A special surprise for the other three kids - Ellie got tickets to go see "Curious George", the play at the theater! She was so happy to sit in her seat - she had a fun time trying to keep it from closing up on her!
This next thing doesn't really fit anywhere but I wanted to share it. This is a cabinet in our house that once housed nine large boxes. The boxes were brought to us by a friend only weeks after we moved in to the house. Remember that the move occurred when Ellie was 6-weeks old, right in the middle of two hospitalizations. This friend had bought a "Pre-K" home education cirriculum and when her plans changed, she no longer needed it. She generously came by the house and donated the boxes to us. When she left I wondered if I could use them for then 5 year old Xavier and 2 year old Julia. While forming that thought I'm sure I heard some sort of beeping on Ellie's machines and ran to tend to that. So the boxes found their way into this cabinet and there they stayed - for two years. Last fall with Julia as an eager-to-learn 4 year old, we pulled those boxes out one by one and had quite the time with those lessons. Xavier, then 7 was more than happy to participate in the wonderful crafts and lessons and it was a real blessing to our family.
I just pulled our last box out of the cabinet today.
How the cabinet now looks. It's amazing how melancholy this has made me. It seems that when anything that relates to that raw, difficult time in our lives comes to an end - it takes me back to that moment then I'm flung right back into the present realizing the time that has passed. Instead of "empty nest" I guess you could call this feeling "empty cabinet".
