homing

A friend's mom drove me home once, when I was about 6 or 7, got me to one end of our street and asked if we were close to home. I replied in good faith that I had no idea. This though, has become the source of much teasing in my family. A block away from home and no idea where you were ! To which I always reply, I'd never been there since we always drove home via the other end of the street, how could I possibly guess where I was ? I'm no homing pigeon.
If you're a great big explorer, traveling West around the world for the first time, how would you know you're almost home if you've always traveled East before, uh?

Sadly though, they also have a point. I have a catastrophic sense of direction. In a pinch, I always make the wrong turn. If I double-guess myself and make the opposite turn from what I was about to make, it's still the wrong turn. Beats me. And infuriates me. I also despise driving downtown in American cities with all the one-way streets and no parking available. I have been known to drive home, utterly spent, after trying to make it to a downtown event but incapable of locating the right street and a parking spot at the same time. But sshh...

... Do one thing every day that scares me. What I lack in direction I'm trying to make up in foolhardiness. And so you could have spotted me with my two daughters in tow at a coffee shop, the petting zoo, the aquarium, even ikea. If you don't have kids, let me know point out that even doing groceries is no simple task: if I put one daughter in the stroller, that leaves me with one more daughter and no hand for a grocery cart. If I put the carseat in the grocery cart, that leaves no room for groceries nor the other daughter. So the current setup is to take mini-E from the comfort of our home into her carseat into a sling back into her carseat back to home while lil A does home - car seat - grocery cart seat - car seat - home, and I try not to squeeesh mini E while manoeuvering groceries and lil A in between various positions. My years of gymnastics and yoga are paying off.

The worse that can happen? I make a total ass of myself. Which has happened. And I'm learning to get over it.

The bottom did fall out a couple of weeks ago when P was out of town for the week on a business trip, the nanny was ill (and is useless these days, but more on that later perhaps), mini E had a horrendous reaction to her 4 vaccines, and lil A was ill. Sleep came in spurts of less than 2 hours. I was not pleased, and to be fair, I was no fun at all. But we all survived. Makes you stronger, or die younger, one or the other.

On a completely unrelated note, but I would love to hear from you: do you think you're lucky to be in your job, or do you think they're lucky to have you? Pray do share.