Wednesday, March 30, 2011

A New Normal

A couple days of laying low to recoop from the weekend to get caught up on work and to recover from some exhaustion.

Overall a good trip to SC. We made it down earlier since I didn't have to pass the kids off to Bill after work. In fact time we got there for Ben to play at the playground with my brother and for me to get a 30 min run in through my neighborhood.

Nice after being in the car with 2 un-sleeping children for 6 hours. Luckily the iPad was a sanity saver. As of Friday we are officially a 2 iPad family. Yeah, don't ask why my 4 year old now has his own. I got nothing on spending money with the surgery on the line.

The highlight of the weekend was celebrating Ian's birthday a little early with my mom and brother. As requested by Ben we made pink cupcakes and decorated them with jelly beans. To say Ian inhaled the one he crammed in his mouth would be an understatement.

Brian and I did talk over some money issues related to keeping a private duty nurse coming after her insurance payments stop. She needs help with with bathing, IV set up, and in general just taking some pressure off him as full time caretaker. Even though she has been home a few days, he's spent and if the weekend is any indicator we have got to consider some help to pull this long term. So far his work has not been impacted and he has not had to move to a different surgery team to work around her schedule.

I was able to get most of her errands run Saturday as well as spot cleaning the house and prepping some meals for the week. With the rain the kids were nuts, absolutely tearing the house apart nuts. While she was at dialysis on Saturday we met up with a high school friend and let our kids play for a few hours. It was heavenly to see an old friend and a nice break in the day. Some relationships you just pick up where you left off.

What I realized more than anything is that this is a new normal for my mom, for us, for Brian. I need to pick up the slack and try to go down once a month if possible. Brian took the weekend off, saw friends, watched basketball, slept. Mom seemed happy to see the boys and I think going the extra mile to make the weekend a nice homecoming and birthday celebration was appreciated.

Besides, Ian really enjoyed that cupcake and we are revving up for his birthday in 2 weeks! NOT POSSIBLE that my baby is about to be ONE!

1 comment:

Katrina said...

Glad you had a nice trip, Heather! Spending time with family (I think) should be number one. You are so lucky that you can make the trip to see them - I'm a 2-3+ days travel trip away - and it SUCKS. It SUCKS. Family is everything. I lost my closest aunt/godmother 2 months ago, and it really *really* hit home to me how short life is - and how living far away just isn't how i want to live! I hope you guys can find the time to visit your Mom more - I think it's a great thing, especially with your kids - grandkids mean the world :)

How are you liking the iPad? Do you have the first edition or the iPad 2? We have all Mac products in our household and LOVE THEM - won't go back to PC anytime soon!

Also - thanks for the comment about "unplugging" on my blog! I've quit Facebooking - which now I don't even think about logging onto it (where as before - I'd open the login page and start logging in without even thinking about it - SCARY MAN!) and I'd like to take a break with my blog for a little bit, but I don't think that will happen :( I've got a book publisher looking for book reviews on my site - so I have to keep it going (at least, on that end!) Oh well - I can still try :) Unplugging from the social networking stuff, though, really helped me find a little peace overall - not so "connected" (even though I am in my own way) and it's nice to have some quiet. I think if some people used Facebook for more than just Twitter, I'd like it a bit more. That - and it's wayyy overused.

Take care and enjoy your rest of the week back!