My baby's coming home!

Hoo-boy. I haven't been updating because life events have felt so overwhelming and huge and I've needed a break from being submerged in Emergency Management Parenting (I should trademark that) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week... a break I've had because Big Guy's been in the hospital. That hospital stay they said would probably be 3 days? Well, it turned into 2 weeks. Baruch HaShem, he's coming home tomorrow. I think they probably kept him there longer than they needed to, but ultimately I think he did really well there and the psychiatrist and other staff seemed really good. He's had a med adjustment and everyone feels he's ready to come home. I'm finding that I'm nervous about him coming home - Will he be angry with us? Will his behavior revert? Will the bonding that was happening before he left be erased and we have to start from scratch? But we've stayed a very active presence in his life, visiting whenever we can, talking to him about what fun things we want to do with him when he comes home, telling him how much we miss him and trying to get him to acknowledge the behaviors that led to his hospitalization since he still seems to be in denial about them. We've done everything we could to reassure him that hospitalization wasn't a punishment for bad behavior, and that we were eager to have him home with us again.

I've missed Big Guy so much and I'm glad he's coming home despite a little bit of fear. The plan is to pick him up tomorrow evening and then take him out to dinner, then come home and do the bed routine. We'll see how that works. Often he does better in environments that are not our home, so going out to dinner seems like a good way to ease him into being with us and being out of the hospital. Friday we're going to the beach with my sister, her girlfriend, and my parents. I'm really looking forward to that. I tend to hesitate to tell Big Guy what we're doing the next day in case he a) sabotages it purposely or b) unintentionally acts out to an extent where we can't take him to do that particular activity. So most plans remain a surprise until the last minute. However, I think tomorrow night I'll let him know we're going to the beach Friday because he's been looking forward to it all summer. He's never been to the beach! Besides, it's not a "privilege" that I would take away from him - It's something we've already planned to do, and he behaves really well around my parents, who he adores. So (famous last words) I can't imagine anything happening that would get in the way of us going. 

Things we've done while Big Guy has been gone:

• Scrapbooked all day with Sarah - What a gift! I thought I'd never scrapbook again after the insanity of the last 2 months
• Taken a late-night trip to the huge WalMart that recently opened near us (I hate WalMart as a company and dislike giving them my money, but being broke will make you do crazy things sometimes)
• Cooked tasty food from scratch
• Slept late... sometimes very late
• Gone pee without worrying about closing the bathroom door at night - Funny how one notices the littlest things!
• Went through the house getting rid of books and other stuff in order to make the house look neater and to make more room for Big Guy's toys
• Lots of cleaning
• Paid a lot of bills and done a lot of paperwork that I wasn't getting done when Big Guy was home
• Did a lot more work (for pay) than I got done during the entire rest of the summer
• Bought Big Guy some cute clothes for school
• Slept in some more
• Did those things that couples struggle to find time to do when there's high-intensity kids around
• Got taken out on a really lovely date for my birthday