First week

I don't even know where to start. My life seems suddenly so vastly different from what it's ever been before that it's all just weird. I realize why it's so nice living around family. Things just get so monotonous being home all day by yourself, not much variety, no cousins in and out all the time. Just feeding, naps, and diapers. Over and over. And I just don't know what I look forward too. Ryan leaves at 6:30am and has been getting home around 8:30pm. So I had been thinking I would look forward to 8:30 at night when he's home and the kids get to bed, but we're both just wasted at that point. So then I thought weekends, but last week he was on call Friday which means he gets home Saturday and needs to sleep. This weekend he was on call Saturday and came home and needed to sleep Sunday. So I haven't even gotten any weekends or a real day off since I've been here.

And it's a good thing I really like our apartment, because every time I leave it I'm reminded that it's probably just as well that I stay in here all the time. I had heard that people here are really put out when you ask things of them, and that no one goes out of their way to try and help you. I realized that the first day this week when I tried to talk to the management about our parking space. It's across the back side of the parking lot. So I called down to ask if there was anything we could do about it. The conversation was something like this:

Me: I'm wondering if there's any way we could try to get a closer parking spot. I have twins in a stroller and a wandering toddler and it really concerns me to have to walk that far. People whip around the corners here and I know they're not used to having many kids around. I'm just a bit concerned that it's a bit of a safety issue.
Person who couldn't care less about my life: No. There's nothing we can do.
Me: Don't you feel that's a bit of a safety problem?
Person: There's nothing we can do about it.
Me: What do you mean there's nothing you can do about it? You guys run this place, right?
Person: The developers assigned each condo a spot. There's nothing we can do.
Me: And you're saying the developers are still in charge of things here? And anyway, you have a waiting list for extra spots, so there are obviously more spots available.
Person: You can get on the waiting list then.
Me: Yeah, but I don't want to pay an extra $120 a month for a spot. I just want to change mine.
Person: Well, the developers are the ones who made it that way.
Me: (getting exasperated. and slightly sassy.) Uh, ok. Can I talk to the developers then?
Person: (also getting sassy) If you can find them.
Me: Seriously. Do you even have anything to do with them anymore?
Person: No.
Me: So who's in charge now?
Person: The condo association.
Me: Fine. Can I talk to them?
Person: No. But you can write them a letter and give it to us. (Bet that heads straight to the trash.) But it won't matter.
Me: Ok fine. Can I hold you liable then if my child gets hit in your parking lot?
Person: Sure. You can try. You won't win though.

End of conversation

Ugh.

Then right after that I had to go to the doctors office with all three kids by myself. Grubby, inner-city building. Had to trek from the adjacent parking structure through two sets of elevators with all three to reach the seriously contagious office full of foreigners with tropical diseases coughing all over everything. I was convinced we were going to leave that office having contracted jungle fever or something (the real thing). They make me see a resident first, then the doctor, so it takes a million years. At one point I'm nursing one baby, the resident is holding and bouncing the other baby trying to calm him down, and Cash is standing there eating a bowl of mac and cheese off of a chair. We're really something. The doctor answers absolutely zero of my questions and doesn't address one of my concerns. Then when I told her I like to split up my shots she said no. And I mean refused. And I mean was rude and condescending about it. And I mean we had a heated discussion about it. And I mean said I have to find another doctor then. I glared at her with my three children screaming in the background and told her my life was hard enough.

Finally at the end I say to her, "So let me summarize: You won't refill the Zantac prescription they've been on."
"No."
"I can't get the ultrasound referral I need today."
"No."
"You refuse to let me split up my shots."
"Correct."
"I have to find another doctor."
"Yes."
"And you have no suggestions for why my babies are so fussy and won't take naps."
To which she sort of tells me she had twins too and I should just tough it out. Oh, correction, she had a nanny and went back to work.

Later she had to come back in to check the reaction of one of the twins to his shots and I think she thought I was mentally unstable. She asked if I was getting any help, if I was sleeping, and then asked if I was on anti-depressants. No, I said, my mood is usually fine, just not during this doctors visit.

So welcome to Miami. See why I realized I just shouldn't leave my house?