Home again

Our last day at Edisto! My mom has a better version of this, I think...

We spent last week at Edisto Beach - the first time in a long time we've all been able to enjoy a vacation together - and it was a good week. We might have stayed a day or two too long, because by Friday we were all really tired, but overall things went well. I do regret that I spent a great deal of time showing the kids off to my mom and sisters (and brothers-in-law!) - that probably gets really annoying, so if any of you are reading, I'm sorry about that! The weekend home, unfortunately, was terrible for me, and I had something of a breakdown on Sunday from which I am still feeling the effects. Monday I let everything in the house go, and of course the realtor called that afternoon to ask if she could show the house on Tuesday. (The house was empty and perfectly clean all last week!) There's no one to blame for that, though, and so I got up Tuesday intending to work on it, but by 10:30 that morning I decided there was no way it was going to happen. Dave was somewhat upset about it, but I took pictures and sent them to his phone to prove my point, then called the realtor and told her there was absolute chaos, asking her if she could reschedule. Fortunately, she said it wasn't a problem. I felt so awful that day, physically and emotionally, and I really thought I was nearing my limit - I wondered what it would look like if I "lost it," and I was actually a little scared about what that could mean for myself or the kids. I wasn't having any disturbing fantasies about hurting anyone, and I wasn't screaming at them or neglecting them - I tend to withdraw, rather than lash out - I just thought I was really on the verge of sitting down on the floor and completely quitting, or even just passing out, because I felt so unsteady. Compounding this feeling was the fact that there is no one I could call for help if I was really at that point. We have no church family to speak of, my real family is now dysfuctional and they are all too busy and too far away, we are no longer in the homeschool support group here (that we hadn't even connected very well with, anyway), and Dave is at least over an hour away at any given point in the day. We are looking ahead to moving so that we can hopefully reconnect with our lives there, which were socially much healthier, but can't control when that happens, so we're stuck in this terrible limbo, and sometimes, like this week, I feel trapped and panicked in it. I know God would not give me more than I could bear, but I also wonder if there are things that we could change. It seems ridiculous to make any connections NOW while we are preparing to leave, but nonethless we asked about joining a small group at church for a time; it seems, however, that we have to have a babysitter in order to do that (one of my biggest complaints about church life in our culture, but I won't go into all that), so that's out of the question. I even looked again at putting the older two in school, but I just can't bring myself to do it, and school already started this week. I feel like I'm always letting them down - it would just mean more dissapointments to start them after everyone else, then pull them out when we have to leave. So what to do? Tuesday when I was at my lowest, I prayed fervently that I wouldn't involuntarily let the kids come to any harm and that I would make it through the rest of the day, and by the afternoon I was doing better. We're still praying, of course, that things will happen soon with the house - I admit I am struggling with having much confidence in that area, and that is an overwhelming feeling in itself. When we get an offer, if we get an offer, will we have the means to go through the whole selling and buying process? But I need to have more faith, more endurance...More faith, more endurance is the theme in general, I think. :-) I keep reminding myself of all the verses and the truths I make the kids learn over and over when they insist they "can't stand" whatever it is, and I know God is faithful.

And life is not all bad right now - Chase cut two teeth at the beach, and the instant (I do mean the instant!) we arrived home, he began crawling full time. We began solids with him last night, too - I was very reluctant to do so, but he seemed ready in some ways, and the other kids were eager to have him start.

So here he is eager and interested...

But not so crazy about bananas!I'm not ready for him to grow up, anyway!