Happy Labor Day

I did it! Twelve hours from now, I'll be just about ready to wake the kids up for their first day of the new school year. It's not that I don't love my children, mind you! I adore all three of them. But somehow the "adoration factor" wanes when they are all cooped up together, when they are hot and/or bored, and when I haven't had a serious break from them in nearly a hundred days. I guess that's not quite true. I did have a beach day in June and a few stretches in the hospital when someone else had the kids and I sat around reading. But other than that, they've been beneath my elbows for quite long enough! I am more than happy to be sending them back tomorrow. Let them work off a good portion of their energy in school and sports, and they (tend to) come back to me much more laid back. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe the down time restores my spirit so that it just FEELS like they are easier to manage. Either way, I'll take it.

On a different note, Mark's doctor has decided not to do the ablation after all, or at least not yet. They want to try yet another medication. Mark is so complicated that everything is risky. In fact, the last time we were in (Thursday), Dr. Broberg told Mark that we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that he (Mark) won't be around forever. Of course, we already knew that. But hearing the doctor say it makes it seem more real, somehow.

Alex had a rough patch this afternoon. He wanted to know if I could tell him that Daddy was going to be okay. (This came out of the blue, since Mark hasn't been in the ER for the last few days.) I told him that nobody can really tell us what to expect, that his daddy has already well outlived everything the doctors expected, that he is just a stubborn man and who can say how long he'll be able to keep on fighting? Alex wanted to know, "But ... what if he isn't okay? What then?" I hesitated, but decided there was nothing to say but the truth. "Then he will go to Heaven, and we will stick together and get through it." He laid on my lap and cried, and I told him not to feel bad about his feelings--any feelings. I told him that grief shows up in a lot of different ways and that none of those ways are wrong, that he'll be far better off in the long run just letting himself feel what he feels. So he cried and I rubbed his head and then, about 20 minutes or so after the conversation started, he said suddenly, "Wanna play a game?" And that was the end of it. For now.