I'm Awesome....

....and I have a sticker to prove it!

I need to back up a bit. The sticker is actually the end of the story.

Wednesday morning was an interesting morning. I went to bed at 3:00 a.m. because I was at book club the night before into the wee hours of Wednesday morning. I knew Wednesday would be tough because of a lack of sleep, but I didn't think I'd get awoken at 6:30 a.m. to both little ones screaming! Nate just wanted a drink, but Ailey was ready to be awake.

The next few hours the kids were all wound up. Lex didn't want to get ready for school (as usual), Nate and Ailey were as loud as they could be and fighting every second. I had a headache from the lack of sleep and then those two were just making it worse.

Eventually Ailey went down for her nap and I had some time to myself. I got onto the computer and noticed an instant message from my little sister. She asked if I had gotten a text from my mom. I replied that I had only gotten one and it said, "Grandma's not doing well, she's back in the hospital."

My little sister told me I should've gotten two messages. The next message said something to the effect of things really weren't going well and she wasn't responding to CPR. A few seconds after I got that message from my sister, I got a text from my mom that said, "She's gone."

It was that quick. My Grandma died on Wednesday morning from Cardiac Arrest. It came on suddenly, but she'd been having trouble before.

A few weeks ago she fell and broke her knee right above where she had already had a replacement. She was taken to the E.R. and they were going to wait to do surgery, but for whatever reason they did it later that day. Apparently it was a tricky surgery, but she came out okay. And for the next little while she was getting better (or so I thought).

I saw my dad at my nephew's birthday party a week or so after the surgery and he said that Grandma was taken to the hospital again. She had originally been at the Care Center my dad is currently working at for a few hours, but then she got a fever and had to be rushed back to the hospital. That was the last I had heard, so I thought things were getting better. Apparently they weren't as she went into Cardiac Arrest Wednesday morning.

I was lucky and Eric was working from home Wednesday so he was home to comfort me right away, and I needed it. Eric then went and got the groceries we needed to get and we then headed to my parents for the next few hours.

We just spent the time talking and being together. We had no agenda, we just needed that time to be together. It was difficult to see my dad so quiet and beside himself. He didn't really say anything and I don't really blame him. His mom was very good to him and I'm sure he is hurting in ways some of us can't understand.

The kids really had no idea what had happened. We weren't very good at getting together with my dad's parents. They came to birthday parties and we saw them on the occasional holiday - but my kids didn't really know them. Tanis was a bit upset, but the other kids were just kind of "okay, well that's sad." So the kids spent the night playing in the basement and just being kids.

When we decided to leave for the night we told the kids to clean up downstairs. After they did so, my nephew came upstairs and asked my mom if they could have a sticker for cleaning up. (I guess she's given him stickers whenever he cleans up) My mom took the kids down and they all chose their stickers.

Lex had a bunch on his hands and was giving them out to others. He gave me the one that said, "AWESOME" and told me that I was an awesome Mom! It was so sweet and something I really needed to hear that day.

Anyway, so the next few days are going to be interesting and some will be harder than others. For those of you that see me around, if I'm not quite the same and burst into tears at any given moment - please understand. I'm dealing with a lot of guilt and regret as I wasn't a very good granddaughter and the last time I saw my Grandma was probably in May. It's also hard because I have a lot of traits that I inherited from this Grandma. Things about me that I can't really change, and now I don't want to. I'll always have a part of her with me having these same traits. We love you, Grandma!

So there's my small update...