Wordless Wednesday

I have to admit that I'm shamelessly copying off of other folks I've seen do a wordless Wednesday post (namely MckMama and this quirky gal).  And I know this post is not living up to its name, but I find it so difficult to be truly wordless, don't you?

Let the fun begin!

Oh, and I should make this even less wordless by adding the disclaimer that someday soon it's going to be warm and tolerable outside and there will be pictures other than the kiddo... and while he is quite charming (if I do say so myself), I realize the rest of the world and the literally

 DOZENS of people who read my blog obsessively might be more interested in other things...

But for now... bask in the adorable cuteness!

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Not me! Monday

Time to broadcast to the world all the ludicrous and possibly embarrassing things I absolutely did NOT do within the last week.  That's right, ladies and gents, it's "Not me! Monday." I know all my minions out there in internet world are just positively aglow to get another peak into my imperfections, but don't hold your breath because there is no way in heck I did the things I'm about to expound upon.

First of all and just to put everybody's mind at ease about the quality of activities I come up with to entertain the kiddo... I do not ever drag the vacuum cleaner out just so he can push it around and make vrooming noises.  Furthermore, there is no way that I would ever stick in back in the closet without, ya know, plugging it in, turning it on, and actually doing some much-needed floor cleaning.

And since the kiddo insists upon "helping" when I clean the lavatory, I have not settled for keeping him OUT of the toilet instead of AWAY from it altogether.  After all what kind of mother would let her child put his hands anywhere near the john?

I should also point out that I am not a backslidden bum who laid out of Wednesday AND Sunday night services.  Really, I'm not.

Just to include ye olde hubby in this time-honored Monday tradition... he definitely did not take a sick day on Friday and then go out for lunch with me and the kiddo before his doctor's appointment.  He also did not go wander around Sam's Club for a half hour or so while waiting for his prescription.  Because, ya know, sick people tend to stay in bed or at least at home.

Something I never do when we visit either of our parents houses is pretend that I'm so engrossed in something that I fail to notice the kiddo wreaking various types of havoc and just let the g-parents deal with it.  That would be totally irresponsible.

And finally, since I actually DID get up early enough to get my daily Bible reading in before church on Sunday, I know it definitely was not the fact that I had to read PostSecret before going to get ready that made us late to Sunday School.

...

Oh, and I'm not ever the least bit of a hypocrite.

Cheers!

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being carried

My thoughts tonight are on difficult things that I (thankfully) don't know enough about to write down anything coherent.  That sentence was even kinda hazy actually... Nevertheless, it's a quarter after midnight and I'm sitting in the stillness of my bedroom considering the death of one's own child.  This is a topic that most people obviously wouldn't choose to think about, but tonight I've been looking at it in a peaceful and non-terrifying (somehow) way.

A while after my own child was born, God made me see my lack of control in sustaining my own child's life and it was a bitter taste of that side of parenthood that seems to crouch in the corners of our minds and which we try to ignore.  But what about the ones who are thrown headlong into that dark corner? What about the ones are forced to deal with this thought that I can barely approach without tears?

My mother spoke today with a family acquaintance who lost her only daughter over 20 years ago in a terrible car accident.  All these years later, this poor lady is still so smothered by grief that she more or less can't live a normal life.  It's written all across her face and every time you speak to her, she always always ends up talking about her daughter and usually her death.

Today she was mad because she had been to a Bible study where there was a lady talking on and on (the way mothers will sometimes do) about her own daughter and her motherly concerns for her even though she's a grown woman.  The still-grieving woman told my mom that the only thing she could think was, "Have you ever watched your daughter die on the side of the road?"

So I was rolling all of this over in my mind as I was laying down with my kiddo tonight and I wondered lazily what the response would have been had she actually asked the woman that question.  And I thought, ya know, what are the odds that the other woman would say, "Yes, actually... I did watch my daughter die... and yes, it was horrible and yes, I still hurt like most people can't imagine and yes, I still think about her every single day... but I'm living my life anyway because not living my life isn't going to bring her back or do anybody else any good at all."

And then I thought of my sweet mother-in-law.  Because I'm fairly certain that she would answer that question pretty close to exactly that way.

And I thought about how different my mother-in-law is from the other lady who I've been talking about.  And I just had to wonder why there was a such a stark difference...

I could only come up with one answer:

God.

Because some people, in the face of grief, look at God like an outsider.  Like they're standing in the center of the circle of their grief and God is just outside the edge.  And they may reach out to hold His hand, but it's always at arms length.  

But some people, in the face of grief, allow God into that grief and cling to Him the way a sick child clings to his parent... giving up everything and knowing that He can and will take care of it all.

I sincerely pray that I (or anyone reading this will) never have to face these things, but there are so many areas in my life where I could certainly stand to let God in a little bit more.

How much sweeter could my life be if I allowed myself to be carried?

"...casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." (I Peter 5:7)

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Hell hath no fury...

... like a child who's been tricked into taking bad-tasting medicine.

My kiddo and I have been struck for the last week (give or take) with this blah head cold thing that's going around.  Not fun, but thank goodness it was that and not the stomach bug.  It's over quicker, but ugh... I'd rather blow my nose 447 times than throw up once.  And I'd much rather blow mine AND the kiddo's nose however many times than for both of us to be throwing up... because that would leave ye olde hubby o' mine in charge and since he's pretty much a sympathetic vomiter... yeah... it wouldn't be pretty.

So, anyway, I bit the bullet last Friday and decided to take Little Dude to the doctor, which I despise with every fiber of my being  since it's a den of germs and other microbial creepy crawlies this time of year.  And since it was the afternoon, which they leave open for call-ins I figured it would be worse.  As it turns out, I was right... there were about 4 dozen people waiting in the pediatric department, about half of them actually waiting just to check in, and the well-child waiting room had tumbleweeds blowing through it.  There were lethargic, peaked looking children languishing over the sides of chairs and a lot of annoyed or exhausted looking parents.

As it turns out, Doc said my boy had an infection in his left ear and a "croupy cough," which I'm 99% just means a croupy-sounding cough and not actually "the croup." She prescribed him the old standby amoxicillin (which turned out to be orange flavored and not pink and bubblegum flavored... what is the world coming to?) and a steroid (which sounds something like Prednisone but with an extra syllable) for his cough.

The orange-flavored stuff has not given us the first problem and he seems to remember that it tastes ok.  He's taken it just fine every time.  The steroid is a different story altogether.  The first time he took it I actually still had somewhat of a sense of smell and I could tell it smelled sort of like Robitussin, which tastes awful, so I imagine it's not good.  The first time he took it, of course, he didn't know what to expect and swallowed it right down and shivered and shuddered and made a whole range of entertaining faces.  The next 2 times, he went ahead and took it with some complaint... the next 2 times, most (if not all) came right back out.

So, I called Doc this morning to see what I should do about that and she informed me that if he seemed to be getting better that I could just stop the medicine altogether.  I'm not one to use punctuation with no words surrounding it, but ?????.  I'm wondering what the point is of prescribing medicine for a particular length of time if you can just stop taking it whenever you want.  Oh well...

I decided I'd go ahead and see how much of it I could get him to take without causing too much trauma or too much of a mess.  My mom suggested I try a spoon and just pour it down rather than using the dropper thingy I had been using which seemed to give him more of an opportunity to spew it back out.

So, tonight when it came medicine time, I got the spoon all ready, hubby restrained him, I tried to bribe him with mini marshmallows, he screamed and wiggled, and when his mouth was really wide open I just poured it down.

Now... I've seen this kid upset before, but Oh. My. Gosh.  He was what I'm pretty sure should be described as P'd OFF.  He thrashed like I've never seen him thrash and threw himself a little tantrum.  So, of course, natural reaction, my hubby started to fuss at him... and I was like, "Honey, he sorda has a right to be mad... I'd be pretty mad, too." So we just let him holler for a couple of minutes while I got him a few M&Ms out in a bowl and started a Baby Einstein video.  And, of course, as soon as he saw the Disney intro he started smiling and eating his snack.

Nothing a little chocolate and classical music can't fix.

It's remarkable how much this child is like his mother.

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Not me Monday!

Well, this is my first time not me-ing after happening upon the fabulously fun MckBlog My Charming Kids.  And since I feel obligated to give credit where credit is due (and because it's awesome), I wouldn't have happened upon this blog at all had it not been for the Angie Smith's amazing blog... which I most certainly do not check obsessively.

To get this started, I have not been using the same kleenexes to wipe mine and my son's noses because I was too lazy and felt too much like death warmed over to bother getting up to get a different one.  And for the record, my husband did not say that he refused to bring me another kleenex if I was going to use the same one for both of us again.

Furthermore, I did not lay on the couch all day yesterday and do absolutely nothing unless my kid was hungry or it was time for his medicine.  And the extent of my interaction with him absolutely was not "Blue's Clues or Veggietales?" Besides all that I definitely did not miss both church services :c(

Oh and, I did not spend all of yesterday exploring the amazing textures of pizza, White Castle burgers, and powdered sugar donuts.  It would have been so silly and pointless to eat all that considering I can't taste a darn thing.

And unfortunately, since the evils of sicklihood have invaded our home for the last week... I don't have any other shameful things to say I haven't done because I haven't really done... anything.  Well, other than blow my nose and look generally like some mixture of Medusa and a stoner.

But to break the rules just a scoche, I'm pleased to say that I AM starting to feel better.  And I'm thankful for that.

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