Keeping up the fight

I woke up a few mornings ago feeling like I'd been hit by a small truck. The kind that drive over you repeatedly. Not that these trucks really exist...but if they did, then one ran me over!
 It was really only another sleepless night. One more to add to the invisible tally. I guess sleep was my trade for having children.  It's all good though,  I happily make the trade each night. I go to bed and  imagine how nice it would be to sleep until the morning. I'd even appreciate 4 hours.....in a row.

 That would be lovely!

Anyway, this isn't meant to be a post about my lack of sleep. It's meant to be a post about......resilience.  So this particular morning (the same one the truck hit me) I staggered out of bed and wandered into the kitchen. I sleepily greeted the kids I could see (my vision still obscured by my eyelids) and I noticed Lani wasn't present and accounted for. I was eager to see how she was doing because she'd had a rough night too. Her blood sugar levels were way too high when she went to bed so we had to monitor her through the night. She was poked and pricked every couple of hours and had a complete set change (new insulin and needle). Not to mention her little brother has decided to take over her bed too! 

Despite the extra testing, she developed keytones. I stood in the kitchen that morning wondering three things-all simultaneously.  

1. Had I had enough sleep to function throughout the day and look after 6 children??

2. Had Lani's situation deteriorated enough that I needed to consider a trip to Emergency?  Was I lucid enough to drive her there?

3. Should I entertain Job's suggestion that he take the day off work?

As I contemplated the answers to my questions, I glanced into Lani's room. She was standing in the middle of her room, in her pjs. She faced away from me and was standing still, staring out her bedroom window in a daze.

I forgot myself as my thoughts turned completely to her. I wondered how tired she was. I knew due to her high keytone readings that she wouldn't be feeling well, at all. I marvelled that she was standing there so still, it's not like her to be so quiet. I walked towards her intent to find out if she was ok but before I got to her room, she knelt to pray. I stopped and watched her. She knelt at her bed for a while, pondering and considering what to pray about. I wondered again what could be going through her mind. I have never heard her pray about her diabetes before. Does she ever feel tired and fed up? Does she ever pray for strength to endure the hard days....or nights?? I realised while I watched her that I was crying.
I really must have been tired! 😉

I thought about all the times people have caught her pricking her finger and checking her blood sugar. "She's amazing!" they say. I always smile and agree, more so to be polite. It's not that I disagree with them but its because blood glucose monitoring is such a part of everyday life now that we never think anything of it anymore.  Lani goes up and down so often, swinging from hypo to hyper daily and sometimes hourly. She's had a bad month. The thing is, she never complains. We don't feel sorry for her and she doesn't feel sorry for herself.  In that moment when my emotions got the better of me, it was because I knew everyone was right. She really was amazing. She was and is amazing to me because she carries her small burden with dignity. I don't know how it feels to be low and feel weak and dizzy....or high and have headaches and mood swings. When the rest of the kids run to the table hungrily for their dinner,  she has to look for her kit and test. When the others jump out of the car to play as soon as we get to the park, she has to go to the boot and make sure she has her diabetes bag. When we go to the pool, she has to play around with testing and removing her pump.  When someone gives her food - especially sugar, she needs to check with me before she eats it. She occasionally misses out on sporting events because her sugars are low. Right now as I am writing this, all the kids are asleep except for Lani. She is sitting at the table treating her third hypo for today with 3 snake lollies and a drink of milk.

These small inconveniences are a part of her life. They don't worry her too much and she is fully aware that she is abundantly blessed. She knows that others suffer far greater afflictions than what she has been dealt with.
 I fell in love with my mature little 9 year old daughter all over again. I received a boost of mental and physical energy. I told Job we would be fine and sent him off to work. Although she was unwell, Lani finally finished her long prayer and came into the kitchen happily looking for breakfast. Her keytone levels returned to normal at lunchtime so we avoided a trip to hospital. Job was able to go to school camp for three days. The kids and I survived without him and I even snuck in a couple of naps.

 I later reflected that so many of us are still keeping up the good fight. We all carry our own burdens. We get up, we suite up, we show up. We work, we serve, we love. We don't complain.  We get on with it. There is great nobility in pressing on. If you are someone who gets out of bed when your whole body is screaming not to, then you are amazing too. If you are hanging in there, you are amazing. We don't often consider ourselves inspirational to anyone else but I'll bet we all have qualities that others find amazing. We need eachother. We need to see others struggle...and get back up, and push on. It gives us strength to push on too. Next time you are busy in this wonderful experience we call life and someone says "You're Amazing." Don't politely smile,  or openly disagree. 

Thank them and know that they are right 😊 

15 years

15 long torturous years!

It's our 15th Wedding anniversary today. I was only kidding, it hasn't been all torture.  Some days have been quite enjoyable 😉 I shouldn't really say things like that as someone may take me seriously. It's no secret that Job and I have had our struggles but we definitely love eachother (most of the time) ok I'll stop! I'm reading a book at the moment called 'Covenant Hearts' by Elder Hafen, this is one of the passages I highlighted the other day. I have been thinking about it a lot recently: 'You make one....of two possible universes true by your trust or mistrust.  Thus optimism and pessimism are definitions of the world, our faith before hand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.' I often find it difficult to 'trust' in happily ever after but I know that my mistrust and fear will only make it so. I am trying to have faith in us. It's something I am working on each day. I think we can make it. No. I know we can.. plus, we have a lot going for us, look at how spunky we are together!

Not to mention our spunky offspring. Of all the things we've made together, I like these six best.

So here's how our day went today...

Job and JJ went out early this morning for a run around Perth with Joe and Justin. We had family scripture study and learning time until 1pm. I enjoyed maths today with JJ. We played around with the Fibonacci sequence and parabola curve.

During the morning Benny and Lani made cute little things for us. Lani arranged it on our bed. That piece of paper has a song written on it...composed by Lani.

Here she is singing it to us

We finally left the house at 2pm. We picked up some celebratory chicken and chips - and a cake from the cheesecake shop, then headed to the park.

We had lunch, the kids played in the park and then we went for a walk

Looking for eels

We explored the big rocks...

 Baby smootches!

We hung around on the rocks, Job had a quick doze (yes he can fall asleep anywhere!) while the kids picked blackberries

By this stage it was getting late and we thought we'd better make a move. We tried to get back to the car but we walked past the oval. The green grass was much too enticing so the kids had races for the next half an hour.  

I took more photos of this cutie while we watched

I can't remember what we did for the rest of the evening because I am finishing this post off nearly a month later....naughty me. I do remember that we had cereal for dinner 😊

We had a nice day with the kids. Spending time with family is our favourite thing to do and we were blessed to be to do it on our special day.

A quick catch up of last year in photos.

I found the following photos in a draft blog I must have planned on doing a year or so ago. Figured I would post them in spite of myself forgetting what half of them were about :) I don't like to waste pictures- so here is a snippet of what I planned to write about in 2014....

Lani's hospital stay. I think she was there in the childrens ward for 3 days, Lani is certain it was 5. How would she really know? Her blood sugar levels were so high she didn't know what what was going on!!

 A few friends asked me to blog about paleo and what we were eating so I got some food pics ready..

 By the way my kids loved the healthy meals.

                           Christmas 2014

 I think we had pancakes Christmas morning.

          My brother visited last year and this year too

  Haha, must have thought this one of kym was funny. I think I was right.

We had lots of fun on the hot days with the kids Christmas present :)

 New years day....

 The kids were so excited about camping at bridport that they packed their bags a week before.

Kids and I painted some old drawers for Sisi to use. Tank painted his nose. Sisi painted her toes. 

We picked rasberries at the Rogers house when they were away :)

 Our guinea pigs had babies. Never trust pet shops to give you same sex guinea pigs!!

We spent lots of time at the Perth river. I love that place. So beautiful and refreshing.

We had a great year. The kids finished up their last year of formal schooling, we lived with the Rogers and drive Kym mad for 4 months.... and we had a cute little baby. He is now a cute chubby baby and we love him to pieces. We are now in our own place and are looking forward to the year ahead. Bring on more mayhem and memories for 2015!!!

A new pet

When we moved from our previous house, we had to part with a heap of animals. We had a mini farm! We sent our dog to my dad (which has made our dog and my dad very happy) and I was able to sell and give away our guinea pigs, rabbits and chooks. We had the guinea pigs and chooks since they were babies so it was a little hard to give them up.
It's the first time in a long while that we have been animal free. We've been here in our new house for around 5-6 weeks and have not needed to worry about looking after any extras!
...until Benny came home last week with a lizard. Louie the lizard.  He rescued him from the road on his way home from a morning run with Job.

He didn't look too good to me. Being the lizard expert that I am, I diagnosed a large bump in his midsection and announced a bleak prognosis. I didn't think he would make it through the night. Luckily for benny, his dad isn't a realist like me.

 He suggested Benny pray and perhaps Heavenly Father would heal the lizard. I shot Job a hard look that said "don't set our son up to have his faith crushed!!" He looked back half apologetically and half deflated that I didn't share his view. But when benny looked at me for confirmation that it may be possible for the lizard to survive and that God would care, I thought 'who am I to decide what Heavenly Father's designs are....for his lizard creations?' But mostly 'who am I to deprive my child of an opportunity to exercise his childlike faith and ask Heavenly Father for a miracle?'

It's amazing the thoughts and non spoken dialogue that can occur in seconds.

So benny kept louie in his room that night. He was barely moving. Many times that evening we thought he had died. I went to bed with my pessimism and didn't expect to see a live reptile in the morning. 

In the morning......we had a live reptile on our hands! Much to my suprise he is still alive today. The kids have been praying for his survival and Benny and Lani even fasted with Job this Sunday gone. We all enjoy watching him circle around the backyard looking for sun and shade. The kids sometimes take their lunch out and eat with him.........or her ☺

Louie still comes in each night and has also been on an excursion to the Rogers home.

He can't run away so the kids enjoy being able to get up close and watch him. They are very gentle with him. We're not sure how long he will survive but we are happy he continues to defy the lizard odds. I'm thinking he may be getting some Heavenly Aide ☺

I'm back.....for good.

It's great to be back. I have missed keeping our record. I have missed my blog self. I have a blog self. Yes....
There are so many excuses not to blog. No time, no computer,  no camera. I fall into each of those catagories; computer broke, camera broke and I have my 5 kiddos plus a newborn to look after. But one thing has changed; my priorities. Blogging is something I have always done when I've had the time. I guess I've been slow to learn how to make the time. I am excited that I have discovered a way.
For those of you who don't know, we are homeschooling all the kids next year. We are really looking forward to it and are enjoying the implementation of new family activities- one of which is journal writing.  The boys and I went to officeworks today and picked up a journal for everyone.  I figured it will be a great time for me to get back to the family blog. Here is the mob with their new journals.

 I can't photograph myself right now as I am not dressed appropriately. I'm sure many mums can relate to the early days after a baby is born and you spend your days feeding most if the time. ..in your underwear!! Well I do anyway. If you knock on my door, the will be a delay while I run and throw some clothes on. So here I am holding a cute little bub, sitting in the corner of our lounge, half dressed and content that we are becoming a record keeping family and that I can finally return to our blog.
Stay tuned :)