Josh took the boys out to the farm this afternoon. On the way there he stopped by his mom and dad’s to pick up the mail and do some more measuring. The hope is for his dad to get transferred back to Springfield tomorrow. They are not anticipating him gaining back the use of his leg. The other one can be used but also is weak. They are hopeful that he will be able to transfer himself around enough to come home.

My mother-in-law’s brothers are also farmers. They have made arrangements to harvest my father-in-law’s crop mid-September. They think that with help they can get it done in a day. The roof is finished on the new house now and the front door is also one of the newest additions. My daughter had practice this morning and then spent some time with a friend in the afternoon. I spent the day printing and reading articles.

I wasn’t exhausted after our trip but I have spent the time resting since being home. When Josh came home from the chicken fry sometime late-afternoon he laid down next to me and we both fell asleep. When we woke up the boys were moving the television downstairs into the basement where there were a couple of counselors and a few other high school friends. They were going to play Jackbox on their phones and devices.

I wanted to text Ethan and tell him and did. I wasn’t trying to make him sad, or transfer my missing him onto to him but I wished so much he was there then. They ended up making it so he could play and they played downstairs until it was time for the evening game outside. Uncle Glenn stopped by and visited with us in the living room for a while. Whenever he’s in town he stays overnight here. Not at the house but in one of the camp buildings.

When my husband was in college his parents called every Sunday. They did that for the first several years of our marriage and I can’t remember when it stopped. I think it was once he officially became a pastor and we were living only two and a half hours away. I don’t remember it ever being an issue, and I have not had those kind of in-laws problems you hear about. If anything I wish they had been more nosy not less.

But still they have been there for us in great ways. We haven’t really established a set thing with Ethan where we call at a specific time. Earlier before the Jackbox playing I’d told him we could call when Dad was back. At the time he didn’t have any plans but by the time I checked back in later on he was doing something with some of the cross country teammates. That is of course more of what I wanted to hear, that there were others.

I still am not completely convinced that the running thing is the path he’s supposed to take. I don’t think I really gave it much thought, I was mostly just glad that we’d gained some direction and sight with a college plan. It’s hard because you don’t want to push your kids into something that isn’t so much their idea but more yours. You also want to support their endeavors but to do so in a way that still gives them freedom to change.

All in all I am glad to have kept in touch with him. The thought now of me having held back my thoughts, or just general interest in what he is doing, all for the sake of meeting some imaginary standard or fear-based interpretation of how I am supposed to be existing in life feels so wrong when I think about it now. We are not meant to hold back who God has made us to be. As parents we shepherd our kids through transitions.