As I looked at my calendar today I saw this appointment scheduled for 5:00pm. Interestingly enough, this is exactly what my 5:00pm looks like-CRAZY!!! I guess Griffin scheduled it for me??? I even got a reminder ten minutes prior.
This is my kitchen table. It is always covered in crayons, paper, markers, playdough, matchbox cars, and an array of other toys and papers. It has nicks and cuts all over the top of it. It is covered in pencil and crayon marks. Every chair is completely broken. It is a well used, worn out kitchen table. Sometimes I wish for a nicer table. I realize that a new table would come with one of two problems. The first would be that the kids would just ruin that table too and then I would be really angry. The second would be that I would have to basically keep the kids out of the kitchen and off the table so I could keep it nice. That would be even worse. I spend most of my time in the kitchen. If I am in there, and they aren’t allowed to sit at the table doing crafts, homework, and playtime etc. then I wouldn’t get to spend very much time with them. When I think about it that way, I am grateful that my table is falling apart. I am grateful that my kids have a place to sit and spend time with me and as a family. If getting a new table would mean getting rid of that, I realize it’s not worth it.
Griffin loves hats! He wears them every day-to the store, to church, to bed, to play, out to eat etc. His hats vary from buckets to bowls to flower pots to actual hats. Sometimes he even wears multiple hats at one time. His favorite hat to wear to church is the green flower pot. His siblings have told everyone at church that their brother is a “pothead.” At church they are wondering if he might show up next week with a lampshade on his head. If you take him to the store he begs for new hats. He will even pick out a hat over a toy.
I am sure that some may wonder why I let him wear his “hats” out in public. Sometimes I wonder that myself as we receive sideways glances from people in the store or in restaurants. But, it makes him happy. It makes me laugh. It gives his siblings something to talk about together. I’ve also seen total strangers giggle as they have passed us by. That joy is greater than the little bit of embarrassment that might come from showing up to an event with my son wearing a bucket on his head!
Over the last two years Griffin has had several bouts of pneumonia and bronchiolitis. Any time he gets a runny nose or a cough, it goes straight to his lungs. His pediatrician told us that many children outgrow this by the time they turn two. He continued getting sick and had to go on a daily steroid and other asthma medications as needed. I hated giving his so many medications and I hoped he would be one of the many children who would outgrow this airway disease.
A few months after he turned two he got a runny nose and a cough. Within a couple hours he was hardly able to breath. I took him to the pediatricians office who sent him straight to Children’s Hospital which is an hour from our home.
Griffin continued struggling for breath. Phil took him to Children’s while I attended to the other kids. When they got to the ER, Griffin was met by a whole team of specialists who pumped him full of several medications and breathing treatments. It was really scary as they tried to decide if he should be placed in the icu. I made arrangements for the other kids and drove to meet them at the hospital.
At that point he had been admitted to the regular ward with special instructions for extra attention from the health care providers. He was on hourly treatments that were expected to continue throughout the night. We called a dear friend who lived near Children’s to come help Phil give Griffin a blessing. I was reluctant to call our friend because he had an infant born with a heart condition who spent several months in the same hospital before he passed away the year before. I knew it would be difficult for him to come back to the hospital, but he gladly did and I was so grateful for his efforts to help save my son.
After the blessing, Griffin started improving and the treatments started spacing out further and further until he was discharged the next day with prescriptions for even more medications, inhalers, and nebulizer treatments, and a pretty sure diagnosis of asthma.
It was very scary. I hated that he was always sick, but at least before this happened, I felt like I could manage it-just start the meds at the onset of cold symptoms and wait for him to out grown it. Now, he had asthma, that could turn life threatening very quickly. I am afraid to leave him alone or go out of town any more.
Phil and I were out of the country on a trip for his company just the week before. I am thankful this didn’t happen while we were gone. I am thankful I am a pharmacist so I have a good understanding of how to treat him. But most of all, I am thankful for priesthood blessings that heal and comfort in times of need.
So, today Brennen’s preschool class took a field trip to the cosmetology school on campus. The kids have gone every year and have fun. The girls in the school dye their hair (washes out when washed) and paint their nails. Last year Brennen went with orange and black dye so he could be a jack-o-lantern. This year he went with purple and blue spiked hair. When I picked him up from school I told him that we would give him a bath and wash out the dye in a little bit. He said, “I know because it washes out.”
After we had been home for a while, Griffin was sleeping soundly and Brennen disappeared for a few minutes. Finally he came into the kitchen where I was and walks up to me like nothing was going on. I looked at him and saw that the top front of his hair was gone! I asked him, “Did you cut your hair?” He replied, “Yes.” I Said, “WHYYYY???” and he said, “Because I didn’t want my hair blue anymore.” I told him we were going to wash it out in a little bit and he said he had already put water on it and the blue didn’t come out so he decided to cut it out. He told me like it was the most logical thing in the world to do.
So, I had to wake up a sleeping Griffin (he never naps so I wasn’t too happy that I had to wake him up!) and lug them into the salon so he could have his hair buzzed. I was afraid if she buzzed it any shorter that he would look sick so in some places he had bald spots showing through! The women at the salon got a kick out of the situation and joked with us that since he had gone to cosmetology school he figured he could cut his own hair!
The photos above show his hair after his own haircut and after the salon hair cut.
This pretty much sums up how I feel about the election, issues that passed, and the way our country and society is heading. I realized that I have to try harder in my own home to teach and live correct principles.
This quote by Barbara Bush is quoted by James E Faust in a great talk:
The Greatest Challenge in the World-Good Parenting
I found this printable from:
Live Craft Eat
Phil took Preston to a Cincinnati Reds game. The highlight of the game is when a foul ball landed in the row right behind them. A kind man that knows Phil, caught the ball and passed it to Preston. What a great souvenir for a great night.
After I got the boys out of the bathtub I glanced back and saw Brennen’s wet footprints on the towel. I thought about how quickly they will dry and no longer be visible. How quickly my children will grow and little footprints (and fingerprints on the windows and drawings on the walls and messes in the kitchen and cries in the night and … ) will no longer be visible. It was a good reminder to me that I need to live more in the moment with my children and enjoy them while they are little.
We had spaghetti for dinner. What did you have?