Chills

I went into the house today. It was chilling. I've never been in a house destroyed by fire before. I guess I'm lucky that this hasn't touched my life before now. First - the stench. It's unbearable. Second - *everything* seems to be destroyed. Even the things that didn't touch fire are completely ruined by smoke. Third - did I mention the stench?

In the interest of privacy, I will continue to use the term "daycare provider" instead of a name, but really, this is someone whom we consider part of our family. When our old house flooded the day after we put it on the market, and husband D. was in China - guess who came over and helped clean up the water in the basement until 1 am? That would be "daycare provider." I could give a thousand other examples of things she has done for us. We don't have any family nearby and she has become our extended family. She spends Christmas with us. She bakes the kids their birthday cakes every year. She knows their favorite foods and their deepest fears. She knows what books they've read and how to make them laugh. She's their second mother - their surrogate grandparent - their favorite aunt - all rolled into one.

After we went to see her yesterday, we headed up to the Wisconsin Dells for a company outing. The kids spend the day on water slides - in wave pools - eating ice cream - on bumper boats - you name it, they did it.

Later that night, I asked son D. what his favorite part of the day in the Dells was. His answer? "My favorite part of the day was seeing 'daycare provider' before we left."

She's that good. Multi-million dollar amusement parks pale in comparison.