I have recently come to realize how very blessed my life has been in these 48 years. I have a son who I love beyond measure, a family I adore, friends who stand by me at all times, and a God who is most gracious, loving and kind.
Blessed.
But the past 5 days have been some of the hardest days of my life thus far. And now, I'm a teeny-tiny bit worried about the next 5 days, 5 years, 5 decades.
All because I have now joined the ranks of the sandwich generation. I have jumped in with both feet. I have immersed myself in my new generation.
I never knew how hard it would be.
And actually it hasn't been that hard for me, if I'm absolutely honest. But I've seen the mountaintop and I know I don't want to scale this mountain, and I also know I will...lovingly, strongly, sadly and willingly. I just don't want to.
My dad had knee replacement this past Thursday, September 17th. I knew this would be a tough surgery, mostly a tough recovery. I also knew he could do it, but I knew he was thinking it would be a piece of cake.
Initially surgery was scheduled for Thursday, September 10th, but I had an out of town CE class I had scheduled in May that would have me gone 3 nights to Arizona. Tate was going to stay with Lindsey Thursday night and my parents from Friday after school until late Sunday night. My dad's initial response when we realized the conflict? "No problem! Your mom can drive us to pick up Tate when I get released from the hospital that Friday."
I didn't even respond to that nonsense.
Luckily, he saw the light all on his own and rescheduled the procedure to the following Thursday.
I was unable to take off work, but thankfully Lindsey was able to work remotely and met my parents at the hospital. She passed along updates all day long to me and Kellie. He did well with the surgery, and Lindsey and my mom came to my house Thursday late afternoon for my mom to stay with me while my dad was in the hospital.
Things were a bit dicey here when I got home from work as my mom was emotional and tired from the long day at the hospital and Tate was being bossy and disrespectful with my mom with his tone and insistence that he could do things without her help and the 'right' way. Trying to help my mom understand Tate and his need for routine while instructing Tate that things didn't have to be done by others the same way I did them was something I'd never had to do before...smoothing my 74 year old mother's ruffled/hurt feelings and soothing my 6 year old's frustration. None of it took much time, but after an extremely long day at work soothing 50 pediatric dentistry patients through extractions, fillings, exams, x-rays and cleaning along with their worried 100 parents I just needed some sort of a break when I walked in the door. Instead, I found tears and hurt.
But we made it through to the laughter and love.
Friday morning, my mom and I took Tate to school then drove to the car dealership to drop off my vehicle and get a loaner then went to the hospital to see my dad and go with him to his first group PT class at 930am. To say it was painful and difficult would be an understatement. My poor daddy. It was a struggle for him and his other classmates, but they made it through.
We made our way back to his room and left him to rest. He was exhausted, in pain and just needed some peace. We came back to my house to get my and Tate's clothes for the weekend as we were going to stay with my parents to help them and to get my mom's things and her car. I convinced my mom to eat a quick lunch while I cleaned up and packed up. We raced back to the hospital to meet my dad for his afternoon group PT class at 1pm. We were a tad tardy, but we made it.
His doctor released him as soon as PT was over, so our plan was for my dad and mom to go on home, while I went to Tate's school to pick him up and attend soccer practice. This meant my mom had to get my dad out of the car by herself once they were home. I have no idea how they managed this, but they did it. I ran over to Tate's school, got him situated for practice, ran home to get what I'd forgotten then made it back for the end of practice. We then had to sit in rush hour traffic to drive to my parents' house for over an hour. By the time we arrived at 530pm my parents had been home about 2 hours in their house which had only one of their a/c units working! The unit that cools the side of the house with the bedrooms was not working. It was 95+ degrees outside. The left side of the house was a furnace.
By now my dad was really struggling. Maneuvering around the house was hard. Getting out of chairs was hard. Sitting into chairs was hard. The meds were making him nauseous. The meds were making him exhausted. The injection site from the spinal was miserable. Tate wanted dinner, he wanted to play with some toys, but not those toys. My mom's memory which is failing her on a regular basis was trying to work overtime and just couldn't.
I was overwhelmed and exhausted.
But when you love someone you find out how strong you are. These are three of the people I love most in the world, so my strength seemed to come up and envelope me even when I just wanted to sleep for hours. Nightfall finally came. Tate finally went to bed. My dad finally dozed off. My mom finally got to sit down.
I finally got to rest my body and soul.
Tate and I ended up sleeping in the living room which was cool on the side of the house with the working a/c unit....me on the couch, him on his toddler bed mattress on the floor. It wasn't a good sleep for either one of us, and he was up at 530am. I tossed and turned all night long. So, Saturday morning came all too soon.
It was a morning of helping my dad up and down off chairs and changing dressings, trying to convince him do his exercises, icing his knee, entertaining and feeding Tate, feeding my dad, making sure my mother ate something, trying to give my mom some autonomy to get done what she felt she needed to do to keep her household running, and just keeping everyone happy. Tate had a soccer game that morning, and I'm seemingly the team mom. I had sent an email the night before with a reminder of the time and location of the game. Thank goodness I inputted the address into my GPS an hour before we had to leave for the game and realized I had sent out the wrong address to the entire team...I then had to email and text everyone to get them the correct address, praying they all received it. We got stuck in unexpected traffic on our way to the game, so we were late. However, the boys played well, and Tate even scored a goal helping lead his team to victory!
After the game we ran to pick up my car, drop off the loaner and return to my parents' house. By the time we got back there Lindsey had arrived. I got Tate some lunch and then checked on my dad...helped him with his exercises, got his meds into him, got his knee iced and checked on my mom.
My dad was 100% better from the previous day. His pain meds seemed to be really working, he wasn't nearly as nauseated. He was moving around almost by himself. My mom was going to the grocery store, got her haircut and did laundry. They seemed to be getting back to their routine. It was decided that Tate and I would go on home around 4 instead of spending another night (I couldn't do another night on that couch, but couldn't imagine sleeping in that bedroom in a room at 80 degrees!) and Lindsey would stay until about 6pm.
I got Tate to bed as early as I could Saturday night as he hadn't gotten enough sleep the previous 3 nights and he did me the glorious favor of sleeping until 620 on Sunday morning. We went to Sunday school at church then went back down to see my parents for a couple of hours.
Night and day the difference. They were both back to their normal selves. Well mostly I should say. My dad was still in a bit of pain, but he could get up and down by himself, he was doing his exercises with a minimum of complaint and he was watching football. What more could a man want?
Caring for my son. Caring for my dad. The two most important men in my life. Me there in the middle.
And this wasn't all that hard. This wasn't bad.
This was just the crust of the sandwich.
I just wasn't prepared to try to figure out who to help first when you want to help them both.
It's going to be an interesting ride these next 5 days, 5 years, 5 decades.
It's going to be a sandwich of love.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Disneyland 2015 - Day 4 - California Adventure (CARS LAND!)
Stopped by to say Good Morning to Goofy as we left our hotel!
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| Look at the excitement! |
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| 6:30 in the morning and he's happy as a clam! I LOVE this boy! |
No matter for me and my Lightning McQueen aficionado! We arrived at California Adventure at 6:40am with all of our other friends staying on Disney's property! As advised once we made it inside we made a beeline for Cars Land.
Only to find out that Radiator Springs Racers was closed for repairs with no real idea of when the ride would re-open. It was hoped it would open by 10am. Three long hours away. I was worried Tate would be so upset.
I needn't have worried...as soon as we turned the corner and saw Cars Land he was in heaven and could have cared less about the ride.
We were the only people, and I mean the ONLY people who made our way down Route 66 to meet Lightning McQueen. Tate had him all to himself for about 20 minutes.
And oh my goodness!! Cars Land was absolutely amazing! It looked exactly like it does in the movie! Exactly!!! I have never seen something so perfect! It is just fabulously done!
After being sweetly shy initially, Tate just talked and talked to Lightning, showing him his coloring books, told him all about our trip and peppered him with questions and conversations. He had met the REAL Lightning McQueen!
It was actually quite a fun ride!! Lots of laughter and screeching from both of us! A great way to start our fun since Radiator Springs Racers was closed!
We attempted to leave Cars Land, but then my little guy saw Sarge's Surplus Hut, so we made a pit stop to buy a couple of toys. He wanted to carry the cars around, so I acquiesced! A quick stop at Fillmore's Taste-In and then we finally made our way out of Cars Land!
No such luck. Still closed.
Dejected we walked back toward Soarin. Mind you I was dejected...Tate was in a great mood. As we were walking toward Ariel's Under the Sea ride I decided to perk up and enjoy myself! Tate was having a blast; he didn't know that Radiator Springs Racers was supposed to be awesome...his day had been made by meeting his hero. I was letting my expectations bring me down! No more! We were having FUN! We rode Ariel's ride...probably the lamest ride we rode that day, but who cares...we were on vacation!
We then made our way back to Soarin' and it was just as much fun here as it was in WDW. Still one of my most favorite rides! We both love it so much!
We went to A Bug's Land and rode the Ladybug Boogie :)
After a Bug's Land we made our way back to Cars Land...it was 11am and the cast members had thought Radiator Springs Racers would be up and running by 10am...we had checked back many, many times. Still closed, but we decided to grab a bite to eat at Flo's V8 Cafe and even better, our cousins had joined us!!!
We introduced Kayla and Korey to Mater and Lightning...
We sat down to eat and we were just enjoying ourselves.
All of a sudden I noticed an increase in the number of people walking down the street next to Flo's Cafe. And they weren't just walking...they were practically jogging. And they were excited! I jumped up almost knocking all our food over as I realized Radiator Springs Racers WAS OPEN!!!
Happy Happy Joy Joy!
Of note...I've never ridden this ride. I knew absolutely nothing about it! I'd just been told it was really cool.
I sent Gail off to find Marcus who was off looking for something to eat and I grabbed the kids to go get in line. I was like a mad woman...I knew if we didn't get in line ASAP that we would be stuck in line for at least an hour if not two. I was crazed...I know Gail and Marcus thought I was losing my mind. I shoved the kids and we got in line! Gail found Marcus and jumped into line with us! It was hilarious! We were all teeming with excitement...actually everyone in line was! It was just an amazing experience :)
Then it was our turn! We put the kids in the front and we climbed into the back!
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| Our view in our car! |
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| Another gorgeous view! |
We had no idea what we were in for after Lightning wished us good luck!!!
We LOVED it! All 6 of us! Marcus couldn't stop talking about it! We were thrilled...this was the first ride that lived up to all the hype.
We loved it so much that we decided to go try to get fast passes to return after dinner!! The fast passes were almost gone, and it wasn't even noon! But we got 6 for the time we wanted...745p-845p!!
We were now all very happy campers :) We hustled off to see Aladdin. Wow...that show was amazingly wonderful! We were in the nose bleed section of the nose bleed section :) and still thoroughly enjoyed it!!
On our way out of the theater we ran into Doc McStuffins!!!
After we met Doc Tate and I made our way back to our hotel...he needed a nap for the long evening ahead and I needed to pack us up for our trip home the following day. Tate was so tired and worn out from the excitement of the morning that he happily left with me!
We returned in time for the Pixar Play Parade! They even had a little 'party' in the street while we were waiting for the parade. I knew Tate would enjoy himself if he joined in, but he's always so hesitant...so I bribed him! Off he scampered with the knowledge he could get another toy at Sarge's Hut (which I had already planned on doing anyway!) He had a blast!!!
The parade was fantastic! We loved seeing the cast of 'Inside Out!'
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| Tate is driving!!! |
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| There's Flo!!! |
Then we all sat down for dinner at Ariel's Grotto for our World of Color Dining Package. The views were spectacular, the food just so-so. Of all the things at DL that were just amazing, the food was very disappointing. We had a lot of trouble finding allergy friendly food for Tate, and when we did we had to wait inordinate amounts of time for his food to be served....my only complaint the entire trip!
Then we raced over to Cars Land to use our FP to ride Radiator Springs Racers one last time!! It was just as awesome the second time...this time we put the adults in front, kids in the back!
It was gorgeous as the sun was just getting ready to go down!
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| These kids..Kayla didn't want to ride, Korey was a tad tired and Tate was over the moon excited! |
When we got on the ride the sun was setting even more giving us these gorgeous views...
Then we made our way over to our reserved seats for the spectacular World of Color!! What a perfect way to end our night and week in California. Just beautiful! A wonderful tribute for Disneyland's 60th Anniversary!
I love how these three love one another! I'm so very glad we get them together so often!!!
It was an absolutely magical day! Just magical. And seeing it through Tate's eyes made the magic come alive for me! These memories I'm making with him are nestling down in my heart and my mind. And it's not about it being Disneyland as much as it is seeing him happy. For now a red car who races makes him happy and that makes me happy. I love this boy.
When we exited the ride Cars Land had been lit up at dusk! Breathtaking!
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| AAAAHHH Tate is driving again!!! |
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