Parenting from Afar

Easter is on it’s way!  This means that my older kiddos head home to celebrate.  This year it’s especially important for everyone to be together because of Clay’s upcoming, year-long deployment.  This is the last time the whole family will be together for a long time.  Kateri got into town 2 nights ago.  JJ’s plane came in last night.  But, when my phone rang at 4:30, yesterday morning, I knew it couldn’t be good news.  Sure enough, it was JJ, letting me know that he had fallen asleep at the bus station and missed his bus.  We’re always looking for the best, fastest, cheapest way to get him home and this time around had decided he would take a bus to the airport in Baltimore and then take a nonstop flight from there.  After hearing his words I said, “talk to your dad” and handed the phone to Clay.  JJ let him know that he could catch another bus in 4 1/2 hrs.  FOUR AND A HALF HOURS?!!!!!  Well, that not only would make him miss his plane, but every other plane to San Diego for the whole day.  So, the computer and phone started buzzing with the search for the best way to get him home.  We thought we could get him a ride back to the local airport and just buy him a one-way ticket from there.  But, he didn’t have much cash on him (even though we had sent plenty.  He’s amazingly generous and ended up with not much left for himself).  We tried to get him a cab and pay for it via credit card, over the phone.  NOPE!  Clay called the school to see if someone could pick him up.  NOPE!  It seemed that he was going to have to catch the next bus, show up at the Baltimore airport and spend the night in the USO.  Thank goodness for the USO!  Then the phone rang and one of the dorm fathers from the school just HAPPENED to be going to Baltimore and could pick him up from the bus station and get him to the airport.  He actually made it to his original flight and was home by 9 pm.  I was very thankful for the way things worked out, but can’t help but wonder if a lesson can be learned if everything always works out.  

~sigh~  

For now, I’m just happy to have all the kiddos at home for a few days.  We will have a reflective and prayerful Good Friday together and a joyous Easter.  I love these times!

Have a great day~

This entry was posted on April 10, 2009 at 10:37 am and is filed under children, family life, frustrating, kids, lessons, military, miltary spouse, mom, parenting, sharing, thanks, travel, trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.