Ouch

Yesterday morning we had an "incident" at my house. All three of us were on the bed playing. I was laying on my back, and Lexi was halfway standing up, holding on to the wall. She's particularly skiddish around Elian in the morning. He didn't do anything to provoke her, but she decided she needed to retreat to me, just in case. She dove for me with all her might. Her forehead cracked me on the bridge of my nose HARD!

I ran to the bathroom before the floodgates opened. I've been bonked in the nose before, but never this hard. Dark red blood poured out of both nostrils into the sink. I grabbed some tissues, not really knowing what to do - lean forward? lean backward? pinch it?

Meanwhile, Lexi broke out in hysterical cries. At first I was worried she was hurt too, but we quickly discovered she was just spooked by the situation. She wanted me to hold and comfort her, but I was a little busy.

I called my dad for first aid advice because he has broken his nose countless times. He didn't think going to the ER would help, so I just waited things out. The bleeding finally stopped, and I put a bag of frozen corn on my face. There wasn't a whole lot of swelling, and Lexi hit me straight on, so my nose didn't look broken. I had an insufferable headache and was a little dizzy/nauseous.

I took Tylenol the rest of the day, but it didn't seem to help. I am waiting to see if I get some black eyes out of this ordeal. If I do, then maybe I'll go to the doctor...

Some Things I Love About My 18-Month-Old Lexi

- When she thinks I'm sleeping, she kisses me to wake me up.
- She says helpo for help because I tried to teach her to say help and elbow the same week. My bad.
- When I take her shirt off, she rubs her belly and smiles. When I take her Curious George's shirt off, she makes him rub his belly too.
- She doesn't understand why sandals on a rainy, cold day are a bad idea.
- She "ticks" her ball all over the house.
- She walks on her tippy toes just because she can.
- When she passes gas, she grabs her bottom and says "Hiney!" with great delight.
- When she's looking for something, she puts her finger on her chin and says, "Hmmmm."
- As soon as she gets in the car, she starts dancing and asking for music to be turned on.
- She waves goodbye to her cartoon friends when each show is over.
- "Lalo" means water, "mope" means milk, and "boop" means book, and I am one of only a few people who know that.
- When we go to the grocery store, she names all the characters on the balloons by the registers - "Almo" is Elmo, "Dwa" is Dora, and "Bah" is Sponge Bob. Most of the time she spots them before I do.
- When I put her shirt on, she pops her head through and says "Boo!" as if she's scaring me.
- She laughs every time someone says the word funny.
- She poops in her diaper and then sits on her potty and says "poop!"
- She shares her sippy cup with her babies.
- She likes to touch other kids' hair because it's soft.
- When I change her diaper, she hugs and kisses her feet.
- She combs her babies' hair, even if they are bald.
- She helps me fold the laundry by matching socks.
- When I am putting on my make up, she stands behind me and pretends to put on her make up.
- When her Daddy leaves for work, she always wants to give him just one more kiss.

Sickness, Sickness Everywhere

I think everyone I know has been sick in the past month. Either I don't know very many people, or there is a lot going around - you be the judge.

Lexi has had a runny nose and chest congestion/cough for a month. During week 3, she also had diarrhea for 5 days. During week 4, everything got better except her congestion, which caused her to cough a lot in the mornings. Then this week happened.

On Tuesday night I thought she felt warm. Her temperature registered 100.8, so barely a fever. By Wednesday morning her nose was running again and her temperature was 102.8. Because this fever was following a month of illness, I decided to call the doctor. The nurse thought I should have Lexi seen.

So Wednesday the doctor examined her. By the time we saw him, about noon, her temperature was up to 104.7. Her ears and throat looked great, so he took some blood. Her white blood cell count was 11,000 - slightly above normal. The doctor didn't think it was high enough to indicate a bacterial infection, so he didn't prescribe an antibiotic. NOTE: I am thankful for a doctor who doesn't prescribe antibiotics for every little fever. He told me to give her Motrin for the fever and Delsym for the cough.

Overnight Lexi was fairly restless. I let her sleep with me because every time she woke up she got upset. By 12:45 Thursday morning, I decided she needed more medicine. I asked Elian to go get it, but before he could get out of bed, Lexi yaked (read: vomited) all over me and the carpet. Nice. I changed our clothes, medicated her, and put her back to bed. After a long night, she woke at 6:30 on Thursday morning, asking for Cheeos (read:Cheerios). She sucked down a ton of water, then ate 4 bites of cereal and threw up all over the highchair (which is the ideal place, by the way - easy clean up!).

The rest of the day Lexi just wanted me to hold her. She was lethargic, feverish, and had no appetite. Unless she was in a T.V. trance, she was whining/crying. Her fever was still 104 around dinner time. She slept from 4-7 PM, then woke up happy and fever free. Was this the end?!

No.

Lexi stayed happy until we put her to bed at 10:30. She woke at 11:45 upset, so I put her in bed with me. She was wearing a t-shirt and diaper, and the house was about 66 degrees - not cold, right? She went back to sleep, then woke a couple hours later with her nose clogged. I turned the light on to suction her nose, and she was shivering harder than I've ever seen anyone shiver before. Her hands, feet, and lips were starting to turn blue! I woke Elian up and he thought she was just cold. So we put her in fleece PJs and piled all the covers and the comforter on her. She was happy, asking us to turn on the T.T. (read: T.V.), but she still shivered like a madman for 20 minutes! I took her temperature, and it was normal. Elian looked online and decided this was fairly normal in kids with fevers, but it scared me. She got sleepy again, so I held her, all wrapped up, and then she puked. She finally got back to sleep about 3:30 and woke up soaked in sweat about 7 AM with a normal temperature.

She's eaten well today, and she seems happy, but tired. About 10 AM, her temperature was back up to 102.something - you tend to begin to forget the numbers after the point when you've been taking temperatures for 3 days.

Elian and I are supposed to go to a marriage conference this weekend and leave Lexi with my parents. We'll see what happens.

Friendship

I read this last night in the study guide that goes along with the book Captivating, by Stasi Eldredge, and thought it was worth sharing.

I know that friendships have been and can be a great source of joy in your life, but they can also be a great source of pain. We are, after all, human. Friendships falter. Friends can bless but they can also betray. The waters get murky when we laden our friendships with our deepest desires for connection and intimacy. We all have golden moments of connection. But only moments. They will come again...but we cannot demand perfection now. Perfect relationships free from misunderstanding and judgment are coming. We get to practice now. Love your friends and enjoy your friendships for what they are. Pray for them to go deeper, to increase. But don't dismiss them for not being what you most deeply long for.

Paul's Political Message

I know a lot of Christians who are afraid of what may come in the next 4 years. They are afraid that Biblical morality will continue to disintegrate in this country. They are afraid that their religious freedoms will continue to be threatened, and maybe even expunged. While I think it is essential that we continue to protest the abandonment of God in America, I also think we need to remember a few truths.

Here's what Paul says:

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Romans 13:1 (NASB)

Note the complexity of that last sentence. Paul is making two points:

1) God is the source of all authority; it is all His.
2) If anyone is in a position of authority, he is there because God put him there.

This verse tells me that God controls who gets to control us as a nation. We need to be perfectly clear that President Barack Obama is an authority that has been established by God. As much as we like to pride ourselves on our democratic process, when it comes down to it, God picks our leaders for His purposes (which go far beyond off-shore drilling and health care reform).

And God is trustworthy.

We don't have to understand why God is choosing to use Obama to bring us 4-8 years closer to Christ's return; we just have to accept and respect that He is. We can then choose to either rest in Him or worry futilely.

I think it is also important for Christians to keep in mind that just because God is giving the most liberal senator He could find authority over the country, that doesn't mean Obama has a free pass to promote anti-Biblical agendas (of which he has a few). Hebrews 13:17 says, "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account." God will hold Obama personally responsible for every piece of legislation he signs.

Only the Lord and Barack know if he truly loves Jesus Christ. If he does, we can support our future president by praying for the Holy Spirit to guide him in his decision making and to raise red flags in his mind when he is in danger of using his authority for evil instead of good. If Barack doesn't have a personal relationship with Jesus, then he is in even more desperate need of our prayers for his salvation. There is infinitely more power in prayers like these than in worrying about the demise of the country.

Communion

My church got a new pastor 3 or 4 years ago, and, along with an updated wardrobe, Pastor Ernie Frey brought with him a desire to help people truly understand what Christ has to do with them. I have to say Ernie does this exceptionally well during our Communion services (which we have quarterly). Every time we have Communion, Ernie, via the Spirit, is able to bring us back to why we engage in this ritual. We aren't doing it for ritual's sake. We aren't doing it to earn points with God. We do it to remember how desperately we need Christ to be our Savior every single day, and to reflect on how He comes through for us like a knight in shining armor.

We took Communion yesterday. I'd been struggling all week with negative thinking about myself, about life in general, and about God. Upset with life circumstances, I've been basically telling God to take a hike for awhile so I can do what I want to do. And while I was pushing God away last week, blaming Him for my hurting heart, I knew what I was doing was wrong. It was wrong on a this-is-a-sin level, but it was wrong beyond that. When I am hurting, the only way to stop hurting is to go sit in the Father's lap and cry, letting him be the Comforter, and listening to the truth He wants to speak against the lies I've believed. But oftentimes when my heart hurts, I want to walk away from God because He caused/allowed the circumstances that are causing me pain. But walking away from God is walking away from relief. It is a logical inconsistency to turn away from the only One who can heal a broken heart when all you want is the pain to stop.

So, while I was pushing away God last week, knowing I was walking in the wrong direction, I became mad at myself for being such an idiot. My list of things I was mad at grew to include God, me, and the fact that life is just too hard most of the time. I was completely frustrated that despite being a Christ follower for almost 10 years, I am still as broken as I was in high school. I felt like I would never outgrow my self-destructive tendencies. Why would God even want to hang around a girl like that? I didn't even want to be with me last week - why would God, who deserves so much more praise, obedience, and love than I will ever be capable of giving him?

I carried all of this to church Sunday. And God met me there.

Via the Communion service, God said, "Yes, Kelly, you are that broken. You are bent toward hurting yourself and hurting others. And, although it grieves Me to watch you self-destruct, I love you. No matter how broken you are, I have more than enough grace to give you. Don't you get it? I will never run out of grace for you. You can't out do me; I will always have more grace than you have sin."

Romans 5:20-21 "Where sin increased, grace increased all the more...to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Falling Back

Back in the day, B.L. (Before Lexi), turning the clocks back an hour was like Christmas. I'd look forward to it with an unparalleled giddiness the whole month of October. An extra hour of sleep was the most enjoyable gift the government had ever given me (remember, B.L. was also B.T.R., Before Tax Rebates).

But lots of things change when you have a child, including your outlook on Day Light Savings Time. It seems that when you are a baby, you don't understand the concept of falling back (nor of springing forward - somehow Lexi thinks that because the whole U.S. is losing an hour, save a couple of weirdo states, she should sacrifice an hour of sleep time, too). So instead of summoning me with her sweet voice between 7-7:30 AM, today I began to hear the "Mamas" at ten minutes to 6 AM.

By 5:50 AM I myself had only accumulated 6 hours of sleep, so I decided to wait Lexi out to see if she'd fall back asleep. I thought she did because I didn't hear her call me again until 20 minutes later. "Mama?....Mama?....Maaaamaaa?...Mom?...Muhmuh?...Mama?" I begrudgingly got out of bed at 6:10 AM to discover Lexi had made me a present. And due to her recent illness, this particular present overflowed her diaper. My plan of retrieving Lexi from her crib and bringing her back to my bed to snuggle for another hour while watching T.T. (Lexi's attempt at T.V.) was thwarted. Instead I spent 6:15-7:45 AM washing Lexi, her pajamas, and her changing pad cover.

The moral of the story is to respond to the first "Mama" when your child has been having diarrhea for 5 days.