Avoiding Crisis

and we’re only half-way to our destination.

We left the house this morning at 9:15AM. We arrived in Bahia Blanca at approximately 6:15PM. All I can say is that was one really really long six hour drive. It would have been an hour or so shorter had we not hit a shit load of traffic getting out the the city this morning.

On the upside, it was a beautiful day to go for a drive. Sunny and clear. You could see for miles. Though, to be completely honest, there’s not really much to see between the City of Buenos Aires and Bahia Blanca. It’s a little over 600 KM of really green grass, flat land, cows and cows and more cows, some horses and the occasional sheep.

Thank god for portable DVD players.

Here’s a few photos from today’s adventure. (more…)

we leave tomorrow on what will be our first family road trip.  we are heading down to Puerto Madryn to go whale watching off Peninsula Valdes.  If we have time we’ll head to Punto Tombo to check out the Magellanic penguins. 

We are breaking up the driving portion of the trip into two days, stopping overnight in Bahia Blanca, probably best known for its production of world class basketball players like Emanuel Ginóbili.  Each leg — Buenos Aires-Bahia Blanca and Bahia Blanca-Puerto Madryn — will take us 6 hours, we think.   

Hoping that I’ll have a WiFi connection available so I can post pictures of our adventure.  Plus, I have updates on the whole bidding process as well as some creative writing I’d like to share.    

I have to finish packing. 

i LOVE headlines like this one.  Love. love love.

Home sales continue spiral down:Realtors say sales of existing homes drop for sixth consecutive month, to lowest level in 5 years; separate report shows steepest price drop in 16 years.

News like this makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  And giddy with joy.  It’s like getting an early unexpected Christmas gift.

burst bubble.  burst!

I woke up, rolled over and semi climbed over my husband to get a good look at the clock. 

6:25AM. 

I gently shook my husband trying to wake him up, assuming he had overslept.  This was purely an assumption, mind you, since I’m usually not awake, and if I am awake, not coherent, when he gets out of bed. Therefore I really don’t have a clue as to what time he starts his day.  I do know though that by 7:30AM he’s out the door and I’m stumbling around trying to wake my sleepy-ass up and get the kids ready for school. 

That’s a normal day. 

Today wasn’t a normal day.

So apparently at 6:25AM my husband still has 5 more minutes of sleep.  Who knew?  He made sure that I was made fully aware of this fact in a sweet but what-the-f-is-wrong-with-you kinda way. 

I rolled over, while simultaneously rolling my eyes at his comment, and fell back to sleep.

Exciting shit this is, isn’t it?  I know you’re just dying to know what happened next.  And NO it has nothing to do with sex.

But before I go on….Let’s me take a teeny tiny step back.

Recently I’ve been thinking about trying to wake up earlier - as in earlier then the kids.  I’ve heard somewhere, or maybe I read it, I can’t remember, that if you were to wake up before your children and manage to pull yourself together before you have to “start” the day then things wouldn’t seem so frazzled and maybe you wouldn’t feel like you’re playing catch up all day long.   I was seriously considering trying this.  I hadn’t yet put the idea in motion, but still, thinking about it was a good start. Don’t you think? 

Okay, so back to this morning.  And NO it still has nothing to do with sex. 

Eventually my husband got out of bed.  I don’t know exactly when that happened but it had to be sometime between 6:25AM, the first time I looked at the clock, and 6:55AM, the next time I woke up and looked at the clock.

6:55 AM. 

“Five more minutes,” I thought to myself as I let out a very loud (to me) but completely silent ”ahhhhhhh” and buried my face in the pillow.  

And although it seemed like an entire hour had gone by, it must have been only seconds when I was startled out of bed by the screams of a 2 year old and my husband yelling, “Nicole!!!!!! I’m in the bathroom.”  Which was his way of saying, I’m on the crapper so could you please go and see what in god’s name our crazy son has gotten himself into.

And as I jumped out of bed, in the corner of my eye I could see that the clock still said 6:55AM.

I stumbled ran across the hall to my son’s room and there he was, in his doorway, screaming and holding his head; his bloody head.  HIS BLOODY HEAD! 

Seriously his entire head was bloody.  Not just blood dripping from one little area or even one side of his entire head. He was covered in a mixture of tears, snot and blood, all which he decided to mix together to create one big bloody mess on his face; all over his face.

I grabbed a towel and started wiping the blood, the tears, the snot, trying to find the source.   

We’re not sure what happened since I was still in bed and, as I mentioned, my husband was otherwise occupied.  We think he tripped and fell on the pointy part of a toy jet he seems to have taken a liking too recently. 

He cut himself on his right temple.  It left a small, but profound little gash. 

There was a lot of blood at first, that always seems to be the case when dealing with head injuries.  Though it wasn’t anything severe enough to warrant stitches.  He’ll have a scar.  He already has a lovely one right above his left eye.  I’m sure he’ll get others. They add character.   

I don’t know but I’m thinking that maybe today I should have implemented the “wake up before the kids” plan. 

Tomorrow. Maybe. 

Though after a day like today, I’m thinking I may need to sleep in.

I’m taking a creative writing course.  Last night I had my first class.

We discussed the idea of “writing from the senses.”  The instructor asked us to think about and answer two questions:

1) If you had to give up one, which sense would you be willing lose?

2) If you could have one sense heightened, which one would it be?

I said that I’d give up my ability to hear and that I’d want to heighten my sense of taste.

How about you? What sense would you give up?  What sense would you like to have heightened?