Fire Fighers

I was broiling a london broil tonight and forgot to turn my oven vent on.

Suddenly our fire detector began beeping and our house alarm went wild.

I ran to the front door and pressed in our code. Everything stopped. The alarm sounded for less than a minute.

Five minutes later we had a fire truck in front of our house with a whole team of fully outfitted firemen.

At least I know that they respond quickly.

No teacher

We received a note home that Lila's teacher quit yesterday. It didn't give any information. It just said that she is no longer with the school and that they wish her luck in the future. Tr. Gia (the teacher who gave me the exterminator recommendation) will be taking over until they can hire a new kindergarten teacher.

I suspect that I know what the problem was. I went into the classroom one day and saw that the kids were out of control. They were running in and out of the classroom, using the language of gangsters and sailors and in the short time that I was there I even witnessed a fist fight.

When we first met Lila's teacher she looked like a perky, starry-eyed, fresh- faced idealist. But by the end of last week (only two weeks in) she looked entirely downtrodden, frazzed and stressed out. Someone I know saw her crouched over and screaming at the children because they weren't standing in their line properly. It's probably good that she quit. I'm sure that's not the kind of teacher that she wanted to be. There are some children who will eat people like her for lunch. Also, poor urban kids often offer different challenges than suburbanites. Suburban kids definitely have challenges too though. It's just different.

On a separate note, my day today is going remarkably smoothy for only being 7AM. I was wide awake and ready to start the day at 5:50. By the time that my alarm went off at 6:30 I'd already had a cup of coffee, was caught up on email and had breakfast on the stove for the girls. BOTH of my children heard the alarm at 6:30 and came downstairs on their own (something that has NEVER happened before). They both sat down to breakfast burritos and they both actually ate them. So, at 7 AM, when I am usually struggling to get Bunny to climb/crawl out of her bed... both of my kids are fed, dressed and sitting on a comforter on the floor watching old Flinstones episodes.

Bed Bugs in da house

All I can say is that Lila woke up with a half-live bed bug on her sheets and blood stains this morning.

The exterminator says that this is good.

I am unable to think and my feelings are insane, unhealthy and shooting all over the place.

My friend Victoria says that we can go and live with her if we need to... just until we can get on our feet. I may need to leave Philadelphia. I know that Jay can't. His job is here. Plus, he loves it here. I don't want to walk away from my marriage (AT ALL) but it's irresponsible for me to keep my children in this situation.

I am going to follow the exterminators directions, practice patience and hope for the best. If, in a few weeks, we're still going through this...I'll have to leave.

The company that we hired to dispose of our belongings will not do it until it's been exterminated. Our apartment management didn't want to exterminate until our belongings are gone.

Oh, and today was our anniversary.

Photos From the Day

We went to the Please Touch Museum to renew our membership today. Then we headed over to Smith Park! When we got to the park there were vendors supporting children's behavioral health there giving away water ice, soft pretzels and apples.

Here are a few pictures from the day.

Weekend Update

The lack of furniture and toys are really taking their toll on B and L. I'm afraid that our pets have become toys and this makes me crazy. I'm doing a lot of policing and a lot of crying. My stress level is so high that there's no oxygen to feed it.

I let Lila and Bunny take some notebooks and crayons to the back patio while I made dinner two nights ago. Lila's pants (as always) had scooted down and she ended up getting a bunch of nasty mosquito bites on her booty. Even though I know that these are mosquito bites... they look so much like bedbug bites. It's really messing with me. To make matters worse, they've really been bothering her. All the benadryl and hydrocortizone cream in the world couldn't help and she hysterically sobbed herself to sleep last night. Emotionally, I'm so exhausted and depressed, I don't have the energy to do much and fell asleep with the girls again last night. They both woke up screaming for me several times throughout the night.

Life is hard.

Luckily, Sherbert is home from the hospital and he seems okay.

Jay worked all morning and a lot of the afternoon yesterday. After he was done we took the car to be cleaned.We ended up taking the girls to a green space to just run around. We played hide and go seek and played around in the trees. We're taking them to the Please Touch Museum later this morning.

I feel no happiness.

Seriously, I just want to sit around crying all the time.

Things have to get better. They have to. They have to. They have to.

I was telling Jay that there'll never be a time in my life when I fail to appreciate simplicity again. Feeling safe and happy and comfortable in your home is now the most precious thing. I never realized how valuable it was until I lost it.

Oh, and our apartment company sent us a letter saying that they fully expect us to pay for a renewed lease but that as a courtesy they'll accept payment through Nov. 16th. And they sent a checklist of things that need to be done in the aparment with a list of what they'll charge if they are not done. Like, "Clean counters are $15." A clean kitchen is $200. I'd like to send them an itemized list for every belonging that we've lost and what I'm charging them to replace it. Bastards.

Poisoned

Sherbert Holler is in the hospital.

This morning when I came downstairs I noticed that he was lethargic. Then he started throwing up, growling and hissing.

Because of the extermination yesterday I knew exactly what had happened.

The vet said that he's experiencing a toxic reaction to the pesticides and is keeping him over night. He's experiencing some little seizures and is generally sort of bad... but he's going to live. He's going to be okay.

The vet said that we did everything correctly and that normally the chemicals that they used in our home would be safe for Sherbert. Unfortunately because the weather here was so tropical yesterday, so hot and so humid, the pesticides didn't dry properly and Sherbert probably got some on his paws and licked it off sometime during the night. I did the best that I could to close the doors to the room with the most moisture... but he's always very active in the night so it's completely possible that he got into something while we were asleep.

Between the bugs and the chemicals, I wonder when I will ever feel clean again (just seeing the photograph of Sherbie that was taken in our old apartment makes my stomach turn).

Loss

The extermination went well. They exterminated our entire house (the new one) and will be back to do it again on October 13th. We are killing any chance of taking those mofo's with us. Our clothing is all still double bagged in trash bags. I will wash and dry it again when we take it out in a week. Also, we're holding off on bringing our storage facility furniture here for another week. Better safe than sorry, as they safe.

Jay went to the apartment and took pictures of the possessions that we're losing. My parents are helping us draft a letter to the apartment company and we're looking into our rights as victims and renters. We've lost everything that we own due to this infestation and though we aren't going to dwell on it, we are going to protect ourselves and someone should pay for this. Someone has been negligent and we are the victims of this negligence. The exterminator told us that every building in our neighborhood of center city is totally infested with bed bugs. It's a problem that was known about and that as landlords you are responsible for preventing and treating. There were exterminators coming into our building before we discovered our problem and mattresses propped up against the building next door. The exterminator told me that I should drive around center city and check out how many couches, mattresses and headboards I see outside. I did. It was sickening. I can't believe that I never put two and two together before.

We found a company who will safely wrap, remove and dispose of all the following things. We are considering everything in this apartment contaminated and abandoned. Unfortunately, we threw away the box of our "important documents" like marriage licenses, birth certificates and social security cards. But those things can all be replaced inexpensively over time.

The difficult things to lose, outside of the furniture that I loved so much is the artwork we have. The photo albums... like our wedding album... is a tough pill to swallow. Or the framed photographs our girls. These things can't be duplicated or replaced.

Keep in mind, all of the boxes in these pictures were packed to move. We were nearly done packing when we discovered the bedbugs. Normally my apartment wasn't full of brown boxes and dissembled furniture!!!!

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