Summer came and went....school started! Both boys are back into the routine of school! Garrett started Fourth grade and Ethan is in First! Garrett's teacher this year is brand new to his school! She is the young, vibrant blood that St. Patrick School needed! To say that I am blessed to have my children in that school is a complete understatement.... I THANK GOD on a daily basis that I am able to send my children where they can get Faith and Knowledge all in one building!
The past few weeks, rather month has been difficult in our house! As you most recall, over the summer I had a weak mommy moment. They boys have begged for a cat like Wally since we moved into our new house....I put it off and put it off! So, one day over the summer (one very weak day) I took the boys to the animal shelter with the lesson of saving a cat! You see, himalayan cats (like Wally) are so expensive and I could just not justify spending the money so foolishly. We went to the shelter and there was an adorable litter of kittens! Garrett insisted that we bring these 2 male cats home, that they could not be separated because they are brothers! And how devastating it would be if him and Ethan ever got separated...blah, blah, blah! So (in one of my weakest moments) I agreed! AAaahhhh ~ biggest mistake of my life. To make a long story short, I fully believe that you cannot have 2 males animals of any sort in one house! Those cats pee'd everywhere! I had just put in all new carpeting throughout my entire house and these cats were peeing on it everywhere! I will spare you all of the details, but the cats had to GO! A friend that I work with so kindly offered to take them to her farm to hunt mice....oh what a happy life they will have! But telling a nine year old that his 2 cats are not coming home was heartbreaking! Absolutely heart-wrenching! He cried, he sobbed
himself to sleep until I couldn't live with myself anymore! I left work early one day, went and got them out of school after lunch and we drove an hour and a half to pick up Olivia....a Himalayan kitty that had just turned 8 weeks old, that has the biggest blue eyes and the puffiest fur! She completes us! She is what we needed to get our house back to a home....... She is what we could have had 6 of with all the money on spent on the 2 shelter cats trying to figure out what in the heck was wrong with them peeing on everything :) (Never again will I try to be cheap)....
Garrett celebrated his tenth birthday last week! HE IS 10! I cannot even get a grip on that! We celebrated by having a few friends come to the house for pizza and cake. Then we loaded up and went bowling! It was fun! He goes to school with a great group of kids and for that I am thankful! All he wanted was Skylanders, Skylanders and more Skylanders!
On Tuesday of this week, we had the first major emergency at our house. The boys got off the bus as they normally do and I could tell that Ethan had been crying...he had his coat up around his head and was just not looking like himself at all! When he pulled his coat down, that little boy was covered in blood from head to toe! He had bumped his head on the bus (SoMeHoW) and had a huge gash on the back of it! After nervously trying to figure out just exactly where the blood was coming from, I decided that it most certainly had to be looked at! After hours at the emergency room, 4 people holding him down (thank you to my wonderful friend Erin for doing something his momma couldn't do) and 5 StApLeS later .... we were back home having cupcakes for Papa's birthday! UUuuuggghhh....it is a day that I would like to forever forget, but it was also a day of awakening for me..... a day of reality, that really hit home hard! Things definitely don't always go as planned, but I really thought that in the case of an emergency as such, that my children had a better support system with the 2 people that are their parents. I am learning little by little, that the truth hurts.....sometimes it hurts real bad.
Ethan is doing better...he went back to school today and his teacher promised me that she would not let anything happen to him! I am so thankful that she is so understanding of what those boys mean to me! I am so blessed in so many ways that I often take for granted! Even though life didn't follow the path that I thought it would.....my eyes need to see the beauty that lies before me!
Love,
Shawn
But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
1 Timothy 5:8
