Katrina

 

Katrina is really blowing my mind up here.  First, I have an uncle and cousins in Picayune, Mississippi.  We heard from them the day after the hurricane that they were OK, but we haven’t been able to check back in to see how they’re doing with no electricity or water.  My uncle is also not the healthiest man around, so we are very concerned about them. 

 

For those of you out of the southeast, we’re also having shortages of gas in North Carolina and in Charlotte.  Two of our local stations have been out of gas for 2 days.  I found a place yesterday morning with gas at $3.15/gallon and happily filled up my car.  The Subaru burns about a gallon going to and from school, and I had one trip left.  I’ve actually decided that now that the initial frenzy of school is over, I’m going to work at home as much as I can to save gas.  We just don’t know when everything is going to be back up and running.

 

I’m also just stunned thinking about everything going on in New Orleans.  It’s scary.  Every morning when my radio turns on NPR, I lie in bed shocked at how much worse things have gotten overnight.  Holy crap.  This feels like something really, really big and really, really bad.  Dave says it’s not true, but it feels like help started pouring in to Bande Ache faster than it is to New Orleans.  Why??? 

 

My heart is breaking over what the people are going through and what they still have ahead of them.  Even something as trivial as the universities in New Orleans:   They are closed and as far as I can tell, they very well may be closed for the entire fall semester.  Holy Crap!!  If they have evacuated New Orleans and they can’t get the power back up and running, how could it be otherwise? 

 

Things seem really really bad for the US right now.  We’re at war overseas.  We’ve got a horrible natural disaster on our own shores.  It just seems really bad.  

11:05:13 AM     trackback [] Comments? []

Reconnect

 

The first two weeks of school are always the busiest.  I’m hoping my lack of time to blog is indicative of the rest of the school year. 

 

I really shouldn’t be complaining because in one important way it’s been a lot easier than it should have been.  My mom has been down here for the last two weeks as our nanny.  I mean Conor’s nanny.  And I am here to tell you that I could get really used to having a nanny.  Oh. My. God. What a difference a nanny makes.  I don’t have to prepare food to take to school or add 15 minutes on my commute to drop him off (for Dave it’s more like adding 30 minutes).  Conor is so much happier being at home and playing with his Grandma.  And considering that sleep has been a real issue this week, he can take all the naps he wants whenever he wants to take them.  Much, much better. 

 

But she leaves this afternoon around 12.  That whoop of joy you hear from the direction of Charlotte will be my Mom backing out of the driveway for her first break in 5 days.  This morning we offered to let her take Conor with her if she’d like.  After Dave and I slept (when we could) with the baby in the form of an H, we could use a little respite ourselves.  (In case you’re wondering, Conor was the 31 inch connection from the two sides of the H.  If he grows any more we’re going to fall off the bed).  We did get one good night of sleep this week, but he’s starting to cut his molars and he had a fever Wednesday, so we just haven’t had a lot of sleep at night. 

 

But I do want to catch up about how he is starting to walk more and more, how he’s understanding so much more of what we’re saying to him, and how his separation anxiety has left the building.  We were at a party on Sunday and he was going to strangers, from my arms.  I was holding him, I’d see a friend of mine and Conor would lean over to be held by her.  Dave and I were wondering who this pod child was and what happened to our frightened baby.

 

But, I’ll talk about that later.  Now I have to send off this essay and get to work on some important projects. 

8:45:02 AM     trackback [] Comments? []