1 week down!

Well Mike’s been gone for a week and mostly it wasn’t too bad. Monday we had a regular day of school with Brittany off on the bus at 7:00 am and the rest of us here for home school. We had another track race and I left the little boys home with Brittany and took the other four. While Brittany complains that the little boys were tough, I had a nice time with the other kids. I must say I’m quite impressed with how well they did. When we got home we had a FHE lesson and treat and then that was it for Monday. About a month ago, we had an orthodontist appt. And the Ortho told Brittany that she really needed to get this one tooth out that was a trouble maker. He suggested that we go to the dentist and just get it pulled since Brittany seemed to feel that she couldn’t do it. I asked him if there was a reason she couldn’t do it or if it was just her fear and he said he thought that if she worked at it she’d be fine. Well I’m not paying a dentist to do a job she can do just fine for herself if she’d just toughen up. So the point of all this, on the previous Monday, I’d told her she had to have her tooth out by the next Monday or I’d make her a dentist appointment and she’d pay for it.

So the point of all this, on the previous Monday, I’d told her she had to have her tooth out by the next Monday or I’d make her a dentist appointment and she’d pay for it. So on Monday night, during FHE I casually reminded her that this was the day she had to have her tooth out. Late that night, while I was up working on the computer, Brittany came walking up and showed me her tooth in the palm of her hand. I told her I was pleased and then she said that this was her very last baby tooth and now it was out. Strange the things that will elicit emotions. I began to reminisce about when she was so little she didn’t even have teeth and then remembering when she did start getting teeth and how incredibly sick she would get, fevers of 105, vomiting, difficulty eating, etc. She was not a good tooth cutter! Now my little girl has no baby left in her. She is no longer any part baby. Oh how time does pass by. A friend commented on how we are always so good to remember the firsts of our children’s lives and yet we don’t seem to pay much attention to the lasts. Well this particular last is duly noted here.

Ok, moving on. Tuesday again Brittany was off to school and then we had home school. I then took Michael to soccer practice and left all the other kids here. I arranged a ride from soccer to scouts for Michael because I got to go to back to school night for the home school kids. It was very informative and fun to meet their teachers and learn some specifics about the program. I’m still loving this program and so thankful for it right now. While I was gone, Brittany got a ride to young women’s and Allison was left to babysit until I got back. The big girls did a good job of getting dinner on and the little ones fed and then Allison got some of them bathed and then they settled down for a show. I’m very thankful for my big girls and their ability to really help out here at home.
Wednesday we had school, track practice, piano lessons, no time to think or breath, and that’s it.
Thursday is the kids home school academy day, their favorite day of the week. After dropping the kids off, I went with my friend Faith to Sams club so that I could get in earlier, she has a business membership, and did a bunch of my weekly grocery shopping with just my two little boys. I must say, shopping with just too is really quite fun. I had a fine time. After lunch and naps and little people entertainment, we went and picked up Brittany and then the rest of the kids from school. We stopped at super Target of the way home and did some more grocery shopping and then got home threw Brittany, Allison, and the groceries out of the van and zoomed off to soccer. We were still a little late but oh well. Brittany and Allison fixed dinner and ate and then left to dance. After soccer, the rest of us went and did a tiny bit more grocery shopping at King Soopers and then finally came home to eat the yummy dinner the girls had left for us. A few minutes after we sat down, the big girls called requesting a ride home since it was getting dark out. I ran and got them while the other kids ate and them we did a lickety split clean up and were off to bed. Better late than never.
Friday was hard to get school going. We all just wanted to take the day off but, we did it anyway. Friday afternoon Sara and her kids came over and she and I did some scrapbooking and a lot of visiting. The kids had a great time playing. I forgot all about Catherine’s dance class and Allison was almost late to hers. She ran down to hers and then Sara and I took Catherine and Aunnika to Aunnika’s class. We then went and got pizza and came back home for the kids to enjoy a movie and all of us to eat pizza. We got a little more scrapbooking and a lot more visiting in. Finally at 10:00 I put the kids to bed and Sara and her gang headed back home for some rest.
Every day at noon Mike has been calling us for a SKYPE visit. Daniel was just staring at the computer and wouldn’t talk to Dad for the first several days. On Thursday he finally figured out that it wasn’t just a picture of Dad and that he could actually talk to him and interact. Well, that was both a good and a bad thing. He now won’t let me sit at the computer to do anything without begging for Daddy “in daiw”. He also now realized that Daddy is really not here. He’s somewhere else in the computer. He has been so clingy since then. That made Friday a little tough trying to do scrapbooking. But I should just be thankful that Daniel finally wants his Mama to hold him.
So here we are at Saturday. We had a neighborhood picnic planned that afternoon so after sleeping in really late, we got started on the stuff we were going to take. I had to make another run to the grocery store (I wasn’t thinking picnic when I went 3 TIMES on Thursday!) we then went over to the picnic. It was a lot of fun. We have lots of really terrific neighbors. I love this neighborhood. All morning I’d been trying to get a hold of someone to give Michael a ride to and from his soccer game so that I could go to the RS dinner and then broadcast. After the picnic I finally got hold of someone just as they were leaving and without going into the details, got Michael to soccer after embarrassing myself thoroughly. I then went to the RS thing. The big girls babysat. When I got home I was not pleased with the way things had gone here and after getting all the kids off to bed, had an emotional explosion. I called my mom a cried to her for quite a while and then was feeling much better. By then it was so late that it was OK to call Mike on the computer so I did and visited with him for just a few minutes and then finally went to bed. I slept better last night than I have all week.
Today was pretty ok. Church went fairly well (except that I woke up with very puffy eyes from crying so much last night and got quite a few sympathetic looks which I just hate) and thankfully none of the kids needed help with talks or anything. We got home and fed the little people and visited with Mike for about 2 hours then some of us took naps while others did quiet activities. We then had dinner and I spent the rest of the night visited with sisters-in-law and my Daddy. I am so thankful for those calls as they made the day go by rather quickly and I was so dreading how lonely I’d feel today.
I find it interesting that with past TDY’s we’ve been just fine. I don’t like Mike being gone but we deal with it and are all ok. This time, I think because the end is so far away, we can’t just hunker down for a short time a then get on with life. This is going to be life for a while and we are going to have to make some actual changes in our plans and expectations. I guess that’s why this week end was harder than other times he’s been gone. That’s just my silly inexperienced philosophy, but it sounded good to me. Well I’d dare say that is way more than enough for one week so good night all.