My Crazy, Beautiful Life

I woke up this morning feeling very overwhelmed by life in general & have carried this feeling with me through out the entire day. I'm unsure as to whether or not some/all of this has to due with my hormones being out of whack due to pregnancy but I AM sure that it is not a good feeling!! And to be honest, I'm frusterated with how I'm feeling. No one has to tell me how fortunate I am - to have such a great family & a healthy baby on the way! To have a wonderful home, a job & the ability to pay our bills on time. Yet even knowing all of this, my mind seems to focus on worrying over things that are out of my control.
On Monday my fathers health took a turn for the worse when a catscan revealed that he had a serious infection in his pelvic area. This infection was causing his recovery from the 1st surgery to come to a stand still, in addition to causing him a lot of pain. So this morning he had to have surgery to drain out the infectionist (is that even a word??) fluid that was invading his pelvic area. The surgery went smoothly & Dad is home recovering now. More stitches, more pain, but overwith. His hopes for having the final surgery to "put him back together" in the near future have pretty much been destroyed. His body is no where near ready for it & from the looks of things he is in for a much longer recovery period than we all initially thought. I feel sad for him. Things would be different if he were the type who enjoys napping, sitting at home & living a "relaxing" lifestyle. But such is not the case. Infact, he is the exact opposite of those things! Waking up at the crack of dawn to do hard, physical labor is what he's done all his life. It's all he knows. Spending summers in Vermont is what he lives for. We had a long chat recently over these things & it really hit me just how difficult this journey has been for him - not only physically, but mentally as well. Physically he's lost over 20 lbs & all of the muscle he once had is completely gone. Because of this, in addition to the wear & tear of the recovery process, his body has become weak. He has to rest & nap frequently...& that alone drives him crazy. He's no longer to run errands anymore - he can make it to the hardware store & back before feeling weak & tired, although he pushes himself to do more. His mind tells him one thing - his body tells him another & ultimately it's his body that wins. It kills him to have to rely upon Jim to be not only his right hand, but his left hand too. And even though he should be napping, whenever Jim has to work for him Dad goes along for the ride..even though the ride itself exhausts him & causes him great pain & suffering. Every day he fights to be the man he once was. And I know that HE knows that eventually he will get back to that man but for now it's simply not possible. And all we can do is encourage him to do what's right to help him heal & console him in his time of need, when he allows it which is rare.
Moving along, Jim has been doing so much - he's working on the addition to our house, helping Dad with whatever he needs - whether it be work related or otherwise - working his own job, caring for Kyle & also helping others - he dropped everything recently to help move some big stuff out of Carole's apartment for her - even though he's had a sore back for weeks on end. He's gone above & beyond his 'in law' duties & for that I am thankful & proud of him. That being said, I also feel bad for him. I feel like he has no time to himself anymore because he's always doing "something". I told him to relax on Saturday - it was a gorgeous day out & we planned on cooking on the grille. In a span of 4 hours he had mowed the lawn, cut up a ton of wood, filled numerous bags with yard debris, worked on fixing a leaf blower for a friend, worked on a powerwheels vehicle for one of Kyle's friends, knocked down more walls upstairs & carried big pieces of the wall outside to break up. He included Kyle in all of this, letting him help whenever/wherever possible, even though by doing that it took him twice as long to finish what he started. So much for relaxing! Yesterday his day started at 8:30, when I had to head to work. He took Kyle to the dentist & then to the park for a little while. He came home, made lunch for him & Kyle & then got ready to go to Home Depot to get the wood needed to start his big project upstairs. He was almost out the door when Dad called to say that he needed some help in moving a washer/dryer, dresser, antique desk & huge t/v out of Carole's apartment. Dad had planned on getting help from others later in the week but when he discovered he had to go in for surgery he was unable to contact those people on such short notice. So Jim dropped everything, packed Kyle up & headed out to help. He made it home just in time to shower & head to work until midnight.
In other news Kyle is going through a weird stage lately where he gets very emotional over virtually nothing. He doesn't like me working out of the house & is having trouble adjusting to me being gone even though he loves being with Jim & I'm not even gone for that long!! I can no longer call home to check on things because he answers the phone & begs me to come home. The conversations always end up with him crying. Last night he started crying, out of no where, saying how he doesn't want me to go to the hospital to have the baby because he doesn't want me to leave him. He tells me he doesn't want to go to school because he misses me & Jim too much & it makes him sad. It's been hard, to say the least.
Speaking of school, I learned today that the public school he is registered at increased the numbers of the classes again due to more budget issues. 27-30 children per class. 1 teacher. No helpers. ARGH!! I joined an online Rhode Island Homeschooling networking site to get help, advice & information regarding the possibility of homeschooling.
And finally, Harry's mom (Beth) gave birth to a beautiful, healthy, 7 lb 1 oz girl (Eleanor "Ellie" Rose) on monday night at 9:45p. Much to my surprise, she arrived home with the baby on tuesday at 12:30p!!!!! Talk about a drive-thru birth! I felt like Super Paula today..I got Kyle up, dressed & fed in the morning. Made his lunch & swept the floors before leaving the house - Harry's grandmother is staying at their house for a week (with his other grandmother staying at their house for a month come friday) & his father is also home for the week which is causing Harry to be very confused & off schedule. I worked hard to keep him to the regular routine today, but it was a struggle. Inbetween trying to give him as much attention as possible I was helping to do laundry, dishes & general clean up. While Beth was showering, Gram was setting up a humidifyer & Josh was vacuuming the house. It took me 20 minutes to change Ellie's diaper (she peed not once, but TWICE on herself before I could get a clean diaper on her causing a good load of laundry within 5 minutes flat!!!) Poor Ellie had lost her patience with me & it took both me & Gram to calm her down. Thankfully multi-tasking is something I enjoy doing, especially with children. However, by the time I left their house I was exhausted. I came home to a sink full of dirty dishes, a laundry basket full of dirty clothes, and a little boy who had diarrhea because his Dad took him to Taco Bell for lunch today instead of giving him the lunch I had taken the time to make before leaving for work this morning. Understandably Kyle needed my one on one attention after not having seen me all day. So after making him a bland dinner we painted, did some arts & crafts & built a train track around the house.
I have terrible heartburn more often than not even though I'm taking a prescription medicine for it. I feel as big as a house. Sleep is not coming easily. I can't get comfortable in our bed at night which causes me to toss & turn a lot. When I do get comfortable I have to get up to use the bathroom. But I do love being pregnant, now that I'm not as sick anymore. Feeling our daughter move around is so neat...I just wish she would move more during the day & less at night! She seems to be quite energetic between the hours of 11p-3am.
It's a crazy, beautiful life I have - but every now & again it is infact VERY overwhelming.