what’s with this week, this week

I’m not sure which retrograde planet is messing with me right now but can it like… stop already? Thanks, I’ve had enough.

On Saturday I really wanted to take a quick trip out to Ikea, just to buy a shelf and a light. I didn’t want to ask Taylor to book a zipcar (it would have cost more for the car than the stuff I wanted to buy!) and it had been so sunny all the previous week so I thought it would be fine to take the kids on the train. Unfortunately it was raining, but we decided to go anyway. We made it onto the train without incident but after a couple stops it started waiting longer and longer at each station and finally there was an announcement about a technical problem. We were told to “transfer” but like… there is only one route on that line and it was stopped in both directions so transfer to where??? Nicky started getting REALLY fussy (he doesn’t like sitting still in his stroller) so we ended up giving up on Ikea and leaving the train. We were stuck on the south side of the city, and the lineup for the bus back downtown was at least 100 people long and stretched all the way around the corner. Rather than try to take some circuitous route home we walked up to the nearest mall and waited out the train problems but like… what a waste of time!

On Saturday night I got sick with a terrible cruddy cold that Taylor had had the previous week and I’ve been miserable ever since. I spend all day coughing and sniffling, but the evenings are the worst; I’m so tired from work and that combined with the cold makes me just fall apart and I can’t do anything but lie on the couch. I also have terrible trouble sleeping at night, making me more exhausted and run down every day. (More on this later!)

On Monday I tripped over the retractable gate between the foyer and playroom and snapped one of the support hooks in half. Luckily I was able to find an extra one in a box of hardware to replace it, but it wasn’t an ideal situation. On Tuesday I tripped over the retractable gate between the kitchen and the hallway and pulled one of the support hooks completely out of the wall, drywall anchors and everything! Luckily I already had a second set of hooks installed in the middle of the hallway and was able to move the whole gate since I can’t put the hook back up this time and will just have to take the other three hooks down, fill all the screw holes and repaint (this is the part of the hallway I JUST painted btw).

On Tuesday I finished work feeling truly awful, like I was considering calling off of work the next day which I almost never do unless one of us is UNBELIEVEABLY sick. I’d been outside with the kids in the afternoon and after the last daycare kid was picked up I brought Gwen and Nicky inside to watch cartoons while I made dinner. I left my big four-seat stroller parked at the top of the stairs by my door like I usually do after work; it’s so big and heavy and awkward to maneuver down and fold up and put away that I usually wait until after the kids are in bed and there is less going on before Taylor or myself drags it down. This night though I was so sick and tired and still had so much to do around the house that I just plumb forgot about it. And guess what? It was stolen.

On Wednesday morning Taylor went out to take the dogs for a walk and immediately came back inside asking “where’s your big stroller???” Sometime overnight (one neighbor told me he heard a ruckus between 3 and 4am and another said his dog was freaking out barking at 4am so probably then) someone crept into the backyard and snatched it, and now I’m fucked. I can’t afford to buy a new big stroller to replace it; I couldn’t even afford to buy that one myself when I did, I actually used GoFundMe to raise the money through donations when my old double stroller (which I’ve since gotten rid of, leaving me with just Nicky’s single stroller) started breaking down beyond my ability to repair it.

Nicky cheesin’ in the big blue stroller on Tuesday afternoon, twelve-ish hours before it was stolen

I’m just… so mad and frustrated about the whole thing. Mad at myself for not bringing the stroller down from the yard and mad at the person who took it. There’s no way it was taken by someone with more need for it than me; it’s not like it was a parent with four children to push around. Right now it’s most likely being used to haul empties to the bottle return depot (which is the fate of most stolen strollers in the city) or possibly abandoned after one use and soon to be on its way to the dump. I’ve posted it on craigslist lost & found and in a lot of local facebook groups, I’ve put up and handed out flyers (not a lot though as I am working all week and I can’t go far from the house with the kids because SOMEONE STOLE MY STROLLER). I’ve asked everyone I know to keep an eye out for it in the parts of the city it’s most likely to end up but honestly… I’m not optimistic about ever getting it back. This actually isn’t even the first stroller that’s been stolen from me; someone took Sym’s jogging stroller her dad bought when she was a baby and we never saw it again. Back then we were able to get a new one at cost because the owner of the store where he bought it was a friend of his who gave us a deal, but somehow I don’t think I’m going to get the same consideration from Bed, Bath & Beyond where I bought Big Blue.

Since I now only have a single stroller, yesterday I picked out the cheapest double stroller with one-day delivery on Amazon I could find and Taylor ordered it; hopefully it will arrive in time today for me to be able to assemble it before I have to get Gwen from school. Yesterday I only had one daycare kid but today I have two, and with just a single stroller pick-up is going to be harder than it usually is. There’s only two months of pick-ups and drop-offs left this school year, but now that the weather is getting nice I had SO many fun plans for the summer. Having the big stroller with enough seats for all the kids to ride meant the city was wide open; I could have taken them anywhere to play. Now I’m constrained by the walking radius of a two-year-old which means no trips to the beach, or the seawall, or further-flung (ie better equipped) parks and playgrounds. Our whole summer just shrunk down to just this neighborhood.

A few people have reached out to me and said they’d be happy to donate to a fundraiser to get me a new big stroller but like… I JUST did that. I just raised funds what, three months ago? And I can’t do it again, I can’t ask people to give more than they already have. I’m just going to do my best and muddle through, and hope that none of my other strollers get snatched anytime soon. It’s just… it’s going to be really hard and I honestly burst into tears whenever I think about it.

OH AND THEN! On Wednesday night, after a truly miserable and upsetting day, Taylor and I had tickets he purchased last week to take Sym to see Avengers: Infinity War. He’d sprung for the DBOX seats that shake around but guess what? THEY WERE BROKEN. Our expensive seats were just… seats. REGULAR SEATS. We got courtesy passes afterwards for future use, but it was just a disappointing end to a rotten day, you know? Adding insult to injury! Can just one thing not go wrong me right now??? So Universe, please don’t throw any more problems at me this week, because I don’t think I can take it.