It's morning naptime! As I've been writing out the story of this past year, I've come to realize how healing it is for me to process this way. To walk through it again and see God's hand: holding me, guiding me, comforting me. To write it down, to share it, to breathe in His faithfulness and redemption of my story. Onward!
TBS. The Basic School. (Because they couldn't just call it "BS", now could they? :) TBS was a long 6 months. But a good 6 months. It was full of colder weather than I have ever experienced, and that kept me and Jax inside a lot. Tim had at least one week every month in the field where we had no communication. That was hard, but after 10 weeks of very little communication during OCS, it felt pretty easy. It was only 5 days. I could survive. Plus Tim had given me the first of the Hunger games series for Christmas, so I decided to crack that open when he was gone one week. I was hooked.
Jax had a few challenges in the winter months: a bad cold/congestion that lead into two ear infections (one right after the other), which meant two rounds of antibiotic for a boy who did not believe in swallowing anything that was not milk at the time.
During TBS Jenn and I started having Psych night (the last season of our favorite show!). Eventually it morphed into Girls Night, and we added my apartment neighbors Jacquie and Katie. It was so refreshing to have girl time regularly, and not have to leave my apartment. We had lots of fun, and usually ended up watching other shows after Psych ended.
Evenings were the hardest time when Tim was gone. The nights felt long and lonely. It helped so much to have friends and family stop by or come hang out for the evening. My sis-in-law Sue was a life saver during those 6 months. She was always willing to drop what she was doing and come help me, or keep me company. My mom and mom-in-law were also AMAZING as they took turns watching Jax for a few hours every Monday so that I could do grocery shopping alone. It was such a gift to have that time alone to recharge and get things done. I also spent lots of time hanging out with my friend Rebekah, whose baby Ben is 3.5 months older than Jax. It did my heart good to have a mama friend to talk to about all things baby and breastfeeding and poopy diapers and sleepless nights. They moved 2 miles away during this time, which was GREAT news for me :) So much easier to hang out!
The cold winter resulted in a LOT of snow days for Quantico, so Tim often had long weekends. That was so much fun, even though he had to study a lot. We also enjoyed many weekends with Tim's room mates from Room 113, Frank and Nick, coming to Fredericksburg because we all know TBS sucks. And our place is more interesting. Obviously. Nick's wife, Erin, came to visit every month or so which was super fun too. When our guys would be in the field disconnected from the outside world, we would text each other a lot, especially at night. It was fun getting to know her. Especially when we realized we were both reading the Hunger Games. Score!
I don't think I have ever been so excited for SPRING. And I'm usually pretty excited to begin with. I was so done with winter. So done with being stuck inside. So done with COLD. I was ready for sunshine. Ready to take Jaxon out without having to put 10 layers on him. Ready to not wear socks. We took many walks downtown with friends. We soaked in what we knew was most likely the last spring and summer in our apartment downtown. The place we had called home since the day we got married. We walked to the bank. We walked to the post office. We walked to the farmer's market. We walked to the butcher. We walked to have lunch with friends. We walked for exercise. We walked to have fun.
Then SUMMER arrived! And we SWAM! My mom-in-law's rental house had a pool, and we spent many a day there with Sue, Joe, and Zack (and often Elyse :) soaking up sun and swimming.
In May, on the first day of one of Tim's weeks in the field with no communication, Jax had his 9 month check up. Its not super fun to hear that your baby is about 3 months behind developmentally and that the Dr wants neurological tests and a swallowing function evaluation...and you can't talk to your husband till Friday. It could all be nothing and that he's just slower and catch up eventually. But it felt like another huge thing on my already full plate. My brother was getting married that weekend, my sis-in-law was getting married two weeks later, and we'd be packing up and moving halfway across the country in just two months for Tim's next training school in Oklahoma. Now I had to schedule an esophagram, a neurological evaluation, a genetic evaluation, genetic testing, and a brain MRI. And also get Jaxon assessed by early intervention to see if he was eligible for their therapy services to help address the delays.
Processing all of this without Tim home was emotionally trying to say the least. There was a lot of crying that week. Talking to family helped, but its just not the same as talking to my man. Sharing my heart with the one I share my life with is just different. And I couldn't. About halfway through the week, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to tell Tim somehow. Even though he wouldn't be able to read it till Friday when he got home, I wrote him a letter telling him everything. More importantly, telling him how I was FEELING about everything. I was so grateful God gave me the idea to do that, because writing it out really lifted a weight from my shoulders. I didn't have to try to remember everything anymore or wonder how I was going to catch him up on it all. It was done and he could read it.
The last night of Tim's week away, he horrifically sprained his ankle jumping into a fox hole with a machine gun. Enter swelling, ice packs, ankle wraps, and crutches. It was awful. And he had to stay off it for weeks (not an easy task for an Olson boy!)
In general, I was doing surprisingly well with all the craziness going on with Jaxon and finding out we'd be spending 6 months in Oklahoma, and having my husband incapacitated.
But I was finding myself struggling really deeply at moments, and just needing to know people were praying for me and that I wasn't in this alone.
While I wasn't worried about the upcoming tests on Jax, and I was absolutely in love with my precious little man, no matter what delays or developmental issues he might have, I was finding myself angry at moments when I saw my friends' perfectly healthy children. I was not angry AT them, obviously. But I felt anger at the brokenness in Jaxon's body, and that other kids got to be perfectly fine. I felt anger that he doesn't seem to be able to catch a break (pyloric stenosis, surgery, reflux, chronic diaper rash, congestion, two ear infections, a cold, a virus, and developmental delays - all in 9 short months!) while all my friends kids (it FELT like, I knew it wasn't true!) just get to go along their jolly little lives. I KNOW that EVERY child comes with their own struggles. If it isn't physical, it can be emotional, or both and there are kids with WAY WAY WAY harder challenges than Jax has (in fact, the developmental delays don't bother Jax at ALL...he doesn't have a clue he's "behind") I didn't feel these ways all the time, but it hit me at moments, out of the blue, when I wasn't expecting it, and it was very hard for me to know how to handle the feelings and emotions. Tim was so helpful in reminding me that God never promised us an easy baby, but He did promise He would never leave us or forsake us.
I was also struggling at moments with feeling like I didn't even want to have more kids if they were all going to have health problems like this (which, first of all, I have absolutely NO WAY of knowing). I KNOW its irrational thinking...I hate even writing it, because I know it is so wrong. Having health problems doesn't in any way diminish the value of a life. God has used people in AMAAAAZING ways to build his kingdom who struggled with health issues their whole entires lives since childhood (Hudson Taylor, for one!) Even if every single baby we ever have has health problems from birth, it would be our PRIVILEGE to be the ones God hand picks to lead them to Jesus. In fact, I know few people better equipped to be a parent to a child with delays or disabilities than Tim. God has given him such a HUGE love and value for people the world looks at as less valuable because of disabilities. Nevertheless, the struggle was real. But God was truly walking with us.
TBS had been such a demanding school for Tim. I honestly had felt like I was doing almost everything around the house because he just wasn't able to help like he used to. I was happy to shoulder more of the responsibilities during this season. But I was getting to a point of feeling totally overwhelmed with it all BEFORE he sprained his ankle. And then I found out what it's really like to have to do everything. He wanted to help so much, and did way more than he should have, but he REALLY needed to rest and keep his foot up whenever he could at home since he had to crutch around on it all week during school. I was having to get him everything, and do the laundry, and do the dishes, and do...like...everything. He got to hold Jax lots, which was so helpful for me to not have to also be paying attention to him. But I kept reaching moments where my rebellious heart just wanted to scream "I NEVER WANT TO HELP ANYONE EVER AGAIN!!!!! I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO GET ME THINGS AND TAKE CARE OF ME BECAUSE I'M TIRED OF TAKING CARE OF EVERYBODY" (That was the mild version of what my heart was yelling...there were probably some expletives in there :)
I really hate to leave you on that note, but naptime is over and the little man calls! We are headed to the pool :) Catch ya on the flip side!
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