How I Spent My 8th Wedding Anniversary (continued from email correspondence post)

This final piece of correspondence was written to the Professor on May 30, the day after my 8th Wedding anniversary. By this time, I have already recovered from the barfing sickness, which stole 2 days of my life (on the weekend, no less). I have packed for our trip even though I have realized that there is little to no chance at all that we will get Charlie's passport in time to leave on June 1. Times were not good.

5/30/2007
How are you? I hope your journey back to Ormskirk was uneventful and fast! Things here are going so-so. I had a pretty bad day yesterday and spent a lot of time pondering over that age old question of what the hell to do with my life. The good news is that we’re all packed! I’ve got everything in the bag except for bottles and toiletries. It’s definitely a relief to have that done. The bad news is that I still haven’t gotten Charlie’s passport. I spent most of last evening on the phone trying to get through to the passport people. I never got through. That place totally sucks! The other part of the evening was spent trying to soothe Charlie and washing Roxy.

When I picked Charlie up from school, he was obviously exhausted. He fell asleep in the car on the way home almost immediately. When we got home, we did our usual: play, eat, bathe, bottle, snuggle. I gave him some Dimetapp because his nose has been running for a couple of days (nothing major, though). I curled up with him on the couch and we looked into each other’s eyes for a while. He giggled when I rubbed his tummy and laughed when I stroked his cheek. And then, miraculously, he was asleep before 8:00.

At around 8:20, I decided to put him in his crib. I THOUGHT that he had been out long enough to be almost oblivious during the transition. WRONG! He woke up as soon as I stood up and started to cry. I put him in his crib and he started to scream. So, I held him. I tried to recreate the sofa snuggle, but that didn’t work. I rocked him. I took him outside. I turned on the sound machine and tried ocean and wind. Nothing worked. I decided to take him for a drive. His screaming was really relentless. I think he was in a bit of a stupor from the Dimetapp and it was making him feel weird. When I went outside to put him in the car, I let the dogs in. Roxy had rolled in poo, so I screamed at her and left her outside. We drove around for about 30 minutes and he continued to scream. It was awful and I was in tears. I finally gave up on the driving thing and went home. I put him in the big bed and he finally settled down. We looked at his books for about 30 minutes until I made him lay down. He quickly fell asleep. We lay there for a few minutes more, and then I put him in his crib. He cried a little when I first put him down, but I don’t think he had much fight left in him because he quickly fell back asleep. After I got Charlie taken care of, I washed the poo off Roxy and ended up giving her a full bath since she’s going to Kim’s.

When I finally got to bed just before midnight, I peeked in to check on him and he was face down and snoozing hard. He also had both legs sticking out through the slats of the crib. Because I’m crazy, I just had to readjust him. I really did it because I was afraid he might try to roll over or move and get stuck and start screaming again. So, I swiftly readjusted him and he hardly even noticed. I wanted so bad to take a picture of his feet sticking out, but I knew that would be dangerous. He looked a little like the Wicked Witch of the West after the house fell on her. I had to wake him up this morning, but I think he slept really well aside from the hour long screaming bout. No Dimetapp tonight, that’s for sure.

The next day, May 31 (my birthday) was spent at work, crying because I knew the passport wouldn't come. I spent the entire day scrambling trying to figure out some way to get this situation to go my way. Unfortunately, by around 3:00 I had to face the facts. I could either leave Charlie with grandparents and go on vacation without him. Or stay at home and ditch the vacation altogether. I decided on the latter - the decision was made on June 1 at 6:00 a.m. I arranged for Charlie to stay with my parents for the first week and the Professor's mom for the second. I can’t thank either of them enough for coming through on this one.

I then called Expedia to cancel Charlie’s plane ticket and see what could be done about transferring it to another time. Of course, the result of that phone call was disappointing. Basically, the ticket is valid for up to one year, it must be kept in Charlie’s name, and it must remain on British Airways (The ticket was on American but processed through British Air - huh?). That’s convenient. We’ll either have to eat the $1,000.00 that the ticket cost (because we have that kind of money just lying around in the sofa and in random drawers!) or plan a vacation somewhere in the UK by next June. Did I mention that every single flight we were on was on an American Airlines plane and that I never once even saw a British Airways plane or British Airways employee throughout the entire traveling process? I’m hoping that we’ll be able to work something out. Maybe Christmas in the Lake District? Spring Break in London?

We did finally get Charlie’s passport. It arrived sometime in mid-June while he was at a grandparent’s house and I was abroad. The government’s tightening of the passport rope for those traveling from Canada and Mexico was of course the cause for the passport delay, which was loosened while we were on vacation without our son. I guess I should feel lucky that I wasn’t one of those who missed their own wedding or honeymoon because of a passport delay. And really, our trip was probably better without our 1 year old in tow.

We actually got to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday while on vacation - at night, in a restaurant, and with wine. We celebrated in Ormskirk, Liverpool, Manchester, the Lake District, Whales, Dublin, and Galway. Had Charlie been with us, we would have been holed up in a hotel, probably with a bottle of wine and no corkscrew. Instead we repeatedly celebrated in restaurants with candlelight, wine in real wine glasses, hot food, and an infinite amount of time to linger.