Sick Days

Wednesday afternoon Claire woke up from her nap with a fever of 103. With her history of UTI's we decided to take her to Children's ER. We did and they could find nothing wrong. We ended up taking her to her ped on Thursday and they said it was Phlaringitis. But she has been miserable for two days. She has not slept well and neither have I. Her fever has gone down to about 101 now, but it is still there.

I say this to tell you about my break down and to give some insight into my brain.

Because Claire has been so demanding of my time and attention Elizabeth has not gotten very much individual attention. I could tell by her behavior that she was really needing some one on one time. So tonight after Claire went to bed Lizzie got to stay up late and help me bake Cheesecakes. She and I have baked together since she was just one years old and she really loves to help. I prepared the pans and we counted out 20 oreo cookies for the crust. We put them in the food processor and tried to start it. It was not working. I messed with the thing for 5 minutes and could not get it to work. I wanted to have Todd do it because I knew he would probably be able to figure out why it was not working, but he had to go to work for a few hours because he came home early today. I was getting more and more mad and in a moment of frustration had the following conversation with God in my head:

Me: Why in the world does this have to be so hard. We have had no time together and now this is not working. Why?

Me: I seriously want to cuss at this thing.

Me: I wish Todd were here.

(Not in my head) Lizzie: Mommy, let me help you.

Instantly something came into my mind. Little eyes have been watching my every move to see what I will do in this situation. I wanted to cry and cuss and call Todd. But that is not what I should do.

I called Lizzie over to me and said, "Hunny let's pray. You can help mommy by praying." We prayed for God to help us start the food processor. In the next moment I instantly figured out why it was not working. Total human error. The machine has all these safety mechanisms and I had put one out of wack. It worked and we spent the next half hour making cheesecakes, talking, laughing, eating the batter and then we read books and I put her to bed. We had such a fun time togther I wonder what if. What if I would have cussed and cried and not got the thing working? She would have been sad that we could not make our cheescakes and we would have missed out on that fun, but more than that she would have learned that when things suck your should react by blowing up and losing your temper. I am not sure that she will specifically remember this years from now, but I think I will. And maybe she will remember something from this moment. I pray that I can consistently teach her to turn to God in those moments. I know the many moments I have done the opposite. I pray that I can learn to consistently turn to him.