And Then There Was Joy.

Elise said the other day that she wished Will were big.  She meant, of course, big enough to crawl and play with her, but little does she know how big he really is.  He is wearing clothes that Elise wore when she was walking.  Today I squeezed him into a pair of 3-6 month overalls and thought they looked a bit tight.  Later when I changed his clothes because his diaper had leaked I put on a 6-9 month outfit.  It fit perfectly!  John and I also put up his crib today since he was starting to seem too big for the cradle.  He loves it.  He kept kicking his legs to make himself bounce and staring at the bumper pad.  Of course, now he is screaming because I left him down there to see if he’d take a nap, and he didn’t like that idea.  :(  Anyway, here are some pictures of him in his 6-9 month outfit enjoying his new big boy crib.  Now I just got to figure out what I’m going to do with all the 6-9 month summer outfits that people gave me.

Continue Reading

OK, shortly after I posted I got a call back from the doctor’s office saying the doctor wanted to check Will out this morning.  So I made some phone calls trying to find someone to stay with Elise.  I found out that ours is not the only house with sickness in it right now.  Nana (John’s mom) said she’d come and sit with her as she was already not feeling too well herself, so she wouldn’t have to worry about getting it from Elise.  Now that I’m back from the doctor Elise seems to be feeling better and hasn’t thrown up since before I left.  She is keeping 7-up down.  She’s lying in the couch watching cartoons still, and I’m hoping she’ll drift off to sleep in a awhile.

The good news about Will is he is not infected.  This being the first time I’ve had a baby boy, there was some more explanation needed as to how to clean him properly.  (blush)  Anyway, I understand better what I was doing wrong, and Will just needs some vaseline for the next few days to help the irritation to get better.  So that is good news.

Will weighs 16 lbs. 6 oz., by the way.  So he’s gained a little over a pound in the last month, which keeps him pretty much in the same percentile he was before.
Well, I’m off to do some sewing now.  Of course now it is almost lunchtime.  And then I’ll need a nap . . .  Hopefully I will get some sewing done today.

Continue Reading

It’s odd what God will use to make you take a break.  I feel like I’ve been running, running, running, and still not getting anywhere.  Last night, shortly after I went to sleep, Elise was at my door saying she didn’t feel good.  I thought she was just talking about her throat as she had started losing her voice yesterday, so I just sent her back to bed.  I realized I was wrong when she came and got me again saying she was too sick to sleep.  When I took her back to her bed she threw up and then I realized I was dealing with something more.  She threw up a couple times last night, but thankfully was able to get some sleep.  I had to also wake up with Will last night to feed him, so needless to say I am rather tired.  Elise is cuddled on the couch watching cartoons and trying unsuccessfully to keep water down.  I guess we won’t be doing much of anything today.  But, I have to admit I am glad for the excuse to sit down and relax.  I do have to do some sewing, which every day I’ve tried to do and hardly get any done.  So hopefully today I’ll accomplish more because I don’t have to worry about doing school with Elise or cleaning.  My house is actually fairly clean due to help from Mom Lein and Aunt Meg, who came and helped me clean up last week.  So as long as you don’t go into the bedrooms or upstairs, you’ll be fooled into thinking I am keeping up with everything.  :)  Anyway, please keep us in your prayers today:

-Pray that Elise will start feeling better and that she’ll start being able to keep liquids down so she doesn’t get dehydrated.

-Pray that Will, John, and I are protected from getting this bug.  (I am already feeling a bit queasy, but not sure if that is because I’m coming down with something, or if I’ve just cleaned up too much vomit. :( )

-Pray for Will as well.  He woke up with what appears to be an infection on his boy parts (to put it politely).  I’ve a call into the nurse to find out if I need to come in for that.

-Pray things will work out if for some reason I need to take Will in to the doctor, as I can’t leave Elise here alone, but really don’t want to take her out of the house either.

-Pray I will be able to finish Elise’s dress today and start on mine.

Thanks, I appreciate your prayers.  And also thanks to Laura who is bringing some 7-Up for Elise since I can’t get to Wal-Mart to get it.

Continue Reading

Well, I had some pictures to share and thought I’d also add any news from here.  We are well into preparations for Megan’s (John’s sister) wedding in a month.  I am making Elise’s flower girl dress and it is coming along nicely.  Then I have to start my bridesmaid dress.  This week was hectic, as you saw from my last post.  We had a great trip to Branson though.  We spent the night Tuesday in A-frame cabins near Silver Dollar City.  Then we spent Wednesday enjoying Silver Dollar City.  Elise was up late Tuesday and I was not sure what to expect of her behavior Wednesday.  I am proud to report that she was wonderful!  That is until we told her it was time to go.  Then she had one of the biggest meltdowns ever!  But that was to be expected, and I was proud of her for going the whole day without a nap and still being able to be cheerful until the end of it.  Here are a couple pictures of Will enjoying Silver Dollar City.  He was good too.  :) (Except when I deserted him for a bit too long and returned to find him giving Nana a hard time because he was “starving.”)  Notice in the first picture how he is able to clasp his hands in front.  He does that a lot along with putting them in his mouth as well.
 

Last week Elise, Will, and I went to Renalli Farms in Tontitown to their “pumpkin patch.”  This was with the Mothering Matters women and kids.  I’ve included a few pictures I took there.  I was able to get all three of us, which is rare.  I was so happy I had Elise sitting nicely holding Will on the ground.  Unfortunately the picture perfect moment came to an abrupt end when Elise realized there were Daddy Long Legs near her.  She “tossed” Will headfirst and jumped up.  Thankfully the photographer caught Will’s head one handed before he did a face plant.  Will was unhurt and unphased, so it was quite funny.  The friend in the last picture is a girl a year younger than Elise, but who plays well with her as they enjoy doing the same things.

Continue Reading

Please be forewarned. This is perhaps the longest post I have written on here. It is more of an essay. :) Have fun reading it:

A Day in my Life. by Miriam Lein, wife, mother, teacher, house manager, seamstress, cook and above all a child of God.  Dedicated to all my friends who are also all of these things, and to my two mothers- Mom, and Mom Lein, who  lived through these moments and survived. [...]

Continue Reading

Things have been busy here.  To share with you all on what has been going on, I’ll share what each family member has been doing lately.

John-What has John been up to?  Well, work of course!  Last week John was home 4 days due to strep throat.  He is feeling well now, though dutifully finishing up his antibiotics.  As you can imagine he has plenty of work to catch up on.  Not only has he been busy at work, but he has taken on several projects on the side, which means he hasn’t had a whole lot of time off lately.  We are looking forward to his brother Mark coming next week.  John plans on taking a day off to go to Branson with the family and share some time with his brother before he goes off to Iraq.

Miriam (me)-I have been busy with Mothering Matters decision making and general miscellanious leadership in that area.  Housework is still escaping my grasp, and was overwhelming me this week, but I have tried to relax about it and amazingly that actually worked to get more of it done!  John’s sister Megan is getting married next month and I am sewing Elise’s flower girl dress and my bridesmaid dress, so those are a couple projects that will keep me busy over the next few weeks.  Of course, I have been caring for Will and Elise.  Elise and I took a week off school last week in order to clean the house.  I didn’t get very far on cleaning, but every day I was busy with meetings having to do with Mothering Matters or other things.  As a mom sometimes things get overwhelming and I wish I could just sign off the job for an afternoon.  John gave me that afternoon on Sunday.  I had Will with me, but Elise spent the afternoon at Nana’s and then John took her to AWANA and picked her up and put her to bed.  I spent the day at my parents, playing games, talking, watching a movie with my mom, and just general relaxation.  It felt good.  I feel bad when I am so frustrated with Elise when she isn’t even being difficult.  It is just my own selfishness, stress, and lack of concentration that causes her to grate on my nerves.  Since my break, things have gone a bit better in that area.  I did have a rough day Monday feeling overwhelmed with everything, but I have been spending time in prayer today, trying to rest in God, and use his strength for the day.  I am feeling much more together now.

Elise-Elise’s days don’t have a lot of variety.  She has been busy with playing make-believe, doing her school work, making misc drawings and crafts, play-dates and sometimes helping with housework.  She finished two workbooks in school this week.  A number one and a capital letter one.  She is excited to start the next books: counting 1-120, and lowercase letters.  We’ve been working on reading and have not got very far yet.  But yesterday went a little better after I introduced Elise to her “magic finger.”  She gets distracted and doesn’t keep her eyes on the word, so we pretended her finger was magic and that when it touched a letter it made the letter sound.  This helped her concentrate on putting the sounds in the right order and using all the letter sounds, rather than picking one sound from the word and guessing from that.   Thank you Gail Stice for helping me recognize what to do to help Elise in this area.

Will-Well, let’s see.  Will’s days have even less variety than Elise’s.  He sleeps, eats, and smiles.  He has learned some new skills though.  He makes a larger variety of noises and enjoys carrying on a “conversation.”  He is gaining more control over his hands and can grasp them in front, pick up soft things, such as blankets if his hand touches it, and reach for and bat at his toys.  He also spends lots of time licking and sucking on his fingers.  He does not like tummy time much unless it is on my stomach.  When he is on my stomach he will hold himself up and look around and at my face.  He has a strong back as well, so when he sits in my lap, he needs my help just for balancing, but not for holding him up.  In fact I sat him on the couch today with pillows and he sat there a little before the lure of his feet caused him to fall face forward in slow motion.  He is sleeping wonderfully at night.  The last four nights he has not awaken to eat.  He sleeps from 8:30pm to 7am.  His naps are still short and usually in the swing rather than the cradle, but we will work on those soon now that his night schedule seems to be so consistent.  Oh, and his spit up problem has subsided significantly.  I think as he went longer at night, he and I had to adjust in the change in milk supply and that caused the couple of days with more coming back up.  He seems back to normal now.

Continue Reading