FEBRUARY - MARCH 2001
As most of you already know, our little boy Erik Francis arrived January 16th at 9:18 am. It was a rough ordeal for all of us as Erik was born through emergency C-section after his chord was delivered without him attached. We almost lost our little angle, but thank god for Dr. Tinga who goth im out quickly and asafely. I however was pretty slow to recover and am left with a 12 inch scar from hip to hip. Ted has been sent on a TAD ( just ignore for non-military personel). It was supposed to be only 6 months, but has now turned out to be a year. He is stationed in Pax River, MD, which is better than being on a ship oversea's, but still pretty far away for me liking. He visits pretty regularly (every other weekend so far) and was just home for a few days for a conference on base. We are working on getting them to allow us to move up there with him, since the project is taking longer than they originally said.
Sean and Danielle seem to be adjusting well to their new baby brother in terms of helping me out and playing with the baby and talking to him and braging to others about him. Unfortunately I think this was one too many changes for the little guys and we have had a rough time adjusting to the new lifestyle with Daddy coming and going and mommy needing to care for the baby most of the time. We are working on spending more time together and hope that things will calm down soon.
Danielle is starting school this Monday, she was getting way too withdrawn at home with me. She needs to be around other kids her age during the day especially since "mommy doesn't go bye-bye alot" anymore since the baby came. Hopefully this will help her socialize better and not go NUTS when her big brother comes home from school because she now has someone to play with.
Sean is having the most trouble right now with the separation from Ted and the baby. We brought him to a counselor who thinks it has to do with his "troubles" with you-know-who. Sean likes playing with "Ms. Pat" and she is going to work on getting Sean to talk about the past "abuse and neglect" he suffered from you-know-who. Hopefully this will help him handle Ted being gone better and not be so anxious all of the time.
Bottom line . . . can we say time for adjustment for us all?? Our families have been great with visiting and calling and helping out any way they can. In two weeks we are visiting up north as Sean and Danielle will go to NJ and Erik and I to my parents in PA. I am really looking forward to that. Ted and I are still discussing what comes next, seeing that he will be gone for the next 14 months and it doesn't look like we will be getting up there any time soon. We are considering moving up to VA or PA. We will keep you posted as things develop. Either way, something needs to be done, because 14 months is too long for me to raise a family alone. In the meantime, Ted and I share wonderful weekends together and wait until we see eachother again. It is great that we are getting through this so strongly. Wish us luck in our endeavors, we really need them right now...
