Surviving

So the fires. You’d like to know about the fires. Knew you would.

When Chase was a baby, I used to sterilize his bottles. I marvel at how different a mother can become in eight short years. Especially when considering that just a few months ago I walked into Chase’s room to find Amma on all fours next to Romeo’s cage… sucking on the guinea pig’s water bottle. Made sense, actually. Romeo’s really the only one around here who is consistently fed, because Craig is in charge of him. And Amma figured that out, at two. I mean, I could cry about my daughter breaking bread with rodents, or I could take pride in her resourcefulness. I choose the latter. Amma is like Survivor Baby. She has to be, really.

When I found her with Romeo, I screamed, ran downstairs and immediately Googled: “Can you get swine flu from a guinea pig?” Google has replaced 911 as my go-to-guy in parenting predicaments. EMTs everywhere are grateful.

While I waited for Google to work its magic… I realized with great stress that I had forgotten to tell Amma to stop. She was still up there chugging with Romeo. So I ran back upstairs, grabbed her, and ran back down the stairs. Of course, by the time I got back to the kitchen, Craig was sitting in front of the computer looking confused. About the google/guinea pig/swine flu business, obvi.

Craig doesn’t fully understand my relationship with Google. I Google everything. I figure it’s always worth a shot. I LOVE asking for help. I walk through life with a virtual HELP WANTED sign on my forehead. Craig’s different. This difference is always highlighted at the grocery store. If I ask Craig to go pick up peanut butter, it is an inevitability that the phone will ring an hour later. I will juggle the 49 children in my arms to find the phone and answer it. It will be Craig. He will say, “Hi, hon. I’m still at the store. I can’t find the peanut butter. Where is it?”

Instead of telling him where the peanut butter is, I will ask if he, perchance, sees any kind looking people wearing nametags milling about. He will pause and then say, yes, actually, there are several. And I will say: THEY’RE THE ONES WHO GET PAID TO KNOW WHERE THE PEANUT BUTTER IS, HUSBAND. THEY ARE THERE TO HELP YOU, HUSBAND. AAAAAAAAAAAAAASK OOOONE OF THEEEEEEEEM, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

Sweet Jesus. This post was supposed to be about the fires, wasn’t it? I get distracted. Which is actually a pretty good summary of the fires story. More on that soon.

Oh, and the answer is no. You can’t get swine flu from a guinea pig. You can, however, contract several other scary sounding diseases. Don’t worry: we are observing Amma carefully.

More truthfully…when we find her we plan to observe her carefully. I know she’s around here somewhere.

Happy Weekend, Lovies.