Re-entry burns, illness, ice storms, surgeries and good-byes, you name it and we’ve experience it in the last few weeks. Let me start at the beginning…
After my son-in-law Eric went off to the war last year the day after Thanksgiving, Stephanie and the grandbaby came for the Christmas holiday so that they wouldn’t have to be alone. Since Eric was involuntarily extended in Iraq, she decided to come and visit again this year, arriving in time for Thanksgiving and staying until after the New Year.
Now, I read a lot of “mommy” blogs. Sometimes I laugh out loud when they are describing their hectic days with toddlers underfoot. I laugh in a been-there-done-that kind of way because once upon a time I had a crew of littles underfoot all the time. But the truth is those days were looong ago and I only vaguely remember them. Mostly, they have receded into a hazy blur of it-wasn’t-so-bad memories.
But with Alex’s arrival, the not-so-great-memories started coming back to me. It wasn’t an easy transition back into small-little-person-in-the-house world. I’d really forgotten just how exhausting keeping up with them can be. Typically the process of acquiring a toddler-type person involves 9 months of pre-arrival preparation and an additional period of months (14 in this case) of acclimating to their constant demands and needs. When one arrives out of the blue there should be some special methods to protect against the re-entry burns you are sure to acquire.
I was very young the first time I had a small child underfoot on a daily basis. Now I’m not nearly as young as I was then and I can tell you that I would not willingly have another child at this age. Can I get an AMEN!
Still, I’ve enjoyed having my grandson around because along with all the exasperating moments (what are you crying about?!? OMG, you stink! Get out of the cabinets!), there is also the cuddling, the laughing over his antics, and the way I just know from the look in his eyes that I am the best grandma ever and what does he even need his mom for cause she’s just mean and says no way too much.
After visiting with us for a couple of weeks, Steph headed down to her inlaws house to visit for a few days. I was looking forward to a couple of days where the house would be quiet from 8 to 3 each day. Instead, we got a bad storm. With the bad storm came a power outage that lasted for several days. And with the power outage came neighbors and children whose power was also out. Several days of living like Robinson Caruso (no lights, no phones, no motor cars, not a single luxury - ok we had phones and cars but no heat or tv) is much more trying than a toddler. The Mr Heater/Cooker we bought about 20 years ago saved our lives once again but cooking for a bunch of people on a single propane burner isn’t much fun. The kids have been out of school for a week now and if they weren’t going back today, I think they’d start fearing for their lives. Headlines might read “Mother trapped in house with children all day everyday for over a week snaps!”
Our propane, water and canned food supplies have been replenished in anticipation of a huge snow storm that was due to arrive this weekend. We did get some snow and ice but nothing too terrible. Winter’s only just started though so there’s still plenty of opportunity for Mother Nature to give us the smack down.
While Steph was visiting the inlaws, she found out that Eric had gotten ill and was medevaced from Iraq to Germany. He spent a week in the hospital at Landstuhl (Map).
Fever, rash, flu-like symptoms, gallbladder and liver problems which gave him a lovely Big Bird yellow color has the doctors thinking he has Hepatitis A. Eric got a series of immunizations for Hepatitis before getting deployed but apparently the shots don’t provide protection for about 5% of people who get them. We still don’t know for sure thats what he’s got - his symptoms are subsiding (the rash is going away and he’s a much lighter shade of yellow now) - hopefully he will get a diagnosis this morning.
The Army shipped him home on Friday and he is at Ft. Stewart now. No idea whether he will have to go back after he recuperates. His unit was due home in March/April so *fingers crossed* hopefully not. You can probably guess that Steph threw her stuff in the car, shouted “See Ya!” and hightailed it back to Georgia as quickly as she could. A husband home for Christmas beats the parents any day.
In addition to all of that excitement we had some tense days waiting to hear what was going on with my dad’s health. He’s had some heart problems, had some tests done and was scheduled for an angioplasty on Friday. The doc thought they would have to put in a stent or something but after running the little camera up into my dad’s heart decided not to. About 30% of my dad’s heart isn’t working - apparently he’s had a couple of heart attacks that were mild enough that he didn’t recognize them as heart attacks but severe enough that they did damage to the heart. They could do some other type of invasive procedure but the risks just outweigh the benefits. So, dad will be on a medicine regimen and will have to take things much easier. I’m sure he’s heart-broken (pun intentional) about not being able to mow the grass in that Florida heat anymore.
With all the goings on I’ve gotten zero Christmas shopping done, our cards haven’t been mailed and the tree is still not up. But hey, it’s still 8 days til Christmas. We’ve pulled off a doozy of a holiday in less time than that before!
I’m off to the mall - later!
Sadly, Eric’s grandmother Jessie Mattos passed away and they were in Branson for the funeral. It was wonderful that they were able to come up and visit us for a day too. We haven’t seen Eric since he came home sick from Iraq.
