First, I apologize for the long absence. Now for an explanation. Sometimes, life stinks. No, really(see #6). I wish there were a limit on the rate at which things can break down and go wrong in life. Here is the short list of things my family has been juggling both mentally and physically (ya, there's more than I can even write about right now):
1. My husband's mother passed away unexpectedly in mid-August - besides our own grief, it also forced us to explain this all to our kids of course too. And besides grief, a death in the family brings about a number of 'administrative' duties like cancelling services and probate and making service arrangements and a myriad other things that no sane human can remotely consider pleasant.
2. This also caused more legal work and administrative work in coordinating guardianship for my husband's sister who is mentally handicapped. Not to mention that now we will need to arrange to make the 2 hour drive to occasionally visit and bring her to visit us for holidays.
3. Did I mention that we got a letter telling us our health insurance costs were more than doubling as of September 1st? That's fun too.
4. After we had all the funeral arrangements made as she had pre-arranged and pre-paid and the obituary had run, we got a call from the funeral home informing us that she actually cashed out her pre-arrangement plan and that we owed them a big fat sum of money (of course they waited until after the arrangements were a done deal...is that bait and switch or WHAT!?!?
5. As if one death were not enough, I got to sing at a funeral for a 3 day old baby. The tiny little girl was born to a dear friend of mine who was expecting twins on December 10th. She went into labor and gave birth at only 23 weeks - the cusp of survival. The other twin born to her is currently in the NICU and is totally a rock star. Thank God for that!
6. My youngest twins who are now 2 suddenly begun having what I call TAPS (Toxic & Abundant Pooh Syndrome). It was causing diaper rash and general crankiness and separation anxiety (just what we needed to make the cherry on top, right?) Finally, on a hunch, I stopped giving them dairy products. The pooh suddenly stopped, but the diaper rash still persists.
7. School? Did someone say 1st Grade? Ooooooohhhhh, ya, I better find that supply list somewhere. Did you know that if you wait until the Friday before school, you don't actually get great deals, you get nothing. How Target can run out of glue sticks, pencils, erasers, pencil boxes, dry erase markers, and just about everything else before it has even gone on clearance mark downs and before school has even started, is way beyond my humble mental capacity.
8. A family reunion to boot. Because nothing enjoyable can ever just be left to enjoy - it has to be thrown into a furnace of chaos for deleterious affect. Enjoyed seeing my family - wish I had been in a better state of mind. They probably think I am not the same person I used to be (and I'm not, but I'm hoping to be her again in a few weeks!)
9. The mysterious bites. As if toxic pooh were not enough, my babies (I can call them babies until they're out of diapers, right?) have been getting mystery bug bites that just seem to appear regardless of what they wear, where we've been, and even whether or not we go outside at all! Their ped agreed they looked like bites, but couldn't find what on earth was biting them! We avoided going outside (which stinks with gorgeous fall weather!) We cleaned their room top to bottom looking for hiding spiders. We washed their bedding, we tried everything we could think of but the bites persisted - swelling up and getting itchy and adding to the general fussiness and malaise of our household mood. Finally a few days ago in a fit of frustration, we moved them into the room with their big sisters. It actually worked pretty well, and we haven't had any new bites since then. I guess the room sharing will be a permanent arrangement.
10. Neighborhood break ins. In the past 3 weeks, there have been 3 burglaries in my small niche neighborhood of only about 11 homes. The thieves hit when no one is home and take lots of stuff in a very short time. So we need to be uber religious about setting our alarms and locking our doors. We are at the end of a dead end street and there is a park before the main road that you must drive by to get in or out. It would be VERY easy for the thieves sit there and clock everyone watching and waiting for them to go. I am so nervous and I hate to let my one daughter do her favorite thing - which is to go outside and catch butterflies. Since we are always home I am nervous they will try to get in while we are here. I am totally and officially freaked out.
10. Just to make sure that every area of life has been affected, my husband got some disheartening test results back from the doctor. No - it isn't life threatening, thank God. But it definitely has been affecting his mood, his energy, even his ability to get all 3 things on the list he has for Walmart in one trip. Now we have to go through the drill and spend our time and money (not that we have any of either left) in specialists offices and laboratories figuring out what on earth is causing this. And hoping that he can return to his once happy-go-lucky, mentally focused, energetic self. Then again, after having 2 sets of twins do you ever get there? Time will tell I guess.
As for blogging, will I ever get back to it? Maybe after we get my mother in laws apartment cleaned out. That is a big task for us and we are very overwhelmed with to-do lists right now. But I will get back to it, and just to prove it, I'll do another post yet tonight - I think.
Here's to remembering a wonderful Oma who took great joy in her children and grandchildren. We all miss her.
