We had a great weekend, very relaxed with a lovely Father's Day Sunday in the park and chilling in the back yard:
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| First bike ride! |
The next day I was sure we were going to have to cancel our plans. I was too frightened about Lula being sick to truly appreciate her colossally bad timing. I have heard this before from parents, however. Kids will never fail to get, say, chicken pox on Thanksgiving, or the flu just as you are going on vacation. I think it's their way of reminding you who's in charge.
Were it not for my mom stubbornly insisting that everything was fine, that Lula was much better and everything was under control, there is no way we would have left. But she pretty much kicked us out of our own house. It seemed so unnatural to leave my sick child to go out for the night, and when we got in the cab my stomach was tight as a drum (figuratively speaking - physically I haven't done a sit-up in two years).
First stop was sailing. This was a belated Father's day present for Sam. A few minutes on the Hudson and we began to ever so slightly unwind. Sam got to do things with jibs and tillers, or whatever, and I got to sun myself.
We tried not to talk about the kids. We sailed past an amazing $200 million dollar sailboat and tried to peer in and see who owned it. We discussed Jersey City. So far so good.
Then we went to The Standard. I had casually mentioned several months ago to my friend Cecelia that I would love to stay there for the night. It's a super chic modern hotel in the Meatpacking district situated atop the Highline with amazing views. A few weeks later I got a card from 20 of our dearest and most amazing friends who chipped in and bought us a deluxe king room for a night (I mean, seriously, how fantastic are our friends?!)
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| Crazy view of the west side |
We called my mom about a hundred times and she kept saying everything was just fine, but I knew she wasn't being totally honest. Aggie came over after work and stayed and held Lula all night and waited until the night nurse showed up. I called mom after dinner and she tried to sound casual when she said, "we have her on a little oxygen", which made me freak out a little inside because her doctor made me swear that if we felt we needed to put her on oxygen that we would head for the ER. My mom was insistent, though, and told us to stop calling and enjoy ourselves.
Truthfully, we both slept terribly. We were both too worried, but I'm glad we did it. Between my mom and the night nurse there were two RNs there watching her. That's more than she would get in the intensive care unit. And I think it was good for us to practice being away for the night. It was much harder than I thought and not just because Lula was sick. I missed both of them. That's the rub; when you are with them all the time you dream of getting away, but as soon as you are away you miss them.
After all our declarations that we were going to sleep until noon we were both up at 8. But we did order room service and watch crappy tv and have a bit of a lazy morning before we headed back to reality. That was actually my favorite part- there are no lazy mornings with children.
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| French toast and eggs benedict |
We got home and within half an hour my mom and I were in a cab with Lula on the way to the doctor. She's on antibiotics now and already has greatly improved throughout the day. She and my mom slept all afternoon. I think they had worn each other out. Had my mom made the slightest suggestion that things were not so great we would have been home in a heartbeat, but she was absolutely determined that we would get to have our night out. She single-handedly willed it to happen.
