My little creations...who I love more than anything in the world...
I long to hear them say they love me. I need to know that they will listen to me when I speak to them. I want to know that they love to spend time with me....that they can't live without me.
But what if they didn't? What if they, with their actions, showed that I didn't exist to them? What if they spent weeks at a time ignoring me? What if they never told me that they loved me? What if, every time I told them to do something, they thought they knew better?
Right now, Solomon has been having serious separation anxiety. When I leave the room, he becomes hysterical. He follows me WHERE EVER I GO. He wants to sleep beside me. He wants to sit in the bathroom with me while I shower. He will not stay in his class at church. He CLINGS to me. He sobs when I am out of his sight. For several months now, I didn't know what to do. Why is he so desperate for my presence? Why does he need to be at my feet every second of the day? How come he panics when he cannot see me?
I have a creator...who undoubtedly loves me more than I can imagine. I wonder how He feels when with my actions, I deny His existence. I wonder how deeply I hurt Him when I spend weeks ignoring Him? I wonder the pain that I inflict on my Loving God by going so long without telling Him I love him. I wonder why he continues to pursue me when so many times, He gives me direction, but I do something completely opposite, because I think I know better.
What if I became like a child? Like my child? What if I became hysterical when I was not at the feet of my God? What if I slept beside Him? What if I didn't go anywhere outside of His presence? What if I sobbed when I stepped out of His sight? What if I clung to Him and panicked at the thought of being away from Him? Shouldn't this be where I am daily?
Truth be told, outside of His presence, I am lost. Outside of Him, I am a broken disaster. Outside of Him, I do not know kindness or love. Outside of Him, it is dark and empty...but I find myself there so often...drifting. Forgetting how much I need Him. Forgetting that clinging to Him is my only salvation...salvation, not because of anything that I can do, but a salvation that is ONLY Him. Saving me in my deepest darkest places. Giving me life that, without it, I could only know death.
This truth, this life, my Great Mighty Merciful Savior has given me freely. I am His.
So I shout out Your name, and from the rooftops I proclaim, that I am Yours. All that I am, I place into your loving hands, and I am Yours...
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!!!
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.
The last four days have been spent at sweet Solomon's side. He got the stomach flu and it has NOT been easy as his mother, watching it. Its seems trivial really. He vomited about 10 times on Monday. Tuesday he had a 103 fever with no throwing up or diarrhea. He didn't want to touch a toy, be in a lit room, watch any TV (which is EXTREMELY out of character...we have TV limits in our house and he pushes them EVERYDAY) or even move (also, extremely out of character). Wednesday was his weakest day. He had the worst diarrhea ever...like I hate to be gross, but it was like a force of nature I have never ever seen...and it was all water!!!! He couldn't get out of bed, or, brace yourself, its sad, even lift his little head. He slept for almost the entire day...and I had to carry him back and forth to the bathroom like 8 times at least. Yesterday evening he asked me for a waffle with peanut better, and while I knew it wouldn't be the easiest thing on his stomach, it had been days since he ate and I was willing to risk it. He ate the entire thing and drank some water...and right after that I started to see a little twinkle in his eyes. His fragile little voice started engaging me in conversation...I could tell we had reached a light in this tunnel. Today, he is still extremely weak...he can take a few wobbly steps but is still so stinking limp. He ate a few bites of waffle this morning, puked, and then ate a few more. He still has diarrhea and is definitely more of a grump than he has been in these past 4 days (which is a sign of improvement). I put him in the stroller for awhile and we walked. I cannot tell you (unless of course you live in somewhere that has all four seasons) what it is like to experience TRUE spring. The air is unlike ANYTHING I have ever breathed. The weather is AMAZING! I am so grateful. After our walk, we sat outside for a bit and painted. Here are some of my gorgeous sons shots.
Resembling somewhat of a grumpy little Andy Warhol
Um, do we LOVE the yellow aviators???? Yes, yes we do!!!
Deep in thought...what a masterpiece.
Solomon is currently napping and I am hoping and praying that this will all be over soon...
Which brings me to my heavy heart. Mckmama's blog is a place I have been frequenting lately for updates on little Stellan. Watching Solomon in pain, as minimal as a little ol' stomach flu, found me actually grateful. I knew it would pass. I knew he would be ok. I knew that soon, he would be his charming, stubborn wild little self...what a peace I had. What a sadness engulfed me, not even SLIGHTLY being able to fathom what Jennifer and the rest of Stellans family are going through. There are her posts where she is had it and she is pissed off (UH, RIGHTFULLY SO!!!!) but her theme is seeing the glory of the Lord rising around her. I don't know that I would ever be able to be in that place. She is a testament of the women God wants us all to be, of this I am sure...I am confident that she falls short on plenty of occasions, but what a witness to the fullness and faithfulness of the God of all that is. I am deeply grieved yet richly blessed by her current situation...my heart cried out to God, begging that He enact his will and offer strength for those to endure it...
How great is our God...in everything.
(Side Note** Just started reading Death By Church: Rescuing Jesus From His Followers. By Mike Erre. WOW...you should get it and read it...AWESOME! so far)
