What Happened to August?

What a blur.

August was a blur. After my last post, we celebrated DB's birthday, found out G's grandfather had passed away after a summer-long decline, then celebrated my birthday, and a week later, G left for the States for 10 days to celebrate the exemplary character and life of his grandfather. Two days after G returned, our supervisors came to stay for about 6 days. We filled the days with meetings and training. After our supervisors left, the following week was chaotic with my ear infection (which can make you feel ill!), A's illness, doctor appointments for the girls and myself, preschool issues, babysitter search, numerous things cropping up, etc. We're now going into the second week of September and I can finally say that we will start settling back into routine.

Whew.

While G was gone, I got sick with the worst allergy attacks I've had in years. As a general rule, I don't really have respiratory allergies. I tend to have attacks when there is a sudden change in allergens. For instance, I once flew to an area of the United States that was in high pollen season and as soon as I landed, my immune system went nuts and I had a bad allergy attack. I was inhaling pollen that we didn't have in Florida and my body was not accustomed to it. In this case, I blame my allergy attacks on the Lodos. It's a wind that blows from Africa, carrying minerals and dust. We have had our windows open all summer long to the breezes and the obligatory dirt blow in and cover everything. I had no problem with allergies. I started to get the sniffles shortly before G left and the attacks became progressively worse and I fell really ill. I noticed that there was an unusual amount of dirt covering surfaces in my house. My black glass stovetop would be covered with a thick layer within an hour of wiping it clean. DB's hands and knees were blacker than usual. I have no idea if the Lodos was blowing while G was gone so maybe it wasn't the Lodos but a just crazy amount of dirt in the air. The locals often blame respiratory illnesses on the Lodos so maybe I'm just acting like a local...

While G was gone, I learned that a cranky, hot, sick, tired mama does not a patient mama make. I know that logically but what I am trying to say that I have learned my limits. I yelled at my girls more than once (cringe). As I spent sleepless night after sleepless night from nasal congestion and waking up to sneeze and blow my nose, I decided to give myself a break for the sake of the girls. I turned on the AC more than usual so that reduced some of my crankiness. I took a couple of days off from language and concentrated on resting as my allergies slowly subsided under the onslaught of Claritin. Instead of the usual 15-minute walk to school to pick up A, I drove the car because walking in the heat exhausted my already-taxed body too quickly and A was melting down more than usual on the walk home, and the two combining conditions made my patience disintegrate within seconds. I got help from local American friends who paid a bill for me, spent an afternoon chatting with me, met with me for coffee (in very strong winds, I might add -- it was the Lodos!) so I wouldn't go crazy being cooped up, and hosted me and the girls for dinner once. I watched a lot of movies at night.

It's sad because I'd started off really well during G's absence before spiraling down into the dark void of allergies - I was accomplishing language tasks, keeping the house picked up (not necessarily clean), doing reasonably well in feeding the girls cooked meals (which was easy with the crockpot and the leftovers stretched two or three days so I didn't cook as often), keeping up the laundry, etc. All that was short-lived....it's the Lodos, I tell you!

Needless to say, the girls survived. They were overjoyed to see their daddy and so was I. I learned a lesson about parenting alone while sick: cut yourself some slack, for goodness's sake. Although I am still suffering slight attacks of sneezing now and then and my subsequent ear infection have healed, I no longer feel ill and my energy and mental clarity have returned. The weather is lovely now that the heat has subsided and the temperatures are in the mid-70's. The cool fall weather does wonders for the disposition; I feel like a new person.

And now, to get back into routine....

(which is a joke between G and I because our life is not normal and a routine is nearly impossible).