Almost Home

Our daughter, Kalyn, is an emotional sponge. When I'm having a bad day, she's not very fun to deal with. When we're in a good mood, she picks up on it and is fun to be around. Tonight, my little sponge, my weather vane of where I am emotionally is running around hyper and very happy. It's not surprising that she is picking up on our good mood about packing up and moving towards home tomorrow.

Fred has two meetings tomorrow and then we are on the road. We're breaking up the drive, but we're all excited to check out of here. It has been a fantastic week just the three of us reconnecting and spending a lot of time together. We're ready to come home and move to the next stage. The road to recovery is not done because there will be adjustments when we get home, but I have faith in the healing powers of being home and getting back to our life, no matter what that means moving forward. I remember thinking this would be a scary moment, checking out, but it feels like such a joyous moment.

Today even felt fairly normal for the three of us doing our own things. Kalyn played with some kids this morning, I was able to run errands and Fred did his classes. Fred and I went out to lunch by ourselves. We were walking back to the car and passed a bike shop. I stopped because they had kid bikes outside, and I wanted to get Kalyn a balance bike for her birthday in a few weeks. I don't know if I'm being ridiculous or realistic about buying our 3 year old a bike. Yes, Fred just crashed on a bike, but I don't think I'll be able to keep this girl off a bike. Every time she sees another kid's bike, she tries to ride it. I figure we are safer teaching her how to ride, with a helmet at all times, rather than trying to avoid the subject. We bought the bike, and Fred will put it together when we get home, and we will buy her a helmet before we give her the bike. I'm not going to lock the doors, shut the curtains for the rest of our lives hoping we stay safe by not living our lives. We're going to live our lives, being safe, but not hiding from the world.