Our Family Journal

God has interesting ways of teaching us things. I am not a patient person by nature and there’s nothing quite like tired, whiney, and as it turns out sick kids to reveal my impatient nature and bring me to my knees begging him to work in me and give me more (patience that is, not patients!). But patients I’m getting. Starting with myself! Jonathan has lots of teeth and likes to bite and I guess he bit me once early last week while nursing and it really hurt to nurse him. Then, Thursday afternoon Elizabeth was really whiney - I knew she was tired and presumed that was why and gave her a lot of latitude about what to eat at dinner (planning to put her straight to bed thereafter). She proceeded to throw up what little she did eat (on me ) and I discovered lo and behold she had a high fever! Poor thing. She did indeed go straight to bed after we changed our respective clothes. She was a little better in the morning but still not herself and there was a lot of whining all day. And I decided to take me into the doctor because nursing was pure torture (not just “grit teeth and bear it” while waiting for the bite to heal) but that wasn’t going to be easy. Without going into details, they diagnosed me over the phone (it appears correctly) with an infection and prescribed treatment which I picked up (and took) on the way home from school Friday afternoon. Mind you they warned me it might take 3 days to feel better. (Talk about patience building. Try relaxing when something hurts so much you can hardly keep from screaming - and do this for 5-10 minutes straight 6+ times a day). Friday evening it seemed that Emily and Matthew were both a little feverish (and whiney) so we went to bed early (all of us) and traded nursery from this Sunday to next figuring they were in for it. Well, we were all feeling “fine” on Saturday, though we did rest, and nursing still killed but was slightly more bearable, so we all trooped to church figuring we’d escaped the worst of it (and feeling a bit foolish for trading nursery duty) but then Jonathan came down w/the fever Sunday afternoon and has been (and still is) miserable, though the high fever broke yesterday afternoon. It’s just a touch today by comparison. Emily really got it Sunday night and is home from school today mostly to be sure she’s over it (yesterday evening was still pretty tough for her). We were wondering if/when Matthew would get it. Steve and I don’t feel well but we’re not sure if it’s from lack of sleep (J has had a few tough nights and he kept us both awake for two hours last night - he was a real crank!) or that we’re ill. And then Matthew was sent home middeay today from school with a fever, headache, and he threw up while waiting for his ride home poor kid. It’s been tough slogging with the fatigue from the first week of school plus illness but the Lord’s been gracious to keep my tongue largely in check (thank you thank you!) and I hope we get some sleep today during naptime (imminently!) and another early night tonight I hope. So much depends on Jonathan for me. At least the kids sleep through his fussing. Me, I’m still struggling to relax while nursing (it still hurts even if it’s bearable, and the bite is still a bit raw). I have to take it moment by moment, praying for stamina, perseverance, patience, love, and trust that “this too will pass.” It will and I hope I learn my lessons well so that it will (perhaps?) be easier next time.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 at 9:33 am, and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.