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Head above water

I was beginning to think my little chunker was never going to sleep though the night...then last week he did it! He has gone without a middle of the night feeding for the past 6 nights! Yea! I probably shouldn't talk about it but I'm hoping it's going to last. That doesn't mean this Mama has slept through the night yet, for some reason or another (the children shall remain nameless) I have been awakened a few times the past few nights. However, the 1 or 2 long stretches of sleep have been fabulous and I am very thankful for them. I feel like I've been swimming under the surface for awhile and now my head is above water. (3 kids are heavy to swim with, hee...hee.., pardon the bad joke I am a little tired tonight).
On a serious note, the Lord has truly blessed us with Esther, and I am actually getting pretty spoiled. I haven't asked her to do much at all but every time I turn around she is cleaning the kitchen or folding clothes. I think she's becoming comfortable and hopefully enjoying her time here. She's said several times that people are very friendly. Tomorrow I will take her to Reading Connections in town where she will figure out what English classes she should take, she's excited about school. I'm hoping when D starts talking it will be in Korean.
Only 5 more days until Thanksgiving, which I'm excited about for several reasons. One of those is because I haven't had sweets this month and Steven hasn't had any soda - and we're stopping that nonsense on Thanksgiving. We've been drinking a lot of Sweet Tea lately, so the "diets" probably haven't been too successful. Oh well, if we did lose a lot of weight I'm sure we'd gain it back over the holidays. Oh how I love to eat over the holidays! Thankfully David will be 6 months old soon and I can go back to the gym. I can't believe how fast my little guy is growing up, this time is sweet and fleeting. I'm going to end this rambling post and head to bed so I can enjoy this phase whenever it starts in the morning. Until next time!

Crazy week...+1 more in the fam

This week has proved to be interesting for the Harrells. I worked a record long 32 hour shift in Charlotte, from Wednesday morning at 8am to Thursday afternoon at 4pm. Obviously, this would not be possible at most NICUs, but this particular hospital is a little slower paced. I generally get a full night's sleep, plus Mama brought David up to nurse a couple of times. I left the big kids in Charlotte with Steven and his Mom, whenever the kids are split up it makes it much easier on the caregivers. I guess since I birthed them I don't usually get that option. Ha.
Anyways, while I was gone Steven called me about an email he had received, regarding a young Korean girl who needed a place to stay. She had come to America to work on her English, but the medical clinic she was going to be involved with did not work out as she had planned. Through some missionary contacts in Korea she was "rescued" by an older couple in West Virginia, where she has been staying for the past month or so. The email stated that she would like to live with a family that she could help with household chores or childcare in exchange for room and board, and she wanted to be involved in a local meeting like the kind Steven and I go to. After a moderate amount of prayer and even less discussion, we drove to Asheboro on Friday afternoon and brought her home to live with us, until June. It's interesting how the Lord works. I had recently been feeling like I wasn't doing anything to serve the Lord, besides what I do for my family. Steven has the prison ministry and his speaking ministry, but I had nothing. Then on Sunday we heard a sermon about how Jesus blessed the little children and how we too should reach out to the orphans. Esther isn't exactly an orphan, but she did need a family and a place to live! I noticed her sweet spirit immediately and feel very good about the situation. Her English is not bad and she is very easy to be around. I hope the Lord uses us as a blessing in her life but I think the opposite might be more true in the end!
In addition to our new "family member", we had Leslie and her kids in town this weekend, another friend spend the night last night from Raleigh, and Steven had to go to Richmond, VA, last minute, to speak at a Youth Conference today. Sometimes I think it would be nice if things slowed down, but for the most part we are enjoying the ride! I can't wait to see what tomorrow holds. Until then....

Halloween without the pictures

I'm not sure what's wrong with blogger tonight but I can't get the pictures from Halloween to upload. Oh well, they weren't that cute (the costumes were but the kids wouldn't smile for the camera). Picture this - a 4 year old bumblebee, a 2 year old monkey, and a 5 month old chicken. Well, it was pretty cute. I have to say that by the time Halloween rolls around I am pretty tired of the holiday. I am not one for scary stuff, never have been. I made my friends in high school leave the haunted house before going in on more than one occasion. I always avoid horror movies. And is it just me, or have the yard decorations gotten a little out of hand? A neighbor of my Mom's had 3 "dead people" hanging from their trees. Really? How am I supposed to explain that to my 4 year old? I mean, carve a pumpkin, people, and keep your death obsession inside your home. I just don't get why so many people enjoy being frightened, but I think I am in the minority these days since the box office is full of horror flicks. There's enough evil in this world by our true foe, the Devil, that I don't care to indulge in any extra. Sorry, I will get off my soap box now...all that to say, Halloween was a fun night for the Harrells. We went to a church around the corner and participated in "Trunk or Treat" (a great alternative for tiny legs), then came home and went trick or treating to about 4 of our neighbor's homes. David was pretty tired of being a chicken by that time. I am going to do my best to keep Halloween G-rated in my home as my kids get older....maybe I'll continue dressing them in fluffy animal costumes if they want to trick or treat, I'm sure that will go over really well.
I have decided that it would be ok if the kids didn't grow up....most of the time. I know it's inevitable but they can be so sweet now. I have a few hours of just Eli time every week when Sadie's in school and David's taking a nap. I give him lots of hugs and tell him he's my sweet boy. Today he told me "you're my tweet girl". He also said I was a "dood" (good) Mommy. Tonight he said "I wuv you dooo (so) much". Yea, I'll keep him 2 as long as possible!

Go Figure

I've often heard mother's say "Just when I had this sleep (feeding, carseat, etc) thing figured out the kid goes and does something totally different!" Parenting is all about flexibility, it seems, as our carefully construed schedules for our children are (at least in my house) rarely followed. I admit, schedules for kids are not totally overrated as sleep and food are usually necessities in a toddler's life. But as predictable as some things in life seem, my kids are NOT.
Sadie has seen a total of 4 movies in her life, at the movie theatre, only 2 of those were with me. So far she has wept many tears at each movie, usually in fear of "the bad guy", but also when Simba's dad died (which prompted a very sweet conversation between her and Steven regarding his mortality). We took her and 3 of her cousins to see "The Smurfs" at the dollar movie last weekend and pretty much every time Gargamel made an appearance she held onto Steven for dear life. She ended up in my lap by the end of the movie for the big fight scene where the smurfs defeat Gargamel once and for all and throw him in a heap of garbage. Literally 2 minutes before she was begging to go home, weeping over captured Papa Smurf, then at the end of the movie she turns around and says "I loved it, that was my favorite movie and I want to watch it everyday." Go figure.

Eli, as I have mentioned, has given us some sleep and diaper issues lately. He used to be so easy putting to bed and a great sleeper so I'm not sure where we went wrong, but lately he's discovered he doesn't have to stay in bed, he can get up and walk around, play, usually he just crawls really slowly through the hall. We have found him asleep many times at the top of the stairs, in the hall, or on the floor next to Sadie's bed. The other night we let Sadie fall asleep in her bed and put Eli in ours (usually we do it the other way around since they share rooms, the move Sadie to her bed after she's asleep). We came upstairs to check on them and go to bed and Eli wasn't in our bed. Where was he? In his, fast asleep. Go figure. And tonight, after weeks of talking about potty training, occasional peeing in the potty (and pooping once), Eli NEVER mentioning that he has to go, I turn around while giving David a bath and he is sitting naked on the potty, peeing and pooping all by himself, with no prompting. Go figure.

Now for David, he is perplexing me as well. From the beginning he gave me pretty good stretches of sleep, but the last month he has seemed to go backwards and wanting to wake up and nurse more in the middle of the night. So the last few weeks I bit the bullet and started putting him to bed in his own room, in his crib, and feeding him in there in the middle of the night (vs. taking him back to our bed). He was not improving, in fact he seemed to be waking up more. (Crying it out wasn't really working, either). So, last night he was up by the time I was turning out the lights to go to bed. I let him cry for a few minutes then just gave up and went and got him and brought him to our bed. He ate a little, then fell asleep between us and slept until 7:15 the next morning. Go figure. 

To conclude, one of my favorite parenting quotes "you just gotta find what works." That's the theme of my home lately, it seems. If I figure it all out, I'll let you know. :)

Circle of Life

Shannon Hills is having special meetings this week and showing a video series entitled "The Truth Project." We went tonight and I thoroughly enjoyed being intellecutally challenged about philosophy and biblical worldviews, it was great reminder about "renewing our minds" (Romans 12:2). A good deal of the lecture was about the definition of philosophy and Carl Sagan's view of the "cosmos." Ironically, as we were walking through the parking lot to our car Sadie was singing "Circle of Life" (from the Lion King, eerily familiar to the humanist's God-less perspective on life). We have some work to do.
To Sadie's defense, she did just go see "The Lion King" (in 3D!) with her Daddy. A couple weekends ago I got a call and decided to work a 24 at the Charlotte job instead of travel to Richmond, VA, where Steven was speaking the following day. The boys went to Charlotte with me and Sadie got a "special trip" with Daddy. When I asked if she was behaving Steven replied "of course she is, I'm giving her everything she asks for today" The trip started out with a Dollar General run to stock up on Candy and Fruit Loops. She talked the entire 3 hour trip and after they dropped their stuff off at the church (they have this great little apartment attached to the church that the speaker stays in), they went to McDonald's for dinner and then the movies. I talked to her that night and she was in no way missing Mama, she told me she was going to send me a postcard. Steven says she was wired and probably not quite asleep before he was. I hope that was the first of many sweet trips they get to take together.
Eli is still cracking us up most of the time. He is quite dramatic and can be such a whiner (who ever said girls whine and boys don't was wrong, at least in the Harrell family). He gives lots of kisses and likes his "pogams" on tv but spends most of his time finding the highest horizontal surface, climbing onto it, then jumping off. No broken bones yet, but he did break a lamp this week. He is loving to read lately and I've just had to get used to his constant repeating of every word I say. His favorite one right now is "Uncle Bigtoot (bigfoot)" We are still doing a lot more talking about potty training than actually doing it, I tell him most days how big boys (which he is, he has no doubt) pee in the potty. The other day he walked in on Steven using the bathroom and after looking him up and down to make sure he knew what was going on he replied with certainty "you a big boy!" 
Speaking of big boys,I took David to the doctor today and he weighs in at 15 pounds, 5 ounces! It's only the 50th percentile but he seems huge to me! After scrawny Sadie I never thought I'd have such a chunky monkey. I also thought if I ever had a fat baby that surely he would sleep through the night by now, but apparently I was wrong about that too. That being said I should close this out so I can get some sleep while I can. Between my night owl, my early riser, and my night feeder my sleep is quite deprived at the moment. But I know this too shall pass... and then I'll just miss them being babies! Goodnight~

Vipers (and a lot of poop) in diapers

My old pastor used to refer to young children as "vipers in diapers" referring, of course, to the depravity of man and how our sinfulness becomes evident pretty early in life. That is definitely the case in our kids, and if you think your children are sinless you must not be paying very good attention. Steven was asked to fill in and speak at a church down the street that we had never attended. It was a sweet group of people and Sadie had enjoyed her time in the children's church and nursery. As we were leaving I noticed she had something under her papers and discovered it was a box of crayons. I told her to put them back and, to my dismay, had to keep telling her to as she was very determined to steal the crayons. I'm sure they'll have us back, the young preacher and his thief of a daughter. :)
Meanwhile, our Eli is having a bit of trouble in the potty department. He has this pooping issue where he will go several times a day which inevitably makes his bottom red. He has learned several responses to try to get us not to change him, including "I'm not done yet!" and "it's just gas!" Once he realizes his rear is going to get cleaned, he then yells "gentle!" and "I need keem! (cream)". I told him the other day that this was ridiculous, and he needed to poop in the potty. I sat him on there and he actually peed and pooped a little - I felt like I was witnessing a birth. I was cheering, chanting "push, push"....it's amazing what I've succumbed to as a mom! Unfortunately, that was the last time we had any potty success. Oh well.
David is, as usual, perfect. The only thing he does slightly wrong is needing to eat in the middle of the night. But I'll take it as opposed to the sneaky stealer and constant pooper. I know his days are coming, too, I need to prepare myself for 3 little sinners in my care. Hopefully, I can instruct them and show them a fraction of the grace and mercy my Lord has shown me. I am daily thankful for the task and pray for His help as I lead these little ones.