Thursday, February 25, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Wildly Longing...
I can close my eyes at almost anytime...and I am there.
I take a deep breath. I smell it. I walk carefully on wet, slippery, red earth. Banana trees everywhere I look. I hear the noise of kids running, playing, laughing. I see those beautiful white teeth shining out from beautiful dark faces, some full of hope, some full of fear and anger. I hear night noises, loud symphonies carrying on despite the darkness. Rain pours down on my tin roof. Laughing until it hurt with Adam, Moses and Sophie every day. Adventure in every moment.
My life of simplicity. Void of the greatest "necessities" electricity, running water, a toilet inside the house. I miss the silly things like filling up a plastic basin to bathe in and not even dreaming of blow drying my hair or putting make up on. Lighting matches, candles lanterns to see. No distractions to take up my time. Learning how to love in an unimaginable way.
Oh, the fullness of wildly loving a God who I knew beyond all else, was wild about me.
That is something I no longer feel. Its a place that I long for. Not even so much physically but spiritually. It is a place that I have never found here. I look for it. But I get so angry that I cannot quench this longing...to be back there, back in that fullness, that love, that confidence. Why doesn't God let this fire die out? It seems so unfair. I struggle with so much anger towards Him. I cannot go back...so why are these flames still raging??
I long to go back there. I cannot explain the way I have felt each time I stepped off that plane in Entebbe, Uganda. My heart screamed, "I am home!!" Its the only thing in my life I have ever done where I undeniably knew GOD TOLD ME TO GO HERE. The idea, so much NOT mine, that it was ONLY His.
I remember returning to the States feeling like such an outsider. It was an impossible feeling to deal with. I truly felt like God left me...and if I am being honest, there is such a short period of time where I have felt connected with Him since then, that its hard not to say I haven’t felt Him or heard Him at all in these past years.
There is goodness, greatness in my life now. I have a husband who I know God hand picked and delivered for/to me. I have the most lovely children, that I have dreamed of my whole life...but I am lost. I search for Him, wanting to find Him in the way I found Him there. I cannot. The guilt I have over our seemingly failed relationship must only fall on me...but this dessert is dry and it is wearing me down.
And the emptiness remains. I cannot bring myself to believe that it is there for a reason. I simply try and daily find the God I feel abandoned me on an airplane many years ago.
Oh, how I miss the fullness of wildly loving a God who I knew beyond all else, was wild about me.
I take a deep breath. I smell it. I walk carefully on wet, slippery, red earth. Banana trees everywhere I look. I hear the noise of kids running, playing, laughing. I see those beautiful white teeth shining out from beautiful dark faces, some full of hope, some full of fear and anger. I hear night noises, loud symphonies carrying on despite the darkness. Rain pours down on my tin roof. Laughing until it hurt with Adam, Moses and Sophie every day. Adventure in every moment.
My life of simplicity. Void of the greatest "necessities" electricity, running water, a toilet inside the house. I miss the silly things like filling up a plastic basin to bathe in and not even dreaming of blow drying my hair or putting make up on. Lighting matches, candles lanterns to see. No distractions to take up my time. Learning how to love in an unimaginable way.
Oh, the fullness of wildly loving a God who I knew beyond all else, was wild about me.
That is something I no longer feel. Its a place that I long for. Not even so much physically but spiritually. It is a place that I have never found here. I look for it. But I get so angry that I cannot quench this longing...to be back there, back in that fullness, that love, that confidence. Why doesn't God let this fire die out? It seems so unfair. I struggle with so much anger towards Him. I cannot go back...so why are these flames still raging??
I long to go back there. I cannot explain the way I have felt each time I stepped off that plane in Entebbe, Uganda. My heart screamed, "I am home!!" Its the only thing in my life I have ever done where I undeniably knew GOD TOLD ME TO GO HERE. The idea, so much NOT mine, that it was ONLY His.
I remember returning to the States feeling like such an outsider. It was an impossible feeling to deal with. I truly felt like God left me...and if I am being honest, there is such a short period of time where I have felt connected with Him since then, that its hard not to say I haven’t felt Him or heard Him at all in these past years.
There is goodness, greatness in my life now. I have a husband who I know God hand picked and delivered for/to me. I have the most lovely children, that I have dreamed of my whole life...but I am lost. I search for Him, wanting to find Him in the way I found Him there. I cannot. The guilt I have over our seemingly failed relationship must only fall on me...but this dessert is dry and it is wearing me down.
And the emptiness remains. I cannot bring myself to believe that it is there for a reason. I simply try and daily find the God I feel abandoned me on an airplane many years ago.
Oh, how I miss the fullness of wildly loving a God who I knew beyond all else, was wild about me.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Twenty Eight
Saturday morning. Shiloh wakes from her nap. I walk up the stairs to get her. Will and Solomon are both napping in Solomons room. I get Shiloh and down the stairs we go. I see my neighbors car running and her car lights on. "Oh she must me leaving...boy her drive way is full is snow! Poor thing." I start to take Shiloh into the kitchen because I am going to feed her some lunch, but then I remember that I didn't change her diaper. I walk back into the living room and start to set up the changing pad.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!!!
"I wonder why Lisa is knocking to borrow our snow shovel" I think.
I plop Shiloh back on my hip and open the door.
A man is standing there with a pot of tupils right in front of his face.
"huh?"
All of a sudden, someone pops out from behind my car and SCREAMS "surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
OH. MY. GOSH!
It is my sister, April. The man behind the tupils is my dad!!! And his girlfrined Cherl is behind my sister.
I bawl my eyes out, scream, freak out in every possible way!!!!
Best birthday present ever. Happy Birthday to me...
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!!!
"I wonder why Lisa is knocking to borrow our snow shovel" I think.
I plop Shiloh back on my hip and open the door.
A man is standing there with a pot of tupils right in front of his face.
"huh?"
All of a sudden, someone pops out from behind my car and SCREAMS "surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
OH. MY. GOSH!
It is my sister, April. The man behind the tupils is my dad!!! And his girlfrined Cherl is behind my sister.
I bawl my eyes out, scream, freak out in every possible way!!!!
Best birthday present ever. Happy Birthday to me...
Friday, February 12, 2010
She Speaks
Shiloh, standing in from of my dads photo saying "papa"
Shiloh says:
All Done
Hi
Mama
Papa
Still no dada yet...but Will is working on it :)
Shiloh says:
All Done
Hi
Mama
Papa
Still no dada yet...but Will is working on it :)
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sleepless (and slightly crazy) In Snowmageddon
The last two weeks have been two of the most trying weeks of my (and Im sure I can add Will into this too) life. I have blogged and blogged about Shilohs sleeping issues. At five months, all hell broke loose and things have been getting worse and worse for the last four months. She goes to sleep easily, but staying asleep, a whole other story. Some nights I can nurse her right back to sleep, other nights, I am up for 3 hours. I dare you to give me advise that I haven't tried. Earlier bed time, later bed time, take a nap away, bed time routine, bath, lavendar massage, let her cry for 1 min- go in and comfort and then double the time each time you leave, let her cry it out for up to an hour (I even did up to 90 minutes one night, while hysterically crying outsdie the door bc I hate the cry it out method. she never ever calmed down, not even a little) hold her, rock her, walk/jostle/sing routine, seriously...EVERYTHING. Its really hard. And you know what? I never imagined that such prolonged sleeplessness would start to alter your state of mind, but oh how it has. Her not sleeping also stirs up this anger in me. Do you know it? The sleeplessnes in combination with the anger just gives me these horrible thoughts, resenting my own child, which then adds terrible guilt to the equation. How can a mother who loves her baby so much resent her own child at times???
She has had a cold. Which, mothers know, means sleep issues x100!!! After 2 nights of her sleeping an accumulated total of maybe two hours, I had completely lost my mind. I cried for an entire day. I was trying to hard to reconnect with her during the day, but the night had been so horrible that I seriously had to prepare myself to even hold her because I was so upset about it. I sort of just shut down. Thank God Will was home!!! That day, she ended up with a fever and her cold, which was improving, got worse. Runny nose, hacking cough, just total misery. She took one nap that day, which is unusual. Then bedtime...oh bedtime. I was up the entire night again. I kid you not, if I so much as bent my knees, not to mention stopped walking/jostling her, she screamed. I did that for four hours straight. My body ached from holding her to the point that I thought I might hurl...I finally had to wake Will up at 5am. I went to bed for 2 hours and when I woke up, Shiloh was napping. She got up and was miserable (clearly quite sick) I wore her in the sling and had to pace the house/jostle her all day in order to keep her from screaming. She feel asleep for a few minues a few different times in the sling but other than that, there was no sitting, no napping at all on Monday.
Will and I were at the end of our rope. Something was wrong. Our kids have never been to a sick dr visit but Shiloh had her first one on Monday evening. I told the dr (thankfully a D.O.) that I didn't want ANY antibiotic unless she was absolutely certian it was necessary. Ear unfections are such a popular (and mostly false) diagnosis, most of which heal on their own, that I told her to please let us ride it out if she thoguht it were possible. Shiloh had a 102.7 fever so the body was clearly working on something but when the dr peeked into her ears she said, "Woah! This is a bad, full blown ear infection...and lets see the otherside...yeah, wow, same thing." My kids have never been on an antibiotic so I was realy nervous. I have a lot of antibiotic allergies (probably caused from being on them constatntly as a child) plus all the harsh side affects...it was all just hard to take. I got the antibiotic and more motrin and added tylenol (because it seemed like the the motrin was barely touching her pain) and headed home. I drugged her up, which just kills me. Solomon has taken a fever reducer maybe 3 times in his whole life, and that boy is known to have 104 fevers for no reason at all...but Shiloh is nine months old and has finished an entire bottle of motrin!!! Oh I cringe at the thought of it!!! Her poor liver/kidneys!!! Anyway, at 930pm, she went to sleep, laying down!!!! In her bed!!!! Which hadn't happened in days! She woke up at 130 and had a nurse and more tylenol/motrin piggy backing. Then...she slept...and she slept and she slept!!!!! At 9 am I finally had to wake her up because I was so engorged and was leaking all over the place. The next night was similar. Thank you God...just that she is sleeping and feeling better. And that I got to sleep for more than 2 hours!!! :)
Last night was a rough one again, but I tried skipping the pain meds. Perhaps a mistake? At 3am, when we had been up for 2 hours, I gave her a little more motrin and she slept till 530, had a nurse and went back to sleep until 8. Perhaps she is still in a little pain.
This whole thing has been difficult for so many reasons. There are so few people who get how awful this is because of lack of experience. It feels really lonely sometimes. Plus, I was really feeling so bad that Will had to get up and go to work, that I was taking it all on myself, trying to not wake him (I was making him sleep in with Solomon so that he wouldn't have to be awake all night) unless I was considering screaming at Shiloh, or worse!!! I came to the conclusion that we both have to work the next day and I NEED him. So he was happy to come back in and help, as a team. Also, I was really really hurt...you see, every night, I literally CRY out to God...begging for Him to let me sleep, let Shiloh sleep...to help us all sleep...and every morning I feel like He compltely ignored me. It crushed me everday. I started to get really angry with Him. "How you could NOT care God? I'm dying here!!" Then...I decided to start praying for something different..."Lord, help me have the strength to get through whatever the night holds...." and then, He WAS there. He helped me through each night, as long as I tapped into His strength.
It has been/is a process. A long, hard, sad, upsetting, exhausting, terrible process. But I am surviving. And that is the most important part.
To top it all off, the weather has had us completely trapped in the house. We have had like 4 feet of snow over the last week and it is still coming down. We are trapped in the driveway and Will and I have been shoveling and shoveling. It is a mess out there!!! Grocery stores were completely out of milk, as in THE ENTIRE STORE HAD NO MILK!!!! What the heck!!!
We are surviving, God is with us, and for that, we are So thankful. I know this is a really really depressing post, but for me, there is so much victory ...hope that makes sense.
She has had a cold. Which, mothers know, means sleep issues x100!!! After 2 nights of her sleeping an accumulated total of maybe two hours, I had completely lost my mind. I cried for an entire day. I was trying to hard to reconnect with her during the day, but the night had been so horrible that I seriously had to prepare myself to even hold her because I was so upset about it. I sort of just shut down. Thank God Will was home!!! That day, she ended up with a fever and her cold, which was improving, got worse. Runny nose, hacking cough, just total misery. She took one nap that day, which is unusual. Then bedtime...oh bedtime. I was up the entire night again. I kid you not, if I so much as bent my knees, not to mention stopped walking/jostling her, she screamed. I did that for four hours straight. My body ached from holding her to the point that I thought I might hurl...I finally had to wake Will up at 5am. I went to bed for 2 hours and when I woke up, Shiloh was napping. She got up and was miserable (clearly quite sick) I wore her in the sling and had to pace the house/jostle her all day in order to keep her from screaming. She feel asleep for a few minues a few different times in the sling but other than that, there was no sitting, no napping at all on Monday.
Will and I were at the end of our rope. Something was wrong. Our kids have never been to a sick dr visit but Shiloh had her first one on Monday evening. I told the dr (thankfully a D.O.) that I didn't want ANY antibiotic unless she was absolutely certian it was necessary. Ear unfections are such a popular (and mostly false) diagnosis, most of which heal on their own, that I told her to please let us ride it out if she thoguht it were possible. Shiloh had a 102.7 fever so the body was clearly working on something but when the dr peeked into her ears she said, "Woah! This is a bad, full blown ear infection...and lets see the otherside...yeah, wow, same thing." My kids have never been on an antibiotic so I was realy nervous. I have a lot of antibiotic allergies (probably caused from being on them constatntly as a child) plus all the harsh side affects...it was all just hard to take. I got the antibiotic and more motrin and added tylenol (because it seemed like the the motrin was barely touching her pain) and headed home. I drugged her up, which just kills me. Solomon has taken a fever reducer maybe 3 times in his whole life, and that boy is known to have 104 fevers for no reason at all...but Shiloh is nine months old and has finished an entire bottle of motrin!!! Oh I cringe at the thought of it!!! Her poor liver/kidneys!!! Anyway, at 930pm, she went to sleep, laying down!!!! In her bed!!!! Which hadn't happened in days! She woke up at 130 and had a nurse and more tylenol/motrin piggy backing. Then...she slept...and she slept and she slept!!!!! At 9 am I finally had to wake her up because I was so engorged and was leaking all over the place. The next night was similar. Thank you God...just that she is sleeping and feeling better. And that I got to sleep for more than 2 hours!!! :)
Last night was a rough one again, but I tried skipping the pain meds. Perhaps a mistake? At 3am, when we had been up for 2 hours, I gave her a little more motrin and she slept till 530, had a nurse and went back to sleep until 8. Perhaps she is still in a little pain.
This whole thing has been difficult for so many reasons. There are so few people who get how awful this is because of lack of experience. It feels really lonely sometimes. Plus, I was really feeling so bad that Will had to get up and go to work, that I was taking it all on myself, trying to not wake him (I was making him sleep in with Solomon so that he wouldn't have to be awake all night) unless I was considering screaming at Shiloh, or worse!!! I came to the conclusion that we both have to work the next day and I NEED him. So he was happy to come back in and help, as a team. Also, I was really really hurt...you see, every night, I literally CRY out to God...begging for Him to let me sleep, let Shiloh sleep...to help us all sleep...and every morning I feel like He compltely ignored me. It crushed me everday. I started to get really angry with Him. "How you could NOT care God? I'm dying here!!" Then...I decided to start praying for something different..."Lord, help me have the strength to get through whatever the night holds...." and then, He WAS there. He helped me through each night, as long as I tapped into His strength.
It has been/is a process. A long, hard, sad, upsetting, exhausting, terrible process. But I am surviving. And that is the most important part.
To top it all off, the weather has had us completely trapped in the house. We have had like 4 feet of snow over the last week and it is still coming down. We are trapped in the driveway and Will and I have been shoveling and shoveling. It is a mess out there!!! Grocery stores were completely out of milk, as in THE ENTIRE STORE HAD NO MILK!!!! What the heck!!!
Right as the storm started
Two Hours Later
The Next Morning
We are surviving, God is with us, and for that, we are So thankful. I know this is a really really depressing post, but for me, there is so much victory ...hope that makes sense.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
To Sleep Or Not To Sleep
Part of Project-Amber-Trust-Yourself...
So I have all this paranoia that I am doing the wrong thing but waking with Shiloh and letting her nurse when she wants to nurse or cuddling/rocking her when she wants it. I am SO glad that I re-came across THIS article...whew...makes me feel SO much better.
So I have all this paranoia that I am doing the wrong thing but waking with Shiloh and letting her nurse when she wants to nurse or cuddling/rocking her when she wants it. I am SO glad that I re-came across THIS article...whew...makes me feel SO much better.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Lately...
Its been an interesting week for me. I have been up to some things...just little things.
Like...
I got this new purse.
I made my friend Jeana some cupcakes for her birthday bash at Chipotle.
Also, I got really overwhelemed (again) at the thought of homeschooling. I tried to share it with Will and since he didn't seem to get it, we had aMASSIVE BLOWOUT tiff. ;) I am so scared that I am doing the wrong thing as a parent. I am so scared that I am ruining Solomon and Shiloh. I worry so much about this. Sometimes I do feel so alone because it is hard to find the "you're doing a great job" feeling inside of me. I feel like if I had the right discipline techniques, Solomon would stop saying things like "stupid" and "shut up." Or if I was "tough eoung" I would let Shiloh cry herself to sleep every night until she slept alone, through the night. I second guess everything I do and I just wish I would trust myself. In my heart, I feel like I KNOW what my kids need, but with so many different people around, I always let thier opinions or ways of doing things cloud my view. I'm trying really hard to just trust my heart, because I know that I have wonderful, attached children, who are so connected with us, other people, and thier own emotions and hearts, and so maybe, just maybe, I am doing something right. I am trying with my whole heart and I just really want to have the right perspective and attitude.
Speaking of perspective, Kara Noel at Eli's Lids wrote THIS and wow...it is powerful. Its a really short, wonderful read. I cried (shocker right? ;))
Like...
I got this new purse.
I made my friend Jeana some cupcakes for her birthday bash at Chipotle.
Was given this magazine page by Candice because this pretty much sums Shiloh up...
I fed Shiloh peas
Then fed her her toes...
Watched this grump fuss all over me!
Hypnotized my kids with Barney.
Did some February prep...
Also, I got really overwhelemed (again) at the thought of homeschooling. I tried to share it with Will and since he didn't seem to get it, we had a
Speaking of perspective, Kara Noel at Eli's Lids wrote THIS and wow...it is powerful. Its a really short, wonderful read. I cried (shocker right? ;))
Monday, February 1, 2010
Solomon's World
We got to go to this awesome mini neighborhood. Solomon was in heaven. There was a TV station, a coffee shop, a grocery store, a fire station, a hospital, a mechanic shop, a train station and a massive playset...all indoors. Solomon has never had so much fun. Everything was just his size and there was SO much to play with. We had a great time, with great friends. This place is actually right by Wills work, which is an hour drive. It was so much fun. We cannot wait to do it again...probably will head out there in April when my mom comes to visit. Once again, I forgot my camera and was wearing Shiloh so the pictures are all kinda crappy.
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