This week I learned a lot. I learned about mental illness, what it feels like to be behind multiple barbed-wire fences, how to be "rude for a minute", and much more. But best of all, I learned how to appreciate my husband.
From Sunday to Sunday, we spent less than 30 minutes together. By together, I mean in the same room at the same time AND awake. I had a three day field trip for school, one day of lecture, followed by three nights of work and three days of sleeping, plus some extra napping to kick this cold I caught. He had five days of work plus kids plus gardening, followed by one day of tilling with a rented tractor, followed by planting while I slept. Even last night, he had grading and I had homework. We were both in the house but both silently working.
I miss Jay. He's such a good husband and father. Like any good man, he has his days. :) But his days are few and far between, and usually caused by lack of sleep from teaching all day, gardening all evening, and grading into the night. Truly, how many men know how to put in ponytails and cook healthy, delicious dinners and grow amazing produce and teach junior high kids.
Fourteen years ago this week I met Jay at Longhorns in Aggieville on a Wednesday night...typical behavior for me, a rare occurrence for him. I wish I had a better story for the girls (Of course, I met your father at Church. Or at class! Ya, that's it. At class!) but yes, we are one of the many, many Aggieville marriages.
(Funny side note to start -- I wrote Natalie turns two as the title. Yep, it went that fast.)
My Natalie-new is three years old, although she'll tell you she is six. She is a handful, stubborn, comical, strong-willed, entertaining, stubborn, loving, and did I mention stubborn? She set the new family record for bite-in-mouth-without-swallowing earlier this winter, and not too much has changed since. We've talked about potty training, tried panties-and-clean-up for three weeks, tried pull-ups, tried just letting it go. Her reaction now? She laid on the floor this morning and said "wah-wah-wah, I a baby mommy. I need a diaper." Inversely, she loves being a big helper and is so excited when we remember to ask her to do something, like get napkins or help make cupcakes or fix the toilet.
But she also laughs with her whole being. She loves to play/say "The Three Little Pigs" over and over again. Her little language missteps crack us up, like saying Bs for Ts (which makes Boots pretty funny) and that she sings her ABCs as "S-E-X-W-E-Y-C", and no I don't know where either of those sayings came from. Her favorite phrases are “Guy, guys, come on, guys! Wook at dis!” and “Come here!” which comes out “Tum here!” We hear a lot of “I don’t know” when she doesn’t want to answer, even if she does know. Refer back to “stubborn.”
She adores pancakes and Walleta's and her sisters and Bubble Guppies and Dora the Explorer and "my park" aka the new playground in town.
I did get her to the Child Check for development screening a few weeks ago, and she checked out a-okay. I worry about her speech, since she hears so many incorrect sounds from her big sisters. But there isn’t a big alarms that say she’s headed toward speech therapy. Developmentally, she’s right where she should be.
I don't know how much she weighs or how tall she is, because I'm a slacker mom aka mom-in-school and will schedule her 3-year well-child check for spring break. But I know she is a little one, still a lightweight. She still has those gorgeous blue eyes and shocking blonde hair. Thanks to a few battles and falls, her nose has the tiniest little bump-scars right on the bridge, which she tends to scratch at and scab over and over again.
Her birthday celebration was a bit toned down, but apparently included everything she wanted it to have. Balloons were delivered to daycare, and cupcakes were made (from scratch) with pink inside, purple frosting, and M&Ms on top... just like she requested. Special happy face pancakes.
And, yes, we sang to her, just like she told us to.
And look who has decided the camera is her friend:
Having a houseful of girls, we get all sorts of funny comments and expressions from people. Often we hear, "Oh, I can only imagine what mornings are like!"
We've had some rough spots in the past two months, some of which we've shared for the bolster of support, some of which we've held close, to heal on our own. Altogether, it's just hard, sometimes too hard.
Everywhere I look for sayings, songs, prayers, psalms, something to boost my faith and spirit. I need that reassurance that God has a master plan and there is a reason to kick us while we are down. Even the superficial struggles -- financial, car troubles, home repairs, scheduling conflicts, work challenges, school struggles -- are enough to break me. I feel like a playdoh version of myself trying to lift a boulder without losing my shape.
But on the bright side, my husband is awesome. He made me rest when I needed rest, he took care of the household when I couldn't. He took care of the girls, he took care of me. Now, he's got a cold and is exhausted and I can't find even half a day that he can and would stop and rest. I can't return the favor, because I'm spending every spare minute trying to get through this last semester of school. All I can do is try to take back the household chores and free that time for him. That's not much when growing season has started.
But growing season's start and Ash Wednesday and taxes done and spring break just a few weeks away -- all that means that we are halfway through this spring. It means we aren't far from the end of this struggle, this two and a half year struggle.
Lord, I pray it has been worth it. I hope I didn't put my family through this for nothing. I know I'll be happier, but I pray they will be too.
I clearly remember in August thinking, "Wow. Things are going so well right now, so smooth. That's not going to last, so I better enjoy it now."
I'm grateful for that respite, because things are piled up now. Jay's mom is having a mastectomy tomorrow, and we're hoping the tumor is small, contained, and not spread to lymph nodes. His grandmother is adjusting to life in the nursing home and recovering from a nasty infection of some sort. And his other grandma is having surgery to place a stint in an artery next Monday. And, Lainie's Trileptol dose doubles tomorrow morning.
But today, today was not tomorrow. And tomorrow's worries can wait for another 15 minutes or so. Today, I took Lainie to school and heard a great report from her teacher, who sees no side effects or behavioral changes from the medication or seizure. Praise God!
The rest of the day was Natalie-Mommy time. We hung out together, all day, just the two of us. We made rice krispie treats, her first time, and a pie. She put on a little apron, used her little oven mitt and mixing spoons, and just had fun. We watched Bubble Guppies together, colored a picture, read a few books, and tried some potty training. No fits, lots of talking, lots of tickling, and lots of giggling from her and smiling from me. I needed that.
And, then, we got the mail and had a card with no return address with a visa cash card for us, signed a friend from our church. Just as we are dropping Jay's truck off for a major mechanical repair.
God always gives us what we need, if we are willing to receive it and sometimes willing to wait for it and always willing to work for it. I truly believe that and I hope you do, too.
But I hope you can believe it without going through hardships to come to that realization.
Still sad, not as mad. Less "what next?!" and more "put on your big girl panties and get over it." Less anger, more prayer and thankfulness.
We have a new plan: Trileptol. I'll be focusing on THAT drug in pharmacology this spring.
We are working on the new busing plan. Lainie can't ride the bus without another adult to be there in case of a seizure, and we can't expect, or won't expect, the district to hire someone for the full 45-minute ride the girls have now. So, we will need to ask for Walleta's help (daycare) and the district's help to find a plan that will work.
She didn't lose any skills from that last seizure and is acting normal, emotionally. She's tired, has circles under her eyes, is coughing, is on motrin around the clock, and is still sleeping in my room or with the monitor on ... I just cannot yet "Let Go and Let God" enough to have her asleep in a separate room. Pray for me on that one.
We can't prevent this or predict this or stop this without God's help and guidance. We can use whatever meds we want and whatever experts we think and whatever tests they have, but if it's God's intention, then it will be.
