Sunday, November 6, 2011

Whew!

I don't know how Julie and her family do this weekend after weekend. That family is perhaps the busiest group of people I know.

The girls and I got home at 2:30 on Sunday afternoon. We left home at 2:30 on Friday aftenoon, heading for Bloomington, Indiana. We'd been invited to the IU Dance Marathon (IUDM.)

This was our second dance marathon at IU. We've been to two at Purdue too. We're heading to West Lafayette in two weeks for our third Purdue Dance Marathon (PUDM.)

See, we're a Riley family. It took the doctor at Riley Hospital for Children listening to me, really looking at Olivia and running a test that she honestly thought was pointless for us to get O's dianosis.

The cool thing is that once upon a time, I was a dancer at the IUDM. I was awake and on my feet for 36 hours. Way back in 1993, as I faced exhaustion and muscle aches that lasted for days, I never imagined that I'd be back to another IUDM at a Riley mom. I never imagined that college students would surround my children with love, wanting to give them an amazing weekend of fun, of near constant attention, of knowing just how amazing they are.

I never, ever imagined that I'd stand on a stage, holding a microphone telling our story, which, really, when compared to the stories of others on that stage, isn't all that miraculous. I often say that while Riley didn't save Olivia's life, they did save my sanity.

But wow, the physical and emotional toll weekends like this take is pretty big. We're home and tired and Alyssa managed to catch a cold. I don't have as much laundry as I could have had, but there's enough down in the basement waiting to be done.

None of uf ate well this weekend. I don't think a single vegetable was consumed all weekend long.

But it was so good. So fun.

My mom went with us this weekend. This was her first IUDM. She was amazed by the students, by the families (she wiped more than one tear away as she listened to these amazing stories) by the atmosphere that makes the kids know how special, how incredible they are.

As good as it was, we're glad to be home. At least until it's time to head to PUDM for another fun-filled, kid-centric weekend where we'll once again tell Livie's story, ending with Alyssa's sentiment that while O might have a little less genetic material than the rest of us, she's still able to do almost everything we all do, up to and including being a very annoying little sister.

2 comments:

Tiffany said...

How amazing! I danced in BGSU's first dance marathon and it was an awesome experience. How wonderful to experience it as a parent.

Julie said...

Wheee! Isn't it fun to be exhausted and have a messy house and no clean clothes?
HAHA!