I listened to a podcast recently from Emily P. Freeman - Come back with Peace - all about the good of taking a break and her how-to of then returning to real life. And while my own break was not a planned and prepped sabbatical, but just a hard-to-get-better-from round of sickness, I still enjoyed the application. She described the reentry from space and how sometimes it is simple and smooth, while other times it feels more like a series of car crashes. We've not had quite the car-crash roughness, but definitely not the smoothest transition back to school, Fall, and regular life. Mostly I loved that tiny phrase that stuck with me - 'come back with peace' that helped me accept this slower than expected reentry of mine/ours.
It has been a long stretch of sickness, but yesterday morning as I helped the kids prep for school I realized, wonderfully, that I was feeling better! Not quite back to normal, but finally really hopeful that maybe I wasn't just going to be sick forever! (dramatic maybe, but still just exactly how I'd started to feel!) I finished up all the laundry and felt like it was just a little part of the day instead of the greatest achievement of my day :) I had a dinner plan on Monday night and a dinner plan for Tuesday.
The kids have had their own rounds of sickness (Three weeks into school and we've had a stomachache/headache/fatigue bug for a couple of kids, a cough/sore throat/earache bug for a couple of kids, and a nausea/throwing up bug for a couple of kids...) With daily 'please excuse' emails to the school secretary, I finally emailed yesterday with a "One of these days we will really have all of these kiddos healthy on the same day!"
I discovered yesterday (we've been in school for 3 weeks!) all of Porter's back-to-school info -welcome to first grade, school supplies needed, first-day pick up procedures... all those things that would have been good to find a few weeks ago!
Still we've made our way through. Some happy sweet days and some discouraging days. And all the days where I thought of sitting down to write here while Isaac napped, but all I could think to write about was the latest Brough family health update... But today, It feels like I can say "that was hard, and oh, how nice that things are getting better!"
And we've had lots of regular and great life happening in between on the good days-- a celebration and a pirate party for Porter's birthday, the start of swim team for Landon, piano and cello practicing, school lunch making, front yard swinging, preschool time with Isaac, a few neighborhood walks, even a big house project that we've jumped in to. Oh --and potty training! And (worth another celebration!) the kids are all still feeling relatively happy about 8th/5th/3rd/1st grades. :)
I'm hopeful today that I'll just keep feeling better and better, that the kids will get well (and stay well for a little while - please, oh please!) And I'm excited to finally enjoy the almost-Fall, back-to-school, new rhythm and routine-making that I've always loved so much.
