One Crazy Week

I completely missed "Thankful Thursday" this week. I promise I have a really good excuse, which I will now explain. It's kind of a long story though.....

Some of you know that Elliot has had difficulty sleeping for AGES. He would go to sleep relatively well only to wake up a few, short hours later. He would then calm down slightly but wake up again an hour or less later, completely hysterical and refuse to go back to sleep in his bed. So he would come into our room to sleep. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand nightmares. And I want to be sensitive to my son's needs but it was getting really old! And after last Sunday (that brought the total of the bad sleeping nights up to at least 4 months) I about lost it.

Somehow we were able to keepour cool and calmly discuss what the problem was. Elliot told us that he was scared. We asked what he was scared of. "Are you scared of the dark? We can get you a new night light". That wasn't the problem. "We leave your door open and you can call us whenever you need us". Yep, he understands that. So BJ decided to take Elliot back to his room and have him show us the problem. He went back to his room and said "Jesus is scaring me" and pointed to the corner where his bean bag chair was sitting. There was book of paintings of Jesus sitting on the bean bag so BJ moved the book. We got our shoes on, went to school, and left it at that.

During the day I just couldn't shake the feeling that something else needed to be fixed in his room to make him feel more safe. So we hit up WalMart and bought a new night light. Then we came home and I decided to "de-junk" a little in his room thinking that less stuff means less shadows and less scary things. So I cleaned up the toys but still felt that it wasn't enough. So I asked BJ to move the bean bag chair out of his room while I fed Evie dinner.

I was out in the family room when I heard and "Oh my GOSH!!" from Elliot's room. So I went to see what the big deal was and this is what BJ found behind Elliot's bean bag chair....

Yep, that's right. Mold. And not just any mold. Black mold. We were SHOCKED. But suddenly the sniffles and nightly coughing fits that had lasted for months seemed to make sense. It's amazing how quickly your perspective can change. Instantly something that had been a huge bother for months changed into a huge blessing. Who knows how sick he might be if he had been left to sleep more than the three hours we could actually get him to stay in his room.

We cleaned it up with bleach and aired out his room. But we decided we'd rather be safe than sorry. So BJ took some pictures and sent them to the apartment office. They sent the maintenance man over to take a look. All he did was knock on the wall in a few places and tell me that the drywall appeared to be dry so it "must have just been a surface mold". Um, sorry but that's not good enough.

Luckily the office manager must have been as concerned bout this as we were because the maintenance supervisor was sent to take a look soon after. And he was much more thorough. This is how he left Elliot's wall...


Luckily he didn't find any mold INSIDE the wall. But he DID find a leak into the wall from the porch. It was nice and wet in there.....perfect conditions for mold. He took the insulation out, sealed it up and left it to dry over night. So Elliot got to have a sleep over in Mommy and Daddy's room. That was Thursday night. And since I don't usually get the chance to blog until bedtime you can see why I missed "Thankful Thursday". You can also see that we have much to be thankful for this week.

Amidst all the emailing, phone calls, maintenance visits, and worrying, we got to hear more of what Elliot meant by "Jesus is scaring me". He talked about it a LOT this week. Now I don't know if it was through dreams or other means but Elliot has explained to us that Jesus told him there was dirt in his room that was very bad and he needed to not be in his room, that it wasn't safe. That's why he was unconsolable whenever we tried to get him to go back to sleep in his own bed. Wether you believe in Jesus or not, or believe that He cares for the welfare of one small boy or not, there is no denying that someone or something was watching out for our little boy. I, for one, find it perfectly reasonable that Elliot would be visited in a dream (or however) by a gentle and loving Savior. And that He would explain to my son, in words he could understand, that his room was not a safe place to be, and that no matter how annoyed his parents might be he needed to be out of his room.

On Friday they replaced the insulation and put up new dry wall. And Elliot slept all night. Without a single peep. In his own bed. He slept even better last night. And he told us this morning, without us even asking, that the "Jesus scares are all gone", that his room is clean and he is happy now.

He's in his room snoring right now. And we have much to be thankful for.

The Verdict

With the holidays and Evie's birthday I haven't done so well with keeping up with the blog. There are a lot of things to catch up. I hope to remember them all and get to them this week, including Christmas pictures and 1st birthday pictures.

But FIRST......

Last year, some of you may remember, I entered the LDS church art competition. I completed my piece in October and sat back and patiently anxiously waited for a response. Well, right around Christmas time I got my answer.

And the verdict waaaaaaaaaasssssss........







NO!

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!! There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not really, but I was a LOT slightly disappointed. I really thought I had a shot. I got my rejection letter on Christmas Eve (Merry Christmas to me, right?).

BJ seems to think that was a good sign though. That it came late so maybe it made it far in the judging process. Like, maybe they sent the letters out in waves. Everyone was supposed to be notified one way or the other by December 31st, so maybe if it came that late it was one of the last ones(or close to last) cut. Maybe. He's either right or I just have the best, most sensitive husband ever. Or maybe it's both :)

Even with the disappointing news I can be content with the fact that I kept a promise to myself. I promised I would enter the contest and I actually followed through. Plus, it got me drawing again. I haven't worked on my art for quite a long time. Since before Elliot was born at the very least. And if I keep practicing I'll only get better from here.

There's always next time, right?

This Night, Last Year

I couldn't sleep then either. I was too anxious about heading to the hospital first thing in the morning to finally meet my baby girl. I was nervous about having another c-section but mostly just excited to hold Evie in my arms for the first time. I can't believe it's been a whole year. Now she's walking all over, and even starting to talk. Time goes by so quickly.

Tonight, I guess I can't sleep because I can't stop thinking about last year.

Elliot spent the night at my mom's house so we wouldn't have to wake him up so early. We had to be to the hospital by 5 am, I think. It might have been earlier. I can't remember for sure. Just like my c-section with Elliot, the nurse had to call the anesthesiologist to place my IV.....I have bad veins and she couldn't get it. And before I knew it I was laying on the operating table waiting for my second baby to be born. I remember listening to my doctors talk to each other. The one that was assisting wished the other a Happy Birthday and he said it was a great day to be born. Funny how Evie shares a birthday with the doctor that delivered her. It wasn't very long until I heard her crying. It was such a beautiful sound.....one I didn't hear for quite a while with Elliot. They took her to the opposite corner of the room to get her cleaned up. BJ couldn't keep his eyes from the corner of the room. I could tell that he didn't want to leave me but that he wanted to be with her too. So I told him to go.

After a couple minutes the nurse brought her over to me. She took her little hat off to show me that she had red hair and then she rested her on my shoulder so I could say hello and give her a kiss. It was comforting for us both to have her near me. But the doctors needed to examine her and make sure she was okay, so she and BJ went to the nursery while my doctors finished stitching me up. They wheeled me to recovery. I thought I would be there for a while. That is how I remembered it from when Elliot was born. This time was a lot different though. I was in a room all by myself. BJ was with Evie and we told everyone else to wait to come until later. And I was only there a short time before the nurses came back and took me to my room.

When I got to my room, BJ was still with Evie. So I called my mom to tell her the surgery was done, I was fine, BJ was still with the baby, and she could come up any time she wanted. It didn't even cross my mind that Evie was having any troubles.....I just thought that BJ couldn't tear himself away from his little princess. He's always wanted a little girl after all. So it wasn't until much later when I found out she had had a little breathing trouble and spent some time on a c-pap. I slept a little before my mom came. While she was there was when BJ and Evie finally came back. She was so beautiful and absolutely perfect. At that moment it seemed so silly that I had ever worried that I wouldn't have enough love for both of my babies.

It was a lot easier to recover from that second c-section. It did take a while to adjust to two kids. But now we wonder how we ever got along without her. She's amazing and we love her SO much. She's our angel. Happy Birthday baby girl, we love you!!

A Big Change

And an equally big boy!

Yesterday was Elliot's first day of Primary. He moved up from nursery to the Sunbeam class at church. It's a really big change. He has to sit still, have a real lesson, and he doesn't get playtime anymore.

We've been prepping him for this change for a couple weeks and he seemed to be okay with the idea. But on Saturday night, when we were talking about what to expect at church the next day, he seemed a little apprehensive. After he went to sleep I had a long chat with my mom and she convinced me that I might have to go with him the first time or two. So I mentally prepared myself for going to Primary.

During Sacrament meeting, his teacher stood up to bear her testimony. When she did, I quietly leaned over to Elliot and said "look Elliot, that is your new teacher!" in the most excited whisper I could manage. He looked up at her and listened carefully to what she said then he looked at me and smiled. When it was time for Primary, we walked to the Primary room and his teacher was there waiting. I was prepared for tears and a bunch of "no, Mommy....don't leave me"s but he just grabbed her hand and went right in. Without a single peep.

After the meetings were over I went to pick him up and he looked a little sad. His teacher was holding his hand, and as soon as he saw me he started to cry. It turns out he had gotten a paper cut and his finger was bleeding. He kept saying "I not get cut, I'm fine now, I not hurt.......I'm better now". He wasn't worried about his cut finger at all. He was worried that since he had cut his finger at Primary that we weren't going to let him go back! Silly boy! I guess you could say we've been a little overprotective if that's the first thing he thought of :)

He doesn't have a thing to worry about. We are just relieved that he had a good time. And we hope he has as much fun next week!