The last few weeks have been incredibly busy. The kids are in school, of course, and they have adjusted to the schedule. Rob is working, but isn't working almost any overtime. Brittney now works about 5 days a week (nights and weekends) at a local restaurant, so she is adjusting to that.
Megan loves getting to spend some extra time with us in the morning and at night. Since her school starts 90 minutes after elementary school, she gets to sleep later and stay up later. Laura and Eva love spending time with her too!
By the way, last Thursday we hit a first for us - Megan was asked out at school. Ugh. I don't think I'm ready for this. All those guys who joked about sitting on our front porch, cleaning their guns with Rob, better report for duty! I posted that on facebook and one of my friends, whose husband is a Drill Sargent in the Marine Corps, offered to send a platoon :) I think I should take her up on that!
Brittney and the two little girls are settling into life at home. Laura loves napping curled up next to Brit in Brit's bed. Brittney announced to us that being a stay-at-home mom is her dream job. We told her she's not allowed to move out for about 12 years. By that time, Laura and Eva will be in middle school, the oldest four will be in college, and we should be able to figure out how to run the house with both of us working. We thought telling her she had to wait 18 years was a bit excessive.
Laura has a very select group of people that she likes. Brittney is now part of that group. Laura got tired the other night as I was singing to the other kids at bedtime, so she crawled into Brittney's arms and conked out :) I think Laura is one of Brittney's favorite people too. Brittney got home from working a double shift tonight and the first thing she did was come upstairs to find Laura and scoop Laura up for a hug :)
As for me, on the 13th I finished up my practicum quarter, which is the first of three internship quarters. I was supposed to complete 100 hours total, but I hit 141, fifty of which were in the last two weeks of the quarter. Add in driving time (about 40 mins each way), and the last two weeks were a bit hectic. I got a 100% on my project in my class (I thought classwork was over with last quarter, but it wasn't - unfortunately), a 100% from my faculty supervisor, and a 100% from my site supervisor (Mark), meaning I got a 100% in my class! The next two quarters are pass/fail instead of letter grades, so I can officially say I will graduate with a 4.0 GPA!!! Four and a half years of classes with only one quarter off; two very difficult pregnancies, including 10 months of bedrest (3 months of modified, 7 months of strict); the delivery of two babies; four surgeries for me, one for Rob, and one for Beth; my diagnosis of heart failure; some very difficult personal times; and running a family of six kids with all that entails . . . and I've made it. All those nights staying up hours to finish assignments; all those days when I just couldn't write another word, but I kept typing; all the activities and time with family I missed because I had to work on homework . . . they have all paid off. I know I couldn't have done it without God's help. About 90% of the credit goes to Him. I am very proud of the 10% of the credit that goes to me though (Rob says 0.5% goes to him for watching the kids and having to give up spending time with me)!
I start my two internship quarters (which blend together without a break) in two weeks. I'll be doing 600 hours over 23 weeks. I have no idea how that will work out, but we'll make it. My hours are divided up; only 360 of them need to be direct contact, meaning sessions with clients. Half of those need to be relational, meaning with more than one person in the room. I already have the other half of my hours covered with my current clients.
We have a new therapist starting at our practice. His name is James. He just took his licensing test and now has to wait four months to get his license. In order to allow him to practice in the meantime, and in order to get me more relational hours, we will be acting as co-therapists, which I am excited about. The one problem with that is that James is bilingual and a significant portion of his clients are Spanish-speaking. So I am going to learn Spanish. I ordered Rosetta Stone using a groupon (I love groupon!). It got here on Thursday. I have completed 3.5 lessons so far. Our first Spanish-speaking client session is on Wednesday. I feel confident that I will be fluent enough to address any of their marital issues by then . . . provided that their marital issues are limited to eating apples or rice, counting to ten, owning a dog, cat or horse, or reading, swimming, running, or walking. I can also discuss colors, driving a car, drinking coffee, milk, or water, and eating bread. This should be interesting.
As far as other things for me go, there are no other things. My heart is not behaving very well and I've started getting more fluid in my lungs and chest. The doctor doubled one of my diuretics. That helped a little bit. I am tired most of the time. I don't know how I'd make it without Rob and Brittney. All I do is sleep and work and nap and work and sleep again. I'm learning to make my time with the kids higher quality time because quantity is not available any more. On nights when I'm home, I have each come to me one at a time and we talk about their day and what's going on in their lives. Then we sing a couple of songs and I tuck them into bed, with one more song per room. As of right now, I work three nights a week, so I get to put them to bed over half the time :) Two more quarters and I can slow down a bit :) Almost there . . .
