In order to start the day without chaos, I wake up early enough to get the children’s breakfast and lunch made. It is so quiet. So unbelievably quiet. If I could just fit in a few minutes of time to myself, before making the meals. Next thing I know it is 7:00am and the tornado is about to hit. QUICK…wake up the kids, get them dressed, find the socks, get them fed. Why did I stubbornly use that time for myself? Tomorrow I will wake up at 5:00am, an hour earlier. Wade sleepily arises absorbed in his own quiet fog.  I am very aware that although Wade’s body is moving he is not necessarily awake yet, mentally. I very patiently wait for him to drink his pot of coffee before I begin a conversation, otherwise things could get majorly misconstrued. He accuses me of being to “on” in the mornings. If I start a sentence with the word, So…, he gives me a distressed look as if I have done him an injustice. Can’t I see that he is not ready for that yet?

I visit each room to wake up the boys and Wade. Singing, “wake up, wake up, everybody wake up” or “Morning has Broken”, I burst into Brevitt’s room and open the shades to let the sun shine in. Yesterday, his Ugly Doll got placed in his face and rapped the wake up song ; “yo, yo! Wake up your lazy head it’s time to get out of your way to comfortable bed”. He awoke with a smile, his hair sticking out in every which way. He emerged from the bathroom dripping wet declaring that he had taken care of that problem. He had dunked his entire head under the faucet.

Axel is handled much more delicately. If I don’t wake him slowly with lots of kisses and low light than he screams and demands me out of his room. This is the Axel I try to stay clear of at all costs.

Sometimes I have my assistants. Whomever wakes up first has the assignment of gently waking the other sleepers. When Tucker crawls into Brevitt’s bed and sings the wake up song to him, Brevitt opens his eyes and tackles him for a good ½ hour. This is what having children is all about. The interaction and love that occurs between them is so very precious. I nurture that love with all my might and try to teach them how to respect and admire each other without the jealousy.

I am always in awe of how boys wake up with abounding energy and carry it with them until the moment sleep descends upon them. Even in his sleep, Brevitt continues his fidgeting. Kicking and sleeping horizontally across the bed prohibits him from being able to sleep with us. On those occasions when he does crawl into our bed, I love to feel his warm nine year old body snuggling up to us. Inevitably, I am abruptly awoken either by his foot smooshed against my face or by his calling out sports plays in his dreams.

The boys love it when Wade is still asleep. This is payback time for all the mornings he has insensitively yanked the blankets off of them and honked the bike horn in their ears to get them out of bed. I hand them the bike horn and in they march to noisily wake him up. What could be better than receiving the green light to make noise first thing in the morning.

It has been almost three weeks and Wade is finally out of bed. Adding an injured or sick husband to a mother’s already frantic life will push mommy to the edge of the edge. Once again my placement as the youngest girl in my family comes into play. I was not raised to take care of people. I was raised to be the cutest and most adorable charmer and to be taken care of.

I have come to terms with that since I have started my own family. I will break from my past and become a more nurturing person. When Wade and I were first married, he was the most nurturing man. When I was sick he would sit by my side filled with concern and give me massages. When he got sick I put by his bed a glass of water, a magazine and a thermometer and fluttered off for the day. After all, we all know that men either go down harder than woman or were so pampered by their mothers when they were little that they think a sniffle is the end of the world. Either way, I wasn’t buying in to it. I had been sicker than that and still had to cope with my life, out of bed.

He soon hardened to my aches and pains. I realized I had to change and be more loving. My first introduction as a caring nurse was when he fell off of the cliff we lived on while gardening. We kept the truth quiet for as long as possible. He came home with staples in his knee and plunged into deep depression. I wasn’t even feigning concern as I tried to move him outside for some fresh air. After 10 blankets later and many complaints of being to cold, I moved him back inside. Caring was stressful!

This round, my first thought when I was informed that I had to take him to ER was, oh shit here we go! I had just started my web-site and was in the throws of an obsessive state. I did not have time to tend to anybody’s needs at the moment. But I was no longer Nurse Ratched. I massaged his back all night long and slept in a cramped position to keep my “healing hands” on his wound while he slept. I would go to sleep or wake up at 4am. The stairs were my energy release. Up for water and ice pack, down for kids meals, up for pain killers, down to scream at the boys to stop playing football in the house, up to lather on my progesterine cream and say a little prayer to whomever was listening – HELP ME GET THROUGH THIS!!!

Wade improved only to push himself to far and down he went again with muscle spasms in his chest for 48 hours. Not wanting to feel useless he would emerge into the boys room bent over in pain as I was putting them to sleep. I can reeeaaaddd to them (muscle spasm). I would yell at him to take the rest he needed to get better.

It is so good to have him back and laughing at me again without pain expressed all over his face. I am begging him to take it easy and get strong again. Mommy needs a huge break so that I may refuel before the next injury occurs in the family. I don’t think my family agrees with me.