Hello out there, Blogworld. My name is Chewymom. I have a blog. And I used to write posts on it. And then something happened.

Facebook.

I now write and think in only 100 characters at a time. My brain cannot handle more than that. In fact, this post will actually be a combination of dozens of short Facebook-length posts, all strung together. So forgive me if it is disjointed.

Okay, there is this one other tiny detail of my life, called Nursing School that has started to rudely encroach on my time. Well, and then there’s just life itself. Let me outline the month of…say…August for you.

On Monday, August 10th, my kids joyfully bounded out of bed, anticipating their first day of school. You know that part about the joy and the bounding is a lie, but it was the first day. Because what else is there to do in August in Alabama? Children are sick of swimming, nobody wants to do anything but move from one air conditioned room to another, and there are only so many trips to Chuck E Cheese that a mother can make before she really loses it.

So, August 10th was the first day of first, sixth, ninth, twelfth, and post-high-school job training for my five kids. On Tuesday, August 11th, I checked them all out of school at noon so we could drive to Atlanta and hop on a plane to Baltimore. We saw Dr. Francomano, a geneticist who specializes in connective tissue disorders. She confirmed that me and all of the Chewychildren do have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, and that it is the classical type. She carefully measured and plotted the extent of hypermobility of dozens of our joint, made recommendations for follow up care with physicians and therapists, and made other unpopular suggestions like that the kids should not play contact sports like football. Drew was not fond of this advice, but it was still a very helpful visit, and we even had time left over to drive into DC and visit the Smithsonian and the Spy Museum.

We flew home on Saturday, and on Monday Drew went on to football, still pondering whether he wanted to quit. Actually, I was pondering how to get him to see the wisdom in quitting, because he was not convinced that was a smart thing to do. But then he had a little intervention from above, along with a teammate who hit him, causing his knee to dislocate. When he hit the ground, it popped back into joint, but his MCL was torn. He was put in a brace, and his orthopedist and his coach both sat him down and told him he could no longer play football. The risk for injury was too great. He moped for about a day, and then he went and talked to the basketball coach and decided to go out for that sport.

The following Sunday, Brig fell and hurt a muscle in his leg. On Monday morning, he came down the stairs on his bottom. This was normal behavior when he was three, but he is now 18, so it was a bit odd. Nevertheless, I sent him to school, limping, and went on to my first day of class in Nursing School. After my class ended, and I was totally stressed out by the realization that life as I knew it had ended, I took Brig to the orthopedist (we’re on a family plan there), where we learned that he had not, in fact, hurt his muscle. He had broken his leg. He was put in a boot, which he was just allowed to remove this week.

Crazy times, huh?

Oh wait. I forgot to mention that on Tuesday evening of that same week, Sally began running a high fever, had a headache, stomach ache, was tired….You know where this is going.

Oink.

Yep, swine flu. Which she passed along to me.

So, let’s recap, shall we? Kids start school. Kids miss 3-1/2 of the first 5 days of school and are deluged with makeup work. Drew tears his MCL and has to quit his favorite sport. Brig breaks his leg. Mom starts nursing school. Sally gets swine flu. Mom gets swine flu.

And now, I am thoroughly exhausted from stringing all of these 100-word status updates together to make a single blog post, so I am going to sign off. Perhaps you will hear from me again before Christmas, but I make no promises….