Rachael & Tim: lucky sunglasses

Showing posts with label lucky sunglasses. Show all posts

Friday, January 6, 2012

Crash

My father-in-law recently said to me, "Life has a funny way of interfering with your plans." So true. As he said this, he was driving me and Timmy the 45 minutes from downtown Providence, to Karen's house. That morning, January 3, the five of us: Karen, the kids and myself, had driven there together to spend the morning at the Children's Museum. By that afternoon, we would have a broken car, its occupants shaken but mostly unhurt (and grateful to God for that!), and now no idea how and when we will be making it North Carolina before Tim's return.

Even with OnStar, downtown driving can sometimes be a challenge for me, especially when it's noon after a busy morning, and I was already tired to begin with. We left the museum and I missed the turn for 95 north. I decided to continue straight into a neighborhood, get my bearings, and turn around. I remember thinking, 'Ugh, I don't want to go straight here. This doesn't look like a nice place.' But the light was green and I went.

I didn't know he was coming until he was a blur in the corner of my right eye. I had just enough time to suck in a lungful of air before he slammed into us.

When our car stopped it was pointed left, against the curb of the intersecting street. Every airbag along both sides of the car had deployed, I couldn't see out of any of the windows, and I remember the air smelled like carbon. Hadn't smelled that smell in years. Weird. The kids were all crying, and Karen and I were asking each other, "Are you OK? Is everybody OK?"

The kids were all fine, buckled up tight as could be in their car seats. They were traumatized, so we unbuckled them and let them come up to the front with us. Poor Timmy had to wait a few extra minutes, still facing rear in his little seat, wondering what the heck was going on. But I got him out too, and Karen and I passed him back and forth. He stood on my lap looking around with a big smile on his face, like, 'I don't see what's wrong here. We're all together and having fun.'

Annie would later sum it up like this: "Our car got bumped, then the man put blankets on the windows." Delaney corrected her in her big-kid way, "No Annie, those were just airbags."

None of us went with the paramedics to the hospital. I refused transport to the hospital for the kids and myself. I will always wonder a little bit if Karen took my refusal of treatment for the kids and me as her being obligated to sign her own waiver and stay with us, when she should have gone otherwise. She went to the doctor later that day with pain in her neck, back and arm. She had suffered from side whiplash, which isn't a wonder, considering most of the impact happened right where she was sitting. We were hit by a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon*, a pretty big car, and I don't even think he slowed down. I'm grateful that we were in kind of a big car ourselves -- a Chevy Traverse -- that can absorb that kind of impact and keep us all safe. It also reaffirmed for me why I have the kids strapped in properly to their car seats, which means tightening the straps as much as humanly possible and having the chest buckle on their chest, not on their bellybutton. For some reason, this has been my obsession. As any family member who has had the pleasure of driving anywhere with us these past few months can attest, I have lost it on the kid who tried to interfere with the car seat straps in any way. After a few times of that happening, these girls got good at reminding ME if I forgot to either buckle them in, or cinch the straps down after they'd buckled themselves.

I had also been entertaining the thought of switching Delaney to a high-back belt-positioning booster this summer, if she reached the 40-pound threshold for it. Now I don't know if I see any reason not to keep her in a five-point harness for at least another year, or "until she's 17," as Tim Sr. remarked dryly, as I was telling him this very same thing.

I know that my kids aren't even as safe as they could be in the car, and that there are plenty of people who keep their kids rear-facing at Delaney's age and beyond. But that's why we like to have a very safe family car, so we don't feel the need to do that.

The kids and I did not sustain any injuries. For the past couple days I've had some back and neck pain, but nothing that a 200 mg ibuprofen can't help. I've just been watching the kids for signs of injury, not asking them, because they're little kids. If you ask them, "Does your neck hurt?" they're just as likely to say yes as no. And of course Timmy can't tell me. They seem fine. But the four of us will be seeing our chiropractor in NC as soon as we can.

I only saw the driver of the Jeep for a few seconds, when he came over to look in the car and see if we were OK. He was a little younger than me and had a bloody nose. I was told by the police officer there that he had gone in the ambulance to the hospital. I learned later from the police report that he was a Marine stationed at the same base in NC as us!

I remember being absurdly grateful to find my "lucky sunglasses" on the floor next to the pedals, without a scratch on them. You probably don't remember, but those are the same $200 Oakleys that I dropped in the ocean this past summer.

I also remember asking everybody who came to check on us for water. I'd never been so thirsty in my life. Exclusive breastfeeding means I require more water than the average person, and I was already thirsty when we left the museum, having just finished the bottle of water I'd brought, and having just nursed Timmy. Even under normal circumstances, I drink a lot more water than anyone I know (except maybe a fellow breastfeeding mom). I asked the paramedic, the policeman and my father-in-law for water when they arrived. The longer we sat there, the more desperate I felt. I was totally aware of how whiney I sounded, complaining to anyone who could hear about how thirsty I was when we'd just been in an accident, but I could do nothing to stop it. Throughout the rest of the day and night, I would lose track of how much water I ended up drinking, still feeling dehydrated and head-achey. Lesson learned: I will never be without a case of water in the car again.

So now we wait to find out what happens next. We were supposed to leave for North Carolina this coming Wednesday, but now we don't know when we will leave, and what we will be driving. The insurance appraiser isn't even looking at our car until Tuesday, but our friend who owns the collision shop where it is, says that it's "borderline" and could be totaled. He says that repairs would be very expensive and take about a month to complete after all is said and done. We just paid that car off last month -- four years of a six-year loan in one fell swoop, and the title hasn't even come in the mail yet. I love that car and I'm sorry I might lose it, but oh well, it's just a car.

*Karen and I had a pretty good laugh last night after reading the police report, and seeing that the other driver was in a Jeep "Rangler" (the officer couldn't spell, evidently). I hadn't seen it myself, since it had already been towed away by the time I got out. I laughed and said, "A Wrangler? That's it. You said it was as big as a Hummer!" Karen, a little indignant, insisted, "It was a Wrangler, and it was that big, Google it!" Sure enough, Jeep makes a Wrangler that's comparable to a Hummer. It was not the scrappy little vehicle with no roof that comes to mind when I think "Wrangler." Now we all know you're not crazy, Karen!

Monday, May 30, 2011

Trip to Florida with my Family

This post was started Sunday night and finished Monday night.

We got back from St. Augustine Beach, Florida at 6:30, after 10 hours of driving. The girls are bathed and in bed, the car's unloaded, and I'm putting my swollen feet up, drinking a glass of ice water, and can't wait to blog about our fabulous week. I even have a Yankee Candle tart called "Beach Walk" burning right now to enhance the mood. It doesn't smell anything like the beach, but it smells better than what the house smelled like when we first walked in -- kind of stale, with the thermostat on toasty vacation setting.

There will be LOTS of pictures in this post. I don't get together nearly enough with my family (the last time was last June), so when we are together, we take many pictures of each other. I think this is the first time we've ever gotten all the kids together and gone on a vacation, too. If we'd had Tim and Roman there, that would have been everybody. So we didn't even wait until the last night to take obligatory family beach pictures. We did them our second night and our last night. No one was in as happy of a mood on the last night, but they still turned out good.

Just like I did last June, I loaded up my mom-mobile and drove with the girls all by myself. OnStar took me some weird route to get to 95, but once on 95, the trip flew by. Google said the drive would take 9 hours and 36 minutes. We did it in 10, and that included 3 stops, one of which was a 40-minute-long picnic at a South Carolina rest area. It was not a fun picnic. It was very hot, the flies were hovering, and the girls didn't eat. I decided that was it for picnics. The girls were as good as always, perfectly content with their movies and snacks.

We stayed in a big house a few steps away from the beach. I told Tim that even he would like it if we could have our own "apartment" the way Scotty and Faith and their kids did. (Tim does not like being in close quarters with extended family, even if they are his own. He really likes his space.) Delaney and Annie shared a room right next to the room I shared with my sister Grace on the third floor.

Here's what a typical day there consisted of, for me: get up, eat, have fun at the beach, eat, have a nap, eat again, spend time with family, sleep, get up and do it all again. That simple and that wonderful. We went out to eat dinner about half the days we were there, and I went shopping once with my mom, dad and sisters. But I was just as happy to not be going anywhere.

Delaney, Annalise and Aspen

Me, Anna and Faith

The girls loved the ocean. Even Annie was charging at the waves on day 1, causing my dad to worry. He said she'd stop running into the water like that once she got it in her face a couple times. Sure enough, she was a little more cautious after getting a face-full of ocean water. But she still liked it. She wallowed in the wet sand like a little piggy, and laughed as she ran into the water and back out. Delaney was constantly busy, playing with her cousins, digging in the sand, trying to keep her balance on a body board when the waves came, just always doing something. She was tireless for the most part. She actually napped one day, completely surprising me with her request to come with me to nap on my bed. I said, "OK, but only quiet little girls are allowed on my bed for naptime." She played with a toy for a few minutes and conked out. It takes a lot to wear her out! They both tanned a little right through the 50 SPF.

Annie and Papaw, who's trying to keep her from falling on her face in the ocean

Love this one Faith took

Grandy having fun with Delaney and Annie

The water was warm, and my siblings and I spent a lot of time in it. I almost had a disaster happen while I was out there on the first full day there. I decided I'd try what Scotty had done, and catch a wave and ride it to shore. But the last time I had ever tried that, I was probably 16, and definitely not wearing a $200 pair of sunglasses on my face. I tried to catch a wave, and that didn't work out for me well at all. When I finally came up out of the water, I thought, 'Why is the sun so bright? Oh crap!' I started shrieking, "My sunglasses! Oh no, my sunglasses!" Both Scotty and my brother-in-law Robert started looking for them. But what were the chances I was ever going to see them again? They came off in the ocean! Then Robert said to me, "What are they worth to you?" I said, "$200!" Then to my utter disbelief, he handed me the sunglasses. I was very effusive in my thanks, and I was a lot more careful with my sunglasses from then on. I only just got them from Tim this past Christmas. They've got to at least last a couple years.

We celebrated the girls' birthdays on Wednesday, and that was really nice. Delaney was so excited about being the birthday girl, and she didn't mind sharing the spotlight with her sister. She said, "I love my birthday! This is the best birthday ever!" They got a Nemo cake, a bunch of balloons, and nice presents from everyone -- clothes, dinosaurs for Delaney, Zhu Zhu pets, Pillow Pets and other nifty things. Now Delaney tells everyone she's 4, even though she isn't really until July 8. This morning she cracked me up a little when she told me she missed being 3. Annie didn't like the singing any more this time than she did last year, but she gobbled down her cake and ice cream with such single-minded pleasure that she made everyone laugh.

Annie wanted nothing to do with the singing or blowing out her candle, but Delaney loved it.

Annie's favorite part

While we were there, Tim finally got a port call, in Italy. On Saturday, a day I would have been a little mopey because it's the last day of vacation, we got to Skype with him for the very first time since he's been gone two months. It took a couple tries, but finally it worked, and the girls and I got to talk with him for 45 minutes. They were so happy, saying, "Dada!" and hugging the laptop, and trying to "tickle" him on the screen. It meant so much to all of us to get to talk with him face to face. It made our day. We would get to talk to him again today (Monday), his last day of liberty. It made me miss him so much to see him on that screen, looking close enough to touch.

It was the best week. I felt less pregnant and exhausted, and just happy and energized after a week of sun and relaxation, and the company of my family. The girls had so much fun and we made a lot of happy memories. A day after getting back, I kind of feel like I'm paying the price for all that fun, as this has been one of my most difficult and overwhelming days yet since Tim left. But that's for a different post, maybe, if I feel like it. Delaney has said to me at least 10 times since we got home, "I want to go back to our vacation." Me too! Here are some more of my favorite pictures from the week, in no order whatsoever. I didn't take all of them, by the way. I didn't even take most of them. I did what I always did, which was to grab Mom's, Grace's and Faith's camera cards at the end of the day, and get theirs.