Happy New Year!

I love carrying baby in my moby

We welcomed in the New Year quietly   That was definitely my style this year.  Probably one of the biggest thrills for me of the New Year is that our 4 year old son is no longer using the ‘Froggy’ potty.  He’s strictly on the big toilet now…yay!  Oh my, does this say something about the excitement in my daily life??? (lol!)  Oh, well…it’s fitting for the season I am in with young children.

Daddy had many days off for Christmas break.  Right before his prolonged break started I was chatting how I desperately needed him home, which was true!  It’s been great.  But, now…somehow I desperately need to get back to some “normacly” (whatever that may be )  I know my husband will have lots to catch up on at work this week, and it will be nice to get started into the New Year.  I was able to get not even quite half of my Christmas letters out before Christmas and the rest of them???  Well, I am seriously thinking of making them Valentine Letters……:)

The picture above is just one that I really like.  It was taken over a month ago.  Baby now loves to have her little head out to look all around while I go about my business.

This is SO true.

Do you see what I see?

And hey…why is there a hole in our tree?!   Really, we like our tree.  It’s the same tree we bought when we were first married, and we’re still making do with it.  We’re having fun counting down until Christmas.  We’ve already done one round of Christmas cookies.  We’re doing our Advent Calendar in the evenings, and we made a paper chain to count down the days too.  We pretty much have Christmas music playing daily as well.  Most of all…I am looking forward to our fun-filled Christmas day as a family.  I’m super excited about our kids’ gifts this year.  I love watching the expressions on their faces upon gift opening time.  I love the special breakfast we have before gift opening time also.  We’re keeping things simpler this year…yay!  What do I want for Christmas?  I want rest.  I was thinking about naps.  And I truly cannot remember when I napped last.  I am thinking it was the week I came home from the hospital.  That was…late September into the beginning of October.  I’ve been going like a crazy mommy engine since after baby’s birth.  I can still feel my body trying to recoup from surgery.  I am so thankful for my loving and helpful husband! 

My kids are doing okay!  Shortly after Thanksgiving our oldest came down with croup and an ear infection.  We’ve finally gotten thru that.  Our oldest girl is still in diapers.  I’ll leave it at that.  She battled a staph infection (diaper rash) right before she got sick.  She was miserable.  But, we’ve been VERY pleased with our pediatrician’s nurse practitioner.  She does really well with our oldest and she gave us a SUPER diaper ointment recipe.  It’s expensive, but I think it’s worth it to us.  My daughter’s issues certainly do keep me at the foot of the cross.  Never lacking anything to pray about, I guess. 

So, all of the kiddos are busy, busy.  I am trying to concentrate a lot on reading and vocab. right now with the kids.  Give me my library card and a good book list…and I am HAPPY.  God is SO good in how He brings resources and little nuggets of wisdom and information my way.  He certainly does meet me right where I am at!

I like soaking this verse up…

He tends His flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart; He gently leads those that have young.”      Isaiah 40:11
 

What a precious promise!  The Lord’s ways toward parents of young children are not harried and rushed.  I pray you all have a peaceful Christmas, and take time for rest!

Merry Christmas!

Daily Lessons

It’s funny how some of our greatest teaches moments happen when I least expect it.  Today my 7 year old son was unloading the dishwasher.  I had laid a clean towel on the counter for him to set the clean dishes on until I was able to put them away.  Well, unfortunately while I had my head turned away from our oldest special needs child (not a very wise thing to do while in the kitchen), she pulled the towel, along with one of my favorite baking dishes off of the counter.  It broke in many pieces.  Yeah, I was disappointed.  But, I wasn’t mad.  My son stood in a bit of shock, but then helped me clean it up.  We talked about how ’stuff’ can always be replaced,  but people cannot.  Stuff is not eternal, but people’s souls are.   We also talked about storing our treasures up in Heaven, and not here on earth….where things can break!  I think my son got it.  I am sure he’ll need to be reminded of these lessons repeatedly.  I know that I often need to be reminded of things in my ripe old age of 33!

Interesting…

Describes many things in life right now, including my new header.   I thought something Christmas-y was appropriate.  I am very excited for Christmas.  Thanksgiving first of course!  Today I was happy to sit down with my 5 and 7 year old and we discussed the Pilgrims and read some Scripture.  We did a fun little dice game that explored the fact that the Pilgrims experienced persecution from King James if they did not worship God the way he wanted them to.  Simply put, my kids either ended up in King James court if they favored his way or in prison, if they worshiped God the way they desired.  My kids ended up in prison 3 times.  I know for sure they didn’t really understand what that meant, as they thought it was a fun place to be

Our oldest finally gave up in wanting to give up her quiet times for now.  I allowed her to stay up in the afternoons for over a week.  The result?  By the weekend she was falling asleep in daddy’s arms midday, and then she was communicating that she wanted her bed the next day   She has been extra tired though.  All of my kids have been…so I just adjust things when needed.

Baby is sweet!  Sleeping is going fairly well.  Getting up once in the night and sleeping longer stretches.  I have not been able to get rid of her trush.  She’s had it since late October.  The plan is that I am supposed to apply something called Nystatin in her mouth 4 times a day.  Well, I also have another child that regularly needs meds. 5 times daily.  That would make a total of 9 times a day…giving meds.  I’ve seriously only ever been able to remember to give it to baby 2-3 times a day.  I’ve even made a chart and put it on the inside of our cupboard to keep track of the doses.  But, now I’ve figured that I need to put a note on the outside of the cupboard to remind myelf of the chart on the inside of the cupboard!  You can see where this is all going.  Today I called and talked to a nurse.  She completely understood me…whew.  So, the Dr. called in something stronger to the pharmacy for baby’s thrush.  Hopefully this will kick it!

Well, baby is fussing.  But, here are a few little funny saying from the kids.

My 4 year old son and 2.5 year old daughter:

While eating breakfast one morning, my son called out to my daughter, “You come on over here to my chair and give me a hug and a kiss!”  She of course…did not.  I on the other hand said, “Well, I’ll take a hug and a kiss.”  My son’s response, “Oh mommy, that’s beautiful!”

And today (this is gross), my 5 year old daughter announced, “Mommy, I just dropped my tutu in the potty chair!” (the one that little brother just did his business in.)  I know some moms would think this is minor.  But, I admit, I am a mom of six, and I don’t do well with bodily fluids.  I just force myself to.  Anyway, on that note…Happy Thankgiving!

My Blessings!

 

 

Good Stuff

Just thought I would share a few good things happening.  Of course, I’ll start out with a potty post   Our 4 year old continues to WOW me with his successes.  He has consistently been going #2 in the potty and not going in his pull-ups at naptime.  I pray this is IT….ya know, that fact that he’s finally gotten down.  I am certainly not expecting perfection or never any accidents.  I am just very much ready for this to be permanent.

We’ve been praying, and asking others to pray that we would be able to find a bigger vehicle to fit our family of 8 into.  We found one!  A 1999 black GMC Suburban.  It’s BIG.  And much to my surprise, I LOVE driving it.  We’ve been out doing errands as a family and the kids love it too. 

I was able to visit with church family this morning a bit, and many got to see our baby for the first time.  The votes seem to be unanimous that baby looks like her 5 year old sister.  My husband and I thought so right when we brought baby home from the hospital and were looking at her siblings baby pictures.  Fun, fun.

I think this is good…kind of still waiting to see.  Our oldest daughter has been forgoing her afternoon, self-imposed quiet times.  She has gotten sick quite often in the past and has pretty much demanded (in her own way), to be put to bed in the afternoons.  She just gets that tired.  Well, for whatever reason, lately she’s been wanting to stay up and play.  It’s been going okay.  She’s been pretty obedient during the afternoon.  The only thing is that I hardly get any kind of downtime to myself.  I guess that’s supposed to come in the evening.  Yet, now I am in the season of having a newborn who likes to be held in the evenings and is now cluster feeding before bedtime.  I am tired.  But, it really does make me happy to see our oldest child happier.  In a nutshell, that’s all I want for her anymore in this lifetime…to be happy and not struggle so much with ongoing health issues.

And I forgot to mention…baby slept completely thru the night two nights ago!  Didn’t happen last night.  But, she’s only been getting up once a night lately.  I’m praying for an early sleeper.

An Unexepected Blessing

I was in the middle of a bit of schooling today when I heard a knock at the door.  I had kids doing all different things, and I was on the floor with my special needs child trying to color a picture with her…okay, really I was trying to keep her from happily chewing on our new crayons.  My 4 year old and 2.5 year old were squabbling over something, and I could feel my pulse quickening…Argh!  Anyway, I finally made it to the door and found a pretty little gift bag awaiting me and saw a van pulling away from our home.  I was so pleasently surprised to find that my sweet friend and teacher who oversees our homeschooling and her daughters, had left this beautiful quilt.  It was a baby gift, a personalized quilt.  My heart melted and my frustration left me.  Thank you Lord for thinking of me…again.  And boy, do I have some sweet friends.

Exciting!

It’s exciting for me to see and hear our just turned 4 year old do new things.  He’s been doing better with his comprehension of what we ask of him (he’d been struggling with this a bit), and he’s been chat, chat, chatting up a meaningful storm.  Although, he still runs around and acts out his wild, musical imagination….crazy kid   I do get a kick out of this.

Also…his potty training has been coming along great.  Nightime isn’t much of a concern of mine at this point.  I think that will just come with time.  But, daytime has been going very well.  Our biggest challenge during the day has been at naptime.  But, now that seems to even be less and less of a challenge.  Things seem to be clicking more in my little boy’s head.  Yay!

Thankful For These Gentle Days!

Things are crazy here…at the same time, they are simple.  I am so thankful for these gentle days as I raise my little ones.  We’ve had a few challenging days with our special needs daughter.  Most likely due to a combination of coming down off of seizures and valium, along with getting the seasonal flu mist.  It didn’t go over well with her.  Even though we’ve been struggling, I’ve also felt the steady hand of the Lord upon our family.  No one can understand the daily life of living with a child with special needs unless they live with it day in and day out…long term.  It’s hard and it wears on parents and the family.  No one understands the longevity and the reality of this long term commitment to our child.  We don’t even comprehend it fully, but God gives us the grace daily to take it in, bit by bit.  But, I am so glad that the Lord has given me wisdom and discernment as a mom when I ask to know how to guide my children and family during the days.  Sure I mess up at times!  But, how awesome it is to call upon the Lord to give me strength, pull me and dust me off when I need it (daily!)  I also think I see sometimes the beginning of sweet fruit in my other children because of the lifestyle the Lord has called us too with a child with special needs.  There is always the flipside of that too.  I am just always needing my God’s strength even in these gentle days and even not-so-gentle days.

My Baby…

…is up to 11 lbs. at one month of age!  She was 7 lb. 11. oz. at birth.  She’s gaining well, and I am loving every little ounce of her.   Unfortunatley, she is struggling with trush at the moment.  She’s on medication now 4 times of day.  Looking foward to getting thru this soon!