Spring Break and a Visit to Grandma Rooster

The kids are on spring break this week.  We've mostly filled it with playdates and intensive room cleaning.  Oh, and pancake-making and a couple of old movies.

Well, all but Bantam16.  He's been about a week behind with his virtual school assignments, since The Sound of Music.  Every time he makes some headway catching up, something happens that puts him back behind again.  This week, he got no new assignments, since it's spring break, so this was his big chance to get caught up.  Then he got the flu, which wiped him out for a couple days.

...And spoiled our plans to spend a day in Chicago, which was the main "Spring Break" trip we were going to take!  So far no one else has come down with it, but it seems like this one has a relatively long incubation period, so I'm still holding my breath.

At least he didn't come with us in the car on Wednesday, when we drove over an hour to Wheaton, IL to visit my mother-in-law, who is in a rehab facility, still recovering from brain surgery. It's been a month since she had a tumor removed, and she's not recovering so well.  She can't really do the level of therapy that she needs to, to be allowed to stay at this facility, so she's being moved to a facility that is more like a nursing home.  She'll have a less aggressive program of therapy there, which she hopefully can manage to do.  If she can't, difficult decisions will have to be made.

She's still having severe headaches, and she's pretty confused.  She doesn't know what month it is--she guessed "December" despite flowering tree branches right outside her window.  She doesn't answer questions when you try to talk to her.  She knew who we were, and she occasionally came out with an appropriate comment, but she couldn't sustain conversation at all.

The tumor they removed was the size of a golf ball, and though they removed no portion of her brain with it, it had to have left a large "hole" where synapses have to re-form, which they hopefully still can do.  She hasn't had any seizures since the surgery, which is good, and confirms that the tumor was the cause of her seizures.  We are still waiting on a second pathology opinion from the Mayo clinic on the tumor itself. The brain trauma didn't affect any of her limbs--she can walk a few steps at a time and use both hands, which we are really grateful for.

But my anxiety about her, and my exhausted father-in-law, is pretty high. It is so difficult to see my usually extroverted, vivacious mother-in-law like this, and sense the weight my dear father-in-law is carrying.  They have been talking for years about moving near us, and it seems like maybe this summer is the time to do that.  Whether she gets better or not, it seems like it would be for the best, but the thought of what it would take to move them up here starts a whole chain of anxious dominoes falling in my mind.  (And with great relief, I think--"At least I'm not planning a wedding for this summer!")  Nothing has even been discussed or decided yet, but still, my mind is starting to work on the problem.  It's a sickness.

Or maybe it's just the way God made me, to have a problem-solving mind and a git 'er done mentality.  He certainly created me to enjoy and be energized by these kinds of challenges.

So I should go apply that energy to another project--the boys' bedroom.  Yesterday I bought a twin bed frame so we can get at least one of the boys' mattresses off the floor, so we can store stuff underneath.  (I'm still hoping to find another one at a resale shop at half the price, but I've been looking for weeks.) When B16 shared with B13, he insisted on the mattress-on-the-floor look, but now that B7 is in there with B13, the need for under-bed storage is apparent.  And it's time to do something different with the bins and bins of Legos.  Also, their room has these two awkward dormers that just fill up with junk.  They are too narrow for mattresses or for shelves, but I have some thoughts...

First to get the junk stored, so one can walk into the dormer areas.  And, I suppose, look at some more geometry with B16, if he's up to it.  Soccer practice and Charlotte's Web rehearsal tonight, more rehearsal and soccer games tomorrow.

Just a few more hours of spring break, really--this afternoon!

Pray for Grandma and Grandpa Rooster, and for all of us.  Thank you.