April 14, 2004 - 10:39 a.m.

Relative Discomfort

Easter turned out to be the perfect end to a perfect weekend. Good thing, too, since this week is shaping up to be difficult!

The game was great, though a real nailbiter. I got to see Curt Schilling pitch, and liked what I saw. The Sox blew an early 2-0 lead, and were down 4-2 to the Blue Jays. The good guys managed to tie the game at the last minute, sending us into extra innings. It was scary to watch those extra innings, since our hitters were getting little other than line drives hit right into the gloves of infielders and Toronto managed to get a few men on base here and there. Still, the Sox managed to hold them off and make them use their entire bullpen until David Ortiz hit a alk-off two run homer in the 12th. I was glad we stayed to the triumphant end!

Since then, life has been full of rain, disrupted routine, annoying houseguests, and little trials that add up to big headaches. S's brother and his family stayed until yesterday afternoon. They spent Monday with their grandmother, so our day was pretty normal until they showed up in the afternoon. At that point, the girls had just gotten home from school so on top of the usual chaos of giving them a snack, supervising homework, and packing lunches for the next day, we had the six year-old cousin to be B's partner in crime in making all kinds of noise and mess, and the 18 month old cousin to play in the dog's water and take all the magnets off the fridge and scatter them across the floor. Meanwhile, the parents were clearly on vacation. Oy. I even got to accompany the whole crowd to Friendly's and make small talk with almost strangers while their children yelled, spilled things, and licked my charges. The parents kept claiming that the kids usually are very well-behaved. Ha! I can believe that some of the acting out was exacerbated by unfamiliar surroundings and no routine, but the parents' minimal intervention didn't have a similar excuse. Sometimes I hate people.

However, that was nothing compared to yesterday. Since the cousins were here, S agreed to let B stay home from school, and the grandmother was supposed to come over in the morning and hang out with them leaving me free for a couple of hours to go to the gym and chill as usual. Hah! Grandma didn't show until 11AM, by which point I had given up on a workout after spending the morning entertaining both B and the older cousin. The aunt seemed content to sit on the couch and veg, while the little one watched Toy Story 2 over and over and over again, and I entertained both older boys with board games, legos, and such. Entertaining the boys wasn't too big a deal, but the cousin was, of course, reluctant to listen to me since he barely knows me. And I really dislike having someone around watching my every move, including me folding laundry and loading and emptying the dishwasher, without once offering to help. Once in a while she would start up a conversation, usually about the various ways in which she dislikes or distrusts the grandmother (her mother in law). Ugh.

Once Grandma arrived, I decided that I couldn't take much more of being cooped up with the relatives in the house. She and I took the two older boys to the nearby children's museum, where they, mostly, had a blast. The cousin has even more of a tendency to wander off then B, who I have pretty much trained to let me know where he's going at last, so it was often a good thing there were two of us to keep an eye on them. B, to his credit, was almost perfectly behaved, though a bit rambunctious, even though his cousin has no sense of personal space and tended to shove things in all our faces and bump into people constantly.

The museum outing kept the boys occupied and helped pass the rainy afternoon. We returned in time for the girls to get home from school just after the little cousin had fallen asleep in Grandma's arms. She got a lot of flack for that, since the family would be piling into their car in a couple hours to drive home to Pennsylvania. I can understand that they would prefer to have him sleep in the car, but the child was clearly exhauted and extremely cranky. And it's not like Grandma had to force him to sleep. She just carried him around to keep him from running off to find his mom who was taking a shower, and he fell asleep on her shoulder.

Meanwhile, I went about the aforementioned afternoon chores trying to ignore the tension in the house. The kids were sad to see their cousins and aunt and uncle go, but I think even they were glad to have the house back to ourselves. It was a pleasure to get the kids bathed and ready for the evening without extra kids and toys to trip over and extra eyes and opinions on everything I did.

But my day was not over yet. Thanks to Easter, NCV's ordinary Sunday rehearsal was moved to Tuesday night. So, after the long stressful day, I had to drive through what felt like monsoon rains to and from rehearsal. I was glad I did, though, since my fellow chorus members are a funny group of people, and rehearsal is always entertaining with our various kinds of silliness. It relieved a bit of the day's stress, though a good portion returned as I drove home through blinding rain and huge puddles afraid I would hydroplane at any moment.

I need a day off! Luckily, B has taekwondo this afternoon, so after lunch I will take him there and I can relax and read while he's in class. Bliss. :)

today's project: recovering from the relatives

Did you know? David Ortiz is nicknamed Cookie Monster

consecutive workout days: only 1 thanks to not having a free moment yesterday, but I did cardio and strength this morning

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