Photos for Greg

Well, it's been almost a month- time to catch up. I feel like I've finally caught my breath and am able to do so. I sort of wonder why I still blog at all and don't just put it straight into a journal/blog book. No one seems to blog or read them anymore. I still like to record for myself, but putting it on here first is like doubling the long term work to print it out in a book, eventually. ANYWAY.

I don't know WHAT I've put on here. I know I've been instagramming- but the flight went amazingly well. Really, I know God has blessed me a lot in this life, but MAN! He saved a GIANT BLESSING for me there. The kids were amazing. I was in this calm, nothing can phase me mode and everything just went SO WELL. There were small hiccups on the way, that never upset me in the slightest, but little things that have happened like that on past flights have put me to tears. traveling has just always stressed and worn me out and I was going strong the whole 34 hours. Also, that's saying a lot knowing that I only had 3 hours of sleep the night before? Something like that.

My Mom picked us up at midnight at the airport and I was hopeful we'd all just go right to sleep- um . . . that's a big fat NO. The kids stayed up 'till 2? Then Scarlet wouldn't sleep and had me put on Diego and I had to change the episode every 20 minutes for 2 hours and then when SHE finally fell asleep, then it was BRIGHTON'S turn. I may have it mixed up, but it was definitely something like that. Then it was 6am and everyone was up for the day and I'd slept- 20 minutes? A few times? I don't know.

The following days/nights were constant, "I'm gonna take a nap" and one kid would need me, then when they finally were asleep or distracted with a movie, the other one would need me. The next 3 days I never slept more than 2 hours at once. It was like having a newborn. And napping during the day rarely worked 'cause the kids just liked to be with me and play in my room. It seems by day five I got my first 5 hours of sleep. MAYBE it was 7, but I'm not sure about that. It all took awhile to get us all sleeping on a regular schedule. We went through a LOT of 3am hotdogs. Thank goodness for hotdogs and ketchup. Saved my life that first week.

We were "settled" for 3 days and my sister Amy came to visit!!! She is also very pregnant.

She brought her daughter Maddie and it was so fun to see the kids play together. They had a great time. It was great getting to know Maddie too. Amy and I, of course, talked a ton and laughed harder than I have since I left the states and had an absolute blast. I was so glad she came and stayed so long. Grandma and Grandpa came too and the kids LOVED Grandma's singing and it was really sweet to see them with both of them.

Brighton's first icecream cone. After awhile, we just had to leave and it was so messy, I had to just take it away from him and throw it away. That did not go over well. But it would've taken him an HOUR to eat the whole thing. He screamed the whole way home and I thought, "I am never doing this again."

Little Brighton. He has had a ROUGH TIME, to say the least. Which has given me a rough time too. It's gotten dramatically better the last 4 days or so. I think I REALLY underestimated the emotional trauma of Greg suddenly disappearing without explanation. I can't describe how clingy and obsessed with me he instantly became. Anytime I had to pee (which is every hour)- MELT DOWN. Like, "I'm dying because I'm not in your arms!" melt down- EVERY STINKING HOUR!!!! It was the worst. I had to hold him everytime I ate. I had to hold him through pretty much everything except a movie and when he ate. Sometimes he would play on the beach or with toys and I wouldn't have to hold him, but that was a SMALL percentage of our day. It was taxing. 

Suddenly, it came to me that Greg has been gone a full 3 weeks and Brighton has no reason to think that he's coming back and he didn't know it was going to happen anyway. Just suddenly his Father vanished. Yeah, I'm thinking that messed him up and made him deeply afraid I was suddenly going to vanish too. SO!!! The other day this thought comes upon me and I hold Brighton and talk all about how Daddy is gone for awhile, but he's coming back and will be with us. I just said it over and over and over and he listened really quietly. There has been MUCH improvement since that conversation. I feel terrible we didn't have it from the start. I did mention it, but I didn't talk about it much, figuring what could I do to help him understand? I won't make that mistake again, that's for sure. I feel bad. I'm sure he was really stressed out and sad about it all and this whole time I was just clueless. And a couple days later I mentioned missing Daddy and being excited for him to be with us and he said in his sweet voice, "Where is he?" and I felt so bad. Thankfully, Greg will be back within a week and all will be well again!!!

 A couple days before Amy and Maddie went home, my sister brought her kids out to see us. It was so nice having everyone come see us!!! I LOVED seeing my kids play with their cousins!!! It brought back so many memories of playing with MY cousins, as a kid. Scarlet got along really well with Kate, in the beginning, and then by the end she and Elle were best buds. They spent 7 hours the last day just playing alone in the play room. It was crazy. They just did not get sick of each other. 

The kids had some great Tea Parties and Tanner helped Brighton get dressed in a FBI Agent coat. He was so excited. It was so cute.