Maybe in October

Okay after my long list of things to do last week, I was really looking forward to the start of school yesterday. Don't get me wrong, I love the long, lazy, no schedule days of summer but after three months my body and mind crave a little discipline and scheduling.

But first we endured the Illinois trip. This is a 13 hour drive when you don't factor any glitches. Baby, we hit them all! We hit Atlanta in rush hour at the beginning of Labor Day weekend. We had a three year old who had to go potty in the midst of that. We pulled off the interstate to find a bathroom only to hit worse traffic and a blocked off exit back onto the interstate.

We made it through all that and stopped for dinner to let the kids eat and play awhile hoping they would sleep during the remaining hours. It was in those hours that Dawson got sick and threw up everywhere. One long stop of bathing the baby in a gas station sink while trying desperately to clean out the car seat later, we thought the worst had passed.

We finally pulled in to the hotel around 6 a.m. By this time Dawson was running a temperature of 104. We got up to the room to crash before the 3 p.m. wedding only to find that the crib we had ordered was locked up and unavailable until 8 a.m. That meant I went to sleep after being awake almost 24 hours wedged in a double bed with both of my boys.

Dawson was still running a fever and very lethargic when we woke up. As we were walking out of the hotel, he threw up again all over my silk dress and the hotel carpet. We cleaned that up strapped him in the car and, you guessed it, he did it again.

On a positive note, he did not throw up at the wedding(which by the way was really nice), although I sat out in the vestibule armed with a bag and a towel just in case. We managed to get some Tylenol down him between the wedding and the reception and after a brief rest back at the hotel he turned the corner and was chipper and eating at the party(which was also very fun).

That's when Aiden took over. So just read the trip backwards from here and insert Aiden's name with one stretch during which we literally stopped every thirty minutes for almost two hours and you've got the idea.

We rolled into town around 4 a.m. and got the kids to bed. When I finally fell into bed after being gone only 64 hours (at least 32 of those traveling), it was close to 5 a.m. Nelson woke me to tell me about my grandfather at 8:30.

We were at the funeral home by 4 p.m. followed by dinner at my mom's. The next day included Mackenzie's first day, picking out graveside flowers and a kitty, the funeral and another family meal.

Aaron leaves for Rome on Friday so we went out to eat tonight in honor of him. Tomorrow night we're having a cookout. The weekend is packed.

Today at mass the priest asked me how much longer until I go to Rome and I honestly didn't know. After looking at the calendar I realized that I'm leaving the country in less than 24 days.

Okay, September may not be my month to get back into a good rhythm. Right now I’m just hoping for a good night’s sleep.