Cleaning Stinks

Dang you, Eve! If you hadn't eaten that apple, childbirth would feel like a glorious nap and cleaning would be as fun as shopping with endless money (and without the kids!). I think cleaning was never in God's original design for his creation. Genesis 3:16 meant to say "Your desire will be for your husband to clean, but he will rule over you". (Ok, I know many husbands do clean...buts let's be real, it's mostly a wife thing.)

Today was a fine day, but there was a moment when I got slightly overwhelmed looking at the state of my house. It was about 1:15 and I had 45 minutes to tidy up every room, feed Hope, put her down for a nap, give Judah a breathing treatment, read him a book and then put him down for a nap before my client arrived at 2:00. Of course she arrived 18 minutes early while I was changing Judah's diaper (and still had to do the treatment, book, and nap routine). Hope was crying and Judah greated her at the top of the stairs completely in the nude. It was great; and she's the sweetest thing so she didn't mind waiting. Anyway...back to cleaning...I took some snapshots of the craziness and even found a few hidden gems of mess in the rooms I thought were clean. 

Ok, not so bad...

I mean..only about 10 things on the floor

Ahhhh..I just had those folded, Judah!!

Alright, I can handle this, plus my bedroom is totally clean...

What? Why is there a cherrio on my bed?

How long have those been there??

I think those raisins and book have been in my shower for weeks...that's what the curtain is for. I love when he goes in there to give me a break. 

You know you're a mom when you use a stinker you found on the carpet to clean the rest of the carpet.

Well needless to say, I got it all cleaned up and Judah helped a tiny bit, after I told him to 500 times. Then of course while I'm making dinner, he decided that was the best place to play...

I'm still a little mad at Eve, but maybe cleaning is meant to make me appreciate all the things I am so blessed with. My home gets dirty, but at least I have one. Toys get everywhere, but my kids enjoy them so much. Bobs black work sock lint gets allllll over the carpet (as you could see from the sticker ^), but I'm so glad he has a job to wear them to. (But cleaning still stinks.)

"I Feel Sick"

Asthma stinks. "I feel sick". I heard this from Judah at least a hundred times today. As I thought might happen, his head cold quickly dropped into his chest and so began a crazy day.

6 throw-ups, due to gagging on his cough....one of them made a huge stain in front of Hope's crib, another all over his car seat, and another landed in my hair, all over my back and Bob caught the rest in his hands. (Way to go, Babe!) Thankfully the other 3 were on the kitchen floor.
3 times Hope screamed herself to sleep while I gave Judah breathing treatments, cleaned up his puke, etc...sick siblings force you to let your baby cry it out (Blessing in disguise!)
10 diaper changes. (But that's just a normal day.) 

4 breathing treatments from our family pet nebulizer, "Medicine Doggy". (It's great, he never poops or barks.)
100 enthusiastic "OK"s...Judah's new favorite word. (He is so agreeable, even when miserably sick.)
2 naps (instead of his usual one!)
1 steak dinner Bob made us (since he came home early from work to help me out.)
12 episodes of Daniel Tiger (all we did today was watch cartoons in our PJs).
20 dollars for the doctor visit (not counting the $20 from yesterday's visit plus buying his prescriptions. It would be so much worse without insurance, so I am grateful).
15 prayers for Judah to feel better and.....
Hundreds of snuggles (my favorite part about sick kids).

Crazy days like these remind me of what an amazing husband and father Bob is and what awesome kids God has given us. Though I am looking forward to tomorrow being a new day.

Oh, and our blog is no longer nameless! Thanks to my hubby for the name.

Faith of a Child

My poor little bubby (Judah) has a cold. He also has asthma, so common colds can easily turn into nasty chest colds that send him into the ER with an asthma attack. He has been in the hospital for this 3 times in his less than 3 years on this earth. So of course I am always praying that he will get better before his asthma escalates things. Even in his miserableness, God manages to use my little guy to teach me something. Every time we pray for him, (usually after he announces multiple times a day, "I feel sick!") he immediately says, "I feel better now!". This is exactly what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 18:3.

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

My son may not know what faith in God even is, but he knows that mommy asks for him to feel better and he decides right then and there that he will feel better. Even though it's usually short lived, his little belief gives him a moment of relief after that prayer. Sometimes in my life, as a curmudgeon-y adult, I have such trouble believing God can make situations in my life better. I pray a prayer, but in the back (or sometimes front) of my mind, I can't imagine anything changing. Maybe I just need to believe it is all better right away, even if my faith only lasts a moment. God holds my "all better" right in His hands. Then when my faith starts wavering, I can ask again; then believe again, maybe this time for a minute longer. Until finally, after much practice, I may be able to completely trust that God is healing the situation. I am so thankful for all the lessons God is going to teach me through my little ones. I hope amidst the craziness of sniffley noses, diapers, meltdowns, laundry and tiredness, etc... I don't miss any.

(Grandma practicing with Judah's doctor equipment before the real doctor checked him today. He was a great patient!)

Blog Fog

So this week I decided to make a blog, as you can see. Then came the "blog fog". You can probably guess this by the top of this blog saying "Still haven't thought of a name for this blog".  After changing the layout, background, font, size, colors, wording, bio, description, name, etc....about 500 times I finally decided to just start typing my first post and see what happened. (I've already deleted and retyped these first couple sentences multiple times.) Honestly, I don't think I have even written a paragraph of any sort since my one year of community college 7 years ago. (So go easy on my spelling and grammatical errors please!!!) Then I began asking myself why I even wanted to have a blog. What is its point? Who will read it? Do I even want anyone reading my thoughts??? I guess we shall see how these questions get answered as this blog continues...or dissipates if it ends up not being my thing. Probably the initial reason for blogging is because I am becoming an obsessive Instagram poster. At least here I have an excuse to share my kids lives and only those who want to see or hear about them will view this! But beyond that, I am excited see how God continues to reveal his heart for me and you, his sons and daughters, and teaches me how to share his heart with others, especially my son and daughter.

p.s. Any suggestions for the name of our blog??

-Amanda-