Entries from April 2009 ↓

 Ever since the nice weather struck, I’ve noticed a trend. Every Thursday morning around 11am a group of Special Needs people walk by my house towards the park right near me. I’ve seen them a few times and my heart went out to them. I always see them and wish I could change the world for them; somehow make people a little more understanding towards them, a little kinder, just make life a little easier in general.

  But this particular morning I had been having a bad day. I stood there watching out my window thinking about all the things wrong in my life. The kids were (STILL) sick. I had to pay the bills. My mom has to have a biopsy of a lump. The stupid Swine Flu killing the little boy and the media totally panicking everyone was about enough to make me want to throw up.  Plus, I needed sleep.

  So anyway, back to the window. The group of people were approaching as I stood there and watched. They were apparently going on a picnic because they had lunch boxes in tow. They were happy. Open mouthed smiles; pearly white gleaming through. A few of them beckoned my attention even more because they were skipping. Skipping! And they had their lunch boxes on their arms and they were just swinging in the breeze. A car drove passed them and about 4 of them waved, openly and genuinely greeting the passer by.

  And it was at that moment that I decided that I was not going to feel sorry for them again. Sure, I wish people were kinder to them. I wish the world was more accepting and respecful towards them them. That, I will never stop wishing for.  But feeling actually downright sorry for them; why? They were walking down the road, happy as larks. I would suggest that they had not a care in the world, except I think that each of them probably had their fair share of cares. But they were able to leave their cares at home and SKIP! They were living in the moment, drinking fully the fresh air, just happy to be alive and walking. 

  I learned a pretty Big Lesson watching them today, I did.

I thought we were getting over the worst. Starting to round the corner.

The corner apparently just had more germs. Someone must have touched the handrail on the way around.

I woke up this morning to Forest’s little face peering at me. “My neck hurts. I’M GOING TO BARF”. And barf he did. Over and over and over. (He and Warrior have also had the diarrhea over the past several days, but I thought the bug was on it’s way OUT, not in.)

Another trip to the doctor. That makes 6 in two weeks for us. (Ouch.) I thought perhaps he had strep throat (’neck’ aching, vomiting, etc.). The rapid is negative. The Ped thinks it’s either one loooong virus that’s morphing into different stages or an entirely different virus altogether.

If getting down on my hands and knees and begging for a break from the germs would get us one, you bet your beets I’d be there. (What? You have no beets? Oh. Well. Neither do I. But I would do it. Even if I didn’t have any beets.)

I don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve tried airing out the house. I’ve tried Clorox bleach wipes. Washing hands constantly. Germ-X’ing hands constantly. We haven’t been to Story Hour, Play Groups, Church or Homeschool Co-Op. I haven’t even really taken them to the grocery store either. I don’t know what the heck else to do!

Pray I guess?

I haven’t been around much these days.

Fancy saw the doctor 4 times in 2 weeks. The fevers, the coughing, the vomiting. 14 nights of taking turns sleeping while sitting up with the baby. The baby not sleeping more than 30 minutes without a bad coughing jag that produced vomit, or a fever.  Oye. By the 4th visit, it’s bad of me to admit, I was actually hoping there was something that could be fixed with antibiotics.

I saw the doctor only once. Fortunately for me, I got antibiotics that very first visit. Strep throat. (I guess that happens when you accidently drink someone’s bottle of water who has just been diagnosed with strep throat. Talk about the poison. My husband told me to just drink a bottle of Whisky and it would burn it out of me. Yeah, it would have done something like that.)

It was so beautiful Friday, but we pretty much stayed inside and did a lot of this:
(I guess you can’t see the open window with the warm breeze blowing through it. It was delightful.)

Fancy seems to be on the road to recovery and I feel better myself.

So yesterday and today we did a lot of this:

Digging our feet in the sand (who needs a beach?!)

Steering our boats

Flying down fast

The wind whipping our hair (or Cousin It)

Mostly we’re just excited. And we cannot wait for Summer. Our plans are sky high.

I feel like my house is really overwhelming right now and it’s because of STUFF.

I’m not a sentimental person nor am I saver. But still, STUFF just adds up so darn quickly.

Right now we live in 850 sq. feet. (To be fair, we have a full unheated basement and an unfinished upstairs that is close to completion, that will add another 300 or so sq. footage). In that small amount of space, STUFF Is so much more obvious.

I’ve always been about living a more simple lifestyle. I embrace my square footage and to be honest, I am content with it and wouldn’t move if I could. I really believe that more stuff and bigger houses don’t make people truly happy. (Ask someone like my mom who has blood cancer, or someone that has Mesothelioma cancer - they do not care about that type of thing!) I feel like my house is really overwhelming right now and it’s because of STUFF.

Every so often I purge stuff. I am often guilty of just purging clothing from my closet and the childrens’ toys. But this week I am going full tilt.

I am going to start in my kitchen. I do not need everything in my cupboards. If I haven’t used it in 2 years because I can’t reach it, it is going bye-bye. Even if it is useful and nice to have around ‘just in case’.

I just cannot stand it anymore and my heart longs for a more simplified house. I never want a huge house. I never want lots of stuff.  I like clean and uncluttered. I like having what we need and that it.

I just cannot stand it anymore and my heart longs for a more simplified house.

I will keep you updated.

Contrary to the title of my topic, I am not literally going to sing. That would probably scare all of you away (all 4 of my readers).

I hate to complain, but we have had a very, very tough week over here. It seems as though the hard work and stress of this first semester in school full-time wants to go out with one giant bang. (I can only wish it’d hurry.)

Every one of the children is sick. Fevers, sore throats, hideous coughing. I mentioned that I was up with Fancy conintually for 4 nights. I got a small reprieve before it started with Warrior. Poor kid’s fever was hovering around 103-103.5 for several nights. I can’t sleep when he’s like that, as he’s had febrile seizures in the past and I stay up to watch him. I take his temperture every 20 minutes to make sure it’s under control. (These are the things Therapists were made for.) I just have not slept at all.

Add to that the School Work. (I’m aware that’s a random capitalization and I meant it. School Work deserves to be capitalized. It’s HUGE and it takes overthe world. And it’s earned the right.) Oh, the School Work.

Between this past weekend and this coming Saturday, my husband will have completed:

read 1 novel

write 10 pages worth of assignments pertaining to said novel

read 1 play

write 10 pages worth of assignment pertaining to said play

write a 5 page in depth paper on either the play or the novel

finish research on writer 12 page paper on the economic differences between Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Complete 1 Final

Prepare PowerPoint presentation on Autism

Give a lengthy presentation on Autism to his class

It sounds like he’s behind, doesn’t it? Funny thing is, he’s not really. Maybe he’s a week and a half or so behind, but that’s it. And that’s not even his fault; he’s working and trying to juggle everything and that’s just the way the balls fell.

Unfortunately the Lit class is just a Killer. It’s a great class, and even I’ve learned things from it (via him and from proof-reading his papers), however, the amount of work is just incredible. Like 10 pages of writing plus the reading material each week. Crazy!

So here I am with the very, very sick children, trying to keep them from getting at husband. Just wishing for a nap (as is he!).

Last night, literally one after another they got up the entire night. I told my husband at 3 am that this would actually be slightly amusing… if it weren’t real. But alas, it is. It’s like a bad dream.

So my mom felt a lump in her breast the other week. She got a mammogram and an ultrasound. She got a note in the mail on Saturday saying it was all normal. Big sigh of relief. Until today, the mammogram was OK, but the ultrasound wasn’t. They want her to see a breast surgeon because of a suspicious nodule.

On top of this, I get to plan my daughter’s first birthday party. Normally that would be fun, but I’m averaging about 1-2 hours of sleep per night the last week. It just seems big and daunting. And it’s not even a bounce-house, bakery cake, catered dinner party. It’s just a simple home-made cake, cheese curl, bologna sandwiches party. (OK, really it’s not. My MIL’s cakes are to die for. Cheese curls make me want to barf seeing as how I really did barf them up when I was 9. Bologna should not be allowed to be considered a meat.)

So I’m thinking of all of this, right? Just how I want a break. I am fantascising about going grocery shopping without the children. Perhaps stuffing myself with a big chocolate frosted, white cream filled doughnut as I lazily stroll through the store. You know it’s bad when that’s the wildest thing you can imagine.

My house is in shambles. I’d take a picture to prove it, but oh yeah, I hid the camera and forgot where I put it. (You’d have hidden the camera too when you found the kids taking pictures of each other nekkid behinds.) Um, where was I?

Oh yes. After a day of just chasing with very, very little accomplished (actually a week like that), I started washing the dishes at 5 pm. About 4 cups, 2 spoons, and 3 bowls later (we can eat again) at EIGHT o’clock (they’re called interruptions, and I have three) I give the baby a bath. She splashes and I recoup on the toilet. (The lid was closed, don’t worry.) The kids destroy their bedroom. I put everyone in their PJ’s.

We are in the bathroom and the kids are all half asleep brushing their teeth and I look over. And my heart stops beating. My stomach falls. Silently, VERY silently (perhaps she has some freakish stealth skill I’m unaware of), the baby has managed to be STANDING ON THE FRIGGIN’ TOILET. What the hecketh? She doesn’t even walk! (My latest walker, glory be! And yes, I do mean that, thankyou!) I pick her down, not letting my mind do any what if’s and thinking about all the lovely teeth she could have knocked out, or head wounds she may have suffered. I look at her pink little cheeks and go to kiss her sweet curly hair (did I mention her hair curls in the back? And those little curls are tightly wrapped around her Daddy’s little finger) and do a touble take. What the heck?  I did not smell the expected freshly bathed baby hair, oh no I did NOT. It wreaked of pee! Pee! On my sweet baby’s head. Dis-Gusting. And she laughed at me. Right out loud, I swear she did. Lovely. Or not. You choose.

So I get the kids into bed. Read them a story book from the library. Turn out the lights. I start to sing. It will be better for me to sing them forty million songs that it would be risk them calling for 9000 drinks of water. The baby is on the ground playing (I shut the door and she will not escpate) with the Rescue Heroes police car. As I sing softly she presses the button: WHEW, WHEW, WHEW the sirens roar and the lights flash as they fill up the room. I sing LOUDER. WHEW, WHEW, WHEW they screech again. I sing even louder! “I’M GONNA LET IT SHINE! THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE…………. The sirens roar, the lights flash, the song goes on. And guess what… I started to feel it. Not rage. No, no. I started to feel the song. “DON’T LET SATAN BLOW IT OUT! I’M GONNA LET IT SHINE!”. And I’m singing louder. And I can’t feel fevers. And I’m not tired. The school work is out of my mind. Cancer isn’t winning. My numbers in my checking account don’t matter. I’m all alone, singing on top of a mountain (which apparently has a highway near by it as I might hear a siren in the distance), and my arms are out, and my feet are bare, and the grass is tickling my toes in the warm breeze. And the light is on. In my heart. And I’m singing it and meaning it.

I open my eyes. The boys are sleeping. The baby is sitting on the floor watching me. I pick her up, she cuddles in closely and I nurse her. I lay her in bed (on hubby’s side not mine; are you crazy, remember the stinky hair?) and she sleeps.

The house is quiet and so is my heart. My flame may have flickered this past week, but it is not out. And it never will be.

It never ceases to amaze me how music is a language the heart can understand. It can make us feel lovey-dovey, sad, happy, encouraged, and a whole host of other emotions. What a beautiful gift God gave us when he put music in our souls.