Chesed

Men are so matter-of-fact. 

Quote of the day:

After about ten days of feeling so much better, the baby popped up like a balloon again and today is the epitome of miserable in seemingly all directions.  By mid-morning I hadn’t gotten much past lying on the recliner crying.  Adam acted oblivious for the most part until after I sent him for the second tissue. 

Adam:  “You should just, (pause) stop your tears, get up, and move around.”

Quote of the month:

Last week David Lee and I were talking about something I can’t remember anymore when somehow the subject of our marriage came up. 

David Lee: “Are we really going on six years this summer?” looking mildly surprised

Me: in shock and feeling suddenly very old, “hey, we’re just at 5 1/2 right now.”

David Lee: “No, we’re every bit as close to six as 5 1/2.”

pause

David Lee: “We’ve probably beat the national average by now.”

Three cheers for

                                      Spring

About the time I think I’m going to go crazy for some adult interaction, Adam puts me in stitches and I realize he’s one of my favorite people to talk to.  Which is a good thing since I spend far more waking hours with him then anyone else.  Here are a few of my recent favorites:

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The other week Mom and Dad’s electricity was off overnight.  Adam called Grammie this morning and I listened with interest to his side of the phone conversation.

“Is your e’tricity back on?  Oh, well, I could fix it.  I would just put a nail in.  Well, I can’t come today.  Maybe tomorrow.”  pause

“Church was very full last night.  Yeah, the men’s side.  We just had to park way far away.”  pause (I think Mom must have asked him what happened at church).  “I went to children’s class but … I don’t know what it was about.  Darrel just said, ‘you may go back to your parents now’.”

more pauses as Mom dialogued

“I don’t have a virus anymore.  I just have a little bit of a cold.”  (Note to self.  Teach Adam that colds are also viral) and then when I indicated that I wanted to talk to her now he finishes up with

“Well, I’ll just let you go, Mom (I guess you mean Grammie?).”

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We were eating when Adam’s eyes got big and serious as he looked at me, “Mommy, just take little bites so the baby doesn’t choke.”

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I woke Adam from a long nap because it was getting late and I didn’t want an impossible bedtime.  He was all groggy and oh, so toasty warm.  I bought his bedding at Pottery Barn and have been absolutely amazed at how much warmer it keeps him.  Sometimes things really are worth the extra money.

Me: “Oh, I’d like to have a blanket like this sometime.  Do you think I could?”

Adam: Eyes still shut.  Shakes head, no.

Me: “Why not?”

Adam: “It’s too expensive.”

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We’ve had quite the theological discussions over the past months and some of them include non-resistance and the difference between the Old Testament and New Testament.  I was getting supper on the table the other night when Adam went digging around in his school drawer and found his magnetic letters to put on the frig.  He took some over to the frig and then asked,

“Did they just do this in the Old Testament?”

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I love talking on the phone.  Somehow I need to learn to take the phone with me though.  Inevitably, just as I sit on the couch and get all comfortable to read Adam a story or simply rest for a minute, the phone rings and I have to haul myself back out.  I was horrified the other day when the phone rang and Adam goes,

{huge sigh} “Why does the phone just always have to ring?”  (Whoops, Mommy, that sounded like some pretty good imitation)

and then he was talking to David Lee who apparently asked, “how’s mommy doing?”

Adam didn’t miss a beat as he swaggered around, “Um, she’s up and movin”

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Today we had our first book study for the young married ladies from church.  Tonight at the supper table Adam said, “hey, we forgot to play hide and seek.” 

Emily’s house is set up perfectly for something like this.  The kids were upstairs w/ a babysitter and we ladies were downstairs around the fire.  Still, with 12 kids and the majority of them two and under, I could hardly see there being enough room to make hide and seek very feasible.

“Adam, I think it would have been too full to play hide and seek,” I said.

Adam: “Well, we could have just said, ‘excuse me’.”

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And one more for my aunts and uncles in Ohio with whom I would probably be drinking coffee about now if it weren’t for the snow and ice.  I was talking to Adam about going to Ohio and apparently he remembered that it takes a long time to get there because his first words were,

“But why does it take so long to go there?  See, they should’ve just built it closer.  They should’ve just built it on our land then it wouldn’t take so long and they would be our neighbors.”

True enough.  But then there wouldn’t be creamsticks, either.

I feel strangely as though I am updating for someone else’s life.  If you want more details on Gloria’s babies, click here and here.

I feel grief.  Recently I made a new friend on xanga named, Gloria.  She caught my attention first about the time she realized she was carrying twins and was diagnosed with Twin Twin Transfusion Syndrome.  Our baby’s due dates are one day apart.  If you’ve been reading my site for more then a year you probably remember my sister Beth’s babies being diagnosed with the same thing.

Gloria’s case was even more serious and she was sent for surgery.  The bigger baby died a few days later and now she had another ultrasound and they are giving the small baby no chance to live.  Visit her here.  I keep crying.  To lose two babies would not be easy.  To lose them after such a fight for their life and putting your own at risk would be worse.  To lose one baby and continue to carry it while hoping and hoping the other baby would pull through and then to hear this news would be devastating.

Last Sunday our Sunday School lesson was in Romans 8.  And, of course, we discussed the familiar 8:28 verse. 

 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 

I listened to the ladies discuss this verse and how it is true for every area in our lives.  Inside, I shivered a little remembering the depth of my emotional pain in our infertility not even a year ago.  Even though I knew in my head that this verse is true, it’s hard to believe in the middle of something so painful.  “Why would a God who celebrates children withold them?”  Why would that not be His will?  I knew that God is good.  That He is love.  But why then was there so much pain in the world?  In my world?  I came to realize in a limited way that my definition of good and God’s definition of good are not always synonomous.  I see “good” as things we perceive to be good…things that bring me pleasure instead of pain.  Like love.  a relationship as opposed to rejection.  stable, trustworthy parents.  friendships that give meaning to our life instead of hurt.  and yes, children.

As I listened more to women talking about how they accept this truth in their life, I had a pretty strong hunch it wasn’t always as easy in the moment as they were making it sound in Sunday School.  I refuse to believe I’m that abnormal.  My question, the one I couldn’t verbalize because I was crying too hard already, is this, “How do we share this truth with people who are in the moment of pain?”  Because it is life-giving truth.  But it is a stab wound into an already devastated heart when it is thrown at someone in the flippant way we throw words around when we are so desperate to offer bandaids.  I didn’t realize I would come face to face with that question before the week was out.

I found some healing when we backed up into verses 26 and 27. 

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.  And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

God understands when our cry is too deep for words.  When we reach out to Him from the depths of painful silence, from the storm of sobs that leaves us unable to verbalize, His Spirit translates for us. 

I think God wants us to make intercession for fellow believers in the same way.  Perhaps our too frequent dilemna of, “but I don’t know what to say” is a gift from God that we try to shy away from because we do not want to feel that depth of pain.  Instead we should go there.  Feel the pain.  And then like the Spirit go to God with groanings which cannot be uttered.  Flippancy is never comforting whether you’ve experienced something similar or not.  Care is.  And when we care in the manner the Spirit does, we will not use Romans 8:28 in the wrong way.

And Gloria, if you read this post, know that I am praying that you would be surrounded with comforters.

For two weeks now, Mom has been trying to convince me to “go see Martha.”  I kept pushing it off, sarcastically thinking I’d tried everything I could in my first pregnancy and since it didn’t work anyway, why spend the money?  Meanwhile, my pain level escalated daily and my tolerance level for life in general took a correlating nose dive.  Sitting for thirty minutes at a time felt like torture and my last few Sunday afternoons were spent crying and writhing on the couch. 

This week, I gave in.  Martha is an unlicensed, hands-on training, neuro-muscular massage therapist … not really the well-researched professional who gives me the rationale behind everything kind of person I typically seek out.  Mom’s glowing reports after her own treatment were my biggest nudge.  It takes an hour and 20 minutes to drive to her house.  I was practically in tears before I ever left the house and kneading my knuckles into my back and trying to curl into a backwards fetal position by the time I was half-way there.  How could this be worth it?

I’m not sure what I was expecting; but certainly not someone who’s face beams when she smiles.  If I had to sum her up in one word, it would be pleasant … a word not particularly associated with anything remotely related to me the last while.  A few questions from her, a few explanations from me and she got to work.  A little massaging, a little of the vibrator, and then the poking here and pushing there.  I kept shrieking and jumping off the seat of the chair everywhere she touched.  My childbirth instructor last time said it sounded like a rib out of place; but I never could find anyone who agreed with her or knew how to treat it if it was.  Martha found seven.  “Well, that’s part of your problem,” she said after repositioning them.  Both of my shoulders were displaced and after great opportunities for Lamaze practice while she adjusted them, she diagnosed tennis elbow on both sides.  I knew my right shoulder and elbow were bad because they kept wanting to lock up and my entire arm tingled when it wasn’t supported; but it did surprise me when the places she touched on the left side produced just as much pain. 

I drove home positively sore.  I told Martha just before I left that I have one issue with my mom.  She had so much energy after her treatment from finally being pain free and I couldn’t wait for the energy surge.  But all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep. 

And now, I feel so different.  Last night I sat at the computer working on a web page design for almost two hours with discomfort that made me wish for 600 mg of advil instead of writhing in agony and wistfully thinking it would be nice to somehow get hooked up to general anesthesia for the next three weeks.  I woke up this morning feeling as though I’d lost ten pounds.  One look in the mirror and I obviously hadn’t; but my basketball feels diminished now that my back can be vertical instead of sway-backing in abject misery.  Best of all, I caught myself smiling instead of constantly feeling as though my face had gotten lost somewhere in the frozen arctic.  I like this a lot.

Why is it that we can have a relatively mild winter and then when it’s the end of February and we are all dreaming of Spring just around the corner, it turns cold?  All I really want is to thaw from the inside out.  I want to look out the window and not shiver at a barren, whithered landscape.  I want to walk out the lane and exclaim over new green leaf buds on the butterfly bushes I planted last fall.  I want to get into the car without dragging along another ten pounds and three square feet of bulky coat.  I want to sit through church without shivering.  I want to get out of the shower without shivering.  I want to think subs instead of soup.  I want to see vibrant green grass and blue skies and yellow daffodils and pink tulips.  I want to see the windows open and hear the birds sing.  I want to walk barefoot in the garden and drop seeds into the ground. 

Instead we had snow flurries yesterday and there is ice predicted for tomorrow.  And so I’m looking at pictures from last Spring and thinking about doing some sewing.  To whoever said, “If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”  The answer is yes.

To Do Today

1.  laundry

2.  clean the house

3.  finish spring cleaning the office (the last room on the list)

How i Feel

1.  Exhausted

2.  Euphoric

What’s up Next

1.  Scrapbooking

2.  Sewing big, huge postpartum dresses

3.  A morning at the indoor playground at the mall with Adam

Who’s Complaining

1.  Not me!

Sweet, baby Eden came home with us yesterday for the afternoon.  I’d almost forgotten just how perfectly a teeny baby fits into the crook of your arm, or how disproportionately huge their burps are compared to the size of their body, or how they squeak and squirm when they sleep, or how tiny they look in those huge infant car seats. 

Adam was as pleased as I was to have her here.  On the way home, he kept wanting to peek under the blanket “just to check if she’s still sweeping.”  We’d been to the library before getting Eden so when we got home we sat down to read a few stories before eating lunch and every now and then he’d reach over and pat her and comment on how big her fingers are.  (oh, really? do you mean, tiny?)  At lunch time, she was on the couch and out of his sight apparently … at least if all the neck craning was any indication.  We read more stories before his nap and then he wanted to touch her before going upstairs.  He patted her blanket, rubbed her head, turned to go upstairs then said, “Can I kiss her?”  Of course, sweetie.  The first thing he said when he woke up was, “Is baby Eden still here?”  He bounced out of bed to find her and smiled a pleased smile.  “I’m going to read her a book,” he said. 

He wanted to lie on the couch beside her; but I was afraid he’d roll on top of her so I suggested he sit beside her instead.  “Can you find a baby book?” 

“No, I’m just going to get this one that I can read.”

And so he produced “Happy Baby Things that Go” which he recites and for the next 10 minutes he “read” Eden a story.  

It’s been a (hopefully) unbeatable week.  One schedule got changed and I forgot to notice another thing on my all-important external brain (aka planner) and the next thing I knew my week was looking crazy.  Sunday morning I crawled into the car to go to church and realized the fight with my back had begun.  I writhed all through church Sunday morning and gratefully sat Indian-style Sunday night when they turned the lights out for the slide show. 

Because of the baby’s compromised size, I knew I should get back on prenatals.  So I did.  And every subsequent morning is more nauseous. 

As though the week wasn’t full enough, I noticed Adam was having trouble hearing.  Not just when he was playing and didn’t want to hear, but everywhere.  In the car in a normal conversation, he would ask a question and we’d answer.  “What?”  It happened almost every time.  Since there is no real way of picking up concrete symptoms on him that indicate illness, I followed my gut feelings and took him to the dr Monday morning.  “Has he had this low grade fever at home?”  Uh, no, I hadn’t noticed.  I was feeling a bit glib inside that at least I’d probably guessed correctly this time.  Dr. A checked his ears.  Nope, they’re clear.  So Michelle came back in and did the hearing test.  Passed with flying colors.  Odd.  His throat was just a tad red and with his history, they also did a strep swab.  Positive.  Smile.  Are we honestly going down that road again?

I begged her for new generation antibiotics.  Please, please, PLEASE tell me I will not go through another three months of strep.  We got groceries and stopped at the pharmacy on the way home.  Six loads of laundry, a closet-full of ironing, and three gallons of chili soup later I dropped at the supper table, exhausted.  Tuesday morning Adam woke up with a definite fever and a terrible, coarse-sounding chest cough.  Thank God for Grandma’s…(who else will volunteer to take care of a sick child?) … because I’d promised Martha I’d help clean their house to get it ready to move.  Wednesday took some baby-sitter shuffling to keep Adam away from children again while Emily and I helped Jo fix food for her freezer.  And 2 gallons of the chili soup disappeared at the moving day. 

So now it’s today.  Adam still has fever; but at least he’s eating a little more.  The cough sounds very pneumoniaish; but it must be viral as opposed to bacterial if it is, because he’s on day four of antibiotics.  I should actually listen to his lungs.  Mostly I just try to keep him hydrated and make sure he’s not breathing too fast because unless he needs an inhaler, the doctors wouldn’t do anything else anyway.  I thought I was going to clean and do laundry today; but I’m so tired it would take a tow truck and a very strong tow rope to move me.  I feel nausous and achey and headachey.  Cranky?  Yeah, that, too.  Waking up every 45 min for half the night from back pain is not conducive to feeling rested in the morning.  Neither is a burning up with fever, hacking sputum, three-year-old crawling into bed with me at 6:50.  I think I’ll go drink a Coke and lie on the couch and hope for better hours after lunch.  Because tomorrow I have four cakes to decorate for the school’s open house.  I’d agreed to do them if someone kept Adam; but now he can’t go there because of germs.  Maybe there will be cream cheese icing and real roses instead of decorator frosting unless things turn around pretty fast. 

I wish I still had the comic strip I saw in a magazine several years ago for women who don’t know how to say no.  It said, “Turn head to left.  Turn head to right.  Repeat several times.”  If any of you wanted me to do something, you better call in the next few days; because next week is the beginning of change.  I’m going to start turning my head.  Except uh, oh.  I think the time already ran out.  I already said no when Gina wanted me to babysit tomorrow.  Except that she never quite got the chance to ask before she got an earful of woes and only told in retrospect what she’d been planning to ask!  Sorry, Gina. 

Are any of you overachievers?  What do you do to keep from overbooking yourself?  And for all you people out there who live well-balanced lives, what is your secret to keeping things that way?  I don’t do this all the time.  I go in this ridiculous cycle of not doing anything and then seeing all these things at once and volunteering for too many things and not leaving enough slack for things to go wrong, or bumped.  Then I get burned and say no to everything until I/we recuperate before starting the cycle again.  And the truth is, I always survive.  Sometimes even better then I expect to, and yeah, sometimes not so well.  And I always can do it.  Just not always without repercussions.  How do you decide when to say yes and when to say no?  And is that fight for balance even right?  Jesus took time to rest; but there are many times when He moved with compassion in spite of being exhausted.  I notice those words a lot when I read the Gospels.  Compassion.  Not pity.  Compassion.  Empathy.  And whenever I think about that, I wonder if my own things are really that important.

I think it’s time to go take a nap before this gets any more disjointed.  Adam is probably about ready to take me in to get my ears checked because I squint and wait 30 seconds to process what he just said before I answer.  It’s sort of foggy around here.  Oh, and if you want one of the best chili soup recipes in the world, see if you can get Emily to post it.  But beware, there won’t be any leftovers.