Happy 6 months!

It’s Erev Shabbos Chol Hamoed, I have a to do list that outnumbers the alphabet, my Housekeeper decided this was a great week to go on vacation (I do not think this was coincidental… I was also tempted to take the week off!) and I’m pausing … not just because I hold the monthly pictures ritual in high priority – but to really acknowledge and take stock of what’s going on around me.
Yes, 6 months is a big deal for the milestone blanket … and yeah I got a little carried away dressing Mushka… but 6 months marks a lot more. 6 months ago today is a day I don’t remember, but all my family and friends do. Third day Chol Hamoed Pesach. The joy of Mushka’s birth followed by the fear and terror that followed it with my medical crisis. These 6 months have been like nothing else … from being completely immobile to slowly regaining strength, from Trauma ICU to Acute Rehab to home… to a night nanny for Mushka, home health nurse 3x a week for me, dinners delivered for 3 months, being tethered to a wound VAC and then slowly downsizing my household staff and taking my place back …planning from A-Z and then celebrating my son’s Bar Mitzvah just five weeks ago to where I stand today in the kitchen – unpacking my multiple Instacart orders while keeping an eye on the pots on the stove, putting chicken in the oven, cutting vegetables and making cakes and being surrounded by my (overtired!) kids, my husband is out with some of my boys on the Sukkah mobile, bringing the joy of Sukkot to people’s doorstep … and I’m as overwhelmed and joyful and stressed as anyone else running this Tishrei marathon – but here’s where I pause.
Because I feel so normal and I’m just doing the normal things we do today. And I am so grateful. It took time to get here, but I am here. And I know it was the endless praying of those who know me and those who don’t that got me here. So I encourage you all to take a moment in the hecticness today and just PAUSE, take a few seconds to breathe in the smells and sounds (even of kids fighting!) and acknowledge the normal. Good Yom Tov to you all!