Beauty from Ashes

I have been having a rough 2 weeks. I am coming to terms with the life that God has given me.I am working thru the idea if have 4 kids that have "special needs" to one degree or another. The path is a rocky road and it is not what I had pictured for my journey. I am finding that Tourette's is a far more encompassing diagnosis than I knew. I am weary. I am feeling a heavy burden . I wonder... Are you sure you want me to be the one to do this job? I am sure there are other far better equipped to do this than I am.

 I am tired of it. I am tired of therapies, evaluations, trips to Little Rock, having to double and triple check before we go eat somewhere. The list could go on and on...

 But in all that, I hear the Lord say to me .."my yoke is easy my burden is light." I pray these words. I want to feel the easy hand of the savior rest upon my shoulder and tell me that it really is going to be fine. Even if the path is long and full of potholes, it will be alright in the end!

He is the Sovereign Lord. He is the one in control and I must wait for his bidding. He will not bring me to the valley and then leave me. He has promised to walk before me. He has promised to be my refuge and my hiding place. Will I seek him or find my own place? Too often I am seeking my will and my own hiding place. 

I love the passage is Isaiah 61:1-3. It is a balm for my spirit right now:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and to provide for those who grieve in Zion-to bestow on then a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

I want to trade my ashes for a crown of beauty. I want to trade my mourning for gladness and to wear the garmet of praise wrapped snug around me. I want to be an oak of righteousness. I am praying this week  to  see the ways that God is showing himself to me. I want to see Him and claim that which He is doing. I want to praise him when I feel like running away and to glorify him when I want to whine. I want to lift my eyes to the Maker and have him shine down with grace and mercy on me for those times when I am selfish and think I can do it better. I want forgiveness when my rope is at it's end and instead of hanging on and waiting, I bail. 

It is my hope that if you are feeling weary and alone, know you most certainly are not. You can join me in my boat and we will paddle together the waters of life. We will praise and cry together and know that God is working good works, but in His time. We will wait together in the river of friendship. The maker of the heavens knows who we are. He knew us before we were formed and he wants us to be his-and his alone. He gave his life to make us his children. He is coming back for us.  I hope that you will see God actively working in your life and the lives of those nearest to you. I pray that you can trade your ashes for a crown of beauty too.

God bless....

Newly sharpened pencils...

Well, it is that time of year again and I LOVE IT!! I love back to school. This is the ONLY thing that makes me miss teaching in the public schools!! 

I love new crayons and new pencils. I love note books with fun covers and new backpacks. I love new scissors and glue sticks!!

We are getting ready to get back in the swing of things here at home. The 3 older boys will be schooling and the little one will be kept busy as he works with different activities. We have lots to do this year and lots to GO do too. We are taking one day a month and planning a fun day. We are going to do things like bowling, Prairie Grove Battlefield, Swim at the Jones center when all the other kids are in school, zoo trips. Speaking of, the boys love Zoo Scavenger hunts. I give them little clipboards and a sheet of paper with different animals or countries or habitats the have to find. We also use disposable cameras for them to take pictures of the things they are suppose to find. It's way fun and they don't really realize the science behind it all!

I am ready to get going. I love the summer, but we need routine here. As since we need routine, Mr. Dad and I have dome up with a daily "routine" that we will pray over and hope that the Lord will bless this and help us as we start the 2008-2009 school year.

Side note...My  mom had been having some health issues and was back at the doctor today. She say a rheumatologist(sorry if that is not spelled correctly). As things would have it, she has psoriatic arthritis.  We thought she had gout &/ or lupus. She will start on Methotrexate and if that doesn't help then they will give Humira(again I can't spell) a try.  Hopefully she will get some relief with the methotrexate. She needs it!!

Anyway... happy getting ready for school to you all out there and may God grace shine on you today!!!

Pee,wizz, piddle, tinkle...whatever you call it...

I have issues. Big issues. 

I am amazed and stumped by something. 

Being the mom

 of 4 boys, I think I have a fairly good handle on the whole boy thing...but why in the name of all that is sweet and  loving in this whole wide world can they not pee IN the toilet?? 

I am amazed by this strange super power they have...they ALL have.  Is it a game to them? Do they really just not get it? I am deeply perplexed by this and vow to one day have an answer for all you other girls out there. I found 3 of them gathered around their precious potty to find them racing to see who could finish peeing first!? What?? Really ?! Why?? Is this normal? 

I promise you that is NEVER a phrase that I have ever uttered to another living person!! Again...I am deeply perplexed. I assume that some man somewhere will tell me that I will never understand because I lack the "boy part" that is needed in order for all of this to make sense!!

I think I am going to start The Boy Center for Pee Problems. I will train them in the whole IN the toilet thing....not on the floor, not beside or near the toilet...but actually IN the toilet. 

Am I asking too much? I just want it IN!! 

Tooth Fairy

 Skipper pulled a tooth today. Which by the way makes  me want to hurl!!

We are getting ready for bed and Skipper gets his tooth under his pillow and Scrappy starts crying that ugly snotty cry. I asked him what was wrong and he replies.."I just can't take it may longer to lose my tooth!"

I tried to reassure him that he would lose his teeth and the tooth fairy would come and visit him too-when he was a little older. He cries even harder. "I just can't take it anymore!"

So being the sap of a mom that I am, I told him that maybe the tooth fairy would leave him a little something under his pillow too. Which really translates to, she is going to need to leave a little something for Scar and Skeeter, too.

I gotta go now I need to check my piggie bank!

Cardboard Testimonies

What a MIGHTY God we serve! !!!

My new puppies

Skipper has been gone since Thursday morning. He and Mr. Dad have gone to Scout Camp. So that leaves Scar, Scrappy and Skeeter to play together. With their "fun director" gone for a few days they have been so fun to watch and listen to. 

Their favorite game has been puppies. They have been crawling around here on all 4's with things in their mouths...shoes mainly. They bark and pant and all the things dogs do. They also have names.  Scrappy was originally "Jonathan the dog", but has recently changed his name to "Sparky the dog." Skeeter doesn't get that he needs a name so we have given him the name Spot. And Scar is...are you ready for this...Sportsman's Warehouse. Who knew that you could turn anything into a  dog name!

Leave it my boys! Well, Sparky the dog, Spot and Sportsman's Warehouse are all in bed now and I am going to get my book and head that way too.

Something to think about:

Because of the Lord's faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness! I say: The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in Him. -Lamentations 3:22-24

Eye doctor

I had an eye appointment today. I really dislike going to the eye doctor. Dr. Petty is great..I just hate going through it. It only reminds me that I am really as blind as a bat and I should wear my glasses. I hate...HATE the glaucoma test. I would rather give birth than have them blow a puff of air in my eye or use an instrument to try to touch my eyeball. Isn't that why God gave us the blinking reflex...to keep things OUT of our eyes and now someone wants me to sit still and keep my eyes open as you come and me and try to touch my eye??! Seriously?? I take big issue with that!! I just can not do it. I even get the willies now just thinking about it!  We do all the tests and of course..I can't see well. So I opted for new frames and all since we have new vision insurance and this is what I picked out. Pink with a bit of bling on the sides and up on the top. I think that I deserve a little bit of bling. I am not a very blingy person...but I will be soon.

Tadpoles

On Tuesday's Scrappy has water therapy. While he does that I take the boys down to Lake Atalanta and we play. This week we were catching tadpoles. I was shocked to see that Skeeter caught one...with a gatorade bottle. I was not as successful as he was. Let's hear it for youth! Here are a few pictures of our adventures!!

Fourth Fun!

We spent the 4th in Springfield. We stayed with Scout's parents and visited with friends. It was wonderful. Sometimes I miss Springfield a lot. We have wonderful friends that we have a history with. They went through everything with us. From the birth of Skipper (who was the first baby in our group) to dropping everything and staying in St. Louis WITH us while Scarwas in the hospital there. 

We spent the majority of time with Jason and Jayma. Thanks guys for continuing to be such a wonderful blessing to our family. The boys all played awesome together. They were so fun to watch and see how God

 has blessed them as friends just as deeply as He has the grown ups! Thanks for spending much of your weekend with us. We all had a blast.

We went to the area firework show. It was great. The boys loved it. Until it was over and we were in the truck waiting for our turn to move a few feet. Scrappy announces through tears that he wants all these cars to move so he can go home and go to bed. He was asleep about 5 minutes later. 

No blog entry is complete with out a picture of someone either in mud or with a new "scratch".

Scrappy is the winner for this blog update. Scrappy fought with a skateboard and lost. 

I am also including a pic of Skeeter and one of the Strong's new kittens. He was so cute and gentle. I couldn't resist. He was also determined that

 the kitten was going to be his friend come heck or high water.!!

I wish I could make it all better...

Riley was diagnosed in February with Tourette's Syndrome. I know some of you are thinking...I have never heard him yell cuss words. Well, that is actually quite rare in the Tourette's world. He doesn't yell. He moves. He jerks or twists or stretches or shrugs. Movements that may seem normal, until you watch for a while.  

On his first neurology visit, we talked about medication. He was almost 8. We felt that he was old enough to help make decisions about that kind of stuff. He did not want to medicate. Which was fine by us. Then on his birthday, he changed his mind. So we began a drug called Clonidine. It is really a high blood pressure medication that when given in small doses, can help with Tourette's tics.

We have tweaked with the dosage (per doctor's orders) for a few weeks. Things have come to a head with that. Last night we had a little scare with it. Recently we have increased his dosage to 0.1 mg in the morning and 0.2 mg before bed. A side effect of clonidine is sedation and low heart rate. Riley had slept for hours on end since changing to the new dosage. Last night when we checked..his heart rate was in the low 50's which is not good. So after a call to Dr. Asghar at 10:30 last night we are backing his dosing off and getting ready to try something different.  Clonidine only works in about 25% of Tourette's patients.

My heart breaks for Roo. He cries himself to sleep most nights because his body starts moving and it takes a while for it to stop. He wants it to go away and wants to know how long it is going to last. He wants to be like everyone else. His body at times hurts from all the repetitive motions.

 He started all this at 4. I knew right away what it was, but we just waited and watched. The tics got worse, and are continuing to increase in the number of them. At any given time he may have up to 10-15 different movements that he does. A lot of people do not notice it. Which is great!!! He tries hard not to do the movements out in public. But when we get home...they come out. We have tried to tell him to just tic and not worry about other people, but that is easy to say when  you aren't the 8 year old little boy  who is not in control of your own body. Some kids out grow this and some do not. It does get worse during the tween/teen years. Our worry is that we have seen it progress so much in the last 4 years that we are afraid of what the future might have in store for him.

He is strong. He is so kind and loving and funny and silly and loves Star Wars, and baseball and golf... and all the things that 8 year old boys love. Tonight he was crying and I told him that I wish I could make it all go away. I would gladly take the tics myself if I could. I want so bad to make this better for him. But I can't and that is a real crappy feeling. He prays often that God will stop the tics.  I try to remind him of Paul asking God to take his thorn in the flesh away. He prayed and God told him no. For a while that makes him feel better. I think if we could find even one kids for him to relate to it would do wonders. If you know of anyone..please pass on our info.

So this is Roo's burden to carry. At least for now, Roo will walk through this life with a ever present reminder of his burden. He will walk in grace and kindness and love. He will walk down the path as his Creator walks before him. He will walk with his Mommy and Daddy always cheering and faithful in the background reminding him that it is man that looks at the outside but God looks at the heart. God makes everything beautiful in HIS time. 

So we will be faithful while we wait for God's perfect timing.