Giving Thanks

This is the time of year that as a society we ponder on the things we are thankful for in our lives. The Lord tells us to always be thankful in all circumstances. That is a hard thing to do at times. Our human nature seems to like to focus on the negative and complain. But I think when we look at our lives everyone can think of many blessings they have received from the Lord. I personally am thankful for my husband. I married a wonderful man. Despite the fact that our marriage has been tested with many hardships, I can honestly say I love him more now than I did sixteen years ago when we first fell in love. He is the most important person in my life. I am also thankful for the three children we have created. It is wonderful to watch them grow and change. There are times I don't know if I am going to survive raising them, but they certainly make life full and interesting. I am thankful that I live in a place and time when we can get our children the medical help and technology they need to overcome their special needs. I am thankful Ashley has her talker and is finally able to communicate with us. She is learning more every day. Those are just the most important things that I appreciate; I can think of hundreds of more things I am thankful for every day. When I pray I always try to start with the things in which I am thankful and I try to think of new things to be thankful for each day.

Sleepless Nights

There are times when I believe we have gotten past some issue because it hasn't occurred for awhile. For example we will go through a period of good sleep or not have any toileting issues, etc. and I will think this is almost getting easy, I am so glad we are past THAT! Then we go through a period of regression where everything seems out of control again and I feel like we are right back where we started at a place I didn't particularly want to revisit. For some reason we have entered one of those periods again after having things go surprising well for awhile. All three children have had major sleep disruptions the past couple of months. If their sleep is disrupted so is mine and Jason's sleep. Hailey and Josh have settled back into a good pattern, but Ashley has not slept more than a few hours at a time in the past 6 weeks. She looks exhausted, but somehow can't sleep. Of course the more tired she becomes all sorts of skills go out the window. First she started getting cranky, then having accidents again, and finally she is not using her talker as appropriately as she should. I have been tired, impatient, and feeling frustrated. Even though I know it is a valley and we will eventually get out, right now it seems unending. First we talked to the psychiatrist, next we went to the ear doctor, and finally we ended up at the pediatrician. I have found if you present the problem to enough people someone can usually find a solution. The pediatrician discovered she has a sinus infection. I should have come to that conclusion on my own- she has been having lots of nose bleeds and eating raw onions which she always does when she gets sinus infections. Evidently I was too tired to see the signs. We had already treated her for this infection twice, so I just dismissed it. We think she has been fighting the same infection for months and we can't get it completely gone. She has been on medicine for two days now and already she is sleeping slightly better. It always frustrates me that it is so difficult to find out what is wrong since she is nonverbal. For some reason my children rarely run fevers, so we don't even get hints at what could be wrong. It however, makes me so thankful that I know this is just a phase. We will solve the problem and it will improve. It will probably never be perfect, but after the last couple months good sounds perfect to me. I remember a time when everyone was little that we would go nights where one of the three was up all night. It usually was Josh staying up late, Hailey getting up in the middle of the night, and Ashley getting up early. Then they would trade shifts - but someone was always up when I wanted to be asleep. We tried Melatonin which helped a little but not enough. We read books, got suggestions from friends all to no avail. It is amazing what you can try to get your child to sleep. But like they say you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. You cannot force someone to sleep. All you can do is pray and make necessary adjustments to survive. God has a wonderful way of when you truly ( not just when you think you have) but truly have hit that wall, of giving you rest. I'm pretty sure our wall is just around the corner. We have learned an important lesson about not dismissing illness just because it has already been treated. We will all be sleeping pretty well again and we will move on to the next hurdle, I don't know if it will be better or worse, I just hope it won't involve sleep or nosebleeds. Matthew 11:28- Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.