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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Mirror, Mirror...

Recently my husband and I were discussing our children, as parents are wont to do...

One of our children has been battling anger issues for a while (with us firmly by child's side assisting in the battle!).  Now, I could go into great detail about all we have tried and the results of each attempt, but, I won't. :)   I WILL say... if your child is having behavioral issues and 'nothing' seems to work... look at the family diet!

After we cleansed our diet of all noticeable fake foods... we had our child back! We saw a noticeable difference in TWO days... and it got better! :)

Sure! Child still has bouts of frustration and anger, but it is no longer a heavy, dark cloud weighing child down.

My dear husband took time to compliment this child for the self-control we have seen clearly displayed on many occasions. Husband told child, 'You haven't been so frustrated and angry lately. I'm proud of you for the self-control you are exercising.'

I smiled as my husband relayed the story. He said child perked up with a big smile and said, 'Mama, too!'

'What do you mean?' asked my husband.

'Mama hasn't been so angry lately either!' explained the child.

OUCH!

Do my children see me as the 'Angry Mom'? I know that I have been working on my patience for years now... but it never occurred to me that my children saw me as angry! Firm? Strict? Maybe. But Angry?? Wow.

Was child's anger issues in part a reflection of me?

Had I taught the child to give into frustration and anger?

Ouch.

On the positive side, both the child and I have made progress!! We will keep working toward self-control, together. 

"So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath;  for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God."
~James 1:19-20~

Monday, August 20, 2012

Dr. Endo... and Rocks?

The morning of Seth's appointment was rushed!

My husband was working until 10am. I needed to drop off my two oldest in a neighboring town to spend the day with friends. Doubled back, dropped off the next two to spend the day with their grandmother and picked up my husband... Did I mention I had not had my coffee? I picked up some on the go at some point, but it just wasn't the same as my home brewed! :)

With all children settled into their places for the day, we left with a good 90 minutes to get to our appointment which was only about 60 minutes away. All was well!

Or so we thought!

We got so into talking, we missed our 2nd exit! Had to turn around and get back on track.... THEN, I managed to send my husband the wrong direction, which I realized quickly, thank you Lord! At this point, we knew our extra time was dwindling and we were both concentrating on signs!! But!! The turn my directions said to take... wasn't there!! We ended up in some town well south of our destination... I was a nervous wreck & started crying... after all, we had waited three weeks for this appointment and most offices only give you a small grace window! According to my clock, we had 15 minutes to get to the office... and we weren't even certain of where we were!

I phoned the endocrinologist office and explained our situation, and, PTL! they give a 30 minute grace window! I ran into a dollar store for a cold drink and chocolate (!) and directions (!) while my husband diapered Seth and started feeding him. We switched places and he started driving! We arrived 35 minutes late, but those dear kind ladies took us right on in!!

Right in... as in... neither of us had a chance to take a bathroom break, no time to change Seth's dirty diaper, no time to fill out the paperwork!! Now that's efficiency!!!

The doctor was a sweet lady with a great personality for working with children... and their parents! Michael and one nurse took Seth to get weighed and measured while I stayed with the other nurse to finish paperwork and answer her questions. When the doctor came in, one of her first comments threw me off... "Well no worries about his weight! But he is short, so let's run a check on his thyroid."

Now, let me recap... Seth's weight dropped from the 56th% down to the 5th% in less than 4 months! His height was similar. The pediatrician sent us to the endocrinologist because of his WEIGHT.

I quickly questioned her! She showed me that Seth had just weighed in at 24.9 pounds.
WHOA! Wait a minute! Only 3 weeks ago, he weighed 18.9 pounds... THAT's a 6 lb gain in only 3 weeks for a child who hasn't gained that much in the last 5 months!

Back to the scales!! This time, it made more sense... 20.9 pounds :) and 28 inches.

Another odd thing I questioned... for Seth's 1 year check at the peds office, he was listed at the 4th%... using the same numbers and date, the endo office listed him at the 14th%! The endo office say they use a 'much more accurate' chart. The peds office say they use the only chart out there... I don't know! But I'll take the weight gain! :D

Two more labs were run: growth hormone and thyroid. Both came back 'Perfect!' :D

So, we wait to see how he is growing at his next WCC in October.

After the crazy, stressful morning, my husband treated me & Seth to Olive Garden. Oh.My.Yumminess!

We then picked up our two little redheaded boys from gramma's and started for home... all was well again...

'KAPOW!!'

What was that?!?! No cars around... what WAS that!?  Oh lovely... someone threw a rock at my windshield and it cracked (only had this van 2.5 weeks!) ! I pulled over shaking like a leaf! Mike was in his car behind me and he stopped too... When he came over and asked what was wrong, I could not talk, I just pointed with my whole arm shaking. I am so thankful that the Lord kept me steady! If I had jerked the wheel, our high profile van on hilly roads with deep ditches, would have wrecked- with me and our three youngest boys. My husband drove back around to look for whoever it may have been, but saw no one (it was a LOUD crack, I believe they took off running and hid!). We did file a report with the Sheriff's office... 'just in case' and the boys got a mini tour of a cruiser :)

Three days later,  our insurance had our windshield replaced :)

Talk about a roller-coaster of a day!

I am happy to know that my God has it all under control for me! :)

Bountiful Blessings

Ahhhh! So much has happened since my last real update!

Back in July, I took in our van for an oil change and kindly asked them to give it a quick check over. We were planning a surprise visit to see my folks in Georgia and wanted to know if the van had any safety issues. It's a 1999 minivan with 213K+ miles on it. And boy! It sure did have some safety issues! In fact, the top three concerns brought in an estimate almost equal to its trade in value! Plus there were other things that would need to be taken care of as well... Oh my!

Right off, we knew that we didn't WANT to put that much money into a vehicle that old... but did we have a choice?

What followed was a blitz of research into different vans and SUVs (cars are not an option here anymore!). Being quite honest, I was terribly disappointed. Our budget was tiny. Vehicles the size we needed & newer with lower mileage aren't inexpensive. We thought we found one through Craig's List, but they sold the van to their church that weekend.

I was just about to cancel our trip, feeling very frustrated... I logged back into Craig's List one more time... A new posting! It had about half the miles of the first one we considered, was two years younger, and was only about $2K more than the asking price of the first one! My wonderful husband drove up with his father to look at it & test drive it... Everything was great! Our local banker had given us a green light before we went, so my husband quickly negotiated a price and drove away with this:

Why, yes! That IS a 12 passenger van you are looking at! Our five children LOVE it! There is plenty of room to stretch out... plenty of storage space... low miles... It IS God's providence for our family!

Thus, we were able to take our surprise trip!!

We visited MrsG30286... where all our children became friends instantly! I'm not certain about hers, but my children tend to require a 'warm-up' period before they dive into playing... but not that day! One never would have been able to tell that these children had literally just met! Especially all the boys! I believe they truly felt the warmth and love in that home and felt 'right at home'!

MrsG and I went to high school together... um... just a few years ago {wink,wink}. Thanks to the marvelous information superhighway and a nifty little thing called Facebook, we have been able to really get to know each. It was very much a blessing to my family to spend time with MrsG and her family... waaaaay out in the boonies!

After that, we spent the weekend with my family and got to see lots of faces that I have not seen in many years. We even visited the church where my husband and I were married... almost 16 years ago! The Lord has His hand on that church and has blessed it in many ways!! It has grown by leaps and bounds since the last time I was there... but more importantly, the church was filled with His Holy Spirit! As soon as the praise music began, I got tingles all over! Afterwards, as we were discussing the sermon, I mentioned it to my husband... He felt it too.. so did our daughter! We left feeling refreshed and renewed :)

Once our visit drew to an end, we journeyed home. We enjoyed a few days together before my husband went back to work. Meanwhile, I started preparing for our new home school year and also for Seth's appointment with the pediatric endocrinologist...