falling slowly

My sister recommended this film called Once to me. It was refreshingly non-Hollywoodish. The cast was made up of musicians that had not acted before which gave it an earthy realness. This song from the movie is just beautiful.

the bella girl

This week started out pretty bad. Naya has been out of sorts for days and seems to get one cold after another. But what's been more concerning is Ella. On Sunday evening she started having what appeared to be an allergic reaction to something. When Josh went to bathe her he noticed she was covered in hives and her right knee was swollen, hot and red. This is also her smaller leg due to a club foot. She did not want to stand and limped if she tried to walk. The Dr said to bring her in the morning. She was much improved by the time I took her in Monday, and her blood work and X-rays came back normal. By Monday afternoon she appeared to be in alot of pain and literally could not even take a step. She said she had to go to the potty but she just stood there crying unable to lift her leg and take a step. I was on the phone with the Dr's office several times and they said to give her ibuprofen and wait it out. When that kicked in she started to walk but with a severe limp.
As every parent knows there is nothing more heart-wrenching than seeing your child in pain. All I wanted was to make it go away , to stop the tears. I was scanning the Internet for some possible explanation. I have this annoying knack for imagining the worst scenarios and for some how feeling personally responsible when my kids are falling apart. I kept thinking, could it be a bite of some sort or did I give her something to eat she's allergic to? And why is Naya so not herself? Mom's are supposed to be able to make everything better so when we can't and the whining won't end it's just exhausting. I came home from my girls group Monday night after having given them my flustered rant and starting feverishly cleaning the house until I thought, "why am I mopping floors at almost mid-night?" I felt slapped in the face with the fact that ultimately I can not keep my kids safe and healthy all the time. It's amazing how much time I find to get on my knees when something goes wrong. I spent a lot of that night just praying for Ella and thanking God for my family. I thought about all the parents who have children with chronic illness or disabilities. How do they cope when pain is their "normal" everyday life? I offered up a prayer for them. God give them grace. I 'm not even doing well with a couple of days. His mercies are new every morning. Thankfully when Ella woke up on Tuesday she seemed a lot better, no hives, no limp. I'm still baffled as to what is happening with her and ask for your prayers as I noticed some hives have reappeared again today along with an occasional slight limp again.

On a brighter note Ella's cousin Dove called her on the phone this morning, and the conversation sounded like this from our end;
" Hi Dovey, I comin to your house today." She then proceeded to sing loudly into the phone all of 'Jesus loves me' and a remix of 'The B-I-B-L-E' and 'Ee-igh,Ee-igh, oh' which was very amusing. Then she said,'See ya lata Dovey, wuv you."
Is there anything in the world more completely darling than two year old girls?

brown-eyed girl

Here's a few I snapped of Naya Faith yesterday. This age is so very precious. She is such a little girl, dainty and affectionate. She only says a hand-full of words but she giggles and squeals a lot. She's already taking three or four steps by herself. I'm rather smitten with all of my children but she makes me want to have five more which makes my husband look a little scared. She breaks into a broad smile at every stranger that looks her way. She's a charmer, and a heart-stealer already... oh boy.


Apparently even she can't resist stealing a kiss...

Yann Tiersen

Some friends were over recently and introduced us to this:



Enjoy,I think it is brilliant. It makes me want to throw some clothes in a bag and explore Europe. Oh, the daydreams a song can produce.

seasons

I will warn you now, I'm feeling a tad melancholy. The other day we took down the Christmas tree. Juden had fallen in love with the tree. The night we put it up he was ecstatic and laid on his tummy just staring at it chattering away about how now it was Christmas. I prefer white lights on the tree but we used colored because they always seemed a bit more magical to me as a child. As soon as it got dark Juden would run around turning all the Christmas lights on and all the other lights off yelling,"Look Ella, now it's Christmas!" I thought this was cute at first until I was reading a book or changing a diaper and suddenly the room went dark except for the soft glow of the tree. That was his ritual every night and since we put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving he had grown very attached to it. With this said, you can imagine how tragic it was when we had to take the tree away. I felt like a big meanie as the tears streamed down his face while he watched Josh out the window and pleaded,"Don't take my tree, don't throw it in the trash." I tried to comfort him, telling him that we had to take the tree away because it was dead and that Christmas was a season and we would get another tree next year. I held him in my lap as we sat on the floor by the heaps of brittle pine needles and I felt a little of the emptiness. Christmas and New year is such a painful and lonely time for so many. We do celebrate Christ's Birth but we are also celebrating the hope of what is to come as a result of His birth. Someday He will come and heal all of our wounds, He will wipe away the sin that corrupts and bring peace. But for now, for a little while we are left here with all of our dysfunctional relationships and discord, our sickness and longings, disappointments and brokenness. Our reality of struggle and loneliness juxtaposed with hyper-consumerism and fake overly-sentimental "holiday cheer" tossed at us from every direction can seem quite harsh. That is our current reality, battling our flesh and pains that intermingle with our joys so closely sometimes that it is difficult to decipher which is which. The wells of joy and beauty in my own life have only grown deeper in light of the hard things I've gone through. How amazing to serve a God who knows our aching and despair and can meet us where we are. His joy and peace is inside me but someday... it will be fully realized.

new year

Naya enjoying her first Christmas..
and getting happy on the new year.


We are coming down from the whirlwind. It really has been a wonderful holiday,we've had good times with family and friends. The kids bed times went out the window and there was several days of celebration. It's strange how quickly it all goes by. I guess it is just where I am in life right now. From the moment I wake up it seems that between taking care of three little people I always have this list of things to do that I can never quite catch up on. I didn't feel like I had much of a chance to sit and reflect on the past year. It has been a good year, the highlight of course was having the gift of sweet Naya. Josh's health has improved amazingly and the flare ups of pain have been much less frequent and less severe. Our family life has changed as we've said goodbye to Infradig, and certain related stresses have lifted. Josh has continued working away on our house meanwhile we talk and dream of living communally, having more land for our kids to roam, and growing our own food. This year I will say goodbye to my twenties, a wonderful decade for sure. I really love where I am and am so very thankful that I can stay home with my kids and savor every moment of these fleeting days. This year marks three years since the last time I saw my dad. It has not gotten easier, and I hate thinking about getting further away from the last time I heard him tell me he loved me. However I am thankful for the heightened sense of gratitude his passing has left me with. I look forward to this new year and all it's fresh promise.