Signs that Your Three-Year-Old May Be Giving Up His Nap

The first clue is when he spends all of naptime knocking loudly on his door and yelling his version of, "Mommy, let me out!"

But in this house, rest time is crucial so I determinedly put him down the next afternoon, explaining that it is very important for him Mommy to have a rest time.

I enjoyed a peaceful, if a little strange, kind of quiet for the next hour and half, and I managed to convince myself that he must have certainly fallen asleep.


Not so much.

I later discovered that he was very, very busy during naptime. The entire bookshelf was emptied along with all of the toy bins. And all of Caleb's clothes - those hanging up really high as well as the ones in the dresser - were removed and stuffed into a hiding spot.

Not that I found any of this shocking. This is, after all child number three for me.

It takes more than a ransacked room to faze me.

But when I discovered that he changed his own diaper (rather thoroughly actually), left the used diaper and wipes in a neat pile for me, securely fastened a clean diaper on himself and resumed playing - that'll do it.



Yeah, I realize that it's way past time for potty training, and I'm gonna get to that tomorrow.

But right now I need a nap.

The World Through A Two-Year-Old's Eyes

I have been reading about being a more sympathetic mom. This has been more convicting than I care to admit.

I serve a God who "is not unable to sympathize with our weakness but has been tempted in every way just as we are" (Heb 4:15). A God who doesn't look down His nose at us in judgment and roll His eyes at our weakness, but who One who put on the cloak of our frail humanity and came and walked in our shoes for 33 years.

So today, as I was throwing up my hands in frustration at my two-year-old and wondering why everything with him, and I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g has to be a battle, I began to consider what life must look like from his point of view.

What must it be like when you are two and everything in the world is new and exciting and just waiting to be discovered and explored and conquered? To have such a wild variety of things before you to touch and smell and taste and write on the wall with?

When you're two (and in possession of a serious type A personality), you have an insane amount of energy coursing through your veins as you run through the world, heady with the desire to get control and have dominion over all of it.

Except you can't be in control because the big people are in control. And they want you to sit still and be quiet because they don't have any energy left to chase you around.

And in Joshua's case, what's it like to have a boisterous 6 foot 7 inch personality crammed inside a tiny little body just bursting to get out? To have so much to say and almost no one who understands it?

I looked at him tonight and remembered that he really is very cute and endearing, not just a stinker who is trying to make my life as difficult as possible. I took some extra time to enjoy him, to make him feel that he is understood.

Practicing sympathetic thinking towards him however, certainly doesn't make me any more permissive. Especially when my two-year-old still has yet to learn that he actually has limitations.

The other day at the pool, he and his big brother were laughing as they jumped into the pool with little inner tubes around their waists. Some kids his age might be worried when their faces momentarily go under water, but not Joshua.

In fact, when Caleb had had enough of his inner tube, he climbed out, tossed it to the side and jumped in with a big splash (he could touch the bottom here, but it was well over Joshua's head). Josh watched with delight and then seemed to decide Well, if it's good enough for Caleb, it's good enough for me!

He too stepped out of his inner tube and tossed it away recklessly. With a wild yell and without so much as a glance towards me, he leaped into the pool and sunk straight to the bottom.

I pulled him up, expecting him to sputter and cough and need reassuring, but he emerged smiling and ready to go again.

At this point, I'm thinking about all the houses we go to that have backyard pools, including a babysitter's, and I decide to let him jump again. As I watch him sink like a rock, I think that maybe it would be good for him if I gave him a few extra seconds on the bottom before I pulled him out.

And I'm talking just a few extra seconds. We were, after all, right under the lifeguard's chair and if I had let it get to the point where she had to jump in and save him while I was just watching him drown with a "I hope you're learning your lesson" look on my face well, there's goes my Mother-of-the-Year award for sure.

A few extra seconds, though, really did nothing to help him gain healthy respect for water's power over him.

Later, as he played in the shallow water, he decided things looked a little better in the deep end. He began tiptoeing towards it, the water slowly rising until just his nose and a few inches of his face were showing. Rather than being concerned, though, he kept determinedly pushing towards his destination while barking orders at me to hurry up and provide assistance.

So I'm doing my best to get both him and me through the next few years without too many scrapes and bruises, and I'm learning a little about sympathy and understanding along the way.

Perhaps my most convicting moment came about a week ago during a hectic trip to the grocery store.

Joshua truly does not seem to realize that he is younger than his siblings and therefore not entitled to all of the same privileges they enjoy. He is incensed when we treat him like... well, like a two-year-old. One of our biggest struggles comes when he has to suffer the indignity of being strapped into the grocery cart while everybody else gets to walk.

On this particular day he protested so fiercely (and all of my resolve had been worn down already that day) that I agreed to let him walk. Big mistake.

It was right before dinnertime, so the grocery store was swarming with people. My two-year-old was on a mission to lose me as fast as possible while investigating everything in the store. Add to that a five year old who was peppering me with questions: "Who was the tenth President of the United States? Well, you just have to tell me his last name. Do you know his first name? Okay, just tell me what he looked like? Why don't you know? Who says you have to be sixteen to drive? Why did they pick sixteen instead of a different number? Mom, are you listening to me? Then tell me what I just said."

I began to feel like I was held together by just a few tiny threads and Caleb was slowly unwinding one thread with his incessant questions, and Joshua was swiftly unraveling the other one as he ran away from me laughing.

I stopped the cart and told Joshua to stay RIGHT HERE as I walked a few feet away to look at a particular section. A store employee was right in front of what I wanted to look at, but I tried to look around him as Joshua kept running away from the cart to wrap himself around my legs.

I kept trying to get Joshua to stay in the right spot - "Over there, go over by the cart" - all the while distracted with what I was trying to look for. Finally irritation won out as I looked at him with clenched teeth and said a little too loudly: "Move over there right now!"

To my horror, the store employee thought I was talking to him and immediately jumped out of my way with wide eyes, gasping "I'm sorry, Ma'am."

"Oh, no, I'm sorry. I wasn't talking to you," I said sheepishly.

Yeah, I only talk in a harsh and mean tone of voice to my beloved offspring. I wouldn't talk to anyone else that way.

There's some food for thought.

On-the-Job Hazards

Every job has it's hazards and the one a mom of little ones faces is contracting the stomach flu from her kids.

I was just thinking the other day, Isn't it nice that we made it through this whole season without anybody throwing u- Oh, never mind.

I wish I could say that I'm full of sympathy and compassion for the particular child whose vomit I'm cleaning up, but really I find that it's more a feeling of dread, because I know that no matter how careful I am, it is quite likely that I will be hovering over a toilet soon myself.

Is there anything worse than the stomach flu?

I mean, yes, of course there are worse things, but really, when you are in that moment of shivering on the bathroom floor in misery and you can hear your kids running wild in the other room doing God only knows what, and you are thinking you should go check to make sure there are no sharp objects involved, but it takes all the energy you have just to blink... well, it's hard to imagine worse things.

Yesterday I found myself in just such a situation. Beyond the door I could hear my 5-year-old attempting to put my 2-year-old in time out. From the sound of things, it didn't appear to be going very well.

My 7-year-old was "in charge" and preparing a snack for her brothers.

"Whoa, that's a whole lot of chocolate chips!" I could hear Caleb saying.

I tried to care, but I was too busy counting the minutes until my husband could come home and take care of all of us and thinking profound thoughts like, "When was the last time I cleaned these baseboards?" and "God, kill me now."

Yes, I know I'm overly-dramatic, but next time you get the stomach flu feel free to tell me all about how you kept it all in perspective and found the strength to pull through. As for me, I think I'm going to try to milk it for another day...

Stitches

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm told it can't be avoided when you have little boys. Caleb has already had his Emergency Room visit (after whispering words like "brain infection" for a few hours they finally diagnosed him with a stiff neck), and Joshua earned his trip to Urgent Care after breakfast this morning when he was careening wildly through the house, tripped, and had an unfortunate and abrupt encounter with the edge of a step stool.

He was obviously hurt, although I didn't realize how badly, until I looked under his chin and saw an ENORMOUS gaping hole and the exposed layers of fat under his skin, and blood beginning to pour out.

Now at this point, a good mother would have remained calm and calmly told her children to get dressed and get in the car quickly. But this mother panicked and screamed in horror, putting fear into every little member of the household as she shouted at them: "Get your clothes on! Get dressed! We have to go somewhere!" But where? What is the protocol for getting stitches? Do you call the pediatrician? Go to Urgent Care? The ER? I did the only thing I could think of.

I called my mom. It seemed completely logical. Of course she would know exactly what do to (and it doesn't hurt that she is a registered nurse). She reassured me that it surely wasn't as bad as it must look. Somehow, even though she is more than a hundred miles away (and the doctor would later contradict her words), I felt much better and at least found the presence of mind to get out of my jammies and drive to Urgent Care.

At least my children know what to do in an emergency. Later Caleb told me, "When I had my underweaw on but not my shirt, I wemembered to pway."

But then I started having trouble remembering where Urgent Care was. It seemed to be much farther than I remembered and surely there had to be a closer one. And then I saw I huge sign: URGENT CARE. But it wasn't until I swerved through several lanes of traffic that I noticed the teeny tiny letters that said COMING SOON. What a stupid sign, I fumed. Nobody plans on going to the Urgent Care next month. When people need an Urgent Care, they need it RIGHT NOW when blood is running down their child's neck in the backseat.

We finally found it, and I later noticed how many people walked nonchalantly through the door as if they were going to the Post Office. We walked in barely out of jammies (one child still in them), with a masses of tangled hair and tears and blood gushing out everywhere. So maybe it was a tad dramatic, but I do think it gets you in a little sooner.

The doctor took one look at Joshua and grimaced. "Yikes, that looks bad...ooh, that's really bad." Don't they have to take some kind of class in medical school that covers things you should never to say to an upset mother about her child's face????

Caleb entertained Joshua with stories of his own trip to the "hopsible" when he had to get X-rays and drink yucky stuff and I asked the doctor about sedatives for when they did the stitches. "Nah," he said casually, "we can just get a bunch of people to hold him down." Yes, but I couldn't seem to make anybody understand how many times in his little life this child has already been held down kicking and screaming so adults could poke his mouth and face.

Just as they were getting ready to do the dreaded procedure the door opened and our hero arrived - Daddy! We had already decided to send Grace and Caleb out of the room and he valiantly offered to let me go out with them while he helped hold Joshua down.

I did feel guilty about this - after all, Phil has a history of nearly fainting during medical procedures involving both of our other children (at one point a lab shut down and couldn't see anymore patients until I showed up, only to find Phil sprawled out on the floor and Baby Caleb eating through all candy in the employee Christmas stockings) - but as he pushed me out the door I thought about all of the times I have held down screaming children for shots and reasoned that maybe all of that added together was worth something.

Five minutes and five stitches later I was ushered back in to find Joshua tear-streaked and still shaking with anger, but soon a toy, popsicles, and balloons were offered, and it seems a popsicle can cover a multitude of offenses.

I kept apologizing to Grace and Caleb for getting them so upset in the morning, but they responded graciously. "You don't have to keep saying sorry, Mom." Grace said. "I know what it feels like to be scared."

And I don't think I need to worry about Joshua being traumatized. As soon as we arrived home, he was back to running around wildly and trying to jump off everything, laughing recklessly all the while... At least now I know where Urgent Care is.

Bedtime Stories

I think there should be something special about bedtime for children. Between the busyness of the day and the restfulness of night, I think God gives parents an intimate window of time to spend with their children. I have sweet memories of my parents talking and praying with me right before I went to sleep, and I find that my own kids are more willing to talk with me at that time, and more inspired by the stories I tell.

But so often, after a long day of homeschooling, housekeeping, nose wiping, diaper-changing, errand running, etc. etc., we get to bedtime and I am DONE. Especially on nights when my husband is gone, I am tempted to open the bedroom door and toss them into their beds with a quick: "Goodnight, I love you...AND DON'T COME OUT UNTIL MORNING!!"

I know I sound like a terrible mother, but truly our bedtime routine seems to last all night. By the time we get through the bath, the teeth brushing, the drinks of water, and the wrestling of jammies onto wiggly kids... then story routine starts. There's the story from a book, the story from when Mommy or Daddy was little, the Bible story.... I begin to think I will never get out of there!

Henry Blackaby says that the God of the universe not only speaks to His children through the Bible and prayer, but also in special ways that are unique to each of us, because His relationship to each of us is special and intimate. Blackaby encourages his readers to look for the the unique ways that God communicates with them.

I was thinking about that the other night as bedtime rolled around. It had been one of those days. And when I say it had been one of those days, I mean It had been one of those days. Phil was gone on this particular night, I wasn't feeling well, and was rather close to dissolving into a pathetic puddle of tears and self-pity. "But you have to tell us the Bible story!" my kids were insisting.

I used to put a lot of effort and drama into the Bible stories I told, making sure to tell them something I had just read about so that my enthusiasm, which they so easily catch, would be fresh. But on this night, like many others recently, I was trying to think of the shortest story I could come up with.

I began telling the story of the small lunch feeding a great crowd, and God in His great love for me, did something that has happened to me on many story-telling occasions. As I got about halfway into it, I listened to the words I was saying and realized they were for me. The story I have read and heard a thousand times spoke to me in a new way and encouraged me right where I was at on that night.

It was not the first time this has happened. Many times, I look at old Bible stories in a new light, or find encouragement or conviction from them as I'm telling them. And it's not usually until I start the story that this happens.

As I think back to Blackaby's words, I realize that God uniquely speaks to me when I am sharing His word with my kids. This is especially encouraging to me, because as a busy mom whose children have secretly negotiated to sleep on completely different schedules, I get very little time to myself. Usually when I am reading my Bible, someone is sitting right next to me scribbling in it (or on the wall). Fortunately, God is not limited by that. He has given me a full-time job, but is able to come and speak to me right when I am in the middle of it.

When you think about it, it's pretty strange that God chooses to speak to me while my mouth is moving, but then, I suppose that is part of the mystery of Philemon 1:6:

"I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you may have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ."

And if my kids get something out of it too, all the better. Meanwhile, I'm working on shortening that bedtime routine!

And So I Became A Soccer Mom...

...Or maybe I should title this post: Confessions of a Soccer Mom Drop-out. Was signing a child up for soccer and giving up all of our Saturdays really my idea? Okay, maybe it was, but nobody disclosed to me ahead of time how early the games would be.

This last Saturday, thanks to pre-game soccer pictures, we had the pleasure of getting ourselves to the field by 6:30 am. There are very few things, in my opinion, that warrant getting up while it's still dark on a Saturday morning, and soccer pictures are not one of those things.

I wracked my brain, trying to find some way I could just blow this off and still teach my daughter the value of being part of a team and honoring commitments. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to justify it, so I pulled myself out of bed on the one Saturday morning my two-year-old had decided to sleep in and didn't care to be awakened early.

In a magnanimous gesture I later regretted, I offered to let my husband get some much needed rest while I got everybody up and ready. And I use the term "ready" very loosely. By the time we made it to the soccer field, two of my children were still partially in pajamas and all had hair sticking up in numerous directions as they ate nutritious breakfasts out of baggies.

And then I discovered that apparently all of the "good" soccer moms had gotten up at 5:30 to curl their daughters' hair into ringlets for pictures and make sure they had cute little pony-tail holders to match their uniforms. Very cute, but seriously - ringlets?

As my rumpled daughter lined up to smile for pictures, I still couldn't help but think how beautiful she is. She may never allow me to come near her with a curling iron, but she has a genuine smile that lights up her entire face, cute freckles and all. She is having a great time playing and to her it doesn't matter at all that everyone else on the team has expensive cleats and she is wearing plain old tennis shoes because her mom actually believed the coach when he said cleats were optional.



Not so many Saturdays ago, I watched my kids running around in the grass outside our house playing soccer with their daddy and laughing their heads off.




I'm not sure why I thought it would be nice to spend a small fortune in order to trade that for spending our Saturdays trying to navigate a small parking lot with 50 bajillion other minivans and SUVs all trying to get their kids to soccer games on time. (I don't know why, but every time we pull into that parking lot, there are paramedics already attending to someone with an injury. I strongly suspect it is someone who has been run over by another frantic soccer mom.)

Don't get me wrong - it's not all that bad. The confidence I see blooming in my daughter is beautiful. I love it when the parents and older brothers get ready to scrimmage with the girls at practice and my once-timid daughter yells, "Bring it on!" to all of them. And I love it that she's never too serious to wave to her little brothers cheering for her on the sidelines. But then my four-year-old reminds me, "Mommy, I get to play next year too, right?" and his little brother gives me a look that seems to say, "Don't forget about me!"

And yes, that would be my toddler running out into the middle of the game. Again.

It doesn't seem like all that long ago I was a mom of preschoolers and babies, and the days seemed to last forever. I must have read the same story books a thousand times each day as I wondered if there was more to life than play-doh. I remember looking forward to the day my kids would be older and we could do fun things like organized sports.

Now we gulp down dinner and race around looking for shin guards so we can make it to soccer practice on time. As we pile into the car, I can hear Grace in the backseat: "... and after soccer is over I'm going to play basketball, and then tennis, and then maybe T-ball, and then swimming..." and I find myself thinking how nice it would be to stay home and play play-doh and read stories with my kids.

Being Thankful

Always be thankful, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Yesterday, as the morning light dawned, I met the day not with a smile, but with a groan. I had been up since 3:30 am with a screaming child and had just returned to my bed to find another child sprawled out in my spot. As I went off in search of another place to sleep, I couldn't help but think of what a hard week it had been.

There were quite a few things that I felt more than justified in complaining about. The only problem was, I couldn't, because it was Saturday. I keep a journal, and for the past couple of years, my practice has been that every Saturday I make a list in my journal of all of the things I can be thankful to God for from the past week. Some Saturdays (like this one) it is harder than others, but it is always very rewarding.

So I won't bore you with the whole thing, but I once I started, I had quite a few things to put on my list including:

• Joshua's fever finally broke. After two weeks, three different medicines, trips all over town to multiple doctors, and most importantly, lots of prayer, he is now fever-free!
• He is actually gaining weight. Apparently his restricted diet and refusal to eat didn't hurt him too much. He gained a whole pound in the last two weeks, and is now tipping the scales to the point where he is almost in the 5th percentile for weight!

There were also some rather unlikely things make the list this week. From the Don't Know Whatcha Got 'Till It's Gone category:

1. Getting to do laundry! No, I haven't started using drugs - I'm serious. To be more specific, I should say: getting to do laundry in my own house. Laundry has always been my least favorite household chore, the subject of much of my whining whenever I'm feeling the urge to whine. There's so much of it, it never ends, I hate it, blah, blah, blah...

With surgery and bloody drainage and colorful medicine being spit back at us, a washing machine out of commission couldn't have come at a worse time. I have had to drag my family's unmentionables to friend's houses, the laundromat, the Ronald McDonald House at the hospital, and even watched my kids scrubbing them in their play pool for fun. And now we have a working washing machine again and I am thrilled! I will never again groan over having to laundry at my house again! (Okay, that's just not true, but it sounded good.)

2. Cooking for my family. Because Joshua is on a restricted diet, we haven't wanted to eat forbidden foods in front of him. That means I haven't cooked in over two weeks. Truthfully, I kind of miss it.

3. Eating together as a family. We haven't all been able to do this in two weeks and it makes a big difference. Truthfully, mealtime with all my kids could fall under the category of things I used to complain about, because it was constant up and down for me, getting requested items from the fridge, cutting food up, refilling drinks, cleaning up spilled drinks, incessant chatter... and so often I thought how nice it would be to have a quiet meal by myself. But after having to hide out in other rooms to eat and sending my kids into other rooms to eat alone, I've learned just what a privilege it is to be able to eat together with my family.

4. Elbows. Yes, elbows - where would you be without them? My son has been without the use of his elbows for two weeks now and though he has adjusted and made the best of it, I've decided: life is just nicer with elbows.

Setbacks

There will be no arm-restraint burning parties around here today. Today was the day we had circled in red on our calendar, the long-awaited tenth post-operative day that we were told were be our toddler's last day in arm restraints.

But instead we received the disheartening news that he will have to continue wearing them until at least next week. He was also diagnosed with a raging double-ear infection that has thus-far proven resistant to two different antibiotics. Needless to say, our little guy is completely miserable and unable to sleep at night. We are all a little worn out.

Yesterday in particular was one of those of those days that seemed to stretch into eternity. I had been up a large part of the night with an inconsolable toddler who had also decided to start the day around 5am, and was so uncomfortable that he would only nap in my arms. My older kids, having been left to entertain themselves and allowed to watch too much TV lately, are not surprisingly climbing the walls and fighting with each other a lot.

In addition, we have been without a washing machine for over two weeks now and yesterday we were confined to the house all day to await the delivery of a replacement (finally!). This would have been fine except that we discovered during an early-morning diaper change that we were completely out of diapers.

After some frantic scrounging around the house, we discovered some swim diapers - adequate, but not quite so good on the leak-protection factor. Possibly even more tragic was the discovery that we were also out of coffee.

There was a moment in the day when red juice was spilled all over the floor, a sibling fight had resulted in minor bloodshed, and my miserable toddler wailed in my ear as his siblings continued to shout at each other. Head pounding and completely exhausted, I cast a hopeful glance at the clock. Surely my husband would be home soon. But, to my utter dismay, it was only 9:52 am. How could that possibly be??

And so we find ourselves in the school of endurance and perseverance. Perseverance, I'm told, must "finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:4) Too bad there isn't some other way to learn it. Couldn't I read a book on perserverance or something?

My husband did eventually make it home, bringing with him even more disheartening news: our washing machine would not be coming today after all.

Some encouragement did come, though. Undaunted, my daughter announced, "Don't worry, Mommy, I will make a washing machine and wash the clothes for you!"

A few minutes later she marched out the back door with a her new invention, an armful of laundry, and some soap and set to work.

Well, at least it keeps her busy, I reasoned.

Apparently, laundry is fun when you're six. One of Grace's friends came knocking on the door to play. "She's out back doing laundry," Phil informed her.

"Oooh, fun," was the response as she skipped to the backyard. And so our family's laundry became the neighborhood excitement for the afternoon. Soon our swing set was decorated with dripping socks and Batman underwear and Grace's friend went home, probably giving her parents an earful about the crazy homeschool family that makes their kids do laundry by hand outside.

On another note, one of Joshua's little buddies went in for his palate-repair surgery today. Please say a prayer for Will and his family as they go through recovery.

Giving up Control

Our surgeon had reassured me that although I wouldn't be feeding my one-year-old anything but liquid for ten days, "he'll do just fine with it." Maybe the fact that most of the toddlers he's around are under general anesthesia explains why an otherwise intelligent man could hold to such a delusion.

As for Joshua, he fiercely maintains that he would rather starve than be fed pureed food by someone else. The biggest issue for him seems to be one of giving up control and allowing someone else to feed him or even hold his cup while he's drinking. I am again struck by the difference in my sons. If Caleb had to lay in front of the TV and have someone pour food into his mouth, he would probably think he was in heaven, but Joshua has resisted this with everything he's got.

I have offered him many of his favorite things, including a popsicle, which he was pretty excited about until he found out that it would be me, not him, holding it. He let me know in no uncertain terms that even such a treat as that would not persuade him to give up control. We have managed to wrestle a few liquids in him, and I do mean wrestle. Physically, he is weakening, but his resolve has yet to budge.

I have to wonder if this is just a natural tendency toward stubbornness and independence magnified by toddler-hood, or the result of some early experience in the orphanage.

His will of iron is actually kind of impressive. I'm sure it will serve him well someday when he is a CEO, or an Olympic athlete, or perhaps even the dictator of a small country, but if he (and we) are going to make it through the next ten days, he's going to have to bend a little and decide to trust us.

I once heard it said that children, for all their immaturity and quirkiness, have a way of sometimes acting as mirrors for us. As I watch my son beating all of his limbs on the floor in frustration, choosing hunger and misery over surrender, I feel like God gently whispers to me, This is what you look like sometimes.

I know I'm Whining..

My new favorite quote this week is again from Gary Thomas as he talks about the problem with most parenting books:

"They assume, first, that you're calm, and second, that you have the time and energy to write out reward charts, draw out discipline contracts, and still have the peace of mind to administer them calmly and peacefully. On top of this, they assume that you and your spouse are on the same page, that you don't feel buried under financial pressure, and that you don't have a headache, cramps, or a pressing deadline at work."

Amen.

And not that any of us around here are immature enough to keep track of these things, but only one of us did all of the poop collecting and stirring required for Joshua's lab work. In my husband's defense, he was at work for all but one of the "opportunities to collect."

On that one for which he was here, he watched me do it with great amusement, making comments like, "Wow, I've never heard anyone's stomach wretch like that before." And then when I was finished he said, "I guess I could have done that for you."

What a convenient time for that thought to occur to him!

But I didn't start this post to complain about my family (It just sort of happens, you know, because I'm a natural whiner). I've actually been whining about a lot of things this week. Yes, it's been a hard couple of weeks, but I knew it would be. I thought I could handle it without being impatient, resentful, and unkind to the people I love the most and am called to serve. I was wrong.

Sometimes, I guess seeing ugly things in ourselves is good for us. How else would we realize how much we need God and how much we don't deserve the extravagant grace He gives us?

For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Cor 12:10

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very BadTuesday

Sunshine without rain is a recipe for a desert.
- Arab Proverb

We have been living this week in the land of pink eye, fevers, coughing and gag-induced vomit, sleep-deprivation, behavior regression in our older kids, and the joy of collecting stool samples.

We took Joshua for his first doctor's visit today. Our appointment was very early, and it was quite challenging to get all of us out the door in time since I'm not still not quite used to getting that many people ready and everybody's still a little under the weather.

What is it about the doctor's office? It happens to us every time. The kids can be so calm and well-behaved and then there's something about waiting in that tiny exam room. The pressure to make noise builds and builds.

By the time the doctor gets in there, the contents of my purse are everywhere and noise is bouncing off the walls and cold tile. By the end of the exam when I'm trying to have a discussion with him, the cacophony is deafening.

There was an almost surreal moment today when I'm looking at these stringy-haired children in mismatched clothes as they tear up the protective paper on the exam table and toss it around the room making " snow" and I'm thinking, "Who ARE these kids and where have I gone so terribly wrong?"

And it was only 8:30 in the morning.

I was desperate for a nap by about 11:00 and I had to get Joshua to sleep so he would get a nap before his x-ray appointment. Grace and Caleb were in their rooms for rest time with the usual strict instructions not to come out unless it is a REAL emergency. Joshua was not happy and after a long battle he finally settled down with a big sleepy sigh.

At that exact moment, Grace bursts in and starts digging noisily through my bathroom drawer. Joshua immediately wakes up and starts the battle all over again. Enter the evil mom. As I turn on my daughter in frustration, she explains that she needed some floss.

Floss??! Since when did dental hygiene become such a priority for her? Since when did it qualify as a REAL emergency?

Fortunately, our x-ray and lab appointments went much better - well, not in Joshua's opinion. At the lab, we were also given some plastic tubes and the technician instructed me in the fine art of bottling poop.

Oh, the fun, it just keeps on coming.

J.I. Packer says that every single thing that happens to us in life is an expression on God's love for us. Hmm. I know that must be true, still, as my kids were playing this fun game called "Open the Bathroom Door while Mom is Going Potty in the Public Restroom," I must say that I'm not exactly feelin' the love.

Thank God for the little blessings that get a mom through the day, like a toddler who delights in constantly covering me with sweet, if a little-too-wet kisses, and a four-year-old who walks by me as I sort laundry and randomly reminds me that God can do anything.

Yes, He can. And I suspect He has more opportunity to work in me when I'm bottling up poop than when I'm smelling the roses.

"We live in the midst of holy teachers. Sometimes they spit up on themselves or on us. Sometimes they throw tantrums. Sometimes they cuddle us and kiss us and love us. In the good and the bad they mold our hearts, shape our souls, and invite us to experience God in newer and deeper ways. Although we may shed many tears along this sacred journey of parenting, numerous blessings await us around every bend in the road." -Gary Thomas, Sacred Parenting

The Miracle of Life

Apparently, the word on the street among our neighborhood cats is that the Klein backyard is the place to hang out. It seems that our patio chairs are the most comfortable for napping and our garden is the best spot for pooping. We have tried without success to get rid of them, and now they are multiplying.

Grace discovered the newborn kittens on our patio Thursday afternoon and her excited shouts shattered the peace and quiet of the whole neighborhood: "The cat had babies! The cat had babies!"

Approximately 1.75 seconds later our doorbell rang and just about every kid on our block came stampeding through the house to see the new kittens.

I actually felt sorry for that cat as this noisy mob of kids crowded around her, all shouting at the same time: "Can I have one? Can I have one of your cats?"

"Those are NOT my cats," I said, but my voice was drowned out by more excited shouts. "There's another one! She had another one!"

A couple of the kids grabbed hands and began dancing for joy around the backyard. Here are some pictures of their ecstatic celebration.