Squeezing one in

It's the calm before the storm. My child is napping. I should be cleaning. We are packed. My house is a total disaster. I met, I created, I drew, I invoiced, I thanked, I apologized. It has been going on for two weeks. The moment Lane is with her sitter, I am out the door to a meeting or sitting at my desk plugging away. It's a 4 coffee cup desk week - which is how you can tell I have been busy - they stack up because I forget to take them downstairs. Last night I saw them piled in the sink because my husband/baby daddy/CFO/cleaning staff had brought them all down stairs - along with the plate from my lunch. And in the midst of it all he ran an ultramarathon last weekend - 31.8 miles. I laughed when I saw them there, I know this habit drives him crazy but he knows I'm busy and doesn't say anything.

 

This morning I gave in and realized there was no possible way to get everything done before I take off for a much needed cousin visit,  so I am leaving my poor husband with this messy house - but deep down I sort of hope that when he finds the weeble wobbles and mini animals that Lane has left all over the house in weird places he will think of us and miss us. I apologized to my sitter that I have been a zombie - she said that is okay and that she knows I am preoccupied when I have that wide-eyed look. I am embarrassed that she can tell and so so grateful for her singing and playing and strolling with Lane. She works about 6-8 hours a week, sometimes more, sometimes less but between that help and nap time and working with little one in the office, I can get a lot done. Last week I took a phone call while being chased in circles by a toy lawn mower, it was a new high for us.

 

Yesterday I had dental work done, came home for Lane, then went to a meeting where I had to look and sound professional with what felt like a sock in my mouth from the numbness. It was crazy, but it came out okay. I swung back by the house after the meeting, picked up my little monkey and went to meet a friend to see Tibetan Monks doing a sand mural in a local museum. Millions of grains of sand in different colors. It was beautiful, they were peaceful in the middle of my craziness - that is until Lane grabbed one of those seatbelt material barricade things that rolls back into itself and it went 'snnnnapppp' in the middle of the atrium. I figured we better go, so we went to the park and had an Italian soda and some gelato. That is how it goes right now - eighty miles an hour to a screeching halt to take a toddler to sniff a flower. We love Thursdays because the newspaper delivers a free segment that no one wants or reads - except Lane. We take her cozy coupe out and she collects them all, one by one, and puts them in her car.

 

A couple of weeks ago our sitter had a friend sub-in for her for the morning. She's a special lady that ran a Montessori school for a long time and Lane likes her lots. As she was leaving, she turned and said 'You know how lucky you are, right?'. I do. I am the luckiest woman in the world. My sweet family, our health, our home, my passion/my business, this beautiful City.

 

Another photographer friend took some pictures of Lane (below), and a different photographer friend took this one of us together after Dave's race. So grateful for pictures...so grateful for friends.