Seven kids for seven days

My sister and her husband are flying to Texas this weekend where they will be for a week. They are taking their youngest two boys with them (ages 2 and 5). Their two teenagers will be staying in Maryland, and the four in the middle will be staying with us. Nathan will be turning 11 next month, but at the moment the four who are staying are 6, 8, 10, and 12 years old and my three are currently 7, 9, and 11 years old, which means that I'll have one child who is 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 years old - two girls and five boys. I rearranged the lesson plans in such a way that my kids will have fewer subjects than usual M-Th and won't do any schoolwork next Friday as we'll be driving at least 6 hours round trip that day to take the cousins back to MD. Yesterday we had a 75 minute tour of a bank (see photo above of our tour group). I purposefully didn't sign up for any field trips next week as I figured the cousins would just want to play together. On Wednesday we cleared the dining room table of all the Legos. Ian took his to the basement. Nadia put hers on the bookshelves, which means I need to avert my eyes from the bookshelves for the next week as the clutter literally makes me want to scream. The upside is that I was able to change the tablecloth to a pretty one with fall leaves on it. I don't often get access to the tablecloth. All ten of them will be here for dinner tonight. Our kitchen table has six chairs. I'm planning on putting the piano bench at the dining room table for two kids to sit on, and that will mean eight people total can sit at the dining room table, which means I'll have enough seating for fourteen people, which will be enough as Paul doesn't plan to be here for dinner. We blew up an air mattress in Nadia's room for Julianna and one in Oliver's room for Joel. Yvonne and Joe are bringing up two air mattresses we can use in Ian's room for Nathan and Joshua for the next week.

The kids' shower/tub isn't usable yet, but Paul has been working hard on it the past two days. I'm sure he didn't envision this project taking two weeks when he started it.

They took Paul's mom off the ventilator on Tuesday morning, but they had to put her back on it that night. I went to visit her on Wednesday afternoon. The kids spent about two hours playing with Micah and Isaiah at their house while I was at the hospital. She had a heart catheterization right after I left on Wednesday, which confirmed that her heart problems are due to weakness (damage) not a blockage. There isn't anything they can do surgically to improve the function of her heart. They did put her on water pills to lower the pressure inside her heart which was twice as high as it should be. We're hoping she'll go off the ventilator tomorrow and stay off of it this time. Once she is discharged (hopefully in a few days), she's going to need to be very careful and take it easy for the rest of her life. The doctors have to figure out whether or not she can continue to have the monthly IVIG infusions (for her immune system) and/or her quarterly chemo infusions (for her cancer). They don't want to do something that might put any strain on her heart, but the chemo has been helping to keep the cancer in check. Which is the greater "risk" at this point - cancer or her heart? Realizing that she might not be able to travel any more, I am very grateful for all the vacations that we had together. In 2015 I had no idea the vacation in Williamsburg would be the last one with my mom, and I didn't realize the one this year in Myrtle Beach would (likely) be the last one my mother-in-law could take with us. Situations like this definitely make it easy to live out the verse "pray without ceasing." I'm sure it's harder (emotionally) on people like Paul, his brother, Debbie (his mom's sister), his dad, etc., but I've loved her for 22 years and so I've also shed some tears over the last 10 days. I remember in the fall of 2014 she had a very close call, and she's had another five years here on earth since that point. Losing my mom in 2016 and my brother this year has made the fragility of human life very real to me. My mother-in-law has battled cancer for about 12 years so she's definitely a fighter! We'll keep praying for her and will be thankful for each day the Lord gives her.