Graveyards . . . ugh!

About a month ago, I got a call from a lady who lives in the valley here. She told me that she and her husband wanted to go on a cruise with his parents for their 50th wedding anniversary. Their only holdup was the fact that two of her children, both of whom have disabilities needed nighttime supervision to monitor for seizures, and they couldn't go if they didn't find a provider. Since I'm a certified respite care provider, she got my name from the list and gave me a call. She told me that the provider would need to be awake all night, and that it would be for 4 nights from 9pm to 6am. My initial response was, "I don't think so." However, after hanging up the phone, I thought a little more about it, and realized that my excuse of being a mother of two small children sounded pretty lame when considering what she does. She and her husband have adopted 10 children, almost all of whom have disabilities. She has two that have cerebral palsy and seizures, two that have Downs Syndrome, two in wheelchairs, one blind, one deaf, and one dumb. I immediately talked to Tony, and we decided that I'd do it. I called her back, and she was ecstatic. She wanted to go so badly, but was worried that they wouldn't find anybody willing to take on the job. So, thanks to Tony's sisters and a friend, my kids will be taken care of during the days so I can get some sleep this week, and I get to spend 9 hours each night in a bedroom with two boys, praying that they don't have a seizure. In the meantime, however, last night, I was able to get 7 digital scrapbook pages done, read some from my book, get some respite paperwork done that I've been meaning to get to, and enter all my JV volleyball stats onto the computer. All this while trying to get one of the boys, who is deaf, to lay down and go to sleep. Hopefully he'll sleep better tonight. He had a rough one. Anyway, after meeting her chidren and thinking about what she deals with everyday VOLUNTARILY, I'm sure she's headed straight for the Celestial Kingdom. And although I'm tired, I guess I'm grateful, too, to be able to give a saint a much-deserved four night break. One down, three to go! Wish me luck!