We went on a grand fun weekend expedition that deserves its own blog post instead of waiting for my Friday wrap-up.
Our firstborn turned 15 years old on Saturday and it is hard for me to conceive that this young man at 5'10" was once my babe in arms. John is a kind, gracious, cheerful, chatty, and always-willing-to-help growing-up man.
Meanwhile, his birthday will forever be associated now with Thomas's lifechanging day when he almost bled to death and instead was rushed to emergency surgery and lost three organs. In fact, I just so happened to wake up in the night--I wake up many times and spend much time awake--in the exact hour when Thomas was in surgery 365 days prior. Chris and I are so grateful that Thomas lived. His surgeon was deeply dedicated such that when Thomas was rushed to the OR ten times in one month, his surgeon was always there, day or night, no matter where he was on shift or scheduled to be instead. We are also overjoyed to report that one month after Thomas's fourteenth trip to the OR and what should be his final GI revision surgery, he has gained 2.6 pounds.
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| Thomas wore his ladybug costume all over Gatlinburg. |
John's birthday gift from us was a family trip to his first speed cubing competition, held in Gatlinburg, TN. The girls are also into cubing and were registered competitors. All three of them also served as volunteer judges.
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| Breakfast at the hotel |
The competition lasted two days. On the first day, Chris took the oldest three to the competition all day (10 hours) while I took the three little boys to the Gatlinburg aquarium. Chris had the car and I was going to take the trolley, but the boys and I decided to walk: I was so impressed that Thomas could walk the entire 0.6 mile after I saw him have to learn how to walk from scratch this prior year.
On the second day, we raced to check out of the hotel by 7:00 a.m.--and I think a mother of six should get some kind of medal for that. Then our whole family spent the 10-hour day at the competition. Many people complimented the littlest boys for how well behaved and patient they were.
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| Margaret, bookworm |
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| Mary and John competing simultaneously while Dad films |
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| John doing schoolwork in between events |
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| Thomas drawing artwork . . . of course! |
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| Many parents filming |
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| Rare girl cubers |
For one break during the day, I took the little boys to a nearby playground to run around and dig in the dirt.
We drove home in the dark of night, had fewer misadventures than I anticipated (even at the urgent stop at the very sketchy hut purporting to be a gas station in the middle of nowhere), and got home by 10:30 at night before a Regina Caeli Academy school morning.
Travel with a large family is tough, siblings bicker, I had tons of extra care for Thomas amidst it all, and I'm now exhausted, but it was exhilarating to be living life to the fullest instead of going through an emergency in PICU like we were last year.
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