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...
My mom is here for 10 days so we are keeping busy with her...
Yesterday for Easter, my mom forced me to allow Shiloh to wear one of those horrible Easter dresses that you likely wore...you know, 20+ years ago...omg! The poor child looked like a garden puked on her!!! haha Here are a few little photos of her.
As usual, Shiloh own me...she is still having sleep issues. Every two weeks or so she will give mea night where she only wakes up twice. But usually it is 4 times or more. So yeah...not only does she walk all over me...
BUT....
She is walking all over the house :D!!!! So proud of her. Its not technically all over the house, but she is taking 4-6 steps at a time and because she is so stinking tiny its super cute. She also can climb all the way up stairs in about 15 seconds...pretty impressive!
She's a CD addict...like me.
This definately sums up thier relationship haha
On another note, Solomon has been super sensitive lately. He used to be the bravest kid ever...like, would get seriously hurt and wouldn't flinch and he just never cried abotu anything. Now, the slightest bumps and he is like falling apart and needs super long cuddles. Poor thing. He is really been longing for more and more attention...Also, his elbow pooped out of the socket AGAIN!!! Thats three times now. I popped it back in though so thats good, no trips to the ER.
I have been getting ride of abuot 50% of our belonings. Its been SO time consuming and SUCH a process but omg, I am feeling SOOOO great. As of tomorrow afternoon, this house will be spankin' spotless!!! :)
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.
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.
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 MASSIVE 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 wroteTHIS and wow...it is powerful. Its a really short, wonderful read. I cried (shocker right? ;))
Meet Reginold. The camel. April got this for him way back in 2007 from Israel. Suddenly, he is obsessed with it. Reginold is the new bff.
Here is Solomon stealing his sisters purse.
And stealing a hug.
Little Buddy had some issues so we had to send him back to his creator for some repairing. :( Hurry back little buddy...we miss you!!!
Solomon has a camel...and I have a Koala. I wear her non-stop. She likes to get down and play for a while but then, she likes me to put the sling on and wear her while I do pretty much everything, including pee.
Will and I FINALLY got new uggs. We now live somewhere that actually requires warm boots unlike in Southern California where we just wore them because we were cool. Now they are cool, and funtional (but lets all be honest...we just got them because we're cool haha)
Jillian and Solomon in their obnixious hummers at toys'r'us. Can't they have these things in a Pruis????
Candice gave Shiloh this kitchen for Christmas and she is obsessed with it. It is the best gift ever. She sits there forever and plays with it. It is so so sweet!
The Piano is something we had from when Solomon was teeny. She loves this too. I'd say she is a Laugh and Learn baby. I wonder what other free Laugh and Learn things we can get her?!?!
I was laying in bed two nights ago,next to Will (duh!) and I said this, "You know, when I tell you I wish I wasn't married to you, I mean it!! (hahaha) In those crazy heated moments. BUT the truth is, I am so happy that I found my best friend. We get to be married for as long as God gives us...its going to be fun, the rest of our lives..." He is such a great dad. I love watching my children love their dad so very much.
My slender husband was going to take Solomon out in the 3 feet of snow at his parents house. They live in many acres of land and it's up a hill so they get more snow than we do. Will bundled up in the biggest baggiest, most ridiculous snow clothes I have ever seen. It was hilarious. I could not stop laughing...oh...but it gets better...
This one is my favorite. Will's dad was hunting for deer to murder :( in the woods and to prevent Will from getting mistake for the poor helpless deer (although they were no where near the hunting grounds), he wore this awesome orange tree branch vest. Definately the key piece to this outfit.
Solomon has been asking to go to the zoo lately. The weather has been so awful that we haven't been able to. (Plus it was closed). So finally last weekend. We got some sunshine and some none-freezing temperature so we headed. Our photos tell the story...
(Note: We spent 99% of the trip inside the aquarium. If you cannot tell by the awe struck look on Solomons face, he is IN LOVE with sharks and divers. When that diver waved to him, I thought he was going to apss out!!! he was soooo excited!!!And all the phtos were taken with my cell phone so sorry if some are blurry.)
