Welcome Home Mommy

I had the opportunity over Halloween to go visit Brian in Birmingham, AL. He was at Ft. Rucker for Flight Surgeon school and was not allowed to travel outside of a two hundred mile radius. He and I were both missing each other terribly, so I begged and pleaded with aunts and grandmas to take my kids for four days so I could spend a weekend with Brian. It was AWESOME. We did absolutely nothing. Okay, well we did do some stuff, but I'm not going to write about all that in this blog. The point is that we just really enjoyed being together, without kids. It was so fun!

However, coming home was a little bit painful. Bless Grandmas' and Aunt Janey/Uncle Don's wonderful hearts for babysitting, but they were hammered when I got home. Upon my return, my mother, in a monotone, trance-like voice said, "I just don't know how you do it!" It was all they could do to manage the 7 kids--so the house was a bit trashed. I sort of felt vindicated, though. Now they all understand my pain a little more deeply :)! Hurricane Sophia which strengthens and weakens between a Cat 3 on a good day and a Cat 5 on a bad day, had spread staples around the house and ground them into the carpet. Tornado Giselle took a box of rice crispies while I was trying to unpack and shook them all over the family room and then broke crackers up all over the couch. All the while, the children are screaming, "Mom, I'm hungry what's for dinner?" What happened to "Mom, we missed you. Welcome home!"

The next day Sophia got MRSA (antiobiotic resistant staph infection) in her ankle and we had to go to the emergency room to get antibiotics because it was swelling by the minute. I had to take her in after the kids were in bed because I didn't have a babysitter to help me. Oakley stayed up to make sure everything was okay. So Sophia and I got to spend the night in the ER and the waiting area of Walgreens. Welcome Home Mommy!

The day after that Diamond decided to run away from home to find a new family. I had sent him to his room for kicking my brand new CD player and destroying it. He spent an hour or so screaming at the top of his lungs in his room (typical), but then as a new twist to his eccentric tantrums, he packed all of his clothes, including his swimsuit, into a plastic Walmart grocery bag and headed out of the house. The other kids came in to inform me that Diamond had just left home for good and wanted a new mommy. Thinking he would just walk to the end of the street and come back, I called out, "Tell him good luck with that!" then continued texting my friends. Several minutes passed and he just kept on walking. I was in shock. It was dark and snowing outside and he was only wearing t-shirt and shorts with no shoes. (Apparently he didn't get the memo that he's not in Africa anymore.) Finally, when he didn't come home I sent Chloe to track him down--then I threw my shoes on and got in the car. When I caught up with him he had turned back, realizing it wasn't as easy as any orphan might think to find a new family. When I got out of the car, he was standing in front of a grassy field a block from home. He told me that he was just going to sleep in the field and come home for dinner until he got big. (I came to find out later that he had also packed some of Oakley's clothes so that he would have something to grow into when he got big.)

I knelt down next to Diamond and asked him, "How would you like it if mommy decided to run away from home and get a new family?" (In my mind I'm thinking, "You don't know how tempting that sounds some days!") He replied, "I wouldn't like that because I want you to be my mommy." "Well," I answered, "I want you to be my son. I went all the way to Africa to bring you to my family because I love you sooooo much. I didn't bring you here to pick another family." I gave him a hug and a kiss and explained that I have to give him consequences for doing bad things so that he will grow up to be a good boy. Finally, he agreed to come home and even gave me a hug and a kiss. The next day he said, today I am now a superhero and I have to take good care of my family." I said, "Well, I guess that means you can't run away again, huh?" "Nope," he declared, "I have to be here to help my family!" What a nut!

Brian came home for a two week visit starting on Nov. 14th. It has been seven weeks since the kids have seen him. It was so fun to see their excitement. The kids made him breakfast in bed and hung all over him. Now, if he leaves their sight they run around the house calling his name. Florence is the most worried about him leaving again. It is going to be really hard on all of us next Monday--but in the meantime, we're loving having him around. It worked out perfectly for him to be here to help me take Sophia and Florence to get their tonsils out. We got to spend some quality time together in the waiting room of the hospital as our girls got surgery--romantic, I know. Our 13th anniversary was the next day so we felt it was a great way to celebrate our love for each other. Holding hands in a sterile environment--what more could you ask for after thirteen years?

The girls did really well for the most part. Florence seemed upset with us that we would subject her to so much painful "juking." Sophia asked, "Why did you make me do this?" To which I answered, "Because you snore like an old man and it drives me crazy! And I'm sick of all your ear infections." She accepted that answer and proceeded to puke all over from the anesthesia. Then she puked red slurpee all over the white upholstery of my car on the way home. Okay, it was actually a miserable day for all of us. But, they are doing really well now. Sophia is so well rested from her Lortab that she has strengthened back up to a Cat 5 hurricane and has made so many disgusting messes and broken so many dishes that I can't talk about it without crying. Florence, on the other hand, reacts to the medication by staring like a zombie at the wall for hours on end. I guess it is a good thing that Sophia didn't have that same reaction or I might be tempted to keep her on it for the next couple of years!