Saturday

I am in Oklahoma with my mom and my brother, no kids or spouses.  We are grateful to have amazing spouses taking care of our little guys at home. We were wanting some time to be together with just the three of us to be together, remember, go through some things and just cry.

I arrived first.  Mom and I had a very eventful and emotional Saturday. Both of us have had crazy sleep schedules since dad's passing, so we were both up at 4:30. We had an early breakfast snack, a Wal-mart trip, wrapped presents, did laundry, etc. all before our Ward Christmas Breakfast at 9.

It was wonderful (and emotional) to be with the loving people of the ward who gave jillions of hugs and kind words. Everyone is excited to have us returning and it is a warm, loving feeling of home there.

We had a little bit of time before our next appointment at noon, so we hit Kohl's and did a whole bunch of Christmas shopping.  We spent something like $150 and our receipt said that we "saved" over $350.  That cracked me up.

We also hit Sam's Club and timed things just right to get to the realtor's office a few minutes before noon.  Just before we arrived I got a very sweet (and emotional) call from my mother-in-law who had just read a book about a child with Asperger's. Her opinion is very important to me and it meant a lot to have her seeing what I see in Lincoln. She said that she doesn't believe in coincidences and there is a reason that she got this book right now. She also talked about helping all of the family understand what that means and what we can do to understand him better.

We hopped in the car with our realtor and visited about 8 houses. There were some crazy finds, like a random space off of the master and a ladder in the middle of the hallway that led to a loft room that you can't get to any other way. One had an apartment type space built right into it with an extra kitchen and living room and everything. Mom's not ready to move in with us quite yet, so we'll leave that for someone else!

We found two that we really liked. The last one I was especially excited about and ran around all giddy taking pictures. I called Jeff and tried to walk him through it over the phone (doesn't work too well!) I really like the idea of only having to move once.  We had decided to live in our old house for a while after our renters are done with it, but if there was the perfect house now, we might do that instead. 

Jeff has talked me back down on the house a bit and it is a good thing.  I really like the floorplan a lot, but if I were making the color and finish decisions it would like quite different.  When we've looked at houses in the past he has always wanted to spend less and just make do with less.  I'm always the one saying, "I don't want to settle" and we've found something that made us both happy. This time we are both wanting to spend less, but he is the one saying, "I don't want you to settle." He wants me to love everything about it, so we might just hold off for a bit and build one we'll love, love, love.  But not too too soon... we've got plenty of stuff to work through before we add the stress of building.

We went home and had some yummy chili and sat down to relax and watch a netflix movie that came in the mail that day. Neither of us had ever heard of it, so we were surprised that it had such big names in it, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. We weren't too far into it when we realized it was about a little boy with Asperger's whose dad had died in 9/11.  He was trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense. Coincidence?

Before we could finish our movie it was time to go and pick up John from the airport. It feels so good to have all of us here, well, most of us. There is definitely a hole. 

The next day mom and I both fell asleep at 6:30pm, completely worn out from our Saturday.  Poor John was trying to get us to stay up talking and telling stories, but we were both physically unable to stay awake.

Therapy: a history

Although we have loved the people and places of Wisconsin, the cooler weather and the lack of allergy problems, life has been hard for me there. I've struggled with vitamin D deficiency, depression, lethargy, hormonal issues, etc.  In an effort to help me with those things Jeff worked really hard at getting me set up with doctors and a therapist. I'm so grateful that as soon as he realized what was happening with me he fought to get me back. We both new something was off, but it took a while to put a finger on exactly what that was. We met (together) with multiple doctors until we found a good and helpful one.  I tried several medications that only made things worse and eventually found something that helped a great deal. I had met with the therapist twice before that medication and then I had the following sessions, all two weeks apart:

session 3:  I'm doing great. I found something that is helping me and I feel really good.  I think this is just what I needed.  We talked about some ways to feel more connected to people and to understand why I was having anxiety.

session 4: My son is about to have a major operation. We left everything else behind and talked about how scary that is and how blessed we were to know that he needed it and that we were in Wisconsin with this amazing surgeon.

session 5: My father passed away. She saw that Jeff had come in with me and was so worried that it we had lost our son. We left everything behind and talked about dad.

session 6: We are moving. Jeff is in the process of getting a new job in Oklahoma so that we can be back with family. This will be good for everyone, the kids are thrilled. It's still stressful.

session 7: I just me with my son's teacher and hour ago and she brought up some major concerns. From the list of things I described she suggested we have him tested for Aspergers.  We left everything else behind and talked about how it might be really helpful to have a diagnosis so that we can have the help that we need. My goal was not to have any big news for her the next time we met.

session 8: I don't think I have anything new - yeah! We did make a very last minute trip to Oklahoma and have started looking at houses.  We are talking about building. We can talk a little bit about all of the things from past sessions... there is plenty to talk about.  My goal was not to have any big news for her the next time we met.


I'm so grateful that I had all of my own world set up to handle all that has come our way in the last few months.  I'm not sure I could have managed without having the help from doctors, a therapist, loving friends and family and of course the knowledge and many reassurances that my Heavenly Father knows and loves me.