It's fall here now. The weather has taken a turn for the chilly. The boy's cheeks are pink again. The leaves are falling, some faster than others. Flocks and flocks of robins and blue jays and grackles are passing through noisily. The deer are grouping together. The pumpkins have been cut off the vines. The air is still.
Today is Big brother's last day of fall break from school. He spent a majority of the long weekend with his grandparents and little brother because D and I went on a weekend away for his work and for our sanity. All we needed was that one evening to come back and realize how much we missed the boys and were glad to be home. Big has made it clear that he is not looking forward to going back to school tomorrow, but I feel confident he will quickly get back into the swing of things. He has been playing volleyball four nights a week after school. He gets home just before dark tired and hungry. He eats, does his homework, plays with the dog and then hits the hay to do it all over again the next day. His life is good.
I am still working part-time, generally three days a week during school hours. We hired a sitter for little brother who we are very happy with. I drop him off in the mornings on my way to work and pick him up on my way home. It is in a woman and man's home, and they treat him just like family. It's so refreshing to have someone reliable and kind who we can trust to watch our little man.
Our computer broke and we just got a new laptop that I am still getting used to, so the photos we've been taking the last few months have been on our phones. I apologize in advance for the quality and assure you we will get back on track around here. Thank you for sticking around :).
D is adjusting well to the responsibilities in his position. He was recently able to hire someone to help with all he has to do, and it has made him an all-around more pleasant person. There was a period of time in the last few months where I feel we were both under the weight of the world, him with work and me with everything else. I had poison ivy for just shy of 8 entire weeks. D wasn't sleeping because of worry about work and the endlessness of needing to be in several places at once. little brother was waking multiple times a night. Big brother was growing careless with schoolwork. The puppy was eating everything that wasn't braced down. Somehow, we snapped out of it recently. I'm always so proud of our family's ability to muscle through and latch on to one another to stay afloat.
On October 10, our dear Grandpa Fritzy was called home. Time slowed to a stop and silence became painful for a period. Acceptance came, as it always does, reluctantly and not without sadness. D attributes much of his passion and fervor for what he does for a living to the guidance of his Grandpa. He reflects upon childhood memories with Grandpa with tears in his crystal-blue eyes and explains quietly how through topography and birds and trees and trapping and arrowheads he became the man he is now. As painful as it has been to lose Grandpa, we are so blessed to have had the time we had with him. We are so blessed that D carries so very much of him by just being himself every day, in the fiber of who he is. We are so blessed that we will see him again in a place with many rooms that He has prepared for us. (John 14:1-2) We are so blessed.
"There's a peace I've come to know though my heart and flesh may fail. There's an anchor for my soul. I can say "It is well." -C.T.
