normal? [alternately titled: thank you, locusts.]

so...ridge feels AWESOME.  we got his port taken out, and it has made a world of difference.  Of course, he is on steroids right now bc of some bleeding that couldn't be controlled due to some other med issues....and he would've had to get some steroids anyway before surgery....so we are trying to embrace the roids, bc he feels good when he is on them.  we have about 6 more days before he's off them again.  the day we got home....well, the next day...sawyer woke up from nap with a fever, headache, and sore throat. i am so tired of illness.  he is on antibiotics and holed up watching a slew of movies and doing crafts in his room.  he is having a good time with it but i just want us to all be together!
speaking of sawyer, he is really having a rough time, i think with all of this.  he did okay at first, and he still does sometimes.  but it has been a year that his life hasn't been normal.  i don't want to go into a lot of details but i just know this road is getting hard on his little spirit.  please pray that things will begin to improve with ridge- we need that to happen so that our family can try to be a little more normal.  i have tried recently to spend some one on one time with sawyer, outside of the house and outside of the hospital. brandon tries to do that too.  but it doesn't change the fact that we are ALWAYS worrying about ridge's MLT/ridge getting sick/ridge's lines/ridge's development.  sawyer would've had to share the limelight either way with a new sibling, but i just feel like he is probably feeling a greater overshadowing bc of this disease/hospitalizations/etc.  so please pray for him and for us and for ridge.  things HAVE to get better, bc our little family just really can't take much more i don't think.  I know God will carry us/won't give us more than we can handle/blah blah blah-- i KNOW that.  but i really believe it is time for Him to say, "ENOUGH."
also speaking of sawyer, he loves to get mail.  he asked me more than once today if he got any mail.  so those of you who have our contact info, and are feeling like you want to do something to give your heart some wings or whatever, feel free to send him something. i don't mean gifts or money or whatever, i just mean some mail.  he gets a highlights magazine once a month from his gibby and loves that.  he'd probably love post cards or stickers or a picture your 2 year old colored or whatever.  i'm not fishing for gifts here, i promise, i just think that is a way to boost his spirits a bit right now. we are working hard at telling him how much he is loved, but i think that might make him feel really special to get a piece of mail for a few days in a row.
my email is seesawridgeproductions@yahoo.com if you would like to email me for our contact info.
now, onto the rest of this post.  normal.  what is normal? i don't even know. we were in the hospital basically a month this last time. all of our milk and yogurt went bad, so did most of our produce.  so the other night we went to the grocery store. ridge had never been. bdawg held him the entire time and ridge was pretty much in awe.  before that we dropped some things off with aunt b and uncle g who have moved back to the area and we are so glad and anyyyyywayyyy, we were driving to the grocery store and i just couldn't keep it together.  i LITERALLY can not remember what it feels like to be normal.  to be cooking in my kitchen with no big cares in the world, to be driving my family to the grocery store to buy a few things just like it's normal.  i don't remember that- i DON't REMEMBER HOW THAT FEELS.  it is overwhelming.  i am typing this post with a billion invisible pounds of burden weighing me down, and yes, i can give it all to God like some of you will say, but it doesn't take the situation away!  it is impossible to feel even a semblance of normal.  or close to impossible.  that night, after my meltdown and my grocery shopping for which i had no coupons with me so it cost me a crapload of moolah for like 4 bags of groceries, i was sitting in the living room, late, and it was quiet bc sawyer was in his room going to bed and brandon and ridge were on a walk, (wait, this was all the next night), i heard the crickets outside.  or a locust. or something. something that reminded me of summer night sounds.  something i hadn't heard in...a year.  it's hard to hear that stuff when you are living on the 8th floor of a hospital.  and for a second, i remembered what i felt like to be normal.  really-- in the brrrrrp brrrpppping of those insects and the silence all around me, i could remember hearing that sound before, in another time and place in our lives, a  time when not all things were right bc they never will be but a time when things were the same for us as for the majority of people in the world.  a time when i didn't feel like i had to remember a million things, have a list of meds a mile long for my one year old, a time when i might not have wanted to leave my children to go to work or to go out, but i COULD, a time when i didn't feel like crying about every stupid thing and didn't feel like things were so out of control they would never ever ever come back to normal.  a time when i cooked more than i ate out and when i might not have exercised enough but i had time to if i wanted to. a time when i didn't try to work nonstop when i was at home and stay up super late either working or catching up on movies i want to see because i could do that stuff another night, another weekend, whatever.  a time when i didn't have to worry that my house wasn't going to be cleaned or i wasn't going to get to have people over for dinner, bc if it didn't work that day, it would work another day soon bc i was always home.  now, each moment is all i've got.  it's all we've all got i guess, but it is more apparent to me now.  and while that moment was fleeting, i am thankful for the locusts.  i'm glad they didn't come in a plague this time or anything, but i am thankful for them in that one moment, that split second, because they took me to a little bit of normal.
school started this week. students start tomorrow.  this is incredibly difficult for me on so many levels, but mainly bc i love working with juniors and seniors in high school and building those relationships. i also love math and miss teaching it terribly and while part of me is glad to be at home with my kids, glad to be able to work on some crafty things i couldn't do before, glad to be realizing if i couldn't teach ever again, i'd become a nurse or something in the medical profession, the tug at my heart that tells me i belong right where i used to be will not go away.  so to all my YPS friends who still read this blog, i hope you have a great year this year.  i am jealous of you.  i want to be there more than i ever knew i did.  and it isn't easier the second year around.  my heart could just burst i am so sad that i am not there.  i'm not kidding.  sure, things won't be perfect this year for any of us. sure if i ever get to come back, things won't be perfect then.  but i know that is where i belong.  and i can't wait to be back there with you all.  so while you are either excited for a new year or dreading that your summer is over or both...know that i want nothing more than for my ridge to be well enough that i can be back to work with all of you and with the students that drive us crazy but also, i've realized, keep me sort of sane.  i miss you guys.
and with that, i'm signing off.