Emotional Explosions

So as many of you know we have had a wonderful year full of surgeries, illness, and we are just waiting to see what happens next....the car break down? I don't know. Hopefully not, but if it does then I think that we will be safe from anything else going wrong for at least a year.

Life has been interesting lately for all of us. Eric, although he is doing way better now, has been basically a third child. It started getting really bad mother's day weekend where he couldn't stand up straight, lived in the bathroom, and could only walk the 10 steps from the toilet to the bed. By that night and about midnight, I was begging him to go to the hospital. At about 3, I had layed awake crying all night, expecting the worst (because we didn't know what it was at this point), and starting to plan out my life without Eric in it, he finally agreed to go to the hospital at 6am. So bright and early I called a wonderful friend to watch the kids so I could go to the hospital with him. Sometimes I don't like how calm all the drs and nurses are at the hospital, especially when I am in a panic and want to know right now what is wrong with my husband, and if he is going to live.

Luckily, it was something that they had definitely seen before, (a bacterial infection, or infestation, in his colon) and knew what to do for it. Not that Eric was going to get better any time soon, but at least they knew how to treat it. Needless to say, I was an emotional wreck the entire day having no sleep and still worried about Eric. We got the medicine we needed and things started looking up. He was getting better and I was so excited to have my husband back. Then once again, things took a turn for the worse. The problem that initially caused all the other problems was wreaking havoc again. And this time it was worse.

Eric ended up having two surgeries, one on a Thursday, and then again on Monday. Of course, to make matters worse, as soon as he got home on Monday, he was down again. The exact same bacterial infection came back with all its original fury and making life hard once again. I didn't know how to help him or even take care of him properly. I was doing my best to change his bandages (diapers basically). And worrying about his weight....he has lost about 30-35 lbs. We have absolutely amazing friends here that helped with the kids in the mornings so I could study for my recertification tests that I had that Saturday, and made meals for us. What a blessing. I don't think I could have made it without them. And let me tell you, even with all of the help, by Wednesday my nerves were shot, I was exhausted in all aspects of the word. Just that night when I didn't know what else to do, I get a knock on the door and the most wonderful person is standing there with these:

Thanks so much Fran. I then proceeded to use her as an emotional vomit bag, sorry about that. But I have to say that I felt so much better afterwards and felt like I could cope with life again. And of course, the next day we were back in the hospital because Eric was just dehydrated. However, once they got fluids in him, his body took a drastic turn for the better. Like he just needed the liquid that he couldn't keep in his body to help him heal. Thankfully that week is over, my test is done and I am just praying that I will be blessed to have passed it with everything that has happened.

Things are definitely not perfect yet, but definitely getting better. My poor kids went through the ringer too. Adie hates her carseat now because she doesn't want to be left anywhere. Even in nursery where she used to love. The sadest part is that they don't really want to spend time with dad anymore because he can't do much with them. Hopefully things will get back to normal for them soon. I just don't know how people that have spouses that are chronically ill, or single parents, or ones that their spouse just works all the time and is gone handle life. I really look up to you and yes I do know some of you. I aspire to be like you, but right now I guess I am just not that strong. With all of this happening and everything I am taking a vacation with the kids in July to see my parents and extended family. I am so excited I can't even tell you. There are even times that I find myself wanting to start packing and then I have to call myself back to reality.

Thanks to all of you who helped us during this time. We appreciate your prayers, thoughts, and help; from meals, to babysitting, to just listening when I needed it. Thank you SO much. You are amazing and I know that you will be blessed for it. I would list off names but I know I would forget someone, and you know who you are that helped us. Hopefully this will be the end of our issues and I will at least stop being a basket case.

Again with the long posts....

Really if I was on top of things, a little more organized....blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I am sure you all know that I am just a slacker lately and have put other things before this. Which really isn't bad or anything, just means I am behind on this. So here is another long post of pictures to show what we have been doing.






Adie

Adie is our little ball of energy and acrobat. I actually walked into the kitchen today to see her literally swinging from the silverware drawer. What a kid. She is almost always a good eater and is hilarious to watch. When she gets nervous or is in trouble she puts her hands behind her head (no matter what she has on them) and plays with her hair. Means a lot of hair washing due to really dirty hands.



This was a night we had lasagna for dinner. Wow, I didn't know she loved it so much. She ate like at least one, maybe one and a half adult sized pieces for dinner. As you can tell it was all over her face and not surprizingly on the back of her head.

Adie loves to help me cook. Especially cookies or bread or pie. And if I leave flour on the counter for a little bit. This is what she does to help clean up. What a good girl to clean up after her mama. Grandma, I just don't know how you handled us playing the flour. What a mess. But she even liked the taste of it oddly enough.

She also obviously likes butter right off the stick. This was so funny when I caught her. She just smiled and said "nummy". Whatever floats your boat sweetheart, but lets watch those LDLs.

This is what she does in her spare time. Actually I walked in to the playroom one day and found her like this in the corner. And she actually was talking into the phone. I don't know who to, but she was having a great conversation and then got shy when she saw me. But I did get her to do it again so I could take a picture. What an obedient girl.

Adie doesn't like pigtails nearly as much as I do. But I think she looks so cute in them and her hair is really long enough to do it now.

This is a really funny story. I was upstairs working on a project, or changing sheets or something while the kids were downstairs. It got really quiet, but I remember thinking, I'm almost done then I will go check on them. Well, when I got downstairs, the house was a mess. The kids had somehow survived a tornado that came through. So when I asked Porter what happened he handed me the camera. He had gotten out the camera and followed Adie around the house while she reaked havoc and took pictures of her doing it. This is just one of them with her taking the kleenex's out of the box one at a time. Boy was it a mess, but when I saw the documentary that he made, I just had to laugh. It was so funny.

Porter

Porter is a ball of fun and loves to make people laugh, just like his dada. I love having him in our family and although he is shy sometimes, he loves to make new friends.

Porter has finally reached the age of fascination with bandaids. They make everything better now. So he crashed his firetruck into Adie's feet the other day and came and asked me for a bandaid. As I have been trying to teach him that we only use bandaids when we are bleeding, I asked him what it was for and was there any blood. He looked at me for a minute and told me that his truck was sad and needed a bandaid. I asked if his truck was bleeding and he told me yes. I was on the phone with my mom and she said that I should give him a bandaid. So being the obedient daughter that I am, this was his fire truck with an owie made all better with a bandaid. Then of course Adie had to have one as well.

Sometimes I just lay out clothes for Porter and he is really good at getting dressed all by himself. Except when there are two shirts. He was really proud of himself as he should be. I was proud of him too, took this picture because I thought it was funny, and then helped him change it.

He also just liked being silly.

And this is what he usually does with his trucks. If they are not in straight lines (or he doesn't have enough space) he stacks them. And really quite well. I was incredibly impressed with his ability to stack irregular objects. What a boy.

Both Kiddos

The blessing of two kids is that they always have a friend. And they really do love each other and will give each other hugs and kisses all the time. They are also really good at sharing most of the time. So here are some of the fun things they do together.

They both refused to take a nap one day and I had to leave to do something. So Eric put on a movie and within minutes, this is what they looked like. Not tired huh?

This is what the kids to with dad lately when he gets home from school. It is really the only thing they can do with him right now. So at least they get that.

My homies in the hood. They love playing ball together no matter the type of ball. Adie is definitely going to be the annoying little sister as she has to do everything that Porter does. If he puts on a hat, she has to. If he is carrying a ball around, she has to.


The Parents

We celebrated our 4th anniversary in April. We didn't get to do much that day because it was in the middle of finals, but I did make a yummy dinner and this luscious cake. It was so nummy but way bigger than we thought so we split the leftovers into threes and ding dong ditched some of our friends. I think that just made our night. It was a blast.

Our wonderful selves taking a sad photo of us. Sorry Eric's head.

Eric got me these for our anniversary and mothers day combined (so it actually came in the middle of the two). They were beautiful and I really appreciated them.