mud and miscommunication

Yesterday Kirsty decided to drive up to the community garden and check our garden plot. She took the van, loaded with 3 of the 4 kids and a bunch of work she had picked up from the factory for our home business. And drove out into the field. There is an access road in said field, but we have had 23 or 24 days of rain, as readers of my blog have put up with me whining about. Said rain caused the car to become well and truly stuck in the mud. And said mud caused her to slide the van across a fence causing significant body damage. There is a dent, it isn't just a light scratch someone can buff out. Sigh.

I do give her credit for keeping the troops calm and making the 4 mile walk home for them enjoyable. FYI, KC walked 3 of the 4 miles so when I tell you my kids have boundless energy, you know i am not exaggerating! LOL Luckily we have an umbrella stroller in the car at all times, so Lissa could ride.

K called me at work and told me the car was stuck there. I was seriously angry. We are trying to save up for a new pellet stove to replace the one that died this past winter. It is something we really need. Car repairs will significantly impact that savings effort. Also, I am used to people looking to me for a solution. My whole life everyone has always looked to me for answers and solutions. My mom has done that since I was nine, when my grandmother died. My sister and K's sister still do it as well. I freely confess that I had no idea that Kirsty was scared. I figured she would be as angry with herself as I was with her. Scared didn't enter into the equation for me. Can you sort of see where this is going? Massive miscommunication. I was not kind, nurturing and loving. I asked why she hadn't called Triple A instead of me. I was stuck at work, with a car too small to fit everyone in anyway. Let's just leave it that things didn't go well! :-)

Calling Triple A didn't help. If you don't break down within 100 yards of the road, they can't help you. I guess not to many people choose to mire themselves in the middle of a field! Also the adjacent orchard started spraying and we couldn't be in the area anyway till after 5:30 when they finished. The farm and orchard folk were kind enough to tell Kirsty that they would send someone with a tractor to haul her out after the spraying was done. Kind but sort of scary to me. Dodge Caravans are known for wonky transmissions and the last thing we need to do is to have to replace said tranny. But there was not much to do but wait.

I got home from work at 4 and we had supper. The kids wanted to go to the park and enjoy our first sunny day and we had to explain that we couldn't because we had to wait for the call to go to get the van. KC sagely pronounced that Mom should not have done this. Um yeah, but I dutifully explained that Mom hadn't done this on purpose. It was a mistake, like what happens sometimes with everyone. And that maybe we would get to the park after we got the car.

Except we never did because the tractor guy never called. We drove up out of desperation at quarter to 7 and K discovered that the mud had dried enough for her to drive the van out. When I saw the side I wanted to cry. Body work doesn't come cheaply.

I feel badly that my response let down my beloved. It wasn't my intent, but it is what happened. I need to try and remember to check in with her emotions first before I say anything after a big event has happened. It isn't that I am not emotional but definately not in the same way that she is. We are so in synch in so very many ways that it is always jarring when something crops up, even after all these years, that shows --I don't know? An area to bridge? A piece of our life to work on? Perhaps more than anything it shows the differences of our upbringings. And I guess to make this adoption related, I should use this to understand why even after all these years, there are still these odd things that crop up with Robbie. Learned behaviors are very hard to unlearn.