Just so we don't get bored

Sometimes when people ask how it's going, or how I do it and I just don't feel up to the full answer, I divert a little bit with something along the lines of, "Well, with nine children, I'm never bored!"

Looks like that's not going to be a problem this summer, either. Anyone been wondering why my posts have been fewer and farther between for the last few months? Well, wonder no longer. My free times in the evening have been full (sometimes just brain full!), and getting it down on virtual paper in blog form just hasn't made it to the top of the list.

Here's what's lining up for the upcoming months. The order and logistics of some of the pieces are still rather hazy, so while I'll attempt to set this out in a meaningful manner, I make no guarantees!

Remember that bathroom? You know, the one that's big enough to get a wheelchair into, and would allow Bobbi the ability to bathe independently (I still lift her in and out of the tub every day for her bath, and help her to dry and dress afterwards because there just simply isn't enough maneuvering room for her to do it alone in our current tiny bathroom), and give us a private place for diaper changes for Mira and the boys as they approach puberty and eventually, adulthood. This bathroom has been on the "hopefully sooner rather than later" agenda for around a year now. We've been setting aside funding for it both through our own savings as we are able and through allocating what we can of the annual county grant funding our four with disabilities receive (though we can't actually access those funds until we have an approved plan), but the biggest reason we're thinking it's got to happen in the near future, regardless of not quite having all of our ducks in a row for the funding and other logistics of it is that...

...we're going to welcome Baby (number 10 (in the family)? number 7 (that actually arrived as a "baby")? how do you count?) somewhere in mid-July! We learned I was pregnant a few days after Mira was first admitted to the hospital back in November, so not only was I essentially single-parenting the other eight children while Matt spent time in the hospital with Mira, I was also dealing with the bleh of morning sickness, and the crazy fatigue that comes in that first trimester while trying to make Bobbi's first Thanksgiving and Christmas have something of a sense of what our family normally does on those holidays!

Putting up the tree the day after Thanksgiving is a Big Deal to our kids. But Daddy was at the hospital, and I'm just barely strong enough to help Dad get the box with the tree in it up from the crawl space. So we adapted by having the kids haul it up branch by branch, and Owen commandeered the assembly process while I sat around and didn't throw up.

It took me until a full fifteen weeks before I finally started really feeling better and getting past wanting to go to bed at 8pm every night. I'm just a few days past 20 weeks now, so am in that delightful middle where I actually have some time to think about collecting thoughts instead of just surviving until bedtime! Which is good, because...

...in a few weeks here we're set to meet with the orthopedic surgeon who will be the one to do Bobbi's surgery that we've been planning loosely for this summer. ("We" here being obviously us and Bobbi, but also her rehab/cp doctor at Gillette and her physical therapist.) The surgery is a pretty major deal, requiring six weeks of immobilization after the surgery and then pretty intense rehabilitation therapy in the weeks after that. Adding a newborn smack in the middle of the summer will be an interesting factor in when we plan to have the surgery! (Having a more accessible bathroom by that time would also be a big benefit!)

Which brings me to the last thing, which in an odd way is so distant right now, seemingly, because of everything that has to happen before that time. But in an interesting twist of events the evening after Matt and I counseled a client of ours [for our residential design business] that they might save money by tearing down their very old and already very modified garage and building a new one from scratch rather than trying to scab on (again) to the existing we turned our thoughts to our own garage which was going to need some noticeable modification to get our plan of ramping up and out of it for wheelchair access to the house (part of the new bathroom mentioned above) to work. Additionally, that garage is slowly sinking in the south-east corner because it was built on less than ideal footings, and we know that its life is limited. Is it really worth tearing up and re-building/re-structuring part of it to get a ramp and access that still leaves us without a real mudroom space, only to have to rebuild the whole thing in the next five to ten years anyway? We always tell our clients it's much more cost effective to explore your options on paper before starting anything so you don't make decisions you will regret later. So now we're finding ourselves faced with the same question: would we be better off, and more cost effective in the long run to tear the whole garage off, salvage what we can of the materials, and build a new one that has a ramp designed into it, space to park our big vehicle IN the garage (especially nice in the winter and rain when we need to make multiple trips with little people back and forth), and incorporate space for a mudroom where we'd have room to hang our coats, and put wheelchairs?

Why not, right?

Well, because, when you stop to think about it, we're already not bored as it is, so what in the world are we *thinking* adding more excitement to our lives? I have to admit there's more than a little apprehension about all that these upcoming months are shaping up to bring. I'm grateful for a friend who stopped over unexpectedly yesterday (she lives 40 minutes away, but was on our side of town for something and popped in) and counseled me to remember all the things that God has carried us through in the past, and our confidence that when we follow him he will supply all of our needs.

However, and I told her this, I also know that the ways he does that are not usually easy or comfortable ways, and I fully expect this summer to play out that way as well. I'm also reminded of summers like the one we had two years ago that was filled with so many unexpected delights. Looking back at the words I had after that beautiful day are an odd sort of encouragement for looking forward to this summer:

Just like we give different gifts to each of our own children, he gives just the right gifts to delight each of his children, just like he brings just the right trials to each of his children.

So we are sitting here expectantly. Expecting Baby (yay!), expecting to be stretched (ouch!) and expecting to see God working (and when that's going on, there's no room to be bored.) There are many variables here, and I'll try to keep you up to date on how things are developing as I have time!