Special alert: Don't miss the video of our daughters Mary and Margaret singing a beautiful song in front of a crowd of about 300+ tonight at the Gregg Russell concert! Our parental hearts are bursting. Scroll to the bottom of this blog post . . .
Chris took John and Joseph to the beach at 6:00 a.m. where Joseph took a shine to helping the daily morning beach volunteers who smooth down sand castles, fill in holes, pick up trash, and monitor the loggerhead turtle nests. (Good thing, too, because the night prior a bunch of drunk hooligans had drank on the beach, left behind their own nest of beer cans, and knocked over the markings of a turtle nest.) Anyhoo, Joe spent time helping an older lady pick up trash, and she later came to seek out Chris and tell him what a blessing Joseph is to us and what an "amazing child." Those moments are always so sweet for a parent!
Tuesday was a day of rain, thunder, and lightening, with warnings to stay out of the water, so we scrapped our plans for a last family morning at the beach to drive two and a half hours to Charleston to visit the South Carolina Aquarium. Given Thomas's love of squid and all things sea creatures, I was very excited about this opportunity presenting itself.
Note for any visitors to this aquarium: Spending the $5 to buy food for the sting rays is absolutely worth every penny. They actually slither up the side of the tank, emerge from the water, and eat it from one's hands!
No longer lying in a hospital bed, intubated and unable to move due to pain from his surgical wound for weeks . . . our happy boy is as big as a sting ray!
These photos by age order are so fun . . .
Petting a turtle
Some of you privileged ones have been able to listen as Thomas teaches you everything you ever didn't know about colossal squids. These creatures are too delicate to maintain in an aquarium or even capture, but this artistic representation sure was fun.
Petting an alligator . . . don't try this at home, kids!
We did visit the seahorses, although Thomas is not pictured because he was just hitting his meltdown wall that was likely reactive hypoglycemia: he had just sat down on the floor refusing to move. In our four months home since discharging from the hospital, on two occasions I have left the house while forgetting to pack a cooler full of snacks . . . and this day was one of them. The aquarium food court had been shut down due to the government lockdowns (because a respiratory illness will spread if we eat a sandwich in public but won't spread if we all walk around together in a crowded museum?), and the gift shop carried only candy plus one cheese snack he refused to eat, even though I tried to pass it off as "Cheetos." I had some leftover grilled chicken in my purse, but what was delicious at lunch was now deemed untouchable. I sat with Thomas on the floor of the museum (no chairs or benches), him on my lap melting down hysterical, causing one of those scenes you see mothers suffering, for a good 20 minutes, maybe more, while his five siblings were heroically patient (no eye rolling or complaining), given a whole lot of experience with longsuffering over the last year. Given ever-increasing understanding about some of his bodily needs, we are transitioning into a new family culture, a new behavioral expectation that Thomas is going to have to learn that sometimes he must eat, even if the food available is not what he wants. Like, no matter what, even if his six-year-old self thinks the chicken is gross, he must eat because his parents say so and we know what his body needs. If you think this is an easy solution, consider how you would force refused food into a child's mouth and think he's going to chew and swallow it. The short story is that traveling is hard for numerous reasons, and hypoglycemic meltdowns are one of them.
Seahorse exhibit
So, we left earlier than I'd have hoped, but that is part of our new life.
Cute boys with the frog statue outdoors
The day's cumulative five hours in the car were our best yet, praise Jesus! After a dinner stop on the way home, we had 30 minutes back at the condo before driving back out to the Gregg Russell concert that runs 8:00 to 9:30 at night. This evening, the two littlest boys were AWAKE and able to go, and the older four all very much wanted to attend again. We parents feel blessed and gratified that even our oldest kids at 12 and 14 still find this kind of kiddie folk music super fun and enjoyable, enough to ask to buy the CDs.
Gregg Russell performing under the Liberty Oak and in the shadow of the Lighthouse
John and Thomas sat with us while the other four sat on stage.
Gregg interviewing our David (3) on stage!
One of Mr. Russell's shticks is that he picks various volunteering kids to sing performances on stage. Our girls knew this ahead of time so had warmed up one of the many duets they sing together at home. The whole show was almost over and we thought they had missed their chance when Mr. Russell said he was going to pick more . . . and our girls were the last ones picked! They performed before 300+ people to the biggest applause of the night.
Mary (12) and Margaret (10) singing "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail:
Wednesday means packing up, driving the long way home, all the unpacking and laundry, the grocery shopping, and Mama hitting the ground running with three medical appointments in the first 48 hours (it would have been four, but one doctor's office called me to reschedule a few days' out). This vacation has been a wonderful experience and I think healing in a lot of ways for our family. We have great thanks for the friends who gifted us this time at the beach!
We spent our morning on a dolphin boat tour of Broad Creek, which divides Hilton Head Island. As we walked out to the boat, the sky looked menacing . . .
. . . and by the time we made it to shelter, we were drowned rats!
A deluge poured down for half an hour, but the sun ultimately came out.
Dolphins!
We ate lunch and rested at the condo during the mid-day . . .
. . . before heading to Harbor Town to play at the playground and tour the lighthouse.
Milestone: This was the first time since we came home that I sat on a bench and did not shadow Thomas on the playground. He is stable enough that I trusted that he would be okay! I noticed that the one time he fell down, he just bounced back up and dusted himself off. Yay!
At 8:00 p.m., the top four kids went with their dad to the nightly concert under the Liberty Oak Tree by folk musician Gregg Russell. It was supposed to have been a whole family affair, but the two littlest boys fell soundly asleep during family Rosary and clearly weren't going to be woken again. The kids really loved the concert, which Gregg has been performing for 44 years, and we're hoping to try to go back Tuesday night with the little boys in tow . . . if we can get them to nap and if the weather holds!
The girls and I made a special outing to the beach at 6:00 a.m. to watch the sun rise.
Our morning at the condo went slower than we had hoped (more snuggles, less efficiency), so we didn't make it to Savannah by 11:00 a.m. for a tour I wanted to attend. The drive to Savannah was also extended because this travel is hard on Thomas and he gets sick. Our family is just accustomed now that a one-hour drive can easily take two.
In Savannah, we ate a picnic lunch in the park by the Cathedral . . . and by picnic lunch, I mean such that as can be created without any knives to spread the peanut butter and jelly on bread or spoons to eat the yogurt. (Thanks, Mama. Great job.)
The Flannery O'Connor museum in her childhood home was going to be closing while we were at Mass, and I'd already missed the tours, but Chris still encouraged me to take the 15 minutes we had to zip through the home. What a joy! It was very special to me.
The older kids teased me mercilessly (as only fellow bookworms can) for buying a new and different Flannery O'Connor collection I did not own. They know I own her various short stories individually and an entire collection of her works in another edition. I retorted that I don't own this one, and by buying it at her childhood home, I also obtained a gold embossed sticker showing its provenance!
We attended the Latin Mass at the Cathedral where God gave me a special consolation. My 14-year-old had stepped into the narthex where a woman approached him, asking, "Is your mother Katherine L----?" It turns out she lives in Maryland and was also vacationing in Savannah and she has been following our story online for nine months . . . and still prays for us. When my son slipped back into Mass to whisper this information to me (and later she and I conversed!), I felt like it was a reminder that, while we parents are anxious about possible future surgery for Thomas and how his GI system will recover with or without surgery, God isn't done with us yet. There are people all over the country and some all over the world who are praying for Thomas. With God on our team, we might not know how it will work out, but we can rest assured that God loves Thomas more than us and he will do what is best for Thomas.
Italian dinner at a restaurant . . . family movie night (both Annie and American Tail) . . . and those yummy Yasso Greek yogurt bars for dessert (highly recommended)!
