Home Sweet Home

We’ve been home for a glorious week! I have just been savoring the everyday things that make up our lives. Leave home for a month and trust me you’ll appreciate the day to day mundane a little more.

Life hasn’t slowed down in the least either. We got into Bosie at 5:30pm on the 4th. Factoring in the time difference and the two hour drive back to Twin, it was late late late by the time we got home and got the kids to bed. Next morning Emilie had her 18 Month Well Baby Visit at 9:15 (check-in at 9) so that means both kids had to be up and running by 7:30 so that I could drop Jack at preschool and make it to the pediatrician’s on time.

Normally, I wouldn’t have sent Jack back to preschool until the following Monday but I thought it would be more fun than sitting around the Doctor's office watching you sister get shots. With that logic in mind I drug my reluctant 3.5 year old to school. I kept pumping him up about seeing his friends and Miss Valerie (his teacher).  Once at school I was signing him in at the front door when a friend and fellow Step Ahead mom walks in with her daughter and says, “Oh good, you’re back! Guess you didn’t want to miss school pictures!”

“That’s TODAY!??!” I asked sounding shocked, and debating the photo-worthiness of Jack’s attire all at the same time. Shoot, shoot, shoot. I haven’t even paid for photos! My brain scrambled to come up with a plan. Drop Jack in his class, swing by the office to get an order form, run home for the checkbook and a better shirt for Jack, come back, drop everything off, and hopefully still make it to the pediatrician’s on time. I had about 30 minutes to complete this mission and, factoring in drive time, I could just about make it.

The plan halted abruptly when I opened the door to his classroom and Miss Valerie wasn’t there. In fact I had never seen the woman running the class before in my life. She had never met Jack and had no clue who he was. Jack was NOT thrilled AT ALL. The tears and “I want to go homes” started immediately.

Seems Jack’s teacher had gone into premature labor and given birth unexpectedly a few days before. (the baby is healthy and doing well BTW) That left the school scrambling to find a replacement teacher until Miss Valerie can return to work. Miss Alisha seemed nice, but like I’ve mentioned before, Jack doesn’t take to change well so this was pretty much a disaster. Still I needed to take care of the photos and get Emilie to her appointment so I didn’t have lots of time to hang out and soothe his fears. I left him with the new teacher, poked my head into Miss Letty’s class (who Jack knows and had as a teacher from 18M until he turned 3.) It took her about 2 seconds to put together that Jack was back and how he’d be doing with the new teacher. Thankfully, Miss Letty had helpers and went next door to help smooth things over with Jack. It took him about 15 minutes to regroup once I left and I’m told he even smiled for pictures. Plus, I did manage to get him a nicer shirt for photos.

Alas, we were a little late for Emilie’s check-up. The only difference I noticed with my delay is that we were called straight back to the exam room and didn’t have to sit in the waiting room for ages. I can’t complain really.

Emilie is healthy as can be. She’s above average height well below average weight at 21.5lbs and 31.5.” Her pediatrician is not concerned though. He said as long as she’s eating well and getting a balanced diet then there is no need to be concerned. After all, in order to have an average somebody has got to lie on the ends of the spectrum.

After Emilie’s appointment and we picked up Jack we went home and I started to catch up on the month I’d missed. By the end of the weekend the checkbook was back in order, the house was tidied (Kevin is pretty good at the clean part….not so much on the tidy part), and the ‘guy’ food was mostly gone from the fridge.

Tuesday morning Kevin left for Elk Camp, I took Jack to preschool, and Emilie and I went grocery shopping. Back to the same old, same old that I had missed so much.

Here’s to home sweet home!!!

Jet Lag Anyone???