This has been one hell of a year. It began in October when we had to chop down the two maple trees that predated our 125-year-old house. To my mind, the men who came that day and carted off the pieces carted off more then wood.
That we gave the trees away so blithely troubles me now. If we had husbanded the wood, fed it to the house in some way, or at least burned it and did a tribal dance around the roots it might have been an easier year.
Yenny, our Columbian au pair, who we all loved, had left at the end of August, and our new au pair, Angely, was no match for our family. She meant well, but after she let Alec play with wires coming out of a house that had been uninhabited for months, and stared into space as the boys played lance with a rusty pipe we decided to let her go. The decision to chop down the trees was around the same time. They were hollowed out with rot and any good storm might have taken them down along with our house. So, treeless and childcareless life went on for seven weeks.
We were a family in crisis. Alec, our middle child had been having a hard time at home since Dahlia was born (more about this later) and we had sought help from a psychologist. However, the man we worked with was, to put it mildly, not the right man for the job. He had spent most of his career working with violent men. And so he believed that when Alec acted up, all we needed to do was physically restrain him and he would feel secure and become docile as a lamb.
During that time I had a contract at John Hancock that I couldn't pass up. I stayed up late every night and put Dahlia in front of too much TV; I stashed the kids around town like stolen goods; Hadley worked from home so I could get my work done. In an attempt to keep my sanity, I practiced karate, but even this backfired—before Hadley went away for 4 days on business, I passed my purple belt test, but sprained my right thumb in the process. I was a working mother with no childcare, a child in need of serious help, a husband in Texas, a crazy shrink, and a sprained thumb. I ODed on chocolate, but still managed to lose a pound from stress. :)
Our crazy shrink offered to come to the house while Hadley was away on business and restrain Alec. Later that night when I thought about his offer I imagined a maniacal gleam in his eye, and was afraid that he was a psycho. Our clinical relationship went down hill from there very quickly and in short order we were relieved of him, but hopelessly confused about what to do next, and burned from the experience.
The day before Halloween we met our new au pair, an Estonian girl of 19 who had seemed so friendly and sweet via email. All her pictures showed her posed in coy positions that featured only her right side. When she arrived I saw that a full third of her face, the one not shown in photographs, looked as though it had been terribly burned and incompetently grafted.
She did not leave her room the whole time she was with us. She did not get out to explore the town, she did not meet friends, she did not go to au pair meetings. She sat at her computer at her desk in our basement and Skyped with her parents, all day! Oh, and we later found out, she chatted with a boy named Andrew, who she'd met in an online chat room. Outside of cyberspace, she had a hard time making eye contact with people, and never smiled. Though her English was very good, we found communicating with her impossible. And then there was her driving. She had to use the GPS to go two blocks, literally, and crossed the yellow line two times while I was in the car. Still, we tried to make the most of it, perhaps because we were numb.
November saw the light darkening, winter descending and where the kids had played under the trees a few months back, nothing but an unquiet light and a pair of sorry stumps. We traveled to Charleston for a happy event: my youngest sister got married to a man we all adore. Miles and Alec were ring bearers. The boys behaved as beautifully as they were dressed. The wedding was one of those moments when I felt very connected. Connected to my parents and my sisters and in harmony with the kids and my husband. After all, 12 years before, my husband and I had been wed in the exact same spot. There were storm clouds past and future—we had found out that my father would need heart surgery, and we were worried about the Estonian girl in our midst, but none of that mattered. The wedding was wonderful.
Three weeks later we were up in Mt. Tremblant with my in-laws and the Estonian girl for winter break. The boys were in ski camp. Miles who is now quite an experienced skier went off without fear. We worried about Alec. Alec barely knew how to ski. Sometimes he is to flexibility what a shellacked oak board is to a willow twig. Still, he surprised us all. He went off everyday without complaint. What's more, he loved it, AND learned to ski. He ended up skiing more then any of us that week.
Though the boys were having a great time, and it was a nice place for a holiday, the Estonian woman was like an open pustule: she was a sour, taciturn, and unwilling little brat who oozed negativity. But don't get me started. We also found out that my father was not a candidate for the micro-surgery that he had been hoping for. His heart was in very bad shape due to years of atrial fibrillation. And it was covered in plaque so he would need open heart surgery in January. The situation stressed me out and for most of the week I was ill with a stomach bug. The Estonian woman took the baby away from me during the day, so at least I could puke my brains out without the added misery of having to nurse a baby while doing so. But of course that week Dahlia had an ear infection and didn't sleep. So I spent most of my nights on the toilet with terrible abdominal cramps, nursing Dahlia, and fighting severe dehydration to no avail. Good times. Good times!
The week ended with the Estonian pustule telling us that she wanted to try to find a family in Florida. The reason she gave us was that we weren't neat enough for her, and she wanted to move to Florida. We didn't argue with her. We knew she wanted to be close to the man she had met on the internet. And we wanted her away from us too. Especially when we discovered that she had been sending nefarious messages about our sons to this boy in Florida.
One of them read something like this:
Pustule: They don't listen to me anyway.
Pustule's internet boyfrielnd or PIB for short: Why don't you just ignore them.
Pustule: I do ignore them. They're such spoiled brats.
PIB: You should do something to them.
Pustule: What like tie them up?
You get the idea. So, the day before we left the ski resort Dahlia saw the doctor and got on antibiotics for her ears and I got a strong dose of something that made me feel almost human for the first time in a week. H. and I were fuming at the pustule and wanted her out NOW, but we had to wait another week and a half until she was on a plane to Florida.
Incidently, 3 weeks later Cultural Care—the agency who had sent us the pustule and her wire-enabling sister—sent the Pustule back to Estonia. We couldn't give her a reference and neither could anyone from Cultural Care. So she could not be placed with another family. Good effing riddance.
I was hopeful that 2009 was ending. 2010 shimmered beautifully in the near distance, like the road mirages we saw driving back to Boston from Canada with three kids and the pustule. I did not yet know what fun lay in store in the spring.
Work-wise, things were really slow, which was just as well because I had no childcare for January and February. I began to research my novel in earnest and this gave me a sense of purpose other than motherhood. It helped me through the dark winter days. My father pulled through his surgery just fine, though there were minor complications at the time.
After debating whether we should get a new au pair or just quit while we were behind, we chose a 19-year old male au pair from Sweden who plays the trumpet and likes to build miniatures. We eagerly awaited his arrival on February 26th. After 6 months of childcare instability it was my most fervent hope that this tall Swede would really "get" the boys, and that we would be able to relax in the belief that our kids were being well cared for. We also prayed that he would be able to help Alec in ways that we had not been able to yet. Moreover, my husband had gotten a better then anticipated bonus so I was looking forward to being able to write everyday—something that my husband and I had a agreed on, as long as I minded our computer blog at the same time. I was very excited to be able to write. The prospect of regular writing time and decent childcare made me rosy with optimism.
The week before our new au pair came, we had a really wonderful vacation in San Diego, just the 5 of us. We flew in and out of LA and drove to San Diego where Hadley was the key note speaker at a conference of financial planners. Because of his speaker fees we got to stay in a lovely hotel with an ocean view in La Jolla. The weather was mostly wonderful. Hadley had to work a couple of days, but the kids and I had a really great time swimming outdoors, going to Sea World and the Children's Museum. Hadley and I also took them to Legoland, and the zoo. It was so relaxing to have no homework to nag about, no coats to pile on, or housework to do.
During the Believe show at Sea World, we saw a killer whale jump up into the air and grab a pelican in its jaws. The bird lay suddenly limp on the surface of the water. An announcer said, "Ladies and Gentleman, I assure you the whales are very well fed at Sea World. When they engage in this type of activity we pay them no heed. We do not encourage this behavior, but sometimes the whales do this kind of thing for sport."
A week later, we read about a trainer at another Sea World who had been killed by an orca. We loved San Diego, but Sea World was my least favorite for two reasons—I was alone with 3 kids all day in a very crowded park, and the whale show bothered me on many levels. Who do we think we are that we can treat whales like disobedient children? Whales are not children. Whales are whales and I for one can hardly deal with my own children's disobedience let alone enforce some weird code of conduct on another species! Hence, that preventable death at the Florida Sea World. But I digress...
In anycase, despite a couple of mini-melt downs by Alec, the kids were great. We had some nice family time together that week. It was the first time in many many years that we had taken a week away with the kids without a babysitter or set of parents. And based on the experience we will do it again. Towards the end of the vacation we saw my cousin Ethan. Even if Alec didn't look him in the eye or make any sort of conversation, at least he was not disruptive. Dahlia and Miles were very taken by Ethan, and apparently it was mutual, because he later remarked to his mother, my aunt Lise, that they "are such well-behaved children." I love that guy!
Then we drove to LA in our rented SUV. On our way to my sister's house in West LA Alec puked all over himself and the car for the second time during the week, but no one's perfect. Dara and Ofir met us at the curb with a big Glad trash bag and roll of paper towels and we loaded up their washing machines. It was great to see them, but the fact that we didn't scare them off becoming parents is a testament to biological hard wiring.
During our brief stay with them, Dahlia terrorized their little dog with her toddler love; Alec hacked the shrubs in their garden; and Miles spent the night at their house and in all probability wet the couch.
All told, truly a good vacation. Even the flight back to Boston got us back to Boston in better shape than we'd been when we left.
