"Robin Barker." The judge read my name from the top of his thankless pile of felons. I approached the bench. He read my citation:
Failure to obey police officer.
Guilty.[Monk tone]: Here's what happened:
Five days before Clara was born, I got a ticket for bypassing a police barricade. Unfortunately, this was no Dukes of Hazard moment. It was a lapse of synapse. Or, as the citation says, "no culpable mental state" - which must be a law enforcement euphemism for "stupid."
Fast forward to March 9, two weeks to the day after Clara was born. Here I was, in the courthouse, pleading my case. The judge reduced my fine by 25% (the maximum allowed by law) - down to $215. Driving away, I heard an ominous sound from the back of the van. Our new van. The one with less than 500 miles on it. Sure enough. Flat.
I had luckily (or unluckily) pulled into a Schuck's parking lot. Cellphone-less, I asked to use their phone. But then, no one was home. The two nearby friend's who's numbers I have memorized were both out of state (as was Briton). The Schuck guy, Shawn, said he'd help me change the tire. Shawn jacked up the car (in more ways than one) and then asked for the wheel lock key. I didn't know where it was. Briton would know - but that meant I needed to get home so I could email him. I tried not to lose it by remembering I just needed to be patient. It's not like I had anything else to do. Meanwhile, Clara was fussy because she had a poopy diaper and was hungry.
Since we couldn't change the tire, Shawn had the (at the time) brilliant idea to sell me some fix-a-flat.
NEVER USE FIX-A-FLAT! It will cost you more than the sticker price. A little voice inside my head, which I will call The Holy Ghost, told me not to use the fix-a-flat. But Shawn said it was safe to use and he's the Shmuck guy. So I paid $7 for the can. He even inflated the tire for me, assuring me this brand was safe to use on wheels with ... monitoring systems. Except as fast as he put the stuff in, the air fizzed out. There was a long gash in the side-treads. I was stuck at Schmuck's. And out $7 more.
Eventually, mom rescued us. By that time, though, I had been gone from home 3 hours instead of 45 minutes as planned. With no extra diapers, Clara had pooped through the one she had on, and peed through the cloth diaper I had replaced it with. Onto my lap. So not only did I smell like leaky milk, and spit up, I also smelled like pee. But I was holding it together, folks, I really was. I hadn't even cried. Yet.
We got home, Briton responded to my email (the key was at home), my dad changed the tire, and then we drove to the Honda Dealership where they could tell us if the flat was caused by a road hazard or a manufacturing defect.
They quickly told us two things:
a) the fix-a-flat hosed our TPMS device. Cost to replace? $100; and
b), road hazard. Warranty not applicable.
Cost to replace tire? $160. If my math is correct, by 5 p.m., this day had cost us $482. Because of my mistakes. For every mile on the car, I had made $1 worth of mistakes. Good thing it wasn't the Bogus! (it has > 145,000 miles).
Then, to top it all off, I was being whupped at Scrabble. While waiting for the verdict on the tire, my dad and I started a game on his palm pilot. Before you can say, "bingo", he had 106 points on the board to my zero. That's about when the tears started to fall...
The photo is a little blurry and the accessories are hard to see - but here is Sydney working on the dryer, which Briton had disassembled and cleaned out. She found a pair of ear protectors which she wrapped around her waist as a tool belt.
Last Saturday was our ward's annual "Spring Fling"/Easter Egg "hunt" (the eggs are scattered across the field in plain sight).
"Hey, kid! That's more than ten eggs!"
"I hope nobody is looking..."
... we welcome you with open arms.
(The neighbor's trees, signs of Spring for our cul-de-sac).
St Patrick's Day Performance
(An attentive audience)
and my dad takes over fix-it jobs. After they left, Talmage said he wanted to be a "Tool Man" like grandpa. We decided it doesn't take a village to raise a family - it just takes four adults. One to manage the house, one to fix stuff and chauffeur, one to earn the living, and one to nurse the babies. Among other things, Grandpa fixed the fence that got blown over in the wind, finished installing a sideyard gate, built a shelf in the closet, re-wired the electricity for a new light fixture, and five minutes before they had to leave, both he and grandma each started and finished just one more project. Grandma was equally productive and furiously busy: cooking, cleaning, driving kids around, playing therapist. In fact, it was during one of our sessions where I was reveling in post-partum depression, that she taught me a new word: mamaracha. It's Quechuan for DOWDY. And it's okay to be mamaracha for awhile.
Like Sydney says, we think Clara is cool!
We've been preparing like crazy for the baby: yardwork (hello, daffodils and tulips and budding fruit trees!), refinishing the dining room table; painting, sewing, organizing/decorating for the Girls' Room, creating a craft corner since The Girls' Room took over the Junk Room, looking for a van, stocking up on supplies because I plan on never leaving the house ever, ever, ever again; making freezer meals and menu plans and lots of bibs (41 cents a bib, yessir), trying to find the Right Name for Her, eating lots of ice cream and Girl Scout Cookies, crashing by 9 p.m. most nights (not because of especially busy days but because I'm especially LARGE). All of this occurs, at least for me, at a reduced pace as the contractions kick in with any slight large muscle motor movement (except for the ones required to remove a GSC from the box and carry it to my mouth). Run an errand? Nope. These days it's, Waddle an errand. Something drop on the ground? See ya later.
Back then she was nursing, crawling, and just beginning to make words.
Twelve months later, she does not look so much like Talmage, is no longer nursing (that stopped at age 13 months, thankfully), wears pigtails instead of bows stuck on her head with honey, talks in complete sentences, has ditched the crawl for more upward forms of mobility, and likes to show us her "tricks" ("Look! I'm flying!", she says, when she balances on the intellitainer). She loves playing with her friends and rough-housing with her dad. She is learning to be helpful and is working on the concept of "mine" vs "sharing". She's learning to pray. She likes to paint, color, listen to stories and also look at books on her own. She's learning that it can be hard to be a woman with her deeply felt emotions.
The next day, we played in what hadn't melted yet:
