Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Sick kids

Last week, while Josh was in Taiwan, I was sick all week, but the kids were mostly fine. This week, my sickness has caught up to them. It made for a couple of really bad nights (up a lot with coughing) and that makes the parents a little cranky. I am finally starting to feel better, but it would be nice if we got the kids there too.

Tonight I had a lot of bad parenting moments. Charlotte has decided that it is now her right to protest going to bed. It used to be that I would take her in her room and she would curl up in my arms and I would sing a little and then put her in her bed where she would sigh contentedly and then drop off into dreamland. Now the protest starts as soon as the door closes. She points to the door and pitifully proclaims "door, door, door" all while pointing at the door. Then there are lots of tears. As I am writing this, I am remembering that Thomas did the same thing. Tonight it was about an hour from beginning to end. And, it ended with me sitting in a chair, stroking her hair and rubbing her back until she could no longer sleep and finally gave in to the drooping eyelids. I was not thinking kind thoughts about her the entire time.

It brought me back to my devotional reading for today which was about trusting God with all your heart. My heart is not always kind and to give that back to God and ask for forgiveness made me come down from being angry and tired and frustrated. And it gave me perspective. As my husband just reminded me, when we went through this with Thomas, the only thing that fixed it was time and patience. And anyone who knows me would tell you that I am not long on patience. So I'll keep having to go to the well of grace in the next couple of weeks.

In other news, my baby girl is 16 months old today. She is amazing and is so much more clear in her communication than she was a month ago. I'm hoping that some of her clear communication (like screaming or saying no) is temporary, but I can't wait until she breaks out that first sentence. Happy Birthday, Charlotte!

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