In the now

I've been battling a slight cold this week and it recently turned into a very bad sinus infection/head aches. Its amazing how difficult life becomes when my head is pounding 24/7 and I can hear only fog in my ears. Whew! It also seems that my kids completely understand what it means to have Mommy feeling under the weather. Suddenly messes don't get cleaned up, running through the house is okay, decorating our bodies with dinner food, rather than eating it, is apparently allowed, getting into the fridge and eating whip cream and m&m's is also apparently allowed, opening the front door to a total stranger seems like a fine thing to do, making bed time world war III for Daddy seems fine and dandy and getting up super early, clearly needing more sleep is the norm for the week.

Yes... our house in a nutshell.

Last night I realized that I needed to get more creative when I'm sick. Even though we can't go out and live our fun, busy, social life, we can still keep everyone nice and busy (and relaxed at the same time) and keep the house in good order.

Today we literally didn't leave the house until 5pm, when I decided to go visit my sister and let my kids run wild with her four. We started the morning by making chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast (they love stirring the batter, cracking the eggs and sprinkling in the chips), we tried honey on top instead of syrup and it was very well received. I was thrilled since honey has WAY less sugar than the 45+ grams in the syrup. After breakfast we put together every puzzle in the house, taking pictures of each finished product. We played Doctor (I was the patient, which was my excuse to lay on the couch with my eyes closed while they operated on me), we sat in the baby's room and talked about what life will be like with our sweet new girl -- I loved listening to their thoughts on her birth and life at home with us... Ethan seems to think she will be like an instant 2 year old the day she's born. Rachel cannot wait to hold and kiss her and would like me to put her in princess dress-ups everyday.

Rachel laid down for her nap at Noon and Ethan and I watched the very beloved Tom & Jerry cartoon and then played games on his Thomas laptop. I had no idea he knows what almost all of his letters look like and what sound they make! Amazing how just the day in and day outs of life teach them plenty. We read about 20 books. I read 10 and he told me his story to 10 of them. I'm also amazed how many words he has memorized from watching me point as I read. The human brain is one of God's most amazing wonders to me!

Jason was coming home from work at 5pm and needed to get a couple hours of freelance work done, so I took the kids and went to my sister's house. They played out all their energy, ate dinner and then we went home. Thank you, Trisha! It was nice being in a different home and also having adult conversation.

Its 9:30, the kids are not going to bed well for Jason at all and I can't wait for life to return back to normal. Its amazing all the tricks they try on him - the ones they know would never work with Mommy. He's been amazing me with his patience and consistency with them and I think he's amazing the kids as well. ;-)

I sit here, exhausted, even though we didn't do much today. I'm imagining life with one more child and panicking at the thought of nights like this with three! Something tells me the grace just gets added as the blessings come.
I'm so thankful for my life. I love my kids and I love seeing how God works in our family - on the good days and the bad. I know we'll miss these "little days" but for now, I admit, they do seem exhausting and sometimes finding the JOY in them is hard.

Posts like this are a helpful reminder to me (as I write them) that its really not as bad as it feels, in the moment. I love reflection. God teaches so much when I stop long enough to reflect and pray.