Crazy, Busy Life

Life is always busy with three preschoolers. It's not hectic, but there is often someone who wants your attention. "Grandma, are you listening to me?!" Kara and I spend most of our day playing with, reading to, feeding, and helping the three little ones. They often enjoy activities on their own, but we have to be near at hand to keep things in order if needed.

Lately life in our household has been even busier than usual because great-grandma had her left knee rebuilt on November 4th. She had this operation on her right knee last year. Usually great-grandma needs no help, so it's a big change for our household when we have to fit in invalid care along with child care. Having learned from last year's post-op experience we imported help from the start. (Last year we waited until we were snowed under and then begged my sister Jean to come help out.)

We found expert help for right after the surgery.


We asked Ruth (Kara's cousin and great-grandma's grand-daughter) to fly in from Boston to help great-grandma. Ruth is a nurse. We were very lucky to have her with us because this year's knee surgery had some problems. One week after surgery great-grandma was back in the operating room because her stitches ripped open. While sewing them back up the surgeon discovered her tendon had snapped in two. Not, not, not good. Great-grandma now has to keep her knee immobilized for six weeks which is not the typical goal for a new knee.

Ruth has been doing the bulk of the nursing work and decision making for us--thank you, thank you, thank you Ruth--but there is still a lot of extra work for us, too. Kara has been taking Ruth to the hospital and hanging out with her for a few hours. I've been picking up all the slack at home. The children are getting a little ornery, as are we! Sleep is short. Stress is high. ("What if...?" "How will great-grandma...?")

Needless to say, the blog has been neglected and probably will continue to be neglected for the next month or more while we scramble to help great-grandma and to keep the children happy and to prepare for the Christmas holiday season. (Forget Thanksgiving--I'm not planning anything special. I'm more concerned about how we're going to get great-grandma to the doctor's next Wednesday while keeping her leg straight.)

P.S. Ruth is not our only visitor. Cousin John from Juneau came to visit, too. He just returned from a two year LDS mission and he wanted to visit his grandmother before he heads off to college in January. When his ticket was purchased three weeks ago post-surgery seemed like a good time for a visit. Grandma would need entertainment while she was working out her new knee. Unfortunately she spent most of his visit in the hospital because of her second, emergency surgery. John was a good sport and spent some time with her there.