The week before B's surgery

Hate to title it that way, but that's how it will forever stick in my mind. Fine though, because it was a good one. A really good one.

Monday started at the Coco Key Water Resort; a small water park in a hotel right next door in Waterbury. A homeschooler set up the trip, which I was so happy about, since it is right next door and the boys had been asking to go. We saved a lot of money by going with a group, and the boys had a blast. Turns out some good friends of theirs went too and they got to play for four hours with them.

My mom arrived shortly after we got home. She was on her annual trek home to Maine from Florida, and spent the night. We always love having her visit. And the boys were so happy when she offered to take them to Friendly's while I bowled on Tuesday morning.

Wednesday started out on an awesome note when one of the women from my women's circle showed up as I was making breakfast, to hand deliver a gorgeous arrangement from Edible Arrangements which my "sisters" had chipped in for. I had only seen ads for these things and wondered how they are, and now I can definitively say that they are awesome. It was absolutely beautiful and the fruit was such high quality and tasted wonderful. (By the way, all those empty sticks once had grapes on them.) And even better than the wonderful fruit is knowing that my sisters are thinking about us and sending us warm wishes. What an amazing way to start out my day.

After Green Street classes we headed to playgroup, as usual. It's so nice that the weather is getting better and we can all spend time outside. I'm so glad R is enjoying himself there again. Last session at Green Street he didn't care about having to miss playgroup, but now he's glad to be back. Me too. I don't talk to anyone at any of the activities I take them to, and I'm finding that I need to spend some time talking to other homeschooling moms once in a while. I need to reminded that I'm not living in a vacuum, I guess.

It was a hard afternoon for me though, as one of the women there let slip about B's surgery to a large group of people. I had told only 3 people at playgroup (the women I actually consider friends) and asked them not to tell anyone else. I wanted to keep playgroup a place of normalcy, but that was not to happen. So now I have people coming up to me asking "Is B okay?" and "How are you, C?". These people are not my friends and I'm not going to suddenly share my life with them because they feel bad for me. I'm really quite annoyed. I really needed playgroup to be a place to go and talk about homeschooling and kids and the weather. I really needed a place to be distracted from our challenges. *sigh*

After a teary-eyed drive home, I was able to put it aside however, to enjoy the rest of our evening. After B got home, and we had eaten our crockpot pot roast sandwiches, we headed out to Roller Magic in Waterbury. E has been wanting to go roller skating ever since Q's birthday in November and we were finally able to get to it.

Wednesdays are so much cheaper than every other night, so the place was crowded. Since everything was cheap I gave it a go. I used to be a great skater about 30 years ago, but this time I never made it off the carpet onto the skating area. If it hadn't been so crowded I could've practiced more on the carpet with friction, and eventually moved out to the skating area, but no such luck. I haven't given up hope though; I will try again. In the meantime I promised E that I would get him there more often. He loves skating and feels we need to go more often so he doesn't have to re-learn it every time. He actually asked for skates for Christmas but didn't get them. Perhaps for his birthday.

Thursday found us heading into New York for B's pre-op appointments. We parked in Bridgeport and took Metro North down to Grand Central. Mercifully, since we had the boys with us, the appointments were held on schedule and did not take as long as we expected. We enjoyed some pizza in an inside plaza where a pianist performed while we ate. Then we headed over to visit Uncle E in his hospital.

The boys were very nervous about seeing him for the first time after his stroke, especially E. We had forewarned them that Uncle E might not know who they are, and this really freaked him out. He was so concerned about what to talk about while we were there. When we got there though Uncle E was still in physical therapy, and wouldn't be back for 1.5 hours. So we cut out to play in a nearby park.

The NYC kids were getting out of school when we arrived. There was a nine year-old who joined us in a game of tag. An unaccompanied nine year-old in the playground in NYC. His mother was in the library across the street. Different world.

Even R was impressed with the difference. He stood on top of the playground, looked at this view of all the kids playing basketball after school, and commented that even though he wanted to live in Manhattan when he gets older, he's going to move out when it comes time to have kids. I'm so glad he appreciates being raised where he is. And I'm so glad that I have had an opportunity to live outside of NY. Although B and I have talked about retiring there.

On the way back to Uncle E's hospital E found, and both he and R agonized over, a dollar under the grating on the ground. They both insisted that if it had been a 10 or 20 that they would have stayed till they figured how to get it out, but without trees and fallen sticks, it would have been a big ordeal.

Seeing Uncle E was awesome. He not only recognized the boys but lit up when he saw them, motioning them over for hugs. It was so great to see him sitting in bed with his legs over the side. It was so great to be able to hug him good and hard!

Uncle E's therapists are very impressed with the progress he is making in his physical therapy. He can go to the bathroom alone now. And he follows conversations much longer now. Boy, it was good to see him so much further along than last time we saw him. It was a very heartwarming and joyous visit. Both of my boys were so glad to see him and left knowing that Uncle E is still Uncle E and is trying his best to fight his way back to us. And they felt great in seeing him so happy to see them. It was a good visit on many levels.

Uncle E has an awesome view from his room. We don't know how he got so lucky, since his last room also had a great view. Maybe it's special treatment for NYC firefighters?

All in all we had a great day. After our commute down to NY I've decided I'm going to come home every night after spending the days with B in the hospital next week. Going "home" to my mother-in-law in Queens every night is not going to replenish my soul the way coming home to Connecticut will. It will mean less time with B during the days, but I've got more than just his needs to meet. Poor E is already showing signs of stress, and that 81 minutes on the train each way will be good alone-time for me. Good time to escape into some fiction, which I have already borrowed from the library.

Friday we had an easy going morning. We had Chinese food for lunch with Nagy Papa and the boys headed home with him while I continued on to bowling. Since another of my three team mates will be out this Tuesday, I didn't want the last one to be bowling alone, so I pre-bowled. I went in and bowled alone and those scores will count towards our scores next week. I probably should have skipped it though since I bowled under my average the first two games. Hopefully my 191 in the third game will win at least one game for them. Hopefully we won't get bumped out of first place.

Afternoon found B and E with the sniffles. I'm so glad that E still responds so well to water. He is learning that baths are a great way for him to handle stress and that somehow life always seems more manageable after one. He is having such a hard time these days as R gets older and is given more freedom that he doesn't share. This evening found him upset that R had gone to the YMCA with is "tween" friends again this week, and he was stuck home. And that I wouldn't do anything special for him since R was getting something special. Look at that face though. That's a relaxed boy.

Today (Saturday) B is in bed and will hopefully bang out his cold in 24 hours the way he always does so we don't need to postpone his surgery. I sincerely hope that E gets over his quickly too, so he can go and visit B in the hospital as planned.

We were scheduled to go see a robotics competition today and I'm disappointed that R decided he didn't want to go since I thought it would be cool. On the other hand it's nice to have a slow non-shower, sweatpants day at home with everyone doing his own thing. E is playing outside, B is sleeping, I'm blogging, and R has ridden his bike to pick up the copy of Twilight that he had placed on hold at the library. I told him he can see the movie if he reads the book. His friends are all about it right now. We'll see if peer pressure works in getting him to read. Taking away audio books for a year doesn't seem to have made a difference, and I'm frankly starting to get nervous.

Wow, he just came in exclaiming what a FAT book it is. If that boy reads that whole book I will dead away pass out. Or wet my pants.