Friday homecoming.

Friday, August 13, 2010, I picked up Carl from Froedtert hospital around 4:30PM. His 5 days of inpatient chemotherapy was over for now. Friday was a beautifully hot summer day, with the emphasis on hot. I had the children scattered about so Carl could come home to a relatively quiet and relatively clean house and go crash in bed. (We were dog-sitting Cali. Two dogs happy to see Carl isn't exactly quiet.)

After getting Tom, Nathan and Miranda to the Logemann Center's Friday the 13th party (with costumes), I tried to clean up the house.

• The kitchen & dining room looked like four teenage raccoons had eaten whatever stuck their fancy, leaving unfinished food and wrappers everywhere. The half eaten poptarts alone could feed the hungry children of a minor African country.
  
• The living room looked like four teenage poltergeists had had a slumber party for a week, leaving bedding and clean and dirty clothes strewn about, with the occasional food items tucked here and there. (Empty bowls and cups.)
  
• The foyer, car, and bathrooms were decorated with wet (car-foyer) and dry (bathroom towel bar, overloaded) swimwear and towels.
  
• Shoes and water shoes were mounded in the foyer like an Indian effigy mound, perhaps as a monument to the beta fish (Shannon) that died during the week after a month of listlessly sleeping on it's side in it's bowl, and then fluttering it's fins apathetically for a minute or so whenever I shook the bowl to see if he was dead. I think it was the chlorine smell from the pool gear that eventually did him (Shannon) in. (Colorful beta fish are usually male, in spite of whatever your children name them.)

Anthony discovered that the local gas station Kwik Trip will trade his lawn mowing money for glazed donuts, milk shakes, and chocolate pop-tarts, all items I pretty much refuse to buy. He generously bought some for his siblings, and left milk shake containers everywhere - car, garage, basement, kitchen - everywhere except the kitchen garbage can. We discovered that the dog we were babysitting (Cali) will eat mini carrots from the ice cream bowls if left near the XBOX controller - It probably looked like a dog food bowl to Cali, who I believe sees only in black and white.

I cleaned up the house and brought Carl home. Then, I went to pick up three of the four children. (Anthony was already home.)

I had planned that Carl would come home and crash and rest in bed, like he has on other weeks after inpatient chemo, but the summer weather, or the extra light out, or whatever, made Carl come home with extra energy and a desire to not lay in bed (because, after all, that is what Carl has been doing for the last 5 days, 20 hours + a day) So, while I went to get three of the four children, Carl made a meal for Anthony. After the children were home for 20 minutes, and had snacked, the house pretty much looked like it had before I cleaned, only now there were costumes as well in the living room.

We all went to bed that night, the first time in a week all of us were sleeping under one roof. That was nice.