Coming very soon, what to do for Mama, young house guests

I would not be surprised to get the call from Cori today that Savanah has arrived. She called yesterday to alert me that Mama was incredibly anxious to fly out to be there for the birth (which is imminent) but the timing is pretty difficult for me. It would mean that I have to immediately fly Mama round trip to Florida – which is pretty expensive – or I would have to fly her one way- which would require her to stay there until she comes back with us when we go down in August; almost a month.

The third option is the one that Mama really hates; that she waits until we all go down on the first of August – which means that she will not see the baby until she is a couple weeks old. That, for some reason, is a loathsome outcome for Mama. But it is where I would like to settle if I can. Time will tell but I will do my best to wait until the time is more appropriate to send Mama – probably sometime next week. You all know I do not hold out too long against anything Mama wants.

Yesterday, when I got home, Gracie, Luke and Joseph were at the house with Mama and Victoria. Erin has been pretty sick lately and the family is leaving for a vacation in Colorado on Friday so Victoria took the kids for the day so Erin could rest a bit and pack a lot. It was quite the happening place when I walked into the house.

Joseph is walking very well now and Luke is all over the place. It is going to be a difficult process for Erin and Sam to line out Joseph as he gets older. He takes his queues for action and interaction from his older brother; which is as it should be. The problem is that with Luke’s autism his behavior is not the behavior the parents would want immolated. 

Luke was all over the place, flipping light switches on and off, slamming doors and walking in on Victoria as she was dressing after her shower. The kids love the house because it is so spread out and Luke loves the fact that there are endless places to hide, so many doors to open and close, so many light switches to flip the opposite direction than where they are when he finds them. He especially likes the master bath since it seems to be hidden in the walls. After all, it takes two left turns to get there from the hallway. The master closet is even better but Mama set him straight on going in there.

He is not an impossible child but he does require a lot of engagement and by the time I got home Mama was short on engagement energy, Victoria needed to start getting ready for church and Luke was pretty sugared up. Meanwhile, Joseph was trailing in his brother’s shadow like a Mimi-me. It was stimulating to say the least.

We all went to dinner at Wendy’s before church. During which time Gracie became very talkative. She told us that she had recently gone to visit daddy at work and I guess it was not what she expected. She explained that her daddy worked in a “little box” – complete with hand motions that looked similar to “Deep and Wide”. Of course she was referring to a cubicle – but her description was fairly accurate. Many employees that have similar work spaces refer to them exactly the same way she did.

What struck me as most impressive was when she congratulated Mama on the forethought of bringing an extra cup to split the frosty she had just brought to the table.  “That was a good idea, Mama Kim, to bring an extra cup so we can share”. I think Mama missed the remark as she was splitting the contents between the original and extra cup. Gracie ate the ice cream very slowly, licking it off the spoon in little bites because she did not want to get a “freeze brain.”

That remark Mama did not miss.