Sick!!!

It started Wednesday. Ethan had the sniffles. I was hoping it was nothing more, but a night of practically no sleep proved that not to be the case. He was up nearly every hour until the two of us slept on the couch just so we could manage some sleep. By the next night, he had a runny nose and a soaring temperature. Like every time he gets sick, I bathed him in lukewarm water and gave him Tylenol, again “sleeping” on the couch until about two in the morning when it finally broke. From that moment, he was more-or-less fine as long as I followed him around with a tissue for his nose and tried to get him to walk so he wouldn’t break into a hacking cough. But do little boys walk anywhere? Of course not.

Emry does not always catch what Ethan gets, but she did this time. She got the sniffles followed by her usual hacking cough. Which she still has because her coughs always linger. She’s been a bit lethargic and sleeps very well. Which is amazing because her cough sends shivers up and down my back. She’s quite pale and not eating a lot. Both of them have lost weight they don’t have to loose, but Ethan is quite better now. I’m hoping Emry will be in a day or so.

The last time I remember being this sick was in Minnesota, one Saturday after a good run in cold weather. I came home, had a little something to eat, walked over to the library and then sat down to read. And promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, I realized I had a fever. So, I didn’t do anything the rest of the day. I can’t remember if I went to church the next day or not, but regardless I had nothing to do but rest and was more than fine arriving at work on Monday. But now? Hah!

I don’t usually catch anything the kids have, but regardless of the cleaning I attempted I still got it. Sunday morning rolled around, and it started okay but by 9:30 I was nodding off in my chair. We had already decided not to go to church, but their lingering illness didn’t slow the kids down. I finally got them settled on the couch with me and a book. Which I barely made it through. They were off to find Ed as soon as it was over, and I was out cold. I slept until the kids wandered in hungry for lunch. I managed to get off the couch and find them something to eat. By then it was naptime so I got them down and crashed once again on the couch. I was hot one moment, cold the next. Congested. Not hungry but had to eat because not eating made me sick. Even the baby needed to be cared for! By the end of the day, I felt nearly as sick as I had started the day. And some of the symptoms I was no longer sure if it was this cold or being pregnant. Not that it really mattered. I got the kids to bed and went to bed myself. 

Yesterday, after eleven hours of sleep and coffee, I felt better. I even got a full workday in. Ethan was doing better, and Emry was doing well enough to do her school, play and do all the things we usually do on a Monday. But last night equaled something like three broken hours of sleep so even when my mom came over today, she took one look at me and said, “Melissa, you look…sick.” Yeah, and I felt it, too. Still congested, sick to my stomach, and I couldn’t work a full day. The RFP (Request for Proposal) was swimming in front of my face, making very little sense even though it was a pretty straight-forward updated master plan. It’s not due until February 19 anyhow, so I gave it a rest and took a nap. And as soon as I get Emry home from dance and the kids in bed, I am off to bed myself. And praying tomorrow I feel ten times better!

Dreams

It isn’t unusual for Ethan to wake up in the middle of the night. While Emry could sleep through a tornado blasting through her room, Ethan has always been my light sleeper. So, when he woke up crying the other night I went to his room to see what was wrong.

“Mama, I don’t want to be lost!” he cried miserably.

Assuring him I would not let him be lost, I showed him he was in his room and tucked his blankets safely around him. He calmed down, popped his thumb into his mouth and settled down. He was soon fast asleep…at least, until he woke again having kicked off all his blankets.

The next night I had trouble getting to sleep, which is not uncommon these days between being sick and now being able to feel the baby moving about. I felt like I had barely dozed off before Ethan woke again crying. I waited a moment to see if it was passing (he does cry aloud and even talks in his sleep at times), but as it continued I rolled out of bed with a heavy sigh ad went to his room. It took me a moment to find him and get him unburied from his blankets.

“Mama, my zipper!”

Since he has been trying vainly the past several days to zip up his own coat, I figured he had been dreaming about that and couldn’t get it up.

“Buddy,” I said as I set him back up on his pillow, “you don’t have your jacket on. You’re in your bed in your pajamas.”

“No, Mama!” he cried “My s’ipper!”

Oh! He was talking about his slippers. Since he had taken to wearing them the past couple of days, I suspected I had put him in bed with them on and they had fallen off. I pulled off his covers to see and feel around in the dark, but while one of his socks was falling off his slippers were nowhere to be found.

“Buddy,” I said as I pulled on his sock, “you don’t need your slippers. They’re not here.”

“My s’ippers!”

I could see he wasn’t going back to sleep without the slippers, so while I tried to convince him that even I didn’t wear my slippers to bed I felt around his bed to see if I could find them. Unable to do that, I went into the hall and turned on the light so I could see. No slippers were in sight. Nor were they on the floor or in his shoe box (where they belong). I figured they were probably by the couch in the living room so I went in there and found them on the floor. Taking them back to Ethan I said, “Do you want them on?”

“No,” he replied, content now and setting among his blankets now that the slippers were found.

“Then I’ll put them in your shoe box,” I said.

“No, Mama!”

“In your bed?”

“No.”

“Well, Ethan, where do you want them?”

He pointed aimlessly in front of him and my placing them on his train table which stands opposite the foot of his bed satisfied him. So, I tucked him back in and returned to my room, tired but also a bit amused.  Oh, the things we do as parents!

Deep Thoughts and Difficult Discussions

Yesterday I finally caught up on my Voice of the Martyr’s magazines. I tend to let them pile up two or three deep before I get around to reading them. Mostly because they can be very difficult to read, but also because I tend to read them on Sunday afternoons. And since Sunday afternoons are my one afternoon to nap, these days I fall asleep long before I even pick them up, let alone read a word!

This afternoon I was determined to get through at least two of the three before I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I started on the first while Ethan was sitting on the potty before going down for his nap and Emry was curled up on the couch playing a cause and effect game on Ed’s tablet. I wasn’t two pages into it when Emry got stuck and crawled up on my chair for help. I knew she would see the picture on the page facing her and thought about putting it aside before she did but then wondered if she would say anything when she saw it. She did.

“Mama,” she said, staring at it intently, “what is wrong with that lady’s face?”

The woman in question was an Indonesian Christian who had been walking into her church one Sunday morning to pick up her daughter in Sunday School when Islamic suicide bombers drove their truck through the front gate of the church complex and crashed it in the parking lot, setting off the bombs in their vehicle which, in turn, caused several nearby vehicles’ gas tanks to also explode into massive fire. Caught in this tragedy, the woman suffered burns over 85% of her body. They were so extensive, in fact, that doctors are amazed she survived. She has gone through over twenty surgeries to help her skin but it is so fragile grafting is out of the question and she can’t even hug her own daughter any longer. 

Details, politics and false religions aside, I explained to Emry that some men who hated people who love Jesus set a fire at this woman’s church and she was caught in it. Her skin was burned and it will always look like that. I tried to explain to her very simply that there are bad people who hate the people who love Jesus and they do very terrible things to them, even killing them. After all, I reminded her, weren’t there bad men who hated Jesus, hurt Him and hung Him on the cross?

“Yes,” she replied, still staring at the picture in wonder. 

I could almost see her little mind working, trying to figure things out. She has been doing that a lot lately. In her Cubbies class at church on Wednesdays there is a little girl who, because of a genetic disorder, does not talk, or play with the other kids, is often in her stroller and is simply different. Emry has been asking about Juliette, trying to understand why she is different, and I have been telling her how God has made Juliette special – just as He makes all of us different and special.

The other night as I was tucking her into bed, Emry asked me who God was. The question reminded me of when I was her age, sitting in church with my mind spinning circles as I tried to figure out who God is and how He came to exist. That’s a question I can answer but certainly not explain. It takes faith to simply accept that God is God. A faith I hope Emry one day has.

Emry’s questions about the lady in the VOM magazine didn’t only relate to the burns on her body and how they came to be. She is very observant and also quickly realized the woman’s eyes were different than her own. She wanted to know how the woman’s eyes came to be shaped like that. I explained people from that area of the world are born with eyes like that, just as her eyes are not narrowed. I tried to think of someone she might know with eyes like that, but she had already been thinking about that.  

“Like Asher,” she said, naming a little boy in her Sunday school class who, I believe, is Chinese.

“Yes,” I nodded. “Asher’s parents are from that area of the world, but I think Asher was born in America just like you.”

I wondered where my answer would lead her now, but she was still intent on the picture in the magazine and simply thinking through things. Although the questions she has been asking lately are anything but simple. Even if I can give a simple answer and set aside the major points of theology, persecution, race and birth defects; her questions make me realize how complex the world really is…and I often wonder where her thoughts will take her and what her conclusions will someday be.

But as my friend Allyson reminded me when we were once discussing how much her eldest loves dinosaurs and paleontology but how difficult a science that is for Christians to be educated in when it is swamped with evolution and a complete misunderstanding of the creation of the world: “I can only give my children the Truth. So much of it that I have to trust that when they are faced with a lie, they will simply dismiss it because they know the Truth,” she told me.

And that is what I have to be careful to give my children: the Truth. As God states it in His Word. Not my opinions. Not what is currently popular. Not even a “Biblical world view” which I often feel is our ideas mixed in with God’s Word, a potentially hazardous mix if we’re not careful. Only the Truth. No matter how deep or difficult that can be. 

A Right of Passage

It’s been a little while in coming. One of those things I’ve just postponed because there was no immediate necessity. At least until I got pregnant… And then there were still eight months to settle the matter. Namely, a big bed for Ethan.

When we moved Ethan into his own room a number of months ago, we did take one of the railings off the side so he could get used to sleeping in an open bed. Getting him his own big bed was in my mind, but first I couldn’t decide what kind to get him. Finding out number three was on the way added the idea of a bunk bed since eventually the baby will be sharing a room with either Emry or Ethan, depending on if it is a boy or girl. But bunk beds can be expensive. And since the baby would also need Ethan’s changing table (and so the drawers), a dresser or something would be needed for Ethan’s clothes. Which means another piece of furniture to purchase, find room for, and move at some point of time. In the end, my more practical side won out and I found him a bed similar to Emry’s. It’s a high twin bed with a set of drawers underneath. No need for two pieces of furniture and, if he keeps it nice, I intend for him to have it until he goes to college or wherever. (And he will keep it nice.)

He was so excited to hear that he would be getting a new bed. When the delivery guys brought it a couple of weeks ago, he shouted as they came in the door, “My new bed!” And he’d run into his room, peaking gleefully as they put it together. He couldn’t wait to get all his “friends” (aka: stuffed animals), favorite blanket and Spider-Man quilt into the bed. He joyfully bounced up and down and when it came time to actually sleep in it, he did rather well and wasn’t too afraid of the change of more room in bed and everything moved about in his room. Adding the Spider-Man sheets and pillowcase he received from Grandpa and Grandma this week has been the highlight of his nearly-three-years. 

Oh, the joys of “getting bigger”!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

 

…or Grandma

Happy 30^thBirthday, Gracie!

2020 Reading Goal

For my reading goal this year, I contemplated reading the final volume of Shelby’s Foote Civil War trilogy. I really do need to finish it and even though it’s large enough to kill someone with and the print it very fine, it’s easy to read and extremely informative. But with a baby coming half way through the year, I figured that would prove to be a very difficult reading goal. Because while I have learned that using the Kindle to read while I breastfeed is great downtime, juggling a volume three-inches thick and breastfeeding is not do-able. So, I decided on a…well, less cumbersome reading goal.

First, to read at least one biography or non-fiction book from my very long reading list a month. I have already made a list of the ones I hope to find at the library, but I haven’t gotten started yet because none of them are currently available at the library. But, we’re only one week into the new year so I still have plenty of time to catch up.

Second, to read books from my very long reading list and my own personal collection instead of scouring the bookshelves at the library and reading those books. For if I keep up that habit, my list will never get shorter!

And third, to read volume two of Charles Spurgeon’s The Treasury of David.If you’re only slightly familiar with Spurgeon you might think that a very easy task since his Morning by Morning or Evening by Evening (or the combination of the two entitled Morning and Evening) are quick (but very insightful) one page devotionals to read either in the morning or evening. But there are three volumes to his Treasury of David(which were originally published in four volumes) and the second one covers Psalms 58-100 in 479 pages of 8-point font. Essentially it is not only Spurgeon’s detailed exposition on each Psalm but also thousands of small expositions from hundreds of historical church fathers. It is wonderfully easy to read and shockingly profound, as Spurgeon always proves to be. Savoring this tome will be a highlight of 2020.

Ice Skating!!!

1984 was a big year for me. I was four-years-old and the Olympics were in full swing. It was my introduction to the wonders of figure skating. Of course, come summer, I was introduced to gymnastics and Mary Lou Retton. And since a swing set, a floor and things to balance on are much more accessible than an ice skating rink (especially in Texas), becoming Mary Lou Retton was the dream. But I still wanted to try ice skating. Thank goodness there are malls in Dallas with indoor rinks.

I’m not exactly sure how my four-year-old discovered ice skating, but I have heard about it for months. Fortunately, a woman in one of our small groups works part-time at the rink they put up during the winter in West Lafayette. And when I talked to her about it, she said she had passes she could give us. With Ed home over the holidays, it seemed the perfect time to go. And New Year’s day had some very sunny and rather pleasant weather. And while Ed bowed out of skating himself, I enjoy the sport and decided I would take both kids in hand. 

At first, I wasn’t sure we were going to survive the whole endeavor. One time around the rink was quite intimidating. Ice is, of course, much more “slippy” (as my little Pittsburghers insist on saying no matter how many times I correct them with the word “slippery”) than it would appear. And being on blades much trickier than it would appear. The rink was also rather crowded at first. So, when I pulled them off after the first time around, I didn’t think either would want to try again. But they did! So, we made our way to the middle of the rink this time and I let them go at it.

Emry took to it. Naturally cautious, she wobbled through it and took falling down with dignity after the first couple of near-tear tumbles. Assuring her that falling down was all apart of it and seeing that many other (and bigger) kids fell down just as much, she was soon okay with it. Ethan…well, I let him go and he immediately decided that a triple axel was a good place to start. Really, he took a bounding leap and fell flat on his front side. After that, he wouldn’t let go of my hands. Which was fine, except my back really ached when it was all over!

In the end, neither child wanted off the ice. (Thankfully they were closing the rink, so staying was not an option.) Emry chattered on and on as I got off her skates, we walked to the car and all the way home that she loved ice skating, she wanted to go again and she really needed to take lessons.

Good thing I know where to get passes!