Just enough

Today we are TIRED.  There was a storm overnight, so we had a three year old in our bed.  A baby that didn’t want to sleep after 3 am, and an 8-year-old type 1 diabetic that got sick in the middle of the night because her blood sugar spiked and she had ketones.

This morning I did not want to be up, but we had a lot to do.  As the mother of five, and what will likely be two kids who require some sort of special care, it seems that we are always hopping from one place to another.  Our oldest daughter left this morning for 4H camp, so we were scrambling trying to get everyone out the door and from there we had to head straight to swim lessons!

I kept thinking today how tired I am and how badly I want to lie down, fall asleep, and wake up when I am ready, not when someone else is screaming or demanding my attention.  I kept finding myself looking forward to bedtime, when the house is quiet and all the kids are asleep, and I can rest and wondering if I will make it till then.

That’s when I realized that each and every time that I have felt like I have reached the end of my patience God gives me just enough to make it through.  When I feel I am just too tired to calm a fussy baby, get Dani a snack, or just give a hug to Jessi because she needs it, He has given me just enough to make it through that moment.  He gives me the calm I need to love on my baby, and the strength I need to get up one more time. 

I am so thankful that God gave me these kids and that He continues to supply me with everything I need so that I can love on them and be the mom that they need.

A Start

First off, if you are reading this please note that I am a TERRIBLE writer and this may annoy you, so if bad grammar or bad writing bother you in any way I suggest that you quit reading this right now.

I suppose I decided to start this whole blog thing so that I could vent.  I have a lot of pent up frustration and I need somewhere to channel it.  I hope that by writing about it I can relieve some of my stress and share what we know about Madi without having to answer one thousand and one questions.  So, here goes…

I realized the moment I brought Madi home that she seemed tense and tight in her arms, but I also knew that I was worried something would be wrong with her.  I had surgery before I knew I was pregnant and worried that the anesthesia or drugs would affect the baby.  (Nothing major just a kidney stone removal, though on a side note, I do NOT recommend kidney stones.  They hurt like; well you know where I am going with this one!)  So, I brushed aside any worries I had at the time and enjoyed that bundle of joy.  It wasn’t until her sixth month well child check that I brought it to the doctors attention.

At her visit, I learned she is going to be a shrimp; the poor child is in the 5^th percentile for weight and only the 2^nd percentile for height.  Thank goodness she is a girl!  I also learned at this visit that she was “developmentally delayed” which meant she is a little behind in reaching some of those infant milestones.   I wasn’t concerned, she is the youngest of five, so I have learned that every child advances and learns at their own rate.  She also has strabismus in her left eye, it turns in and her eyes don’t track together.  Our third daughter had strabismus, so we have also dealt with that before.  However, after I got home I began to think back over the visit and how instantly alert the doctor became after I pointed out her stiffness and the fact that he came back into the room to ask if I had any questions or concerns over any of the things we had discussed.

Since that visit almost two months ago, we have seen more specialists and I now know that Madi is hypertonic.  Something in her brain causes her muscles to stiffen and tighten.  We have scheduled an MRI for the 29^th and hopefully, it will give us a better idea why she is hypertonic and what if any other issues she may face.

Well, I do surprisingly feel better!  J