Blessing Day turned into "Afternoon at the ER"

Shortly after lunch, as we were about to take our little friend back to his house, our daughter fell while doing a handstand and her foot landed on the metal frame of her brother's bed, slicing it open nearly to the bone. There are some pics at the bottom of this post, so if you're squeamish you'll want to avoid them.

Honestly, it looked horrible. There was quite a bit of blood at first, and we saw white inside, which we thought was bone (turned out not to be). I felt afraid but was trying to remain outwardly calm for all the little people. I loaded everyone into the van, returned our little friend to his home, and headed to the pediatric ER about 30 minutes away. Our daughter got a wheelchair ride into the ER from the parking lot, which she thought was pretty cool. We got a room right away where our children (including the injured girl) were soon mesmerized by cartoons on a cable station, something we don't have at home!

Our daughter was such a trooper all afternoon. I am very proud of her. She was slightly disappointed that she only got 3 stitches to show for it. We thought there'd be at least 20! I am so thankful it wasn't worse. We did have a long wait for those 3 stitches (and have to return to the ER to have them removed in 2 weeks. They were adament that we had to return to THEM to take them out) but everyone was well behaved and even Little Man, who was missing his nap, behaved like a perfect little gentleman. By the end, though, everyone was very tired and very hungry.

I predict an easy school day tomorrow with naps in the afternoon. :-) And though I would never wish an injury on any of my children, I am thankful that it happened to one of our kids and not our little friend!

Blessing Day

Yesterday was a good school day. Our son who lives with SPD (sensory processing disorder) had a good day after several really hard ones, so I was very grateful. Daughter G wrote another really good paragraph using the IEW principles. Now that I have a handle on it, I'm so excited to continue using this wonderful writing program! Son G is almost done with his Math U See workbook, and son C is almost done with his "Get Set for the Code" phonics workbook. They always LOVE to finish workbooks! I started reading a new book outloud that everyone is enjoying very much (The Matchlock Gun). We made a big Sam's Club run so now we have lots of food!

We were able to wash some large bedding at the laundromat for our "illegal" friend who is being deported soon. I was happy to do this for her, as I have been unable to help much until now. When I took the bedding to her last night, she was having a hard time getting her 2 year old to settle down to sleep. So I offered to hold the fussy newborn while she laid down with the 2 year old. For about an hour I did my "baby whisperer" thing (that's my nickname in the church nursery!) while she rested. She had had a hard night the night before with hardly any sleep and had a bad headache. Her husband is still sitting in jail, waiting for the necessary paperwork to be completed so they can be officially deported, while she is juggling the demands of two school aged children, a busy 2 year old, and a little newborn not quite one month old who is up several times in the night. Bless her heart! I found out she is just 24 years old. Definitely young enough to be my daughter (yikes!). My motherly instincts took over and I asked if I could stay the night and help her with the baby. She was much relieved. I am so grateful to my husband for giving the gift of his time, so that I could bless this family. It is doubly meaningful as he is working on a huge deadline this week. Thank you honey!

I spent the night last night either holding a precious little new boy, or sleeping on the couch 3 feet from him, or scraping my fingernail along the bottoms of his feet to keep him awake while he nursed in the night (it sounds worse than it is!). He slept very well between feedings and his mother got a solid 2-3 hours of sleep inbetween each one. But I could tell she was still exhausted this morning, so after getting her two older children off to school, I brought her 2 year old home with me for the morning so she could nap.

He has been here nearly two hours and so far it's going very well! He and my 3 year old Little Man are confined to our living room/dining room playing with trains (thank goodness I still have baby gates!) while the rest of us are doing school at the kitchen table. We are having several interruptions, but I explained to the children this morning that this was Blessing Day. We have an opportunity to bless this family and this tired new mama in a small way today, and they are helping play with him and being very kind and gentle. My son with SPD even asked me if he could say the "jail" word to our little friend or if he shouldn't talk about it. I was so proud of him for thinking ahead like that! I love my kids.

If you feel led, please keep this family in your prayers. They are in red tape limbo, with no fixed date for when they will be reunited and able to leave the country together. We are grateful for more time to help this family get packed and ready to leave, but the longer they are here, the longer the father is separated from his family. The wife has such a wonderful attitude though! I am so proud of her, and so grateful to the Lord for helping her come so far in just a few weeks. God is good. All the time.

Monday

We are having an awful time adjusting to daylight savings time, anyone else having that problem? It's only an hour, but for some reason our bodies just haven't caught on yet. We allowed ourselves to sleep in today and start school late in the morning. Luxury!!

We had a pretty good day in school today. Not super great, but not super bad. Daughter and I had a WONDERFUL writing lesson. Somehow during late fall/winter I let our IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing) slide. Ummm, I think it was because I didn't finish watching the dvd's so I had nothing new to teach the kids (insert wry smile here). My friend Laurie went through her IEW notebook with me while we were in Dallas and amazingly, through my sleep deprived fog, something clicked!! (thanks Laurie!) So I re-implemented it today, teaching 2 new dressups, and G wrote a really great paragraph about life on a southern plantation. I was actually kindof blown away by how creative she was at putting her dressups into the paragraph. So that was really encouraging! I now have a plan and a vision for her writing for the rest of the year, and I'm excited about that!

My hair desperately needs to be colored, but I have to wait 3 more weeks. We're talking waaaaay more than the roots now. I actually measured about an inch and a half of gray this morning! Fortunately I have curly hair so it's not quite so noticeable. Also fortunately, I am tall. This is probably a good lesson in humility. Of course, it would show greater humility if I had said nothing, so I'm obviously not there yet. :-)

I hung a Happy Easter yard flag today. It is flapping gently in the breeze above 5 inches of snow. I am so ready for spring!

Cheap Entertainment

Sitting on the riding mowers at Lowes!

Snippets

Our 5 year old son C learned how to whistle last week! This is very exciting because *I* can't even whistle! He is so pleased that he knows how to do something that mommy cannot do.

Little Man kept a dry pullup all day on Tuesday. Today we changed it 3 times.

The spring session of homeschool co-op starts tomorrow. The children are all very excited! I will be continuing the same classes from winter session, junior gym (14 little bodies in that class, including our sons L and C) and drawing (8 delightfully older students in that class, including our oldest!). I found some great new movement activities/games on the internet this week for my junior gym class. Since many of the students are returning I didn't want to do all the same things again. This is one of those times when I love the internet! Modern technology is a wonderful thing.

We had craft night at MOPS last night. I made two really beautiful cards. I can say they are beautiful because I didn't think them up or do any of the cutting beforehand, I just assembled. I think hand stamping cards every so often would be a really fun thing to do with some girlfriends! There were 2 new babies there. Very sweet and precious.

My husband has been working from home almost exclusively for the past 3 weeks. I LOVE this!!!! He is working very hard on a tight deadline, so all the developers agreed to work from home where they will not be interrupted and asked to make fixes on less important programs. They also save lots of commute time. He met another developer (a homeschool dad of 13!) at Panera Bread one day last week when he was having a case of cabin fever and they worked together all day surrounded by freshly baked bread. Since this began he has been on time for dinner almost every night. I am going to really miss him when he goes back to the office in a couple weeks.

As part of history today we used our initial stamps on wet wax for the first time. We bought each of the children their first name initial stamp in Colonial Williamsburg last fall and gave them as stocking stuffers at Christmas. Today we wrote notes for our little red mailbox and sealed them with wet wax and our initial stamps. It was fun, but a bit harder than it looks.



Thursday is our daughter G's day to teach her younger brother C a Bible lesson. She read him the story of Esther and Xerxes today, and then quizzed him quite thoroughly to make sure he had picked up on all the important points! When she was satisfied that he knew the material, they did a craft. She is quite the little teacher!

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Overheard.......

7 year old son L: "Oh, that is just precious!" (unfortunately I can't remember what he thought was so precious!)

3 year old Little Man (very seriously): "It's strange that Lightning McQueen has a mouth. He's not *supposed* to have a mouth."

Me: Because he's a car?

Little Man: Yes. Cars don't have mouths. (he continued to look at me very seriously for a moment and then flashed me a huge smile. I had to scoop my heart up off the floor where it had melted).

The Dallas Adventure, Part 2, Being There

It is hard to describe how wonderful last weekend was in Dallas. I've been trying to think of a way to convey how special and rich it was, and the only way I can describe it is to say that I truly believe it was a very small slice of heaven. I was only there for 22 hours (and 5 of those I was sleeping!) but I came away so spiritually refreshed and emotionally full.

This is a group of ladies that I have grown very close to over the internet through the Tapestry of Grace yahoo group. Some of them have been on-line friends (and even real life friends) for many years. My own participation in this group of women has been less than 2 years, but we have truly bonded through so many life experiences and through praying for one another. We do a cookbook each year, have secret sisters at Christmas time each year, and these things really help us to know and love one another. Some of the women in this group have become especially good on-line friends to me, emailing privately on a frequent basis and even talking on the phone.

I am so blessed to have a strong support network of real life friends and relatives, and also a "virtual" support system of homeschooling moms. Truly these are among the richest blessings in my life, and I am so grateful to God's goodness in giving them to me!

The tone of the weekend was so loving, warm, accepting, welcoming. It was like we had known and loved each other for a long time but had just never seen each other's faces. Which, in fact, is exactly true! Another thing I appreciated so much was that the focus truly was on the Lord. HIS goodness, HIS leading in our families and our homeschools, the ways He has used us in each other's lives for HIS glory. We were reminded so eloquently by Corrine that this was not about us at all. It was all about HIM.

We had such a glorious time of praise and worship on Sunday afternoon. As I listened to all the women's voices raised in praise to God, I felt bathed in God's presence and just overcome with gratitude for allowing me to be there. To be physically present in that moment was such a gift. I found myself just mouthing "thank you Lord" over and over and over.

Though the focus was most definitely on the Lord, we did have a special little something planned for our beloved leader, Dody. Dody started this yahoo group 5 years ago with about 4 other families and now there are over 1400 families represented! She has ably moderated the group since its inception, and recently God has directed her focus elsewhere and she had announced to us that she was stepping down as moderator and passing the torch to our new leader, Mel. Mel is an absolute sweetie (I just felt so drawn to her) and I know she will do a fabulous job. So Mel and the other assistant moderators hatched a plan to "bless Dody's socks off". They even created a new yahoo group for everyone in the original group EXCEPT Dody, called (appropriately) the "bless Dody's socks off yahoo group". On this yahoo group we began planning ways to bless Dody and say thank you for her years of service and sacrifice to us.

We did manage (barely!) to pull this off and it was a complete surprise to Dody. After our worship time on Sunday, we sat Dody down in the middle of the room and began blessing her. Here she is opening her first blessing, a new GPS unit for her car! She has begun a new business as a realtor in a pretty remote area, so the GPS will be extremely helpful to her!

Then we got a little more personal. Months ago we had begun sending in pieces of fabric to Laurie, who is a wonderful quilter. Laurie put her life on hold for about 2 or 3 weeks in order to make this beautiful wall hanging quilt for Dody, with scraps of fabric from dozens and dozens of women. Corrine also worked on the quilt with Laurie, and here they are presenting it to Dody. Corrine is on the left, Laurie is on the right.

She was also given two beautiful scrapbooks (which I did not get photos of), one full of personal pages from all of us (these are the pages I stayed up until 12:30 a.m. finishing the night before I left), and the other full of signature blocks made from scraps of fabric that each lady had sent in, along with the story behind why that fabric was chosen. These are beautiful, beautiful scrapbooks! I wish you could see them!

So after all the gifts had been given, Dody's socks did indeed get blessed right off!!

I was so privileged to meet so many funny, smart, humble, godly, and amazing women. Here I am with just a few of them. Oh, and when you see us with leis around our necks, these were made and given to us by our new moderator, Mel, who lives in Hawaii!

Me and Dody.

Me and Beth (the only woman I had met once before!).

Me and Karla.

Me and Laurie.

This last photo is a picture of me with my friend Marsha. I have written about Marsha before on my blog (I encourage you to read that post here.) Because of the way we have bonded and loved each other from a distance all these months, I was anticipating finally meeting her face to face with much excitement! It was a joyous moment when I could finally put my arms around her and hug her like I have wanted to do so many times. She is a very special lady, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to meet her!

God is good! I came home with fresh encouragement to keep pouring myself out for my family and friends. God gives abundantly, MORE than we need (see Luke 9:12-17 to read it for yourself!), and what I pour out on a daily basis does not have to be conjured up by me, for God gives to me so that I can give to others. Once again, it's all about God.

There is already talk of another get together, and I'd love to attend that one also. But I'm not sure I will attempt to fly standby. :-)

The Dallas Adventure, Part 1, Getting There

Well, I'm home and had a GREAT time meeting my on-line friends in Dallas! It was almost magical how wonderful it was. We all felt like we were meeting long-lost sisters, and though we are all very different, we all love the Lord and we all love our families, and we all homeschool. That's a lot of commonalities! I could just SEE the beauty of Christ in the ladies' faces. They were so beautiful!

I did have a bigger adventure getting there than anticipated. On Friday night I decided to completely balance the checkbook after paying bills earlier in the day, so that took about an hour, and then I had forgotton that I needed to finish 2 scrapbook pages for our beloved ex-moderator Dody, who was going to be surprised during the weekend with gifts from us. So I ended up not going to bed until 12:30 a.m. We got up at 3:30, warmed up the van, loaded the sleeping kids in, and headed to the airport. I was tired, but excited to meet all my friends in Dallas. My family dropped me off and headed home to fall back into bed.

Remember I was flying on standby status? That means I only get on the flight if there are available seats. I did not get on the 6:00 a.m. flight. No biggee I thought, there's another flight at 8:00. Well, I didn't make it on that one either. The next one to Dallas didn't leave until 2:30. So I had 6 hours to kill in the airport. I read quite a bit about John and Abigail Adams, which was very interesting and inspiring! The more I learn about our founding fathers, the more humbled and grateful I am. But that's another post. I got some lunch. I people watched. I talked with some others who were waiting for their flights. I talked to some of the ladies in Dallas, who were all anxiously awaiting my arrival. I saw lots of planes come and go! I spent alot of time praying, and that was special.

2:30 came. And went. Didn't get on that flight either. The last one of the day left in 3 more hours. 5:30. So I did more of the above and was VERY grateful when they called my name up and said there would be room for me on this last flight of the day to Dallas!!!! In fact, I got to sit in FIRST CLASS for the very first time in my life! That made the 13 hour wait almost worth it! I had a large, comfortable seat, and I got a delicious 3 course meal on a real china plate, with a real glass (as in, actually made of glass) and real flatware (as in, actually made of metal), with a linen napkin and a warm washcloth for my face and hands. It was truly delightful and I enjoyed that experience immensely.

I've decided that air travel brings out the best and worst in people. I talked with an older lady for a while who had started out at 5:00 that morning in another city and had difficulty all day with delayed flights, computers that were down, missing connections, etc. Granted, I can understand how frustrating that would be (I was a little frustrated with my situation too!), but she spoke so bitterly about it and just couldn't see any possible good in the day. I decided I didn't want to be like her.

When I was flying to Dallas in first class, enjoying my wonderful dinner, another gentleman in first class became very upset because they had run out of his dinner choice. He was quite upset about it. And again, I can understand his feelings. If you're paying extra for first class I guess you expect more for your money. But he was really rude to the flight attendant, and she was trying so hard to please him. I decided I didn't want to be like him either, and I made it my mission the rest of the flight to be nice to the flight attendant and let her know how much I appreciated her service to me.

After dinner I was able to sleep on the plane for about an hour, and that was much needed and very refreshing. So FINALLY we landed at about 7:30 and I was IN DALLAS!!!!! 12 hours later than I'd planned, but I was there!