Dad and Kid abandoned: Both live (barely)

Let me set the stage for you:

Fact #1.  Work has been pretty tough of late.  Nothing too out of the ordinary really, just a lot of long hours, late nights and lost sleep. 

Fact #2. We’ve also decided that we want a new wall in the backyard.  And we strong-armed our good friend Todd into working on it on the weekends. Todd’s limited availability meant we had to start the work on 5/17, and his timeframe means I had to help demolishing the old wall, and the whole family got to spend quality time digging a big ol’ trench.  And I needed to take off work to help with the form construction and cement pouring.

Fact #3.  I have always wanted to be a chaperone for one of Anya’s field trips.  They were going to Lincoln Park in West Seattle on 5/16.  So, awhile back, I signed up to attend and take off work. 

Fact #4.  Amy’s best friend got her PhD. and was walking 5/17.  Amy flew to visit her.

Fact #5.  Anya hadn’t been sleeping well lately, so she’s been a bit of a disaster.  So much so that Amy's last words to me as she departed were, “If she’s not asleep by 8 Thursday, use the old Benadryl trick and get her down, or you might have a very difficult field trip day.”

The schedule looked roughly like this:

·         Thursday – Drop Amy off at the Airport before taking Anya to school.  Work remotely so that Home Depot can deliver the lumber I need to frame in the concrete forms. 

·         Friday – Go on a field trip bright and early with the kiddos.  Then drop Anya off at Grandma and Grandpa’s so I can work on the back yard.

·         Saturday – work all day on the wall with Todd.  Go to Grandma and Grandpa’s for dinner and to do some light electrical work.

·         Sunday – Hang out with the kid, and do more work in the back

·         Monday – Take Anya to school.  Go to work for a few hours.  Pick Amy up at 10pm

Amy even made Chris a spreadsheet so he wouldn’t forget to feed anyone or miss any buses.

My point is that before the long weekend even started I was exhausted, stressed, and over scheduled.

Thursday morning went off without a hitch.  Amy’s on a plane, Anya’s at school.  I’m working away from the kitchen table while dogs beg to be walked (no time mutts! Go away!).  Amy said her flight would land at 2PM PST, and when I hadn’t heard from her by 3 I started texting. After another 45 minutes of no answer I began reading breaking news stories looking for downed planes over the Pacific and texting Amy's friends.  After 47 minutes I resigned myself to being a single parent, Anya and I would make it work some how, and on graduation day she would know I'd done my best under trying circumstances.  Why didn't I just check the flights status you might ask.  Funny, that is exactly what Amy's friends asked.  Seems the flight was 1 hour late, and Amy got the times wrong to boot.

Home Depot delivery guy wasn’t showing up or calling. At around 6PM I started asking Todd if they’d called him.  Todd hopped to it, and started harassing the dispatcher. At about 7:30 (Anya’s bed time) Todd and Leelu dog showed up to wait with me for the delivery guys, and drink a beer.  Anya was amped and fascinated and didn’t want to sleep until she got to meet the delivery guys.

8:15 rolls around and I say.  “How about some Benadryl? You seem to be having some sort of reaction to...something.”  I give her a little less than the recommended dose and as I’m putting her back in bed the drivers show up and I run out to meet them with a very excited Anya by my side.

Finally around 8:30 they’re gone and I get Anya to bed.

10 o’clock rolls around and I go to kiss her good night, and find the nearly empty Benadryl bottle open and the floor covered in a sticky mess.  I shake Anya awake and ask her if she drank any more after I left.  She groggily looks at me and says, “Maybe some…”

20 minutes of frantic calls to Amy, poison control, and a quick drive to Children’s hospital ensue.  Anya's primary emotion here wasn't fear, but deep embarrassment at having drunk medicine.  I felt a bit of shame for having left it where she could get it.

They had to keep Anya for observation for 5 hours and she mostly slept in a room with a machine hooked up to her that loudly proclaimed “eep! eep! eep!” every 2 minutes to ensure that any non-drugged people nearby wouldn’t be lulled to sleep.

At Amy’s suggestion I wrote to Ms. Moffit, Anya’s teacher, to explain the situation and try to get contact numbers so I could find them if need be for the field trip, since we were likely to be very late.

We were discharged at 3:15 AM.

A few hours later I woke up, got the lunches ready and somehow managed to get us to school in time for the field trip.  As it turned out, when I replied to Ms. Moffit’s field trip email to explain that Anya was in the hospital due to a Benadryl OD, I replied all, so many concerned parents were asking me very pointed questions on the playground.

 The field trip was great I must say.  Running around with kids on the beach is my idea of a good time.  That being said, I was exhausted to the point of feeling severely hung over so the jet engine din of children screaming on a bus for ½ hour I could have done without.

Anya in her field vest ignoring the guide at Lincoln park in West Seattle

Here we see the drift wood fort that the kids happened upon.  Anya added a shoe rack which, for once in their lives, all the kids actually used.

Right after school, Grandma and Grandpa came down to get the kid, and Todd showed up and we got to work building concrete forms.  Nothing fun to report.  A lot of hard work and, just as we’re cleaning up, a back spasm that ruined the rest of my evening and made me sleep horribly.

Next day Todd and I worked through the day and finished the forms.

Todd in his victory pose over the wooden forms

I went up to Grandma and Grandpas to retrieve the kid and have some dinner and hook up their bathroom thermostat.  Sea Critters were on offer--Anya’s favorite.  Anya said she was sick. She had a sore throat but could she have dessert.  Standard stuff, until Grandma mentioned she didn’t really eat much that day (red flag) and then she didn’t finish her shrimp (waving red flag). 

On the way home I noticed that Anya was looking a bit green around the gills and said she thought she was going to throw up.  I put her straight to bed, and she was quiet so I knew I was in serious trouble.  I kept checking on her and she was moaning and still awake.  I gave her a big bowl. 

After an hour or so she finally puked.   All you other parents out there whose kids throw up when they have a bad day or eat too much cotton candy, need to understand two things to fully comprehend the gravity of this situation.  1. I do not like sick people as I am a bit of a hypochondriac.  2. My little girl NEVER pukes.  In fact this was only her second bout of puking in all her 6 ½ years.  My point is only this: SERIOUSLY? WHY NOW?!

 Anya made an instant and remarkable comeback.  Singing, “Let it Go! Can’t hold it back anymooooore!” and jumping around the room the moment we’d cleaned her up.  When asked for her theory on what had happened she mentioned that, early that day at the Edmonds Beach, she had picked up many dead things and had then stuck her hands in her mouth before washing her hands. We may never know.  But at least the whole incident was graciously short.

Sunday was jammed packed of activities. A third beach trip in a row, this time to Carkeek park.  Stopping by Home Depot to rent a jack hammer, Anya buying yet another pack of 1500 of lady bugs. 

Anya holds aloft Starry the purple star fish. Maybe it was StarFishy.  Hard to recall.

Actually this is the first packet from a few weeks ago.  But the kid was the same in both instances.

After an hour or so of hard labor in the back yard, we returned the jack hammer, rented Frozen, ordered a pizza, and called it a night. 

Next day was off to school, and off to work, like we knew what we were doing.  Amy landed at 10 PM Monday night, just as I was starting to get the hang of this single dad thing.