Us

Mom breaks out of the rehab center on Tuesday, and the kids get their beloved Gaggy back. (Gaggy: Liam's preschool rendering of "Granny.") I get my safety net. It's been a very hard few weeks--a major conference at work and patched-together childcare every day of it. A wakeup call for me, though: I've become too reliant on her, and though she doesn't say it, I fear it's a burden. I've placed ads, and put out the word: we'll find the right person for us, and things will come together again. They tend to do that in life.

On Thursday the woman I'd asked to mind the kids after school just forgot, and the neighbor (all hail neighbors) took it upon herself to go out and wait for L's bus when she didn't see a car in our driveway. For which I'm so grateful. At her house L bent down to pet a dog he's known for five years and got "nipped" in the face: an angry welt from the corner of his eye to his jaw. An hour later, after the woman who'd missed the bus showed up and collected him, he was perched on a tree limb with M, in a bit of a daze (he tells me), and just slipped off the branch and hit the deck on his wrist. The whole scene, recounted, reminds me of the wild-haired, barefooted, unmonitored tinker kids my mother would spin tales about. Gypsy children, hanging out of trees. When I got home he was on the couch with neosporin on his face and an ice pack on his arm. "What happened, honey?" I asked, and he burst into tears. All of which, naturally, in the parental measure of a scene felt like my own failure.

Today we're off to the beach for the last free weekend. The kids are putting their kites together, and I'm off to pack lunch. Happy Sunday!