Feeling better and a girly girl

The Looney household has had a bit of a rough patch the last two weeks or so with the gift that keeps on giving: germs. It made blogging the last thing on my mind, so it's nice to have some time to do it again!

It started off with a stomach bug that Anna brought home and then kindly passed off to Bob and Jack. I think I got a watered down version of it, but still felt a bit crummy myself. And then the congestion set in...immediately after she was done with stomach issues, Anna sported a runny nose and wet cough. The congestion was clear, so I didn't think much about it and figured it would clear up on it's own. After a week and a half of it, plus a really cranky afternoon with Anna, I called her pediatrician and made an appointment the next day. Turns out she had a double ear infection with a burst ear drum in her right ear. Yikes....talk about a HUGE dose of mommy guilt that I hadn't taken her in sooner. Her doctor mentioned that in 99 out of 100 other kids, they would have been screaming bloody murder at that point. In other words, it's usually much more obvious (which only slightly relieved my guilt). I guess Anna has a happy disposition and high tolerance for pain! Lesson learned!! Jack also had an ear infection, so both of them have been on antibiotics plus a nebulizer for Anna to help clear up the wheezing/cough. I think we're just about all back to normal now, but it made for a really tough 14 day stretch leading up to Christmas.

Now, on a more positive note:

So obviously we've known we have a girl for oh, about 14 months now...but it REALLY hit us Christmas day. My sister found this fabulous blue tutu with zebra print lining for Anna and she absolutely loved it!! I'll have to get a better picture without the clashing green onesie on, but you get the picture :) She also got a My First Purse which contained a pink bracelet that she wears all over the place now. Dress-up here we come!! It was so fun to see her so excited about all of it. I remember being a little apprehensive about having a girl when I was pregnant just because I don't deal well with drama, but it has been such a blessing to have one of each!

Engaging God Pt. 2

It troubled me enough that I began to ask for prayer for my attitude within my Bible study group. I realized it was going to take more than my willpower to be able to get through those early months with an infant and not completely alienate my husband and son in the process. Obviously whatever I was doing was NOT getting the job done. I began to pray more often as well, and as a friend of mine eloquently put it, I entered into the first period of my life where I really wrestled with God. Not in a shake-my-fist-at-him way, but in expressing my deep-seeded frustration honestly through prayer, which often went something like this at 2AM: “Why does this have to be so difficult? What is the purpose? Why, after months of being uncomfortable at the end of pregnancy, enduring the pain and exhaustion of labor and delivery, do moms THEN have to go through months of sleep deprivation? Why? I don’t get it, God, I really don’t. I can usually see the good in most situations, but I am stumped about the good in this one.” I had finally hit a struggle in my life that I couldn’t make better on my own just by sheer willpower.

This questioning went on for many nights over the course of about a month, but slowly something else began to happen as well. Instead of just throwing out a bunch of questions at God, I also began to ask Him for help. A lot. I didn’t get an immediate answer to those questions, nor did Anna suddenly become the world’s greatest sleeper, but what I did get was a lesson in what it means to engage with God, to be honest with Him, and to ask Him for help. While I can’t say this cured my bad attitude overnight, I found myself praying more frequently. Not long, eloquently worded prayers like you might hear in a church service, but something to the effect of “God, it’s one of those mornings. No part of me wants to be pleasant for my family and every part of me wants to be crabby. I need your help to make it through until nap time.” And that was it. The more often I did it, the more often it spilled over into prayer for other areas of struggle in my life, and also into prayers of thankfulness for the things that were going right. I began to seek out what God wanted for me every time I had a question.

Merriam-Webster has a number of definitions for the word engage: to bind by a pledge to marry, to induce to participate, to begin and carry on an enterprise or activity, to give attention to something, and also, interestingly enough, to enter into conflict or battle. My wrestling with God showed me He doesn’t need my biblical knowledge or my checklist of see-all-the-good-things-I -did-this-week…He needs me to be humble in spirit enough to be engaged with Him, and that I NEED to be engaged with Him or my attitude just stinks.

Whatever this “engagement” looks like—sometimes worship, sometimes group prayer, sometimes individual prayer in the shower because it’s one of the few times I can be alone—the point is that it’s two-sided now-I feel as though I’m more actively seeking Him.

To close-I love the way our Worship Pastor at WoodsEdge opens up our worship time. Before we begin, he always says something along the lines of “You can sit, you can stand, you can kneel. You can raise your hands, you can clap, you can remain motionless. You can sit back and take it all in, you can pray or you can sing. But here’s the important thing: whatever you do, don’t miss an opportunity to engage with the God who loves you.” Nothing has shown me the power of this privilege-engaging with God-more than being a mom.

Engaging God

Hello friends!

I'm planning to update this blog more frequently again after a break, whohoo! Some slight changes though...I feel like God has been hard at work on me the last year or so, and those things need to be shared, so I'm planning more of a mix of mommy adventures and some musings on what He's done in my life.

This came to a head last May when a friend of mine in my MOPS group asked me to share my "testimony" (religious speak for how God has worked in my life) with the other moms. That forced me to perform a spiritual inventory of my life, so I collected my thoughts and wrote them down since, in my humble opinion, I write better than I speak. It was a life-changing exercise, so I thought I would share it here to jump back into ye ol' blogosphere (ok, I promise no more use of the word "ye"). It's long, so I'll break it up.

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Engaging God

Motherhood has been the single greatest force in shaping, or should I say reshaping my walk with God. I grew up in the church, going every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening for many years with my family. I knew lots of Bible trivia, all the Bible songs, and all the “right” answers. I went to church camp for four years, a wonderful place in the mountains of New Mexico, and got baptized there by my youth minister in the seventh grade (in a VERY cold mountain stream). All of those experiences I count as blessings in my life and I am deeply grateful for them.

When I look back though through a more critical lens, I see that for most of my early life, probably until my mid 20’s, I knew a lot about God, but I didn’t really know Him. I didn’t really have a relationship with Him, at least not a two-sided one. I did the church thing and tried my best during the week to live the way I thought a Christian should live, and of course messed up quite royally in the process. I did little outside of church to seek Him; occasional Bible study and very, very little prayer….think “Lord please help me do well on this test!” and you get the gist of the depth of my prayers. In all honesty, I was a Christian completely unengaged with God.

I think a large reason for the complacency in my faith walk has been a life blessed with little in the way of major distress. My immediate family members are alive and healthy (and on speaking terms!), I was raised in a stable, Christian household with a roof over my head and no worries about where my next meal would come from. I’ve had great friendships, ample opportunity and support from my parents to explore my interests, and financial support to pursue two degrees in college. I married a wonderful man and have two beautiful, healthy kids. In short, while my life hasn’t been totally stress- free, it’s been relatively easy. The peril, though, from this complacent faith has been two-fold: it’s fueled a false sense of security that I am in control, and a false sense of pride that I can do things on my own without help. Neither of those things had, prior to motherhood, allowed room for me to consistently seek an authentic relationship with God.

Enter motherhood, stage right. Nothing strips away the security net of I’m-in-control like becoming a parent. Case in point, a trip to the Container Store where my then 15 month-old son’s explosive diaper gurgled up all over the shopping cart right in the middle of the store, leaving me mortified and rushing out to the van as quickly as possible. And yes, for those of you wondering, I did go back, quite embarrassed, and ask a nice cashier for some disinfectant so I could clean the shopping cart up. Or the time when we took Jack to the emergency room with a 104 fever. When the doctor ordered a chest X-ray to make sure it wasn’t pneumonia, my heart broke as I had to help the technician stretch Jack out on a cold, hard plate while he screamed hysterically so the machine could get a good scan of his lungs. Those are just a few examples of probably hundreds.

The I’m-not-in-control lesson has been easier for me to learn compared to the I-cannot-do-it-on-my-own lesson. It is here that once again, motherhood came in and toppled that tower of pride, forcing me to realize that I can’t do it alone. And despite the wonderful help available to me from my husband, family, and friends, I ultimately need to seek help from God.

This came to a head a few months ago during a rough time with Anna. We mommies don’t function well on broken sleep, but unfortunately, our precious infant babies just don’t understand that do they? Morning after morning I would wake up crabby after being up with Anna multiple times during the night, barely speaking to Bob at breakfast and struggling to even muster a semi-cheerful “Hi” to my sweet son Jack. I was exhausted and the day hadn’t even started yet…how was I going to keep up with my two-year-old too? I was resentful of the fact that feeding her fell solely to me (she wouldn’t take a bottle at that time), which meant I was pretty much always up when she was up. I wanted to be able to roll over and go back to sleep like Bob did, instead of dragging myself up the stairs to change the diaper of a screaming baby before nursing her and then struggling to swaddle her in a blanket so she would go back to sleep. On top of all that, he got to escape to work 5 days a week!! In fairness to Bob though, he deserved none of my attitude because he’s a great dad who has always helped out 110% with the kids. Still though, this ugliness I carried around until about 10AM each morning (when the three cups of coffee finally kicked in) began to take a toll on him, because when mom’s not happy, nobody’s happy. He never knew which wife he was going to come home to: Wife #1 who had managed to cheer up a bit by late afternoon, or Wife #2 who had been in a perpetual state of grumpiness all day. I often lashed out at Jack too, for no good reason. No wonder he went through a period of always wanting his daddy, I wouldn’t have wanted to be around me either!

Part #2 tomorrow :)

No rest for mommy anymore!

I'm entering uncharted territory here with Anna getting awfully close to walking AND climbing up our stairs completely unaided...at only 9 months. Jack was much more content to sit and watch things going on around him, but not this girl...she has to be in it!! He didn't walk (consistently at least) until about 15 months...I think she'll be closer to 10 or maybe 11 months.

I think I had my eye off of Anna for maybe 30 seconds the other day while I was putting some dishes away in the kitchen and nearly had a heart attack when I saw her halfway up our flight of stairs (and still going). She was quite proud of herself too, beaming up proudly at me as I quickly scooped her off the stairs and back down to our living room. Unfortunately our stairwell is not set up to attach a babygate to the bottom of the stairs, so I'm gonna have to get creative. Jack never showed much interest in the stairs, so I never really closed them off for him...just keep a wary eye out when he was playing by himself. I can't do that with her!

I was remarking to my mom the other day about how my children are so different already and Anna isn't even a year yet. She's hit a lot of the physical milestones a lot sooner than he did, although I'm sure some of it is just being the little sister wanting to do what big brother is doing. She's a lot more assertive at a younger age as well...there is no fear with her in crawling up in Jack's lap and tugging a toy out of his hand. I'm sure that skill will continue to serve her well with an older brother!!

I love the quirkiness of each of my kids. and mean that in the best way possible. Those quirks make them unique and so endearing to me, I just couldn't imagine them any differently (and likewise for all moms)! Jack has developed a fantastic speaking ability and sense of humor, and Anna has this little bobble she does side-to-side with her head that makes it impossible not to smile at her....I've got to get some video and post it. She's my bobble-head girl :)

No rest for me anymore...well, very occasionally!

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On a totally unrelated note...so sad. We haven't watched the show in a while now.

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jmeath/2009/08/20/jon-and-kate-separate/

PTC: The rest in a nutshell

I had planned to talk about each day in the first week of potty training Jack, but it's been a little too long now to remember the details, so I figured I would hit the highlights:

Wednesday: Bob took Jack to the potty and told him to let him know when he was done. Jack proceeded to do his business while entertaining himself with our kitchen timer. Bob poked his head around the corner and asked, "Whatcha doin' Jack?" Jack replied: "Just checking my email dad." Oh man, that was the highlight of our day!!!!

Thursday: The first time I did not have to change a poopy diaper or pull-up since Jack was born. Whohoo!! We ran to the dollar store so Jack could pick out a toy (he had 10 stickers on his reward chart at this point...I think it worked really well as a motivator for him). He loved his pink car, which he then proceeded to lose the next day. Oh well...good thing it was only a buck.

Friday: Ummm, I think more of the same...a few small accidents, but overall Jack was making progress!!!

The other highlight was taking him to Wal-Mart last week to buy a Hot Wheels monster truck to reward him further for doing so well. The truck has Donkey Kong on it, the beloved Nintendo character of us 80's kids...except that Jack insists on calling him Konkey Dong. Gonna have to work on this one...

Fast forward to today (about 3 weeks after I started potty training): he's now back in big boy underwear! The last two days he's pretty much gone accident free, so I'm going to brave the underwear with him again this week, only this time I think he's much more ready! We'll see...

Next up, Anna is getting ready to walk...at 9 months??

PTC: Day 2

Day 2 started off a bit better than Day 1, mainly because I was feeling a little more confident in what to expect for the day.

My sister and her kids came over for the morning, which was a great distraction. In fact it was TOO good a distraction. Jack managed to stay dry through the morning, but once he got playing with Lexi and Nate, he was totally unaware of when he needed to go. So the next three hours or so he had a few accidents, but at least it wore him out for the nap that afternoon!! Plus, seeing Lexi and Nate use the bathroom was good motivation for him.

During his nap, I managed to create a basic chart for him so he could put stickers up every time he was successful in using the potty. I quickly realized M&M's were going to be too much sugar, especially if he did it before naptime or bedtime, so my mom mentioned a chart and then letting him pick a toy out from the dollar store once he got enough stickers (I set the limit at 10). I thought that sounded like a good idea, so we did that! He liked getting to pick out the stickers to put on the chart...it doesn't take much to motivate this child :)

We had some more successes that afternoon after his cousins left, so I continued to feel pretty good about his progress! I still hadn't ventured out for more than 30 minutes yet so that we wouldn't be far from a bathroom, that outing was coming up for Wednesday...

PTC: Day 1

As I mentioned in the previous post, I woke up Monday morning really dreading this whole week (I know, I know, my attitude wasn't good) of being stuck inside the house. But, at least I had a game plan after talking to my sister and some other mom friends about what they did to potty train their kids. Jack seemed to be willing to at least try, so I figured I would give it a full-throttle effort this week and then re-evaluate after 7 days to see if I should keep going or stop and pick it up again at a later date.

Mistake #1 was using up all the coffee the day before and not buying anymore at the store before this week started. I pretty much need at least one cup of coffee before you can ask me a question and expect to get a response (two cups to get a coherent response), let alone have the mental clarity and patience to put a toddler on a potty multiple times a day. I was not a happy camper to open up my kitchen cabinet and realize there would be no cup-o-joe early that morning, and since I was going to potty train Jack in underwear, I REALLY didn't want to risk running to the store to get more.

My sister mentioned she thought that taking the plunge into underwear was the way to go so that the potty training wasn't prolonged with pull-ups, so that's what we did (mistake #2). I washed all of his underwear the day before and as soon as he got up that morning we put him in underwear. We had breakfast, I waited about 30 minutes and then put him on the potty upstairs. He was able to go, so I had my first taste of success. That eased my concerns that maybe this wasn't going to be so bad...

...until 5 minutes later when then first accident happened, so I changed his clothes and underwear, cleaned the carpet, and let him try to go again with no luck. Then another accident happened again about 10 minutes later downstairs in the laundry room followed by a repeat of the steps above. By this time I was starting to get a little worried that I was going to be cleaning up accidents every 15 minutes for the rest of the day and that maybe he really wasn't ready to do this just yet. The thought depressed me because I had mentally adjusted to the thought of only one child in diapers...I didn't want to go back to two in diapers!!

After climbing back upstairs, I tried him again on the potty, he went, and we headed downstairs for a snack. Then another accident happened. Uggggg. After three accidents in about an hour and a half, I needed some words of encouragment to keep going, so I called my husband and my mom, who both said something along the lines of "Use the pull-ups!!" Hmmm, now why didn't I think of that??

After switching Jack into a pull-up, the day went along a lot smoother. At least I wasn't anxious the entire time waiting for him to have an accident, so we could go a little longer between bathroom trips (which was getting exhausting to walk up and down the stairs...more on this later). I also asked my dear mother if she could bring a cup of coffee over to me, which she graciously did. She also hung around through lunch for moral support and offered some suggestions for rewards for Jack. I had M&M's, but that was quickly going to get to be too much sugar, so I switched to stickers and a chart instead. After 10 stickers, I planned to let him go to the dollar store to pick out of toy. That got him pretty excited!!

Now about the stairs...I started potty training him upstairs because we have a bathroom right by the game room, and I figured I could keep Anna penned up in there while I took Jack to the potty every 30 minutes. At this point he was only going on the little stand-alone potty and wouldn't go on the portable ones that just fit into a regular toilet seat (which we had for the bathrooms downstairs), so every time he needed to go I rushed upstairs with him (and Anna!). Yeah, that got old really fast. While I was cringing at the thought of spending money for a second potty, I finally broke down and asked my mom if she could grab another stand-alone one for me that I could put downstairs. This turned out to the best decision I had made thus far (after switching to the pull-ups)!

Bob finally made it home from work later that afternoon, which helped so that I didn't have to keep an eye on both Anna and Jack. Jack was still getting used to sitting on his potty and had some more successes, though he was still having accidents in his pull-ups between trips. Overall I was slowly feeling a little bit better about how things were going, at least enough to keep with it for a week.

So here's what I learned from day one:

1) Don't forget the coffee!!

2) What works for some moms doesn't work for every mom (duh)....My sister had quick success with underwear with her son , who is only a few days older than Jack, because his temperament is much different and he was a lot more ready to train (being the second child and watching his sister go). And when I say different...Nate is two and a half and can already make it in the potty standing up without, ummm, hitting the seat.....amazing!! I needed to try a different route with Jack because he's very different than Nate, and that's ok!

3) Call friends, family, whoever for moral support if you need some encouragement.

4) Relax your standards...at least for my perfectionist self, I had to give up on the idea that Jack would be perfectly potty trained in a week. Instead, I made it my goal to 1) just get him used to this new process, and 2) to begin to recognize when he feels like he needs to go.

Next up, Day 2....