He's home!

I'm very happy to report that Dad is home from the hospital! I just talked to him and while he's very tired and weak, he's very happy to be home. And the timing couldn't have been better because today is his birthday! I told him I thought getting to go home was the best birthday present ever. So grateful Dad is home!

A little bit of irony

JR truly, truly struggles with spelling. However, he is such an incredibly hard worker and we are really proud of him for that. We go over his spelling every evening, and whatever words he misspells he must write 10, 15, or even 20 times, depending on how close we are to the test. Last week, for the first time in I couldn't tell you how long (possibly all year) he got all of the words correct the night before the test and didn't have to practice any. He was so excited! He decided to take the opportunity to celebrate by writing "NO REWRIGHTING" on his paper. We then laughed at the irony that he had spelled all of his words correctly but had managed to spell his "victory lap" incorrectly!

Taking a moment to breathe

Today is my first full day off in almost two full weeks. Even our weekends haven't been full days at home with our travel schedules. It won't last long as I'm scheduled for the next three days, and it's not exactly carefree with my dad being in the hospital, but at least for a few moments, I can just breathe. I've poured myself a cup of coffee and I'm waiting for a load of laundry to finish. We are back in some heavy duty rain patterns, and will be through at least Wednesday. It means no ball practice though, so even that has a silver lining. I have so very much that I need to accomplish today, but I have 6-1/2 hours until the kids get home and I plan to enjoy at least a few minutes of it by just relaxing!

On the upside

On a more cheerful note than the previous post, we had a nice weekend. We hadn't seen my in-laws since Christmas, so it was nice to be able to visit with them. My brother-in-law and his girlfriend were over for dinner last night and we got to see them again for breakfast this morning. The kids loved getting to make the trip, and they especially loved the things that the Easter bunny brought them this morning. Apparently, my mother-in-law heard JC and HT sneak into the family room this morning to check to see if the Easter bunny had found them. What amused me is that they were sound asleep an hour later when I woke them up so apparently they had found the answer they wanted!

Sometimes you just know when something is wrong

This morning was a very, very rough morning. For almost four hours I cried on and off (mostly on) with absolutely no explanation. Not exactly the Easter emotion one would expect. I was hurting (emotionally) so deeply, and I couldn't really explain it. I closed my eyes as we were driving home from my in-laws for about 40 minutes and although I didn't sleep, when I was done resting I just felt better. I decided that perhaps I was just overly tired. The last 75 minutes of our trip was very pleasant and my husband and I chatted about some things we wanted to get done this evening and about our crazy week coming up. As we were pulling into town, my cell phone rang and it was my mother. I told her we were just around the corner from home which she was glad to hear, but was calling to tell me that my dad is in the hospital. She said it had been a very bad morning, especially since he was alone up at the lake. She ended up driving to the lake to get him and drove him directly to the hospital. It's on the way home and only about 45 minutes from the lake. He is incredibly weak and in a lot of pain, but early indications at this point are that it might just be a "bug". Mom had something awful about a month ago and if Dad has that he's in for a long haul. The strange thing is that I somehow feel that I "knew". I know that sounds weird, but I just can't help but feel I knew that my dad was in trouble. What I am incredibly certain of is that it's been a very long and draining day.

Adjustments

This has been a really long week, and I think we've all learned some valuable lessons while learning to adjust to new things. I worked Wed - Fri last week, and then I've worked every day this week. I did have this afternoon off, but then I'm scheduled to work again tomorrow. This was the first five day week I've had since before I became a mother, and I'll be honest, I just don't know how working mothers do it. I pointed out to my wonderful husband and the kids that they've all become very accustomed to "mom can take of it while she's home all day". I'm pretty sure they all think that dinner, laundry, and house cleaning happen magically while I'm sitting around eating bon bons all day. Okay, I'm overdoing it a bit, but it's been a rough couple of days. Tomorrow we are headed to my in-laws for a very quick Easter trip. The timing is not the best, but we haven't seen them since Christmas. I'm trying to balance life as a working mom, but my most important job is "mom". I hate telling the kids no when they ask me to play a game because I've got laundry to fold or 101 other tasks to complete. The nice thing is that my job doesn't happen in the summer and I'm so looking forward to our time together. At the same time, I'm so very aware of how fast they are growing, and I certainly don't want to wish away the next two months!

Life imitating dreams

Last night I had a dream that I was stung by a bee. This seemed a rather odd dream to me. I'm not necessarily terrified of bees, but obviously no one really wants to be stung by one. I was stung a few times as a child, but there are no traumatic bee incidents from my childhood. So while it was an odd dream, it was just a dream and that's that.

Until this afternoon. I was out hanging up a few pieces of laundry. It's finally stopped raining long enough to get some clothes outside. I was hanging up a rug and suddenly a bee landed on my shirt. It was only a split second and then it flew away. It made me flash back to that dream though!