Last night, sometime during my whooping 3 hours of sleep, I dreamt that I had an appointment with a owner of a meat processing plant and was trying to find the entrance to make the meeting on time.  For some reason I had my 2 yo old with me.  I opened a side door to the factory to holler hello.  But it was chained and only opened a foot wide; my son slipped through the crack before I could stop him.  My son disappeared and no one could hear my yelling over the sound of all the machines.

Gee, I wonder if the dream represents stress and worry?

I didn't cry at the hospital with my 4 yo this weekend.  I didn't even cry when I was trying to take him home but had lost my car in the parking garage.  I didn't cry at the less than positive follow-up visit on Tuesday, though the possibility occurred to me.

I didn't cry when my 2 yo woke me up Wednesday night with croup, unable to breathe.  I just hugged him tight and marveled at how he patted my back to the same rhythm I patted his.

I didn't cry when my 2 yo woke me up after my bad dream last night with a raging fever.  Or today at the pediatrician when he told me it was probably o.k. unless my 2 yo keeps running a fever.

I haven't really slept in over a week so I found it hysterically funny when I saw that my husband had ordered the pilot of Fantasy Island.

However, when I opened the mail this afternoon I cried.  I cried and snapped at a child who was innocently trying to chat with me.

Our insurance denied coverage of my 4 yo's hospital visit claiming that it wasn't, "medically necessary."  After 2 hours of phone calls it's been taken care of.  They will cover it.

But somehow, I can't stop crying, not the sobbing type but errant tears that just won't stop quietly tracking down my face.

I wore sunglasses to the grocery store.

Sometimes it's the little things that knock me down.

As usual hymns keep coming to me, I think I've even mentioned this one before.  I've never been able to get my mind around trying to diagram this hymn's main refrain but it's still comforting:  "For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day."

Psalms 104 also keeps popping out of nowhere into my consciousness.

My husband and I were talking.  I told him how that I had found myself telling God that I just really wasn't up to this job, as if I thought I could resign my life or be transferred to a new role.  My husband understood.

My husband commented that if love was easy we wouldn't have to be commanded to do it.

Love.  The crazy thing is that it both knocks me down and picks me back up.

I had to take my 4 yo to the E.R. early Friday morning.  We got back home Sunday evening.  He had a simple childhood virus that sucker punched his metabolic condition.

Just some odd hospital observations from a sleep and computer deprived woman.

This was my husband's sock when we got to the E.R.  Don't blame me if it's rather plain, he only likes boring black socks.  At least he doesn't wear them with sandals.
This was my husband's sock when we got home, 3 days later.  I figure that's about 10,000 more stitches.  Give or take a few.  Knitting socks at the hospital is tidy, interruptible, soothing, and quiet.  I can pray and think while I knit. Ending up with a wearable sock is a bonus.

Last night we had another class on the book of James.  I started wondering something.  Bear with me if this isn't very coherent:

  My 4 yo's metabolic disorder is a chronic condition.  As far as medical issues go he has it easy compared to what some children suffer, and he has it hard compared with my incredibly healthy older children.

Comparative levels of suffering and trials isn't something that I want to try to wrap my head around at 6:00 in the morning.  Some children have physical problems so difficult that anything I talk about might just sound like whining; but my point is that as my son has gotten older it' a weird dance letting him mature yet having to remain a physical caretaker far longer than I had to with my other children.

I had my older kids dressing, feeding, driving the car to pick up groceries, all by themselves by the age of 2.  I was very montessori.  O.k. I threw in the car driving, really at 2 they were only on motorcycles... With my 4 yo I have to closely monitor his food and medicine intake, his naps, his energy levels, his blood sugar, his bathroom trips.  Physically, with all the monitoring I have to do, it is more akin to mothering a 12 month old.

However, I may be his mom and his caretaker but I still have to separate myself from his experiences.  He owns them.  If I feel terrible because he's at a birthday party and he can't eat the ice-cream, I can't let my empathy amplify his "suffering".  If he trips 400 times at the library and annoys the librarian I don't need to feel embarrassed or give a mini-lecture on his condition and energy problems.  If they have to do another blood draw, he doesn't need to look up at my face and see me tearing-up.

On the flip side, I may worry about the possibility of a g-tube or the fact that he could lose his vision, but I don't need to share those concerns with him.   Right now he is "healthy". We just need to enjoy life and enjoy every second of good days.  On bad days I don't need to smother him. He is not a 12 month old.

Back to James 1:2 and my main point,  I had never wondered or dwelt on the fact that before God's throne, my son is already separate from me.  God already has a plan for him.  Why my son is already having to face trials?- I don't understand; but God loves him and is already working completeness in him. Completeness that is separate from the completeness God is faithfully working in me.

God's separate, intense and intentional love for my son is what I am thankful for today.

Or: Aiming High


I was out with my soon-to-turn 4 yo son yesterday at a plant nursery.  They didn't have a bathroom, just a Port-A-John.  "Uh, oh," I thought.  It was pretty high on the gross scale and I wasn't sure if my little man would be willing to make use of it.

My son tripped walking in and landed hugging the potty seat with his face inches from a spider web, complete with spider, that stretched over the negative space in the seat.  "Hey mom, a spider."  I'm mentally bathing both of us in Purell as I quickly grab paper and break the web.  At this point there is no way I would sit on that seat, but my son hops up and begins looking around with bright, entertained eyes as I step outside to wait.

"Hey mom, this place is weird, but pretty cool."

"O.K."

"Hey Mom, what's this weird place called?"

"It's a Port-A-John."  I can hear my son repeating the name.

"Can we go to the potty store and buy one for our house?"

"Ummm...," I hedge.

He interrupts before I have to answer, "Hey Mom, this has a cool window in the top."

"Please stop talking and hurry."

"Oh, but I have millions of stuff inside me."

Ughh, it's windy and the Port-A-John reeks.  "O.k."

"Hey Mom, where does poop come from?"

I give a brief description and hear him answer, "Oh, so toilets are like trash cans?"

"Sort-of, but just for your body.  Please hurry up and concentrate on finishing."

"Hey Mom, can we go to the potty place and buy our own Port-A-John, and then we can put it in my bedroom and I can sleep on the floor next to it?"

Me, trying not to laugh, "Ummm, I don't think they sell them to regular people."

"Oh," my son sounds disappointed. There was a longer pause, then; "Hey Mom,  can we run more errands and any time I need to potty can we come back here?"

Now I know what we can do for summer vacation.

On my birthday I awoke with an ocular migraine, and then my 2 yo had the most spectacular diaper blow-out ever.  I might have to clean the ceiling fans.  I went to bed with a dead cat in my trunk.  It was a very long day.  Surprisingly, it was a good day.

It was a good day because I unwrapped a new year.  The inevitable effects of gravity aside, aging is a positive experience.  I'm a year farther away from self-consciousness and a year closer to finishing my work.  God has remained faithful through my all doubt, stupidity, and sheer pettiness.

To top off my birthday, I unwrapped a new set of knitting needles.  They say "turbo" on the package; they are the mercedes of knitting needles.  Look closely, the photos may be blurred by the astounding sheer speed of my cast-on.

When I saw the pictures I realized I was unwrapping my third gift of the day; my hands.  My hands look just like my mother's.  She passed away when I was in my 20's so getting to see even just a glimpse of my mom is a real treat.

I hope everyone can unwrap a 43rd birthday as good as mine, just minus the migraine, the poop, and the dead cat.

FOR TODAY, as part of The Simple Woman's Daybook:

Outside my window... the sky is mocking me by pretending to be full of rain clouds.

I am thinking... that virbirnum are gorgeous.

I am thankful for... our pediatrician, who called to make sure she got to see our 4 yo son before she leaves on vacation.

From the learning rooms... term papers continue.

From the kitchen... my cupboards and fridge are anorexic.  I must shop today.  

I am creating... I'm finishing up spinning a shetland angora blend for a cardigan sweater.

I am going... to the grocery store.

I am reading... nada this week.  Unless I count my husband's copy of Ender's Game, which I keep picking up and reading a page or two from where-ever my husband's bookmark happens to be.

I am hoping... that the pediatrician will tell me that my 4 yo has had a growth spurt, which would explain his recent metabolic issues. 

I am hearing... the clicking of my 10 yo checking her email.

Around the house... I'm still painting walls; which is always better than climbing them.

One of my favorite things... the color of springtime yellow-green deciduous tree leaves against the deep, dark green, of Cypress trees.  Cypress trees are the ebony pencil of Spring.

Here is my "picture for thought" 

I'm not an animal person.  That doesn't mean I enjoy clubbing baby seals, it just means that after I pet a sweet dog, or pat a gorgeous horse, or even my friend Angie's baby cashmere goats, I want to wash my hands.  I may stand there and have a conversation with the animal owner, but a corner of my mind is just biding time waiting for soap and water.

About a year ago we had to put down the dog we rescued 13 years prior.  Her death was sad but not unexpected and though I grieved her it was in a non-animal person sort of way.  I.e. I grieved what she had meant to our family all while a part of my brain considered what bushes I could plant to fill in the ugly hole she always dug by the deck.

Late last night a very kind neighbor knocked on the door to let us know my 10 yo's outdoor cat, Linus, had been hit by a car.  Definitely unexpected.  The cat was a gorgeous one yo that had won my grudging admiration by leaving my window screens alone and keeping the rabbits out of my salad garden.

Linus loved our 10 yo daughter; she was the worshipped keeper and dispenseror of catfood and fresh cream.  The poor cat's jaw was smashed, skull fractured, internal bleeding, but Linus still recognized my 10 yo and tried to get into her lap for comfort.

He also loved my 4 yo and would allow my 4 yo to flip him onto his back in chubby 4 yo arms, to be toted around the yard for indefinite periods of time.  My 4 yo trips a lot...  I've never seen a cat allow such a degree of clumsy liberties to be taken.  My 4 yo spent a lot of time playing with and pondering the cat.  In fact yesterday, hours before the accident, he asked me, "Why do cats have to go to work?"

Uh, hmm.  Time to clarify the question with a question.  "What kind of work do cats do?"

4 yo answered, "They go jump on computers and climb up and down chairs."

I had no answer- though I did text my husband about it.

At the emergency veterinary clinic I was taken aback by the level of flouresent lighting.  It was the same glowing brilliance as in the children's E.R. with which I'm far too familiar.  It was so bright I felt like I was going to get a tan.  In the children's E.R. I go into a slow-down.  My brain is sharp and focused and I can do anything I need to for my child- no matter how gross.

At the vet's I turned into a delicate pansy and sobbed onto the shoulder of my friend, Wanda.  I kept thinking, "Stupid Cat, Stupid Cat," while I cried.  I couldn't even look at Linus' wounds.

The clinic was great- and compassionate; there was no hope.  It will take longer for my 10 yo and 4 yo to get over Linus' absence than it did for the clinic to put Linus to sleep.

I'm not an animal person.  Yet, here I am needing to write through the experience, needing to say what a brilliant stupid cat Linus was.  Stupid, sweet, wonderful cat.

My 18 yo just finished reading The Hobbit to my 8 yo.  They both had a blast.  Many a reading ended with an excursion to the front yard for a real-life sword fight.

My 18 yo moves on to college in the Fall.  They just started Howard Pyle's Robin Hood.  It could be the last book my oldest son has time to read to his little brother.







I didn't remember Howard Pyle being quite so hilarious.  Oh.  They've moved on to next period: Cultural Literacy- The Far Side 101.

I was working on deciphering a knitting pattern from the comfort of a lawn chair while my two little ones played. To tell the truth I wasn't paying much attention to them until one of the little voices was suddenly very high.

Fix some bad coffee and prepare for a group hug- I fell off the fiction wagon this week.

Though I read a lot, I don't read much fiction.  Especially genre fiction.  There are a few exceptions and I'll allow myself a few of my favorite fluff authors a year.  Sometimes I'll read something like the Twilight series because my children want to read it and I want to check it out first.

In general, fiction is a bit of a no-no for me.  Not because I'm a snob but because I have this tiny little problem.  When life is hard, or decisions have to be made, or I'm stressed, and I accidently end up with a book of fiction in my hand....

Well- just picture a housewife lying in a gutter clutching a novel, waiting for the library to open.  It can start innocently enough.  I'll reread a Jane Austin novel to relax one evening.  Next, The Count of Monte Cristo. Then I'll go into harder things- a Carl Hiassen murder mystery.  From there my library card can access Robert Jordan's sci-fi fantasies...

If things are really bad, really really bad, horrid romances might even call my name.  The ones with close-up shots of flowers on the front covers.  The romances with remarkably stupid heroines who always manage to spend several chapters shopping for clothing that Target most certainly doesn't carry.

After a few books I don't even enjoy them anymore.  It's all about the escape.  It's about not living my life but living a life that has everything written in black and white.  Living a life with an ending that I can sneak-a-peak at anytime I want.

Except, I like my life.  Actually, I love it.  It's just the not knowing the endings that gets to me sometimes.

My life has an omniscient narrator.  I need to trust the Novelist and stop trying to flip to the end.

Because our school week runs Tuesday to Monday, this is our last day of Spring Break.  Everyone is sleeping in- except me, dh, and the toddlers of course.

In shameless promotion of my gardening linky I'd like to invite and gardeners to hop over to The Flexible Homeschooler to link posts about your gardens.

If it has been a while since you've romped with a toddler I'd like to show you how to properly get down a hill:

This week was Spring Break.  I decided to make it fun, as opposed to my natural tendency, which would have preferred to have cleaned all week.  Not because I love cleaning, but because this is the time of year that I always want to do olympic level spring-cleaning.

I decided on minimal cleaning; to instead paint all week amidst partying children, but on Monday, I stupidly gouged my hand while gardening/weeding with a broken ruler.  Yes, a broken and jagged wooden ruler.  Sometimes my stupidity amazes even me.  It's hard to paint walls without a painting hand.

Of course, I also didn't check my calendar closely enough at the beginning of the week.  Piano recitals are today for the younger children.  We had to squeeze some extra practicing in.  I'm not sure that that was well-accomplished.  I guess I'll find out during today's performances... eeeek.

The coup de grâce for the week was my 4 yo's energy requirements.  Partying with friends, kite day, and the suddenly cooler temperatures have zapped him.  He's puffy and bouncing his blood sugars and having trouble keeping his emotions- shall we say, "on an even keel".  He's most assuredly not going to the recital.

Balance, that's what I lost this week.  I didn't used to need to practice as much balance in my mothering.  My older 5 children are more like polyester, like wash and wear.  They are as portable as wheeled luggage.  I could zoom and rush and then we could all crash together with a few mere fall-aparts, no harm done.

My pediatrician says that treating children like my 4 yo require the art of medicine, not the science. I think that's true for mothering him too.  Raising him also reminds me of the scene in Parenthood.  The roller coaster scene. It's all good, until it's not.

A couple of days ago my 4 yo came outside sad. Sad that he couldn't do something that everyone else was enjoying.  He said matter-of-factly, "Someday, God will make my body right." It ripped my heart out because it revealed his simple faith and acceptance and hope.

It also ripped my heart out because it reminded me of what my mother used to say in her last year of life when she was fighting PPH, "Be careful when you pray for total healing; sometimes death is the only way to accomplish that."

On the up-side.

1. We've not been to the E.R. in almost a year. We were told to expect 3 to 4 hospitalizations a year; Wahoo, art can triumph!
2. My 18 yo took most of his siblings to see How To Train Your Dragon, and they all enjoyed themselves.  My 10 yo gave it high praise indeed, "Mom, it was sooo good I thought it was a Pixar movie."
3. I got my front flower beds cleaned out
4. My darling husband brought me chocolate last night. There is no praise high enough for a man bearing chocolate.
5. My older children had a fun break from school.
6. I re-read a couple of fluff novels.
7. Kite day really was unbelievably fun.

Or Processed Sugar Is A Poison, Watch Me Eat Crow

According to my friend Angie I've always been a food snob.  I preferred to think of it as having good taste and trying to eat healthy.

She was right.  I was a food snob.  I had 5 beautiful and healthy children thriving on natural living.  I took a lot personal credit for something that was a merely a gift.

For the most part we still eat lots of whole foods, fresh produce,  and locally raised beef, yada yada yada.  But I now regularly buy things like gummy worms, pretzels, and....  powdered Gatorade.

Have you seen the movie, Idiocracy?  I have 7 children and now this cooler on my back deck.

I'm so proud to say that it is full of Gatorade.  Processed sugar galore.  Doesn't it look nice? My aloe vera plant even catches the drips.

The change happened when my 6th child had his first taste ever of processed sugar in the form of a bolus injection of D25 in the emergency room.  It saved his life.

After 5 healthy children our two last children were born with a genetic disorder that impairs their ability to metabolize fats.  The short and sweet (pun intended) of it?- They run on carbohydrates, on sugar.

Warm weather is hard on them.  I've tried everything that is "whole foods and healthy" to keep them energized and moving outside.  I've spent a lot of evenings treating my 4 yo's leg pains, aching belly, and low blood sugars.

Finally, unlimited access to a big vat of "poison" on the deck seems to be doing what nothing else would do.

I would have put the cooler on the front porch, but I didn't want to move the worn-out sofa and broken refrigerator.

FOR TODAY: As part of The Simple Woman's Daybook

Outside my window... Bradford Pear trees in full bloom, plus a huge multicolored climbing cube that my husband moved to below my window.  We've had it since my 18 yo son was young enough to play on it.  It's ugly but also beloved.

I am thinking... that weeding is hard.  My body aches all over from yesterday's gardening.  It's a good ache.

I am thankful for... homemade bread.  It makes the whole house smell wonderful.

From the learning rooms... We are on Spring Break- except for my teens. I need to plan for the next 6 weeks of school- and reorganize the book shelves. 

From the kitchen... are too many tasks to bear thinking about this morning... especially since I've not had any coffee yet.

I am wearing... a patio dress and a bathrobe.  It's quite the look.

I am creating... I finished my afghan and have started knitting another pair of socks.  I'm planning a weaving project for my loom.

I am going... to drive my children instead of my car.  Bedrooms need to be deep-cleaned for Spring this morning.

I am hoping... that my oldest will recover from his Senioritis before the end of the school year.

I am hearing...  birdsong.

Around the house... sit paint cans, books, and paperwork. Maybe I have high school senioritis too.  I can't seem to concentrate on just one task long enough to finish anything.

One of my favorite things... listening to classical guitar.

Here is my "picture for thought"... 

I was never good at having family portraits made.  Even with just my first child, getting cute (non-stained) clothing together, portrait money,  a facial scrape-free window of time, and an appointment with a photographer was about 3 too many things to happen simultaneously.  

After my 4th child I gave up all hope.  


At this point in time a family portrait with 9 people?  All looking presentably dressed and at the camera?  I can't even get my 3 oldest family members to cooperate.



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