the most normal day

i think today was the most normal day for the boys, especially sam. they were really affected by pete's incident. sam woke up while everything was happening to pete. he heard and saw almost everything. that was very unfortunate; he is a child that remembers everything and processes things in a very grownup, emotional way. he has had a very personal struggle with all of this and has said many troubling things that i don't feel is appropriate to write about here.

one incident that i will share was his reaction to going church without dad last week. i was going to take the boys and leave pete home. all morning sam was so upset about not wanting to go to church. i finally asked him why he didn't want to go to which he responded... "i don't want to leave dad home by himself. if dad falls again, then there will be no one here to help him and no one here to call 99999-1!" needless to say, i didn't go to church last week. that reaction was very telling into how he was still being affected by this. today was telling, too. all morning sam was thrilled to know that pete was going to church with us. all of his weird anxieties about things seemed to be gone. he didn't have a melt down about what clothes he was supposed to wear (that is MAJOR since pete's incident!!); he even told me with a big smile as we were walking into church that he didn't need to cry about his clothes anymore; he said he would just wear the clothes i picked out as he ran to catch up with pete. he was an angel child in church, excited for every meeting, and curled up extra close to his dad while pete was there.

it seemed that this was a very important step for sam in pete's recovery. for the first time i think he actually believed us that his dad was going to be ok. perhaps it was the first time since all of this happened that we were doing something "normal" with the whole family and nothing weird about it. sam was definitely different after today. thank goodness he is healing, both of them :)