Don't Pet the Animals

Spring break.  Ya' gotta love it.  80 degree weather at the very beginning to trick you into only packing warm clothes and no jackets so you can be totally un-prepared when the snow and sleet hit. I pretty much wore the same pair of jeans and sweats and my one sweatshirt I grabbed going out the door pretty much the whole six days.

Spring break. Completely triggers the "let's fight over as many stupid things as we possibly can- to get on every last nerve in mom's body" in kids.  Usually within the first 3 hours of the first day.

Spring break.  An excuse to consume 12 bags of chips and  13 Mountain Dew's while you play 14 hours of Xbox in the dark.  All to meet your Spring break goal of "beating the game."  Yes, that was my oldest son's goal of spring break.  I don't even want to put in writing how many hours he played to accomplish this.  I'm sure the back lash I would receive would sound like, "AND HOW MANY HOURS DO YOU LET YOUR SON PLAY VIDEO GAMES?!?!?!"  I plead the fifth.  It's spring break.  His daddy tries to keep him in check by saying, "You know son, when you get to heaven..." and Jonathan cuts him off quickly and says, "Jesus is gonna say DUDE......YOU are so COOL."

Spring Break.  Starting the day freezing cold.  Leaving for a petting/drive thru zoo thinking that surely it will warm up. But 3 hours later it's still freezing cold. You wrap your one year old in a blanket to pet the animals trying to make the trip worth while, as the smarter ones stay in the warm car and catch up on their sleep. (That would be the college students.)

Gentry Zoo - It was a petting zoo and drive-thru zoo all rolled into one.  Pretty cool place tucked back in NoWhere Arkansas. Now, we had 10 kids with us between the ages of 1 and 19.  Somehow all the little ones ended up in my van and the 4 oldest were in my dad's car.  Which was why probably the sign confusion. If there are signs up that say "Petting Zoo" and then other signs that say "Keep your Windows Rolled Up"  "Do Not Pet the Animals" - which ones are the little kids only going to see? Of course its the "Pet the Animals." And then for some reason they were the only ones who saw the signs that said, "Stick Your Fingers in the Animal's Mouth" and "Chase them in front of the workers." (Which they did the first 3 seconds we were there.- Has anyone else ever been kicked out of a zoo?)  The kids in my car only saw the latter two signs.  I got the privilege of seeing a camel poop 2 inches from my window.  What I didn't see was this little fat-bellied pig who parked himself in front of my van... and I had no idea if he had moved.  And I had just said,  "I wonder if any of these animals have ever been run over?" Lucky for little fat-bellied pig, he got out of my way.

Notice my nephew fingers  close to the camel's mouth.  This folks, is how kids end up on the news from zoo animal attacks.

Notice the baby lion licking his chops.  He's thinking "kid, I'm gonna be able to bite your head off just as soon as I get a little bigger!"

Crystal Bridges- FREE art museum on the spring snow day.  Except for the $12.50 you would have to pay to see the Norman Rockwell display which I had psyched myself up to see.  My sweet husband had totally offered to get me the ticket. But somehow knowing 10 kids were outside waiting for me and probably destroying the rest of the exhibits made me pass on this time. We took everyone through the free exhibits.  Did I mention we had at least 5 kids 10 and under.  And mostly boys? I promise you the five year old little boy could drag the rest of boys to every picture with a nakey bottom on display.  And then there was the giant life-size statue of the nakey woman.  And whose idea was to drag all these kids through this? Oh yeah, mine.

Chuck E. Cheese - Where we went when Crystal Bridges was a bust. (Literally...hahahaha!! okay, so the little boy sense of humor has rubbed off on me.  What did you expect?!?) All I'm gonna say that's its a great place to let your kids take care of your kid.  I had to convince Sarah that she would have a less likely chance of getting stuck in the tube with Elisabeth than ME. Besides, I had to sit down and nurse my old person's headache that I acquired the first five minutes I was there.

I told Jacob to play with her after she walked up to a stranger's game of bowling and took their ball and ran off with it.  I dropped a token in their cup along with an "I'm sorry, I wonder who's kid that is?" to make up for their interrupted game.

Good thing for Elisabeth she has older brothers and a sister.  Or her life would be way more boring than it already is.

Every day.  Full of fun, laughter, a few tears, a few fights but that is what spring break is all about.  Trying to keep all the kids occupied and happy in the snow and sleet,  and secretly envying all the Disney World and beach people who are posting all their glorious warm pictures on facebook. (My brother was one of those beach people.  I let him know he was missing out on so much fun in the cold at the zoo.) But I wouldn't trade it.  I had all my kids home. I was with a whole bunch of people I love. We spent our days with cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends and we ate and ate and ate.  We "swelled up like ticks" - as my sister told me after a big meal.  I swear she is so funny - she was quoting Honey Boo Boo all week.  (We just have so much to be proud of in the south don't we?)  We made our way home last night. We were not 5 minutes on the road and  little E had to puke all over the car.   Because of course no vacation would be complete without a kid puking in the car. And in Elisabeth style, she made sure of that!

My pictures and my times with all four kids together seem to be less and less.  That is what makes these kind of weeks so special.  

Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: I Don't Know

Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: I Don't Know: "I don't know." Words you hear from your kids when asked "who left the muddy foot prints all over your newly steam clean...

I Don't Know

"I don't know."
Words you hear from your kids when asked "who left the muddy foot prints all over your newly steam cleaned carpets?"  Or "whose Sonic cup is blowing around in the front yard?"  Or "whose moldy McDonald's milkshake cup is that still sitting in the back of the minivan leaving a long hardened drip down the cup holder?" (We apparently have cup issues in our family)

"I don't know."
Words you hear from your second graders when asked, "whose dirty socks are these laying by our reading table?" Or "Where is your math paper that I just passed out 5 minutes ago - did you eat it!?!"

 "I don't know"
Words you expect to hear from your kids on a daily basis.

"I don't know"
Words you do NOT want to hear from your child's doctors.  On a consistent basis.  When Elisabeth was 10 days old we stepped on some sort of medical merry-go-round and we can't seem to get off.  At 10 days old is the day she started to cry non-stop.  She had reflux in her kidney's.  She had horrible acid reflux.  She had to wear an apnea monitor that would keep going off.  She had rigid muscle tone.  She had two stays at Arkansas Children's Hospital.  She had an MRI in which she coded and crashed twice during the sedation process and easily could have died.  She had PICA disorder. She has horrible reactions to her immunizations.  She has been to speech therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy.  She has had genetic testing. She has seen almost every specialist there is. And every single thing has seemed to work itself out despite the doctor's saying "Something is not quite right, we just don't know what it is." But God has had his hand on her every step.  Every moment.  She has far exceeded our doctor's expectations of what "could have been." 

 But she has had so many fluky things pop up in her little body.  I swear we used to be "let's just wait it out and see"- or- "have some chicken noodle soup and go to bed, you'll be fine eventually" kind-of-parents.  As in, we never took our 3 older kids to the doctor. (Except for the time that our famous son at the poisonous flower on a dare and when he started hallucinating and his pupils were big black saucers-we couldn't get to the ER fast enough)  And lucky for them, minus a few athletic injuries and ear infections, they haven't needed it.  But things haven't been quite right with Elisabeth from the beginning, and having four kids, well, you just know ...
But all the little fluky things that maybe we could have waited out, but we chose not too - has led to alot of "I don't knows..." from our doctor, and from doctors at Children's hospital. (I'm like, you people are the experts - we are paying you a ton of money for that expertise. What do you mean you don't know?!?!)

She has been struggling with low iron/anemia for 10 long months.  We discovered it when I drug her into the doctor when she was on her paper/dryer sheet/ carpet eating binge.  (That actually started this blog.  My very first blog ever was "My sister ate my homework")  She has been taking the maximum dose of iron and vitamin C a child can have. But for whatever reason, her body cannot store it.  We have taken so many blood tests I have lost count.  Her iron and red blood cell count will go up and down.  We thought it was going up and we have been on a 3 month respite from worry.  And it was wonderful.  Until Wednesday. She had been sick for almost a week so the doctor wanted to run another round of blood tests.  We found our her iron store level was at a 9 - and level 75 is considered normal.  So its now time to go to a hematologist.  I want to be done with all of this.  I want a child to be AS healthy as she looks.  I want to know that she is okay.  I don't want to hear "I don't know what's causing her iron stores to be low"  I don't want to hear "I don't know what has been causing these rashes for the last 3 months."  I don't want to go through one more round of tests that we won't have a concrete answer for and a solution to fix it.

I was surprisingly calm and at peace when her doctor told me that is was time to see a hematologist.  She told me she did not think it was cancer.  But she had no idea of what it could be. I've had a few days now to think about it, google it, try to figure it out and I make myself crazy.  I was at the mall yesterday with my mom and I became very sad when I couldn't find an Easter dress for E, because when we tried a sleeveless dress on her, she just looked so pale and sickly and I was done.  I  told my mom to pick something out later and surprise me (but please make sure it had sleeves or a sweater :)  She was cranky and had another full body spotty rash.  (I'm half way starting to wonder if maybe she's allergic to the iron.)

I will never forget when we were in the thick of her health problems as a baby, I was in my bathroom and just pleading and praying with God "Please heal her"  then a few seconds later it was, "At least please show the doctor's what is wrong."  And God so plainly spoke to me "I just want you to trust me through each step of this, even if you don't know the answers."  I can still hear those words.

This blog has ended up reaching  alot of people I have never met.  I have no idea who may in a similar circumstance with your child. A nagging medical problem that doesn't seem to go away.  Testing.  Waiting.  All mamma's worry.  The not-knowing is worse than the knowing.  It is a hard lesson in "keeping your mind under the control of Christ." 

Amidst the "I don't know's" is one thing I do KNOW.  He is God.

"Be still, and KNOW that I am GOD" ~Psalm 46:10

be still and don't worry.

He is God.

rest. wait. be at peace.

He is God.

stay off google.

He is God.

he loves my babies more than I ever will

He is God.

I can trust in him

He is God.

....And someday down the road when I find a half eaten pudding cup smeared all over the back seat of the minivan, I don't think I'll have to ask who did that - I have a hunch that I'll already know.