Guess I'd be upset too if I thought I was about to lose my ears!
because you might not get it anymore.
For family night this week we made a “gratitude garland” in preparation for the Thanksgiving holidays. We wrote down the things that we were grateful for on these leaves. My personal favorites came from Zack, each with their own illustration: “ear, triangle, this leaf, the letter ‘v’, and my friends going super fast.”
It had been about 10 months since I tore the disc in my lower back. I was feeling healthier and better than I had in the last 2 years so I put in a leaf expressing my gratitude for a healthy spine.
The next morning I picked up Abby, and injured my disc again. Over the next few days Zack, Abby, and Lila have all come down with a nasty flu virus. This is how we spent most of the day today. Me in a narcotic haze and the kids in fever induced, TV watching comas.
After every cartoon or movie Zack would give a couple of hearty coughs and say, “I am still sick, can we watch another show?” Despite all of the trouble and stress my back injury is heaping on our family, I am grateful that I could spend the day cuddled up with my kids.
p.s. so many people have copied this idea that I (Emily) thought I better add a post script and give credit where it's due. I wish I had been the thinker upper of this idea but it was all Family Fun, folks! I did however learn that it wasn't worth the effort to wrinkle the paper (who has time for that) and that staples were much more efficient than tape!
We decided to bless Alex while my mom was here. He was a day shy of 3 weeks old in these pictures. Johnny gave a great blessing.
Alex has been such a sweet little guy. He is my easiest baby so far and I'm just madly in love with him (and his soft kissable cheeks). Though I can't remember a lot of Abby & Zack's first year and the craziness of those days, this time around having one more little person hasn't been as much of a challenge as I thought it might be. (Which may not be saying much because I was REALLY nervous about adding a 4th child to our clan).
I was rocking him a few days ago staring at him and he just stared back at me. I thought, this is what I always wanted to do when I grew up. This was my "little girl dream".
Things are still crazy around here with 4 kids 4 and under (for a few more weeks at least). Johnny is finishing his masters thesis and looking for a job so things are even crazier than normal. There are lots of moments where I just sit amidst screaming children and think, WHAT HAVE I DONE?? But for the most part I'm so glad that someone else is in charge of my life and decided to send us this sweet little miracle. He really is a blessing in our lives.
Plus, now he's learned how to smile. Stay tuned for that!!
