Need a hug.

Nathan saw me crying today.  At first he saw me wipe my face, and thought I was playing peek-a-boo.  Then I bent down and asked him for a hug, and he put on his stony face that he does when he is studying something.  He reached out and touched a tear, looked at it on his finger and then tasted it!  It was such a sweet moment, and yes, he did give me a hug.  He is a very huggable boy.  I think he didn't know what to make of it.

Well, I thought I wanted to blog about this, but I guess I'm not ready.  This is why blogging isn't working out for me.  I used to be a journal-er, but it hasn't transferred over to blogging.  Enough to say that I will be all right, and that God has me in his hands.

Toddler Muesli

Nathan has been sick for what seems like forever.  Really its been about 10 days of events.  First he had a reaction of hives to a vaccine.  Then after a trip to the doctor and Benadryl, that cleared up but he came down with a fever and wouldn't eat.  The doctor thought it was unrelated and probably the stomach flu.  This involved LOTS of laying on Mommy time.  So after a few days of that - poor kid - he appeared better, but had tiny dots all over his body!  The rash was apparently the virus in its last stages but not contagious or bothersome to him, I guess.  I called the doctor again and that is what she told me.  Finally, today he was eating better, and the rash was mostly faded.  He ate oatmeal, yogurt, grapes, cheese, graham cracker, and dinner!

This evening I picked up a Baby recipe book that I bought about a year ago.  I was so ambitious then.  Now I look at the recipes for the toddler age group, and I think, "Good grief.  That is so much work."  Not to mention the out-there healthy ingredients that I have never seen at the store.  For instance, the author suggests making ghee - clarified butter instead of regular butter.  (Roll of the eyes.)  I'm to find adzuki and mung beans, buy tahini and soba, use almond goat soy or oat milk, find unsulfured apricots, and cook all my grains like quinoa and millet (which I do have) with kombu, a kind of healthy seaweed.  Yeah...

But I do feel like I may be offering him too much dairy, and not enough vegetables.  Tonight he ate brown rice and black beans!  (That's the Puerto Rican blood showing.)  And for awhile I was continuing to buy baby food vegetables because he would eat those.  So it is good to look at all the other recipes in the book, and get ideas.

So tomorrow I think I am going to make a baked custard or Toddler muesli.  Here's the recipe for the latter:

1 cup of long cook oatmeal flakes soaked overnight with a splash of natural orange or apple juice
1/4 cup dried raisins, diced
4 dried apricots, diced
1 tbsp ground almonds or sunflower seeds
1/3 cup apple washed peeled cored and diced

In the morning, mix with 1/4 cup yogurt and serve


Or you can cook soaked oat mixture with water, boil, then summer for about 20 minutes.  When cooled, mix with yogurt and serve.  


So, that seems easy enough, if I do it tonight.  I don't have ground almonds on hand, though, so we'll have to do without.  How about flaxseed?  That sounds pretty healthy, right?  We'll see!

Wake Me Up When September Ends

So, today is the 29th.  The song "Wake me up when September ends" always runs through my mind this time of year.  It has been three years since that day - horrible haunting day - the day my brothers died in a car accident.  Two years ago, we drove to Michigan and were with my family.  My parents house was dedicated, and we also went to the grave site.  One year ago, I wanted to do something, and not have this day pass like any other.  Jon surprised me by taking the day off of work and we drove to the mountains with our three month old baby and picked apples.  It was peaceful driving through the mountains, and a good day.  Jon asked me if I wanted him to take the day off again this year, and I said no.  It feels different.  I still do not want this day to be like every other day, and I wish I could be in Michigan again, but... I don't know how to explain it.  I didn't need him to be home with me today, I guess.  I didn't want him to waste a day off.

So, I decided to visit the Iraqi family I made friends with more than a year ago.  This was the third time I've seen them recently, and before that it had been months.  Our church started a new series called the Gospel in Life, and the first sermon talked about being involved in the city, and praying for it.  I remembered this family that World Relief had put me in contact with when I was tutoring English.  After that sermon, I called them up and have been bringing them diapers, some of Nathan's outgrown clothes, and today a great book that I found at Kohls.  I struggle with being selfish with my time, and so sometimes it is hard for me to find the motivation to call them.  The visits are never short, and because of their still limited English, conversation is rather limited.  But it was good to give of my time today, and a little bit of our money on gifts.  Jon has such a generous spirit, and it is good to learn from him.  He encouraged me this morning when I told him I was thinking of calling the family.

And it went really well!  They told me about their classes, asked about my family, and we looked through the book I gave them - a colorful board book with 100 words.  It's meant for babies, really, but the mom was happy to try to say the words too.  They had me try some Arabic words for the animals, and we had a good time.  The second time they asked "How are you,"  I told them that I was a little bit sad today.  I had told them before about my brothers, and I said that today it was three years since my brothers had died.  They were very empathetic and talked about their 5 year old son who had been killed in Iraq.  The dad has a brain injury where he was shot in the head - I believe at the same time his son was killed.  For our limited conversation abilities, it was a touching time for me.  It was good to just be with people - and to give my time a bit.

The day is only half over, and I don't know what I will do with the rest.  It is supposed to storm this afternoon, or I would take Nathan to the park again.  It is still a dreary day, but the Lord is being good to me today.

Shepherding A Child's Heart

I've been reading Shepherding a Child's Heart, recently, and taking notes.  Here are some things I've written down. Suggestions?

I now see that I need to correct his rebellious heart, but am not sure how to communicate with a one-year-old.   The spanking I do is in response to his clear rebellion – when he does the opposite of what I told him.  He now is a pro at arching his back, crying out angrily and falling to the ground when he doesn’t get his way.  He’s learned to be a bit more careful than when he started, because he used to slam his head on the floor more often.  Now he sometimes lowers his head to the ground carefully before resuming the fit.   What I don’t know is what to do when he does this when he is just disappointed that he didn’t get something.  He’s not rebelling against a direct order, but just expressing his anger and disappointment.  Is that spanking worthy?

Which of the unbiblical methods above have you seen yourself use?  Can you think of any other common unbiblical approaches to discipline and correction?

Well, I guess I have used a punitive approach a few times when I put Nathan in a time-out in his crib.  Sometimes he just can’t handle anything, and so I put him there to get a grip.  Sometimes that means he needs a nap, and sometimes it means he just needs to chill out without an audience.

I spank him now, but I don’t always find a way to tie it into how he must submit to God’s authority.  This morning after a fit, I spanked him and then said something like this:  “Mommy said ‘no hitting the glass door’ and you did it anyway.  That was wrong and Mommy had to spank you [hug]…because God put me in authority [he wanders under the kitchen table]… and you must learn to listen [he picks up a toy and brings it to me]…and I’m glad we had this conversation.  It was meaningful.”  I don’t think this approach is entirely helpful so far.

What changes would you have to make in your conversational style if you were going to have a conversation like the second example about the new sneakers?

Well, conversation is limited because he only knows a few words.  However, at MOMS nursery this week, I tried to do some of this with the three-year-olds.  One boy was playing with a group of boys and another new boy walked in.  I asked the new boy, Austin, what he wanted to play with and he pointed to an unused truck.  Andrew took it immediately after Austin made his intention known, and then looked at him and said, “You’re not one of us.”  I said, “Andrew, how do you think you would feel if someone told you that you could not play with them because you were not one of them?  Sad?”  Andrew impishly said, “No, I wouldn’t feel sad.”  I countered, “I think you would.  You need to think of others feelings too.”  But it was a busy room with lots of kids.  Conversation was lost amid the activity, and he wasn’t my kid anyway.  But I guess I should have started out with asking questions that got to his heart before appealing to any emotions.  Like, “Did it make you feel powerful, or good to say that he could not play with you?” or “Did telling him that he could not play with you make you feel better?” or “Were you concerned that you would not have toys to play with if he played with a truck that was not being used?”

Movies I Hate

This last weekend, I found a strange bug on the sliding door on the inside.  It was pale, had a design on its back, and a very small head.  I wondered if it was a tick, as I had only seen one once before.  Jon came and looked and said it might be, but he had never seen one that wasn't brown.  Uncharacteristically of him with bugs, he put his finger toward the bug.  It responded by sticking out a long needle like tongue as his finger got close.  It seemed like it was a long as its body! It stuck like a barb for a second to the tip of his finger.  Whoa!  It was horrifying!  Jon said he hoped he would not have nightmares about it.  We picked it up with a tissue, flushed it down the toilet, and then did research about what to do about ticks.  Because, for certain, Nathan is going to get one eventually.  Creepy little things.


But that's not what has been bothering me the last two nights.  It's this movie that I would highly NOT recommend, called The Road.  I knew when I saw the preview that I didn't want to see it, but Jon got it from the Redbox, and was watching it.  I should have walked away when at the beginning it said the earth was dying, no vegetation or animals were alive anymore, and the days were getting grayer and colder.  People were soulless, cannibals, and hopeless.  I watched for 40 minutes, then went to bed unable to fight the cloud of sheer hopelessness.  Jon stopped the movie and came to speak truth to me, which helped.  But the next day was depressing even though the sun shone.  I read my Bible, watched a happy movie, Leap Year (which is clean, by the way).  And the day slowly got better.  


I wanted to know the ending, even though I didn't want to see it, and I'm glad I didn't.  It ended like I thought - death, although there was apparently a spark of hope, although still certain starvation.  I also read that it was based on an award-winning book that was also on the Oprah's Book Club list, and that made me want to vent, hence this blog post.  


Why would I want to watch or read such crap?  I've noticed this before with a few other Oprah books - the worst traits of humanity displayed in a pointless parade of despicable behavior.  THIS is exactly why I prefer children's literature.  Children's books will sometimes deal with difficult topics, but find resolution, beauty, and life in the end.  


This joins a list of movies that bother me, sometimes for weeks: I Am Legend, The Happening, Carriers.  I need to avoid apocalyptic movies, or ones with worldwide disease.  I could psychoanalyze this, or theologically analyze this - but I think I won't.  There are enough bad things (like creepy ticks), in the world.  I don't need to watch them on the screen.

Waa-Aaa!

Nathan woke up at 4:30 this morning.  He wanted to nurse and go back to sleep.  However, when the whole cry-it-out sleep-through-the-night thing was established I made 5 in the morning the earliest I would nurse.  If he woke up before then, he stayed in the crib and got a sippy cup of water.  Most nights he wakes up at around 5 or 5:30.  But then he goes through cycles of waking up a little earlier and a little earlier.  I know he can't tell time, but his body's internal clock is testing my resolve.

So I let him cry, offered him the sippy cup, and he laid down in deep disappointment when I didn't pick him up.  He was falling asleep, when I crept toward the door.  Our floor upstairs has some terrible creeks!  He woke up full blast mad as I slipped through the doorway.  I let him cry for awhile and repeated this process.  I know that he didn't actually need anything.  So at 5:30, I finally nursed him, and he was out like a light.  And up for good at 6:30.

And he has been so clingy!  The last week or so, he has cried these long loud cries if I am not holding him (while standing).  So he's been crying quite a bit, because I won't and can't hold him that much.  And by the time Jon comes home, and Nathan is crying on my leg as I cook dinner, I'm ready to climb walls!  When Jon walked in the door yesterday, Nathan quit crying, crawled over to him and Jon picked him up.  He was as pleasant and happy as could be so Jon couldn't understand what I meant by him "crying all afternoon."

Teething?  Who knows.  That always seems to be the question, but rarely turns out to be the cause.  Okay, and appropriately, he is crying at my knee as I type this wanting me.  Got to go.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Goodnight Nathan

Nathan really likes books.  He sometimes plays with them and makes noises like he's talking to them.  One book that we have and have read often is the classic "Goodnight Moon."  I'm sure I was read this book when I was younger, but I'm noticing details that I never have before.  For instance, did you realize the time on the clocks changes as the book goes along?  Or that the young mouse is peeking out in all the green room pictures?  The other day as we were walking Nathan in the stroller we started calling out things that we saw.  Goodnight cigarette butt, goodnight mutt.  Goodnight mutt eating the butt (or his butt).  We had fun and were laughing quite a bit on that walk.

I just put Nathan down for a nap, because he really needed it.  He woke up early from his first nap, and was crying over everything that he didn't like in his bedroom.  He didn't like how the block tasted in his mouth, or that he crawled into my knee, etc.  I read him Goodnight Moon, and he flipped through the pages of that book, and then another book.  He suddenly burst into tears again, so into the crib he went.  Maybe life will be more tolerable when he wakes up.

Here is an update on the living room, by the way!!! Yeah!  We still have the cardboard over the fireplace to keep Nathan out of it, and the bookcase isn't back up, but it looks pretty nice.  I'm not crazy about the lamp either, but it will stay for awhile.  We're building our emergency fund, and that technically isn't an emergency.  However, it almost could have been because when I was moving it when Mom and I started painting, the top part came out and the wires inside were detached.  I said to my mom at the time, " I hope I didn't break it!...sort of."  We laughed over that for awhile.

Well, since he's asleep, I probably should make good use of this time and clean or cook or something else housewifey.    :-)

Long Overdue

We've been having internet issues.  This along with time issues and Nathan issues, blogging just hasn't happened.  But I've composed a few in my head with titles like: Jon's New Vegetarian Lifestyle, Cooking Pizza in a Tornado, Painting Dilemma, Does Eating Goosepoop Cause Ringworm? ... and others.

Well, Painting Dilemma comes with pictures and a plea for help.  I was this close to going to the store and actually buying a gallon of paint today, but Nathan was asleep, so I took him home.  My mom came to visit in March, and one of our goals was to paint the livingroom.  We washed the walls, painted the trim, and did all the prep work, but when it came to the color of the walls, I kept buying three dollar cans of paint samples and putting them up on the wall.  For two weeks now, we've had the patchwork design on the livingroom, and the livingroom is still in disarray.

Before...

Current state.

What to do?  Which to choose?

Well, Nathan's still asleep, so I'll quickly write about the other post idea I had that comes with pictures.  On Palm Sunday, we had rain in the evening.  Since we don't have TV right now, and we weren't listening to the radio, we didn't know it was anything but a thunderstorm.  I made a pizza crust that night, and Jon was so impressed that he took a picture.

After the crust had partly baked, we pulled it out to put toppings on it.  Jon was working on that while I held Nathan on my lap in the kitchen.  Suddenly, we had a few power surges, and then the power was gone!  I went around and got candles going, and Jon tried to figure out what to do about the unbaked pizza.  He decide to put it on the grill!  He cut the pizza in half, put it on tin foil, and then went out in the pouring rain to put it on the grill.  I meanwhile got Nathan ready for bed by candlelight.  He knew something was different, with the candles, and he was excited and wouldn't go to sleep right away.  I decided to make him go to bed on schedule anyway to try and keep that bedtime.  I left him in his bedroom upstairs and came down.  Jon pulled the pizza off the grill and said it was a bit crispy.

It was actually burned.  Very burned.  We scraped off the toppings and put them on slices of bread, but the crust was black and inedible.  

The next day Jon went to work, and I still didn't have power at the house.  He called and told me what had happened just miles from our house.  There was a tornado!   It had destroyed many homes, but no one was killed!  But looking at pictures and driving by the wreckage the week after made us very sober and thankful that God spared us and others that night.  

As far as the other topics, I'll quickly update you.  Jon is trying to eat healthier, so we're eating mostly vegetarian these days.  The only problem is what to make for dinner - every night.  I just don't know what to cook, and don't have a good feel for how much something will make.  We hardly ever have left overs, so it's a new  challenge every day.  We are not tofu eaters, so that limits the vegetarian recipes quite a bit.  

And Nathan does not have ringworm, though I thought he did.  He had a scratch that seemed to be growing, and forming a ring.  I put antifungal cream on it, but then it started to break out.  His back started to have scratch like half rings, so I put cream there and a rash started there too.  So we went and the doctor said that it wasn't ring worm.  Maybe his diaper caused the initial mark, or the car seat straps.  And he was likely having a reaction to the "cure" cream.  So, we'll see.  I guess the dried goose poop that I tried to clean off our shoes that still somehow made it into his mouth didn't cause this.  Whew. 

Lenna Schrauger

I called my Grandma Schrauger today, and she told me a part of my family heritage I didn't know before.  It brought tears to my eyes!  My grandpa grew up in an orphanage, because his mother died when he was three years old.  (His father was "wine, women and song," according to my grandma.)  When he was older, my grandpa was asked to talk on the radio for about 10 minutes to fill in for someone else that day.  Grandpa, by then a Christian and a pastor, talked about his mother, mentioned the town, and said that he did not know if his mother had ever became a Christian.  He didn't know if he would see her in heaven some day.  Not long later he recieved a letter in the mail from someone who had been listening to Grandpa during his lunch break.  This man wrote that his father had been a pastor in that town, and he called his father to ask if he had ever met the woman,  Lenna Schrauger.  The man told his son, "You tell that young man that I led her to the Lord three weeks before she died of cancer!"  Grandpa was astonished and deeply touched by the letter, and would get tears in his eyes every time he told that story.  He used to say that someday he would go to heaven, and meet his mother!  Praise the Lord - what a wonderful salvation story!  My great-grandma is in heaven!

Grant Schrauger

I woke up to buzzing, and it wasn't the baby monitor.  I realized it was a phone somewhere and said something to Jon, who mumbled back.  As I lay there, I thought that if it was my phone, whoever it was would try the home phone next, but they never did.  I got up to check, and it was my brother.  I was filled with concern - why would he have called in the middle of the night, unless it was bad news?  He answered and sadly told me that our grandpa had died about an hour before.  I still don't know any more details than that.  I do know that he was wanting and ready to be with the Lord, and with a gulp, Jon and I talked about him seeing Josh and Timothy, and Taylor.  It feels entirely different, almost a joyful - right thing.  He has been sick for so many years, but God let him see his sons graduate, get married, have kids, them graduate, get married, and then his great-grandchildren!  How much more will he enjoy the future years (if they measure time) with his Father.

Is God good to me, and to Jonah?

Today was the meeting at church called, "MOMS" (Mothers of Many Seasons), and once again, Nathan did not make it in nursery.  This was his first graduation, to the crawler room, and maybe all the mobile kids were just too much.  Or maybe he was just pitifully tired.  Or maybe he missed his security blanket (a.k.a. Mommy).  In any case, when they came and got me, I found him and another girl feeding off each other, wailing, and doing the shaky sobs when I picked him up.  After he calmed down, he sat in my lap in the Bible study room with the ladies just fine.  He even started to sing, his version anyway, which amused the tables around us.  He crashed on the 5 minute ride home, and hardly stirred when I took off his coat and hat and put him into bed.  Yesss!

So that leaves me some time to ponder.  I've found another blog recently, http://patriceandmattwilliams.blogspot.com/2010/02/please-help-us-get-word-out.html.  I cried and cried over their story and their son's disease.  They are having an auction, and I think in a few days this website will post the items.  http://jonahsebauction.blogspot.com/2010/01/about-jonah.html

 After I read about Jonah, and EB, I snuck upstairs and stood over Nathan's crib and watched him sleep.  He is so healthy, and so easily he could have not been born healthy.  While I stood there, he suddenly popped his head up and looked at the door where Mommy always "appears."  He didn't see me right there, out of his line of sight, watching him.  He looked for a bit, but didn't cry.  He just put his head back down and fell asleep.  I waited a few minutes before I felt safe to sneak back out.

There is a question I've been avoiding revisiting lately.  "God is good" - what does that mean anyway?  If being good means allowing young brothers to die, or babies getting incurable diseases, then good doesn't mean what I think of is good.  Ditto for "love."  But it is still all I have to cling to.  I'm reading a book by Randy Alcorn called, "If God Is Good."  I've only read the first two chapters, so I don't have the answer, and may never be satisfied with one.  A quote that is sticking with me is,

"If my suffering would one day justify denying God, then I should deny him now in light of other people's suffering."  

Until that year when tragedy struck, I just believed that God was good, love and sovereign, but I did this without any life experience to test that.  And when it happened, I sure DID NOT want to look back and say, "Wow, I hated it at the time,but I see what God did, and now I wouldn't change it."  I did not want to learn anything, be better for the death of my brothers.  So now what?

At MOMS one verse jumped out at me that I feel like I've never read before.  "Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His saints." Ps 116:15.  Is that the answer?  What I think of as heartbreaking and tragic God finds wonderful?

A big part of my brain is asking me to just believe it, accept this, and not deal with it anymore.  Someone told me recently, "Don't question why."

He has hemmed me in behind and before, and thrown what appears to be crap at me while I'm in there, and I'm not sure what to do with it, but I'm not really going anywhere.  Not sure if it is comforting yet.


Meanwhile, these pictures will bring a smile back to your face after reading such a depressing blog post.  :-)

.  

New Things

It's a yucky day outside, and I just put a cranky Nathan in his crib and walked downstairs.  It's quiet up there now, so I don't feel as guilty.  Whew - is his ever mobile now!  I found him standing in his crib this morning!  He has also cut a tooth, and it trying it out on all sorts of surfaces - like my face - which is not okay.  I've been trying to break him of his first and only sign language word.  He puts his mouth on my chin when he wants to eat.  By doing this, he is also able to communicate how desperately he would like to eat.  This could hurt, even when he didn't have teeth!  (My mom is smiling here, but I think it did actually hurt after a second.)

We're indoors today, but there are so many things  I could/should be doing with this window of time, so I'll sign off.  Maybe we'll have another fire tonight.  :-)

Wordless Wednesday

Sleep

Well, I haven't written in awhile.  I've been busy.  But Nathan just fell asleep, crying, in his crib, so I thought I would take the time to write. (Oh, and I threw in some pictures from our time in Michigan.  Dad took these.)  

So for a few weeks now, I've been doing a modified "Ferberizing" method of "crying it out."  When I started out on this whole parenting journey, this is precisely what I DID NOT want to do.  Based on the first parenting book I read by Dr. Sears, I wanted him to know deep inside that I would be there when he needed something.  He would not be or feel abandoned.  Even if he cried and cried, at least he knew he was not alone.  The result?  I am his security blanket.  He will wrap his arms around my forearm, put his mouth on my skin and fall asleep.  But I thought all this reassurance would eventually allow for him to sleep in his bed, secure in the fact that if he needed me, I would be there.

Up until about November, I was able to tell people proudly that yes, he was sleeping through the night.  (That must be one of the measures of a good parent.)  To our prolonged disappointment, he would wake up three times in the night at least, and only fall asleep if he was with us in bed.  So at Christmas, at my parents we started Ferberizing in earnest, although I wouldn't leave him alone to cry.  He could still see me, hear me, and taste me because I let him hold my arm.  Bent over the crib for an hour is not ideal, however.  So two nights ago, after he woke up at 1:30, crying like the world was ending, I comforted him - but made him stay in his crib for an hour.  Then I gave up.  I went and crawled in bed with the monitor on, listening to his breaking heart.  Jon held me, and we told ourselves it was for his good, and ours.  He needed to learn to comfort himself, to sleep through the night.  I needed rest.

But as I checked on him every ten minutes or so, and tried to give him water or rubbed his back, I thought about how this relates to my relationship with God.  Does God do Dr. Sears' method or Dr. Ferber?  Does he want me to cling to him all the time, or learn to comfort myself?  Does he always comfort me, or does he let me cry it out?  Does he need to take a break from me?  When I cry, am I alone, or comforted by God always?  What is it that I am trying to teach him anyway?  (It sure seems like he would - or maybe should be a Dr. Sears kind of parent)

I've cried real tears over this and I don't know what to do.  I do know this, that I am not God, and I do need some sleep.  However, part of being a Mommy is being constantly reminded that I am at heart a selfish creature.  Every time I get up with Nathan, I am serving as unto the Lord, even though I'm not sure which side he would take for child rearing.  Help me, Lord, to be a servant, and a model, but also set good guidelines for Nathan.  Amen.  Time for a nap....And,he just woke up!