Adventures in Parenting

It has been awhile since I have posted faithfully. Life is pretty busy since school started and I have so few brain waves left at the end of the day. I am trying to stay on top of chores ect. but things have gone down hill lately. It's amazing how fast the chores can get away form you.

It has been awhile since I have posted about the surgery. We have seen so many amazing results. I feel like I am sleeping so much better. Many nights I am sleeping through the night. The down side to that is that I wake up sore from sleeping in the same position for so long. Two weeks ago I got my first cold since the surgery. I had forgotten how miserable I once felt. The good news is that I was over the cold in a little over a week. In the past it would have kept me down for weeks and even months. Today I have had a terrible headache. The good side of that is that this the second headache that I have had since the recovery part of the surgery. I lived with chronic headaches and relied on pain meds more than I would have liked. I mostly suffered through them to avoid the meds but it was still more than normal. Now I have only taken Advil a few times since recovery. I am still having some pain and irritation in my throat when I am tired. That seems to trigger something, not sure why. I can breath so much easier and actually sound better too. Many people have commented on how much clearer I sound. There are still a few things we need to address and I go back to the ENT in December but for now we are seeing promising results. I am still needing to see my regular doctor about other issues but haven't followed through with that like I should.

School with Kayla is going well. It is already hard to stay focused. We both would rather be doing so many other things with our time. We are staying on track though and have a few fun field trips to look forward to. She is really enjoying youth group. They are talking about a lot of grown up issues and she is really responding to it. We love our youth workers and trust them tremendously. We had an opportunity to work closely with them in Thailand and think they are amazing. Life with a teenager (well very soon to be official teen) keeps you moving and on your toes. There is always some where to be and some kind of drama going on. Kayla is an amazing young lady and we are so blessed by her sweet spirit yet there are still challenges when raising a young lady. This stage of their life to them and trying to parent them in it is new to us. We are faced with the knowledge of what it was like to be that age and it seems to scare the pants off us. We remember those days and the choices and temptations that we were faced with. Today they are faced with so much more. We are trying to be supportive and keep healthy boundaries at the same time. Some days we just totally freak out and want to lock her up till she's thirty. The sad thing is the rough part hasn't even begun.

Our little man is keeping us on our toes these days too. He is full of new vocabulary and opinions. One minuet he is so witty and cute the next minuet he has totally crossed the line and spending time in his room on his bed. His latest attempt at checking his boundaries took place while renting a movie. I had asked him to not touch the movies because he would pick them up and then put them in a different spot. After a few reminders I told him that if it happened again then he would have to go sit in the van with his sissy. I held his hand for a few minuets to help with the temptation, Next thing I knew I saw him reaching for them. I kindly spoke his name as a reminder and he turned to me and kindly but directly said "you not tell me what to do". So he was sent to the van with sissy. I know that she was thinking why am I being punished. The good news was that all I had left to do was pay. When I got in the van he looked at me and said "mommy you spank me softly". I told him he was not getting a spanking but he was going home and going to bed for a nap. Our days are filled with him testing boundaries and trying out his extended vocabulary.

We welcome the challenges that come with raising two beautiful strong willed children. We would not have it any other way. We learn so much through them and are so grateful that God has allowed us to be parents. We may not be perfect and it is not easy but we enjoy the adventure and continue to make some great memories along the way. We tire easily these days but with God's help we manage enough strength to make it one more day.