Choosing Sacrifices

Lent is one of my favorite seasons.

I get so excited to sacrifice, to pray, to grow... all with the definite goal of Easter JOY! Here is out Lenten calendar. Every day we add a square to our picture that will be completed on Easter. This year started out similarly. We each picked a few sacrifices to make, decided to pray a decade of the Rosary together each day, & a few other things as well.

And then, IT HIT! We had a major virus that tore apart our lives for a whole week & a half. What did it entail? EVERYTHING. If it's nasty, painful, or gross, we dealt with it. Besides all the laundry, dishes, carpet cleaner, & Lysol, there was also a lot of books, TV, sleep & snuggling. Teresa spent most of four days just plastered to our shoulders. Poor baby. Andrew & Rebecca watched more television than they probably have collectively in this calendar year. It was long & left me feeling rather battle weary.

It wasn't until we were about five days in that I fully remembered this was Lent. Many of our specific sacrifices & resolutions got lost in the blur of illness. "Bummer. Well, I can always dive into Lent when this is over," I thought. Then I realized, this was just one more way I was struggling to control the life He has given me. To decide what sacrifices I wanted to make. How I wanted to show God that I loved him. He had different plans. This was the way he wanted me to grow: to deal with the seemingly endless list of clean-up & comforting with a smile on my face & joy in my heart. To love in the simplest of actions & to let go of my "lofty" goals of sacrifice for the nitty gritty job of love. I need to let go. Let God lead in ALL things... even when that's not in my plan... maybe especially when it's not in my plan.

Rant

Don't you love finally dragging the sick kids out of the house to go to the doctor's office after talking to the nurse to be sure a visit was warranted, only to be there alone for most of an hour & a half, then find out that your baby is sick with a nasty virus so she needs lots of rest & fluids? Duh. Argh.

Excuse my rant. Prayers appreciated!

Silver Lining

We've had a number of lovely illnesses run through our home in the last few weeks. Hello, Kindergarten! I was actually kind of excited... I mean relieved when all of us seemed to have it simultaneously. If we all get it, it gets over sooner. If not, I just feel like I'm sitting around waiting for that ticking time bomb to go off.

I found a couple of silver linings to those days confined to bed, laundry, & Lysol, though. One was reading "Doble Fudge", the Spanish version of "Superfudge" by Judy Blume. Remember that one from grade school? My fabulous friend Karen saw it at the library book sale & snagged it for me. It was a great distraction as I enjoyed it with my head on my pillow. :)

The other was this adorable card from Andrew. He put it on yellow paper & drew a purple flower because he knows those are my favorite colors. ;) "I hop that you Git Bedr" was pretty sweet, too. Even sweeter was when he was trying to read it the next day after I set it on my dresser. He was laughing because he realized he wrote "hop" instead of "hope" & thought the last word he wrote was "bear" due to his handwriting. He proceeded to hop around saying "Bear, bear?" Already laughing at himself. Love that kid.

Ear Thumping

Our little Rebecca has allergies. BAD allergies, apparently. Though her brother wakes up coughing around for awhile in the morning; she doesn't. He sleeps with a hankie; she doesn't. He's been fine the rest of the time; she got a fever, double ear infection, & burst ear drum seemingly out of nowhere!!! Guess she doesn't drain right. Poor girl. First we thought it was just teething with molars, then maybe chicken pox, then all of the sudden her ear was leaking so very lovely...bingo. At least it's nice to know what you're dealing with. She's been amazingly joyful & chipper except when it's time to sleep or just after waking up. During this adventure we've found that a few things will comfort her: baby Oragel (apparently it's close enough to the ear canal to help!), ibuprofen, smoothies, having Mommy sleep on the floor in your room for a few minutes, & here's her addition...

sleeping with a book over your head.