. Funny world, eh? Now Liam is coming down with a cough, and Thea seems a tad off - maybe the stomach bug, too? It's a germy world, for sure.
It's amazing how quickly the vacation fades into the background, and the real world comes stomping back all over you. Matt will be gone again next week, I have a board meeting one night and no sitter, a Scrabble tournament on the 28 and 29 that I have no idea how to arrange, get sponsors for, etc, there's a whole week in March that there is no preschool because it is spring break, and then there is the annual fundraiser coming up in a little over a month ... and I've got a zillion freelance projects I should be working on.
The there is the house - so many things to do, so much stuff overflowing out of the corners of our 1,400 square feet. I can't stop myself sometimes and go into a cleaning frenzy trying to put it right, but in the end, the chaos outnumbers the clean so greatly that it makes my eye start twitching. For example, none of the suitcases have been put away yet because they have to go in the shed, and no one can get into the shed until we do a dump run, and that doesn't seem to be happening, so there is a suit case in the mud room that has been there since we unpacked two weeks ago and every time I got to feed the dogs I trip over it. MADNESS! And let's not even talk about the roof leak that is causing one side of the house to fall apart, literally. Really.
Still, it sure is good to be home.

1 comment:

Anika said...

Thea looks like you.