Kid Update

KALIA:
Kalia has spent the last 7 weeks with a big red spot over her left eye. It's been really red, dry and flaky. It started out really small, and then just kept spreading and spreading.  We took her to the E.R. when someone convinced me it was a life threatening eye infection. Luckily, it wasn't- and we gave her the antibiotic just in case, and it didn't help. So that was ruled out.  Next we took her to the pediatrician, who decided (correctly) that it was a fungus, possibly ringworm. The fact that most of her eyebrow had fallen out was a good clue, as ringworm can cause hairloss. We don't know how she got it, it would be an easy answer if we had pets, but anyway, after 3 weeks on an anti-fungal, the scaly dry skin has almost disappeared, but the redness is still there. (update 1 week later: The scales are BACK again and so we have a dermatologist appointment to get it cultured and make sure we are on the right track.) He said to expect her to be on the medication for 2 months. Poor thing, but she thinks she looks good without an eyebrow, and I won't tell her otherwise.

She continues to have a aversions to foods, mostly for textural reasons. She is very sensitive to smells, and also can't stomach anything soft and slippery, unless it is pasta and starches and it takes a lot of work for me to get fruits and vegetables into her diet. She will eat strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots (raw only), and raspberries. She also loves olives. That's it, and it severely limits me. She has gained a little bit of weight over the last few months. She is not chubby anywhere, and she has always been muscular, but she just looks "thicker" to me- and she weighs 68 lbs. She is very tall for her age as well. I am keeping an eye on her what she is eating because I know it's not a balanced diet. I'm going to be more careful with what I let her eat I am also making sure she has the chance to stay active, which is her natural way of life anyway.

She is doing great in school (she was SO excited to start up again) and is really starting to want to read on her own. She didn't really have any friends in her new class, but she has made some new ones and that made me happy. She also has been teaching herself to play songs on the piano, so I gave her a few lessons and bought her the first John Schaum book, and she is getting started with me as her teacher, and I give her 5 minutes of instruction a week, haha! There's not a lot of time for more and I'm not sure how serious she is about it, but she is picking it up fast.

Kalia has a hard time falling asleep. She loves to wait up for Samuel to get home from work, and sometimes I will let her turn a little lamp on and read if the other two girls are already asleep. It will be so nice for her to have her own room and schedule.

Oh, and Kalia is my money saver. If she gets money, she hardly ever spends it. She likes the idea of saving it and watching it grow.

Ok, and finally, I still sometimes will go in her room at night and see her sound asleep with one of Aria's binkies in her mouth. It blows my mind. I will never let a kid have a binky until they are three AGAIN!!!
:) 

ANNIE:
Annie showed lots of confidence one day before school started when we went to get their hair trimmed, and she boldly asked for her hair chopped off. She didn't hesitate (although I had no idea it was coming) and she hasn't regretted it for a minute.  She has the perfect hair for it, it air dries quite nicely and barely requires me to touch it- ever. LOVELY!

She seems to be enjoying 1st grade, and loves Mrs. McKeon (Kalia's teacher- we all adore her) but she was NOT excited to go back and she told me she cried because she missed me on the first day. She doesn't like to eat school lunch and wants a peanut butter sandwich EVERY DAY. She weighs about 45 lbs and is an average height. She is much more patient with school work and has much better handwriting than Kalia. She is also my best cleaner and can stay focused and get a job done faster than anyone. When they have a group assignment, such as cleaning their room, I usually end up putting her in charge, and if she tells me someone didn't help, they get to do other jobs. I can't put anyone else in charge or it won't get done.

Annie's diet is pretty good, although her appetite is small. She drinks almond milk and doesn't react to anything that she used to be allergic to. She will eat a lot more things, including soft vegetables in soups. She will eat a good variety of fruit, and loves pears the most. She might be my best eater but that's not saying a whole lot in this house.

Annie still loves her blankie with all her heart and likes to take it all over the house, and then she can't find it at night. It is so old and ragged. I usually can convince her not to take it in the car, which is a step up from last year. She twirls a corner around her finger at night while she is falling asleep. She's had it since she was a baby, Davina Spencer gave it to her and it is meaningful to me for that reason.

Annie is also excelling at reading, and reads almost as fast as Kalia, who is also a very advanced reader. She said kindergarten was pretty boring, so I hope she's not as bored in 1st grade. She is technically supposed to be in kindergarten right now because of her age, but since she tested in early, she is the very VERY youngest in her 1st grade class. She probably won't lose any teeth for a long time.

ELLA:
Ella has mostly outgrown her tantrums, thank goodness, and she is getting quite helpful. She loves to go get the mail all by herself, and she LOVES to run and get Aria out of her pack and play after a nap. She still sucks on her pointer and middle finger when she is tired and/or falling asleep. She has a few identical pink blankets that she is obsessed with. They are tiny, like 16 x 16. She can hardly go to bed without them, and asks me to find one all throughout the day.

She is not doing preschool this year. I still have 2 years at home with her, and so there's plenty of time. I was pleasantly surprised that she already knows most her letter sounds and with a little help from me, could start sounding out words at a very basic level. She has figured out that 1 and 0 make ten, and she points it out every time she sees it. She also likes to tell me what time it is.

Ella has had a hard time with her sisters gone, not because she's sad, but because she's forgotten how to entertain herself. She is making it nearly impossible for me to get anything done, and I do not ever hear silence the entire day, which can be very exhausting. She says, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" soooooo many times a day that sometimes I feel a little crazy. Sometimes I say what, what, what and she just keeps saying Mommy until I totally YELL WHHHHAAATTTT? When we are driving, she talks CONSTANTLY.

She still stays hilarious things and I hope I am getting them down so I don't forget. I let her buy some peppermint altoids and she ate like, half the tin box all at once. A few minutes later she said, "I need some water! My mouth has lava in it!" And then after she had her drink she said, "The lava is gone now." Yesterday she was riding her bike with training wheels for the first time (Sam fixed it up for her) and she clicked on her helmet, and we rode for a bit, she was doing pretty well- but by the end she was getting tired and the pedals got stuck a little, and she said sadly, "I ran out of gas."  Then today she put a doll in her swimsuit and went to Sam and said, "I have a baby in my tummy! The baby will be here in 12 minutes." He said that sure enough, about 12 minutes later, she came and showed him her baby.
Another time she was playing the tablet, and I asked her if she wanted to go and get the mail. She did- and she ran across the street, looked in the mailbox (it was empty) and came running back. She came running back, grabbed her blanket, and said, "That was a long day." That run across the street must have really worn her out.

Ella loves to help me put the laundry soap in the washer and put in all the clothes. She changes her clothes several times a day, and leaves stuff all over the floor. She is half the reason that floor can hardly ever be seen. She mostly wants to wear her swimsuit everywhere and anywhere. She brushes her teeth a lot (for fun) and always gets in the bath if she sees someone in there already.  She doesn't eat a whole lot, she likes peas, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, hamburger (no bun), and today she asked for bread with peanut butter on it for the first time ever. We just got her to start eating bread about a month ago. She says she doesn't like tomatoes, potatoes (except french fries), cheese, etc. She won't eat pizza except for the meat toppings (or olives.) She likes raspberries and strawberries, vanilla yogurt, rice krispies, chocolate almond milk, peanut butter smoothies (made with banana and almond milk) and she will eat rice, chicken, some soup and soft/hard carrots, and she will eat cucumbers and bananas and grapes, apples, but she likes to take tiny bites out of several apples.

She is pretty tall for her age and weighs about 40 lbs, not far from what Annie weighs. She learned to swim this summer which is always a wonderful relief. She will even jump into water from pretty high up.

Her anxiety has hardly been an issue for the last 5 months, that has been really nice.

ARIA:
Aria is having a language burst, which makes me happy because I thought she might be behind. I have changed my mind about that.
Puppy (her favorite word and she says it perfectly. This came from her seeing and holding real puppies.)
Ella
Annie
Daddy
Mommy
Nana
Papa
Nigh-nigh(t)
Lamby (Am-ee) her precious sleep friend
Binky (beetdee) her other sleep buddy
Go
Meat
ice
No-no
Cuck-a
backpack (packpa)
Okie-dokie (dokie-dokie)
"Oh no!" (she says this dramatically. A lot.)
Uh-oh
Jesus (Gee-gee)
Elsa
Anna
Poopy (she will come tell me when she has a dirty diaper)
wee-wee (she knows she is not supposed to go on the floor, which happened twice)
potty
bum-bum
boobie (don't ask)
Bath (bah)
baby
hot
Hello
eyes
nose
belly
toot
shoe
owie
good girl (goo-gool) 

Thank you (teekoo)

PeekaBoo (peeboo)

Aria is my must loving, affectionate child. It is probably my favorite thing about her. She will lay her head down on our shoulders occasionally, and just give us a tight hug or pat on the back. I love it so so so much. She does not like strangers at all, she really loves her favorite people, but she wants nothing to do with you if you're not one of the Select Few. Unless you're a fellow toddler, then she's excited and wants to get right in their face. She just hit 16 months, she weighs 24 lbs, she has the curliest hair of any of my children. She is down to one nap, and she sleeps good all night. Still drinks her goat milk, can't eat chicken or carrots or berries or beans, although we occasionally give her a little- as long as she gets it in small doses we can get away with it. Sometimes she pays the price and has a bright red, painfully rashy bum, and we have to handle it carefully for a few days to get it to heal.
She still sleeps in our walk in closet,  which is pitch black,  has a white noise machine, and we never forget her soft plush blanket that grandma Karen made, and her lamby. She usually drinks a bottle of goat milk before bed or naps, but otherwise she loves to drink out of big girl cups, and she loves putting her food in those cups even more, and then dumping it all over her high chair. She is a typical toddler and major mess-maker.  Lately she has been giving us the cheesiest grin ever, it is hysterical. She scrunches up her face as hard as she can, and I bust up laughing EVERY TIME. I love her so much.

Mother's Day 2014

Suffering

I don't know if anyone still reads my blog. It doesn't matter if anyone reads this, because I need the therapy of writing it.  Sometimes I think I need real, actual, sit-down therapy, but honestly, it is amazing what happens when you write things out like this.

I remember when I married Samuel, I was secretly so happy that he had already completed college, and I didn't have to "put him through school." That just sounded hard and stressful. Little did I know what the Lord had in store for me. About six years ago, Samuel decided to leave his career at the University of Phoenix because he was miserable doing financial aid. I had just had my first baby and didn't plan on ever working again. But I was also kind of excited to move closer to family. Things fell right into place, and we got hired as apartment managers in Las Vegas. For about a year, things were really good. Other than a surprise baby who came 14 months after our first, and ended up screaming for 3 months solid and could never be put down... (whew, I don't know how I survived that)...I look back on those days as happy times.

Life took a very sudden turn when some bad people got drunk and angry and took their frustrations out on Samuel one fateful 4th of July night. We left the next day, literally fearing for the safety of our family. He sort of quit that job, sort of got fired (for telling them he wasn't coming back) and thus began some intense financial trials that are still going on right now, five years later.

You know what causes a lot of stress on a marriage? Financial problems.  Well, all problems probably cause stress. But financial problems can really tear you apart. I am thankful that Samuel and I are still married and hung on and worked through every difficulty that came up. Nobody knows but us and God how much work it took at times.

We saw blessings along the way, a beautiful rental house for 9 months, the only time I have lived in my own "house" in 8 years of marriage. A job for a little while here, or a little while there. Finally deciding that nursing would be something he loved, and then getting right in to a bilingual nursing program, and bypassing the years of wait lists for the nursing students in Arizona. The tax refund that seemed especially big one year, that allowed us to pay off our car and own it free and clear. That car that never broke down on us during those years...I can't say how thankful I am for these tender mercies along the way.

But the truth is, most of the time Samuel has been out of work. Most of the time, we have either lived in someone's basement, in two bedrooms and one bathroom, or with my in-laws, in two bedrooms and one bathroom, and we have had almost no money, and anything we did have was borrowed and gaining interest. I have learned to live without things I wish I had. I have tried not to even WISH or WANT for things, it makes it easier when you can't have them. Over the years we have sold everything we own except our vehicles and our clothes. I remember one time someone trying to talk us into "renters insurance" and I just laughed...we literally have nothing of value to insure. We saved our things for a few years, thinking it would just be a few more months before we could get back out on our own. Finally, the cost of the storage unit was adding up, and we needed the money, so we sold anything that could bring in the money. We kept a crib (which is ironic because all my babies have spent their days in pack and plays, except for Kalia, my oldest, who got to actually experience an actual crib, because she was born a little before these trials started. I think I was just holding on to the dream.) Now Aria has slept in a walk-in closet in a pack-n-play, just like her 3 sisters before her, and soon she will be crawling out of it and we'll have to move her into a toddler bed. Sometimes I mourn the fact that I will probably never decorate a cute "nursery" for any of my babies. No room. No money. Not in the cards for me.
We kept a king bed, the kids' clothes, and some dishes, and a piano that's not very nice, but still, I love to play it, even though it's been in our storage unit for the last year as well.  We kept our food storage, because let's be honest. We've been on food stamps for most of the last five years, and so we used part of that money to build a storage. We kept our old, kind of ugly leather couch, because it's the most comfortable thing you'll ever lay your head on. It's currently in the missionaries apartment behind my in-laws house, because we couldn't even fit it anywhere else, including our 10x10 storage unit.

That's right. Everything we own in a 10 x 10 foot storage unit.

I tell myself (and honestly know it's true)- THINGS do not bring happiness. MONEY does not bring happiness. If I can't be happy now, with almost nothing, I will not be happy when I have everything I've wished for. Happiness comes from within, and so I've given everything I have to this cause: Be happy, as happy as you can be, now...no matter the circumstances. Life will never be magically easier. It will always be hard, there will always be trials to bring us to our knees.

And it usually works. I feel a peaceful contentment, most of the time, that our lives are completely being guided by a Heavenly Father who loves us and has a plan for us.  Sometimes I might question WHY- and sometimes I even get a little angry, because I have moments like everyone else where I am just SO SICK of struggling. Sometimes I lose faith and instead of saying, "It's all for a wise purpose...someday we will know why". I start to say, "WHY ARE YOU PUNISHING US WHEN WE ARE TRYING TO HARD TO DO EVERYTHING YOUR WAY?"

The answer, of course, is that it's not a punishment. But it is a refinement. And I try not to listen to the mean voices in my head who want me to believe it's because I'm really selfish, or really proud, or really lazy, or whatever. I try not to listen, or believe that a six year trial must mean that in six years I haven't improved on the things I need to improve on.

But sometimes it gets discouraging. Today I was feeling oh so very discouraged.

I know I wrote about Samuel not passing his final semester of nursing school. Truly not the end of the world. It's not like he failed out all together. He just came up a few points short on the final exam, and if you don't have a high enough score, you repeat the entire semester. And that was supposed to be his last semester, and he was going to GRADUATE and we were going to MOVE OUT!!! (cue the choirs of angels singing).

I was already to the end of my rope when that happened (I thought). I had patiently tried to endure living in one of the hardest scenarios an introvert will ever have to face, and that is of course, living right in (and on top of) your in-laws. I know I am lucky to have the kindest in-laws possible, I have to say that because family drama gets started when people start judging me and my "less than grateful" moments. I hope all the judgy readers are gone. I took away their access. But anyway. I digress.

This last year has been hard for me. Understatement. This has pushed me to levels of depression and anxiety that I have never known before. Now let me also say, many days are totally fine, peaceful, happy, and I am actually GLAD I live here with my in-laws. I don't want to paint a picture that it's all bad.  There's probably more good than bad days. But the bad ones are so bad, mostly because of the stress I feel living here. I can't even describe it. Many have gone before me and will understand. And I truly hope my in-laws never hear me say these words: I have never struggled with anything as much as I have with our living situation here. It's just too constant, every minute of every day, with almost no relief.

I couldn't believe I had survived til April, and that's when we got the bad news that he didn't pass...that he would have to repeat, and that he couldn't even get back on it until August, graduating in December, meaning EIGHT MORE MONTHS here. It was so painful to have my freedom RIGHT in front of me, only to have it ripped away so excruciatingly.

People must have been praying for me though, because I felt the burdens on my back lightened, and/or my back was strengthened, because for about 2 months it wasn't hard.  Sam was able to get a summer job and get some valuable experience, and we felt good that part of the "reason" this had been part of the plan for us, was to give us the chance to save up money so that when we DID move out, we could go with a little something to start over with.

At this same time, Samuel decided to sell the motorcycle that he had been commuting on for the last few years, and find something else to drive, using the money from the motorcycle.

I was anxious about the process of getting a  *different* vehicle, because there's always the chance that you'll get one with a bunch of problems. And when you have no money, and car problems suddenly surprise you...There's almost nothing I hate more than being poor and then having car problems. You are basically forced to go into debt to fix something that you wish you didn't have to. We had been spared this for the most part, and were extremely blessed with the Honda Pilot we got at an auction- never having even taken it for a test drive. But now we had to choose again.

Could we be so blessed and lucky twice in a row? We hoped so, after all, Heavenly Father knew we needed to be saving for other things like a home...or beds for the kids to sleep on. ETC.  We met the nicest person ever (randomly...felt like divine design) who went to car auctions on the side, and offered to try to find us a good car at an amazing (wholesale) price. We were so excited.


This dragged on for weeks, with several deals and cars falling through. Finally, feeling like maybe we were barking up the wrong tree, we decided that maybe we would consider a truck that could seat all 6 of us. We had been praying and praying for a good vehicle for our family that would not need many repairs over the years. We prayed for things to fall into place.

And it seemed like that was going to happen. Within days of us switching to the "truck" idea, our friend went to the auction, and won us a 2005 Ford F-350 diesel truck, a $15,000 truck, and he got it for $5,700. HOLY COW!!! We were so excited and felt so blessed. We did NOT need a truck that big, we didn't really need the diesel, and we knew it would get terrible gas mileage, but hey, it must be another blessing from Heavenly Father. Right?

It was $2,000 more than we had from the motorcycle, but we had saved up enough, thanks to Sam working his butt off to pay for it. I remember picking it up and driving it home....and a HUGE pit formed in my stomach.  It wasn't running right. It was struggling. Something with the engine. Was it the transmission? We took it to a good mechanic. And I started researching the problems on this vehicle...and there were (what seemed like) MILLIONS of complaints with this truck, specifically the diesel with the 6.0 engine.  If you EVER see one, RUN. Biggest piece of crap that's ever been made. Ruined me from owning a FORD EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER.

There was probably at least $4,000 needed in repairs. After agonizing over what to do with this "gift" from Heavenly Father, FOR WEEKS, and going back and forth trying to decide if it would last forever (or not) once we did the repairs, and after many, many arguments with my spouse, if I'm being very honest, we finally decided to fix the biggest issues, and sell it.

So, with every last penny we had to our name, we paid that $1900 repair bill, the truck still not running perfectly and the "check engine" light STILL ON, but now we could only hope that we could sell the truck and at least make back what we had put into it. I was (and am still)  petrified that the engine is gonna blow up, and we've already been told that's a $9,000 repair- and then we will have lost everything. I truly believe that Heavenly Father will NOT do that to us. If we can just get back what we've put into it, then it was really just as good as if it was a savings account, right?

It's been listed for a week without selling. We have dropped the price down to almost what we paid for it (plus the repair costs). I don't know what's going to happen. I am trying not to worry about it.  I really didn't mean to tell that whole story here today.

I meant to tell what I learned today because of it.

I've been having trouble sleeping because of this truck problem, and I feel like I can't even DEAL with it anymore. It's eaten me alive and I have nothing left for it to take. I just want to be rid of it so bad.  While I was driving along today, lost in thought, and trying not to cry, I just was like, "Heavenly Father! WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS? I KNOW YOU WANT ME TO LEARN FROM EVERYTHING, BUT I HONESTLY CAN'T EVEN FIGURE OUT WHAT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO TEACH ME! IT HAS PUT AN UNREAL AMOUNT OF STRESS ON ME, SAMUEL, AND OUR MARRIAGE, WHHHHHYYYY DID YOU SEND US THIS TRUCK? BECAUSE WE CAN SEE NOW, IT'S CERTAINLY NOT TO KEEP IT, OR EVEN MAKE A PROFIT OFF IT."

That's what I was thinking, but no answer came.

At least not right away. But it was only a few hours before I got my answer. And I knew it.

I was laying by my girls in their fort in the front room. Why a fort in the front room? Oh, that's another story, but in a nutshell, the A/C just went out on half the house (the bedrooms) and it's too hot to sleep in them. August in Arizona- inlaws happen to be out of town.  Repair man won't be here for two more days, making a total of 4 days without a/c in half the house. Anyway, that's nothing compared to a lot of other things. So back to my story.

They were falling asleep, and in an effort to stay awake, I started looking at some different blogs. I had stumbled onto one earlier this week, called Loving My Lot, or Loving our Lot, I can't even find it right now as I search for it. She is a Christian blogger and she is very inspiring. 

I feel like her blog post was just for me. She talked about how hard it is to watch others prosper when we are suffering. And let's be honest- everyone suffers, and often privately, because we don't all share those things with others.
But I know about the struggle- with every fiber of my being- not to be jealous of my friends and acquaintances and their huge, magazine-worthy homes. Their brand new vehicles, under warranty. Their stylish clothes, and their manicured nails. Their trips to exotic places. It seems like I have been almost completely surrounded by people prospering, in the last 6 years that we have been struggling.  We have not been around a lot of people who had no money or no job.  We've been surrounded by affluence. I don't even know why, just part of the test I guess. I love these people. I am usually happy they can have those things, and know their trials are probably elsewhere. I also wish that someday I can experience those same luxuries some day.

But for the sake of utter and complete honesty, sometimes I'm not happy for them, and it makes me a little bit sick. I guess that's probably when I'm not feeling the spirit, or I'm feeling sorry for myself. But hey. It happens.

Tonight, as I read her blog though, she said that Suffering will ALWAYS make us more like Jesus Christ. He suffered everything, and so much worse than I will ever fathom. So if there is NO other purpose that we can see in suffering, we can find peace that God is turning us into a person that is more like Jesus Christ.

And so that was my answer. Not everything has a "lesson" per se, but if I am coming to know my Savior better, by knowing more of what suffering is, then that is enough for me. I know so many who are suffering so much more than I am, with illnesses, cancer, even their children, chronic pain, loneliness and heartbreaking infertility, and deaths of loved ones, even children and spouses (my worst nightmare) and horrific trials that I have not been dealt. I feel guilty for even putting myself in the same category as these people.

But maybe it's not about why we've been given the trials we have been given- because surely God knows that's what was needed- but it's about the struggle we go through as we walk a path of heartbreak and pain, finding moments or hours or maybe even weeks or months of happiness and joy along the way...

It might just be more than a lesson, but the shaping of a heart into something that it couldn't become any other way.

So I hope I can trust a little more, be a little more patient, find a way to calm the anxiety that surrounds me. It's just money...money can be replaced. I'd rather lose money than people. 

Deep breath...pray...cry...and this too shall pass.
Aw, this earthly life experience.
Sometimes it's hard. But it will be okay.

Things I won't miss

The whining, crying, tired children during the Witching Hour. It's basically two straight hours of whining, crying, and screaming.
A loud shrieking baby. Kalia sounding like she's YELLING all the time.
Trying to clean up messes but not keeping up with the ones making them.
Swimming and having to hold one kid up while another hangs on me constantly
The disaster bedroom. Can't stay clean for 24 hours.
Having to sweep the floor 5 times a day.
Not being able to hear "silence" until they are all asleep.
Having three kids talking to me at once. Constantly.
Having all my expensive shampoo dumped out for their "bubble bath"
Picking up loose socks everywhere.
Trying to get them to go to sleep, knowing they are tired, but they aren't so sure.
Flooded bathroom after Every. Bath.
Changing the sheets from a bedwetter.
Listening to them whine about food they don't like, textures they don't like, smells they don't like.
Not having any help to keep things clean.
Finding poop sitting in the toilet.
Coming home from a date night to a messy house.
Going a looooong time without a date night.