So, still no sign of, uhhh, the visitor yet. Which means I don’t know what, as I’m at my parents house and 100 miles from a FABULOUS stash of HPTs. But! I sure do get a chance to get my baby fix this week!
My cousin, whom I’ve written about before (excerpt from 8.31.03 behind the cut), showed up in Maine recently. She sold everything in California, got a friend to give her and baby a ride to Portland, and proceeded to set up a tent on the front lawn of a duplex she owns, but has rented out. (Renters, think about THAT for about 10 seconds, what it would be like to have your notoriously loony — as in the police down there know her by NAME — landlady camping on your lawn. With a baby.) She was in the tent for five days before she took the baby and went to the hospital. Her mother was called, but (conveniently) this breakdown coincided with the 70th birthday party for her mom (my aunt) that was to be held at my family’s home. People flew to Maine to come to this event; it’s been planned for MONTHS. (Cousin tends to always break down RIGHT BEFORE some scheduled family event, borderline personality, anyone?) My aunt couldn’t leave to get the baby, so many calls were made and an old friend who lives there but is from here was able to get the baby to watch her until Aunt B could get down there today.
So, while I think it’s noble for Cousin to check herself in (helllooooo, I was trying to get her to do that in ’99 when she was harrassing local legislators, insisting her brother had been murdered in China — he hadn’t) right now, her baby, now over a year old, is being watched by her 70 yo mom (who is very, very, very slow) and her almost 10 yo niece. The niece (my cousin Ashley) is there for the speed, basically.
So, Cousin is in the hospital, for how long, no one knows. My aunt is sleeping on a futon mat in a room of the rental duplex, and they have the baby. It’s not an ideal situation. So, I’m going down tomorrow to help out. Amy lives right there, with a yard and swingset and pool (and her oldest is the same age as Ash), and I’m going to keep the baby while Aunt B does some things she needs to do at the house, for Cousin, for herself, etc.
So, the old lemons/lemonade deal in place, I get to hang out with Amy! And a baby! Whoo!
Now, everyone kind of hoped that having a baby would snap her into reality, bring her back to the real world, but sadly, it hasn’t happened.
She had a ticket to fly here two weeks ago, where she would be met in P0rtland by a friend with a carseat she could borrow. She never showed up.
INSTEAD, she flew to Chicago, where a friend of a friend had a van that could get her to Maine, only the van broke down, so she got stuck in Columbus for a week. Her FOAF gave away her DOG to a trucker named Leroy in the meantime, and it took another week for her to figure out how to get to Maine.
So, she arrived, and I said a polite hello as i walked upstairs to work on my grad school essay, and that was it. She’s a very big earth mother — doing many things I plan on doing, with a few exceptions, like “not washing the baby, ever, because water is poisonous” and not burping the baby, so that it is constantly throwing up what it’s eaten and then crying again. Oh yeah, and? AND! THE CRAZIEST THING! “She cries in the carseat, so I like to keep her on the seat next to me when I’m driving.”
I wish I was lying. Right, so you don’t want to set your babe on the hardwood floor because it might be poisonous too, but it’s totally cool for the 4 month old to be kicking back int he passenger seat of a moving car, unrestrained. When she left, she did put the baby in the car seat.. . I was ready to throw DOWN on that one if I saw it happen.
She’s nuts. The baby cries, and cries, and cries (probably cos it’s gassy) and my dad was all “That’s infant for ‘my mother is crazy, save me!”
I don’t take MI lightly. The woman needs help, and if she doesn’t get it, I have nothing to say to her. My OTHER cousin Ali was there with her 2yo, and she’s a very easygoing, laid back, normal mom. . . she changed Liz’s baby’s diaper (which was an unbleached disposable — but about the size of one a 2 yo would wear) and baby had a rash, so Ali put on some A&D ointment, and Liz was all “Oh no!” but Ali can handle that shit, and said “Oh, it’s fine . . .” and just did it. Liz had also planned on sleeping on the ground, outside, with her babe even though it was to get down below 40 last night, and Ali said “No, you sleep on the queen bed, you’ll be fine.” As Ali said “If you just tell her what to do, she’ll do it.”
Anyway, it sucked, my cousin is still nuts, and now her baby is growing up with this nutty nutbar for a mom.
I’ve visited your page about a trillion times today… no, I’m not stalking you. I’m just dying to hear if your visitor came after all! (Now that I’ve typed it out, it DOES seem pretty strange.) Clearly, I needs me a J-O-B.
okay? so suspense much? grrrr!