Singing a Different Tune: Spring Break?

So this week was my husbands Spring Break. Any time Tom is on vacation whether it be summer or Christmas, or Spring Break in this scenario, it always takes us a couple of days to get on the same page. I begin planning the "break" at least a month ahead of time with this and that, projects, day trips, dates out, and plenty of other over-estimations (not a word, I know). Well, this break was no different although I have been working hard to cultivate a spirit of having little or no expectations - easier said than done, my friends. Pema Chodron says "abandon all hope of fruition". Tom says, "Lower the bar...really, really LOWER the bar". Same idea, two ways of saying, "Stop fretting about what you want to happen and enjoy the freakin' ride"! But it takes a while for these things to soak in so, of course, I had expectations.

Expectations are different than plans, you see. Expectations are rules that your mind lives by that says, "no matter what, this is what I deem acceptable and if things don't go this way they are somehow less than optimal". Plans, on the other hand, are just simpler, you plan for things to happen, but somehow someway, plans tend to change. They aren't laid in stone. It doesn't seem to be plans that get me in trouble, it's expectations that keep me from enjoying the ride.

Here's how it breaks down every single time there is a "BREAK":

I ( and by I, I mean that Tom should expect to do all of these things with me or at least support me) want (expect) to :

Clean the house, and I mean CLEAN the house, discarding any and every item that is not absolutely necessary for daily living,

Get the girls up and dressed and go somewhere fun everyday,

Cook gourmet meals or at least let someone else cook them and let me eat them,

Spend time working on my music and finish a couple songs I've been writing,

Build a vocal recording booth for the studio,

Have plenty of needed ME time and maybe a trip to the spa...

AND spend lots of family time with the girls who will naturally go along with all said agendas.

Tom on the other hand, wants to make a sandwich, eat it, and then maybe lay in the hammock for a while, play with the girls, take a family nap, take a family walk, and watch 24 when the girls go to bed. (A serious addiction of ours lately).

As you can see, we are different animals altogether.

Somehow, by Thursday, we finally get there. We are in the same groove. Tom has rested enough to get motivated and I have chilled enough (or have taken enough medication) to go with the flow. So things are looking better right???? Wrong. Just when things seems to be going alright, BAM, our precious baby girl gets sick. Real sick. Clara had been coughing for several days and if you've been reading the blog you know that the plague had been passed around this house like a gift at a baby shower. Finally, I had had enough and Wednesday afternoon made an appointment to see the doctor on Thursday morning. Sure enough there was mucus in Clara's chest and they did a test for RSV and it came back positive. UGH! So it sounds like that is what Tom and Melaina both had but older children and adults are never tested for what strain of cold virus they have and when it is passed to babies, their little lungs can't process all that mucus and it settles in their chest. It is absolutely horrible hearing her cough and we have to give her breathing treatments of Albuterol (spelling?) through a mask. Although it is awful watching her sit there and go through this, she is so tolerant of the treatments, much better than she was at the doctor's office where I thought she and I were going to cry ourselves into oblivion. So, good thing I had decided to go with the flow, huh?

Although, it was a downer, we still were able to enjoy this amazing SC weather and go to the Zoo, and have a couple of picnics in the backyard. Melaina had a ball having Daddy home and Clara is getting better everyday. Here are a couple of pictures from the last several days.

Melaina taking after her Daddy with some hammock time!!