Aedan: 56 Months, Week 3
Owen: 15 Months, Week 1
This was our last week before going out of town for Christmas break, so things were wrapping up at school and Ben was done with his semester. On Sunday we had a small group get together with all three small groups that split off from the small group we started last year. We met at someone's house down in Rudyard, everyone brought food to share, and the big kids brought their snow gear so they could go outside and play when we got there. It was fun to get together with everyone again, as we had only seen many of our old group in passing at church. It's awesome that our one small group has grown into three good-sized, thriving small groups.
Also, I decided to have sleepovers in the guest bedroom with both Samantha and Aedan over the weekend. Ben did sleepovers with them before school started, and I said that I would do it once Owen didn't need me during the night anymore. If if he does wake up now, he doesn't need me to be the one in with him anyways. So I had a sleepover with Samantha on Saturday night and with Aedan on Sunday night. It was interesting to compare how each of them slept. Samantha noticed a lot when I first got into bed with her and wiggled around quite a bit for awhile, finally getting up to go to the bathroom, and then wiggling around some more. It was probably an hour until she fell back asleep again. However, she didn't bother me too much during the night. In fact, the next morning she said something to me about how she was trying to cuddle with me during the night, but I didn't even notice her doing that. When we both woke up on Sunday morning, we laid in bed and talked for a few minutes before getting up for the day. When I had a sleepover with Aedan, he didn't seem to really notice when I came into the room, but he was laying so much on my side of the bed that I almost laid on his head. I had to scoot him over, but he didn't even really seem to notice me doing that. The rest of the night, Aedan made sure he was always touching me in some way, often laying on my pillow, or at the very least in the space in between our pillows, since he doesn't usually actually lay on a pillow when he sleeps. Then, he woke up early Monday morning, and I had to remind him that his bunny clock hadn't changed yet, so he needed to be quiet and try to go back to sleep. It was fun being able to have sleepovers with the kids, but I'm not sure how restful it was sharing a bed with them. I don't know how people have kids sleep in their beds. I would never get any sleep!
Then, on Monday evening Samantha had her Christmas concert at school. We were excited to watch Samantha perform, just like we had Aedan the previous week, and Ken and Linda came to support Samantha as well. She looked so beautiful in her new Christmas dress that we bought for her. She is made for things like this, and was a little nervous about all the parents in the audience watching her, but she didn't let her nerves get to her, that's for sure. Here she is before the concert.
The second song they sang was "Jolly Old St. Nicholas."
Next, they sang the song "All I Want for Christmas Is You" in Ojibway. This was the song she was the most nervous about because it was a lot of words for them to learn in a totally different language. However, as you can tell, it looked like she picked up on the words pretty quickly. She did a great job of watching her culture teacher for guidance and doing the motions. She has really been learning a lot from her culture teacher this year, and it's awesome that she's learning Ojibway.
The last song they sang was "Up on the Housetop." I love how she sways back and forth, pretends like she's knocking, and smiles so very cutely when she looks at one of us watching her.
I was very proud of watching my girl perform, and she was happy to have Ken and Linda meet her teacher after the concert.
After the concert, we had to drop Daddy off at church for his monthly church board meeting. The kids and I went home and getting everyone to to bed on my own went pretty well that night. The board meetings usually last for quite awhile, and then Ben went out to Buffalo Wild Wings with Brooks afterwards, which gave me plenty of time to finish cleaning the house that I started cleaning the day before. I was determined to get it cleaned before we left for Christmas break. It definitely needed to be done, and it was nice to see things picked up and organized. I was also able to watch a cute but cheesy Christmas movie while I cleaned. It had the girl from Wonder Years in it, and it wasn't quite as bad as the Hallmark Christmas movies. It was kind of nice being in our nice, quiet, clean house that evening on my own.
The rest of the week went by fairly uneventfully. I was looking forward to getting out of town and was trying to get everything ready for a smooth trip.
Samantha had been asking for us to come eat lunch with her for awhile, so Ben hung out with the boys while I went to Samantha's school for lunch. She wanted me to come on Wednesday because it was the day of her favorite lunch: popcorn chicken and mashed potatoes. It was fun to see her in the middle of the day and to sit next to her while she ate. She's not like she used to be, however. She used to be be very chatty and distracted while eating, but now she gets right down to business. She wasn't overly chatty with me that day at lunch, especially because the boys sitting around her were trying to talk to me as well. Nevertheless, it was fun to be able to spend this time with my girl.
Ben posted these pictures of his lunch date with the boys that day. We have two pretty handsome little boys. Owen's dimples are just the best. And I love Aedan's bashful face in the first picture, followed by his silly faces, and Owen looking at him with a huge smile on his face. I'm sure the boys had a great time enjoying their fun, silly lunch together.
Wednesday was kind of an exhausting day for me because I was scrambling to get so many things done before leaving for our trip out of town for Christmas. I spent most of the day going through stuff, looking for things I needed to bring to Christy, and organizing the mess of kids' shoes. Ben and I also did some re-organizing downstairs, fitting all the clothes bins in the room that is the sauna, but we just use for storage. We took apart the bed in the guest bedroom upstairs and set up the other crib with the attached changing table, so we were busy trying to take advantage of this time where Ben had a little bit of extra time between the semesters to get some things done around the house.
The reason we are making all the changes in the house is that Ben and I have officially requested for our names to be active on the list of foster parents. It was a big step and one that we feel very clearly called by God to continue to pursue. Over the last few months, through sermons, small group, and personal Bible study and prayer, I have been learning a lot about being called to obedience. Ben and I definitely feel called to be foster parents, and I don't want to ignore God asking me to obey in this way. I have been challenged to think about how my life is any different because of my relationship with Christ, or what I have honestly given up for him, and sometimes I don't think there is much of significance really. I want other people to look at me and think that I'm different because I follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. I want to obey God's whisper and see what he does. I want to listen to God and respond immediately, not come up with excuses or reasons to delay action. Pastor Brooks said in a sermon, "When God gives you the word, there is power behind it. When people obey God, God provides power behind them. If God has said to do it, there is a way to do it. If God is calling you to do it, if it's a word from God, no word from God is void of power." I want to experience this power behind me in taking a step of faith in obedience. I want to experience the freedom of giving up my defiance of what God has called me to do and of my lack of trust in believing that he will do what he said he's going to do.
Every time I have felt this challenge to step out in faith and obey, my mind and heart goes straight to getting back into fostering again. Ben and I decided to take a break for when we had Owen and until he got settled into more of a routine, especially since he was such a horrible sleeper for so long. However, now that he is doing pretty well and Ben's busy semester is over, I am out of excuses. Ben and I know that we are called to be foster parents. We talked about it way back before we even had kids of our own, and my heart breaks for kids that grow up in these environments where they are not loved and cared for. We feel like this is a practical way we can do what the Lord commanded us, to take care of the poor and orphans.
So often I feel like I am going into things in my own power, and I let my fears, worries, and doubts make me afraid of taking that step of faith. I make up excuses. I think of all the selfish reasons of why fostering will make our lives more hectic, chaotic, unpredictable, and difficult. I think of all my inadequacies and wonder if I really have what it takes to be a successful foster parent, especially after I feel pretty disappointed in how I handled things with our last placement. However, I have felt God working on my heart in regards to fostering again, and I don't want to ignore him. I don't want to let my fears, worries, and doubts prevent me from obeying him immediately. I want to believe that when I am obeying God, I will have his power behind me. I am not supposed to do this of my own strength and abilities. In fact, that is probably why I struggled so much last time, because I was trying to do everything in my own strength. However, I want to obey and see what God does in and through us by accepting children into our home again. So, we have officially emailed to have our names active as of January 1st, when we get back from our Christmas travels. I still find myself feeling incredibly nervous and anxious at times, but I try to remind myself of all the things I mentioned above. God is asking me to obey in this, and he will equip me. He will give me the strength to open my home and heart to a child in need.
On Thursday I ran a few errands around town, getting presents for the kids' teachers and last minute things at Meijer. At home, I did the laundry and started packing the kids' clothes to get ready for our trip out of town the next day. Samantha had a half day, so we planned to leave as soon as she was home from school.
Ben and I also encountered a frustrating issue with trying to figure out what to do about Samantha and her qualification for the G/T program at her school. The email we received back stated that she technically qualified because she scored in the 8th stanine on the cognitive abilities test, but that somehow the test was invalid for a couple different reasons, like testing too soon after her last test and being given test prep questions to go over with her beforehand. Ben and I talked quite a bit that day, Ben researched online to discover whether those reasons would actually invalidate the test, and he was pretty stern in his response to the email, stating that we would like to meet as soon as school is back in session after Christmas break and not waiting until February. Ben and I were both frustrated because her score easily qualifies her for the G/T program, she meets the qualifications in other areas as well, and it seems like they are making an issue out of this and denying her something that she easily qualifies for. It will be interesting to see how they respond.
Thursday night we also had the Nelsons over for dinner. We had been wanting to invite them over for awhile, but it never seemed to work out. They have the boy that was our last foster placement, and I have been thinking a lot about him lately. She said he talks about us a lot, too, and I figured it would be fun for the kids to be able to get together and play. It was fun to see everyone interacting and playing together that night. It was encouraging to see how much progress he has made since he first came to our house, and I was so glad he was in such a loving family.
On Friday morning I worked on getting the last minute things packed up while Ben dropped Izzy off early that morning so that we wouldn't have to do it later on our way out of town. Aedan seemed to not be feeling too great that day with a stuffy nose and cough, so we encouraged him to take a nap in the car that afternoon when Owen took a nap. Owen was definitely ready for a nap that afternoon, so here are both of the boys sleeping as we drove down to our hotel for the night in Grand Rapids.
We had two adjoining hotel rooms, and it worked out well for Samantha and Aedan to sleep in one room, and Owen slept in the pack and play in the bathroom connected our room. Everyone slept well, even Owen slept through the night, even though he was sleeping in a new place.
On Saturday morning, both Samantha and Aedan had stuffy noses and coughs. Aedan was not acting like his normal self and wasn't too interested in eating anything for breakfast. With Owen just getting over his ear infection, I decided to bring our thermometer along, and I'm glad we did. I took Aedan's temperature under his arm, and it was 99.8, so we decided not to go swimming. Instead, we just got dressed and packed up to head the next few hours to Aurora.
Here are the kids playing on the pull-out couch while I packed up that morning. They were pretending that the pillows were a nest on the bed, and Owen loved being included in their game.
We debated how long we could drive before having to eat lunch, but we just couldn't keep Owen awake. He ended up taking a really long nap, so we decided to just keep driving all the way to Aunt Christy's house. While Owen slept, we let Samantha and Aedan watch a movie on the DVD players, so that way it was nice and quiet in the car. We got to Aurora about 12:45 and had lunch with them at her house instead.
With Aedan having a fever that day, we decided to have him lay down and take a nap in Aunt Christy's and Uncle Matthew's bed that afternoon. Since Owen already napped in the car, I just let him stay up and play in the living room with us while we talked and hung out with Christy that afternoon. Even though we didn't have Aedan's sound machine, blankie, or Happy Bear, he fell right asleep and I ended up having to wake him up so we could get checked into our hotel and get all our stuff situated in our rooms. When I woke him up, I knew that he was not doing well. He did not want to get out of bed, he was burning up, and he was just whimpering and crying. He just curled up on my lap, crying, and couldn't answer any questions about how he was feeling. Eventually he was able to tell us that his right ear was hurting, and with how abnormal he was acting, we decided to head back to the hotel so that Ben could look up a walk-in clinic that would accept our insurance so that Aedan could get checked out. Ben left for the doctor a little after 4:30. We kind of hoped that there would be something wrong with him so that he could get some medication to help him feel better. This was not a good way to start our trip, for it's even harder to not feel well when you are away from home and your own surroundings and bed, and I felt so bad for little Aedan. I could tell that he was just miserable.
Christy and Matthew planned to come over to the hotel so the kids could swim in the pool together. Meanwhile, I attempted to get a little more unpacked and settled for bedtime. We got adjoining rooms again, and it worked out pretty well, but the rooms were definitely more narrow, making it a little difficult to maneuver around. Not to mention, the adjoining doors wouldn't stay propped open very easily, which made it difficult for Owen to walk back and forth.
After getting everyone dressed for swimming, we went down to the pool to swim. The water was a little bit cold, but once we were in it for awhile, we got used to it and had fun. I wasn't able to play with Samantha as much as I would have liked since I had to hold and play with Owen. However, she is such a good swimmer now, that she can swim from one side of the pool to the other without needing her floatie on. She was having a blast jumping in the water and playing with Brielle, then we all enjoyed sitting in the hot tub for awhile at the end of our time.
After getting out of the pool, I gave the kids quick baths and got them dressed before going downstairs for some deep dish pizza for dinner from Lou Malnati's. Uncle Matthew went out to pick up the pizza, but by the time he got back with it, it was already close to 6:30, which felt like 7:30 to us. The kids were hungry and cranky, and Owen hadn't napped since before lunch time.
When Ben took Aedan to the walk-in clinic, Aedan had a 102.1 degree temperature. He ended up having an ear infection in his right ear, but everything else looked clear. He didn't have strep throat, so his fever wasn't a sign of anything contagious, which was a relief. It would have been hard to be around family for the next week and a half if he had something contagious. The doctor sent an antibiotic prescription to Jewel for him, and he started perking up quite a bit once he got medicine in him.
After getting everyone to eat at least something for dinner, we got our kids upstairs and ready for bed. It was probably close to 9:00 by the time the big kids were in bed, and Owen gave me a hard time calming down to nurse before bed, probably because he was overtired and in a new place, so I wasn't done with him until 9:30. Needless to say, it wasn't a very relaxing day to start off our trip, but I'm glad we took Aedan to the doctor right away. Here are some pictures Ben took of Aedan at the doctor and then waiting to get his prescription afterwards.
Aedan had a rough night that night, waking up coughing and crying several times in the short time before we put him to bed and when Ben and I went to bed. Once it got to be 11:45, and he was awake coughing and crying again, we decided to change sleeping arrangements. Samantha didn't seem to notice him crying and coughing yet, but we didn't want her to not sleep well because of it. Plus, we had to have a monitor on so we could hear them in the other room, meaning both Ben and I were woken up every time he cried and coughed as well, and we would have to go over to the room quickly to help him get a drink and see what he needed. So Ben suggested that he sleep over there with Aedan, and we would move Samantha over into the room with me. I woke her up, and she was definitely still out of it. I half carried, half dragged her over to the other room and tucked her into bed, before crawling into bed myself. Owen woke up around 5:00 crying for a few minutes, but he stopped before I had to go in there to calm him back down. Ben said Aedan was up crying and coughing another five or six times that night, and we felt so bad for him. He was so miserable, and being away from home, and staying in a hotel, made all of this even more difficult. We were definitely glad that we were in adjoining hotel rooms though because it would have been even more difficult if we were all in one room. We hoped that the antibiotics would work quickly, and he would be back to his normal self soon.
(Blog about December 16-22, 2018)
When Ben took Aedan to the walk-in clinic, Aedan had a 102.1 degree temperature. He ended up having an ear infection in his right ear, but everything else looked clear. He didn't have strep throat, so his fever wasn't a sign of anything contagious, which was a relief. It would have been hard to be around family for the next week and a half if he had something contagious. The doctor sent an antibiotic prescription to Jewel for him, and he started perking up quite a bit once he got medicine in him.
After getting everyone to eat at least something for dinner, we got our kids upstairs and ready for bed. It was probably close to 9:00 by the time the big kids were in bed, and Owen gave me a hard time calming down to nurse before bed, probably because he was overtired and in a new place, so I wasn't done with him until 9:30. Needless to say, it wasn't a very relaxing day to start off our trip, but I'm glad we took Aedan to the doctor right away. Here are some pictures Ben took of Aedan at the doctor and then waiting to get his prescription afterwards.
(Blog about December 16-22, 2018)
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