Addendum to "Today, I heal."

ADDENDUM to "Today, I heal." Throughout the day, I've been thinking not only about some of the challenges we faced this week, but also some of the ways that Judah really rose to the challenge and showed increased maturity and responsibility.

For example, our first challenge came when we discovered that our massage therapist friend Gretchen had wrenched her neck and couldn't offer to help until she healed. Jennifer, the second LMT friend we called, had given up her practice due to some health-related issues, and Carole, the LMT we finally reached, couldn't come to my house on Sunday but could fit me in on Monday night at her house. That meant all day Sunday and all day Monday in unrelenting pain.

Both Gretchen and Carole recommended taking a warm bath with Epsom Salts, so that's exactly what I did on Sunday night when the pain got so bad that I just couldn't take it anymore. In fact, warm baths helped offer some relief in between massages.

Why not just load up on pain meds? Well, I tend to feel better pressing through being sick versus taking medicine for symptoms (I usually feel worse on the medicine), but this time I took half a dose of Tylenol pain reliever every morning and every night. Plus, I have a sweet little baby growing in my belly and want to be sensitive to her needs and development, too. I don't know if the Tylenol helped, but I do know that the baths and massages did!

On to the next challenge . . . normally, if I can't be fully Mom to my kids, my husband will take up my slack or be present in my absence. Not this week. He has literally been working from sunup to sundown--and then some--just trying to keep up with the load on his plate. He normally has a lot more flexibility, but work for him right now is unusually busy and will continue to be through next week. This was probably the worst possible time for me to be out of commission.

In the case that neither of us is available, Christy can usually hang with the kids, but she's been doing a trial run with a full-time job this week. We generally schedule "Mommy Time" for me during one day each week, but she didn't even have that to give. Instead, she offered two evenings. The first one was the night James took Judah to his friend's house and then James spent some time with a friend, so it was just me and Miriam hanging out until Christy got home.

To help assuage Miriam's disappointment in not being able to go with Judah, I offered the first movie of the week (oh, yet another challenge--I can't just put my kids in front of the TV since we don't have one, and my computer, on which we typically watch DVDs, was infected with a terrible virus on Friday before all this started). It took a while, but we finally got Curious George to play. Midway through the movie, Miriam asked if we could read a book instead. That's my girl!

Naturally, since my mom only lives an hour and a half from us, my friend Rachel asked if she could come and help . . . well, the challenge there was that my mom had two of my sister's three kids from Thursday-Saturday since my sister and her husband were out of town at a youth leaders' conference.

We had planned to have my parents come over on Sunday to celebrate their birthdays (they were actually born on the same day of the same month of the same year in the same hour!) but it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. And snowed some more. Which is, of course, the next challenge, preventing two more friends from coming out to help.

Finally, the day that Christen came over, I discovered that the heating element went out on our dryer. The next day, Christy tried to make popcorn, but the burner would keep shutting off. I think there's a short in the electrical connection which might be fixed by replacing the burner. I hope. The challenges abound this week!

However, in the midst of all the challenges, my son Judah, who is fast approaching six-years-old, showed me that he and his little sister Miriam, who just turned three, can unload the dishwasher without supervision. They left the plates and bowls stacked on the counter, but they managed to put away all the other dishes. Judah said he climbed up and put the glasses away, which was more than I expected!

Believe it or not, he and Miriam actually fight over who gets to put the silverware away! I did a little "experiment" with them a couple weeks ago to see if they could put the dishes away--I told them I wanted to see if they were "old enough and responsible enough yet to do something so grown-up." I gave Judah the responsibility of putting away the silverware, and Miriam cried because she didn't get to do it. The next "experiment" left Judah in tears because Miriam didn't leave any silverware for him to put away. I'm not kidding. These kids really like being given responsibility!

So, not only do I now have little people to put dishes away, but I also discovered that Judah is fully capable of heating frozen lima beans. He wanted some for lunch, but I was trying not to do anything and James was upstairs working, so I read the package directions and he did the rest. From start to finish, he "made lunch" for himself, his sister, and his mom. He was so proud, and so was I. Go, Judah!

This afternoon, Judah came in from playing in the snow and said, "Mom, I've seen what yellow snow looks like."

"Probably means a dog peed in it," I said, thinking, "I hope you didn't try it!"

He replied, "Or a human," and grinned.

I asked, "A human named Judah?"

We smiled knowingly at each other. That kid.