September in review

Health

September was a month of recovery for me. I came home from the hospital 5 weeks ago and have recovered quickly. The only lingering problems I have are insomnia and the occasional night or day of vomiting. The bad pukey days are slowly spreading out but they always catch me by surprise. I'm handling the insomnia with a combination of melatonin and a really mild OTC sleep aid. I look forward to being able to sleep without help and having the bad stomach episodes behind me. All in all I am thrilled with the rate of my recovery, the doctors told me to expect 6 months for a full recovery so I am happy to be 90% of the way there in only 5 weeks.

School

Both of the boys are back in school. Luke is in grade 10 this year (!) and doing well. Logan is in Kindergarten and loves every second of it. His school wound up being a half day kindergarten so we pay for him to do the Kindercare program and go all day two days a week. He loves those full days so much. I wish we had the money to let him do Kindercare every day but at $15 a day we just can only justify two days a week right now.

Both of the boys have been home sick already this year. It seems like everyone I know started getting sick the day after school started.

Lily is enrolled in a parent-participation preschool type program one morning a week but she hated it so I think we'll wait another 6 months or so before we start again.

Home

We have two Vietnamese teenagers living with us now. They will be here for at least one year and maybe two. After our very negative experience with the Chinese boys we were nervous about letting them into our family but it has been wonderful. They are quiet, polite, nice to the kids, clean and just really nice to have around. With everyone being so busy we only sit down to dinner as a complete family of 7 two or three nights a week but we really enjoy their company on those nights. The rest of the week Randy is away, I am rushing about feeding the kids and all three teenagers take their food downstairs to eat while they study or watch movies in their rooms. Having their own bathroom, laundry room and kitchen downstairs makes everyone's lives easier and is giving them a level of independence and responsibility that is new to them. The three of them are learning how to prepare their own breakfast and lunch, clean up after themselves, do their own laundry and keep their shared space clean. It's going very well, all I do for them is keep their kitchen stocked with food, make sure there is coffee in the morning, prepare dinner every night, clean their bathroom once a week and wash the towels.

Other than that life is just ticking along as usual. Randy and I are embarking on an aggressive debt-repayment program which will put us in a much better position by this time next year. The next 12 months are going to be hard! We have to learn to say no to each other and ourselves and learn how to have fun for free. It'll feel awesome when we reach our goal though.

That's about all for now.