How a Soup Can Almost Killed Me
[And Other Ridiculous Reasons
I've Been Absent Lately]

Do you ever feel like you're living in survival mode? Now that Theo's closing in on 18-months (18 months!), I thought I was past all that. Not the case, my friends, not the case.

Almost a month ago, I mentioned in this post how a chiropractic adjustment (one that I entered into feeling totally fine) left me in lots of pain. For about three weeks, the pain in my hip was so bad that it was waking me up. Every. Night. I only stopped feeling a constant burning ache in my hip a few days ago, and I can finally move my head from side to side without a ton of pain, stiffness, and clicking. By the way, I highly doubt you will ever experience the same kind of injury, but in case you do, I ended up fixing it myself! Here's how: When I was ready to go to sleep for the night, I sat up in bed and put the bottoms of my feet together so that my legs made a diamond. I then laid down, keeping my legs in that diamond position. I held that pose for as long as I could, and I eventually fell asleep. My hip felt better when I woke up, and when I swung my legs out of bed in the morning and began my zombie-like stumble toward my mug of coffee, there was a whole lot of clicking and movement happening in that joint. I've been doing that same stretch every night, and the pain is getting better every day. I'm not a medical professional, so I can't tell you exactly what my injury was or why that particular stretch worked, but I'm so happy to be (almost) pain-free, I don't even care!! As I was living with the pain, I found myself thinking a lot about people who live with chronic pain, particularly the elderly. It makes me want to heap on an extra-dose of patience when an elderly person says something unkind or "crotchety."

At the same time, my sweet mother departed for her annual "Sisters' Trip" with my aunts. I never take my mom for granted, but goodness did I miss her when she was away! It was a crazy week of appointments, and Dan and I were left with the choices of (a) my taking all the boys to the appointments myself or (b) Dan helping out at home and making up for lost time at work in the wee hours of the night. (Which he typically does, but he's really been cranking it lately.) Just to give you an idea of how many appointments we had that week, I had two chiropractor appointments (I actually started seeing a different chiropractor trying to undo what the first one had done), the older boys and I had a field trip, and Logan had eczema so badly behind his ear that it got infected and he had to see the doctor. I had also sliced my finger on the lid of a soup can, and my finger had become disgustingly infected. Honestly, it was so bad that I shoved it under Dan's nose and said, "Look at this! I'm going to die from this, aren't I? Slicing myself on a soup can is a really dumb way to die." [I never sway into the realm of being overdramatic.] However, I did need an appointment for my finger as well. This was only Monday through Friday, friends! So, I'm really happy my mom had a great time in New Mexico, but I am soooooo glad that she's back!

Aaaaaand while all of this was going on, there was yet another appointment looming that would [in theory] end our personal debate as to whether or not our family is complete. I wrote this post almost exactly a year ago with my thoughts on whether Dan and I would be having any more babies. At the time that I wrote the post, I was 99% certain that we were done having children. But that lingering 1% was such a stinker for several months thereafter. I adore babies and children, and creating, nurturing, and teaching them is what God put me on this earth to do. I deeply admire families who have an open-handed approach to children, and I so want to be like them. However, I'm not getting any younger and the heart palpitations I suffered after Theo were just plain scary. And do you want to know what snuffed out that last little 1% once and for all? Our family was so sick this fall and winter. We just kept getting slammed with one illness after another, and it would hang around our house forever as it passed from one child to the next. What really did it for me was when Theo caught the stomach flu, threw up all over me FIVE TIMES, had to go to the E.R. for dehydration, and then I came down with the same stomach bug a couple days later and had to continue taking care of the boys while I felt terrible. And if there was any notion that I might have a girl the fifth time, I had a very vivid dream in which I did become pregnant with a fifth child, and the baby was... [drumroll, please] another boy! As Dan's appointment loomed closer, it seemed like God wanted me to be really, really confident in our decision because that's when I got hit with the hip pain + neck pain + infected finger + a head cold. (He knows that when I'm not feeling well, I become particularly selfish. I think I handled everything all right on the outside, but on the inside, I kept thinking things like, Ugh! I just want to lie down. How am I supposed to take care of all of these wound-up boys when I can't even take care of myself?) So, anyway, Dan's appointment came and went, and I was still sick, tired, in pain, not getting help from my hubby as I usually do on the weekends because he was resting in bed, and taking care of him on top of everything else. On the bright side, there was not a stitch of doubt in either of our minds, and that was a blessing.

In other news, we recently learned that our neighbors on one side of us will be moving. While we are seriously bummed that they are leaving, we realized that this gives un a narrow window to add something to our home that we've (OK, I've) been wanting for quite some time... a fence! Having a safe, contained place for the littler boys to play would make my life as a homeschooling mom a million times easier. It would also help with the problem we've been having of a neighbor's dogs prancing into our yard, relieving themselves, and jumping on us. [We've already politely talked to the neighbor. Does anyone know if there's anything we can/should do?] The bad news is that fences are ridiculously expensive. I was blown away by the estimates we received from fencing contractors. It was so much money that Dan and I took a lot of time to think and pray about whether we wanted to continue with our fence-filled dreams. Right now, we're getting prices for different kinds of fences (I originally wanted a white vinyl picket), so we'll see if that helps at all.

Although I was hoping to stretch Theo's morning nap until the end of the school year (or at least until he was 18-months old!), he has officially dropped his morning nap. While this does give us more flexibility in our day (yay!), and I regain my hour-and-a-half or so of peace in the afternoons, this also means that our school-day mornings are infinitely more challenging interesting. Theo is in that delightful stage in which he just wants to self-destruct (splash in the toilet much?) or destroy the entire house. This is what I'm chanting to myself: this is only a phase, this is only a phase, this is only a phase. It helps that I think he's adorable (even with toilet-water-hands) and am still generally obsessed with him. 😉

Lastly, I kind of knew this was going to happen sooner or later, but I think I'm going to have to quit my book club. My main complaint about the book club is that only about 10% of the meeting is actually spent talking about the book. (I feel like I'm being generous with the percentage here.) Most of the talk revolves around homeschooling, which is fine except I live, breathe, and eat homeschooling, and I look forward to a little break from that at social events. This month's book is A Simplified Life: Tactical Tools for Intentional Living by Emily Ley. I couldn't find the book in our library system, and it doesn't have great reviews on Amazon, so I definitely didn't want to buy it. I thought I'd skip this book and start reading the next month's, which is The Life of Elizabeth I by Alison Weir. This book does interest me, but I took one look at its width and tiny type and admitted there was no way I was going to finish that, even in two months. One book I did whip through, though, was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. It is admittedly kind of weird, but I really enjoyed this book and handed it over to Dan for a good read. It's one that really gets you thinking, kind of in the same vein as Brave New World and The Giver. It's definitely got a God-centered theme, which I really like, but the reader isn't smacked over the head with it. I did hear that the Disney movie secularized the plot [eye roll], and it, therefore, missed the mark because the central point of it was gone. Have any of you seen the movie? Would you agree?

Well, friends, I think that effectively catches us up! Did you have a nice Easter? (I've noticed some people are calling it Resurrection Day now. Is there a reason for swapping this name with Easter? I have so many questions for you today!)