Mom Meltdown

Boys will be boys.  H. and his friend J. spent most nights in the family room - H. on the couch and J. in the chair.  Never mind the two perfectly good bedrooms upstairs waiting for each of them.  Most mornings, I'd creep downstairs and find them in the family room sound asleep.

I worried there was something wrong with J.'s bed - it wasn't comfortable?  Too hot?  What?  Stressed myself out over a zillion potential scenarios re: why he wasn't sleeping in the bed?

H. falls asleep on the couch all the time.  So it didn't bother me too much though I'm always nagging him to go up to his bed and get better quality sleep.  In the bed.  That is a bed.  Designed for someone to sleep in it.

On Saturday, J. was asleep downstairs and H. was in his bedroom.  J. woke up and hung out downstairs for awhile and then went back upstairs.  We thought he went back to sleep.  Time passed.  Then at just after 2PM (still no sign of H.), J. came in to the office and said 'I'm going to go out with friends to get something to eat'.  I felt so bad - we thought he was asleep.  We'd procured a Costco pizza for the two of them at our early Costco shop - and he was upstairs starving.  (I had offered him breakfast when he woke up downstairs - which he declined).  I truly cried about this - like we were the worst hosts in the entire universe.  And then I got on H. when he finally woke up - still exhausted even after hours of sleep (radiation does that to a person) - and he said 'Mom, I can't control when I wake up'.  I said 'then set an alarm'.  He said 'J. is fine, Mom'.

And he was.  Hubby J. texted him and apologized and said 'we have pizza here, too'.

J. is an incredibly polite young man - and I'm sure he's been raised the way my kids have been - when a guest, be as unobtrusive as humanly possible.

Yesterday, before J. and H. headed to the airport (SFO - long drive but H. navigated it twice - and that includes the International terminal 'cuz J.'s plane home was in from Osaka Japan (which is why it was late - hurricane delay, we think)). I told J. 'this is your home.  We don't think of you as a guest - we think of you as family.  So when you're here, this is home and we treat you that way.  Anything you need that you can't find, just ask and we'll help you find it'.  He's such a sweet, sweet kid.  Young man.  Heading into fire academy to be a fire fighter.

I think H. had a fun time all weekend - now it's Monday and it's back to daily treks to Modesto.  Winding down, though...this time next week, he'll be heading into his last radiation and we'll be moving on to what's next.

We have absolutely no idea what that is...but we hope to find out.  Oncology appointment tomorrow - I think J. is going to go and I'm going to keep working on year-end.  There's no scan results to discuss and the biggest thing on the list is a scan post-radiation to find out what the tumor looks like now.  I figure I'll save my treks to Modesto for when there's a scan to review and discuss - at least for now.

Today is the Welcome Back breakfast and the first day back for teachers and most staff.  Tomorrow, school starts!  I can't believe it's another school year - time goes so quickly.

We Skyped with B. last night and he's sort of 'down' about a lot of things.  I channel my mom a lot - remembering how hard my early 20's were on me and how when she'd tell me to 'snap out of it', I'd want to scream at her.  Now, I realize that your 50+ year old self just has a lot more life experience and therefore knows that your 20 year old self and all the stuff that went with that just need time to age out so much of the angst.  It's hard to be young, wanting a meaningful significant relationship (and not having one).  And trying to create that out of nothing - or with someone who has made it clear they aren't interested.  It's hard hearing him go through stuff from miles away and then realize there's no answer - and he doesn't like 'no answer'.

He's a lot like his Mom.....poor kid.

On a good note, his unit is heading to Ft. Irwin (near Barstow) for six weeks so there's a chance we can drive down to visit him for a weekend - maybe two.

OK - I've been up for close to two hours - enjoying FB chatting with my cousin and doing my morning routine.  Time to shower and dress for a busy morning!