The Saturday 7

1. Lena was miserably sick the first half of the week. She had a mild fever and a terrible cough. She ended up coughing so hard she puked at least 3 times over 3 days. Almost every time she coughed, she would cry, "Mommmmmyyyy, my cough is still here!" It kept her up at night, it kept her from napping. Mostly she just hung on me whining and begging to watch George. By Wednesday, though, her fever broke, she was much more chipper, and her cough began to disappear. Thank goodness!

2. Because she was still miserable/feverish on Tuesday night, though, I made the call not to go to Lucy's field trip with her as planned on Wednesday. Instead, my fabulous sister Niki got out of work early to meet Lucy and her class at the Children's Museum. Lucy was nervous about riding the bus without me, but ended up saying the bus was her favorite part of the whole trip. Lol. She had lots of fun with Aunt Niki and her friends, and didn't miss me at all. :-)

3. It was probably good that I didn't go on the field trip anyway, because my pain was out of control this week. I know everyone's as sick of hearing about it as I am of feeling it, so I'll try to keep this brief, but it was a huge part of my week. On Monday, I noticed that the pain had changed. The underside of my belly was hurting and my pelvis felt like it was splitting apart. I think the baby might be dropping . . . and it is killing me. By Thursday, I was in such agony I couldn't take it anymore. I ended up bawling in my bed and begging God to help me. I'm not usually a big proponent of the whole "God spoke to me" thing, but every time I prayed, I kept thinking, "My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in your weakness." And every time, I argued, "But it's not sufficient! It's not helping! I can't get out of this bed. Lena is screaming in her crib and I can't move. I can't make dinner. I can't go grocery shopping. I can hardly walk, God. What good is your grace for me right now?! How is your power being revealed here?!" Here's the thing. I don't have an answer. My pain is not going away. It's hard on my parenting and my marriage and definitely my depression. But I'm going to survive. I'm not literally dying. The baby is doing well. This is temporary, the end is in sight, and hopefully I'll be able to look back and say, "The only way I ever did get out of bed was because of God's grace and power. The only way Justin didn't leave me and my kids didn't hate me was because of God's grace and power." Haha. And I've been clinging to this verse: "I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." (Isaiah 46:4b)

4. A couple other interesting things from my devotions this week:

Psalm 46:6-7 says,

6 The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
    he utters his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress. 

I've probably read those verses 50 times in my life. I've skimmed right over them and not given them second thought. But this week, something really stood out to me. The same God who melts the earth with his voice is with us. He's on our side. How awesome is that?!

I also read the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 for probably the 5,000th time this week. (That may be a slight exaggeration. ;-) ) Again, something new stood out to me. Jesus had been preaching and teaching when he heard that John the Baptist had been killed. His first reaction was to withdraw.

13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.. 

But the crowds followed him. They were pressing and needy and always wanting more from him. I identify with that a little bit as a mom. Especially this week when Lena was sick. Kids are needy and constant and largely ungrateful. So many times, I reach the point where I say, "I'm done! I need space! I need them to leave me alone!" And I think there definitely are instances in the Bible when Jesus does get his solitary time, but in this story, he doesn't say, "Look people. I just found out my cousin was murdered because of his faithfulness to me. Give me some time to grieve." Instead, the Bible says "he had compassion on them." (Matthew 14:14) He continued to heal their sick, and then went above and beyond and fed them all. I've been praying that God would give me a heart of compassion like that - not even for needy crowds or strangers, but my own beloved kids.

5. And now Lena's birthday recap. She turned 3 today. We're celebrating with Justin's family tomorrow and my family next Sunday, so we just had our own little immediate family celebration today. Justin took her to Speedway to get donuts for breakfast, then she opened her presents.

Stupid cat has to be present wherever there's wrapping paper.

We went to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch and spent 2.5 hours there with about half of the rest of Grand Rapids. It was madness. But Lena was in her glories.

Tonight we made a birthday cake. She insisted on having pink frosting and was amazed that I could turn our can of white frosting into pink with a few drops of red food coloring. Haha. (#mommagic) I let her and Lucy decorate it themselves:

Lena thinks it's Christmas again since she got to open presents, and insisted on wearing her Christmas jammies during her nap. She never changed back into clothes afterward. Haha.

Aunt Libby had come over earlier with play-doh and gummy bears, so we decided to decorate the cake with gummy bears.

It took her a lot of tries to blow out 3 little candles. Haha.

6. And then came the much awaited "Throwing Away of the Binky." We've been telling her for months that when she turns 3, she has to throw her Binky away. Somehow, she got the idea that she had to throw it away before she could have birthday cake, so I rolled with that. After decorating the cake and blowing out the candles, I said, "Ok, let's throw away your Binky and you can eat the cake." Fortunately, I'd gotten some divine inspiration earlier in the day and decided to show Lena the video I took of Lucy throwing away her Binky when she turned 3. In the video, Lucy chucks her Binkies in the trash, smiles at the camera, then runs away crying. Haha. Lena loved it and watched it 5 times in a row. So when it came time tonight, I said, "Do you want to throw it in the trash like Lucy or spit it out of your mouth into the trash?" She hesitated for a few minutes, but finally took it out of her mouth and chucked it in the trash can. She immediately ran into my arms, but didn't cry. We congratulated her, then quickly distracted her with cake. And that was that! I was amazed, but still scared about bedtime.

One of the presents we bought her was her own CD player. Lucy listens to CDs or the radio every night, so I decided Lena would probably like to do the same thing. And I knew it'd come in handy as a distraction device tonight. So she brushed her teeth, gathered up her lovies, and I said, "Daddy put your new CD player in your room. Let's go check it out!" She was all excited about seeing it in her room and putting in a CD. We did our nighttime rocking/singing routine as usual, I turned on her CD and put her to bed, and was almost out the door when she said, "Mommy? When do I get my Binky back?" Haha. So she's a little confused about the permanence of the situation. I just tried to be honest while acting like it wasn't a big deal. I said, "You're not going to get it back. It's all gone. But you don't need it anymore. You're a big girl. You'll be fine. Go to sleep!" She called me back in her room once saying, "I can't sleep!" but I told her to keep trying and she let it drop. She was asleep within minutes!!!! I seriously never expected it to go so smoothly. But I'm also not counting ourselves as totally out of the woods yet. We had a busy day today. I let her stay up late. She was very tired. We'll see if she sleeps all night. And nap time tomorrow will be the true test. I know it's not over yet . . .

7. Well, this is my second overly-long post of the day, so I'll leave it at that. Have a great week, y'all!