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January 04, 2006
counting my blessings
The last two days have been a messy mix of ups and downs. Matt went back to school yesterday, which meant it was my first day home with three children. I was hoping to start the day off rested, but it didn't happen. Clara was restless the night before, so I was a little bit short on sleep. Thankfully, the kids woke up at 7:15. Even though I was already up nursing Clara at 6:45, I didn't have to manage all of them at once. There weren't a whole lot of discipline problems either. I think having Daddy back at work was calming, mainly because Daddy is a whole lot more fun than Mommy ever is. The excitement level definitely took a dive, but that's really okay with me.
The hard part is that Matt is super stressed out, for a number of reasons. I know that God will see us through the stress, but it's been hard to know how to comfort him. He's seriously overcommitted and burnt out and in the midst of that, he's trying to make a few difficult decisions. Yesterday, in order to help him destress, I packed up the kids and went down to the school to kidnap him for a fun night. We went down to the park by the Aquarium and then had dinner at Big River, his favorite place. Matt's dad had given him some money for Christmas, so it was a guilt free outing. The bummer was that after we loaded up the kids and got in the car, Matt accidentally left the stroller and diaper bag behind on the sidewalk on Broad Street. He was so preoccupied with his woes and mellowed out by his favorite hand pulled beverage, that he forgot to load them up. We didn't notice it until we unloaded the kids at home. I went back to see if they were there and they weren't, so I had to turn around and report to my very depressed husband that we had lost them (the diaper bag had all of my financial stuff in it: checkbook, credit cards, SS cards for me and kids, driver's license, etc.). We called the police and just as Matt hung up, a woman called and said that her husband had found them and left them at the Aquarium's security office. What a relief. I am so thankful that there are people who would inconvenience themselves that way for total strangers and even more thankful that God spared us the ordeal of replacing everything that could have been stolen.
Is there such a thing as emotional whiplash? If so, I think I have it. We've been jerked around so much lately that I'm pretty certain that God is teaching me some pretty big lessons: 1) I'm not in control of raising my kids--God is, 2) the idea that a month/year/week from now things will be better is a lie, because life is just stressful period, and 3) even though having a new baby has added a lot of craziness to our nutty little family, God has used Clara Joy's presence in our house to bring us joy, not Hallmark moments, but joy in spite of our circumstances.
| By Karen | 02:50 PM
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Comments
...And the fact God gave you eyes to see His goodness and faithfulness in the midst of all this, is amazing.
Posted by: M at January 5, 2006 09:24 PM