Month: November 2010

The week has been LLLLLOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG.  I am acutely aware of why I was such a bear during the newborn phase, which lasted around my house for about 3 years!  This waking up business and staying awake for three hours at a time business is for the birds.  Birds that don’t have kids to feed, school to teach, clothes to wash, a husband to care for…..and birds that DO get to sleep all day and look out for themselves alone.

So, since it is so late.  7:46pm, to be exact. (It feels like midnight.)  Let me just make a list to record the week, so that the kids will remember what a loving, sacrificial mother they have.  Or  not.

-Lots of “careful!”s and “Watch out for Ruby’s arm” and “Stop running, Ruby.”

-A few nights of Ruby sleeping with me in the master bed.  I woke up every time she moved to make sure she was keeping her arm elevated….seeing how we’ve had some circulation issues and all.

-Middle of the night potty breaks for me and then for Ruby….only she wouldn’t happen to go when I was already up.  She’d wait until I had been back in bed about, oh, 20 minutes.  “Sure, sweetie, I will help you go potty.”

-Wee morning hour medicine show-downs.  “You HAVE to take this medicine, Ruby.”  (shaking her head and pursing her lips)  “Ruby, this is not funny.  I am sooooooo tired.  Please just take this medicine.”  (more shaking head and pursing lips)  “RUBY.  STOP IT.  OPEN. YOUR. MOUTH. NOW.”  and on and on and on we would go.

-Molly and Mack sleeping together and giggling and laughing until all hours of the night.

– Lots of school work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Meltdown after realizing a field trip was going to be cancelled.  Again.

-Taking a trip to Chick-fil-A to meet up with some of Molly’s classmates instead….and then having to leave when someone threw-up at the top of the play area….that’s what we need–a throw-up bug in the middle of all of this.

-Mack constantly taking his clothes off every time he gets out of my eye shot.  “A cuz I don’t want my pants on.”

And I leave you with a quote on gratitude.

“I feel a very unusual sensation – if it’s not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude”

Benjamin Disrael

Clearly, I have indigestion.

 

 

 

Well, well, well…it happened…a broken bone.  Poor Ruby fell at the park on Saturday from a 5 foot platform and broke both bones in her forearm near the wrist very badly.  It didn’t poke through the skin, so that was great.  But it still was a bad break that needed a cast immediately.  We are praying that the bones are healing perfectly and that there is no need for surgery.  We should find out Friday about that.

Today Ruby said her fingers were feeling funny.  They were still very swollen despite our efforts to keep her arm elevated properly.  She couldn’t feel me touching her pinky, so I knew I had to call the doctor.  Ends up, they wanted us to see the orthopedic doctor asap, but their office couldn’t take us and we had to take Ruby back to the ER again to see the doctor there.  Sure enough, the cast was too tight and not allowing room for the swelling, hence cutting off circulation to her hand a bit.  They cut the cast down the middle and taped it up so that it wasn’t quite as tight.  We struggled to get her to take her pain medicine tonight…she is HORRIBLE at swallowing liquid medicine.  Josh and her go head-to-head on that issue, and I rub her back and start with saying, “You can do this, Ruby.”  By the end of it all, I am saying, “You will do this, Ruby.  Oh, yes you will!”  We all smile and laugh at the whole ordeal when it is over.

So this week Ruby is watching movies and trying to do school work at a very slow pace.  Molly has been by her side the entire time.  She comes and gets me any time Ruby needs anything….anything, like a massage.  I stop whatever I am doing and go right to see what she needs and she sometimes says, “I just need a little massage on my shoulders.”  I massage for about 35 seconds, and she says, “OK, that’s good.  Thanks, mom.”  And off I go to resume my duties.  But, Molly will always let me know if I am needed.  What a sweet sister Molly is being.  To Ruby.  Molly seems to have little patience with Mack these days.  She fusses at him if he gets too close to the cast or if he jumps on the bed that Ruby is lying on.  I have to remind her that she loves Mack just as much as she loves Ruby…so could we act like it???!!

Hopefully in the next six weeks or so Ruby will be all back to normal….as well as our sleeping patterns.  Please pray with us about her arm and that it wouldn’t need surgery!  Thanks so much!