Hello, Monday! How are you? Exhausted? Me, too! What a whirlwind of the last two weeks! I finally hit my max yesterday (Sunday) and was in so much pain and just could not do one more thing. Ok, I did do all the "one more things" I had to, but left things like the few pots and pans from supper the night before. It's been a good stretch of hardwork and hustle for me, and of course, God provided just enough strength to get through it all before my physical body took over. And this week is a very quiet week, so we can take it the pace we need to. What I didn't anticipate though was trying to wake up slowly on Monday morning, and Abishai was about to climb into my bed, when he started throwing up instead. Lovely. He threw up all day for a total of 7-8 times and only kept down a few sips of water. He did pee a couple of times, so I know he was getting some liquid. He didn't have a fever that I could tell. He also napped 30-60 minutes 3x over the course of the day and went to bed on time. He is such a big boy now and I was able to set up camp for him in the bathroom and he made it to the toilet most of the time. Keturah, too, claimed she wasn't feeling great, so while I tried to keep her going and doing the next thing, after a period of rest, we didn't make much progress in school. I say "claimed" she was sick because she has some kind of mental/physical connection going that whenever she has to do a chore or homework assignment, her body reacts negatively and she's either itchy or her stomach hurts. I know there's an underlying mental cause, so I'll have to figure that out. At the same time, she did look and act a bit off, so I tried to play nice and instead taught her the coping skills I use every day. Do one task, and then rest, then do another, and then rest. When I've got the stomach bug or have vertigo, it does take a lot of will power to move and do whatever it is I need to do for the kids. But this world doesn't tolerate us sitting on our butts because we are itchy or have a hangnail. Gotta toughen up a bit.
But I digress. Fast forward 24 hrs from the bed incident and Abishai his perfectly normal self. Yesterday he blamed his sickness on eating too much birthday cake! And so far, no one else has symptoms. It is an ok week to have this hit our house, if we can be done with it by Saturday because we have plans to see the Paw Patrol exhibit at the Children's Museum on opening day. We'll see. Our friends have been sick, so it isn't really a surprise that Abishai got sick. I'm glad he's ok because it was way too quiet in the house yesterday. But it did give me a chance to sit more and break up less fights and not get too involved elsewhere because then he would need me again. But, I did cancel my counseling appointment because my stomach was having sympathy pains, and Abishai kept asking for me. I also decided against our field trip today to a local park to talk about maple sugaring. I had only signed up because this field trip was going to be close to home and Abishai wouldn't have remembered the ones we did on PEI. They have this field trip every year at the same place. And the older kids remember those field trips well. Plus it was really, really cold and I didn't want to bundle up when I've already been hurting. And we needed to work on schoolwork we didn't get done on Monday. So, it was a slower Tuesday, but we did get more done than normal! So yeah! That's the kind of day I'm looking for! Done with Mommy working with kids by noon and then freedom for us all to work on other projects the rest of the day.
Keturah also had one more tournament basketball game this evening in a different location that didn't start until 8pm. She wasn't sure she was going to go because of her stomach, but we told her that even injured players can sit and cheer on the team. She did end up playing two quarters and even touching the ball! Abishai was stir crazy because it was near bedtime. And just walking in and out of our local middle school gives me the creeps. It's a beautiful, very large facility with TWO gyms. We didn't even have to go very far into the building and I felt weird and out of place and started thinking about all the things I know about education in our country in general and why we homeschool, etc. And my opinionated self just wants to convince others to think like she does and it's not possibly and it makes me sad. But I'll get over it for now. But I am grateful I am able to stay home and educate our children in the way we want to without being disturbed by any agency because we don't report to anyone or take standardized tests, etc. And I'm grateful for political action groups like our IAHE Action group that keeps an eye on legislation that might harm our freedoms to educate and parent our kids. But nonetheless, it's a scary culture and political climate we live in, and I've been taught to think deeply and ask the "why" questions and yup, I can't even go to a 45 minute basketball game without making it a theological discussion. That's just my #6 on the Enneagram fearful self talking.
Anyway, we'll move on. A funny moment on the way home from the basketball game was how Jared was explaining how he used to play it with some guys and his brother on Wednesday mornings at our church (when we had a gym that is). He said that most of the time he would be in a place on the court where others weren't, to give space to those who had the ball. Most of the time, he would get the ball and immediately pass it. He hardly dribbled and he hardly took a shot. Now, I know he's not aggressive/competitive and what was funny to me was that it totally fits with his (and mine) personality. Most of the jobs we've had, whether paid or as a volunteer, are supportive roles. While his dad travels from end of the world to the other (when you spend 9 days in India and turn around and spend another 9 or 10 days in Alaska) in the SAME MONTH, somebody has to stay home and push the papers and package up and deliver orders to the post office and make sure the weekly blog article gets posted and books are edited properly, etc. Jared has processed gun permits, kept track of a person's personal investments/charitable giving, put together surveys and analyzed the data as to why college students stay in school or don't stay in school, processed mortgages, worked in construction as grunt man, and punched in data as a side job. His only top dog true leadership role has been the president of Maritime Christian College for 4 yrs, and you all know it was a challenge. It's just not him. So it doesn't surprise me when he said he passed the ball and went where others didn't want to go. It cracks me up and just reaffirms what I already know, we aren't meant to be the frontline people. We are designed and more comfortable not being in the spotlight. And that's why leading a small group has always been tough. When I try to have a home based business, I don't do that well with it. Self promotion is not something we do easily. It has to do with our Enneagram numbers (I think he's a 5, the investigator and I'm a 6, the loyalist). We are both introverts, and in some ways perfectionists. And I'm grateful that we have these identifiers so we are more accepting of where God has us. We are all part of the body of Christ and some of us have to be the knuckles on the hands or the spleen or even the bowels, lol. You get my point. Not everyone can be the mouth giving instruction or fingertips giving comfort. And I'm glad we get to play our roles side by side.
Ok, that's enough theorizing, although I know I haven't done that in awhile here on the blog, so it feels good to share my thoughts,. too. I don't have many pictures but here's what I got.
Baby before he got sick:
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| Such a sleepy sick baby. So quiet. No, he didn't want a blanket. We use towels under and over the sick kids. And he and I made sure he would push the books aside if he needed to throw up. He did a great job in this little set up. |
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| Are you sure your are sick or are you just being lazy? |
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| So sick and so tired that he couldn't even keep his head up. |
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| Asleep again, poor thing. |
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| Tuesday, Keturah went to her tournament basketball game, despite having a sour stomach. Eventually she did get out on the court though. |
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| I do agree that this brand new facility is great. But it's almost too clean. And it's definitely too big. At least we get to see where our tax dollars go to. But I did keep whispering to the kids, "See, this is the school you'd be going to. It's too big, isn't it?" And both of my introverts agreed that they are glad they learn at home. They understand that part, but they sometimes just don't want to do real work in general. |
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| Up and down, up and down. This was one big step because the bleachers weren't fully pulled out. This middle school (grades 6-8) (one of two for the township) has two full size basketball courts! Plus extra hoops! |
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| There's Keturah, way out on the left. |
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| And now on the right. But boy were some of the girls hogging the ball. They wouldn't even pass it! And the parents seemed to be ok with that. |
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| Last time out. |
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| Waiting for play to resume. |
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| Stir crazy baby leaned down and asked Daddy every two minutes, "Is it time to go home yet?" |
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| Buzzzzzzz, and that's the end of the basketball season. They lost again. Oh well. I'm just glad we have no more 8 pm game/practices. |
Wednesday we woke up to some snish (snow, rain, ice) on the ground. Jared went to work on time, but Benaiah got a 2 hr delay! I thought he had left, but when I walked by his room, he was still there! It's actually great he got to sleep in because he didn't get home from work until 11:40pm and had to do homework until 1:30am. Poor guy. He works so hard on both ends of his day. I tried to get the rest of the others up and going as quickly as possible because I knew I had to get Benaiah from school later in the day because Grandma had a card making class. Grandpa had taken him to school. Well, Keturah played her "I'm sick" routine and she is just now finishing up her homework at 5:30pm. I gave her a patient, normal voiced lecture this morning about this sickness thing but by 5pm, I was super frustrated again. Grrrr. I wish she would understand that by delay fishing she's only making things worse. I had left the 3 kids at home while I did the Benaiah run and Keturah did not do the work I told her to do. Instead, she was watching the boys play fortnite. The boys had permission to play video games because Justin had completed his work in its entirety by 12:30pm, including read aloud time with me. THAT's how the day is SUPPOSED to go. I guess tomorrow we can go back to her sitting at the table instead of lounging on the couch. If she hasn't thrown up in the 2-3 days since Abishai did, don't think she's going to. If this continues and I can't figure it out, we might have to see a counselor and find the underlying cause. I even told her that part of the problem is me having to be a mean nagging mom and she probably feels like she can never measure up to my standards so why try. And yet, she can, she has, and I do compliment her. It's ridiculous. My parents did NOT praise me for every little thing I did, and yet, I still did the tasks because that's what you do when you're "good girl." Keturah just doesn't care. Sigh. This situation is still a work in progress and she's not even a teenager yet! Ugh!
Meanwhile, Justin, like I said, has had lots of free time. And Abishai has played Legos, jumped on the pull out couch, snuggled with me, etc. And Benaiah, well, from a text from Jared, I found out that Benaiah let his girlfriend Ava borrow one of his most expensive prized possessions: his Counter Strike: Go team hoodie! Say what?! I saw him take it this morning but he already had a sweatshirt on so I didn't know why. Well, come to find out, Ava asked to borrow a sweatshirt and out of the options he gave her, she choose that one,....hm,.....I remember when I was cold on our first date, which was just a stop during my mom and I's college tour that took us from NH to Indiana to North Carolina and back, and Jared gave me a sweatshirt to wear. Well, I forgot to give it back to him at the end of the "night" (aka we were out most of the night because that's all the time we had for each other and didn't know the next time we would be visiting the other one), and took it home with me. And he thought it was odd, but I didn't wash it for awhile because it smelled like him. I do that sometimes when he's gone overnight even now, I'll smell his pillow or spot in the bed just to feel close to him. So, I wonder why Ava wanted something of Benaiah's......time will tell. And it's totally so adorable! Especially since Benaiah didn't have a clue why she made the request. Sigh.
Jared came home feeling pretty ill with a migraine making him nauseous, but he did take Justin and Benaiah to Bible Bowl and small group and then brought them home again. He went straight to bed when they came home. Meanwhile, I'm feeling really ill myself. I'm anticipating that tomorrow is not going to be a good day. I've got all my stomach flu remedies nearby and I'm making sure my phone is fully charged asap. I may have to cancel tomorrow night's piano lesson. And Friday's plans as well. I'm just hoping we are better by Saturday so we can go see Paw Patrol. And if not, we can go another time, but we just won't see anybody in costumes. I hope this doesn't last too long. Good night.
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| Just another border to border storm. Got a lot of snish out of it. |
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| Abishai wanted some extra snuggle time with us. He sat perfectly still next to Justin for a bit. So cute! |
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| When the 'Miah is a way, the dog and brother will play. |
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| Aww, doggie snuggles. |
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| Snuggles from these two are the best. Abishai wanted to play on the pull out couch bed. |
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| Abishai spent over an hour playing Legos on the kitchen counter. He took a little house that Justin had built and kept reworking the top of it with a roof and blocks with computers on it. He even recognized a piece with the word "police" on it! And he tried to utilize a bridge piece and made a trap door like he sees in the YouTube videos. |
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| He sat next to me while I ate dinner so I grabbed his new coloring book. He's actually using his right hand to color! |
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| Oh wait, now he's using his left hand! What?! Ambidextrous are we? Cool! |
Late Wednesday/early Thursday was rough sleeping for both Jared and I. I felt certain that I had come down with Abishai's stomach bug and I was even more determined NOT to start the throwing up process, which for me takes days to recover from. Not only do I have to take it easy going back to regular food, but the heaving itself makes me sore. I just didn't want to be that way for our Paw Patrol visit on Saturday. So, I grabbed all my anti nausesus supplies (boy do I have a lot! You know you have stomach issues when.....you know exactly what you have on hand and how to use it and when.) I quickly took a Dramamine, and while it took a bit for it to take effect, I think it helped tremendously. I also used pepto-bismal and a ton of Digize essential oil. I not only took the digize internally but also externally right on my stomach and bowels. I slept on the couch in the fireside room just in case I tossed and turned. I don't think I tossed and turned that much because of my stomach but because of the couch itself. Oh my word. I'm not doing that again. I should have pulled out the twin sized pull out couch. Whoops. Jared didn't sleep well because I wasn't in the bed and because he had a migraine giving him nausea and today he also continued having that migraine on the other side of his head. Because I didn't sleep well and because I took dramamine, I was sleepy all day and took two 30 minute naps and drank a lot of caffeine. I'm so going to bed early tonight.
I'm glad it's been a slow week over all, but now I'm frustrated that I've taken it too slow. Jared and Benaiah, with Abishai, went out during piano lesson this evening to pick up the bookcase I bought from someone a couple of weeks ago. That will be a nice little project for me to work on over the next few days and will definitely feel a bit more accomplished. We finished school pretty early in the day today again, partly because I knew I wouldn't stay awake to read aloud and partly because the assignments were a tad easier. But now the kids don't know what to do with their free time and are wandering aimlessly. I can't win! Cultivate your hobbies! Except you don't have many hobbies because we haven't had much time to start them. Go figure!
Friday we didn't go to gym today so we could rest up for the Children's Museum on Saturday. I also sat down for tea with Ava's mom, Amy, just as moral support. We had a grand time getting to know each other better and talking about our kids a bit. We are most definitely on the same page, and have been since the beginning, although I think Benaiah thinks we are here to thwart his "plans." Well, we kind of are because hormones are hormones. Otherwise, all is well in that realm.
In my brainspace, though, the rest of the days was spent in a bad mood because I am tired, physically, mentally, and physically. The toll that everyone else's complaints about how much work they have, how hard their work is, that their stomach hurts or their arms itch, that they have yet another migraine, takes on my brain when I can't fix myself let alone all their ailments exhausts me. Chronic illness like I have already takes its toll on them mind. I don't need everyone else's. So, after two weeks of hustling, and then 1 week of shouldering a sick kid, my own almost sickness, and another kid who finds an excuse not to do any work of any kind, I erupted. I know that I should have more empathy, but I don't because they don't seem to say or think, "Oh, THIS is what Mommy feels like ALL THE TIME. Maybe I shouldn't disobey her so much and make it worse." Ok, fine, they are kids, I get that, but I've also taught them and shown them how their attitudes and disobedience only makes me worse and they get punished and don't get what they want. It's a vicious cycle and I'm just done being used and undervalued and never appreciated. Appreciation comes not just from saying thank you but obedience and not whining. I'm the boss, they are the employees, that still need some grace and training, however, it's time for them to take on the responsibilities of external motivations and just do it. Suck it up, buttercup. So, I snapped. But I'm not allow to snap. I have to be a perfect mother who never snaps and if I do, I don't get sympathy, others get mad at me for snapping. So, nobody wins. So what do I do to fix this? Find a way to express my frustration before I snap. Well, yes, I'm pretty good at that, but sometimes I become unglued before I realize why. My "why" this time is that yesterday I had severe brain fog due to medication and sleep deprivation. And that scares me. I hate having my mind impaired. I wouldn't make a good alcoholic or druggie. My mind is all I have when my body hurts, so it needs to be clear. A foggy brain, equals me out of control of the situation (more than normal, because to honest, no one has full control of a situation), which creates fear and anxiety to the max. And then I take it out on other people. Is this healthy? No. I'm just stating the facts. Is there something I can do about it? Like I said, most of the time, I can catch myself and I can find the reason why and deal with it. But this time, all I can do is take time for myself, reflect on the "why," make note that I shouldn't put myself in that position again, apologize, repent, accept forgiveness and move on. Will I do all that? I'll try. I don't always get that far. And I usually want my feelings vindicated first. Play the martyr and victim. Classic. I'm grateful I can catch myself most of the time. It takes hard work to do that.
And that's why trying to cultivate/encourage 5 other people's lives is exhausting. I don't know why Keturah isn't motivate to do any work of any kind. I don't know what will motivate her. I don't know what's causing her stomach aches every morning. Stomach aches that I'm most certain are more emotional and mental than physical. I certainly can do some elimination diets or get her tested for sensitivities, but that kind of stuff takes time and knowing how misdiagnosis can happen so often, she'll be fully grown before we figure it out. She feels fine when she's playing but all of a sudden when she has to work, school or chores, she says something physical about her is hurting or itching. It might be time to head to some play therapy or counseling to sort it out. And then I have to keep Benaiah and Ava on the straight and narrow. And Abishai is well, still a preschooler and we all know that they have their tantrums and persistent "can I have?'s" And Justin has his moments, which are much fewer than the other three combined. And Jared, well, he's on his own. Whatever ails him, I am just not going to even try to figure out. He gets tension headaches often and the occasional migraines. Sometimes he knows what triggers them and sometimes not. He doesn't listen to my medical advice, so I don't bother. Too many plates for this juggler to keep spinning everyday perfectly without them all come crashing down at once and the juggler ending up on the floor crying and in pain. I said I hit my physically/emotional wall on Sunday, and I did, but recovered a little bit, and hit it again today. And when I don't get enough adult time (I don't need much, but I haven't gotten hardly any in the last three weeks), I can only handle so much.
Ok, enough about me, I get it. But maybe this insight will help you, give you that feeling of "I'm not alone." and maybe some take away that you can use. And now we head into the one outing I've been looking forward to for a few months, the Children's Museum, Paw Patrol exhibit without reconciling and in bad moods. Here's to hoping we fix it before we head out the door in the morning.
And I'll make up for the lack of pictures this week by taking a gazillion tomorrow for you to enjoy. Thanks for understanding.
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| Apparently, the kids these days, put a "lock" emoji with a person's name to indicate that they are "locked into a relationship" or as we used to say "going steady" or "taken." |
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P.S. Abishai snuck out of his bed, not ours, but it's still pretty funny when you hear pitter patter of feet and here comes little guy with a big smirk on his face. "I tip toe, Mommy!"
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