Weary. . .

Okay. I'm not sure what the deal is with me frequently having sick kids, but here we go again. I've heard of parents who conjure up their kids' sicknesses and of course hypochondriacs, but I assure you I'm not one of them. I would be THRILLED to go a whole month and not deal with some sort of infirmary around here. Before I begin the story of my drama for the day, I apologize that I informed almost nobody that this was even going on. Tra was out of town so I talked to him a lot of the day. And I'm sorry to all my friends/family who might read this and it will be the first you heard of it.

Last night Tra left to go out of town---actually out of country. He was on a short business trip to Mexico. So of course, I'm getting Jack ready for bed and realize he is HOT! Running 101. That's it though. Happy, smiling, typical Jack. Slept all night, still running fever this morning. Call dr. and they squeeze me in at 9:20 at my request to check his ears to rule out infection. Of course I have a hair cut at 10am b/c they are supposed to be at school. Cancel hair cut. Fight tears---it's WAY past due. Take Hayley to school, realize I don't have wallet when I contemplate driving through Starbucks, call doctor to tell them I don't have wallet and they say come anyway. Go to Dr. VERY hungry, craving coffee, needing gum that is in my purse at home. Try to find a way to look at the positive side of the morning so far. Struggle. Late to doctor. Nice receptionist---thanked God for her b/c I might have broken down if she was tacky. Contemplated asking her for money for coffee. Called my in-laws hoping I could go by after apptmt. and borrow money. No answer. See doctor. Ears clear. He feels around on his stomach---do you ever wonder what they're feeling for exactly? Today I found out one thing---an enlarged spleen. Are you kidding? I thought we had an ear infection. Doctor (who I'm a HUGE fan of by the way) says he wants to do bloodwork. I ask what it could be? He said most likely viral--like mono. And there are other things, but he'd talk to me about it after he got bloodwork results this afternoon and said, "Don't go home and look it up on the internet." Traumatize Jack w/ taking blood---although after all of Hayley's cathedars it was a piece of cake! He doesn't know how easy he actually had it today. Go home, feed Jack breakfast (late--thought I had money in car) put him down for nap. Go to computer (you didn't know I was so rebellious!) and look up "enlarged spleen." BAD IDEA. My heart sank. I saw the words leukemia and lymphoma. Needless to say you can imagine the state I was in the remainder of the day. I was supposed to hear back from Dr. by lunch(ish), he left message at home while we were picking up Hayley. I call back I felt like 500 times (only 2) and finally hear back a little after 5. Dr. says he was worried it could be leukemia but that it looks like it is not. (Deep breaths--thank you God, thank you God!) He has low white blood cell count but his platelet count looks good and he isn't anemic (sp?). If the latter 2 were off, we would have a problem. So he thinks it looks like mono. I didn't know 14 month olds got mono. He called a hematology oncologist to talk w/ him about the case and that guy agreed it sounded viral (mono). We're checking blood again Thursday. We're feeling pretty good about things and expect to see things looking better next week and not worse. Those few hours today were by far the scariest, most stressful of my life so far. And I've had some scary hours in my life. It was hard on both of us to have Tra gone during the time of waiting. So pray for Jack---his eyes look tired but he acts pretty normal. I'm thinking his throat hurts b/c he's not eating great or drinking as much as he usually does. We're going to do some smoothies tomorrow! Lots of vitamin C!

This is the day that the Lord has made! I will REJOICE and BE GLAD in it. It was hard to do at times throughout the day, but I will drift off to sleep with rejoicing in my heart tonight. And I will say an extra prayer of God's comfort and peace to all the moms and dads that heard the words today that their child DOES have leukemia. And for the ones in the midst of it---treatments, etc. Oh Father----COME QUICKLY!!!

My Courageous Girl!

Hayley's procedure went as smoothly as we prayed it would today! The staff was wonderful. The doctor was an hour late this morning, which meant we got there at 6am for a surgery time of 7:30ish and didn't go back to surgery until 9ish. Thankfully we came prepared w/ the portable DVD player, a new sticker book and a 38 cent bracelet that you would think was $380 as excited as she was about it! She was a trooper and handled everything beautifully. She was fussy from anesthesia and hurting from about 10:30-11:30, but by noon she was back to her old self! She has been napping since about 1:30 and it is 3:00 now. I'm so glad to have this part behind us. Now we just have to gear up for the VCUG in 3 months to see if this thing worked. In my opinion, the VCUG is one of the CRUELEST tests out there for little kids. I wish they could find a less traumatic way to check for kidney reflux. For those who do not know what it is, the kids have to be wide awake and have a cathedar inserted to fill up the bladder with dye. Then they take 5-6 x-rays as they pee the dye back out. Last time it took Tra, a nurse and me to hold her down as she was screaming, etc. SO I am not too excited about repeating that scenario. But the good news is I know exactly what to expect now and maybe this time Tra and I won't be as traumatized.

We are so thankful for Hayley's health and we know that this is VERY minor in comparison to a lot of other things that she could be dealing with. But as many times as I remind myself about that, my heart still can't help but ache as I have to watch my baby go through physical pain over and over again. I think it is really cool that the spiritual meaning of "Hayley" is "Courageous." And that she is! What a comfort it was today to know that as she left our arms and we went to the waiting room, she was being held by the GREAT PHYSICIAN in the operating room. Praising God for His peace that passes all understanding, strength and courage that he provided us all with today!

Happy Birthday!

Today is a special day---Tra's 30th Birthday! 2 of the girls at work (Chalyse and Melissa) surprised him w/ a small party at the office this afternoon. I brought Hayley and Jack up and a homemade carrot cake (his favorite) and he was surprised! Hayley and Jack picked out balloons at the store for him yesterday to bring to the party. Hayley chose a hot pink balloon w/ high heel shoes, a purse, and lipstick on it. : ) Ya gotta love little girls! I wish I could take some time right now to write down 30 things I love about Tra, but it's almost dinner time and Hayley is being very quiet in the other room---which always makes me a tad nervous. : ) I will say that I love my husband more today than I EVER have and I LOVE being his wife. We are a great team. So different in so many ways, which enables us to strike a pretty good balance in our marriage. I love sharing this journey of life with him, I love watching him with our kids and watching them LOVE him so much, I love going to dinner with him, watching 24, The Office and Lost with him, going to movies (a whopping 2 this year so far!) and I love seeing his goofy, silly side and at the same time have long talks about stuff that matters. Mostly I LOVE how much he loves the Lord and how he strives to be in His will for our lives. It makes him an easy person to submit to! (most of the time!) : ) It is such a huge blessing to be in love with my best friend. I don't thank God for the gift of him enough!!

A quick update on Hayley---we ended up scheduling her procedure for Friday, so we would appreciate your prayers for her that day! I am having a hard time figuring out how to order my pictures---blogger has a mind of his own most of the time. Anyway---here are Jack and Hayley helping to make the carrot cake.

Everyone is singing Happy Birthday here.

Attempting to blow out the "trick" candles. Pretty funny!

It was a happy birthday!

Big Day. . .

I met w/ Hayley's urologist today and she has an opening Wednesday to do the procedure to try to correct the kidney reflux. So since the next available wasn't until July, we jumped on it. I'm glad it worked out this way. Otherwise I'd have it hanging over my head for months. So please say a prayer that it works the FIRST time and that there are no complications w/ anesthesia and that I will TRUST God and not be anxious. He cares about her more than I do---which amazes me everytime I think about it.

Funny Hayley story---at the mall on Saturday she was walking along beside me when she suddenly stopped, stuck her hand down her pants and pulled out what appeared to be a cell phone b/c she "opened" it. (it was actually nothing---she was pretending) She proceeded to put it up to her ear and say, "Hello?" Then she kept walking and was talking and saying things like, "Okay. Yeah. I'm just going to go play on the slide, and . . . uh huh. Yeah." I said, "Who are you talking to?" She took the phone away from her ear, looked at me like, "You're interrupting my conversation--how rude," and then said very seriously, "I'm talking to Chesley." She talked a little more, said bye, flipped the "phone" down and stuck it back in her pants. It was the funniest thing I've seen her do in awhile. I LOVE this age!!!

Goldfish Anyone??

Apparantly Hayley doesn't get enough to eat around here and gets some serious cases of the munchies. Each of these pictures are taken on different days. I've got to give her credit for thinking to keep the floor clean.

I happened upon this scene one morning. I had been upstairs in her room trying to clean out her closet. She had gone downstairs to "play".

Caught in the act!

Encouragement. . .

The other day Hayley got very frustrated with me about something---most likely that I would not let her touch one of her new DVD's (or as she says, "DDD's"). She yelled and threw a fit on the floor. I went through the whole discipline routine and we went about our day. I'm going to be VERY vulnerable here and admit that I have a tendancy to lose my temper with her more than I wish. It is the thorn in my flesh that HURTS and I HATE it. I pray all the time for God to take this away from me. It is something that has been passed down for several generations in my family and I want to break the cycle. No one deserves to be talked to in an ugly tone of voice--especially my 2 year old daughter. So you can pray for me about this! But on with the story. . . I feel so guilty about this sin in my life so often and live under a spirit of condemnation and worry that she's going to have this picture of me in her head when she grows up being so ugly. Well, that day she came to me a little bit later and said in a sweet little voice, "Mom, I sorry I lose my temper." And the Lord spoke to my heart after she said that and said, "You are not perfect, nor will you ever be. Just make sure that you continue to model to her how to admit you are wrong and how to ask forgiveness. That is key for her salvation." One thing my mom was SO good about was coming to us after she did lose her temper and say, "I am so sorry I lost my temper. You do not deserve to be talked to that way. Will you please forgive me?" So that's something I have tried to do too, but now I will do even more of after that little conversation with God. Our kids, as much as we hate to admit it, really do need to see us making mistakes and asking either for their forgiveness or for others' forgiveness and especially God's forgiveness. Just thought I'd pass this along in the hopes I've used the Lord's encouragement to me to encourage someone else.

Quick funny story that my mom loves to tell about me---When I was 2 she came to me one night before bed and said, "Shelly, I am sorry I got so frustrated with you earlier. Do you forgive me?" I answered, "Nope, but God does."