CHEESE!

Sam is tolerating cheese!  Here he is eating his first grilled cheese sandwich.  A momentous occasion for him.  I am so thankful he is doing well…each day is such a gift.

Snow day!

The boys were SO excited to have a “fire” in our gas fireplace.  We hadn’t used it in 3 years, so they had no idea it was actually meant to have a fire.

Suggested amendment to the patient handout.

When we scheduled Sam’s surgery, they gave us a cute little handout complete with cartoon illustrations entitled: 5 things to expect after tonsillectomy.  The five things were: sore throat, bad breath, fever to 102 for up to 3 days, ear pain, and white scabs at the surgical site.  We were told there is a wide range of recovery experiences, depending on the individual child.  I think it would be helpful to expand the patient handout to include the following:

Pain: Caregivers should plan on sleeping 1-3 hours per night for the first 10 days after surgery.  You will be holding your child upright who is writhing in agony for most of the night.  Your child will be unable to sleep due to coughing and choking on secretions, in addition to high fevers.  The liquid pain medicine provided by your surgeon contains the alcohol equivalent of Bacardi 151.  It will burn like Hell’s fury on the 3 open surgical wounds in your child’s throat.  Two adults will be required to successfully administer the medication to your child.  Expect your child to scream, gag, vomit, and have bleeding from the surgical site as a result of trying to swallow the medicine.  Any therapeutic benefit that can be realized after such administration will last up to 2 hours after which time the writhing in agony will resume.  Administer the medication every 4 hours around the clock.

Fever: In excess of 104 degrees for 5 days or longer.  Due to increased bleeding risk, medications like Motrin may not be used to reduce fever.  You child will refuse to drink due to intense pain at the surgical site.  Plan on coming back to the hospital 18 hours after discharge due to dehydration. 

So Sam went back to the hospital on Thanksgiving day.  It was actually a huge relief to us after a horrible night at home with him.  We were blessed to have family in town to spend time with our other children.  Jason and I enjoyed a delightfully peaceful meal brought from the family gathering to the hospital while our little boy was zonked out on IV morphine.

What does a 2 year old recovering from tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy want to eat?  Popsicles?  Applesauce?  No, just potato chips dipped in butter of course!

 

The whole gang came to cheer Sam on- this was the night before the final discharge.

 

Thankfully Sam has made a full recovery in every sense.  He seems to be breathing better at night and shows no sign of the obstruction he had before surgery.  We are so thankful the Lord has brought him through this difficult recovery safely and pray he will continue to grow be as healthy as possible.  Thank you to all our friends who prayed for us and little Sam through this time.

Sometimes, tonsils are not our friends.

Sam had his tonsils out today.  Here he is before surgery:

Here he is after surgery one hour later:

The doctor said the tonsils were much bigger than they looked so there is a good chance having them out will really help his breathing and sleeping so that is good news.  He is quite the little trooper.  Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery little buddy!

On being real.

Amy is one of my all time favorite people I hang out with at the “internet back fence.”  I started reading her blog because of its homeschooling/farming/large family kind of flavor.  When she moved from the suburbs to a farm, I was vicariously living a dream through her stories.  What I have come to appreciate most is that she constantly breaks out of the stereotypes associated with the above mentioned flavors, for the sake of the gospel, for grace, for being authentic.  There is nothing more refreshing to me than truth and authenticity, even at the expense of being nice or heaven forbid at the expense of pride.

So this post was so well said it kind of rocked my world.  I get hung up in the information acquisition phase of things.  In school I always enjoyed compiling and perusing enormous amounts of current research, but when it came down to taking the next step and coming up with my own original material I ran out of steam.  This is a profound weakness.  It carries through even now in my individual journey as a wife and mom. 

“The collective thing about women, mothers in particular, is that we are trying to do our best. In general, we know we only get this chance, and so it’s important to make our lives count. I want to get this right because it matters.”

So I am always longing for a formula, a picture of what this is supposed to look like, desperately wanting to live out the gospel in a way that is so much more than  typical American suburban life.  When you have to make hard choices you want to look around and see if anybody else is with you, and what does it look like for them?  There are a lot of good ideas out there, but oh help I am drowning in them.  The consumption of good ideas can become a paralyzing addiction, and the “fruit” it produces looks more like confusion and turmoil.  At some point it becomes time to step away from the distraction and learn to simply become what it is supposed to look like in me.  I have to accept that this is something God has designed, He will reveal it as I seek Him and walk with Him, and it is not subject to the many bandwagons that I am so drawn to.   God is not the author of bandwagons, they are often a manifestation of our desire for works based righteousness.  I am not saying anything new here, its just taking a long time for me to finally get it.

We love Gentry’s Farm- every year!

 

2010

2009

2008

(missed it in 2007)

2006

Love my big brother!

 

The Boat Ramp

This was put in by search and rescue after the flood in May.  A sad circumstance but a happy addition to our neighborhood.  We walk here several times a week to observe nature, throw rocks, collect sticks and occasionally fall in wade.  The boys would spend all day, every day at the boat ramp!  And we don’t even need a boat!

       

“Mommy, today I’ll just skip napping.”

 

Happy birthday to Ben!

 

Ben turned four years old today.  If I could describe Ben in only a few words, they would be: industrious, kind, easy going, delightful.  This child loves to work.  He loves tools of any kind.  He will pick “real” things over toys to play with any day.  Some of his favorite non-toy picks include: a small garden pick axe (yeah, real safe!) shovels, rakes, a basketball pump, a hammer and a bungee cord. 

         

Two of Ben’s most requested birthday gifts: a toy trimmer (sorry Ben, you’re just not quite ready for a real gas powered one yet) and a pair of binoculars.  Surprisingly he was most excited about the pair of goggles included with the trimmer.

Jus’ readin’ to my sister

 

This 100 Trucks book from the library was a smash hit with Ben and Sam.  Abby enjoyed having it read to her also!  When you have all these brothers, there is no shortage of someone to play with.

Abby’s first trip to Seattle

 

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Abby and Mommy took a quick girls’ trip to Seattle.  The main reason for the trip was for my 95 year old grandmother to meet her littlest great granddaughter.  We were able to have several very special visits with her over the weekend.  Grandma always loves to see the babies as you can see from the pictures.  I am so thankful that she was feeling well and able to hold and play with Abby.  Then we took another short plane ride over to Idaho to visit my friend Stephanie and meet her new baby- also named Abigail.  Abby was the sweetest little traveler ever- very easy and flexible with the time change and being out of routine.  It was so nice to be back in the northwest… it will always be home to me.

Warning: Items on your agenda may be more costly, complicated and time consuming than they first appear.

 

Add some under cabinet lights, and throw up a tile backsplash!  Sounds like a pretty self-contained project to the optimistic but naive home improvement enthusiast like myself.  The electrician made it sound like it would be no big deal to just tile over this mess he made out of the walls.  However, each hole had to be braced and the drywall repaired for the tiles to be secured evenly.  Cheers to the stacks of tile sitting in the garage and a Saturday morning spent with gorilla glue and crayola markers.  Up next- an afternoon with joint compound.

Singin’ in the rain.

 

 

No need to stay inside on a rainy afternoon.

First day of school

 

Today Jake and Ben started their once weekly homeschool enrichment tutorial.  The tall white socks were Ben’s fashion statement of choice today.  Not gonna fight that battle!  Of course getting the older boys to smile for the camera is like pulling teeth, but their little brother was insistent on being part of the picture.

Abby 6 months

Does this onesie make my cheeks look fat?

Ben age 3.

On the way home from a Costco hot dog dinner tonight:

Ben:  Mommy, I’m still hungry.  Can I have another cookie?

Me:  No more cookies, Ben.  How about I fix you a plate of broccoli when we get home?

Ben: Yeth, and I would like a plate of meat to go with it.  For my dinner.

20 days

Sam has been sick with his poorly defined GI issues since June 25.  He does not eat much, but we are used to that.  The thing that is hard is that he acts miserable the whole time, crying and whining, and needing to be held.  He has no ability to cope with anything and no ability to play on his own.  It is exhausting and discouraging and tends to consume our family as much as we try not to let it.  If I was not in the middle of this situation, I would say it sounds like you just have a 2 year old who needs a good spanking.  But, I am being humbled all the time and learning I just cannot understand what kinds of burdens others carry.  I want to have more grace- I sure do need it from others.  I want to be more like Jesus and less like the self righteous, judgmental sinner that I am.  I want to be more thankful and joyful in every circumstance.  As I was feeling so deeply sad yesterday, I was reminded once again there are families who have deeper hurts and need my prayers.  It is a dark path to walk when there are no answers, no clear diagnoses, no cures.  But in this darkness we must walk by faith- there is no other way.

When we go through these cycles with Sam, it feels like I can’t breathe.  After awhile it feels like drowning.  Then as crazy as this sounds, one day, like today, he gets up, eats normally, and goes off to play with his brothers.  The difference in him is so dramatic.  Its beautiful to know little Sam when he is feeling good- its like he is making up for lost time by taking on three fold exuberant joy for life; full speed, full volume, non-stop happy boy.  A huge weight is lifted and we come up for air.

Don’t call this exercise

I am no expert on things, but it seems that boys are pretty energetic by default, and by nine in the morning when I am peeling them off the ceiling I would call it downright rowdy.  Just recently we have discovered that Ben has finally grown big enough to handle a 16 inch bike.  This opens us exciting new energy release outlets for us because he can now ride fast enough to keep up- the little 12 inch wheels made him like a dachshund trying to keep up with a greyhound.  So the scenario looks something like this- Jake and Ben are flying down the trail near our house and I am pushing Sam and Abby in the double jogger just trying to keep them in sight.  Given their intense enjoyment of riding the bikes OFF the pavement, I am breathlessly shouting out safety precautions and instructions the whole time lest someone fly straight into an ancient remnant of a barbwire fence or right off a sheer slope down into the river.  Which is only 24 inches deep right now so the chances of rescue are pretty good, but still it would be traumatic for everyone involved.  The whole time I am feeling like a crazy lady and trying really hard not to wet my pants.  There are still many postpartum issues in play here and like everything else, things just aren’t the same as before having kids!  The scene has all the makings for a great Nike commercial (HA!) or better yet a plastic surgery commercial.  When all is said and done we have traveled about 3 miles and I am drenched in sweat.  It feels pretty good.  When it comes to exercise I am at risk for having an all or nothing mentality and as a result set myself up for failure every time.  So this, what we are doing, is NOT exercise.

Mostly I’m a mommy’s girl, but I’m learning that Daddy is pretty cool too

Little Entrepreneur

I love the creative games my kids come up with.  Today Jake decided to open a toy store where “everything is free.”  Here is Jake’s first happy customer!  I think that is the assistant manager testing one of the products in the background.

July 4

We attended the small-town USA style parade in Pegram.  It turned out to be a little boys’ dream with lots of fire engines, tractors, motorcycles and four wheelers.  We also ventured in the the realm of very tame home fireworks for the first time with a few sparklers, Snaps, and little tanks that sparked and popped.  Each child responded in their own very age appropriate way- Sam cried because it was too loud, Ben cautiously observed and Jake was ecstatic and can’t wait to do it again, bigger and louder.  Little Sam came down with a fever so we had to depart celebrating with our friends early.  After putting the littlest two to bed we were able to catch a front row seat of the neighbor’s big fireworks out on the street with Jake and Ben. 

Priceless

This is Sam’s precious little friend Paige.  At the boat ramp today, Paige was handing Sam rocks to throw one at a time, and each time Sam responded “Tanks!”  It was one of those moments when you wish you had the big camera and the portrait lens and the video camera all handy despite the fact you would be precariously dangling them at the river’s edge while trying to keep up with many small children.

Hiding place

 

One substance, many forms

One of little Sam’s favorite foods is turkey meatloaf.  My cooking life is one of angst in the season of life with many little ones and Sam’s special diet.  So when its time to cook lets do bulk quantities and get it over with.   I made mini meatloaves in muffin tins and meatballs in mini muffin tins all out of the same mix.  Marvelous!

 

Are you a caboose or an engine?

My sweet friend Stephanie and I talk almost daily even though we have lived in different states for the last 8 years.  As a mom of 3 little ones and a woman who loves God and His word, she is always a great source of encouragement to me in our parallel struggles and adventures of family life.  Lately she has been asking, “Are you a caboose or an engine today?”  - Did you get up early, spend time with the Lord, and prepare yourself for the day with careful planning and intention?  Are you ready to lead or are you just trying to catch up to a runaway train?  This analogy has helped me focus and define my goals for being effective in my role as a homemaker. 

Despite my best laid plans and efforts for more productive and educational activities this morning, we ended up on the back porch blowing bubbles in our pajamas.  The train went on a detour but not completely off track.  Maybe every once in awhile that’s not such a bad thing.

Summer moments.

Happy boys.  They sure do love to eat-  Sam has been doing great so far since coming back from Cincinnati.

Ben and Sam doing some “school” together.  Using glue is always a very popular activity.  Note that Puppy and Elephant are also present in class today.

The Reagan and Pereira boys watching the monkeys at the zoo.