The Puddles

We are finally home.  Hallelujah!  It was quite the adventure to get us here, but we made it.  It certainly took a village to make it happen.  But Chris was able to preside over communion.  By the end of the night, he was wiped out.  He had completely bled through his bandages and even his alb.  A good clue that we needed to go home!

It was wonderful being in our own home last night.  The reality of being without a nursing staff was daunting.  I found an app to help remind me when to give Chris all of his meds. It was still requires me to give him meds 8 times a day.  It is very hard to wake up at 4:30 and have enough wits about me to give him the right meds.  Plus he keeps trying to roll over on his elbow to sleep, so I had to keep moving him last night so he wouldn’t hurt himself. But so far so good!

Most importantly, we managed to still keep all of the Lake family traditions.  We attended Christmas Eve services, we read The Night Before Christmas, and we called NORAD (the kids love that part!).  And mom stayed up late wrapping presents and getting everything ready for Christmas morning before Santa showed up.

So today the kids took it easy on us.  Ben made us coffee, and gently woke me up after 8:30am as instructed.  We finally made it downstairs by 9:00.  We opened all of our presents, and mom only made one mistake by ordering the wrong Skylander game (I bought the same one as last year).  The rest of Christmas was a success.  Santa managed to bring everything that the kids asked for.  Madie had a Dr. Who kind of year.  Ben is into science, so he has been busy with his new microscope and box of slides. Ainsley received a Lalaloopsy magic bake oven and has made desserts for everyone today.  She also received a flute, so she has been practicing all afternoon.

Chris and both were able to take naps after all of it.  Thank goodness. I haven’t had to cook thanks to the generosity of others.  We have been living off all of the baked goods that people sent to us.  And they were all yummy!

So tomorrow we will begin to reshape our lives and our home after being away for so long.  The piles of laundry are at least clean thanks to my sister, but I still need to fold and put everything away.  (The piles were so high that she compared our loads to the Duggars). The house is a bit, no . . . a huge mess. Saturday was our cleaning day when the accident happened.  So we have a lot of work ahead of us.  The kids have agreed to help without complaint!  So after a day of wonderful laziness we will get back to work tomorrow!

And to top it off, my family knows me so well.  This is what I got from my children this Christmas.    I gave up Dt. Coke when I quit working (since I am able to sleep more than 5 hours a night, because I don’t have to stay up late to work).  But with everything that has happened lately, they figured a little treat might be nice.  The kids (with Papa and Grandma Grace’s help) even gave me the drinks cold! This has truly been a good day. Merry Christmas to all!