Life, life, and then some.

I've wanted to write about this for weeks now, but I haven't had the words. They hadn't come to me yet, the way they normally do, and I think that's because I'm still living in it. I'm back in the tornado again. Everything is happening so fast, and I can't predict the future anymore or even control it in the usual way. Everything is Topsy Turvey. 

A doctor told me Lazlo will be discharged from the hospital in one to two weeks, but then I got a call, as I held my feverish 5 year old in my arms, and the caller was another doctor saying Lazlo was going to be released in two days. In TWO DAYS. 

IN TWO DAYS.

This is the moment I've been waiting for, but never quite held in my day dreams, for fear it would never cover true. And now here it is.

But when you live the moment you've been waiting for, there's also so much more happening around you, as this Great Big Moment approaches. 

There are friendships that are quickly turning into life lines, of the sort I haven't seen since my jolly suburban housewife stint in rehab for painkillers. We addicts would meet on the driveway for a smoke break, every break in the day of rehab, or detox, and we quickly became family. That's happening here at the Ronald McDonald House, too (minus the cigarettes for me this time). The friends I've made here, other parents surviving their crisis, congregating outside after their sick kids have gone to bed, are becoming my closest allies. Along with the few close friends in my life before all this that have been able to meet me where I stand. When you're living in crisis mode, striped down to your core, all pretenses gone, you start to see the truth in people. That's why these friendships are the type that sick to your bones, and stay with you for life. You will remember these people for as long as you live, these war buddies of yours.

And now, days later, I sit here in the half-built nursery of my little mountain home, the place I haven't been to in nearly five months, since October. I have thrush and mastitis, the nursing problems of the pump and the preemie. I have only one twin, because Lazlo was supposed to be released today, but his  eyesight is getting worse, and they need to keep him three more days, when they will examine his eyes again. 

My heart is aching as I realize he will continue to lay alone in his hospital crib, a baby without a mother. 

My heart is aching that he will have lifelong issues to contend with. Will he have seizures, like me?

My heart is aching that I need to spend this time packing instead of holding and bonding with this precious newborn I do have, who needs a mother just as badly as his twin. 

My heart aches for my two other children, who have been shuffled around for so long, and now their home is gone, to be turned in to a vacation rental.

We've been gone from our home for so long, the ants and ladybugs have moved in. This is their territory, now. I feel like the imposter. How will I settle myself back in and move myself out at the same time?

The ants crawl over my baby's blankets and my cell phone, as I hold it in my hand. They scare my toddler, who shrieks "The ants! The ants are gonna bite me!"

No, honey. They're just ants. They're just ants, and ants don't bite. They tickle.