I'm on vacation . . .

On vacation from my PROBLEMS!



Last night Baby E slept a marathon. She didn't wake up from the time she went to sleep until 6 a.m., and then she went back to sleep after about 45 minutes and slept until almost 10! I even got to help the girls get dressed, braid their hair and shower--all this after sleeping in. Then she woke up happy and played in her crib until I went to get her.

After breakfast and chores, the girls unloaded the dishwasher (at least the dishes they could reach) and then we made glitter pictures. It ended up being rather labor-intensive, but a lot of fun.

The girls decided they were each making their pictures to give to the other. AJ made the pegasus for M&M (oh the cuteness of hearing M&M say "peg-sus") and M&M made the castle to give to AJ.

They were "sand by number" pictures with a sticky backing. The girls and I pulled off the numbered sticker backing from the front, one color at a time, and sprinkled colored sand and glitter onto the adhesive. It really worked nicely, and we were all impressed at how beautiful the pictures turned out.

I'd been able to get our allergist appointments changed to afternoon instead of early morning. I managed to get the paperwork filled out, coloring books and toys gathered for the girls, etc. and get us all to the office in time without too much hassle.

###############

Halfway into the building, though, I realized we were at the wrong building.

Okay, I thought, the allergist's office is only about 5 minutes from our regular clinic. We rushed over there, but by the time I got everyone in and out of carseats we were almost 10 minutes late.

Then the receptionist informed us that our allergist was not in. He was working in another state today.

In fact, our appointment was at the office in the other state.

As I bundled the kids back into the car and started to drive home, I tried to figure out why I always seem to get myself into situations like this. It was mainly the scheduler's error, but I should have paid more attention and made sure it was correct.

I was thinking, "I can't believe it. Yesterday was such a bad day, and now this. Today's shaping up to be another one of those days where everything goes wrong. It's not fair. Or maybe it's just my own fault."

Then I thought, "I can't change the circumstances, but I can change my attitude. I am not going to let this ruin my day."

On the bright side, at least the kids wouldn't have to miss naps and quiet time. After I got them settled, I sat down to rest. I thought about making some phone calls or doing more research about Baby E's food allergies.

But all this researching and trying to figure out how and what to cook and what Baby E could eat was burning me out and driving me crazy. I needed a break.

So I decided that, at least for the next few days, I'm going to try not to do anything allergy-related. It may be bland and boring, but I'll stick to the things I know are safe. No researching, no phone-calling. I'll plan menus around the things I know how to prepare safely and am comfortable cooking. And I'll try to think about something else for a while.

Just making that decision was a huge relief. I felt better already.

Then there was a knock on the door. "Morning" had stopped by. She said, "I thought you might need a vacation--or at least an adult to talk to." I hadn't seen her for a while, so it was an especially nice surprise. We had a nice visit. It was so good to see her.

When she left, I decided to keep dinner simple. I made cinnamon chicken, broccoli and breadsticks. I'm going to try to sit down soon and write down my variations of recipes. If I make my own allergy-safe recipe book, DH and I will both be able to just pull it out and cook things without having to do so much thinking and making calculations on the go to convert recipes.

While I was cooking dinner (and reminding myself to be thankful that I didn't have to grow and pick everything myself even when I do have to wash and chop lots of vegetables), the phone rang. My friend JT said, "I read your blog about ruining dinner after chopping all those vegetables last night. I was wondering if I could come over and help you chop and freeze a bunch of vegetables and do some pre-preparation to make your meals easier."

What a great idea! It will be so much fun to spend time with their family this coming weekend, and having a lot of the meal prep done ahead of time will certainly make life easier. What a wonderful gift. I'm so blessed to have some really amazing friends in my life.

We're going to try to come up with some make-ahead meals and some dry mixes for baked goods that we can adapt to our allergy needs. If anyone has any good once-a-month-cooking, make-a-mix or make-and-freeze type recipes that would work well with no soy, dairy, corn, or processed foods, I'd love to see them.

After dinner we finished writing a letter to Selemani, the African boy we sponsor through Compassion International. It's a lot of fun writing to and receiving letters from him. The girls told him all about VBS, and decided to draw pictures of cats (their current favorite animal) to send along.







Baby E barely nursed tonight, and wouldn't settle down when I tried to rock her to sleep. So I put her in her crib and she screamed for about 30 seconds before she was out.

It seems that when she's not feeling well she needs to be held and comforted to sleep. But when she's her normal self, she does much better being put in the crib to put herself to sleep after a soothing bedtime routine and a story.

I'm encouraged that we're getting back to a shorter, simpler routine with a child who sleeps well and doesn't have to be held to sleep while she whimpers and squirms in pain.

Mostly, today I'm just thankful that my kids are so healthy in general. Allergies are frustrating, yes. But at least I can do something about them. They are manageable. They might even go away eventually. It takes quite a learning curve, but we can learn to work around them.

If one of my kids had a really serious disease no amount of hard work, lifestyle change or manipulation of their diet on my part would be able to fix it. There would be nothing I could do but hope and pray, and trust them to doctors. I'm glad God isn't asking me to handle something like that now.

Most parents whose kids are sick don't have the luxury of being able to fix it. I do. And I'm so grateful for that.