The Kirkmans: The first week

Well, we survived the first week of Travis being gone. Monday was an emotional day for me, the boys especially were acting out a lot, and that was the day that the reality of Travis being gone sunk in, and I had several crying sessions. I took the kids to the focus on the family bookstore and indoor play area. They had a good time, and got some energy out. We also got the car an alignment at the shop near our house, and walked home while they did it. We came back and got it when they were done. Samuel throwing fits and temper tantrums, and causing a scene in the office. But, we survived and drove back home. I paid Austin to clean and organize Caleb's room, and she did a great job. We had gone through all the craft stuff, and had the kids go through and find what they could use for school supplies. It was a great activity, but left the room a mess.
Tuesday I had Dr. appointments for all five kids, all in a row. I need to re-register them with CYS (child youth services) so I can use the free hourly care I get while Travis is gone, and they all need new physicals. The first two appointments were for Caleb and Samuel, and took forever, so we were 20 minutes late to the next appointments at the clinic across the street for the older kids. Caleb now weighs 23 pounds and is in the 5th percentile for his age, so he is slowly growing. After arriving at the next clinic the kids were not too happy to be at more dr. appointments, and there were the six of us, plus 3 other adults (dr. and nurses) in one tiny little room. It wasn't a very pleasant experience, the kids were hungry and grumpy. After they finally finished all the physicals, they told me Joseph and Caleb both needed shots. (they missed it at Caleb's appointment). Samuel was driving me crazy, he kept tripping Caleb, and hurting him, squeezing or grabbing his head or neck, and pushing him. I really wanted to put Samuel in a straight jacket and duct tape his mouth shut. So finally we had to go get shots. Caleb did not like getting poked, but the good thing, was that once Samuel saw Caleb get him poked, he was soft and gentle with him and tried to help him feel better. I guess it's the "no one can hurt him but me" mentality. Anyway once Caleb calmed down, he kept repeating "No more pokes" over and over again, it was really cute. That evening we took Joseph to YMs, and I went a little early and picked up some food for dinner at Panera Bread to go. I was too exhausted from all the dr. appointments to make dinner. Well Caleb fell asleep as soon as we left, and stayed asleep while we ran errands, and then picked up Joseph. At one point I drove through a yellow light, and the police car behind me pulled me over and said it was red. But he must have had pity on my pregnant self, and five children in the car, because he ended up just giving me a verbal warning. So we finally made it home, and I put the kids to bed, except Caleb. He had way too much energy since he took an evening nap and ended up staying up until midnight, before I could get him to sleep.
Wed, we went for our morning walk, then made taco soup freezer meals with our friends. Betsy and I had our chiropractor appointments, while my friend watched the rest of the kids. After we had lunch I took Caleb, Samuel, and Betsy and dropped them off at childcare, left Austin home, and sent Joseph to the YS(youth center), and went to my OB appointment. I had to go fill out all my pre-admission paperwork and got my parking permit, but everything for the appointment went fine. When I got back to pick up the kids from childcare, Caleb was crying, and was quite upset. Apparently during the last 10-15 minutes, Caleb saw Samuel and Betsy playing outside with their age group, and once he saw them, he wouldn't stop crying, until I came and got him. We went home and made some chocolate scotcharoos for the Big Brother/Big Sister picnic we were going to, then we left to go. Only Betsy's "Big" was able to come, but we had a great time. The kids got free toys and books, dinner, and had fun and games. I followed Caleb around, while everyone else played, but it was fun. The kids all ended up getting their faces painted, and Caleb thought that was pretty fun. During dinner, Caleb grabbed this huge piece of watermelon, and was just devouring it, another lady at our table, couldn't get over how cute he was, and kept taking pictures of him. I still don't have a new camera yet, so once again Austin is the photographer for this blog. She took lots of pictures, but most of them come out pretty fuzzy, so I only posted a couple.
Thursday, I was just so exhausted, and we had been gone so much, that we didn't do too much. We did have Samuel's OT appointment in the morning, and his Psychologist appointment in the late morning. Both went okay, but Samuel did not like having everybody coming to his appointments, he likes it when it's just me and Caleb with him. At home I did some cleaning, and put together the bassinet for the new baby. Caleb kept asking me what I was doing, and I would tell him it's for the new baby. He would say "for me?" I would say "no, for your new baby brother". he asked if the baby was coming soon, and I told him that when I went to the hospital, the baby would come out, and I would bring him home with me. Caleb asked if he could come to the hospital with me, and I said no, and he asked if I would be right back. Poor little guy, I told him I would be back as soon as I could. He wasn't very satisfied with that answer.
Friday, we went to a strong bonds event for spouses of deployed soldiers, it was at IT'Z (family fun center) and the kids had a great time, and I learned about resiliency and the 5 love languages. Joseph didn't like being in the childcare, and he wouldn't leave Austin alone, and kept hurting her. So I let him stay out. He ended up watching cartoons in one of the t.v. rooms, sipping on blue icees for two hours. Once my training portion was done, the kids and I had fun playing all the games. The kids said it was the best day ever, since we were there from 9am-5:30pm. We could have stayed longer, but Joseph had a campout, so we had to get back and drop him off. When we left IT'Z it was in a torrential downpour and lightening storm, so we got soaked just getting to the car, then I had to drive super slow, because I could barely see, and there was tons of water on the road. At one intersection, a cross street was all flooding onto the street I was on, and there was at least a foot of water on the road, but other cars in front of me were going, so I went too. A big truck on the side of me passed me, while I was going through, and completely flooded our car with water. I couldn't see anything at all, so much water was being dumped on me for about 3 seconds, and the car started stalling. I yelled for the kids to pray, and our prayers were answered, the car kept going, and I could see a little bit again. We finally made it to where we needed to drop off Joseph, and it wasn't raining as bad, but Joseph still put on his poncho before getting out of the car. I guess where they went camping wasn't too bad, but I sure was worried about him staying dry. After dropping of Joseph, Caleb asked me if Joseph was at an appointment. I was pretty impressed, that my little two year old, knew that word. But I guess we've had a lot of appointments this week. Joseph had a good time fishing on his campout, and enjoyed it.
Saturday, we worked on chores, and then went to a chapel on post to get some free school supplies. We had to wait in line for about a half an hour, and I was standing in the sun the whole time, but we made it through, and got some school supplies. Then we picked up Joseph from his campout, and went home, and worked on chores some more. Joseph promptly fell asleep, and then I dropped Caleb, Samuel, and Austin off at a friends house, and took Betsy with me to go to Costco. I hadn't been to the store since before Travis left, so we were in desperate need of some groceries. Since Joseph was asleep when we left, I took my big dry erase board and wrote him a message in big letters telling him where we were, and giving him instructions, and placed it four feet in front of his face, so he would see it as soon as he woke up. So Betsy and I completed our shopping and picked up the other kids and came home. Joseph woke up when we got home, and started wandering around, and asked me where all the groceries came from. I couldn't believe he didn't see the sign I left for him, so I took him back to where he had been asleep and showed him the huge sign in front of his face. He sheepishly said "oh, I didn't see that". Next time I'm taping it to his forehead. That evening I had a babysitter come over, and my friend and I went back to school shopping with no kids. It was fun, and we found some great deals. It was fun to go shopping without kids, I hardly ever get to do that.
Today we made it through another church without Travis, even though Austin was in the hallways with Caleb most of the time. Caleb took off, right when sacrament meeting ended, and I sent Austin after him, but he was too fast and she couldn't find him. It took us several minutes, but we did finally find him, and he was crying and upset. He asked where I went, and I told him I was looking for him, and he said he was looking for me. Well we found each other and went to nursery. Austin and Betsy made dinner tonight, and did a good job. The cut up apples, and set them up to look like flowers with peanut butter in-between and berries on top. The sliced cucumbers and stacked them with carrot pieces on top, and whip cream on the sides and top. They made a smoothie, and pretzel buns with cheese in them. They worked very hard on it, and it was yummy.