I’m incredibly jumpy. I can’t help it. My mind keeps racing to the worst possibly scenarios and my adrenaline follows pretty quickly after.

It happens like this…

I’m sitting on the stoop outside watching my kids play. All of a sudden I can only imagine Baby E tripping and falling and hitting his head. I see Big E on his bike and picture him running off the curb and landing in the street. And then my thoughts begin to avalanche.

Every stair case, every sharp furniture corner, every ‘non toy’ item in our house is now a possible antagonist.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I can’t intervene. I can’t move quickly, I can’t lift, so I feel pretty helpless in the face of something happening. I recognize this isn’t logical. I know my children are safe. I trust the other adults around me. I just can’t stop it! 

So I walk away. I have to put myself in time out. I know this is just a phase and part of the healing process, but it was one I wasn’t expecting, so it caught me off guard.

Today was a pretty good day on the recovery front. I’m moving much better and the pain is starting to lessen. I can feel the incisions starting to itch a little, a sure fire sign they are starting to heal. My follow up appointment with the surgeon was scheduled further out than I had hoped, so I have to take an additional few days off from work. Nothing like plowing through your leave time all at once. *sigh* It’s ok. It’s a process.

I’m still so very grateful for the many people that have stepped up to help my dear family through this. You guys have been the hands and feet of Christ in a very tangible way and it is definitely helping move us forward.

My prayer this evening comes from the Psalms. I’ve been focusing on it, letting it replay in my mind. It’s helping to calm me.

 

It’s strange to not have a schedule. I don’t have anyplace I need to be. No one I need to see. All of my needs are being met by my incredible husband, family, friends and church family. So all I need to do is rest. So that’s what I’m doing. I spent most of the day sleeping. I had meals with my family and spent some time with my kids. The big kids are at church now and Baby E is asleep.

I like the evenings the best, I think. After the kids are in bed, Tim and I hang out on the couch. Last night we watched a movie. Tonight I think we will probably just fall asleep. My silver lining is the time I am spending with my husband. With such differing schedules lately, it’s been hard to get quality time together, so this has meant the world to me. I love having him near.

Thank you for the continued thoughts and prayers. We are doing ok.

God is good. All the time!

My family is all under the same roof again. The past 36 hours have been rough. Everyone is OK. I have a few weeks of healing ahead of me. Thank you for all the prayers and well wishes. I will explain more when I am ready. Know that I am grateful for my family and friends for their support. I’m also grateful for the wonderful hospital staff that helped us along this journey. We still need time to process. Apologies for the vagueness! 

When I’m ready, I’ll fill you in. In the meantime, prayers would be appreciated.

There are certain things that I do not do when I have all three of my children…

1- Go to the grocery store- I don’t think I have ever actually attempted this with all three children and just myself. This is the most intimidating thing in the world to me, because I need the shopping cart to contain both my children and my groceries, and it just isn’t capable of doing that, so I have to choose. So I choose to leave my kids with Tim when I go grocery shopping. If we can’t make that work… we starve.

2- Go into a restaurant with all three of my children. I am using the term restaurant rather loosely here. This can range from a nice dine in to a fast food joint. You will not see me and three kids in one of those alone. Not going to happen. Nope.

3- Travel more than two hours with them. My parents live about one hour and thirty minutes from us, and I refuse to drive them much further than that. Why? Because inevitably someone will have to use the bathroom, and all chaos will commence.

And then there are the things I have done with three children in toe and I have totally regretted it. Like the time I took them all to a doctor’s appointment for Baby E and the big kids proceeded to wrestle on the ground as the doctor examined Baby E. To make matters worse the doctor referenced the incident months later when he thought he was referring to their cousins. Nope those were my children. *sigh*

All that to say, I am not too adventurous when Tim isn’t around, so usually I just opt for quiet activities or ones very close to home. This evening, however, I was feeling pretty daring. C’s school was holding a “Trunk or Treat” (Big E kept referring to it as “Trick or Trunking!!”) I’ve never done an activity like that, but I figured the kids would love it, so I asked Rebecca to get the kids in their costumes so we could head straight there after work.

C dressed as Elena of Avalor, while Big E wore his Flash costume. We didn’t dress Baby E, but out of coincidence the only lightweight jacket I had for him in the van was Superman.

The kids had a great time going from car to car and trick or treating. C got to see her teacher and some of her friends from school. The cars and trucks were fun because the owners did a great job decorating them. It was a lot of fun to see. Baby E caught on pretty quickly that candy was involved once he saw the first lollipop, so he was a blubbering mess the rest of the evening begging people to give him candy. I let him eat some twizzlers and smarties, both of which he rejected. He was very happy with a cheese puff. Go figure.

I would label our evening a success. I let the kids have a mini binge of candy on the ride home and then gave them containers for the rest when we got to the house. I’m going to have to hide the candy though, because Baby E gets all worked up when he sees it and refuses to eat any other foods.

I wish I could post more pictures from this evening, because naturally I took plenty, but the internet is incredibly slow. 😦

Wear what you would wear in the future… 

So this week was a special week at school where the kids were supposed to wear something specific each day of the week. As the awesome, very sleepy, scatterbrained, full time working mom of three rambunctious small children six and under, I promptly misplaced the paper that explained what each day was supposed to be. But I did remember that Monday was wear red, (something about saying no to drugs,  I think… again, paper lost.) But I we totally nailed Monday in the clothing department.

Tuesday I totally forgot that it was wear something specific week and sent her off to school wearing, gasp, normal clothes.

Wednesday was wear blue and white day. I’m not positive about this because I couldn’t remember what it said on the paper, but C informed it was so I picked out the only blue and white I could find in her dresser and then argued for ten minutes because it wasn’t what she wanted to wear.

Wednesday night was superhero night at church… She’s outgrown all her superhero stuff, but thankfully I found an old generic superhero mask peeking out from under the couch. Bam!

Thursday (today) was dress like what you would wear in the future. This could go two ways, right?!? #1- dress as the profession you want to be when you grow up or #2- dress like people will dress in the future (you know, with space hats and silver jumpsuits.) We went with #2, so we opted for a red sparkly dress, because you know the future is totally going to be covered in sparkles. I was informed tonight that it was actually supposed to be #1, so she told everyone that she wanted to be a ballerina teacher.  (Good save, kid.)

Friday (tomorrow) is bat day. I have no idea what that means because I lost the paper (did I mention that already?!?) But I think she is supposed to be wearing orange and black. Which is awesome, because she doesn’t actually own anything orange.

So I pretty much mommy-failed this entire week in the wardrobe arena, but you know what, it’s going to be a-okay, because at least I didn’t embarrass her by sending her in her pajamas or crazy hair when it was neither of those days! But I sure am looking forward to next week when we can slap on whatever clothes we like and roll out the door.

And while I mommy-failed the clothing, I mommy-rocked some other things like…

1- Cuddles- what I lacked in attire skills, I totally made up for in cuddles. Seriously, I’m a great cuddler.

2- I kept everyone clothed and fed this week. That’s a pretty amazing feat! (I did have help in the meal department a couple of times, so thank you to the folks that stepped up with that!!)

3- Reading endurance- I may not be able to dress my kids up in their future outfits, but I can read Llama Llama Red Pajama like a boss. I think we are nearing 45 times this week. Baby E discovered this book about a week ago and will not put it down. He asks for it when he wakes up. He asks for it when he’s eating, when he’s riding in the car, when he’s breathing. Everything’s coming up Llama Llama Red Pajama around here.

Ok, so I rocked three things. That’s fine by me!

***

This evening was a pretty exciting evening in our house because it was *Make Your Own Pizza* night. I bought some crusts and all the toppings and the kids alternated between fixing their pizza and eating all the ingredients. The kids were proud of their creations and couldn’t wait to gobble them down.

While we ate, I asked the kids some questions just to find out what their answers would be.

1- Who is your best friend?

C- Kaly, Nala, Olivia, Jacob, Allison, Riley, Miranda, Lauren, and Roux. (Wow, that’s a lot of besties!)

Big E- Daniel (Such a boy answer!)

2- What do you want to be when you grow up?

C- A Ballerina Teacher

Big E- A mechanic, okay??

3- What football team do you support? (Remember we aren’t a sports family. My kids have never actually seen a football team. They’ve held a football, so that’s something, right?!?)

C- Redskins

Big E- Huh? I like soccer ball. Soccer balls are the coolest. (This is totally my kid.)

4- If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

C- Treating other how I want to be treated and loving others. (I want that one too, kid!!)

Big E- Speed

5- Can you name one thing that scares you?

C- The magic school bus. Spiders. Ghosts. (This kid is seriously scared of the Magic School Bus. We were visiting their cousins the other day and one of the kids turned it on and her eyes got huge and her face looked pretty worried.)

Big E- Dinosaurs if they eat me.

6- What is the first thing you can remember?

C- Nothing

Big E- Oh, playing on the playground.

7- At what age is a person an adult?

C- 14… actually, 44. (Yay, I’m still a kid!!)

Big E- I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

8- What is something that makes your family special?

C- That they named me after my great grandpa.

Big E- By hugging me and all the kisses.

9- What is the hardest thing about being a kid?

C- Listening to mommy and daddy. (I believe that.)

Big E- By trying to listen to mommy and daddy when we are angry because we want to watch tv.

10- If you were a teacher, and the kids in your class would not listen to you, what would you do?

C- clap

Big E- hmmm… Use a train whistle to get them to listen.

11- What is your favorite place in the world?

C- Home. (A kid after my own heart.)

Big E- That one is easy… Daniel’s house!!

12- If you could give one gift to every single child in the world, what gift would you give them?

C- A heart that says I love you. 

Big E- Hmm… Ooohhh… some of my cars.

13- If you could travel back and talk to a younger version of you, what would you say?

C- To listen to me. If there was a fireplace I’d tell her “don’t go near the fireplace!!”

Big E- Hmmm… I don’t know what to say.

14- If you could make one rule that everyone in the world had to follow, what rule would you make?

C- Love God and Follow God.

Big E- Listen to God every, every, every, every, every single day, and when we are up in heaven.

Sloth like.

Those are the words that I would use to describe my children at bedtime. Seriously sloth like. How can the simple acts of brushing your teeth, using the bathroom, and getting in your pajamas possibly take over half an hour???

I love that the kids are involved at church on Wednesday nights, but I really don’t know how to deal with them when they come home. They are inevitably hungry and they take forever to do the things they need to do to get to bed. And I just get so frustrated with them, (which I think makes them take even longer.) Any recommendations for making a late evening bedtimes run any smoother?

 

Baby E has a cold. I’m always on edge when he gets a cold because his breathing can go downhill pretty quickly. The last time he had a bad cold, it landed him in the ER for breathing treatments and x-rays. During the day he is nearly completely fine. He will cough here and there and he sounds a bit congested, but nothing that would cause me any alarm. It’s just at night that he starts sounding bad. This evening I propped up his mattress and pillow, I’m diffusing some oils in his bedroom, and I covered him in an oil concoction my sister in law put together for me months ago. His inhaler is at the ready. Please pray he sleeps though the night and his breathing is normal. Thank you!

In the words of the great poet and philosopher, Kenny Rogers,

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done

Well friends, today that’s me. I’ve been bested by a bad night’s sleep, a throbbing headache, and three overly cranky children this evening, so in the spirit of knowing when to run, I’m going to run a hot bath, drink some hot tea, and escape into a good book or tv series.

My God is way bigger than my bad day, so I’m going to leave this one with Him. Goodnight!