It has been a month and a half since our house flooded and quite a lot has happened since. We are still waiting for FEMA housing; we were assigned a trailer in an existing lot that unfortunately is on the complete opposite side of town and would be at least an hour commute. I am hoping FEMA allows us instead to be placed in a lot nearer to our house. In the meantime we are, again, staying with my eternally generous parents.
Our house is gutted from the waist down and we are waiting (and waiting and waiting and waiting) for the studs to dry out enough for us to put the walls back together. That will be step one in the very long process of fixing the house. The large debris pile outside our house was finally picked up this week; it looks like our house again! The full street hasn’t been picked up yet but the lower and lower the piles get the closer to normal it looks.
We powered through and started homeschooling Evangeline. She finished her first full month today! It has certainly been an exercise in patience for me. The structure of day and the newness of the lessons go a long way to engage Evie. She is our most sensitive to change; this whole experience has affected her the strongest. I know doing our lessons are beneficial to her but I also know when her attitude changes any further attempts to teach will be futile. I’ve come to embrace the phrase “why don’t we finish this after a 5 minute recess?” Some days we just don’t make it back to the school books.
I am proud to say though, that we have only taken two days “off”. Each week we do math and phonics, handwriting, catechism, science and reading. I actually cut one book we were doing because she just hated it and it wasn’t worth fighting with her every time. That’s a personal achievement for sure! All illusions of picture perfect homeschooling went out the window with the flood water and now I’m trying to find our new normal.
This month and a half has been a lot of work, personal growth and quite a few tears. We have seen such generosity from family, friends and strangers though — money, lodging, food, mattresses and oh so many diapers! It goes against our nature to admit we do need help, but as soon as we do, the response is incredible. I’m only able to blog (my personal public therapy) because amazing friends gifted me a laptop! We know this is going to be a very long road and we won’t be back in our home soon, but the love and kindness of so many people gives us hope and strength.
We’ve been able to squeeze in some fun too, in between the work, schooling and crying. We always love an afternoon at the library and park, we’ve had some birthdays and Evangeline, and I were invited to a local production of one of my all time favorite musicals
We have bad days but they seem to be fewer than our good days. Keep us in your prayers if you say them. We have so much on our horizon and the weather has started to turn cool; we are surrounded by reasons to be optimistic. I leave you with some cute pictures of the kids doing cute things.
Being the Carruths 