at what point?

The last few months have been kind of hard.  I haven't posted much because it has just been one thing after another at home.  Nothing hits the "tragedy" mark, and so I have been trying really really hard to go on as if things are wonderful.  Essentially, they are.  But at what point do you decide that you just need to break down, feel sorry for yourself, and cry?

September: husband gets a hernia, no longer able to lift child or do any house chores for fear of making it worse

Early November: husband has his hernia operation, he's got a bit of a hypochondriac streak in him and this is characteristically "horrible"

But then he really doesn't get better, and in fact feels much worse than before the surgery.  Turns out that 5% of people who have this surgery get nerve damage in their pelvic region that also runs down their leg.  He's got that.  And his testicles hurt really bad, which makes for some amazingly panicked needs for "adjustment" at unexpected times.

Over the last couple of years his hands have started to hurt worse and worse, and he has a hard time fully opening them (actually, he can't).  Turns out he's got Dupuytren's contracture, exacerbated by bad arthritis.  We saw the specialist a week ago and learn about all the options for treatment, but after the bad hernia operation we are both a bit hesitant.

Place all of this into the context of a rather crazy time at work.  For example, our early childhood education program is run through the university, and it totally rocks.  On halloween we learned that the administrators way high up who oversee it decided to hand it over to a for-profit company (that would be on the advice of Bain Consulting, which is a sister corporation of Bright Horizon's --the for-profit childcare company that also employs the daughter of the administrator who made the decision to outsource without any consultation).

While I have nothing against a for-profit day care, if you have the absolute best, the center where research is being done and they are setting the ideal standards for early childcare nation-wide, why would you downgrade to child care that is "acceptable"?  So, we fought it.  I fought it.  I have connections into some of the power players on campus and so I raised the alarm with all of them.  Which then meant that I was deeply embedded in the fight.  I really didn't have time for this, but I had to do it.  We won.  Crazy to think, but we did win.  So it was worth it.  But it was exhausting.

Add on top of all of this that I am in the midst of my heavy teaching semester and all of the other crappola that comes along with running a lab.  Plus, the administrative staff in my dept got merged with another one, we lost all of our staff, and I haven't had a financial statement about any of my research funds since August.  But who has time to chase that down and get it fixed?  Anyway.

Dh absolutely has to go to the field this year, no way to back out if he is at all healthy enough to get on an airplane.  Long story behind this, but I agree with him.  He has to go.  So he is working all this time to leave on Dec 4th, Tuesday night.  Leaving for 2 months of fieldwork is always stressful.  But given all the health issues leading up to it, this was the worst departure yet.

And then Dh gets a bad cold over the weekend.

M and I were planning on taking him to the airport Tuesday night.  We get home a few minutes before 5pm on Tuesday.  I think it odd when I unlock the front door that the key turns really easily, like it wasn't really locked.

And then we get inside and walk into the kitchen.  The back door is wide open.

Yep, you guessed it.  Someone had kicked in the door.  They tore apart all the drawers in our bedroom, stealing virtually all of my jewelry save for the couple of pieces that I had just thrown in a drawer messily.

Keep in mind, Dh has to leave for the airport in 1.5 hours.  I call the police.  And then I frantically try to find someone who can drive Dh to the airport.

M sits in her highchair for the next 2 hours, happily watching as all of this unfold.  The police officer comes and starts the report.  Then, about 6:30pm the detective shows up to take prints.  While she's here, Dh's ride arrives and he has to leave.  For two months.  We all say goodbye in front of the mess that is our house and the detective looking for prints.

Over the next few hours I was able to clean up and figure out all of my jewelry that was stolen.

You should immediately stop reading this email and go take photographs of all of your stuff.  Anything you think might be worth $500 or more, get it itemized on your insurance plan.  

I was woefully unprepared and will lose so much of the monetary worth.  And then there were the pieces that had huge sentimental value, like the ones from my deceased grandmother, the earrings that were the last gift my grandfather ever gave to my mom that she had just given to me, the ring Dh and M gave me for my birthday last year...

I then learn that our homeowners insurance won't deal with me because the policy is not in my name.  But keep in mind Dh is in a remote part of a developing country with no telephone or email access.  Luckily I just remembered that we set up a power of attorney for when one of us is out of the country, but now I have to get the lawyer involved.

I then realize that the thief also stole an Alexander McQueen scarf with skulls that a very wealthy friend had given me in September (well, she really gave it to little M, but I've been "borrowing" it from her).  I would never have spent that much on a scarf, but I loved it and have been wearing it very happily.

I had splurged over the last year and bought two ridiculously expensive pairs of designed jeans.  They took both of those.  They stole my cool floweredy thermos.

And then this morning, when I went to pack up the diaper bag to leave the house with M, I realized that they stole the diaper bag too.  I loved this diaper bag.  Again, something I had spent much too much on, one of those petunia picklebottom bags, brown with big pink tulips.  I loved it, loved it, I tell you.

WHO STEALS A DIAPER BAG???

That one crossed the line.  I was upset about the jewelry, the clothes, the beautiful scarf.  But not as much as I might have thought I would be.  I feel safe in the house despite the invasion.  They came in the middle of the day when we weren't home.  They didn't tear up stuff just to tear it up.  They took two ipads, but nothing of my husbands or my baby's.  But then, they took the diaper bag.

That put me over the edge.  NOW, I AM PISSED OFF.

You'll love this one:  there have been a rash of thefts just like this in my neighborhood over the last year or two.  It's a pretty tight radius, less than a mile.  There was a house just down the block that got robbed on Tuesday too.

And guess what?  The lady who lives next door, her daughter is a meth addict who recently got out of prison for, you guessed it, robbery.  Her mother keeps all of their valuables locked in her bedroom because her daughter had done identity theft on her a few years ago.

I have a deep, deep urge to go over to their house and demand to look in her bedroom.  I want my diaper bag back.

I think I am about at my whit's end.  I really want to break down and cry, but I can't because I don't have the energy to then wash my face and redo my mascara.  The situation is that pathetic.

And M has stopped napping.  She's in her crib as I type this banging on the railings, singing to herself.

I am so tired.  So, so tired.  Just how many ridiculously medium-bad things can happen in a row?

BTW, my neighbor has bedbugs.