A Bunch of Sickies...

We have a pile of sickies at the Gressman house.
Last night was tough.
I was so thankful for Jason.

We did what is commonly referred to in the world of parenting as "the divide and conquer method".
Those of you with more than one child know what I am talking about here.

For those of you who don't know....
This is where one parent takes one child and the other takes the other child.
And you hope you didn't draw the short straw. :-)
Just kidding.

Anyway, Jason took Creide.
And I took Kearyn.

Ky is also sick but he is pretty tough about it.
He only has a bad caugh.
And isn't doing the fever, throwing up thing too.

Boy, I will be glad when we get past this one...

Hope you all are staying healthy...

Blessings.

{amg}

What NOT to Do #1: Don't Tell Someone to Slap Their Child...[Yes, this happened to me!]

This little blog post has been rolling around in my head for a couple of days because I honestly didn't know how to approach it. So, I decided to start a series of what NOT to do. As things come up in life - I will add to it.

Yes, this really happened to me.... Someone told me I should slap my 18-month-old daughter. A complete stranger. In public. To me, that is wrong on SO many levels but before I get to all of that I will give you the situation. :-)

We were having a birthday lunch for Jason (yes, it made it even worse because it was a celebration) and Kearyn was getting restless. So, like most 18-month-old's do (or I guess I should say at least my kids do) she throws a fit. Now I will be honest - she let out a scream and Jason and I were mortified.

1. We are not used to these girl screams. I mean, come on! They come close to being at the level where only dogs can hear!
2. We expect our children to behave (obviously as all parents do) and so this stage of the game -when your kids are learning what is expected of them - is always a bit stressful for us.

You see, Jason and I are not pro-tantrum. We are actually anti-tantrum. We work really hard to get our kids through this stage as quickly as possible and I think we have had a bit of success with our methods. Let's examine: 2 out of the 4 children we have no longer throw fits at all (success!) and our youngest son gets dramatic every once and a while but we do what we did with our other two - we correct him - and these situations are happening less and less (partial success with an optimistic future!).

So, my baby girl lets out a scream and I hear this "Oh My ____" from the next table. It is important to note at this time that there was a partition that separated us from this table and I could hear this lady over my daughters high octave screech.

Jason and I are continuing to try to address the situation - first telling her "no-no, we don't act like this", etc., etc. I then hear it....

Lady: You need to just smack that child!
Me: (Biting tongue.)
Lady: It is hard for me to believe children act like that since I raised 2 of my own.
Me: (Still biting tongue, sitting on hands, eye-lid twitching, rocking back and forth.)

At this point the lady keeps sputtering on and Jason finally says, "Is she talking about us?"

Me: Yeppppp!

Kearyn is quiet by this point but this lady is not. I can no longer stand it... so I say something. I know, I know... all of my friends and mentors who are reading this are cringing right now saying "No Andrea, No!" But when you have a conflict with someone you are suppose to go to them, right? So, I went to her.  Here is a rundown of the conversation...

Me: Excuse me... I just wanted to apologize for my daughter making so much noise and disturbing your lunch.
Lady: Yeah, don't you know that there are actually other people in the restaurant.
Me: Yes ma'am we are but she is only 18-months-old and we are doing our best to teach her how to behave. But I am just going to tell you that I am not going to smack my daughter. I just don't believe in that.
Lady: (Deer-in-headlights look) Oh, well I wouldn't expect you to do that.
Me: Really? Well, I thought I heard you tell me that I should smack her.
Lady: Well, I just meant that is what I would have done if my children would have ever acted that way - which they didn't. Well, maybe once.
Me: Really? Wow! Because all 4 of my children have acted this way at one time.
Lady: You have four children....???? (Note shock in her voice.)
Me: Yes, the other three are sitting over here too, you probably haven't heard a peep out of them have you.
Lady: (She says nothing).
Me: Well, I just wanted to apologize for the disruption and I hope you enjoy the remainder of your lunch.
Lady: (After I sit back down.) Well, that was rude.
Lady's grown daughter who had been sitting next to her the whole time: No it wasn't.

So, why do I have such issue with this....

1.) I am the parent. I am dealing with the situation. It wasn't like we had just let her scream for 10 minutes straight. We were addressing it. It is already stressful enough for the parent - why make it worse!

2.) Why would a complete stranger feel like they can speak into my life on this level. Discipline is a very personal thing that couples have to put a great deal of prayer and thought into. So do you really think I am going to take the advise of someone I don't even know who is yelling this advise over a partition in a restaurant  Um.... no!

3.) Even if I did believe in smacking my child (Note - there is a difference between smacking and spanking. I am not talking about whether I agree with spanking or not.) that would have only made the situation 5000 times worse!

I am usually a super patient person. But when it comes to my kids - obviously the mama bear comes out. It is my pet peeve when other people discipline my children. Don't get me wrong, if I am not there and they are about ready to run into the road, by all means - tell them to stay out of the road! But then come tell me and then my husband and I will address it.

It really bugs me when I am starting to correct my child and someone jumps in and corrects them over the top of me. I want to say so badly - I am handling it and your are not helping!

It bothers me even more if they do this to my husband. My husband is supposed to be the leader of our family. When someone steps in like that they are undermining the paradigm that God has established for us. My children see this and this could potentially affect the way my 3 sons lead their households or how my daughter allows her husband to lead her household.

Anyway, I just had to share this story. Hopefully you had a good laugh and just in case you didn't know.... Don't tell someone to slap their child.  ;-)




 

Children: Planting Seed & Plucking Weeds

Who knew being a parent would be so exhausting! Now before I start hearing hoops and hollers from the grandparents out there telling me "I told you so!"....or "Now you see what we went through!" I actually did know parenting was exhausting. You see, I was 12 before my first sister was born and so I had a birds eye view of exactly what my parents went through in those early years. And you should have seen my sister! (Just kidding Audra.) She was a tad bit of a handful - not very nice to our little brother at all. I use to take her everywhere though. I just adored her - in fact, people actually thought she was my baby which I became highly offended at that suggestion.

Anyway, by the time I had my first child I had no false illusions to what parenthood would be like. I knew about the sleepless nights and all of that business. God did throw me a curve ball when he blessed me with a special needs baby. My oldest son was born with a condition called Pierre-Robin Sequence. It is a lot to explain for this blog but the main element at that time was that he couldn't breath on his own so at 5 days old they had to put a tracheotomy tube in so he could actually breath. He had that for 14 months. During those 14 months he also had 3 more surgeries. (He has had 6 total as of now.)

Those of you who know my oldest son and didn't know about his early struggles are probably sitting there with jaws dropped open. If you saw him today you would never know that he had any issues except for a faded scar just above his shirt neckline. He is a brilliant boy who just announced a few weeks ago that he feels God is calling him to be a biblical historian. Yeah, he is 11 and I am pretty sure he is smarter than me but please don't tell him that. :-)

Anyway, my oldest - despite his medical issues, was a wonderful baby and toddler. He was so good and sweet, I hardly had to discipline him and I usually just had to explain to him why something was wrong and that was all it took. This is a child who told Jason when he was 3, "Dad, can I have a conversation with you?" Yeah, talk about intimidating for Jason!

Then my second son came along. From the very beginning he was a bit more of a handful. You would ask him to hand you something and he would throw it at you. And it wasn't some light toss. He has definitely inherited his dad's baseball arm and wasn't afraid to use it. He was a pretty chunky little thing and the doctor told me, "Oh, he won't roll or crawl on time." Yeah, he started rolling at 3 months, sat up by 5 months, crawled at 6 months, took his first steps at 7 months, and was running by 11 months. Then we hit the 2's and 3's and I did not think I would survive. Our 2nd and 3rd boy are 22 months apart and I often joke that if they wouldn't have been so close together that we would not have had our #3 or #4 child. Thank God for his wisdom!

Anyway, I have several friends that are a bit further along in their parenting journey that I really look at as mentors for how I want to parent my children. It was one of these dear sweet friends who told me "you're plucking weeds and planting seeds - just keep bringing him back to the cross and he will eventually get it." And she was right - he did. In fact, it was like it happened overnight. He just mellowed. Shortly after this I took him to my mom's house for a bit and when I picked him up I asked if she noticed how mellow he was. She said yes - she thought he was sick. Other family members asked us for 3 months if he was sick or not because "he just did not act himself." Now, he is the sweetest boy and wouldn't think of chucking something at me just to be spiteful. I no longer worry about him being arrested before he is 12. He is so sweet with his baby sister and I know he is going to make some lucky girl very happy someday. He will be a wonderful husband and father.

I have been doing a lot of reflecting lately on my journey as a mom. I adore my kids so much and even on the hard days I wouldn't trade it for anything. Especially on the chemo days and the days after when I don't feel like I am even being a mom, I wouldn't trade it - because at least I can see what I am fighting for. God has used my children in so many ways - they have truly been such an inspiration to me. There isn't a minute that goes by where I don't thank God for allowing me to be a mom and especially to these four little people who call me mommy.

As I go into these last 2 treatments I am already praying for strength. I know they will be tough but as I hear my children's voices echo through our house they will make it bearable and I will endure. And suddenly I realize that all along my children have also been planting seeds and plucking weeds in my own heart as well.

I thank you God for my 4 beautiful children - each of them so uniquely made by you. Thank you for choosing me to be their mommy. I feel so very blessed and just in awe of the gifts that you have given me. I pray for all of the other mommies and daddies out there right now who may be going through a tough time. Whether it is a toddler going through his 2's or a teenager going through their own set of struggles I pray that you provide them the wisdom and strength to get through it. Please encourage them in their journey and reassure them that they are plucking weeds and planting seeds. ~ Amen

Cale....

I wanted to write a little something about each of our children. Being that Cale is our oldest and because we also celebrated his birthday this week I thought it would make sense to start with him. However, I have been attempting to write about him this entire week and it has been very difficult. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why, as words usually come easily to me especially when it comes to my family. Finally it hit me. There is just so much to say.... I could literally write a novel about this child and the circumstances of his life without skipping a beat and probably still wouldn't get everything in there. The crazy thing is that he is only 11 years old!

I could tell you about the miracle of his birth and how hard he had to fight to even be here with us today. I could tell you about his stay in the NICU, how he had to have a tracheotomy tube put in at 5 days old which he had for the first 14 months of his life or how he has had six surgeries so far. I could tell you the fancy names of his diagnosis'. I could go on and on about the many times he has proven different doctors and health care providers wrong but as I think of all of those things now they just don't seem to matter as much as they once did.

Sure, those things are all apart of his life and always will be. Sure, we are still dealing with some of the medical issues that he was born with and will continue to deal with those for the next several year. It just seems like such an injustice to let ourselves be consumed by all those things when those are not the things that represent Cale. Those are just things that have happened to Cale, that is not who Cale is.

My goal as a mom is that when you look at my son you see what a fine young man he is growing into. That you see how caring and polite that he is. When you talk to him you immediately realize how brilliant he is as he can definitely carry on an intelligent conversation with the best of them. Most of all, I hope that when you see Cale you also see Christ because at the very core of Cale you will find that his faith and his deep belief in God are what matter most to him. If you see that in our son then Jason and I have been successful parents. Most importantly we have honored God in how He has called us to raise him. There is nothing else we could ask for as parents or nothing else that could bring us greater joy.

When I think of Cale the following scripture comes to mind. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11. I know many of you are familiar with this scripture as it is a popular one, especially around graduation time. But as I think of Cale this scripture takes on a whole new meaning. The things that Cale has had to go through have been difficult to say the least but from the moment that child was born I knew that he was in God's hands. Now, eleven years later he is living that out. We cannot wait to see what the future holds for him or how God decides to use him and we just thank God for "prospering" him.