Four Summers

Summer 2006:



Meg was born. That summer was spent getting used to a brand new life with a brand new baby in our home. We spent weeks figuring out the whole parenting game . . . then Meg would change, and we'd feel as if we were back to square one.



I remember so many things about that summer: being home, the nursing mom's group at Northside Hospital, feeling like I lived only 3 hours at a time (between feedings), lack of sleep, Jim being home with me through it all. It was a long summer for our family.



But we survived, and we were all that much better for everything we had endured.



Summer 2007:



Meg turned one, and a big bash was held in her honor. About 2 weeks prior, we had put our house on the market. We sold it about 2 weeks after her birthday . . . meaning the house was sold in about a month's time. Feverishly, we worked to find a house in the neighborhood we wanted at a reasonable price.



We went on a 3 week jaunt to Chicago, Kansas City, and Lake of the Ozarks that July. At the beginning of the trip, we found out we were expecting for the second time. Deliriously happy, we spent the rest of July wrapped up in new baby planning and the plans to move to our new home as soon as we could get the paperwork signed.



We moved in very early August. I miscarried 2 weeks later. I spent the rest of the summer easing in to our new house and in total dismay about the baby that we would no longer be welcoming the following March.



Summer 2008:



Beautiful Baby Kate Allison was born on June 18th. Little did I know what my summer would be like once we brought that sweet bundle home with us.



It was a long, tough summer. The transition from one to two children hit me like a ton of bricks . . . a ton of bricks heaved at my backside, because I was totally blindsided. I was depressed, confused, exhausted, and just totally out of sorts. It took more than just the summer to bring me out of that funk.



Summer 2009:



What starts off as a hopeful and exciting summer turns to be quite possibly our hardest of the last four years.



I overwhelmed myself completely by trying to plan two major birthday fests for Kate and Meg. That task alone wiped out much of my June . . . but just as I felt I was getting the party plans under control and a resemblance of calm was coming over me, my father's cancer reared it's ugly head yet again. I spent better than a week going back and forth to Emory Univ Hospital with him, scanning, testing, scoping. There was a suspicious area in his throat that was spontaneously bleeding, and it took us over 2 weeks to figure out what on earth was going on.



Just a day before Kate's big birthday celebration, my dad learned that his suspicious throat irritations were NOT cancer. NO cancer was found at all. My dad had a clean bill of health, and we all breathed a HUGE sigh of relief as we went about celebrating the girls 1st and 3rd birthdays.



Then, out of the clear blue sky, my mom is found dead in her bed on the morning of July 9th. And that takes care of the rest of summer 2009.






Dear God: I'd like to ask for a restful and relaxing summer 2010. Maybe if I start planning for that now, it might happen. No babies for us are in the plans . . . Julie's wedding will have come and gone . . . and we plan to rent a beach house for the girls birthday week next year.



Here is to hoping that after four tumultuous summers, next year is just a hair more relaxing and a lot less stressful.