Chance of a Lifetime

When I was finishing up my Bachelor's degree and thinking about the next step, my voice instructor asked me if I wanted to pursue a career in performance. I remember saying that I never wanted to be the mom who isn't home for my kid's birthday.

A dear friend of mine is offering me a chance of a lifetime. Airfare, accommodation and retreat fees covered for this! Seven nights in Puerto Vallarta with workshops where I will care for myself in a way I've only ever dreamed of.

That's almost a week and a half away from my kiddos when I've never actually left them for any real time. The only time I've been away from the house overnight was when Little Man was born! My friend had mentioned this last April when she was visiting and I told myself I'd be stupid to say no. We've called my in-laws and they are very interested to see if they could make it work so they could come and stay while I'd be away. I asked the kids over dinner last night that if I had to go somewhere for a little bit with my friend, would they like to have Gramma and Grampa come to play with them. They said yes.

But the problem is that Little Man would turn 3 while I'd be away. And that makes it so hard for me to give a firm yes. I could pretend his birthday is another day so he nor Sweet One would ever know I wasn't actually there for it. But I'd know it.

Two Zippered Pouches: One for an Innotab2 and one for food

In six sleeps we will wake up earlier than the sun and hopefully be out our door, on the road to the airport, by about 6:30. We have a nearly two hour drive to the airport then we hop on our first flight that will take us to Washington. Then the fun beings as we board plane #2 and arrive in Seattle, WA 6 hours later. We'll grab a hotel and then be on the Clipper the next morning. 

I'm not really looking forward to this trip. I'm worried that I won't get any sleep and I'll get glared down by my MIL more times than I'm comfortable with. On the other side of that, I'm hoping I'll grow up enough to just let go without putting negative expectations on it and try to enjoy myself while my kids get to spend some time with their grandparents and aunt and uncle. Sweet One is absolutely, completely excited about this trip. Yesterday after Preschool her teacher told me she was a little out of sorts because she was so excited. This is the first time we've ever been told she was out of sorts by her teacher.

So for the past few weeks I've been trying to figure out a way to keep our packing as minimal as possible. Since we need to hop on public transit to get to the hotel we are hoping to only take one real suitcase, a purse and bag for me and one backpack per kid.

In terms of entertaining the kids, I have loaded up a number of movies onto a couple of SD cards so that they can watch them with Sweet One's Innotab2. The fact that I can use an SD was one reason I chose it over its competitor. She got it from her grandparents for Christmas and I'm hoping it will save our sanity this trip. One problem in terms of trying to pack light is that the case I bought for it is rather large and would take up pretty much her whole backpack. So I searched and found this tutorial at So Sew Something! and figured that I could add a few pockets and padding to make it work for the Innotab2.

I'm using a 12" zipper and have cut my main pieces at 10" x 11". The smaller purple pieces are for the pockets and they are 2.75" x 6". The large purple pieces have a piece of fusible fleece attached to the back as do 2 of the 4 smaller purple pieces.

                                 

To make the pockets I took one piece with fleece and one without, put the right sides together and sewed around 3 sides. Then I flipped them right side out, turned in the bottom edges and sewed it up shut.

Then I eyeballed it and sewed one pocket on each piece of the lining fabric. (My thinking was that the pockets would be opposite each other and then hopefully the Innotab2 would sit in between them somewhat.)

From this point on I just did as the tutorial at So Sew Something! instructed and it came together very quickly.

It ended up a little wider than it needed to but it is not nearly as thick as the other case. Sweet One will love it because I made it out of her "absolutely favorite colors!" (Anyone else's kid in love with Charlie and Lola?) The pockets each hold two game cartridges and slide in very nicely. While we can't reach down into them to get the bottom cartridge, they slide out very easily by placing a finger at the bottom of the cartrdige and pushing it up and out.

 A few days ago I had actually made one other pouch with the same tutorial. Before putting it together, I basted on a piece of Insul-Bright to each of the outer fabric pieces. Then I continued on as the tutorial told me to and I now have a pouch that will keep some portable yogurt and cheese sticks cool since we'll be in the air for both lunch and supper!

In the end, if all my efforts to entertain the kids and keep them fed still leaves them with the urge to scream at the top of their lungs for much too long, I'll never have to see anybody on the plane again! And I've also heard that it goes a long way to buy the person in front of us a drink or snack pack if our kids are kicking their seats a bit too much.

And sometimes, all I can do is laugh

I wasn't all that quiet about my surprise and hesitation at the idea of my in-laws coming for a visit. Quite frankly, I'm still not. But I agreed to it because I know it is good for Sweet One to have time with her Grandparents and also Big Love wasn't as against the visit as I was! They planned to be here for three nights and until a few moments ago* it sounded like it would be shortened to two. The Nor'easter that is kicking the world of airline travel's ass has landed them in Philly for a few more hours than originally anticipated. We warned them that with such a short time for a visit (a cruise took up the majority of their vacation) they were taking a chance with the weather forcing them into a hotel for an extra night or two. As I watched the weather channel yesterday I just shook my head and laughed because really, what else do you do? So many other times I've worried about weather and it turned out fine.

Then last night happened. Sweet One slept until 330 and I miraculously got just under a straight 5 hours of sleep. But she didn't get back to sleep until 415 or so. And then I didn't get back to sleep until some time after 507. And then the phone rang at 534 with an automated voice telling me that my in-laws flight out of Philly was cancelled. And then Sweet One woke up at 622. By 700 we had checked out a few things online, tried to see if the in-laws were still at their hotel but they had checked out, and I was trying to get a little more sleep. But Big Love and I had forgotten to send the phone out of the room with him and my FIL woke me up at 745 to tell me what was going on. "Yup, I know it's cancelled because the airline called me at 535!" I was finally able to get a bit more sleep after that. Completely surprising to me is that I'm not pissed off about all that because it got to the point that it was beyond the point of ridiculous so I'm just laughing.... and about to have a nap.

*After typing the first few sentences my FIL called again and said they are on a 351 flight which is about 6 hours earlier than they had originally thought they'd get one. We'll pick them up at the airport and they'll get to spend the drive home with Sweet One before I put her to bed at her regular time.

Our dubious status

When we returned from Montreal this passed Sunday, we encountered our first glitch at the border. In our passports has always been the I-94A and, since our visas have been extended, there was also one other piece of paper stapled to the I-94A that we received when our visas were renewed. For some reason, the US government does not put the expiry date on the renewal slip. Why? I have no freakin' clue and think that that is absolutely retarded! Regardless, the paper which the renewal slip detaches from does have the expiry date which we have carried with us on two previous trips and never needed them. I've always been someone who carries more than we need with us to prevent any problems, but this time I completely forgot about the lack of expiry date on our passport documents.

We were one of those cars sent to the offices at the border. They take the keys to our car and firmly tell us where to go. On one hand, the person at the booth could have easily found it in the computer they scan things through - which is what I'm guessing has been done in the past - and on the other, we should have had the rest of the renewal notice with us. Luckily, all the information regarding us and our status in the States is readily available in the computer and the person we dealt with in the office issued us new I-94A's, confiscating our other documents which were being used in our green card application. What this might mean for our green cards, we had no idea.

On June 17th I received an email from our lawyer instructing me not to worry about some of our concerns and also that he would be filing our green card application within the week. I hadn't heard anything from him a month later and so I emailed inquiring into the status of our application with no reply. The day before we left for Montreal I emailed him to let him know we'd be leaving the country for a short time and again queried as to the status of our application. Still nothing.

On Monday I left a message for our lawyer with a brief description of what happened at the border. Later on that day he returned my call and asked about what happened. At one point he mentioned that he didn't know we'd be out of the country to which I responded, I sent you an email the day before we left. "Oh." (Dude! You're obviously not reading my emails!) turns out that we were very lucky he hadn't filed the application because if he had and we were in possession of new I-94A's, then the entire application would have been thrown out. (And if he had filed the application we weren't supposed to leave the country until we get new travel papers!) While I was frustrated that our applications hadn't been filed, it's a good thing they weren't!

This whole experience has reminded us just how strongly our presence here in the States is determined by someone's decision. Our application will be put on someone's desk and they will decide our fate. (Hopefully they'll be in a good mood and not recently been dumped by the love of their life!) We are somewhat afraid that the decision will not be favorable to us and that we will be given a short amount of time to pack up and return to Canada. Without income, a place to live, a toddler and an infant, we just can't seem to imagine where the best place to go would be or how things will work out. Houses in this area do not sell quickly and so we'd also have a mortgage to continue paying. It's scary. Because it could be quite some time before we know our fate, I am trying to live each day as if we're ok and whatever happens, we'll deal with it. I so desperately hope that when it is time for us to leave this place it will be on our own terms because we're ready for the next step.

And on the third day, I felt like a teenager (just for a moment)

The third day we let Sweet One have her nap again in the morning. Trying to keep her quiet and content in the hotel room until it was nap time began to get very difficult. She screamed just for the hell of it on a regular basis and there was no way for us to stop her from doing this. As soon as her stroller was getting pulled out of the closet she got excited and then we were off!As long as we were moving, Sweet One didn't care what we did. We didn't return to our hotel room until about 7 hours after we left. The streets in the French Quarter are lined with such interesting buildings. I absolutely love the balconies. One building had a sign that said it was the site where slaves were bought and so. Definitely hard to imagine as we peered through the glass to see nothing that would ever corroborate that. We watched a few travel DVDs before leaving and learned that a lot of the homes in the French Quarter would have housed the mistresses of the rich men and these mistresses were often black slaves who would have their own slaves. Hard to believe that such a hierarchy existed in this part of history. I can not fathom it.
Later in the afternoon, after eating crayfish and alligator outisde at The Market Cafe while listening to live jazz, we spent some more time in Jackson Square. Sweet One let me hold her while we danced a bit to this Dixieland Jazz Brass Band. They were freakin' awesome. I loved it. I think Sweet One got a little overwhelmed by the noise and so we left but I would have stayed there all afternoon.
In this picture you can see Sweet One beside her stroller. In the cup holder is my 20oz hurricane. According to the bar tender, it contained fruit punch, rum, rum and more rum and came out of a slurpee machine, premixed! I also got a free shooter of Sex on the Beach. This was the strangest feeling ever. I do not remember the last time I had a shot and the last time I was drinking a slurpee with liquor in it did not end well. I felt like a teenager again and then I looked at Sweet One. Lukcily, this afternoon ended well. We searched as much of the French Quarter as we could for pecan pie but couldn't find any, settled for Gelato and then made our way back to the hotel.

The last two days in New Orleans were just what I had hoped the trip would be. I am so glad that we got to go there and see a city that is truly unlike any we've seen before.

First day in New Orleans

After a tiring day of travelling, our first day in the New Orleans area ended up a difficult one. With Sweet One as our alarm clock, we woke up early. I naively thought that Sweet One may have some good naps in her stroller througout the day and therefore leave us with the freedom to wander around, check out the market and enjoy our time. I was somewhat wrong. We were out and about so early that we had our choice of tables at Cafe du Monde! Luckily I enjoyed that because it was the only meal that was any good our first day.

Sweet One has never been a good "on the go" napper and this trip reminded me of that. She ended up quite cranky throughout our first day and by the end of it I was exhausted, in tears and ready to go home. So far, the trip wasn't anything as I had expected. With us getting up so early, and still on EST, our early morning site seeing was a bit of a waste of time because this city doesn't wake up early - probably due to the late night culture it has! We should have stayed in the hotel room and let Sweet One get one good nap during the day.

One of the main things we wanted to do on this trip was see a plantation. I had spent a lot of time figuring out which one we should see, even saw a DVD about it prior to leaving. I anticipated that it would be a highlight of our trip. The one we saw was a Creole plantation rather than the typical antebellum ones in the area. While it was not huge in grandeur, it was consider very typical. The depth of knowledge that the guide (also the owner) had about this place was amazing. There are 5000 pages written about life on this plantation by a young woman who lived there. The stories, and the guide's delivery, about how the business and family were run was amazing. In the end, our guide pointed out that running a plantation not only dehumanized the slaves that worked it, but also the president (the woman who ran it - this particular plantation was always run by women) because of what was required of her.

This is the only plantation in the area that does not ignore the history of slavery. These slave cabins held two families and believe it or not, people lived in the cabins until 1977! I can not fathom it.

While I felt like the stories were rich and the guide was very skilled in his storytelling, I did leave this plantation on a sour note. For the most part, Sweet One wanted to run around and so we let her. She is much quieter if she can move around than if I am forcing her to stay in my arms! Big Love and I followed behind the group so that her noise would not bother anyone - we took turns listening to the tour but it was warm outside and I wasn't sure if we'd make it! At one point the guide came up to me and told me not to get too far behind because he didn't want me to miss what he was saying. I thought that was very kind of him and felt a little better about being there. Once we got into the house Sweet One settled down and wasn't making much noise at all. She seemed very content in my arms and so I joined the group and enjoyed being able to hear more of the tour.

I find it hard to believe that a parent in such a situation would ever not be completely sensitive to how much noise their child is making. Countless times when I've been worried about her noise, I've been told that parents always think their children are noisier than they really are. After three or four short vocalizations I was asked to leave the room. I immediately felt sick to my stomach. The way our guide asked to "take the baby out of the room" was blunt and rude. I honestly did not think that her sounds merited this - we paid our tour fees just as anyone else did. At one point during the tour he spoke of how the President who ran the plantation said that she was God - maybe the current owner has adopted that attitude as well! "Do not make noise while God is talking!"

All in all we learned a good lesson our first day in New Orleans. We needed to change our expectations of how we would enjoy this vacation and that Southern Hospitality doesn't always extend to parents with small children when visiting a plantation.

Riding my stream of consciousness into New Orleans

The last three weeks have been somewhat stressful - not sure if we were going to owe the church money because of someone else's mistake, waiting to find out how much less Big Love would get paid each month also due to the mistake, things going wrong with the house, overcast weather making me depressed .... lah, bah, gah .... etc. I've had my moments. We've had our hearts set on going to New Orleans next month for a few days and I was worried that the trip would take the course of the cheesecake I made Big Love for Valentine's Day - it was baked and yet the texture was more of a thick mousse, the glaze was hard and the crust was soggy so it really wasn't a cheescake at all! After spending enough time online tonight to fry my brain, I emailed my sister the progress. (I'm amazed how many hotels have discounted rates at this time of year!) Here is said email:

.... I just found a hotel for $59 a night WITH a crib option and so that way we'll be able to take the express bus in (save $60 there by not taking a cab) and not bring our pack n play (save $50 there in baggage fees) and thus be able to afford the trip - AND a special day where we go on a tour of a Plantation. So how cool does that sound?! Wanna join? March 22-26 is when we're going. Hoo wah. This might actually happen and even nicer is we don't have to pay taxes and shit like you do with Air Miles when we book the flights with our rewards and so something MIGHT actually work out for me and I can stop worrying about how my bathroom was leaking again and that my house makes it sound like it is raining because of all the heat loss due to crappy insulation and FUCK IT I'm going to New Orleans and it'll be great! Now we'll sleep on it and book it tomorrow!