Day 1

I'm tired and my brain doesn't have the energy to write anything witty.  I just wanted to confirm that the kids and I survived Day 1 of Bobby's trauma rotation.

Why is that a big deal, you ask?  Well....Bobby left early this morning for a hospital in Baltimore where he'll be working for the next three months.  It's only two hours away, but that's far enough to prevent a daily commute, especially for a guy who normally only gets five hours of sleep every night- you can do the math on how much time that would leave for him to sleep.  We'll probably see him every other weekend here at home, and on some special weekends I'll load the kids up so we can stay with some friends who live in the Baltimore area and we'll hang out with Daddy there as much as we can.  I keep thinking to myself that the time will go by fast, just like his previous three-month rotation did.  I also keep telling myself that by the time he's done this one in June, Lillian would have finished kindergarten, Liam will be a year and a half old, and 2013 will be half-way over.  The best part is that we'll be another year done with residency, with only three more left to go (and only six months away from being half-way done!)

To briefly sum up the day, it was a good one, but a little on the emotional side.  Lillian had a tearful break down after our Tango (video chat) session with Daddy tonight.  We said hello, good night, had a bedtime prayer over the phone, then Bobby sang the kids a song while they were in bed.  As soon as I hung up Lillian buried her head in her pillow and started wailing.  Then Liam started crying, too.  I relocated Lillian to my bed so Sydney could have some peace and quiet.  Thank goodness that girl can sleep through anything because Liam made up for the silence of Lillian's absence.  After getting Lillian's big blue bunny to cuddle with and reminding her that Daddy is only a couple of hours away and that we get to see him this weekend and that we were very fortunate to be able to talk to him and see him on the phone tonight, she calmed down.  What I really wanted to say was quit complaining about it because some kids don't get to see their dads (and/or moms) for months on end because they are entrenched among terrorists in foreign lands or out at see on a Naval military ship....or away at any other number of locations that are thousands of miles away with no cell phone signal.  We are pretty fortunate to have him so close and to have easy access to talk and video chat with him.  For having him be away, it's not too bad.  Not that I would choose for it to be this way instead of having him here, but it could definitely be worse.

Other highlights of the day included getting poked in the eyeball by Liam (totally inadvertently, but nearly 15 hours later it still hurts, is slightly swollen and keeps watering...time to see a dr??).  Also, Liam stuck his hand in the trash can (several times...got lucky enough to fish a few things out) and then stuck his hands in the toilet water.  EWW!!  We were invited to a friends' house for family home evening, where we sang songs in German, learned about Christ's resurrection, and enjoyed cherry and apple danishes.  So many friends have already been so supportive of our situation.  I'm truly grateful for them.

One day down!  Bring on the rest!