I’m sitting at the computer in the dining room while the kids are meant to be playing in the living room. Jack is playing Super Mario Brothers on the Wii. Anna is watching him while she eats a butterfly sandwich. A butterfly sandwich is one piece of bread with peanut butter spread on it. She then takes it and folds it. I’m not sure where “butterfly” came from, but it works.
I have to bring Anna to the eye doctor tomorrow morning. Not really looking forward to it. Those of you who have been reading for a while know that one of the last times we were there was not a great moment in time for me or Anna. The last time we were there, she was much better behaved, but the doc referred to her as a “cute terrorist.” I think there’s actually some improvement with her eye usage, so I’m hoping for a fairly painless appointment.
Then on Wednesday, we have the dentist for both kids. I have postponed this one longer than I should have. This postponement stems mainly from what’s going on with Anna. Last year I went to make appointments for the kids, but then found out that we didn’t have dental insurance for them. So this year, we do have dental insurance. I’m a little concerned about Anna. Jack seems to be looking forward to it now that he’s lost 3 teeth (all in about a week’s worth of time. Freakin’ Tooth Fairy is going to be broke if this keeps up). I’m wondering if I should tell them at the dentist what the eye doctor recommended. At that horrible appointment months ago he told me, “You should look into sedation dentistry for her.” We shall see. I’ve been wondering if they do sedation eye appointments for mamas.
On Thursday we’re headed for the Cape. John has a friend who lives out in Wellfleet. This friend has a little apartment over his garage. He lets us stay there often. We didn’t go out last year because John really didn’t have the time with the new job or the finances because of the time without the job. We’ll leave Thursday night, after John gets home from work and we’ve loaded the car. We’ve found that we miss all kinds of traffic if we leave at night—even on a Thursday. We’ll have time on Friday to spend at the beach, I’m sure. On Saturday, John will go racing with his friend. The kids and I will head back to the beach. On Sunday we’ll probably head out to the beach again because the kids really cannot get enough of water and sand. John’s sister and her family will be in town later on Sunday. Then on Monday, John is taking his nephew and brother-in-law fishing with the friend we’re staying with. My sister-in-law will probably go, too. So the kids and I will go to the beach again. We’ll come home Monday night because John will go to work on Tuesday.
I find it kind of surrealistic to be carrying on with life after Brian’s passing. The day after the funeral, I went and got a pedicure. I was in desperate need (if one can be in desperate need of a pedicure), but had held off. After the funeral, I needed time on my own to think and sort through things, so when John came home from work, I ran out the door to Zara’s Nail and Spa in Abington. They do an amazing job, but it’s so peaceful and relaxing there that I was able to just be in my own head. It was nice to have someone wait on me while I did nothing but think. Once I got in the car to go home, though, I got nervous. I felt horrifically guilty about going and doing something just for me. It didn’t seem right in light of what was happening to my friends.
One of the things that I needed to sort through was my impression to the funeral. I really wanted to document the event in some way. It was beautiful. The police department, the army, and the family did such an amazing job at saying farewell. I wrote it all down. I described my reaction to the wake and funeral and how Jack handled the wake, and I sent it to my friend John. I wanted to share with him (because we had recently discussed his father’s funeral and the fire department’s participation in it) how beautiful and how the police department had stepped up to thoughtfully. He has been encouraging me to put it in the blog, but I’m not quite sure I’m ready to do that. First of all, it really isn’t one of my better written pieces and I would have to edit it in order to make it “presentable.” I cannot look at it without sobbing. Secondly, it really is one-sided. It really is all about me and how I responded to the event. I find it to be a little selfish. If there was one thing Brian wasn’t, it was selfish.
I also wanted to come to grips with how life was moving on without Brian. I didn’t think that was fair. I still don’t. And yet, life is moving on. People get pedicures. Children play in pools. People make it to doctors' appointments. Dishes pile up in the sink and need to get done.
And people plan vacations.
We are at just about a month until our epic trip to Disney. Anna is so excited about the trip it’s getting difficult to contain. Since she needs visual queues to help her deal with various stimuli, I’ve been showing her pictures of various pictures from reports people have put on the internet about their trips to Disney. This morning, after looking at pics of people with characters, she demanded to get dressed. She put her hat and shoes on and then stomped her foot. She was ready to go to Disney NOW!!! I had to explain to her that we had to wait 32 more days. I don’t think I really got her to understand the wait, but she did get distracted.
Jack is still playing his game, but he’s got only a few minutes of his allotted time left. Anna is now eating a little bowl of “Krunch Heads” (fake Capt’n Crunch). I’ve got to go do the dishes and take care of the recycling. I was thinking of then throwing the kids in the pool, but it looks like it may rain sooner than Jeremy Reiner (local weather guy) said it would. Maybe we can beat the storms!
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