My Baby's Got Moves!

I knew it already, but here's proof....BTW he gets it from his mom!

A Recap

The past week has been a total blur! When I try to think back over everything that's happened, it almost seems like one of those "out of body" experiences you hear about. I guess I'll start with Wednesday.

As I was getting ready for work, the phone rang, and it was Uncle Joby calling. I know from experience that nothing good comes from phone calls between the hours of 9PM and 7AM (so if your thinking of calling me to chat between those times...DON'T!). Uncle Joby told my Dad that Aunt Connie had taken a turn for the worst during the night and he needed my Dad to help him. I had to go to work and the kids were going on a field trip to Clemson Extension. The whole day, I was worried, but my cousin Beth kept me informed by e-mailing me on my g-mail so I could get updates on my Blackberry. After work, I went straight to the hospital and my mother-in-law, Dotty, picked up Jac and let him spend the night. They started to ween her off of the sedatives and I was able to go in and talk to her for a minute with her awake and alert. I wish I would have known that this would be the last time I would see her.

On Thursday (the last day before Spring Break), I went to work as usual and got an e-mail early in the day saying that Aunt Connie had a very good night and they were hopeful. A couple of hours later, Beth came to the door and told me that we needed to get to the hospital fast, because they called and told us that she wasn't going to make it after all. I was so confused and don't even remember what I said to the kids when I left. They told me to split them up into the other 5th grade classrooms and then I could leave. I rushed to the hospital and when I arrived, I was met by my pastor, who told me that the doctors had done all they could do and my family was waiting in the family room. When I walked in, I saw my family sitting in silence with tears in their eyes. A few minutes later, the nurse came in and informed us that she had passed. We all sat their for hours as some friends came by to offer their condolences. People that aren't from our family have a hard time understanding how close a big family can be. We are closer to our Aunts than most people are with their own mothers, so this loss is a huge one for us. It's also hard, to watch my mom and the rest of her sisters and brothers go through this kind of pain, not to mention my cousin Sherri and Uncle Joby.

As we sat their, stunned, my phone rang. It was the babysitter, Mrs. Gloria. She told me that Jac was running a fever of 103.6 and was going to give him some Tylenol. I left the hospital to go get him after this. At Mrs. G's house, you could tell that Jac wasn't feeling good because his face was red and he was whining a lot, but he still wanted to play and always seems to have a little burst of energy when I get there. He didn't really have any other symptoms, so I thought it was just a fluke and that he would sleep it off. We came back to Mom and Dad's and played for a little while before Jac finally gave in and took another nap. Mom and Dad were with the rest of the family at Aunt Ann's house. When Jac woke up, he was burning up. I decided to take him to Urgent Care because I knew that it was too late to go to the doctor's office. Both of the places I went by were already closed and wouldn't see me so I took him to the McLeod ER.

After filling out paperwork, we only waited for a few minutes when they called us back to check his vitals. At this point, his temp was 105 and the nurse was kinda freaking out about it, which in turn, scared the living daylights out of me! She took us straight back to the exam room and they immediately sent in a doctor. Jac was really scared and screaming his head off. They were running all kinds of tests and drilling me with questions to try to figure out what the problem was and then gave him an IV. By this point, my mom had made it to the hospital and was in the room with us. I was trying my best to stay calm so that I didn't worry my Mom or upset Jac any more, but inside, I was a wreck! Jac must have cried for 2 or 3 hours straight before the fever really started going down and the nurses left for a while.

After 2 chest x-rays (The first one didn't work out because Jac was thrashing around so.), blood work, a urine sample, and an exam, the doctor told us that it didn't appear that he had meningitis. MENINGITIS???? WTF???? Good thing they didn't tell me that was a possibility earlier or I would have flipped!! They did say that after looking at his lungs, he had "a touch" of pneumonia (as if there is such a thing) and an ear infection. He hadn't even been sick, not even a cold (no coughing, sneezing, or anything), and has never had an ear infection or any signs of it (like pulling on his ears)! He kinda keeps a runny nose, but that's usually from crying....he's a "juicy" baby. They pumped him with some antibiotics in his IV and gave us a prescription and finally let us leave with strict instructions to follow up with Urgent Care the next morning and with his Primary Care Manager this week (I'll have to follow-up with another whole post on how "awesome" TRICARE insurance has been on this matter...please notice the sarcasm). I think it was almost 2:00AM by this point and Jac's temp was down to 99. something and he was totally wired. For a kid who usually sleeps from 7PM to 7AM, that is very unusual. I'm starting to think they were pumping him with caffeine instead of antibiotics.

On Friday, he was still running a pretty high temp at first, but it tapered off later in the day and on Saturday it was only 101, first thing in the morning with no Tylenol, and no fever later. Dotty kept Jac again on Friday and Saturday so that I could go to the visitation and the funeral. Sunday morning was Easter, and since he had a rockin Easter outfit and no fever, we went to the Sunrise service at church (and sat in the nursery with Penn and Samantha), and left after breakfast to take a nap before the Carmon Easter Egg Hunt. It was awesome to get together with my family after such a stressful week and really appreciate how blessed I am to have so many people in my life who mean so much.

This weekend would have been a tough one no matter what. God really held me together somehow. I just wish that my best friend could have been here with me. Cam told me the other day that he made his intentions (of not going in for a second enlistment) clear with the guy trying to get him to re-enlist. He could re-sign now, while he's in Iraq and get a nice chunk of money tax free, but it is SO not worth it! If we had some kind of assurance that he wouldn't have to deploy again, it would be a different story, but that absolutely would not happen. He wants to be here with us, and I can't wait for the day when we'll be under the same roof again!

I know this might have been a long boring post, but I really felt like I needed to get everything out there. If you made it this far, have a look at some pics of our Easter Celebration.

Reading a story to Penn and Samantha while Jac ransacks the rest of the nursery.

He's so freakin cute!

Doing a "no no" (standing in the chair) while cheesin for the camera (he hasn't done that in a long time!)

Jac at the Egg hunt...he was on a mission

The Next Place

I was remembering Aunt Connie (an amazing lady, and an incredible aunt) and thought about this book. She went to "The Next Place" on Thursday morning. This one of my favorite books ever written. I thought I'd share with everyone else. Maybe it will comfort you, the way it comforted me.

The Next Place by Warren Hansen

The next place that I gowill be as peaceful and familiar as a sleepy summer Sunday and a sweet, untroubled mind.

And yet... it won’t be anything like any place I’ve ever been or seen... or even dreamed of in the place I leave behind.

I won’t know where I’m going and I won’t know where I’ve been, as I tumble through the always and look back toward the when.

I’ll glide beyond the rainbows. I’ll drift above the sky, I’ll fly into the wonder, without ever wondering why.

I wont remember getting there. Somehow I’ll just arrive. But I’ll know I belong there and feel much more alive than I have ever felt before.

I will be absolutely free of the things I held onto that were holding onto me.

The next place I go will be so quiet and still that the whispered song of sweet belonging will rise up to fill,

The listening sky with joyful silence, and with unheard harmonies of music made by no one playing, like a hush upon a breeze.

There will be no place for darkness in that place of living light. Where an ever-dawning morning pushes back the dying night.

The very air will fill with brilliance, as the brightly shining sun and the moon and half a million stars are married into one.

The next place that I go won’t really be a place at all there wont be any seasons winter, summer, spring or fall----

Nor a Monday nor a Friday nor December nor July and the seconds will be standing still while hours hurry by.

I will not be a boy or a girl a woman or a man I’ll simply be just, simply me. No worse or better than.

My skin will not be dark or light I won’t be fat or tall the body I once lived in won’t be part of me at all.

I will finally be perfect I will be without a flaw. I will never make one more mistake, or break the smallest law.

And the me that was impatient, or was angry or unkind, will simply be a memory. The me I left behind.

I will travel empty handed there is not a single thing I have collected in my life that I would ever want to bring,

Except the love of those who loved me, and the warmth of those who cared. The happiness and memories and magic we shared.

Though I will know the joy of solitude... I’ll never be alone. I’ll be embraced by all the family and friends I’ve ever known.

Although I might not see there faces, all our hearts will beat as one, and the circle of our spirits will shine brighter than the sun.

I will cherish all the friendship I was fortunate to find, all the love and all the laughter in the place I leave behind.

All these good things will go with me. They will make my spirit glow. and that light will shine forever in the next place that I go.

Crazy Week

Well, I finished my first week of 5th grade with flying colors! Now it's time to start round two. This week is complete with a field trip and a day off for Good Friday so it should be pretty chump. I was pretty nervous the first day, because I didn't have a clue what to do. Let's just say I'm pretty good at wingin it when I'm clueless so it all worked out just fine. It's a big change from first grade (although there are some startling similarities), but I feel so much less tired at the end of the day and the school day seems to fly by. (Partly because, I'm only there from 7:30-2:45-ish as opposed to 7:30-4:30.) I'm much more willing to try to stick it out a few more years in the education field as an upper-grade teacher (keyword....TRY).

We found out early this week that my Mom's sister, Connie, had been hospitalized. She's had a really rough time and is currently is stable, but critical condition. They weren't sure what the problem was at first, but the doctors now think that she had pnemonia and had become septic (the infection entered her bloodstream). She has been on a venilator and has tubes in her throat. They tried to take her off of the meds. to sedate her, but she started trying to pull tubes out so they put her back under until they are ready to take the tubes out.

Also, this week one of my Mom's other sisters, Betty was admitted to the hospital due to a problem that she's had over the past few months and are talking about putting a pacemaker in. Needless to say, the Carmon family has had a really rough week. We're all so blessed to have a big family, especially during such a difficult time. Everyone, has just been really worried and stressed out. You know...you really feel like you want to do something, but you just don't know what to do! It makes you feel totally helpless. You want to visit and make sure that everyone knows you're there, but at the same time, you don't want to smother them (and with a family of close to 50 people that's easy to do!)

I didn't get to talk to Cam as much this past week, because of drama in TQ (where he is stationed). I was kind of a wreck about it, but I didn't want to tell anyone that I was worried. I know that I get to talk to my husband more than most people get to talk to their loved ones, but the fact that we talk so regularly made me all the more upset when I didn't hear from him for 2 whole days this week. Plus, I'm constantly consumed by the fact that there may be some things that come up that Cam isn't allowed to tell me, or even worse, things that he chooses not to tell me because he doesn't want me to worry (which, by the way, makes me worry way more!).

Come to find out, whenever something happens (deaths), they shut off their phones and Internet, until they work out all of the details, like notifying the family and investigating to find out all the info. It makes sense though; they don't want it to get back to the family as a rumor before they know exactly what happened. Maybe we should remind these higher-ups that Cam's forkin out $100 a month for this Internet that they can flip a freakin switch to turn off whenever they get the urge.

I get so sleepy waiting on him to call around 10:30 each night. When it gets past 11, I start to realize that he isn't going to call and then I'm wide awake worrying that something happened, and trying to assure myself that he just woke up late and didn't have time to call. Oh yeah, we celebrated (if you can call it celebrating) our 1 month deployment down anniversary this week...woohoo! September can't come fast enough!! This is killing me!

This week wasn't all bad news though. Yesterday, they had the preschool egg hunt at church and Jac had a blast! He was so cute running around crackin the little plastic eggs together and putting them in Elmo's head. After that Kimberly decided that little Jude should make his debut at Art's Alive so we had a little Packard/Coker excursion. Jac was pretty much done by the time we got there. He rode around pretty good in the jogger for the first little bit, but by the time we decided to eat, he was ready to nap (aka...cranky as all get-out!). Sadly this ended our day a little earlier than we wanted and we didn't get to do the sidewalk chalk art with them, but Jac was screaming and I was about to be, so we came home for a nice little nap.

I'll close with some pics, and maybe some video footage (if I can upload it), of our weekend!