the first week at home

I knew the first week at home was going to be difficult, but this has been a bit ridiculous.

Two days after coming home from China, Ryan started acting very lethargic and saying his mouth hurt - we wondered if he wasn't cutting a molar. He just seemed very sad and it broke my heart so around 4pm, I said to Tony, what if we go to the "z - o - o" (spelling it out) tonight? Ryan turned around and yelled, "I want to go to the zoo!"  Since he outsmarted us, we piled into the car around 4:45pm and got to the zoo just a minute before the gates closed.

There is nothing like a polar bear jumping out of the water to cheer up a little boy. Sadly, I had also put Anna in front of the glass and then a few minutes later the polar bear swam up directly in front of her and scared that little girl to death. I can hear her telling her future therapist about how she thought her mom was feeding her to the bears three days after coming home from China.

 

The zoo was fun, but our little boy was still lethargic. We tried singing songs on the way home, but he just sat in his car seat looking sad. It absolutely broke my heart.

On Tuesday, we lost Ryan. You know that heart stopping conversation..."where's Ryan?  -  I thought he was with you..." We started looking around the house and then running around the house and in the back yard. Then I noticed the front door was closed, but unlocked. The child lock was off as well so I thought he may have gone outside and we took off running up and down the street. I was panicking before, but now I was really frantic. While I was running and yelling "Ryan!" I heard a little voice call out "mommy, mommy" and I turned around and he was behind me. I still don't know where he was - but we found him.

And yes, I cried and cried and cried. I don't have to tell any parents about how I felt...I know you know.  But I think there was a lot of release from the emotions of the prior two weeks because I just sobbed.  It wasn't pretty but man, it was such a good cry and it felt good crying out all of the emotion of the China trip.

On Wednesday Anna had her pediatrician appt.  The good news is Anna is in great health and is actually in the 95th percentile for height and 40th for weight. We took Ryan in as well and she confirmed that he has hand, foot, mouth disease.  She looked in his mouth and said his mouth and throat are a horrible mess (he wouldn't let us look inside). His little mouth is full of sores and there isn't anything we can do besides give him ibuprofen.  On one hand, I am glad he is sick and not depressed about Anna (although there is probably some of that mixed in) but on the other hand, it has been heart breaking to see our little boy just curled up on the sofa, crying and not wanting to do anything.  He is usually such a happy, vivacious little boy, but this week, he just wants to lay down on the sofa or the floor.  We have watched Dumbo, Cars and Jungle Book a thousand times already.

Anna on the other hand, is doing remarkably well. She has made peace with Abby our dog and only cries out when Abby's nose and tongue get within a few inches of hers. She still feels the need to be touching me all the time which makes getting work and other things extremely difficult. She sat at my feet and played with a piece of paper for an hour and then she just stood and hugged my leg while I worked.



She's not flipping you off, she does this sweet little self-soothing routine of rubbing her
fingers over her nose and lip.  She softly rubs the scars from her cleft lip surgery.

She and Ryan are fighting over toys, Ryan has pushed and hit her a few times and one full body tackle (we're working on redirecting that frustration) and she is still crazy jealous and possessive of mommy. I've been holding Ryan a lot because he is so miserable and she will start crying and will try to remove my arms from Ryan. What makes it worse is I used to try to hold both of them, but I don't want her to get sick so I sit her down a few inches from us and she takes it as absolute rejection.

The pediatrician said to prepare for Anna getting sick too since it is so contagious - that will be really fun.  And we probably won't be going to church or anywhere fun on Saturday since we don't want to infect anyone.  So if you see me next week with a glazed look, you'll know why. 

But we'll get through this like we get through everything else right?