Lifesong

The Blessings

The blessings, sent from above

Oh, the blessings, a life full of love

When I look around I can see

All that's been given me

And I lift my eyes up to the skies

I wanna give my thanks for the blessings.

Nine Months

Avery turned nine months yesterday. And, so as not to be left out, I pointed out that Ansley turned exactly eight years, two months and Christian turned exactly four years, ten months. It's rather fun to have a houseful of 15th kids.

But then Ansley said that Christian had more months than she did, and had to point out that she was EIGHT and Christian was only FOUR. So then Christian said he was almost FIVE and he would soon be older than Ansley. To which Ansley laughed. And Christian said RIGHT MOM?? And I so wanted him to be right, because I know personally the struggles of the poor younger sibling who is never right, but of course not, no, Christian will never be older than Ansley. Tears. Angst. Punching of pillows.

Christian is a sensitive boy, have I mentioned?

But where am I? This post is about Avery and how she upped and turned nine months on me. WITHOUT MY PERMISSION.

Wow, thirty nine weeks. She's almost as old as how long I carried her. Whoa. I don't even know if that makes sense. But it's kinda hard to believe, if you followed it.

Isn't she the cutest? I think she looks downright adorable in her new leopard print pajamas. They are so soft and snuggly, perfect for a baby Greiner asleep in her little cooler, er, crib, every night. (Fact: We run our AC even in the winter. Now you know how strange we are; don't say you didn't know.) So my point is a baby needs these snuggly little pajamas.

On to the facts:

At nine months, you still have two teeth. You have had two colds, and two double ear infections. Double ear infections do not go well with you. You become an alien baby who wakes up too early and cries too much of the day. But once the antibiotics take hold, you are back to my normal human baby.

You sleep well at night, and we started putting a blanket in your bed (the quilt I made you). You seem to really love it, and most mornings we find you exactly as we put you down the night before. You don't move around much.We also removed your bumper pads and talked about lowering your crib, but we didn't.

MIRACULOUSLY, around the same time I started putting the quilt I made you (yes, the Magic Quilt) YOU STARTED NAPPING! I hesitate to even say that, because I don't want to jinx it, but it is the most glorious thing. You are taking a one and a half to two hour nap almost every afternoon, while I dance and sing the Hallelujah Chorus.

You have no interest in moving around. You aren't crawling or pulling up on anything. (This is fine with me.) You love to sit up and play with toys, and you can turn yourself around while sitting, and you even kick back your legs a few times like you are going to crawl, but you don't.

At your nine month check up yesterday, you weigh: 18 pounds, 15 ounces (75%) and are 28 inches long (90%).

You are starting to move away from baby food and onto more finger foods and soft foods. You love eating veggies this way, and fruits, of course. You eat meat, and you love grits. You are also enjoying Mama's homemade bread.

You clap your hands often, and are very proud of this fact. You have recently started saying "Uh oh!" which everyone finds off-the-charts adorable, and so we keep saying it over and over just to hear you imitate it. I'm not sure you associate it with actually dropping something because we just like to say it randomly to hear you say it.

You love to babble, most often Dadadadadada. You still haven't said Mamamamama, but my feelings aren't hurt, because as soon as I disappear from your sight, you start to wailing. You love your Mama! If I am holding you, all is right in your world, but if I set you down, watch out! Tears are coming.

You are very curious and busy, and love to find anything around you that you can play with. This is why I'm on a strict mission to keep the playroom free of little things. And you can stretch pretty far if you see a Lego you like or a teeny tiny Polly Pocket. You love to watch Ansley and Christian play as well, and find them quite fascinating.

When I get you up in the morning, you are all smiles and babbles at me, and then you immediately start looking past me for Ansley and Christian. It's cute.

Ansley still takes great pride in being your mini-Mama, and wants to hold you and feed you, rock you to sleep and comfort you. She often feeds you lunch while I am fixing everyone else's lunch.

It appears your eyes will stay blue, and your hair, for now, is white blonde. I am starting to see a few curls on the back, which makes me happy, but I don't know if they will stay.

You SEEM to be pretty laid back, happy and easy going. Time will tell if you stay that way. (I've heard rumors about third children.)

But for now, we sure are enjoying our sweet baby girl and enjoying these passing-all-too-quickly moments of your babyhood!

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

There'd be days like this, my Mama said.

Mama said! Mama said!

Sometimes a jaunty little tune makes me happy.

Mimi left today. John's been out of town. And we put Avery in the nursery for the first time on Sunday, and now she's sick. Seriously? There were like four babies in there. How in the world?

And let me tell you, Avery is not a good sick baby.

Christian was a good sick baby. It didn't phase him. You would never have known he was sick.

You would know Avery was sick as soon as you stepped foot in our house.

She cries a lot, rubs her eyes, wants to sleep all the time (but not in her crib, OH NO!) but only if you hold her and is just generally pitiful. She has trouble nursing because she can't breathe through her nose, but snubs food anyway because she just likes to make you work to keep her happy.

Or something like that.

It really makes me appreciate healthy babies.

I'm typing this with a baby at my side. She's only happy because she has scissors to play with. From the kids' doctor kit, of course. If I were to leave? Yep. Bloody murder.

That's really kind of a creepy saying when I type it out like that. What kind of saying is that, really? A strange one, I'm now thinking.

Mama said, mama said.

The Last Days

My Dad died four years ago today. This is a post from four years ago that I thought I would re-post.

It's still a tough day. It's still sad. But even through the tears and the pain and the sadness, I can say HE IS GOOD. I can't praise Him in the good times and then blame Him in the bad. He is good, all the time.

(Yes, I usually want to break out in song when I'm praising Him.)

I would encourage you today to remember that life is fleeting. Hold fast to your family, be in the moment. Put your phone down, turn your computer off. Leave the dishes in the sink. Be engaged with the people that are here right now, loving life and laughing. Soak them in. As Christians, we know that a better place is coming, so we live knowing this world is not our home. And if you are not a Christian, man I'd love to talk with you. There is a God who longs for you to know Him.

So be blessed, be encouraged, and take heart! He has overcome the world.

--

(from November 2007)

Soon you will read in the newspaper that I am dead. Don't believe it for a moment. I will be more alive than ever before....Earth recedes....Heaven opens before me!   DL Moody, on his deathbed

My Dad went to the doctor on October 21 to get the results of his CAT Scan. I knew he wasn't doing well, but I just figured it was the chemo, or that they could switch to a new chemo if this one was no longer effective. When my Mom told me the oncologist had given him 4-6 weeks, I was floored. Was I in denial? Perhaps. In the very beginning, I remember reading that the average pancreatic cancer patient lives 6-8 months from diagnosis. But they weren't my Dad! This would be different, I thought. And then I put statistics out of my mind, because who needs statistics when you have an All Powerful God? (For the record, my Dad lived 5 months from his initial diagnosis.) Certainly not me. But then I heard four to six weeks, and I thought that's not enough time! That's not even to Christmas! But the doctor was wrong; my Dad lived two weeks and two days past that doctor's appointment.

Who told us we'd be rescued? What has changed and why should we be saved from our nightmares? We're asking why this happens to us who have died to live? It's unfair.

He faded fast. We found this out on Monday; John and I went to visit him that Friday, and he was already confused, tired, quickly fading. And I thought that was how he would die, just like that. But I was wrong. It got worse. Cancer is a monster that robs the body of its life quickly. I had no idea how devastating it would be. He could still talk to us that weekend, when he wasn't sleeping. We left on Sunday and returned on Wednesday. By Wednesday, he was sleeping most of the time, and we had to wake him to try and talk to him. But talking to him wasn't a good thing, because he was easily agitated and restless. He kept trying to get out of bed, but he was too weak to stand, so we were constantly on guard. He was increasingly restless; we increased his medication. He slipped into a coma on Sunday.

This hand is bitterness. We want to taste it, let the hatred numb our sorrow. The wise hand opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow.

By Monday, we knew it would be soon. We constantly poured over the book from hospice on the signs of death. He had all the signs that said death was 1-2 days away, or hours. He was pale; his body was robbed of nutrition and muscle. It appeared not much different than a skeleton, every bone protruding from the skin, his face sunken in. On Wednesday, his hands and feet were starting to turn purple. His breaths became very shallow, like he was struggling for a breath, but the hospice nurse told us that he was not struggling. We knew it was coming, but I didn't even like to be in the room because it was so painful to see my Dad...this man lying in the bed who hardly resembled my Dad anymore. My Dad's heartrate increased, because his heart was trying so hard to compensate, trying to bring oxygen, working overtime. His hands became cold. My Mom and I were sitting in the family room. John came out and told us he was gone. I ran into the bedroom, and saw my Dad take his last two shallow breaths, and then no more. No pulse. I sobbed. I cried out to God, in pain and in joy. My Mom hugged me, and she prayed. It was the most heartbreaking moment of my life, and yet the most joyful, all merged into one. How is this possible? Jonathan held a picture of my Dad that was taken one year ago; you would not have guessed that it was the same person lying there on that bed. The funeral home came and took him away. I knew that he was no longer there, that his spirit was already home, but yet this body, that's who I have known for 32 years. I followed him out to the porch, crying while he was wheeled into the hearse and taken away.

This is what it means to be held. How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive. This is what it is to be loved. And to know the promise was when everything fell, we'd be held.

This post is perhaps more for me than anyone else. I told myself I didn't really want to remember these last moments, but then a part of me doesn't want to forget. I thought all I would be able to remember of my Dad is the frail image of him as he died, but I find that image is replaced by a thousand other images, when he was healthy, laughing, joking, singing. But part of me still needs to remember the image of him dying, because that is what brings me to the Cross, draws me closer and closer to my Savior, holding me through my pain, knowing I can't do it on my own, trading my sorrow for joy, drawing me to Him. And that's where I want to be.

Unloading Instagrams

I think it's been a little while since I've checked all the Instagram photos from my iPhone. I'm not sure I've mentioned that having three has thrown me just a little, especially with my No Nappie Baby. So here they are, just a month (or three) late.

It's actually kinda fun to look back at some of these photos and see what we were doing on each day. Man, what'd we do before iPhones?! I can't remember.

This was back in September. We headed to the park to get out and have a little fun, and my kids seemed drawn to this kinda sorta creepy guy walking his dog. Around the park. With no kids. Maybe I'm just paranoid. So my kids befriended him and started talking to him, and then tell him that we should all meet at the park on Fridays to play. He agrees. We didn't go back that Friday though. Am I the only one that's paranoid about that kind of stuff? I'm sure he was a perfectly nice man, we just weren't up for Friday playdates.

See that thing on the far corner of the brick wall? It's a bat. We came out of Jason's Deli one day, in the middle of the day, and saw it flying around. It was a little freaky. Of course my kids didn't think so.

Avery fascinated by the roofers tearing out our skylight and putting in a new one. I was wondering why she was so intrigued, so I stuck my head around the corner and saw one of the workers waving and smiling like a crazy person. Made me smile.

Another one from more summer-like days, probably September. I love that Ansley put a flower behind Avery's ear in this one, mostly because I have a picture of Ansley and Christian together when Christian was a baby where she has done the same thing.

A shot from when we were downtown one Saturday afternoon.

Avery doesn't know a world without iPads. She was fascinated by this app that Christian was showing her one day while Ansley and I were finishing school. Christian was very proud of himself that he was able to entertain his sister. I was very thankful.

We went Krogering, how did you know? And this is what the kids decided to do with Princess Avery on the way out.

We did a little candy graphing the day after Halloween. I think we've done this two or three years now, so we will call it a Halloween tradition. We talked about how we can't wait to introduce Avery to this tradition.

DO YOU SEE IT? C'mon, that's a curl! I think I probably do this with each child, and it never actually happens, but I'm holding out some hope on this one. I SEE CURLS.

Darth Vader roams our halls. This is actually Ansley. Christian's costume was a 4-6 years, but it was so ridiculously big that it fit Ansley just fine. The good news is Christian can be Darth Vader for the next three Halloweens if he wants to.

We just needed cat food, but this is all it takes to make Ansley happy: a walk past the cats. She always has to get a cat toy and play with them through the window - that's why they are all staring out at her.

I guess I should try to look through my photos more often. That's all for now!

 

 

Halloween 2011

Halloween was fun, as always, this year with three to dress up. Even though Avery won't remember, I always have to dress up my babies.

Christian started very early, probably over the summer, saying that he wanted to be Darth Vader. Should I be bothered that my sweet sensitive son wants to be an evil villian who turns against his own son? I know he kind of redeems himself in the end, but still, what kind of father IS that? What? Am I taking my Star Wars too seriously? It's possible. We are QUITE the Star Wars addicts around here these days.

John, Ansley and Christian have really gotten into The Clone Wars, and have been watching each season for awhile now, in bursts. The kids LOVE it, and so Ansley decided she wanted to be Ahsoka Tano from The Clone Wars. We were as surprised as you are that it wasn't something pink and glittery and girlie, but that's what she wanted. When I saw a baby Princess Leia outfit, I knew that was the trifecta of our trio. I don't know if that was used properly, but it sounded fun.

So here they are. Christian without his mask, Ansley wearing MY UGG boots (the girl has big feet for 8) and Avery showing off her Princess Leia hair. It's what makes the costume. Nevermind the fact that no one is looking at the camera.

That's better.

Here's last Halloween, just for fun.

Isn't it crazy the difference a year makes? CRAZY. We actually had a pumpkin last year.

But back to this year.

We had some friends over for dinner and trick or treating, which takes excited kids to a whole new level of excitement, but it's for the memories.

Love this shot.

Oh, and for those of you (most of you, I'm sure) who don't know who Ahsoka is, here's a picture of her. I thought we did a pretty good job of duplicating her, if I do say so myself. Ansley LOVED her costume!

Avery got to ride in style, but she still got fussy because it got a little late for her.

All the kids pretty much ran from house to house, which was part of the fun.

Once the trick or treating was over, the kids went into sorting and trading mode, which is just what I remember doing as a kid. Here's Ansley and Karis, taking a break from the candy:

And Joshua and Christian:

A very fun Halloween!