Endurance

Just wanted to update everyone on the situation with Nolan - thank you so much for your encouraging emails and notes...and words of wisdom! He is now sleeping through the night again and is falling asleep much better without the hour of screaming first. However, on Monday I noticed these raised red bumps all over his diaper area and around his mouth. He was also running a low-grade fever, so I figured it was diaper rash and due to teething and I didn't think much of it. Then, the bumps appeared on his hands, feet and inside his mouth. I called the doctor and, as it turns out, he has hand-foot-and-mouth disease. If it isn't one thing, it's another!! Unfortunately, it is a virus and there is nothing we can give him. The poor guy is so uncomfortable and now all his bumps are blistering and they look awful! It should only last another week, though, and he'll be back on the mend. But, until then, we have one fussy kid on our hands!

After all of this, I have to admit I was left thinking, "What else, Lord?!" Then I read something that shifted me back into the right perspective:

"When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become women of mature character, women of integrity with no weak spots. If, in the process, any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem she has only to ask God, who gives generously to all without making them feel guilty, and she may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given her." (James 1:2-5, Phillips translation)

So, I am now praying for endurance...not that the hard times will cease, but that I will press on, realizing with every step that He is growing me through these trials and pulling me ever closer to His side. I love the reassuring words in Psalm 121:1-5a:

"I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip, he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you."

Separation Anxiety

Well, this week brought a new set of challenges with Nolan. Wednesday night after Ryan put him to bed, he was having a hard time going to sleep. He was really crying hard and we were in the tv room, commenting on how odd that was. Then, all of a sudden, I heard his door knob turn and he came walking out of his room and down the hall. My heart stopped beating and Ryan and I both ran to get him before he tumbled down the stairs. He had figured out how to climb out of his crib...oh joy! Unfortunately, because of his height, it is no trouble for him at all to just swing his leg over and down he goes. We never had this issue with Lauren so we weren't quite sure what to do. We decided we had to teach him (for safety sake) that he couldn't climb out. So, we had to discipline him each time and put him back to bed...then wait outside his door for him to do it all over again. It took about an hour and a half of this before he finally fell asleep. The next morning for his first nap, we went through it once again. But, in the afternoon, he didn't try to climb out at all - discipline works...yeah!!! We were feeling so proud and victorious...until we realized we weren't in the clear yet.

The problem now is that, even though he isn't attempting to get out, he is crying for an hour before he will fall asleep. And, on top of that, he is waking up at 2am and 4am crying as if someone is hurting him...and it takes him an hour or two to fall back asleep. We have tried rocking with him, consoling him, singing to him, and just leaving him be to cry it out. And still nothing has worked yet. We are exhausted!! His voice is hoarse from all the crying and he has dark circles under his eyes from the lack of sleep. We are completely stumped! He continues to be our challenging child. :( I had taken him to the doctor earlier in the week because he had been so fussy - his ears were fine and the strep test came back negative. So, I know he isn't sick. He could be teething or it could be that he is going through the phase of separation anxiety. Things have been much harder on the kids with Ryan not around as much and I wonder if that has played into it at all? The problem is that we can't change that until the house sells, so we are stuck trying to work something out until then.

So, please PRAY for us as we struggle to figure this out with him - that the Lord will give us the rest we all need (somehow), that He will give us the wisdom and discernment to know how to treat this situation with Nolan and that this phase will pass quickly! Also, if any of you out there reading this have gone through something similar with any of your kids around this same age (16 mos), your advice is welcome!!!

A Milestone

Lauren officially entered the big kid club last week when she lost her first tooth!! Her bottom two teeth in the front have been very wiggly for some time and the new tooth was already coming in behind one of them. The other day she was out on the screened-in porch with Nolan and she came running inside the house screaming, holding the tooth in her hand. We had a little celebration, which was apparently too loud for Nolan because he started crying. :(

The tooth fairy came that night and left her 50 cents, which she thought was pretty cool. As a side note, I never realized how difficult it is BEING the tooth fairy. Ryan was on a trip when this all occured, so it was up to me. I put her to bed at her usual time and figured I would sneak in before I went to bed at 10. Well, she was so excited about the tooth fairy coming that when I opened her door, she sat up and said "hi, mommy". I very sternly told her that it was extremely late and that if she didn't go to sleep, the tooth fairy wouldn't come. So, I then had to set my alarm for the middle of the night, to ensure that she would be sound asleep when I crept in. When the alarm went off at 1:45am, I completely forgot about my plan at first and couldn't figure out why it was ringing. A few minutes later I remembered, stumbled out of bed, grabbed the quarters and headed upstairs as quietly as I could. Of course, her bedroom door sticks, so it made a noise when I opened it. She stirred a little bit and I stood there holding my breath. Thankfully, I had convinced her to put the tooth on her nightstand, instead of under her pillow (because she is such a light sleeper, I knew there was no way I could get it from underneath her head without waking her up). I tiptoed over to the side of her bed, grabbed the tooth, put down the money and raced out...just as she was rolling over and opening her eyes. YIKES!!

The funniest part about it was that in the morning, she proudly came downstairs for breakfast carrying her change with a smile on her face. Then, she proceeded to tell me that she saw the tooth fairy in her room last night. I was surprised (and a little concerned) by this and so I asked what she looked like. She described her as having short blonde hair and said that she was wearing a long blue skirt (I was wearing long blue pajama pants) and a white shirt (I was wearing a white tank top). I had to laugh a little inside. Who knows how long she'll go on believing in the "tooth fairy" before she figures it out. But, until then, I may have to work on my approach and exit! :)

Here's her new toothless grin:

A Day at The Zoo

We have been promising Lauren since we moved here that we would take her to the zoo. Back in Oregon, we had a zoo membership and lived less than 20 minutes away from it, so we went ALL the time! But, we haven't been able to go here in North Carolina yet...mainly because it is a 2 hour drive to the nearest zoo. Well, we finally did it! Ryan had the day off on Friday for the 4th of July holiday, so after breakfast Friday morning, we packed up and hit the road.

The kids did fairly well on the car ride down. Lauren played her Leapster most of the way and Nolan played with toys and looked at some books. At one point, I did have to climb in the backseat and wedge myself between their car seats to help calm him down. But, after 2 hours in the car, we finally made it to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina!

This zoo was much different than the one in Oregon - the main difference being that the animals are all so close. Maybe this one was done before they tried to make zoos more of a "natural preserve"...but it was great for us because we got to see everything so close up. They also had an aquarium there with tropical fish, snakes and lizards (which Nolan loved). We got to ride on the carousel, play on the playground, have a picnic lunch at the gardens and take a tram ride. It was such a fun day for the kids and it was very cute to watch Nolan react to seeing all those animals for the first time. Here are some pictures from our zoo adventure:





Lauren "milking the cow" at the Farm






Posing with the statues





Nolan running around the penguin exhibit






Two very tired kiddos