whine and cheese

it feels a bit preposterous to sit down and type out a list of woes on my personal laptop, in my own heated house, while my four healthy children nap or play (respectively) and I sip on a San Pellegrino flavored water from a case that a neighbor on our Buy Nothing group just gifted us. and yet. and yet! there has been quite a bit of woe in the last several weeks and I want to complain about it, so I shall. 

at the top of the list: car woes. not one, but two of Nick's cars were hit by other drivers within the past month. fortunately he was not injured, but working on his cars is essentially therapy for him -- so he lost not just two vehicles in his fleet, but also the time that was required to deal with insurance and police reports, and the emotional benefit of his favourite hobby. 

this car was rear-ended while parked. Nick wasn't actually in the car, but saw it happen -- the driver of the SUV in the photo below was driving full speed in the right hand lane and didn't realize that Nick's car was parked (the right hand lane turns into a parking lane outside of rush hour). he had a suitcase and booster seat in the trunk that were destroyed. 

when he sent me these photos, I wanted to vomit. I'm so glad he wasn't in the car.

poor Nick had just spent all morning fixing things up in this new-to-him Thunderbird, drove it down to our local gas station and someone pulled out making a left hand turn right in front him while he was going straight through the intersection. just sickening. 

then, a few weeks ago when Nick was out of town, I had the littles in the van and was driving to pick up the older girls from a birthday party when I caught the edge of the curb going around a corner and popped a rear tire. we had used my spare tire a few years prior when I had a slow air leak and forgot to replace it. I will never go without AAA services; within ten minutes of submitting my online request for assistance, a tow truck had arrived and the driver was able to transport us back home in the cab, then drop off the van at a Firestone a few miles away (although they had closed by the time he got the van there). meanwhile, the birthday girl's parents graciously said my girls could hang out as long as was necessary; our angel of a neighbor came over to watch the babies and let me borrow her car to go pick up the big kids; then, the next afternoon, she came over again while I took an Uber to the Firestone to pick up the van. 

this was my own fault -- I'll never clip a corner again if I can help it! you can see the vertical slash in the tire about halfway up, close to the wheel.

finally, and I hope this is the end of the car-related mishaps, a few days ago my battery light came on the dashboard, and the engine made a strange constant high pitched whirring noise while I was shuttling the girls from basketball practice to daycare pickup to gymnastics (of course it happened on our crazy Wednesday night -- also while Nick was working, but he was able to quickly delegate choir rehearsal and fly across town to troubleshoot before driving back for the choir to sing for 9 pm mass -- is your head spinning yet?). by the time Nick arrived, everything was back to normal. I took it to an auto parts store where they checked the battery and alternator for free, and all was fine; the running hypothesis is that a wire got jostled out of place or the battery connection wasn't secure, but then whatever it was settled back into place. whew!

next on the list: fingernails. I am in charge of four people's fingernails and they all grow way too fast for me to keep up with. I should probably just come up with a dedicated day to trim everybody's in one fell swoop rather than clipping haphazardly once they achieve talon status. 

this truly isn't accurate for Nick but too funny not to share!

third: daycare. I mentioned the snafu with daycare in this post. that one piece of the puzzle has required so much juggling and extra mental energy (could this be why I mindlessly scroll Facebook instead of reading Great Books when I have a spare moment?). as of this past week, it is finally solved and both little ones had a great week, but it was vastly annoying and added an unexpected layer of stress to the end of maternity leave. 

fourth: decision fatigue. such is the reality of life with kids who are old enough to talk. and I'm glad that they want to talk! but so many of our conversations revolve around them asking if they can buy something or go somewhere or do something, and more often than not my answer is "I have to think about it" because I just don't have the bandwidth to make a reasonable decision in the moment. and then! figuring out the grocery shopping: is there time in the schedule for me to go shopping by myself? (I avoid shopping with the kids as much as is possible for all of our sanity.) if not, will it work to do grocery pickup? if so, which location and which time slot? and what if that location is sold out of a certain item that's integral for the week's menu plan? or do I opt for grocery delivery even though that adds at least $10-15 to the total cost between delivery fee and driver tip? (sometimes that $10 is 100% worth it, but not if we're going to be driving past that very store later that day anyway.) 

and last but not least, the bus. the bus company has designated the girls' bus stop at the bottom of the hairpin curve hill by our house, and across the street (there's not a ton of traffic in the early morning but it's a 35 mph road). we have the best crossing guard ever -- I trust him to get the girls across the street. but we've had a few times where the bus broke down or didn't show up for whatever reason, so I want to make sure I see them get on the bus before I go about my day in case I need to pivot and drive them to school. because of that curve, I can't see them from the house and so I've been walking them down with babies in tow. this is not fun when the weather is bad! last year, the bus driver took pity on me (when I only had Elizabeth with me!) and started picking up the girls right at our front door since they are the only kids at their stop. this year, it's a new driver, and when I asked him if he'd be willing to do that -- or even to come up the hill just to the point that I could see the bus from the house -- he said I'd need to check with the company. the company said they can't send busses up the hill because it's a tight curve and they might get stuck, even though the girls ride a mini bus that's no bigger than the UPS or Amazon trucks that come up directly past our house every day (not to mention the same size bus had no problems last year), and the crossing guard told me he sees full size busses from a different bus company go around that curve every day. so I went back and forth with them a bit but they were adamant about their regulations, so my current compromise is that I leave the babies sleeping safe in their beds in the morning while I walk one block down to the curve of the hill so I can see the older girls get on the bus, and then come back to the house. this is fine, and I think the best solution for now. BUT THEN!!!! one morning, a full-size bus from our same company turned and came up the hill right next to me so of course I had to snap proof. it's possible the driver wasn't following the authorized route because I haven't ever seen this bus again, but still! someday I may decide to fight them more about it, and if that happens, I'll be prepared! 

a picture's worth a thousand words... (this was after the bus successfully rounded the corner)

there. that's it. and I do feel better!