Nora and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day
Oh goodness, there is quite a lot to tell you about since I wrote a week ago, it will probably take more than one entry! But I’ll start off with the
monumentally bad day
we had last Friday. It started out okay; only Max went to Kinderrijk (the daycare) because Luc is supposed to be going to the international school (only he can’t because of the whole potty training thing). Max did the drop-off pretty well-he’s getting a lot better about not whining and crying when you leave him there. So Luc and Rebecca and I hung out while the bathroom guys finally started finishing the bathrooms (including mine-yesss!!), and then around 10:45 I walked down to a neighbor’s house for a Ladies Coffee. All the neighbor ladies from our street were there. There were a lot of them. This was not a disaster per se, but Rebecca couldn’t come because she had to stay in the house to supervise the bathroom guys, so I was all alone, plus I was the youngest person there by about 15 years, plus all these old ladies were talking amongst themselves in Dutch of course and being unintentionally intimidating.
It wasn’t really that bad, I just haven’t felt quite that awkward in practically years. But the hostesses were very nice and I met two ladies who live across the street and a few doors down, and they were very nice.
Anyway, then I came home, and we got Max and had lunch and the boys went down for their nap. And I went grocery shopping, and while I was putting them away the almost-empty jar of jam (which I went to the store to replace) fell off the shelf and shattered in front of the fridge. Oh yay, gooey jam and pieces of glass all over the floor. So I started cleaning it up, during which process I got a piece of glass stuck in my thumb. So I’m squatting there wiping up jam with one hand and holding a paper towel over my bleeding digit with the other hand. It would have been comical if it hadn’t hurt. I finally get the broken glass to the point where I can take care of my wound, and then end up standing at the kitchen sink for a million years practically performing surgery on myself with tweezers and an exacto knife trying to get the glass out of my thumb. It ended up being a four millimeter sliver! I measured it! (My thumb is perfectly fine now, by the way; it doesn’t even hurt.)
The third event was much more disastrous; definitely the low point of the day. After the jam debacle the boys got up from their nap and we played for a while. They were kind of fussy and off their game a bit, so Rebecca and I decided to take them out to feed the ducks, since we had some old bread to get rid of. They made a huge scene out of putting their jackets and shoes on, but once we were outside they were happy as clams. We walked down the street to a canal three minutes from the house where a bunch of ducks are usually hanging out. There was only one duck within range, so Max and Luc and I were tearing up bread and throwing it to this loner while Rebecca walked down the canal a few meters to see if she could attract some more. Max was actually throwing the bread, instead of eating it like the last time we went, but his skills in this area haven’t quite developed yet and half the time the bread ended up back on the ground on the edge where we were standing. On one such occasion he bent over to pick it up, overbalanced, and fell headfirst into the water.
Oh my God, it was one of the scariest moments of my life. I saw his little orange jacket flipping into the water and lunged after him. He went all the way under and came back up and I tried to grab him, but couldn’t quite get him from the bank so I jumped in the water and hauled him out. Oh, he was so terrified, it was awful. The water was only knee deep and he was only actually in it for five or six seconds, but it was cold and scary and terrible! Rebecca came running as soon as she heard the splash and she grabbed him and I grabbed Luc and we ran home as fast as we could. We dried him off and warmed him up and he was absolutely fine by dinnertime, no adverse effects at all. I’ll probably remember it longer than he will.
It was just really scary! I think about how it could have been so much worse than it was, and it really freaks me out. I’m just trying to be thankful that we got through the experience so easily; almost as if, now that it’s happened and everyone was fine, it won’t happen again, so we’re safe now. I mean, I know there’s still a chance of someone falling into a canal again. But now we’ve checked this disaster off the list, so to speak, and it’s not so bad. But I still got pretty shaken up, and of course I feel like I should have been able to stop him falling in in the first place…
Anyway, yeah. Scary times. Then later that evening Max got hold of Rebecca’s phone, and somehow the back came off and the SIM card fell out. So we were searching all over for this tiny piece of metal and plastic, which had finally been shipped after her company took forever to get it to her, and she was already anticipating having to call and explain how her son had poked it down the heat register or something… but then she found it. In the most obvious place, of course; isn’t that how these things always happen??
So that was our horrible day! I was literally scared, that evening, to say that nothing more could possibly happen, because I was worried a runaway garbage truck would have plowed through the living room window. Or a frozen chunk of airliner waste could have landed on the house. Or a rabid llama could have attacked me next time I was at the grocery store.
Don’t worry, the next entry will contain much more positive things! Also, check the intro post on the top of the page for some explanations regarding LiveJournal’s tag system.
I added a satellite image of my neighborhood to my Picasa album. It's labelled with some points of interest. Thanks to Uncle Durk for sending me the original!
The title today comes from a children's book by Judith Viorst.
monumentally bad day
we had last Friday. It started out okay; only Max went to Kinderrijk (the daycare) because Luc is supposed to be going to the international school (only he can’t because of the whole potty training thing). Max did the drop-off pretty well-he’s getting a lot better about not whining and crying when you leave him there. So Luc and Rebecca and I hung out while the bathroom guys finally started finishing the bathrooms (including mine-yesss!!), and then around 10:45 I walked down to a neighbor’s house for a Ladies Coffee. All the neighbor ladies from our street were there. There were a lot of them. This was not a disaster per se, but Rebecca couldn’t come because she had to stay in the house to supervise the bathroom guys, so I was all alone, plus I was the youngest person there by about 15 years, plus all these old ladies were talking amongst themselves in Dutch of course and being unintentionally intimidating.
It wasn’t really that bad, I just haven’t felt quite that awkward in practically years. But the hostesses were very nice and I met two ladies who live across the street and a few doors down, and they were very nice.
Anyway, then I came home, and we got Max and had lunch and the boys went down for their nap. And I went grocery shopping, and while I was putting them away the almost-empty jar of jam (which I went to the store to replace) fell off the shelf and shattered in front of the fridge. Oh yay, gooey jam and pieces of glass all over the floor. So I started cleaning it up, during which process I got a piece of glass stuck in my thumb. So I’m squatting there wiping up jam with one hand and holding a paper towel over my bleeding digit with the other hand. It would have been comical if it hadn’t hurt. I finally get the broken glass to the point where I can take care of my wound, and then end up standing at the kitchen sink for a million years practically performing surgery on myself with tweezers and an exacto knife trying to get the glass out of my thumb. It ended up being a four millimeter sliver! I measured it! (My thumb is perfectly fine now, by the way; it doesn’t even hurt.)
The third event was much more disastrous; definitely the low point of the day. After the jam debacle the boys got up from their nap and we played for a while. They were kind of fussy and off their game a bit, so Rebecca and I decided to take them out to feed the ducks, since we had some old bread to get rid of. They made a huge scene out of putting their jackets and shoes on, but once we were outside they were happy as clams. We walked down the street to a canal three minutes from the house where a bunch of ducks are usually hanging out. There was only one duck within range, so Max and Luc and I were tearing up bread and throwing it to this loner while Rebecca walked down the canal a few meters to see if she could attract some more. Max was actually throwing the bread, instead of eating it like the last time we went, but his skills in this area haven’t quite developed yet and half the time the bread ended up back on the ground on the edge where we were standing. On one such occasion he bent over to pick it up, overbalanced, and fell headfirst into the water.
Oh my God, it was one of the scariest moments of my life. I saw his little orange jacket flipping into the water and lunged after him. He went all the way under and came back up and I tried to grab him, but couldn’t quite get him from the bank so I jumped in the water and hauled him out. Oh, he was so terrified, it was awful. The water was only knee deep and he was only actually in it for five or six seconds, but it was cold and scary and terrible! Rebecca came running as soon as she heard the splash and she grabbed him and I grabbed Luc and we ran home as fast as we could. We dried him off and warmed him up and he was absolutely fine by dinnertime, no adverse effects at all. I’ll probably remember it longer than he will.
It was just really scary! I think about how it could have been so much worse than it was, and it really freaks me out. I’m just trying to be thankful that we got through the experience so easily; almost as if, now that it’s happened and everyone was fine, it won’t happen again, so we’re safe now. I mean, I know there’s still a chance of someone falling into a canal again. But now we’ve checked this disaster off the list, so to speak, and it’s not so bad. But I still got pretty shaken up, and of course I feel like I should have been able to stop him falling in in the first place…
Anyway, yeah. Scary times. Then later that evening Max got hold of Rebecca’s phone, and somehow the back came off and the SIM card fell out. So we were searching all over for this tiny piece of metal and plastic, which had finally been shipped after her company took forever to get it to her, and she was already anticipating having to call and explain how her son had poked it down the heat register or something… but then she found it. In the most obvious place, of course; isn’t that how these things always happen??
So that was our horrible day! I was literally scared, that evening, to say that nothing more could possibly happen, because I was worried a runaway garbage truck would have plowed through the living room window. Or a frozen chunk of airliner waste could have landed on the house. Or a rabid llama could have attacked me next time I was at the grocery store.
Don’t worry, the next entry will contain much more positive things! Also, check the intro post on the top of the page for some explanations regarding LiveJournal’s tag system.
I added a satellite image of my neighborhood to my Picasa album. It's labelled with some points of interest. Thanks to Uncle Durk for sending me the original!
The title today comes from a children's book by Judith Viorst.