I Should've Seen it Coming - Part Two

So now I'm headed home from the car wash, yelling out the window at random strangers asking if they have a room available.

For the five of us. And the dog. And our stuff.

Okay, we may need two rooms.

I'm kidding. I would never do such a thing.

I was actually blind dialing my phone, asking whoever answered if they would take my children.

My poor homeless children.

I kid.

Again.

What I really did was call our friends (baseball people) who are currently with the Mets. They live here in the area and I knew that their house would be empty at least until school started.

Plus, we had just visited them the past week while Jill and the boys were home catching up on things while their daddy was on a long road trip.

They were literally leaving the next morning to head back to their daddy and New York and sweet Jilly said

Sure! Stay as long as you want...here's the garage code...

And I got to call Andy back before I even got home to say

It's all good. We have a place to sleep.

Go me.

What I didn't realize until I walked into the door was that I was about to do this move all by my little self.

Oh, except I did have help from the girls.

So long as you define help as tearing wallpaper, peeing your pants and dropping pizza on the carpet. Of the house that you're trying to get the deposit back.

Sigh.

Anyhoo, since Andy was now the manager of a team that he knew very little about he had loads to catch up on and about two days worth of meetings and practices in which to do it before the first game. He helped me load up as much as he could and then buried himself in emails and phone calls.

I called the folks that we were going to be living with in Missoula to explain that we weren't actually coming. And then the owner of the current house to ask for a few more hours in the morning, explaining that I was moving our belongings myself and it would take a few trips.

So now I have til noon.

Easy peasy.

Once the girls were in bed I cleaned and tossed junk and drank the last of the Mike's H@rd Lemon@de Margaritas so that I could get ready to take the first load over as soon as I could in the morning.

When the sun rose we kissed Daddy goodbye as he headed off to work as his first day as a manager and then got our booties moving.

It's at this point I just have to say that we are very blessed to have a great group of friends. They are spread from here to kingdom come and they put up with our traveling and craziness and love us despite it. So at one point when I was feeling overwhelmed I called one of those friends and said

I need you to pray for me. I'm moving by myself this morning and my little people are not getting the memo to cooperate. Plus it's 112* outside and mama doesn't like to sweat.

And do you know what this dear gal did? She prayed. Right then. Over the phone.

Didn't say,

I sure will. You have a good day now.

She just did it.

Love that.

Anyhoo, after having a helpmesweetJesus moment in the bathroom I got my butt in gear and loaded up the girls. We took the first load over and dumped it all in the garage of Jill's house. Then we came back for the second load and I ran around like a toddler on sugar swiping, wiping, vacuuming and dusting anything that was sitting still. I was just putting the last of the fresh sheets back on the beds when the owner came in to do the walk through and give us the deposit back.

I might have been soaking wet from sweat, but she didn't mention anything.

Which was kind.

She handed me the check, I loaded the girls and the dog in the van and drove off into the sun.

Still sweating.

But feeling accomplished.

Until I remember that there was a garage full of belongings to dig through at the next house and a van load of stuff to clean out.

Not to mention I couldn't find my belt.

Mama needs her belt.

But at least we had a place to sleep.

For now.

Until we move again.

The next week.

To be continued......

I Should've Seen it Coming - Part One

Andy played professional baseball for eleven seasons. We've lived in ten-plus cities, nearly fifty states, and two countries.

Okay, that may be an exaggeration.

It's probably 53 states.

My math skills are a little fuzzy.

I blame the children.

We move at least twice a year, and that's when things are slow. Kentucky is our home base (pun totally intended) which we return to every fall. When we were building our house there we told the guy who was helping us pick our appliances that we just like to be close to the family for the holidays.

Starting with Halloween and working our way through Valentines Day.

Then we are outta there!

I'm pretty sure that poor man is still trying to figure out what we do.

Anyhoo, as a player, when spring training is coming to an end you don't always know for sure where you are going. Then once you get there you don't know how long your stay will be. You could get sent up, sent down, released or traded. This uncertainty is an every day reality of the life of a minor league ball player.

And his wife.

So when I was chatting with a friend this winter about Andy's retirement from playing and his subsequent decision to stay in the game by coaching she said,

Aren't you tired of all the traveling and packing and whatnot?

To which I replied,

Well, at least with coaching we'll know exactly where we are going and how long we'll be there.

Had I been paying attention there's good chance I'd have heard a snorting sound from heaven. There are many times when the words that come out of my mouth crack the good Lord up.

This was one of them.

Andy was hired to be the Missoula Osprey hitting coach, one of three rookie league teams within the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. The rookie ball season doesn't start until after the MLB Draft which occurs in June. We came to Phoenix the first of March and knew we were staying there until mid June when we would make the trek up to Montana to start the season.

With both cars, the car top carrier, three children and the dog.

You know, the usual parade of craziness.

Well.

Two days before we were scheduled to leave for Montana there was what we shall call some organizational restructuring. The manager for the AZL Diamondbacks (the rookie ball team in Phoenix) was involuntarily removed from his position.

Okay, he was fired.

When Andy came home with that news I was knee deep in suitcases and cleaning supplies trying to pack and clean enough to get our deposit back. I said to him

should I keep packing?

Because I've been doing this a long time. I know how this works. If you think you're going somewhere in this game,

you don't.

And if you aren't planning on change,

it will.

He said

Of course you should keep packing. I've not even been a hitting coach in a real game yet, they aren't gonna make me a manager. Besides our lease is up on this house anyway.

Oh yeah. Forgot about that.

So I continued procrastinating packing for the next 48 hours right up to the point that I had Lainey with me at the car wash, cleaning out the car so we could make another huge mess in it on our drive up to Missoula the next day.

Then Andy called me and said

Stop cleaning.

Ha! I knew it!

I said,

Congratulations! That's amazing! You're a manager! Where the heck are we gonna live?

And he said,

I don't know. Can you call someone?

Now here's where the spit hits the fan. Because in eleven years of doing this thing we call baseball life I have NEVER been in charge of procuring the housing.

EVER.

He always takes care of finding apartments, townhouses, basements, vans down by the river for us to call home.

ALWAYS.

But now he is buried to his neck in emails and phones calls and impromptu meetings and I get to finish packing, loading the cars and getting us out of our (help me Jesus, CLEAN!) rental by nine the next morning.

If only I knew where we we going......

To be continued

Some Saturday Silliness

You know you're the mother of lots o' little people when this

is going to the bathroom alone.

Totally Tubular

This past winter my Littles had a combined total of 10 ear infections.

Ten.

Bless their hearts, it seemed like just as soon as they finished the antibiotics we had about a week before we were headed back to the pediatrician's office.

I asked if we could get a group discount on our co-pays.

That was a negative.

During Anna and Emily's two year check-up in February I mentioned my concern about all of the antibiotic intake and our sweet nurse said that they were right on the bubble of needing tubes.

But hopefully, she said,

once you get to Arizona all that dry air and warm weather will stop the runny noses which are leading to the infections.

A girl can dream.

One week into spring training Anna started getting up in the night. A sure sign of ear pain. Off we went to the new pedi's office and yes indeedy, she had an ear infection. Knowing that my girls like to do things together I asked the NP if she would be willing to look in Emily's ears also.

You know, since we're already here and all.

Two for two!

Sheesh. And bless their hearts.

The next appointment I scheduled was with a highly recommended ENT in the area.

Fast forward a few weeks and both girlies, Daddy and I were headed to the surgery center for tubes times two. Thankfully, my mother-in-law was in town so Lainey didn't have to hang out all morning in a waiting room.

You know, because girlfriend has to get her Curious George and Sesame Street fix or her day just isn't right.

My two main concerns were how they would handle being led away from us, and how well they would wake up. One of the nurses who did the pre-registration (over the phone) mentioned that many times the little ones come out of anesthesia screaming because they are so disoriented.

That sounded like loads of fun.

My little Emily went first and she just drove her little buggy car while the nurse pushed her away. Didn't even look back.

We'll miss you too, Em.

Before they even came to get Anna, a nurse informed me that Emily was already done and ready for some love. I kissed Anna on the head and quickly followed the nurse to the other side of the surgery center where I knew right where my Em was.

Because I could hear her fussing from all the way down the hall.

That hurt my heart.

I scooped her up and we got cozy in a recliner while she tried to come out of the fog she was in. Slowly I began to realize that she wasn't so much disoriented as she was mad. Mad about the monitor they had very securely taped to her big toe. She kept screaming

my foot! my foot! my foot!

Sorry, kiddo. Mama can't do anything about that one.

Seconds later Andy came into the room saying that Anna just took the aide's hand and walked away without a care in the world.

Seriously, I think we need to have the stranger-danger talk.

Soon.

Mere minutes later and Anna was done. We heard her before we saw her. She was freaking out. At this point, Emily had gotten her monitor removed and she was completely back to normal. Drinking out of her sippy, laughing at her daddy's silly faces, picking out princess stickers and staring at Anna like

what the heck is wrong with you?

Anna continued to melt down with such bravado that she plum wore herself out and fell fast asleep.

She slept through the dismissal from the nurses. She slept through the ride home and she even slept through breakfast.

Sister doesn't like to miss a meal.

Once she finally woke up, she and her sweet self were back. And hungry.

Two bowls of cereal, two waffles and a granola bar later all was finally well.

.......................................................................

There were two reasons we had the procedure done. The first being we didn't want to keep stuffing their little immune systems with antibiotics. Too much of a good thing can easily become bad.

The second was, they were behind on their speech. Emily was doing a little better than Anna, but poor Anna sounded very garbled. Kinda like she had a mouth full of marbles.

Don't get me wrong, they were talking a ton.

We just didn't understand a blessed word they were saying.

One afternoon Anna came in from the back yard jabbering and carrying on. She was pointing and motioning and I was catching nothing.

Not a word.

And I told her that.

Sugar, I'm so sorry, but I don't know what you need. Can you try again?

So she did. Again. And again for good measure.

When she didn't get the response she wanted from me she threw herself onto the ground and sobbed.

Bless her heart.

So now you're wondering, did it help?

Well.

Last week the girls had a cold (yes, they always do these things together).

This week we are playing in the gym, antibiotic free.

YAY!

And as far as their speech goes?

Be careful what you ask for.

It doesn't stop. From morning til night.

All.Day.Long.

It's wonderful.

Except for gems like this one.

A: Mom, where's my dink (drink)?

Me: In the kitchen.

A: Go get it.

It's probably a good thing I haven't been understanding her til now.

A very good thing.