August 2012 – robinchartier

oddball

I know I am quite the sight as I walk around our neighborhood. I have no doubt that if I could read people’s minds they’d be saying, “What is that crazy white lady doing today?!” This morning I was dressed in running pants (hey, at least my skin was covered), my hot pink and orange Five Fingers, a toddler strapped to my back, with a dog walking at my side. I was 4 for 4 in the category of “Bahraini Head-turners.”

Funny enough, the strangest thing about my ensemble is the dog. In general, dogs here are considered “unclean” (I happen to agree with them). Because they haven’t grown up with them, most Middle Easterners are scared of dogs — even my scrawny 25 lb dog. It’s funny to see a group of men swing wide to go around me or cross the street when they see us coming. It’s fine with me. I’m usually hot and tired from lugging around 30 extra pounds and trying to keep the dog from getting run over by a car on the narrow streets where no one slows down, so the less I have to give way to oncoming people, the better.

I should be used to standing out by now, but where we live now is so much more city and gritty and less oceanfront resort that it all feels like much more work. I’m pretty sure I’m depressed, but typical me, I don’t do depressed like normal people. So instead of feeling sad, I feel sort of dead inside and when I do feel something it’s anger or frustration. I know I’m grieving. I’m mourning my friends who died, the loss of our life in Oman, the friends who are all starting back at TAISM together next week and wishing my boys were going to school there, missing Lucy, wanting to combine the things I like about here with the things I love there and have it all, annoyed that I feel this way. . . I know I will be happy here eventually, just the way I’ve been happy everywhere we’ve lived (Fort Sill, Oklahoma? 29 Palms, CA? Two of my favorite places in the world that show up on everyone’s “Worst Duty Stations” list), but knowing and feeling are miles apart.

It’s probably why I haven’t been blogging as much lately. I love sharing things that are funny, odd, or amazing, but I’m not feeling much of that lately. I looked back at my blog from this time last year, during the hot, lonely months in Muscat when we were trying to get settled and I was unhappy. I wanted some encouragement that I might eventually fall in love with Bahrain the way I did Oman. But I came up empty. I must have done too good of a job of looking for the good things to write about every day because I couldn’t find many complaints about our move back then. I guess I’m making up for it this time around, huh?

Things really are good. I’m just ridiculously tired, I have a two year old who thinks the dog’s penis is a handle and his head is a seat cushion, my brain is in a fog, and did I mention how tired I am? Don’t feel too sorry for me. I did find someone to help clean the house part time. That’s the only reason I have what’s left of my sanity. Her name is Josie and she’s been a superhero — helping unpack boxes, mopping floors, organizing cupboards. Without her, I’d be really depressed.

I forgot to take a picture the first day of school, but here is one from the second day. Why are they wearing sweatshirts when it’s 110 sweaty degrees outside? Because the A/C runs full force inside the school building and the elementary school kids aren’t allowed to go outside. I picked them up the first day and their hands were like icicles and they begged to go outside to thaw out! Camille’s ski hat is just a fashion statement — I don’t keep it that cold in our house.

I’m not going to get on my soapbox about how I think it’s ridiculous that the kids aren’t allowed to play outside when the playground is covered and how if they do require them to stay indoors they should at least be allowed to do something active and not have to sit and watch a movie. Nope, I’ll save that rant for another day.

Missing

You might not see me for a few days because my beautiful, clutter-free home has been defiled by the arrival of our household goods. I complained about the fact that it took 2 months to get here, but except for my bed and my sheets, it turns out that it’s all crap.

My moving plan is to have the movers unpack as much as possible so all the boxes and paper leave the house. That forces me to deal with the remaining mess immediately (or at least as soon as humanly possible). This way, I can go from boxes to “comfortable, lived in home” look in less than a week. Of course it’s the week from hell, and the mountains of clothes and books on the floor when the movers leave aren’t pretty, but when you’re only in a house for a year or two, you can’t take 3 months to move in. The move I’m most proud of is Monterey — we had photos hung, everything unpacked and the garden tilled and planted in under 7 days. That was in the days pre-girlie, which explains a lot.

I didn’t even take a picture of the kitchen because it makes me want to weep. All this moving has finally caught up with me. I have 1/2 the cupboard space of our Oman kitchen and there are dishes, silverware, pots and pans, and other kitchen items covering every square inch of shelf and counter space. I have to thin drastically. I think I’ll start with getting rid of 2 of the 3 can openers that I have somehow managed to collect. And since I bought some silverware to get us through until our shipment arrived, now I have something like 34 butter knives. Anyone need a few mugs? We have enough to open our own Starbucks.

Carter said, “I think this is our hardest move yet. I don’t remember Oman being like this.” You know why? Cause in Oman we had Lucy. She was unpacking the kitchen as soon as the movers started taking boxes off the truck and she had sheets washed and on our bed and clean towels in the bathrooms before I had finished checking off the inventory sheets.

Also not making this move easier? This fashionista who has her own system of unpacking/messmaking. I have to have one kid assigned to her, one kid assigned to the dog, and Caleb flies under the radar and doesn’t do anything except dig through boxes looking for his Harry Potter movies. I’ll be lucky if I finish in less than a month.

piles of . . .

So, I had quite the interesting anniversary. Thankfully Josh and I celebrated back in June before we moved, knowing that with him in a new job things might be too hectic to do something special on the actual day. Sure enough, that was exactly what happened. Just another day in paradise: Josh at work, me on kid/dog duty.

I woke up with an infected finger — I have no idea how that happened. It was red, swollen, and painful. I remember when I was younger my dad used to tell me to try soaking ouchy fingers and toes in hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol so I poured a little peroxide in a cup, grabbed my computer and started reading on the couch while submerging my finger.

After about 15 minutes I got caught up writing a message and since I can’t stand typing with one finger I took a break and wedged the cup against the couch cushion next to me. I’d almost finished composing my message when I hear a little voice ask, “What’s this mommy?” and look up to see Camille holding an empty cup with a funny look on her face. Oh, good grief . . . does the girl not have any sense?

So then I was on a mission to Google a combination of the words “baby peroxide drink toxic” to see how freaked out and panicked I needed to get. It turns out that despite the solo headline of “toddler dies from ingesting peroxide” (further reading suggested he drank an entire bottle), the consensus was that it would most likely just cause some stomach upset. Whew!

I head to the kitchen to wash out the tainted cup when I hear shrieks of, “MOM! Camille threw up!” Did she ever. I have no idea how this much vomit could come out of a little person. Stomach upset indeed. Three huge, chunky, slimy pools of it, rapidly spreading across the tile floor. Just as I take in the horror, it gets worse. The dog, sensing the opportunity of a lifetime, races in and starts devouring the puke. Oh gosh. The kids start gagging and running the other way, I grab the dog by the collar and try to haul him away from the mess, he keeps trying to throw himself at the best stuff he’s ever tasted, I am yelling for a kid to take him outside and it’s just gross everywhere.

1/2 a roll of paper towels and some hot soapy water later, the living room floor is once again presentable. At least I don’t have to worry anymore about peroxide poisoning since there’s no way there’s a drop left in her system. I start to fix myself a cup of tea and go back to sending my message when I hear horrified yells coming from the other room. Again. “MOM! The dog threw up! Come quick!” This has got to be some kind of horrible joke, right? Nope. My 20 lb dog has thrown up a pile of partially digested food as big as his head. I don’t know how the scrawny little thing had room in his gut for as much food as came up out of him. Of course he chose the middle of the carpet to present his offering. And then he started to take it back.

I wouldn’t be lying if I said that I almost considered letting him eat it so I didn’t have to figure out how to get it from the carpet to the trash, but that would have been grosser than gross. Instead, I shooed him away and got out the dustpan and scooped it up (the whole huge pile of it), then scrubbed and saturated the carpet with Nature’s Miracle. Meanwhile the boys are dry heaving and gagging, but it was nice to hear Carter say with amazement and admiration, “How do you do that?!”

Cleaning up puke is one of my superpowers.

15 years

On the eve of our 15th anniversary, Josh and I were sleeping in sleeping bags on a bed that had no sheets, downloading “dog calming music” (seriously, there is such a thing), and trying not to wake the 2 year old tossing and turning in the bed next to ours. Not quite as romantic as the night before our wedding when we slept out under the stars on lounge chairs next to my parents’ pool, whispering late into the night.

But, as much as things change there are things that stay the same. Like the headache that I had both nights. Oh, you thought I was going to say “our deep love for each other”? Yeah, probably that too, although that has changed over the past 15 years. Newlywed love is surprise phone calls and flowers — 15 year love is not waking me up in the morning when he leaves for work and snuggling with the kids on his side of the bed when they get up in the night. 30 year love will probably be when he buys batteries for my hearing aids and pretends not to notice the deep frown lines on my forehead in-between my eyes (he already does that, thankfully).

As far as anniversaries go, this one isn’t too bad. We’re both exhausted and feel unsettled, but at least it’s not the year that Josh had to have back surgery while I was off my rocker and trying to take care of 3 babies 5 and under. Tonight, if we’re lucky, the kids will go to bed before 10, the dog calming music will take effect and he’ll settle down in his crate, and we’ll watch something mindless on Netflix and eat ice cream together.

It’s enough. More than enough.

Edited in case someone missed my meaning: When I say ‘love is not waking me up in the morning’ it’s because there really is nothing better in the world than letting me sleep in. You can keep your jewelry and furs — letting me roll over and go back to sleep is L.O.V.E.

Too much perspective

One of my friends died on Friday night. She was a mom of 4 kids — 3 boys and a girl, just like me. Her name was Michelle. Her daughter, Julia, was one of Caleb’s best friends at school. She was killed too. She was only 8. Our friends were teachers at the American school in Oman, home on summer vacation, saying their last goodbyes before flying back for another wonderful year. Their older sons, 14 and 12, are friends with Calvin, the husband taught computer classes to my kids, we went to Atlantis with them, went camping with them, our kids were in Awana together and Josh served with them as Awana leaders.

They were headed home from a movie on Friday evening, 9pm. Grandma, mom, daughter and son. They were hit head-on by a drunk driver who couldn’t manage to stay on his side of the road. A 21 year old who walked away with scratches, smelling of alcohol and driving with an open container. My friend and her mother-in-law died on impact, as the car burst into flames. Julia died on the way to the hospital and 5 year old Jason was pulled out of the burning car and is in critical condition at the hospital. In an instant our friend Mike lost his mother, his wife, and his daughter. I feel sick.

I never cry, but I have cried plenty over this. Less for me and more for all of my friends in Oman who will have to face this empty hole in their lives day after day. And for my friend Mike and those three beautiful boys who have lost so much. My mind goes to that ugly, dark place and wonders, “Why not me? What can I do to control my life so this doesn’t happen to me?” The answer of course is, “absolutely nothing.”

So today I don’t care that our shipment hasn’t arrived, or if it ever arrives. The kids can fight and pester me and I’ll be glad they’re here to be frustrated at. When Camille is extra needy tonight I’ll think of Mike and know he wishes he could lie down next to his daughter and tuck her in bed and I’ll gladly stay 5 more minutes and then 5 more minutes after that.

And then, in a few weeks, I’ll forget how much I have to be thankful for and I’ll find things to complain about. I always do. Life doesn’t seem so short or fragile until it is. And then I better hope I made the most of the time I had. I’m not very good at that part, but I’m immersed in it today. If I disappeared in a flash tomorrow, have I given the boys enough? What would they do? How would they turn out?

So I’m sad today. Putting on Mike’s shoes and walking around in them. Glad I can take them off at the end of the day and not be trapped in a nightmare that begins with a knock on the door from the Highway Patrol and very aware of the fact that it could easily be us.