Well, hopefully I’m back to blogging now. Since I’ve been back in town, I’ve been doing the updating on checkonjoe.com and have been really busy with everyday life here….so that explains my absence here on my blog.

I spent 2 weeks in Birmingham, Alabama, mostly at UAB hospital in the waiting room of NICU. My dad had a leaking aneurysm followed by two heart attacks and numerous other setbacks. He is better now and is in a private room. He has a long way to go, recovery and rehab-wise, but is doing better than he was. I want to thank everyone who prayed (and is still praying) for him.

Those two weeks were crazy. There is little sense of time in a waiting room. There is a weariness and a degree of emotion in a NICU waiting room that is hard to describe. For us it was all day long, everyday, in the waiting room with a 1 year old and numerous relatives and visitors and nearly always with my mom, sister, and brother-in-law. I had not spent this much time with my family since I got married 9 and a half years ago. It was good to get to be with them for such an extended amount of time. The baby was absolutely wonderful. He learned to walk and talk while we were down there, and had the two biggest weeks, developmentally, that he has had in a long time. What a cutie. And what a sweetie, too. He would just take a nap in the stroller when it was time to go to sleep. Just like that. Little to no fussing. He has always been an easy child but even I couldn’t get over how he would sleep for me so well in the hospital. The only times he got really upset it was either because he was really tired (those were really long days) or because I wouldn’t let him have anymore fruit. He just loves fruit and could eat it all day long. But a baby needs only so much fruit — citrus fruit in particular. One day he was crying about not getting any more tangerine and it prompted my sister to say something to the effect of, “He is a sweet kid, but man, don’t get between that boy and his fruit!”

So now, I’m back to life here in St. Louis again. I would be lying if I said that I was doing a fabulous job adjusting to being a wife and mother again. The noise level alone was about to do me in a few days ago. But I think that my tolerance level for noise is at least back to where it should be. And I think that my time away has given me a new, better perspective about just about everything. I guess that is what happens when you leave certain aspects of your life and then come back to them later. You see and appreciate things that you might not have before. I know that I do.

So that is all from me, now. Thank you for dropping by and reading such a random post. I have laundry and dishes to do, as always. Happy Groundhog Day. I wonder if he saw his shadow. It is snowing here in St. Louis. I think that we always get 6 more weeks of winter, regardless.