What I'm about to say is not an exaggeration at all. In the two weeks that Trenton was gone, I singlehandedly nursed my three kids through fevers, colds, rashes, croup, pink eye, and the dreaded stomach virus that was going around. I wiped more boogers and cleaned more vomit (so much vomit), and endured more hysterical crying and nonstop whining than any one person ever should. To make matters worse, I also caught the stomach bug and threw my back out so I was pretty incapacitated for a while. Oh- and let's not forget the blizzard that shut down the city...that was fun. I had always wondered what moms did under these circumstances. How do single moms, and moms whose husbands are deployed or are chronically ill handle life when it feels so impossible? And then I remembered what my mom used to always say when I would ask her how she raised 6 kids with my dad gone for years at a time. "Well, you just kind of do what you gotta do, because you don't have any other choice." Isn't that the truth?! It's also true that you fall even more in love with your children when you're serving them in their times of need. It really did feel like I was circling the 7th level of hell, but the reality is, I also experienced so many tender mercies. If anything, those two weeks taught me that "I can do this. I can do hard things."
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