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.

My Crazy end of week/ weekend and what I learned about myself

So it is Wednesday at about 9 am. My very best friend wants to know if we want to come to play at their house. I normally would have jumped all over that chance, but I feel this urge to stay home and do laundry today. Not sure why. We decline.

It's about 10 am and I am utterly freaked out that I have lice. No real reason to believe I do. My head has been so itchy and I am just freaked out. I call my best friend and she says she will come over to check me. (Don't you love those friends.) I am so freaked out I am hyperventilating all most. I am waiting for her to arrive and trying to keep my mind occupied, as well as my kids, and the phone rings. Todd calls to tell me he has an emergency business trip to take and he is leaving either tonight or tomorrow and will be gone until Monday. Boo. My b-day is Monday and we had weekend plans, but the boss (my dad) has very kindly offered to pay for my girls and I to go too. Yeah and AHHHHH. How to be ready for a 5 day trip in less than 24 hours with two kids. My head is no longer itching. My brain is about to explode. Sheena arrives and checks my head and verdict is- NO Lice. Just a freaked out mom who has dandruff.

OK. Now move to packing, booking hotels, shopping for trip. It is lunch time and I open the cupboard. I have no idea what to fix and I really don't want to make anything. Claire likes dog food anyway. LOL. Suddenly another phone call. My mom wants to know if we want to have lunch. We still have pajamas on. Would you like to bring lunch over? Thank God for Nana. Nana arrives with lunch and Hiya. Hiya is what Lizzie affectionately calls, my brothers girlfriend, Heather. We eat lunch and then my mom has to leave. I get girls to nap and think - "It would be so nice to have help right now." The house is a wreck and I still have laundry to do and packing and shopping. I wish Todd could come home now. Then another phone call. Heather wants to know if I need help. My overactive brain almost said no. I thought I can handle this. I really don't want someone else cleaning my house. But thankfully God spoke very clearly and said, "Did you not just wish you had help?" Oh Yes I did. Ok if you don't mind helping that would be great. I make a list things to do and Heather shortly arrives. She slams through my list.

1. Clean bath.
2. Sweep/ mop floor.
3. Do dishes.
4. Clean up toys.
5. Pack.

She does everything, but pack. Oh, how I am so thankful I did not say no.

Girls wake up and she feeds them snack while I make a dozen phone calls to reserve 4 hotel rooms. (For Todd and the crew going with him.) Realize how impossible that would have been had she not been here. When Todd comes home Heather stays with the kids so we can go to the store to buy a toddler travel bed. I have been wanting one for a while and we needed it for the trip because Lizzie cannot sleep in the big bed yet.

Somehow we are packed and ready and I get in bed about 2 am. Wake back up at 7 and we on the road by 9.

We arrive in Kalamazoo and Todd is off to work. We spend the day with Heather and Todd arrives back at the hotel about 7:30. We have already had dinner, so while he eats I take the girls swimming. Interesting taking two kids who you have to hold the whole time by yourself. We decide to get out and Lizzie takes off running. She falls and cracks her head on the cement. So me in my bathing suit and kids as well drip into to hotel restaurant. I ask the hostess to look for my husband because I have a crying toddler and two wet kids. He comes out and we proceed to room. She is fine and Todd is able to resume eating.

Thursday night kids go to sleep and I try to get some rest. Friday morning Claire wakes up at 4am. Ohhh.... I try to get her back to sleep and it does not work. Todd gets up to leave for work at 6 and we turn on lights to have breakfast. I guess that is it. Lizzie gets up about 6:30. Our day goes on and thankfully Heather is there to help. Nap comes and goes and eventually bed. Yeah.

The next morning (Saturday) is better. Claire sleeps until 7 and that is much better than 4. We get up and have breakfast. We decide to go to a zoo nearby. The zoo is so fun and we actually get to feed giraffes. That was so cool..

We leave and on the way home my mom calls to say my dad collapsed and she was taking him to the hospital. We were afraid he was having a heart attack.
We communicate back and forth with her and then decide that my brother, myself, Heather and the kids will go home. I frantically pack and we leave in about an hour. I am upset, worried and drive about 85 the whole way home. Todd had called Sheena and asked her if she would watch our kids because he could not leave until later that night. She agreed and I dropped the kids off at her parents because they were having a 4th of July BBQ. I leave and go to the hospital. I cry the whole way there pretty much because I have been holding it together because of the kids. When I arrive I go see my dad and cry of course. Thankfully he is ok and did not have a heart attack. I was able to stay with him until about 9. And then came home to see the kids. He came home the next afternoon and they are still trying to figure out what caused him to collapse. But he is ok.

This whole week/ weekend has been so tiring and so long and so crazy, but it taught me a lot about myself. I usually think I can handle things on my own and in a lot of situations I can, but in all honesty there are moments I cannot and I need to ask for help. I don't like asking for help. I don't like feeling like I am putting people out or changing their plans. But there are times I need to ask for help. There are times I need to say yes when people ask me if they can help me. I need to do that more. This whole weekend would have gone a lot worse had I not had the help of those around me. I am grateful for their help, but I know it is still hard for me to ask for help. It is still hard for me to not do it on my own. I am glad that Jesus reminds me that I need help and that he is so patient with me as I continually forget that. Because in all honesty a lot of days I forget to look to Him for strength. I forget that when I am leaning on Him and abiding in Him my life is better and I can do it. But when I do it on my own and leave Him out of my plans I end up a mess and my kids and husband suffer. When I am daily looking to him for strength and seeking his help, he gives it to me and then I realize all along he has been orchestrating my circumstances to give glory to Himself. Isnt that He has been doing all along? Jesus dying on the cross to save us from our sins. And us going along in our sins convinced we are doing just fine until He shows us who we really are and what our sins have really done. And then we only have two choices. We can go along and do it on our own and die in our sins or we can choose let Him take our sins and cover them. Am I so prideful to remain convinced I can do it on my own? Or will I admit I need help. I pray I continue to admit I need Him. I need help.

Things I miss

I would never trade being a mommy for anything. I love my kids and I am so thankful that they were entrusted to me. I adore them and have so much fun with them, but occasionally I get that twinge of missing something pre-kid days. So here is my extensive, but not exhaustive list of things I miss. (Not in order of ranking.)

1. Going shopping in the middle of the day just because I feel like it.
2. Spending more than five minutes on my hair on any given day.
3. Sleeping until noon on Saturday.
4. Working out.
5. Going to the movies with my husband, on whim, on a Thursday night.
6. Having a large group of people over on a Friday night for small group and staying up way too late.
7. Doing ministry in an organized sense.
8. Sitting in front of my vanity and playing with my hair until I have come up with a new hairstyle for myself.
9. Being able to go have dinner with a friend with just a phone call.
10. Going to the bathroom alone. (I never knew that our downstairs bathroom lock does not work until we had kids.)
11. Going anywhere alone.
12. Being able to eat something, anything without sharing.
13. Worshiping in Church without thinking "Did I forget anything, Did she stop crying, Will she take a nap in there?"
14. Having my just cleaned house stay clean.
15. Waking up and not having to do anything.
16. Having relaxing days at home that actually are relaxing.
17. Leaving the house without a load of stuff.
18. Being able to have a serious conversation with Todd without stopping twelve times.

Appalling

So I just read an article that talked about a website that was designed to "hook up" married people looking to have an affair. I will not mention the name because the website owner says he welcomes criticism because it offers him free publicity. This made me sick to my stomach. People, unhappy in their marriage can find a way, as one customer put it: "to make their marriage better, by taking the pressure off." And all of that for only $249.99. I know that the natural way of mankind is to sink deeper and deeper into sin, and I know that I am not above any sin, but this sickens me. This creator is a married man with young children and he says he has been faithful to his wife, "to date". I wonder if his wife feels secure and happy in the knowledge that her husband thinks so highly of infidelity. I grieve for her and I grieve for the customers and their families who turn to this to find fullfillment. I grieve for the many lives that have been destroyed by adultrey. Marriage is not easy. Marriage is hard and I know that at times it can feel like the grass is greener on the other side. It isn't. If someone other than your spouse is looking appealing to you. Just know that if you go through with it. That person will eventually be old and comfortable to you and you will have wrecked a lot of lives in the path. Yours, your spouse, your children, the other person's family. God can restore even the most damaged marriages. He can bring healing and passion and life back to it again. Seek help from a trusted Christian counselor. Seek help from your pastor. Pray with your spouse for life to be restored in your marriage. The grass is greener where you water it!

10 months

So 10 months ago today I gave birth to Claire. She was perfect in every way. I was thinking today that while there are some things I miss about the little baby stage there really is not much. She is fast approaching toddler hood. She no longer drinks from a bottle. She has graduated to big girl sippy cups. She is crawling all over and is pulling up on every thing. I am sure she will be walking soon. She eats just about everything. She eats every meal with us at the table and eats most of what we eat. She is no longer a little baby. Of course she will always be my baby, but she is growing up. People often say you will miss this. Yes, I will miss many things, but the first 7 months of her life were so hard. She was an acid reflux baby and that meant for 4 months she slept only in a swing. For 6 months she slept in our bedroom or in the living for naps. For 6 months she never left my side. That is hard on anyone. I was constantly worried she may reflux and choke. I did not get enough sleep. She woke every 3-4 hours for 6 months and when she did sleep longer she still was not sleeping through the night until 9 months. She did not fall asleep on her own until 7 0r 8 months. This was incredibly hard on me and hard on our whole family. Todd often took night feedings because I was too exhausted. He would wake with her at 3 or 4 and be back up for work by 6 or 7. We would take turns rocking her to sleep at bedtime and most nights one of us was upstairs with her until 9:30 or 10. We were scared to leave her with anyone and only had a couple of people we felt comfortable staying with her. This left little time for us to be alone. When she cried I always wondered if she was in pain or if she just needed to cry. This meant she did not learn to fall asleep on her own. For 7 months life was kind of a whirl wind. And it was just hard. Things have gotten much better in the past couple of months. She is doing so much better with her reflux. She is sleeping through the night and puts herself to sleep. But getting here was a long, hard road. This has changed my perspective in a lot of ways. I always said I wanted our children to be no more than two years apart, but now I am thinking maybe three is a better number for the next one. I am just too tired to think of having another baby in the near future. It has also made me realize that while I would never trade our Claire for another baby I think I will not miss much about those first 7 months. I am enjoying her, Elizabeth and Todd so much more now. And I am grateful these past 10 months are behind me. I am sad my baby is growing up, but I know that the moments to come will be wonderful. I am not wishing away these years. They are too precious, but I am wisely looking at this for what it was and praying that our next baby does not have these issues.

Sleep

I just wanted to say that sleep has gotten so much sweeter in our house since about two weeks ago. Two weeks ago we transitioned Claire, from bottle, to only drinking from a cup. Up until then she was still waking in the night to eat. She is 21 lbs and definitely does not still need the night feeding, but it was a habit. So when we moved to the cup I decided we would try letting her cry at night and see how that goes. The first night she cried like 10 minutes. Maybe 5 the next few and now she sleeps all night until like 8 or 9 in the am. Sleep is like so much sweeter. I look forward to bedtime because I know I will not be woke up at 3 am. I am wondering why I did not try that sooner. Oh Well. Thankful for it now!

Mom Guilt

Ok so any mom will know what mom guilt is. We look at other kids, other moms and feel a twinge of "why is my life not like that" and we blame ourselves. I was thinking about this because my hubby made a very innocent comment the other night about our children eating Mcdonalds. He did not mean for me to take it the way I did, but I was suddenly in a tailspin of tears and guilt. I pondered how my children would grow healthy and happy with such an awful mom. The conversation was essentially this. I wanted Claire's bedtime snack to be oatmeal and pureed veggies. Todd did not want to put veggies in it tonight. So he wanted to just do oatmeal. Really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. And later during a conversation about this he thought I was upset that he did not want to put veggies in it. So he said, "I can't believe you care that much that I did not want to put veggies in it one time. After all we feed out kids Mcdonalds." (By this he meant, one missed veggie is not big big of a deal considering our kids eat fast food, which by some standards would be the worst thing you can feed them.) How I took it was- "This coming from a mom who feeds her kids French fries and Chicken Nuggets." So I was instantly a mess. We sorted through it, but it made me think how we as moms put so much pressure on ourselves. We compare our kids to everyone elses and we think those moms have it all together. Yes my kids eat fast food. Honestly its probably not the worst thing I have done to my kids. Yes I have forgotten to brush their teeth. Yes they have gone days without baths because I was so tired. But my wonderful husband reminded me of what our goal as parents is. Do I want my kids to have good hygeine? Yes. Do I want them to learn healthy eating habits? Yes. But in the grand scheme of life my goal is to raise children who know and love God. All else as my husband said is second. If I fail at something I don't want it to be that. Will I still feel a twinge of guilt when I see another mom sitting with well behaved children looking so put together? Probably. But I need to remind myself that at the end of time Jesus will not look at me and say "Did your remember to brush your children's teeth?" or "Did you always leave your house with makeup and spit-up free clothes on?" No. He will however care deeply about what I did with the hearts of my children.Did I mold them and train them to follow him? I pray that can be my standard.