10 on Wednesday

All day Monday it felt like the weekend with Jamie being off work. Then yesterday in my head felt like Monday... so I woke up today ready to do my "Ten on Tuesday" for the first time in a long time and heh, I'd missed Tuesday. Oh well, here's Ten on Wed for you.


1. I'm so stinkin' happy for my best friend and her new job! I'm also praying for other job situations.

2. Mark caught the bad bug. I thought we were so in the clear. All day Monday, no one was puking. All day Tuesday, no one was puking... Tuesday at 9pm, however, in his bed, Mark started. Ugh. We knew we were in for a long night. Jamie cleaned up the puke while I held Mark on the couch. I passed him to Jamie so I could start the laundry since his lovey (boc) blanket was nasty. While starting the laundry, Jamie got puked on. He passed me Mark and striped down and Mark puked on me. It was one of those laugh or cry about it scenes. I started laughing and couldn't stop. We got all cleaned and settled on the couch and Mark puked on me again. He's now on Jammy 3, I'm on Jammy 2... By 11pm, he'd gotten sick twice more and we'd both changed clothes again. By 1am, we were more than all worn out.

3. Jamie's parents brought us their old couches. We now have new couches in our living room! I'm so tickled. They are GREAT couches! (THANK YOU GUYS AGAIN!) This morning I had a carpet cleaner come and treat them with sanitizer and a carpet protectant something or another with a steam cleaning treatment. This is what our living room currently looks like, as the couch cushions are drying. I'm sure I'll post "new couches" pics when we are put together.


4. This is what Mark is doing while he's recovering without a couch to sit on. Pedialite in one hand, sitting with his new pillow pet and watching Blue's Clues...


5. I love my kitchen aid already. LOVE IT. Here's a picture of my new favorite toy. And so much for "I'll be making bread soon" in my previous post. I so made sugar cookies yesterday to try it out.

6. Random thought about my hearing aid... I hate battery day. Every ten days you have to change the battery. Nice huh? That's kind of often. More often than I thought it would be anyhow. But regardless, there it is. So on battery day so far this has happened... 1 time I was at a friend's house when my low battery beeped and shut off and I was without a new battery. That pretty much sucked. 1 time I was driving and had problems hearing Matthew in the backseat and was getting frustrated with "the stupid thing not working" and after I'd dropped him off, it beeped. A little "ohhhh" moment occurred when I realized that I probably was struggling be/c the battery was failing. Today though... today, I heard the beep beep warning that it was going to die, but forgot about it. So then BAM it shuts off and I'm like "what?! ohhh yahhh..." sigh. Most of the time I totally love it. It's been such an amazing gift to be able to hear all these things I was obviously missing. When the kids scream, I don't love it so much, it can actually be painful if Mark is crying loudly in my arms or something, but that's not the norm. (We'll see how we do with a wailing newborn). I'm learning why when you hug someone with a hearing aid you hear a little squealing going on... it's be/c the microphone gets covered and causes feedback. This is slightly annoying but not overly painful. It's nice to not need the captions on TV anymore. All in all, it's wonderful. Battery days however, I haven't mastered yet.

7. I miss couponing. Is that dumb? I really miss scoring deals and bringing home 15 items of the same thing for Jamie to go "we needed that?" hehe. It's been a while since I've hit a goooood deal on something. I'm hoping to get back into the swing of my deals after school is back in session. I'd like a good deal on several things we're low on. Cereal being one (yup, again).

8. I can not believe that at the end of this week, we'll be at 29 weeks along with the pregnancy. 30 weeks seems like "nearing the end" so I'm almost nearing the end. 11 more weeks and there will be another body in this house.

9. I hate food. I hate food. I hate food. ... okay that's not true... I hate meal times. I hate meal times. I hate meal times.... Matthew's food battles are getting more and more heated lately. I try so so so so hard to not lose my cool. Yet it is so so so so hard to stay calm when he's pushing pushing pushing. Some days, we do good. I feel like "wow! we're getting the hang of it. we *can* eat a meal together." Some days, not so much at all. Again I will praise the gift of OT and pray that week by week we can gain insight into Matthew's issues and needs and break down his walls of programmed responses and controlling behaviors. We have come so far and I dont' want to overlook that with a sad update, but it's not easy that's for sure. He can now eat chicken nuggets from Wendys. This makes "grabbing a bite" less trying. No more "can I have a side of apples and a side of bacon" orders. Lunch no more is a granola bar and bacon at home. We're making real progress, it's just sloooooooooooooooooow going.

10. I'll end on something cute rather than down... If you have kids or grandkids and those kids don't have "Polar Bear, Polar Bear what do you hear?" go get it now. Oh mercy. Mark has memorized who comes next. And will tell you in order. It's so friggin cute I can barely stand it. I love how he says "A-ming-go!" for Flamingo. I'd also recommend the same author Eric Carle's "Baby Bear, Baby Bear, what do you see?" Super cute books.

Children are gifts

Our Sunday School class started a new study yesterday and will be continuing it for the next several weeks. I'm excited to see where this leads. The book that we're working out of is Charles Stanley's "How to keep your kids on your team." We discussed chapter one yesterday. There was lots of thought provoking comments in class, but I'm glad to say that throughout the week Jamie and I were able to have several conversations about the study too. (It's handy that he taught this week). Some things I took away that I thought I'd share...

1. Your children are a GIFT from the Lord.

--what is a gift? ...it is something given to you without anything expected in return, it is unearned, something given to show favor

2. Your children are a REWARD.

--what is a reward? ...a prize, something you win or earn, something given in return for merit or service or hardship

Psalm 127

A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.

¹ Unless the LORD builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the LORD guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
² It is vain for you to rise up early,
To sit up late,
To eat the bread of sorrows;
For so He gives His beloved sleep.

³ Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
⁴ Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
⁵ Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed,
But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.



Here's some of the hard questions from the study...

1. Do you view your children as gifts?
2. Do they see themselves as burdens or blessings?


I'm very interested to see where else the book takes our thoughts. I've made a promise to myself to show my children that they are blessings daily. To tell them verbally and also show them with the non-verbal. To take time to spend the time with them. To value their words. To sit down and play with them. To put my "stuff" aside for them. To snuggle extra long on the couch. To do projects with them when I'd rather to other things. To read extra books, even when I'm tired. To pray with them more. To choose to give them the attention they need and desire so that they don't ever feel unwanted or not cherished. I need to work hard on being kind and patient and gentle with them while they are so young still and impressionable. I want them to always know they are loved and never question it.

If you have this book or can get a copy, I highly recommend reading the prayer on page 11. It has drastically helped my mindset this week.

Does busy = hiding?

When we found out I needed the first surgery, my Mom came, friends came daily, friend came and stayed, things calmed for a moment and then we found out I needed a second surgery and friends came, friend came and stayed, my Mother-in-law came, had a weekend of just us and then I went to my in-laws for a week... being back at home this week has been scary. There's been no one holding my hand or calling daily or coming daily or or or... To face the silence when Matthew's at school and Mark is asleep is hard. I've found myself since Sunday DIVING into this couponing thing. I do mean DIVING. I was up until 2:30 last night creating the FB group "The Summit Savers" to just distract me from the quietness. Sunday, my pastor said something about April and May becoming the new December as far as the calendar goes. In the next four weeks before I leave for a lengthy trip to Missouri, I'm participating in a blood drive, in our church's Joy Prom, having a girls night at my house with my moms club, having friends over for dinner, for brunch, for chalking outside in the driveway, for just hanging out with no agenda. I'm going to a scrabooking morning, on a different day a lengthy scrapbooking marathon, we have a wedding ceremony to go to, we have more family coming into town, I'm hosting my annual "It's MAY!" Pampered Chef party, a House party with Red Barron Pizza, Oh yah, we're also going to a game night party, what else?? ... see? All of a sudden we are all REALLY busy again. And with me, I wonder if I'm not creating busyness, just to keep hiding. It's hard to sit in the silence and think. It's hard to not let my thoughts drift elsewhere when I'm alone. Drift off to places I don't want to visit.

..... Tonight at church, Pastor's class was about "do babies go to Heaven?" mmmmm. I wasn't sure I wanted to be in there. I knew I wanted to know what he had to say, but I wasn't sure if I really wanted to be physically there. What if he said something I didn't want to hear? What if he said something that disagreed with what I believe in my heart? ... It was a good talk though... I derailed. I didn't intend to discuss that. But since I'm here, he chiseled at some opinions people have. And he questions some thoughts. I love how he brings scripture into his messages from all over the bible. He was in 1st John 2 and Jonah 4 and Romans 5 and Psalms 51 to help illustrate his points. Next week I'm interested in what he'll say as we dig further into the conversation and look at 2nd Samuel.

(Alice, come back Alice)

See? I don't even want to talk about not talking about it... sigh.

All that to say... this has been speaking to me... I'm reading a book called Grieving the child I never knew by Kathe Wunnenbery. It's a devotional actually, there's a place every page or two to stop, think and write about the previous section. So far the book has been right on with my feelings. My pain is a little raw still. So some of it I wonder if it's not for someone who's been grieving a long time... but still it's been interesting. I'm not speed reading through this thing, just taking a few pages a time every couple days. It's deep and it's pulling deep emotions out of me...

This passage I can't get over. Even though I have already read past this section, I keep reading it. And I wonder about my schedule and the amount of busyness I've created lately. This is a small portion of Ms. Wunnenbery's writing...

Have you ever been so busy that you were unable to think or fee? I have.

Activity distracts me from facing the pain of my loss. In a sense, my “to do” list keeps me missing in action. The more I do, the less I feel. The less I feel, the less I hurt. Hiding in my foxhole of busyness, I am sheltered from the battle zone of loss. I can avoid the cross fire of people’s questions and the emotional explosions from my hurt. Armed with my Daytimer and camouflaged by fatigue, I feel safe.

Unfortunately, I don’t realize that I am at war with myself. Rest is my enemy. I convince myself that “busy is better” and the war inside me rages on. Then I’m hit with a missile of reality. It slows me down. I cringe in pain from the flashbacks of my losses.

Since most of my wounds aren’t visible from my loss, I ignore them and keep moving. Then another missile of reality hits. My wound of fear is exposed. I’m afraid to face my loss. Will I lose another child? Control is my other unhealed battle scar. I couldn’t control my body or the circumstances that led to the loss of my child but I can control my schedule and how I grieve.

I need to heal, but I don’t know how…