panic

Off her rocker-911, poison control, and other parenting mishaps

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When I entered the bathroom alone that day, Angel was on her little rocking chair playing quietly. A few seconds later, when I came out, it was an entirely different story.

In the short time, Angel turned her rocking chair upside down. She was lying face down wedged uncomfortably under the two rungs on the bottom of the chair stuck and crying.

I had two choices. I could either yank her out by pulling on her back or I could grab her legs and try to get her chest, head, and neck through the two rungs. The second option wasn’t ideal as I didn’t want to trap her head and neck in the chair. So I tried to yank her out from her back. She wouldn’t budge since I couldn’t get her butt past the rungs.

Next I did what I thought was the best. I freaked out! I called my husband at work. He tried to calm me down and walk me through it. He told me that I needed to put cooking oil or something slippery on her in order to slide her out. Seemed kind of obvious, but in a panic my IQ drops 50 points.

After I calmed down, I ran into the bathroom and found some anti-bacterial soap. I pulled down her pants and applied globs of soap to her butt. After that, I was able to slide her out of the chair.

But the story doesn’t end there. Angel broke out in the biggest fire red bumpy rash that I have ever seen right on her rear. I was worried that people would think that I had taken to beating her. It certainly looked like I did.

Looking back, the whole experience seems kind of funny now.

It is so hard to believe that in less than two weeks she will be packing her bags and moving out. I am happy for her, but mostly I feel sad.

Letting go of a broken wing

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Yesterday as I was heading back to work after my lunch break, I noticed a peculiar sight. There was a robin hanging from a tree branch in my front yard. At first, I thought she was dead. Then I saw a flap of a wing, a bit of a struggle.

I noticed a nest starting a few branches higher. But something went terribly wrong. There was a black line, like fishing line, wrapped around the tree and around the wing of the bird. Every time the bird tried to break free, she wrapped her wing around the small branch again and again.

I approached the bird in a panic wondering what to do. I was afraid of the bird. The bird was afraid of me too. I spoke quietly panicked F words to the bird. I went back inside the house and grabbed a scissors. I started to cut away the line entrapping the bird. As I cut closer, the bird shrieked loudly. Panic took over my body. The tunnel vision started, my stomach acid built, and I started shaking. I was terrified to cut closer to the bird’s body, but I couldn’t leave it there to die.

So I did the next best thing after wimping out. I found someone to help me free the bird. He cut the line that was wrapped tightly around the wing. The bird fell to the ground and quickly ran away too injured to fly.

Then I started ruminating about horrible things. I thought about the nature shows I’ve watched where sea animals are caught in fishing nets. Or of all the animals that I hit with my car. Maybe some were pets. The dog that looked like mine that I saw dead along the highway years back. The pets that I lost. The fish that swallowed the hooks.

By far the worst thing that happened was a few years ago. I almost hit a deer at dusk. I slammed on my brakes just missing the deer. He ran quickly past me to the woods that was surrounded by a fence. The deer hit the fence at full force and did a flip. It was kind of comical at the time so I laughed. It felt good to relieve my nerves from the stress of almost hitting the deer. The deer was stunned from hitting the fence, but seemed to be  fine. So I left.

A few weeks later I was driving down the same road when I looked over at the area where I almost hit the deer. I noticed a dead deer that was tangled up in the fence. I knew it had to be the deer that I almost hit, that he didn’t end up being alright after all. I felt so horrible. Maybe I should have stayed longer to make sure the deer was okay. I felt guilty for my laughter. Things didn’t turn out okay like I thought they did at the time. It had to be the same animal, right? I NEVER would have left that animal there if I knew it was hurt or in any pain. It really bothered me.

Today when I came home for lunch, I saw the injured bird. Paul armed himself with a fishing net and I carried the cat carrier. We trudged around the neighborhood in attempts to capture the injured bird. I want to tell you that we caught it and brought it to the wildlife refuge like I planned, but we couldn’t catch it. The bird escaped into a muddy field. Now it probably would’ve been amusing watching us chase a bird in knee deep mud, but we had to give up. We couldn’t even catch it while on solid ground.

I can sense the storm approaching. The temperature dropped and the winds are ferociously howling. The ominous threat of a blizzard lingers. By tomorrow we are supposed to have a foot of snow whipping around in 40 mph winds.

I can’t control everything. I can’t protect everyone. I did the best I could. I am just going to have to let this go…

 

Grace uncommon, part 13

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It was the scariest night I spent at Aunt Grace’s.

Aunt Grace lived in the same big farmhouse her whole life. However, the family business replaced the farm that should have been next door. My great-grandparents built the house in the early 1900’s. At one time, the unincorporated town that she lived in was bustling and alive with businesses, families, and even a train that ran through the town.

The town grew old right around the time Aunt Grace did. A lot of the major businesses pulled out of town leaving behind vacant buildings. Big old houses, the old grocery store, the dance hall in the bar, and even the old bank that Grace worked at were turned into cheap apartments. Weeds grew along the creek that trickled through town instead of flowers and freshly mowed grass like before. The family business shut down and the windows were boarded.

Aunt Grace’s house was always cold and drafty in the winter. Her house was even cool in the summer. She didn’t have A/C. She didn’t really need it. I remember it being a hot summer night that eventful evening. We slept with all the windows open. The kids and I stayed with Grace during the week without Paul because he had to work the next day. Even though my dad didn’t seem to mind staying up all night with Grace during the week, he sometimes needed a break.

That night after I put the kids and Grace to bed, I settled myself in on the couch outside of Grace’s bedroom. I awoke to shouting in the middle of the night. I looked out the window to see four men violently fighting outside under the street light. Punches were thrown. Men were dancing around in a bloody ballet. Does someone have a knife? What am I going to do? Will I witness a murder tonight? I have to call the police. But how am I going to dial Grace’s old rotary phone in the dark?

I am very afraid. If they hurt each other, what could they do to us? What if Grace wakes up screaming like she usually does? What if the children wake up crying? I feel vulnerable. I can’t protect anyone. I can’t get to the phone. I’m afraid to draw attention to the house. Don’t turn on the lights. All the windows are open with only a screen keeping them out. I am afraid they will see me watching in horror. I am afraid they will hear my ragged breaths.

I watched for those minutes that seemed like hours. The men stagger away into the darkness no longer under the street light. Do they linger in the backyard? Do they mean any harm? The adrenaline pumps through my veins preventing sleep. I can’t believe what I just saw.

Aunt Grace slept most of the night.

Travel woes, just trying to get there

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You may or may not have noticed that I took a week off from my travel series. I took time off from writing about traveling to actually travel. We decided to take one last family vacation to Florida before my oldest child graduates this year. The trip down to Florida and what happened at the end of the trip was so horrible that I am still upset about it. I decided to vent about my woes with you today and then write about the trip (which went great) in another post.  

Last week my mom, husband, 3 kids, and I flew out of Milwaukee with Delta to meet up with my brother Luke and his family in Orlando. We were not able to get a direct flight to Orlando and had an hour layover in Detroit. Our flight ended up being delayed in Milwaukee because someone over fueled the plane which caused us to exceed our weight limit. Eleven people needed to give up their seats due to this. They also had to get a large hose to remove some of the fuel. When we were finally able to board they still needed to de-ice the plane which took a long time because they ran out of de-icer. It took an hour before we were finally able to leave. At this point, the flight attendant assured us that if we had a connecting flight they were aware of our situation and would most likely wait for us.

We ended up landing a few minutes before our next flight was scheduled to depart. We ran across the airport as fast as we could and got to our gate two minutes after our flight was supposed to leave. We arrived to the gate just as our plane was leaving. They could not wait for us for 2 minutes!! Then we were herded into a long line of passengers from our plane. At least 20 people that were sitting near us missed their connecting flights. After waiting in line for what seemed like forever, we were able to talk to an agent that barely spoke English. He said that the only way he would be able to get all six of us to Orlando together was if we took a connecting flight to Boston. At this point, I was extremely angry. He wanted to direct us into Boston right around the time that the east coast was supposed to be hit by a blizzard. I pictured my family being stuck in the weather that we were trying to escape from. You didn’t want to hear the words that seeped out of my lips.

He booked us on the flight to Boston which we cancelled. Then he tried to get us all on the earliest flight available closest to Orlando. He had a few seats available but by the time he tried to type all of our names in the seats were gone. The best he could do was get an 8 PM flight to Tampa for my mom and Paul. He was able to get the kids and I on an 8 PM flight to Jacksonville. I would arrive in Jacksonville at 11 PM then have to somehow find a rental car to drive 2 1/2 hours in the middle of the night with 3 kids on roads I’ve never driven on to get to the house that we rented. You would think that they would agree to pay for the extra rental car to get us there. Nope, they told us that the flight was delayed due to weather and that they would not cover that additional cost. The delay was NOT weather related.

We noticed a half an hour later that another flight was leaving for Orlando. We decided to run across the airport to try to be on stand by for that flight. When we got there, they made the announcement that they were overbooked and were looking for volunteers to take another flight. That wasn’t going to work. We saw another flight leaving for Tampa in 30 minutes all the way across the airport. So once again, Paul and I ran as fast as we could with 3 children and a senior citizen with all of our carry on bags across the airport. When we got there, the Tampa flight was boarding. They told us that we needed to talk to customer service to be added to the stand by list. We went where they directed us to go and no one was there. When we found where we needed to go, we had to wait in line for 10 minutes to speak to someone. When we explained our situation, the woman told us that she needed to leave for her lunch break and directed us to talk to someone on the phone. While Paul was speaking to someone on the phone, my daughter called me in a panic to say that the flight was about ready to leave. We missed the opportunity to catch that flight.

Then we went across the airport again to get on stand by for the next flight to Orlando at 5:30 PM. It was at this time that I switched the Orlando rental car that I booked over to Tampa. I made several other troubleshooting and problem solving calls. I was so angry that I wanted to take my carry on backpack and slam it into the garbage bins to knock them over. I don’t think that I ever swore so much in my entire life. I don’t know what it is about yanking around people’s schedules (while feeling a total lack of control) that can turn reasonably sane people into raging bulls, but it does.

I will be totally honest with you right now, I am terrified of flying. Every little bit of turbulence, I agonize that the plane is crashing. I usually pop a couple of anxiety pills and sleep most of the flight arriving in a comatose state. Paul usually has to make sure that I get to wherever I need to be safely. I read everything that I could about flying to try to get over my fear. I read that planes don’t crash due to turbulence. Most planes crash during take off or landing. Thanks, now that scares the hell out of me too. I am afraid of dying. The thought of falling terrifies me. I feel trapped with a total loss of control while flying. My life is in the hands of some pilot that I don’t even know. You say that flying is safer than driving? Well, that scares me too. I spent a good deal of my life struggling with driving anxiety. I told Paul that I didn’t think that I could handle flying and then driving 2 1/2 hours after being awake 20 hours. He did everything that he could to make sure that the kids and I were on that next flight to Orlando. At the very last second, the person at the desk was able to get the kids and I on the flight. I told Paul to make sure that if they couldn’t get my luggage on that they would send it to Tampa. I had to fly totally alert and unmedicated ridden with anxiety.

Once we landed, I got the message that Paul and my mom were able to get an earlier flight to Tampa. They said that my luggage was in Orlando. My youngest two kids were fighting and touching the luggage carousel. I was just about going crazy, but I was there. My luggage never came out and I panicked. It turns out that they set some of the luggage to the side. Then, due to miscommunication, my brother did not know that he had to pick us up at the airport. We sat at the airport another hour waiting for him. Finally we got to our rental house after 10 PM. My mom and Paul ended up getting there at 11:30 PM.

It was a rough start to our vacation. I am glad that we were able to get there the same day. All of the stress could have been avoided if some idiot did not over fuel our plane. I don’t think I would have been quite as angry if we didn’t watch our connecting flight leave two minutes after the scheduled departure time without us.  Running back and forth across the airport with 3 kids and my mom was extremely stressful as well. I am thinking about writing Delta a letter. Unfortunately, our arrival back home was just as horrible and that had nothing to do with Delta. I will tell you about that next, this post is long enough already.

 

Partying like it’s 1999

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I find it very interesting that Prince’s song 1999 released in 1982 speaks about judgment day. It goes along the lines of lets party like it’s 1999 because the following day the world could end. What I find even more interesting is that back in 1999 some people thought that when the clock ushered in the year 2000 that the world really would end. I am sure that Prince knew nothing of the Y2K scare that would grip many citizens 17 years after he released the song.

Lets rewind the clock a bit back to New Year’s Eve 1999. Wow, it feels great to be 25 again! It is a cold winter here is Wisconsin. Many are expecting that the world would end as we know it in 2000. Computers were programmed with the year 19** and they would not recognize the year 2000 and stop working. Our cars weren’t going to start. Our heat and electricity would stop working. Our pipes would freeze. Life would grind to a crashing halt and we would be forced to live like our ancestors did a century ago without the knowledge of how to do that in the dead of winter.

I was pregnant in December of 1999. I did worry a little bit about having a baby without modern technology especially since I delivered my first baby via C-section. Some friends of ours really thought that the end of the world was coming and that they needed to do everything they could to prepare for it. They bought a wood stove for an alternate heat source. They started stockpiling food and water. They bought survival gear and started teaching a survival class. When our cars wouldn’t start we would be trapped wherever we were at the time.

Most people that I knew didn’t party like it was 1999. They prayed, they got together with friends and relatives huddled around the TV watching for signs that other countries in time zones ahead of us would have problems. I remember the night well. Paul and I stayed overnight at my parents house with our oldest child who wasn’t even 2 at the time. My dad volunteered to be a civilian officer to assist police officers and firefighters if the Y2K apocalypse happened. My mom was afraid to be left home alone with my autistic brother Matt.

So while the idea of partying in the new millennium sounded great, we didn’t know what to expect. People were frightened. The next day the new year came, but the end of the world didn’t. We got into our car and drove home. People threw out all of their end of the world survival books and Y2K pamphlets, except for me. I kept a pamphlet because I thought that it might be valuable someday.

 

Christmas (pet) lover

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Many, many ages ago when I first met Paul, he performed a quick thinking pet rescue. Christmas time can offer new dangers for pets.

Paul has always been a dog lover. When I met him he had a dog. I have always been a cat lover. When I met him I had two cats. If I didn’t marry him, I may have been destined to be the crazy old cat lady. So we struck up a compromise after marriage, he has one dog and I have one cat. It is a good arrangement and with 3 kids we do not have any more openings for pets or people.

During the Christmas of 1995, Paul and I were in his apartment when across the hall we heard cries for help. There was a desperate pounding on the door of his apartment followed by hysterical screams from the neighbor lady. She was crying and shaking as she grabbed us into her apartment. Her little dog was wrapped in the Christmas tree lights. He was trying to free himself but was becoming more and more tangled in the process. The cord wrapped tightly around his neck.

Everything was happening so fast that I too began to panic. Paul, however, ran back to his apartment to grab his scissors. He held the struggling dog down while he cut the cord that was wrapped around his neck. Time and time again, Paul has acted in situations where most people freeze. This makes me feel safe because I know I can’t seem to control my inaction during those times.

On that winter day, my Christmas lover became a hero in my eyes. Paul the Pet Rescuer. I knew that I had to keep this guy.