Is It Naptime Yet

Jon was gone this past week, so I spent a lot of time sick and away from home.
Saturday I dropped him off nice and early at the airport. His plane left at 6:45 so we got him there at 5:30 or so. I was sad to see him go. We all were sick, and he was feeling terrible. I got home just before the sunrise and was tempted to have Lilah stay and watch it with me, but I was too tired to wait, and I wanted to get all the rest I could. Maybe another day when we’re not sick we can watch it come up. She enjoyed seeing the moon in the dawning sky, and it was a beautiful morning, even with the runny nose and coughing child. Eden seemed to also get sick on Saturday. It was great. We all ran to the store because we needed bread, and I also got some other goodies to enjoy while Jon was gone. I believe I had a fever later that day, but it was hard to tell since it was me and two little girls.

I decided to stay home from church since Lilah was still coughing, Eden had a runny nose, and I every time I sneezed snot came out of my nose. I no longer had a runny nose, but a stuff up one, and I was sneezing constantly.Lets just say I kept the tissue close by. I went to FHE at my parents house just so I wouldn’t be alone. Brien held and played with Eden and Lilah because he was sick also. Though I’m sure he had a different virus because I became sick again on Thursday, so I blame him. I tried to keep my children and myself away from the healthy people, but who knows if that worked. The Lee children still wanted to play with Lilah, and people still held Eden. Kristi thinks I got her sick, but I say it was Brien.

Monday my friend Anna come over for lunch. it was great to have the company. She was the only adult I saw that day.
Tuesday I went to my parents. I pretty much studied, a lot, and let my mom watch the kids. Howie and Kaitlyn came to play for a while, and Lilah got a little rosy from the sun. I had class Tuesday night so they just stayed with my mom, and we all spent the night. I studied more on Wednesday, and I washed our car. It hasn’t been washed in like two years, maybe three, so that was my only cleaning goal once Jon left. I didn’t get the inside clean, but at least the outside looks better.
The Lee’s watched the girls for me while I studied at home Wednesday evening. It was strange to have a completely silent, empty house. I haven’t had that, in a while. Usually I have Eden at home with me while Jon goes out, so it was nice, and strange, to have it to myself. I got some reading done, but now I think I should have been reading a different history book for my class.

Thursday was the day Jon came home. Brien and Andrea were wonderful and had the girls and me over while I waited for Jon’s plane to come in. They live right by the airport, so all he had to do was call and I was there in under ten minutes to pick him up in passenger pick up. Brien was wonderful and cooked dinner for me and the girls, as well as his wife. It was delicious salmon and summer veggies. I’m glad that they didn’t mind giving me company while I waited for Jon’s plane to come in.
Jon had Friday off so we were home and he did lots of laundry. It’s wonderful to have him home. I hate being a single parent when he goes out of town. I am grateful for all my family and the support they give me though.

Carolyn called today to see what my children were up to. I said nothing because Jon and I both have finals coming up and we were only studying and spending time at home. So she came over and took Lilah to the park and Target. Lilah fell off a slide, so all she wanted to do after that was swing, for like an hour. Carolyn finally got her off and then they went to Target. Carolyn having Lilah allowed us to get Jon’s haircut and a little studying done.
Now it’s late Saturday and we need to get Lilah into bed. She took a nap from 5:30-7:00, so she’s not so tired right now. Luckily church doesn’t start until one, so we can all sleep in. That’s if Eden doesn’t wake us all up.

I think this is the first time that all of us have been sick at the same time. Usually it’s just Lilah, and possibly me. Eden has been sick just a couple of times also. It started Wednesday night with Lilah. Thursday I started to have a sore throat. Friday I had a horrible sore throat and Jon came home complaining of one also. Eden started to have a runny nose last night. Sleep as been interrupted. Jon was on the couch part of the night because Eden wasn’t feeling well, and he needed to get rest. When he did come in at 3 or so I think we kept each other up with our sniffles. We all pretty much have coughs and runny noses. It really sucks. I’m achy, sleepy, and I feel like my head is going to fall off when I bend over. I also have house work and school work to do this weekend.

Jon and I talk about letting our children cry when they want to cry, and be happy when they want to be happy.
With all that’t been going on this post helped me from anther blog. I normally don’t visit this woman’s blog, but when I have time I do. This helped me to feel a little better about all my frustrations, and a little bad about not taking Jon’s own advice, from Playful Parenting, to not disregard your child’s emotions.

Daring young mom: Cool 2 B Real

Life is crazy. I have been so impatient. My poor husband seems to do most things right but when he does something I don’t like I get mad, and stay mad for longer than I should. Lilah has a mother that gets way to angry at the normal two year old occurrences. Mostly the peeing on the floor occurrences, and when she seems to be crying for what I think are ridiculous reasons. I get so upset at her at times that I just want to throw things. Part of me wants her to fear me, so then she would just stop crying when I ask her and hopefully not make peeing on the floor a daily ritual. I just feel evil. I think I’ve been letting my anger get the best of me. I just haven’t tried to control it or let it go as I should. I think I’ve been to focused on me and my needs though. I’m not being Christlike and I want Jon to let me have everything I want, and to know all my needs. I want Lilah to be the perfect two year old, and never get on my nerves. When I first started this downward spiral I thought it was interesting that she didn’t understand that I was upset. She had peed on the floor, and I was so mad at her. All she kept saying was that we don’t pee on floor we pee in toilets. It drives me nuts. Whenever she pees on the floor or in her panties we try to explain what she did and all she answers is “no we don’t pee on floors” or panties. It just frustrates me. I know I’ve been through this before. I hope it’s just all the stress in my life and once school gets out it’ll get better. But I also know that I need to change my attitude. I felt better this afternoon, but I still feel irritable.

Last night was hard. Lilah was congested and couldn’t sleep. She was literally waking up every hour (at least), she would sit up and start crying because she couldn’t breath and was tired. At about 4 I couldn’t take it. I just kept telling her to stop it and laid her on the pillow. Jon came in and took her to the living room. Not because I was going to do anything, but to give me a break. I was just so tired, and so sick of her whining. He looked up a natural remedy on-line about a nasal saline to help, and I went to the store to get some decongestant. I needed to cool off and get away, plus I was still somewhat irritable from being upset at Jon earlier that night. She was better when I returned. We gave her the saline and they stayed up watching PBS. She feel asleep and I brought her in later, I think 5:45. When she’s sick I’m usually more patient, but today I was short tempered. Lilah woke up at her normal 8:00, and I had her take two naps today. She seems okay so far this night, so hopefully it will be a quiet night. I feel my throat getting swollen though, so I fear that I’m getting sick also. Life just stinks.

Hopefully if I focus on the good things and not myself, I can overcome this darkness. I just feel like a dark cloud has settled over me and I want everyone else to be miserable. I may be somewhat depressed, or maybe I just hormonal or chemical imbalances going on. I do feel like some light might be coming around though.

Jon’s going out of town at the end of this month. I’m already sad. I just don’t like being alone. It’s nice to have him home and helping with the girls. I have no major assignments due while he’s gone, so I just have to stay on top of my studies, which is good. Most things I am able to do during the day. It’s test that I like to have him at home so if Lilah gets up and needs something, or Eden is particularly grumpy, I’m able to hand them off to him. Anyways, just wanted to share my loneliness.

There are 4 weeks left of school.
So in the next four weeks I have
4 exams
1 paper
1 group project ( I hate group projects… all of us are procrastinating in my group, including me)
6 discussion postings (at least that I know of, plus the ones I need to catch up on for History)
26 lectures (some will be long others short, but I’m guessing at least 13 hours for lectures, plus another 10 hours of taking notes during the lectures. It takes me twice as long to listen to one when I’m typing and taking notes.)

During my exams week I have three on the same day, Tuesday the 9th. Plus a paper due on the 10th by noon for history. We’ll see how I last. Maybe I can get the paper done early. lol… only time will tell, or should I say only time will take and I will procrastinate.

I just turned in my second paper for History. I feel less confident in this one, but we’ll see if he likes it. Hopefully I get a high B, otherwise I’m screwed and will probably get a D in the class. It’s just been so difficult to keep up with his discussions and lectures. I’m left confused after most of the readings and the lectures and reading the other postings helps me to understand the material, but then I’m left with nothing different to post about because everyone as already covered each detail. I just hate this class. I usually don’t feel so helpless, but with this history class and my Bible as literature class, I feel like an idiot. Granted I am getting good grades in the Bible class, and on the assignments I do for history. I just feel lost until the last moments of reading and writing. So overall I feel lost, even though I have moments of understanding.

Saturday was a fun day. Jon got nice and dusty working outside, then we all went to Plantworld Nursery to pick up sod. It turns out you have to order it, and the order has to be at least 500 square feet. We only need 200 square feet, so we passed.
They have great surroundings there. They have tortoises, exotic birds and a big waterfall with turtles. I only got a picture of the tortoise though.

We stopped by Jon’s parents house to get some plugs of grass. Hopefully by next summer we have a full yard. We got home in time for Lilah to take a nap. I went shopping while my whole family slept . I guess we needed food though.
Later that night we went to Chuck E’ Cheese with Carolyn, Julie, Howard, Howie and Kaitlyn. Carolyn is such a nice aunt to treat our family to overpriced family fun. 🙂 We love her, and Lilah did not want to leave, she was having such a blast. Next time I think we’ll skip the soda though because she was hard to put to bed when we got home.

We got home nice and late.
This weekend was crazy. Lilah was literally wearing her only clean and dry pants when we left for plant world. I’ve been neglecting the laundry. Now we have laundry in various holding places around the house, since we only have one laundry basket. I have 2 kid loads, 1 towel load, and 1 white load of clothes to fold. I need to be a better housekeeper. It’s just tough. I took an English test Friday, and I have a paper due this Friday for History. I wish I could just have some time to myself…. but I guess I used it spending time with family this weekend….which is fun too.

We have heard and it has been finalized… Well as finalized as it gets until he signs the papers in July. Jon is getting a job promotion!! Essentially it is a new job but he still will be working somewhat with DARS at UNLV. It won’t be happening until July, that is when they renew all the job contracts. I’m just so excited!! We’ve known about the possibility of this job for a while, like 5-6 months, but with the university system it takes forever, so we’ve been playing the waiting game. A couple months back his supervisor, Cem (pronounced Jim), told him that he had submitted the paperwork of the job description to HR, and so it was more waiting. I’ve been so eager about it that in the last two months anytime that Jon called I was hoping it was news that he was getting the new job, which includes a nice raise. We’re doing okay, it’s just we can’t afford a second car, or a third child, not without cutting back greatly in other areas. We don’t have a lot of needless expenses, so it would be hard if we had a third child and needed a new car on this income, one that could fit two car seats and a booster. So now we can afford a second car and a third child, and even a fourth, but we’ll take it one pregnancy at a time, and one year at a time. I don’t plan on getting pregnant anytime soon, but the fall is when we would be discussing, and praying, about whether we should have another child. Granted it all is in Heavenly Father’s hands, but we like to consult him.

Anyways. Today he called at 5:45…. the time he usually gets home, saying he would be late, obviously, but he would be making a stop at Home depot to check something out. He also said that he had some interesting news to tell me. I said to tell me over the phone, but he said it should be in person. I said it better be about the job, otherwise you’re going to have a very upset wife. It was, as you already know.
Jon is a great provider. I consider the job he has right now a blessing. It’s helped us both to continue school, have Eden (well afford to have her), buy a house, and have me at home with our girls the whole time. With this new raise we can afford the insurance on the old 81 Chevy Caprice his parents want to give us, it’s their old car. Granted we could buy a newer car, but this way we can pay off the high interest mortgage we have more quickly and gain equity in our home without losing it to all the interest we’d be paying. (We did a no money down, so it’s split into two mortgages, one larger amount of money at a regular rate and one smaller amount of money at a higher rate interest. ) Anyways, it lifts a burden in our budget and will help with our quality of life. Anyways I’m so excited. Cem thought Jon’s talents were being wasted in what he’s doing now, so that’s why he recommended Jon for this position that was being created. Jon’s a good worker and I’m so proud of him. I hope this new job opens even more doors for him and our family. We like state jobs because they’re more stable. Granted they don’t pay as much the corporate world, but I’d rather have stability than a few years of a great job and high income, followed by who knows how long of underemployment, or unemployment. Granted state jobs don’t guarantee anything, but they make life a little more secure. I just know Heavenly Father watches over us and has blessed us greatly. This is just another great blessing to the ones we already have.

I love hearing the statistical reports of the church. It excites me to hear of it growth. Just reading it strengthens my testimony. Not that numbers matter, but that new people have found The Church and that there are so many people working hard to keep the work moving forward.

Statistical Report 2005

SALT LAKE CITY – The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued the following report concerning the growth and status of the Church as of 31 December 2005:

CHURCH UNITS
Number of Stakes………………………………………………. 2,701
Missions……………………………………………………………. 341
Districts…………………………………………………………….. 643
Wards and Branches………………………………………… 27,087

CHURCH MEMBERSHIP
Total Church membership…………………………….. 12,560,869
Increase in children of record during 2005………………. 93,150— Yay Eden…. you helped make it an even number. 🙂
Converts baptized during 2005…………………………… 243,108

MISSIONARIES
Number of full-time missionaries ………………………… 52,060

TEMPLES
Temples dedicated during 2005………………………………… 3
(San Antonio Texas, Aba Nigeria, Newport Beach California)
Temples rededicated during 2005……………………………… 1
(Apia Samoa)
Total number of temples currently in operation………….. 122