Wednesday, May 14, 2008

There's No Place Like Home

This past weekend my mom, my kids and I took a road trip to Boone, NC to see my oldest niece graduate from high school. It was a very sweet and special graduation, one I had never seen, a home school graduation. It was very moving to see parents of their own children speak encouraging words and praise their child for their accomplishments and then give them their diploma. Very, very sweet. I think I teared up the entire time. With that being said, it was nice to go up there and be there for this special occasion and for my girls to be around their 5 cousins (all girls). They had a ball. On the other hand, nothing seemed to go right all weekend for me. Here are a few of the scenarios:

-It takes us nine hours to get there..what should have been a six hour trip. This was due to an hour delay in a town only 20 minutes from home because we had to wait on flowers to take up to the graduation. Then, 20 minutes from my brother's house, we take a wrong turn and head about 30 minutes in the opposite direction which, of course, took us an hour to get back to where we made the wrong turn. The other hour was spent in potty breaks and lunch where we had to feed J, etc. Just crazy.

-We arrived and spent a couple of hours at my brother's house enjoying seeing family. We then had to load everybody up in the car to go to the hotel room, which was 25 minutes away because ASU had the same graduation weekend and we couldn't find a room in Boone. So, I wake J up, put him gently in the car, along with my mom and the girls and I go to crank up my minivan....no keys. The next 45 minutes would be spent frantically looking for my car keys with a flashlight, in the pitch dark on top of a windy and cold mountain. I can't tell you the level of my frustration. After looking everywhere, in every bag, every crevice of my car and their house, we find my keys in some other person's pocketbook. Ugghhh.

-Two nights of getting back to the hotel room late and J was beside himself crying. Still don't really know what was up with him, but I know my nerves were shot!

-J spit up on my too many times to count. I think those windy mountain roads turned his stomach over and he couldn't keep anything down. As a matter of fact, one evening I was holding J in my brother's den and talking with my Dad, Stepmother, and 2 of my nieces when he decided to spit up the contents of his stomach all down the front of me and even down my crotch area (and I was wearing black pants!) I proceeded to stand up and wipe myself off, including my crotch area, not really thinking anything about it...then I look up and one of my brother's friends(and members of his church congregation) was in the room saying "Good Bye" and he looked at me (and what I was doing). My niece caught on, seeing the scenario, and said very loud, "AWKWARD!" The guy just turned and left. Oops. I told my brother about it later. I bet his friends think that I have no class (truth is, I guess I really don't if I was doing that in the first place...just didn't think before I did it).

Seriously, I just couldn't wait to get home. I loved being there, but nothing was going right. I was being put to some sort of test and was failing miserably. My brother even said at one point, "Well, you wonder why things like this happen.....Well, I guess it's blog material." Yes, he was right...that's really grasping for the silver lining!

Once we arrived home, I was at ease. Peace. J stopped his fussing. He went straight to bed without even a whimper. The spit ups stopped. My stress level reduced to nothing. I got to be with my man and tell him about my crazy weekend. And while I was talking to him, I realized something...I think partly my weekend was the way it was because he was not with us. I told him, "things just don't go right when you aren't around" and it's true. He couldn't have kept me keys from going in some other person's purse, or stopped J from spitting up, but he could have been there for me and therefore my nerves wouldn't have been the way they were. He is good for me. He calms me. At the end of a bad day, he can talk me through it or just give me a hug to make it better. He is vital to me and our family. Without him, it doesn't work, it doesn't feel right. God intended it to be that way. I am so thankful to have my man, the "glue" that holds us altogether.

Next time, we're taking him with us!

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