Have you ever played the game Rummikub and gotten to the end and you KNEW you could win, but it was going to take some major movin' around and you weren't sure if you were going to be able to get all your pieces connected to a set and accounted for?
That is kind of a weird analogy, but that is how I feel sometimes when Ben is gone and I have to do things where I can't take my 3 kids with me.
I just found out he can't come to my only sister Megan's wedding next month in Tulsa, OK (We live in Fort Worth, TX.) because he has to work. Being the maid of honor, I have to figure out what to do with my three kids all day and most of the night on Saturday...*sigh*
All MY family will be at the wedding. My mom is in hospice care now after 8 years of struggling with breast cancer, so if she just makes it to the wedding even for the ceremony, I'll be ecstatic. Obviously she can't keep up with my kids and my dad is her primary caretaker, so...that rules him out. Ben's mom has MS and has just moved HER elderly father in with her to take care of. Ben's sister has 4 kids of her own who are all involved in every sport there is, so their Saturdays are always crazy. The rest of Ben's family lives out of the area. I think I can leave my 6 month old with Ben's mom (in NORTH Tulsa), but not my two rowdy boys, so I have to ask a friend from the church I grew up in that I haven't seen in quite some time (in SOUTH Tulsa abt 35 min away from Ben's mom) to take them for the day, and then Ben's sister can get them for the night until I can get back to pick them up. I wish I could hire a babysitter, but our 18 month savings that we stocked up on is starting to run low, so we have had to tighten our belts a bit to make sure we make it until he starts moonlighting in the Fall, and I can't afford a babysitter for three kids all day long.
Plus, lately when we have been coming to Tulsa to visit our families (my mom), we have had an issue with where to stay. We have had to separate because it is too hard to keep the boys quiet, so they won't wake up my mom. She is now sleeping in snatches when she can at any time of the day because she isn't able to sleep laying down comfortably anymore. She sleeps in a recliner in the living room, propped up by several pillows, leaning forward on more pillows on the hospital rolling cart that my dad serves her her food on. :( Ben typically goes to his sister's house with the boys, and Ally and I stay in the guest bedroom and visit my mom at her house. With Ben not coming, I have to find a place where we can all stay together. We could ALL stay at his sister's, but like I said, she has 4 kids of her own. If we stay there, there will be 7 kids ages 9-6 mos, running around. (Well, scooting, in Ally's case.) CRA-ZY.
I'm so tired of all the finagling I have to do to make this work, and on another note, I know you all understand where I am coming from when I say that I'm going to be royally pissed off if Obamacare jacks with the life plan we have struggled and sacrified for for our entire marriage and things don't pan out. Especially if it means we end up nearly half a million dollars in debt, after 10 years of working hard with not much to show for it, and no reasonably quick way to pay it all off. I'll be danged if that happens. I'll be like Alexander from the children's book who had the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and "think I'll move to Australia."
