Filed under: Holidays, Illness and Injury, Kiddos, Life, in general, Mi familia | Tags: Blogging, flu, Life
I miss the old days – when words just floated through my fingers into the keyboard and extreme fatigue or nausea didn’t place a block in my head. But I have to re-start somewhere as I’m not about to give up. I’m getting a netbook soon and I’m planning great things with it – like spending one evening a week catching up on my writing – so I’m not going to quit blogging just yet.
Anyway, here is a recap of this past week (post-birthday entry).
Jenny got over her infection quickly, thank heavens, but all the kids are still a bit runny nosed. Erik was in the ER on Friday night because his breathing was so wheezy and I didn’t really feel like leaving it alone was in his best interest. He just now finished up a four day course of prednisone. He’s still coughing up a storm and I’m a little bit concerned that he might need antibiotics to get rid of it.
Friday after the hospital, I went to watch Mike play hockey with his dad. I don’t know who won. I spent the majority of the time taking Elias to the bathroom. I’m seriously thinking that he likes the bathrooms in the new arena so much that he’s peeing his pants just so we have to go there. The third time I took him, we stayed there for nearly fifteen minutes, drying his pants and underwear under the automatic dryers. Jenny kept saying she had to go again while we were there - I think this is because she really likes the sink and wanted an excuse to wash her hands one more time . My kids are so weird sometimes. The big perk to Friday night and that ER visit is that Mike set it up for the kids to spend the night at his parents’ house, since he was playing hockey and we didn’t know whether I would be going home or not. They left the game a bit early and I just had Erik for the rest of the night.
We had a lazy start on Saturday, mostly because of our late night on Friday and the fact that this was the first Saturday that Mike has had off for about a month. I honestly cannot remember much about the day, except that it was fairly surreal having only one child to deal with. We headed over to Mike’s parents’ house around eleven and played games and napped for most of the afternoon (read: Mike played games, I napped). We had a nice Mennonite meal for supper – corn, Farmer’s Sausage (don’t ask – I have no idea what to compare it to because I’ve never eaten it…it smells good cooking, anyway), homemade noodles and tilapia. Okay, so the tilapia was mostly for me and not really Mennonite at all. In fact, being blackened cajun tilapia, it was pretty much the total opposite of Mennonite food. Mike had yet another game on Saturday night, this time with his rec. team and I decided to go because we were already out anyway. Once again, I don’t know who won. I spent most of that game telling my children not to play with the caution tape strung all over the arena and feeling frustrated that one woman there was letting her grandson do whatever he wanted with it. And also, talking to my sister-in-law and her sister-in-law. I haven’t had much time to talk to Marcy lately and it was a real treat. She has the baby bug pretty bad so she’s enjoying our kids and my pregnancy and hoping to have a few more next year.
Sunday came too early as we had decided to go to the early service. We did this because our Thanksgiving meal was set for 3:30 that afternoon. Second service gets out after noon most weeks, which would give us about forty-five minutes to go shopping for salad fixings (since that was my offering to the meal), have lunch and get the kids home and to bed for a nap. We decided that although we would inevitably be very tired in the morning, we would force ourselves to get up and get to church by 9:15. Church was over by 10:30 and we headed out to get everything done. The great thing is that the kids were down, I had the salad more or less ready to go and we were able to have a nap, too.
Thanksgiving dinner went very well and we celebrated my birthday afterward. Again, I can’t remember much except that my sister-in-law is making me a nice crocheted toque (a hat, Americans 
) and Mike’s parents gave me a nice bit of money to add to my computer fund. We left in time to get home and put the kids to bed in a hurry before Mike went to yet another hockey game – this time a church game. Three hockey games with three different teams in three days - yes, that’s my life. This time I stayed home (obviously, since I didn’t feel that leaving the kids home alone was a good idea) and was determined to be productive. I sat at the computer for at least forty-five minutes and suddenly started feeling sick to my stomach. It got worse over the next hour and I wondered whether I should stick to the plan or avoid any work. I finally decided that I would feel sick whether I folded laundry or swept the floor or laid on the couch reading. I swept under the table (I think my kids think we have a dog – they leave plenty to eat for him under there…come to think of it, having a dog would make my job easier at times). I noticed while I was sweeping that the walls were coloured on, spilled on, and scuffed up and decided that while I was at it, I should wash them. So, totally against my nature, I grabbed a bucket and some towels and started scrubbing. With the aid of a Magic Eraser (I love those things!), I got it looking much better. They are still in sore need of a coat of paint, but at least now if I feel like painting, the walls will be clean.
I finished up the evening by folding about four loads of laundry and getting another two or three going. In between the cleaning, I threw up a few times. It never did make me feel better.
On Monday we managed to sleep in until nine and then Mike got up with the kids and fed them and entertained them until after eleven, when I finally got up. The strangest thing is that with how sick I was on Sunday night, I expected to feel bad when I woke up. I felt totally normal on Monday morning – go figure! When we finally were up and dressed and fed, we went back to Mike’s parents’. My sister-in-law from out of town had wanted to play a particular game all weekend and Mike and his dad finally played it with her that afternoon, just before she and her husband had to head home. I played another game with my mother-in-law and brother-in-law while the kids napped (or rather, while they messed around and got into trouble about six times for not napping).
After more food, more dessert and a few more games, we went home and had supper. I talked to my brother after not talking to him for a few months and Mike slept a bit while the kids were watching a movie. This was also when Elias decided to somehow get the disk drive stuck open. We really can’t figure it out and will probably be taking it somewhere to get it fixed. Mike rented a movie that we didn’t like very much and we stayed up later than we should have. Nothing new there, anyway.
This morning at around seven, I woke up to hear Jenny yelling, “Oh, my! Oh, my! Oh, my!” I ran in and she said something about her “breathe” and that she was going to throw up. I rushed her into the bathroom and..nothing. I figured taking her back to my room would be smarter than sending her back to bed, just in case the puking really did happen at some point. It turned out to be a very good decision – although my sheets are now in the wash and my garbage can has vomit in it. After throwing up, we both went back to sleep and slept until after nine when the boys woke up. I’m now assuming that whatever was wrong with me on Sunday night is what was wrong with Jenny this morning, as she seems just fine now. I guess it’s just a really short-lived bug.
Anyway, I should probably be having a nap right now, but like I said, you have to start somewhere and now seemed like a good time for it. And anyway, I can always go to bed early tonight. Oh, right, Mike has another hockey game. Sigh.
Or was it eight..? Anyway, I committed myself to staying off the computer for one week, focusing instead on getting my house in good order and getting some projects done. I let people know where I needed to last Monday and shut the computer down. And about an hour later, Mike called to tell me that he was being sent four hours north of here for work, probably for five days or so. Had it been two or three days, we may have stayed home, except that Mike’s sister and her husband live there and we had been promising a visit. Mike would be staying there anyway because his work there was in their garage (the house is company owned, he works for the same company as our brother-in-law..yada, yada). So we packed up and left Tuesday afternoon for a town a good deal smaller than ours, to a house with two Great Danes and no children. And stairs.
Six days later we came back, worn out and so glad to be home after a rough week. Erik fell down the stairs twice, I found myself in tears at least three times, we were perpetually covered in dog hair and constantly telling the kids to not do this or not do that. As far as good things? Jenny learned to swim by herself..with water wings. Previous to this trip, she wouldn’t even let us let her go at all, and in two trips to the pool, she was all over the place by herself. We did try taking the water wings, but the thing that worked best was just giving her a pool noodle to put under her arms. Elias, on the other hand, spent his time in the pool clinging to us in total fear. Erik sat in his little baby float with his face smushed into the front of it, looking completely relaxed and rather unamused by anything. We walked to the pool twice out of three times and took lots of walks – in fact, I determined that I had some form of exercise every day we were there. It helped my mood, but certainly didn’t prevent the inevitable clashing between families.
Anyway, it is wonderful to be home and yet my children insist on being a pain in the neck even though they are back in their own space. I’ll be glad for the long weekend coming up and a bit of a break from being on my own.
Filed under: Faith, Illness and Injury, Life, in general, Mi familia | Tags: meat, submission, tonsillectomy, vegetarianism
Yesterday I made a painful decision, but one that I feel will be honouring God and my husband. It came to me so randomly that I think it must have been straight from God. I hesitated to commit myself to it, but felt that to keep it to myself would be sinning. Anyway, I’ll explain myself now.
I have been a vegetarian for twelve years now. When I was pregnant with Jenny, I read a book about vegetarian babies and children that reinforced my decision to keep my children from eating meat. Mike went along with it and didn’t complain much except about one issue – the issue of whenour kids could choose to eat meat. When Jenny was about eighteen months, Mike was eating chicken noodle soup and she was practically begging him to have some, so I decided then that she could have chicken – and felt like a total failure. Since then, I’ve sort of kept the kids from eating meat until they were two, and then only poutry (and fish, but I eat fish, too). I certainly got plenty of griping from other people about how silly it was that I wouldn’t let my kids eat meat, but I’ve always tried not to let it bother me. I finally decided a few weeks ago that I would let Jenny eat meat when she turns five – in another year. Yesterday morning when Mike was eating some bacon, he said that we would probably have to let Elias eat it at the same time – which was a very good point. He always wants to do everything his sister does and I know that if we kept him from eating it and let Jenny eat it, he just wouldn’t understand. The thought that came to my mind last night was that maybe it was not very submissive to be making this decision on my own. Some of it is for health reasons, but most of it is honestly because I find meat so gross – so I almost want my kids to feel the same way about it. So I told Mike during supper last night that from now on, it will be up to him when they eat meat for the first time. He agreed with me that they should at least be weaned before they eat it (big sigh of relief there), so Erik won’t be getting any very soon. I will almost certainly face some not very nice comments from people now that I’ve made this decision, but I’m willing to be honest and tell them the reason for it. Maybe it will open other hearts to changes in attitudes between husband and wife. I’m guessing that not many people have our particular situation happening, but I’m sure that there are other things that people clash about and that one should be submitting to the other on. After all, we are told to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21) and although we as wives are told specifically to submit to our husband, sometimes it is husbands who are not God-honouring on one issue or another. Regardless of who it is that needs to submit, we will live with so much more peace when we do submit to each other and refuse to live clashing against one another.
Perhaps part of the decision came about because Mike did something yesterday that he usually doesn’t like to do at all. His parents have a boat and were heading out to the lake after church. I felt like it might be nice for the kids to get to go on the tubes and have a boat ride. Mike isn’t big on boating, but he went with us, drove the boat when needed, and went with both of the kids twice on the tubes. Meanwhile, I was able to relax, take pictures and have a nice time watching my kids have a blast. We were out for three hours, which is a lot longer than we had originally planned for, and in the end the kids didn’t have a nap other than on the drive home, but it was such a great day. Mike’s part in that day made me feel like giving him a gift of sorts, and I think that is what this decision is.
As for my recuperation, I have been in quite a lot of pain the last few days. My pain meds are not working as well as they were, and I suspect that the scabbing in the back of my throat (yeah, I know – gross) is coming off and reforming, so I’m a bit raw because of it. I’ve lost at least eight pounds in the last week and people have even noticed that I look thinner. My face seems to thin out fast when I lose weight, so it’s quite obvious even when it’s not a large amount of weight. I’m basically living on scrambled eggs and tofu, water, the occasional smoothie, and popsicles. I did have half of a veggie chicken sandwich and four or five pieces of asparagus for supper last night – every bite hurt, but my stomach was so happy afterward. If my drugs are working, I have more options for food, but the more solid it is, the more it hurts to swallow. I’m just hoping that I’m able to eat normally by the end of this week, but there’s no telling whether I’ll be able to or not.
Filed under: Mi familia
Today, I finally got to see my new nephew, Noah. Okay, so he was only born forty-eight hours ago, but still, it felt like an eternity not seeing him yesterday. My sister-in-law was transferred here and will be “boarding” at the hospital until Noah is ready to go home, which could be a week or so. He is a tiny little feather – holding him feels like holding a bunch of towels or something…he’s just so small. He looks beautiful, though, and very healthy, which is wonderful. He has lots of hair and looks quite a bit like his brother did when he was new. I’m so tickled to be an auntie again, but it is of course giving me the baby bug. Once these tonsils come out, I’m sure I’ll be more than happy to get pregnant again.
Filed under: Illness and Injury, Mi familia, The H Word | Tags: c-section, small birthweight
Well, I spent a good deal of time praying, worrying, and cleaning (yeah, I know…it was nice to stay busy) last night, and Mike and I stayed up playing Scrabble because I just couldn’t go to bed without any news. I feared the worst for hours because we weren’t hearing anything about the situation. Finally sometime close to midnight, Mike’s mom called and said that everything is okay. We have another nephew and he is TINY! 4 lbs 11 oz and 17 in. long! Being two and a half weeks early obviously has something to do with this, as his older brother was only two days early but weighed 5 lbs 8 oz.
The irony is that the crisis got me to clean my bedroom – it’s not done, but I made great progress last night while I was waiting for news. I thought it we went to bed I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Then after we had gotten the good news and finished our game, I couldn’t fall asleep. I told myself that since the kids had been sleeping in until nine or nine-thirty the last few days, it wasn’t so bad – even if it was after two when I fell asleep, they’d sleep late and I could get seven hours of sleep at least. Well, I was awake before eight and couldn’t go back to sleep – thinking about that new baby, of course. They’re not here in town, but forty minutes away, so I was trying to determine how I might be able to see them while they are still in the hospital. And…trying to figure out what to do about my midday appointment today. It’s a pre-anaesthetic clinic and takes about an hour. The original plan was to have Mike stay with the kids through his lunch break and then have my neighbour come over when he had to go back to work. Now he’s working at the gravel pit for the day, which means he won’t be coming home for lunch at all. So I have to do some thinking and calling around to figure something out.
Add to all this my own personal stress, swollen face and pained jaw and I seriously need a vacation.
Filed under: Faith, Illness and Injury, Mi familia | Tags: Faith, high blood pressure, prayer, pregnancy
After feeling pity for myself and shedding a few tears over my bad day, I got a phone call to put it all in perspective. My sister-in-law, who is due July 7th with her second baby, was taken out of town in an ambulance to be induced after being in the hospital here overnight with high blood pressure. The baby is small, the placenta looks bad and I am terrified that something is going to happen to her or the baby. I have such love for her and that baby and her thirteen month old son. Our nephew was small – 5 lb 8 oz – and only two days early, so it seems this baby could be even smaller.
At the heart of my fears, right next to my worst one, which would be something happening to her or the baby, is another one – that regardless of what happens, things are going to get worse for me. That my situation will be ignored by everyone who knows her, and especially by Mike’s family. It is terribly selfish and an awful thing to feel, I’m sure, but I can’t help it. I am desperate for my own family right now. For parents or siblings who love me. For aunts or uncles or cousins who would offer help. But they are all so far away and can’t do a thing for me right now except pray. I guess the best I can do is to ask them to do that much, for me and especially for Mike’s sister.
So I’ll ask you as well (whoever you may be) to pray for our family – for Mike’s sister and her unborn baby, for her husband and their son and for Mike, Jenny, Elias, Erik and me. And pray that this would all serve to prove God’s power and purpose in our lives.
For a reminder of what I am doing this month, read this post.
Psalm 18:1
I love you, Lord; you are my strength.
For some reason, VOTD has not posted a new verse of the day for today, so I searched “March 31, 2009 verse of the day” and this one came up, from www.air1.com. Not where I would have searched for a verse of the day, but it will do.
This is simplicity in a verse. I do love my Saviour, and He is my strength. The key here is acknowledging day in, day out, that He is my strength and He alone. Without Him I am nothing, and I can accomplish nothing. I have tried this path in the past, and it leads to destruction and disappointment. If I hold onto my love for Him, and continue to get to know Him each day, this strength can truly be felt in my life. It is similar (although far greater) to my relationship with Mike. I love him, and he is a great help to me. He can help lift me up when I fall down and is always a shoulder I can cry on. When I work towards better knowing and understanding my husband, I love him more and am more accepting of the strength he offers to me. Take this earthly relationship and multiply it by thousands upon thousands, and this is what God offers us – unconditional love, a constant listening ear, forgiveness from all our sins, eternal life with Him.
Today, I felt God’s strength in tangible ways – patience with my children (not at each moment, but better than most days), motivation to work in my home. I made caramelized onions and vegetable soup, using all the produce I spent so much money on to make nourishing and tasty things for my family to eat. The vegetable soup is my effort to feed the kids veggies without them balking at the plate. I pureed it and they haven’t had it like that yet, so we’ll see if it works. Erik did have some that I put through the hand mill and he seemed to enjoy it.
Tomorrow I have the day off, or mostly, from my oldest children. I’m running errands in the morning while they all stay with my friend, and then I’ll have lunch with them and take Erik home with me to get some house work done. I’m trying to do some work now so that I can get more accomplished tomorrow, but it’s hard to know where to start. At the very least, I need to get laundry done today, even if I have to do it after Mike gets home.
Anyway, I know that all this will get done and it will be easier to do if I don’t think of it as too trivial to ask God to help me. He cares about my home life and my family and can help me even in this thing that I hate doing – cleaning.
For a reminder of what I’m doing this month, read this post.
Matthew 16:26
For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
This verse comes on a day when I was determined to get things done and instead just feel tired and mildly sick. To me, gaining the whole world may mean having a house that is a perfect, peaceful haven of cleanliness, or perhaps having children that impress everyone with their perfection, or even having more material goods that I feel would make my life easier (a newer van, a bigger house, the ability to go on nice vacations). Even if I have all of this someday, the most important thing I can do is to have a relationship with my Saviour. There will come a day, in eternity, where all of this will only matter if I used my time wisely or wasted it. It won’t have anything to do with how often I mopped my kitchen floor, but rather, how often did I reach out to my neighbours? how often did I tell my kids I love them and that Jesus loves them, too? did I make time for God in my daily life? This is both reassuring and terrifying. I focus all too often on the daily chores I have to do as being all important and too often worry about what other people will think of my skill (or lack thereof) as a homemaker, when really, I should be putting my first thoughts and greatest efforts towards Godly living. I know deep down that if I put this effort in, I would have an easier time keeping things in order, or at the very least, having a lot less stress about it. The last thing I want to do is reach the end of my life and realize that I put too much of my time into worrying about my house or what people think about me, and not enough time with my family and friends, and most importantly, God.
This verse of the day comes from VOTD.
For a reminder of what I’m doing here, see this post.
Galatians 6:7-8
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for
whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap
corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of
the Spirit reap everlasting life.
This one was easy – I knew what I would write as soon as I read the first part of the verse. What you sow, you will reap. What you plant in the ground will surely grow up and there will be no changing it. What I have planted in my home, in my children, in my marriage, will either reap benefits or consequences later in my life. In relation to housework, when I repeatedly throw tags from new clothing, socks, clothes that aren’t quite dirty and other random things on the floor at the end of my bed, I will eventually have quite a mess on my hands and I will have to clean it up, like I did today. With my children, if I tell them I love them and show them by being the mom they need me to be, I will hopefully be helping them along to being healthy and happy adults. In my marriage, when I take the time to talk to Mike about what is bothering me or what I like, things won’t pile up inside me and spill out all at once.
In relation to the second half of this verse, what I do for myself selfishly will only benefit me and possibly hurt others, whereas what I do for others and what I do to work towards growth in Christ’s love will only reap rewards, whether here or in Heaven. Making these choices for good time usage is not always easy. It is easier to sit around doing a whole bunch of nothing that makes me feel good than to spend time investing in other people’s lives. It is easier to make the mess and leave it for someone else to clean up, but it will always be my responsibility as long as I am alive.
This verse of the day comes from VOTD.
My parents separated when I was seven, so after that year, I remember Christmases the same way – Christmas Eve opening gifts with my dad’s family, a trip to my mom’s late at night, waking up to open gifts at her house in the morning and then going to spend the rest of the day with her family. We seldom deviated from this routine, and so when I married Mike, it was not a strange idea at all to open gifts on Christmas Eve. We always opened gifts from my dad before we went to his sister’s house, and opened our stockings from him when we came back from my mom’s. Mike’s family had a tradition of doing everything on Christmas Eve – stockings included. Because I’m all for immediate gratification, celebrating Christmas the day before it actually comes doesn’t bother me one bit. We open gifts and stockings on Christmas Eve at Mike’s parents house and Christmas morning we get to sleep in and then go back to their house for breakfast. The last few years, we’ve left the kids to spend the night (when they weren’t nursing anymore) and spent the night alone at our house. Since I don’t have much space for Christmas decorations, it is nice to spend most of the holiday at my in-laws, where it feels warm and cozy and is well-decorated.
The other part of Christmas Eve tradition is all the food we eat. There is a nice spread of appetizer type foods – smoked salmon, chicken wings, spanikopita, chips, crackers, cheese, dips, and lots of cookies and other desserts. Usually accompanied by eggnog and wine (not mixed together, don’t worry), this is a food lovers dream. So, tonight, I will eat myself to oblivion – or at least get as close as I can without vomiting. And we’ll open gifts, sing carols and take lots of pictures.
Do you have Christmas traditions that are unique to your family? Leave comments and tell me about them! Merry Christmas!!
