Category Archives: Kids

Books, Kids, Motherhood

Can’t put it down!

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Have you ever read a book that you just can’t put down? I was an avid reader as a child, but that went away as I entered the “real world” and responsibilities moved in and crowded out any time or mental capacity to read for fun. Lately, however, I am rekindling that love of reading. It started with a book my mom let me borrow (via Amazon Kindle, which is cool). It was a book I couldn’t put down, and when I finished it I had to find more books by the same author to devour. See, I’m so used to my time being limited that I am not so willing to waste my time (or money, I suppose) on a book I won’t absolutely love. So finding an author I know I like helps.

The book that rekindled my love of reading was “Don’t Let Me Go” by Catherine Ryan Hyde. The next book I found of hers was “When I Found You”, and then “Walk Me Home”. Each of those were just as gripping as the first. But free books are not always readily found, so I took a short break. When I returned, I found a special on a book by Annalisa Grant, called The Lake. It’s a trilogy, which requires much more commitment than I was ready to hand over, but the first book was free, so I downloaded it (I only read books on my Kindle because with my poor vision, the contrast of black ink on white paper is too tiring). I forgot about the book for several weeks, but then just last week I saw it and decided to give it a shot. The rest is history. I’m half way through the second book ($3 on Amazon) and I am loving it. I have shed more tears from these books (happy cries as well as sad cries) than I ever have with any other book. The last time I remember crying his hard from a fictional story was years ago when I watched “P.S. I Love You” (I was crying so hard I had to pause the movie for several minutes, and then I think I may have called my mom for consolation).

So there we have it. Now that I’m not wasting my time with television, I’ve replaced that vice with books. It’s very hard to break away, but kids are persistent and not afraid to tell you what they want or need, so I’ve managed to balance my renewed addiction with making peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and painting nails. Natalie and I even had a lovely time this afternoon, snacking on carrot sticks and hummus and sugar snap peas.

God speaks, Kids

Heavy burden for a 4 year old

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My daughter just came to me, crying, and said that she didn’t want to die. I asked her why she thought she was gong to die, and she said, “from getting old over and over and over”.

Well, I suppose that is the most common way to die. However, usually it’s the older folk who are more worried about that. She must be an old soul.

I did reassure her that there is good news. The first being that she is rather young, and she has a long ways to go, and getting old over and over and over takes a very long time. That didn’t seem to help much, so I gave her the other good news, that people living with Jesus in their hearts get to live forever and ever, even after their bodies give out. And, since she knows she has Jesus living in her heart, she was very happy to hear about that. I don’t think she wants to go there quite yet, but she did agree heaven sounded pretty nice. And I reassured her Jesus is with her even right now, and she thought that was pretty cool too.

Cochlear implant, Dreams, Kids

Dreams and Memories

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For the past month or so, I am realizing that I cannot remember hearing. I keep recalling memories from further back than ten months (when I lost my hearing), and they are different. I remember them as a deaf person, and then I am confused as I realize they happened before I went deaf. I can’t remember the voices of the people I was with, and I can’t remember listening to what they were saying. It’s like the memory has been altered, and now I remember sitting in silence. Yet, somehow I knew what was being discussed in each memory, but have no recollection of how I knew. That, I suppose, is the weirdest part. It’s sort of like a dream.

I’m just hoping that the memory of my family’s and friend’s voices is still lodged somewhere in the recesses of my brain, so that once my cochlear implant is turned on, I will able to hear them and recognize them again, just as it was before. It’s scary, because it’s getting harder and harder to remember as time goes on. I pray for God to give me dreams while I sleep, dreams in which I can hear them again. It hasn’t really happened yet, but I will be thankful when it does. I do have dreams where I can hear, but the people are usually acquaintances or people I knew from long ago.

The last dream I remember having was strange. I was home alone, and I opened a door to a room and in it were three cats. Two were cats we once had, Pele and Buster Brown, and the third was a white cat I had never seen before. I panicked a little because they had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. So I managed to remove the white cat from the house, and locked Pele and Buster back in the room. As I scurried to figure out what to do, I picked up the phone to call my friend, Sarah, but before she could answer I woke up from the dream. Only I was still sleeping. So it was a dream within a dream. And no human voices. I don’t even think I heard the cats’ meow. Very strange.

The last good memory I have from just before I went deaf is when we all went up to Marquette for the Independence Day holiday. That was such a great time with the kids. I remember all the places we went, and all the fun times we had up there, but I can’t for the life of me remember it with their voices and laughter. When I first lost my hearing, I had a lot of nightmares, and many of them involved our time up in Marquette. That was disheartening, because it was one of my most treasured memories at the time. I think that was one of the ways the devil was attacking me, and I would wake up each time with such fear and panic.

Thankfully, God took hold of those dreams and is protecting me now. God is so good. All the time.

Kids, Photos

Natalie’s Preschool Graduation

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Natalie’s last day of preschool is today, and they held a “graduation” celebration at a local park. We had a blast! The weather was perfect; nice and sunny, and not too warm. Natalie had so much fun playing on the playground that when they were told to come over and sing songs and be presented with their graduation certificates and caps, she immediately got her shorts in a bind. And left them that way for the entire thing. When the kids all stood in a line and sang songs, she stood with her back to all of us (see previous post). Arms crossed, there was no way she was participating. It was funny to see the kids on either side of her doing the motions to the songs, with her standing there so still and resolute. But I have to hand it to her, she is persistently committed.

Here she is pictured with her Chinese teacher, Susan Lao Shi (Ms. Susan). She was an excellent teacher for both Natalie and Luke, and I’ll definitely miss her.  I didn’t get a picture of Natalie’s English teacher, but I’m equally appreciative of Miss Christy. Thank you both for all you do. You are wonderful!

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Kids

Freedoms to enjoy

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My kids are back from Grandma’s and the house feels normal again. I missed them. They had so much fun at Grandma’s. She threw Luke a second birthday party, as I’m told she did back in November for Natalie (I was in the hospital and quite ill). She even made Luke his Minecraft cake, and that makes me happy. I was upset that I wasn’t able to make it for him, because I know how much it meant to him. So it was nice to see that Grandma was able to do it. They were able to get some swimming in too. They had a fun weekend.

So this afternoon they are just playing and relaxing, kind of low key. I was putting away some laundry and Natalie came to me and said that she was crying “happy cries”. When I asked her why, she said it was because today was the best day ever. I guess she missed us too.

Friday afternoon, Luke was home with me, and we had gone around the block, and then played at the park at the end of our street. He played on the monkey bars, and then we swung on the swings. We chatted a bit. Nothing exciting or out of the ordinary. But then he grabbed my phone to tell me “this is the best park day ever.”

So in the course of a few days, both my children have expressed to me that they are happy, without any provocation. I can’t really fully express how happy that makes me. We have all been through a very rough time as a family this past year, each in our own ways. But this past week God has really shown me (through my own children, especially) how truly faithful He really is to strengthen us, to grow us, and to bless us with what we need and more.

Today is Memorial Day, and I thought I should write a post about that, and what it means, but this is all I’ve got. What I I want to say is that I am so thankful to all the men and women who put their lives on the line so that people like us can enjoy the freedoms we have. Freedom to play, swim, eat cake. Freedom to be a family. Freedom to be Christians. Thank you to all our veterans. Whether killed in active duty or not, each one of you made a choice to fight for the rest of us, knowing you may never come home.  And for that, we should all be grateful.

What freedoms are you grateful for? Did someone you know die for our country? Please, share with us here on my blog (not on my FB post, as that is not accessible by everyone). I pray you all are having a blessed day and enjoying your freedom!

Housekeeping, Kids, Sports

Naps, baseball, forts, and future aspirations

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I took a nap today. A long nap. A Gilligan’s Island nap. You got it: I slept for 3 hours. My body must be doing some serious healing if it lets me sleep that long in the middle of the day. The thing about sleeping that hard is I have some wacky dreams. And if I could remember any of them I would tell you what they were. But alas, at the moment I’ve got nothin’.

When I awoke from my power nap, I realized the Tigers game was already in progress, and turned it on so I could watch while I made lunch and folded laundry. Mike does most of the washing and drying because the machines are down in the basement, and I do the folding and putting away. But since he was so busy taking care of me and my normal duties after I had surgery, he had gotten a little behind. And yesterday, he got caught up. (Are you bored yet? Just wait, it gets better) So today I had SIX very full baskets of laundry to fold. And while I folded, the Tigers went 13 innings and lost the game with a pitcher’s balk. (Okay, I lied, it didn’t get any better.)

Dinner was a treat. Mike grilled steaks and baked potatoes. My daughter, the semi-picky eater, loves steak, so it’s nice to see her enjoy her food. Luke likes steak too, but he would often prefer meatloaf. I thoroughly enjoyed my steak and potato, joined by a warm bottle of Budweiser Black Crown. And after we ate, we played.

Luke was given a Crazy Forts set for his birthday, which is kind of like a giant Tinker Toy set. Since Luke is grounded from video games, he has been building forts. Natalie helps too, and it’s so refreshing to see them playing and building something together. And after they build it, they crawl in and out of it, and they have a blast! When they’re done, they take it all apart and put it back in the box. Best toy ever.
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After the fort-building Natalie pulled some books off the shelf and pretended to read. The books were John Grisham’s The Client, and a collection of Sherlock Holmes’ mysteries. In the past she has said she wants to be a doctor, so I reminded her of that and said it was good that she learns to read long books early, to prepare her for medical school. She says she wants to be a surgeon, one that works on knees (Grandma Deb just had a total knee replacement and we’ve been praying for her. Natalie is fascinated, as usual.)

I asked Luke if he knew what he wanted to be when he grows up. His answer? A WWE Wrestler.

Kids

Bullies

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Today we got a call from my son’s teacher. He was in trouble for fighting. We teach our kid the rules about fighting, and he is well aware of what you are not to do. But today he was in trouble for *choking* a boy. A boy from his first-grade class, who is probably as big as your typical third grader, and is also known for being a bully. My son takes after me, and is on the smaller side, only he doesn’t seem to know it. I love that he doesn’t seem to know he is smaller, because it means he doesn’t let it hold him back. So when a big 3rd-grade sized bully starts giving him trouble, the fight wells up inside him and today he just couldn’t hold it in. Of course, he’s grounded from video games and Youtube until Friday. Because though it’s good to be able to stand up for yourself, in these cases the answer is not retaliation.