The Weekend of Stress

Usually I like change. Change is good. In four days, however, Kyle's beloved internship ended, he started another job, his scooter died, my phone died, Ellie started school, Erik's preschool registration hit some hiccups, we thought we lost our family's medical insurance, Kjerstin started school and an internship (she's been living with us), and while Kjerst was borrowing our car, someone ran a red light causing a massive collision with her that totaled both cars involved.

Thankfully, Kjerstin and the other lady are okay. Also thankfully, Kjerstin was not at fault. These are the most important factors. Then came some practical details.



But it could have been worse. We could have been this car...

At first our insurance would only give us $15/day to rent a car which is maybe enough to rent a bicycle. They've gone back-and-forth (even today) but finally we did finagle out of them a school bus-esque s.u.v. (no really, it doesn't even fit in our garage) we've dubbed Canyonero (a la Simpsons episode) until Tuesday. That's our deadline for locating and purchasing our dream car with a settlement that is not much more than we dished out in May to replace the transmission.

Feeling patriotic, anyone? No but really, though we'll always be partial to minivans, we sure have appreciated having this vehicle around.

So stress. Yes, it was a stressful four days. I honestly am not sure how I worked in a shower (forget bathing the kids) and I think ultimately figuring out how to get a healthy dinner to materialize each night was what was throwing me over the edge.

I was actually posting all of this nonsense not to whine, but because Kyle and I just started busting up laughing last night at the ridiculosity of the number of burdens we'd faced in a few short days. This post was supposed to be light-hearted because things are already looking up.

True, the first two days of sending Ellie to kindergarten were overwhelming, not that tears of separation-anxiety were anywhere near shed. It was just a lot of information packets with checklists of forms and donation and volunteer obligations thrown at this first-timer, confusion about the bus schedule and the classroom environment, having no means of transportation to drop off and pick up my child, and just barely throwing her on the bus before she'd even had a chance to eat lunch.

But we're quick learners and now she's got her kindergarten groove down solid.

Note Ellie's size relative to the school bus tire.

And then they whisk my young, vulnerable child away.

Erik is also all set for preschool to start next week. I'm not looking forward to parking, unstrapping, and dragging 3-4 children to the school door twice a day in order to sign Erik in and out, but I am looking forward to the extensive and much-needed social and emotional opportunities Erik will have in this classroom. He's going to eat it all up.

Also, my phone self-resurrected.

So things are not so bad as they were not long ago.

P.S. On top of all those changes, Ellie is officially going by Elisabeth now. Well, at least at school. We're a little harder to convince at home.

P.S.S. Also, Ellie lost her first tooth by natural causes a while back (woooeeee was that a dramatic evening!) and Charlie deemed himself ready to potty train.





The beloved tongs. He goes nowhere, even to bed, without a kitchen tool of some sort. Most recently it's been a collection of butter knives. We're thinking about weaning him off of his binky and onto the knife. It's about our only hope.