My mind reels at where to begin! Last night was a rough night for us. Meliya woke me up 3 times throughout the night because her belly hurt. The third time, she threw up on the carpet. It's never a good sign to be cleaning puke up off the carpet at 4 am. However, we went off to sleep in hopes that we could catch a few more hours of rest before the day was here. Unfortunately, my body had gotten so conditioned with waking up at night with her or Caillyn's problems that I just laid there awake thinking every little sound I heard was an emergency call for, "MOM!" I did not like when my alarm came on at 7 am. The snooze button and I had a long banter back and forth until I drug myself out of bed at 7:30 am. I managed to muster enough strength and energy to get ready and let the dogs out. Unfortunately, when I let the dogs out I heard Meliya and Caillyn playing (not in a just-woke-up, good morning way). That's usually a good sign that they will be cranky all day. So I went in there and told them to spend the rest of the time before their alarm went off laying quietly in bed because they needed rest after the long night. Surprisingly, they obeyed...mostly.
While the last 15 minutes of quiet loomed over the house, I took advantage of some time in the Word. As I read my daily passages, I kept praying that God would give me something to hang my hat on. Something that would lift me up and carry me through the day because, honestly, it was going to be an ugly day because I was too tired to be nice. I know, mom's should always be nice, kind and compassionate. However, sleep deprivation robs me of all that...just being honest!
Well, the girls got up and the marathon was on.... The breakfast battle got off to a good start as I got everything ready and Meliya and Caillyn were at the table eating. Now off to get Bryleigh who was stirring in her room. Down the hall I went to start the process of getting her up when I smelt that smell from the bathroom. I thought to myself, "I'll have to flush that in a minute." You see, I thought one of the girls left a stink pickle in the toilet as they are apt to do. Imagine my surprise when I opened Bryleigh's door to find that the smell was emanating from in there! I quickly turned on the light to find one of my worst nightmares...yep, you guessed it, ...she was covered in poo! EEEWWWW!!!!!
I thought that after 3 children I had come to grips with how to deal with some of the grossest situations...apparently not. What I saw made me scream, "EEEEWWWW!!!!! GROSSSS!!!" before I could even think about stopping myself! Of course, my sweet, sensitive Bryleigh started bawling because her feelings were hurt, but I was at a loss on what to do. You see, we are not trained on how to respond or what to do first when you encounter a baby smeared in poo. Yes, I said smeared...everywhere. I spent the next 30 minutes giving her a mani/pedi to clean out the poo from under her nails, a bath to clean it off her face, arms, legs, hands and feet, and then moving to the bed to scrub down the spindles, top rails, and even the wall. Apparently she discovered finger painting with poo this morning and wanted to add to my mural. There was poo all over the bed, on the floor, and in her hair!!! Then I had to sanitize 3 of the 4 pacifiers she has because they were smeared with poo too! Thankfully, 1 pacifier had been left on her changing table the night before to help quell the cries while I took care of this clean-up process.
After all of that, I was able to feed her and finally have breakfast (over 2 hours after I woke up). Needless to say, the headache I have right now is warranted. However, the irony falls on the verse of scripture God pointed out to me this morning as I was begging for some supernatural energy. "...correct, rebuke and encourage - with great patience and careful instruction." 2 Timothy 4:2 Boy does God have a sense of humor! I failed that test this morning because great patience and careful instruction were overshadowed by disgust and the desire to bathe the stink off! Although I did not practice this verse this morning very well, the weight of its truth does leave a mark on my heart.
How often does God "correct, rebuke and encourage" us "with great patience and careful instruction" when we've screwed up? Hopefully I can trust God to equip me to handle the gross stuff that is sure to come the next time I have a situation I would rather run from than face. Maybe, just maybe, the next time will be the time I successfully execute great patience and careful instruction. You never know when you will be faced with a situation that will require great patience and careful instruction for mere survival. Let us practice it now while it is our petty comforts that are being sacrificed.
Thankfully, the day is not over. We have managed to have a mediocre day despite the rocky start. Hopefully this will be a pattern that will lead to an OK afternoon and good evening!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
6 Degrees of Separation
While at college I watched a class mate play this game called The 6 Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon. No matter what name anyone threw at him, he was able to tie it back to Kevin Bacon within 6 connections. Well, today I am going to play that game...in a way. You see quite a few people have been asking when I was going to post another blog entry about the girls antics. Well, never fear! It is here! It has been quite busy around the Teer house from multiple weeks of sickness, homeschool starting, and every other fall activity that I just haven't had the time or energy to sit down and write everything down. Don't worry, the girls have given me quite a bit of material from which to work!
The 6 Degrees of Separation from Tears
Caillyn stamping furniture with her flower ink stamp.
1. Furniture: Meliya and Caillyn breaking all 4 drawers of their chest of drawers so that their clothes are held hostage. Now they can only reach their dresses without help.
2. Dress: Samson (our 11 month old yellow lab) apparently was so attention starved that he curled up and cuddled with a Barbie dress. This is better than pulling stuff out of the dirty clothes which he usually does.
3. Dirty clothes: Caillyn tried to help with laundry by pouring a 1/2 cup of soap in the high effeciency washer that only uses about 1 Tablespoon of soap per load.
4. Soap: Meliya tried to give herself a bath by emptying 3/4 of a new bottle of body wash in the bath tub while I was getting the baby dressed.
5. Baby: The girls were playing with their My Little Pony playsets when I told them to pick up the tiny pieces so that I could get Bryleigh up. We can't have the baby eat them. No sooner did the words come out of my mouth before Samson had chewed up some tiny plastic grapes. Daddy is going to have to watch for that green in the poo!
6. Daddy: Mommy wanted to cry like a baby after all of this happened within the 2 days Daddy was away on a buisness trip. I'm ready for my padded cell now!
Not bad for my first time playing that game. How about another go at it?
6 Degrees of Separation from Tears, Part 2
Meliya was wound up after bath one night while Dave was out of town. She was practicing her long jump from one bed to the other in her room, but did not quite make it. She belly bounced off of the side of the mattress and landed on the floor in front of the bed from which she had jumped off.
1. Bed: I went to get Bryleigh out of her crib one morning after hearing her play. When I opened the door, a strange blue light was shining from her bed. It was the puck light we keep at her changing table. I was thoroughly baffled as to how the light could have possibly traveled from the other side of the room to reach Bryleigh's bed until Meliya explained how she had tossed it in the night before when looking for Bryleigh's pacifier. Bryleigh didn't mind, she was enjoying turning on the light herself.
2. For herself: One day, Caillyn didn't want to wait for me to pour her next dose of cough medicine. She waited for me to leave the room and climbed up on the cabinet, got the couch syrup out of the cupboard and poured herself a dose. Amazingly, she only spilled one small drop. Thankfully, I caught her before she created an emergency.
3. Emergency: While I was taking care of Bryleigh and Dave was getting dinner started one evening, Caillyn decided to capitalize on the opportunity to play with his work phone/blackberry. It's official, we have talked with and about 911 now. Thankfully we were able to cut off the chastising from the operator before any emergency personel arrived. That would have been a mess.
4. Mess: One morning before nap time the girls decided to play with a bin full of homemade activities. In this bin were puzzles, button and lace type games, stickers, drawing supplies, and cut up straws used for patterns. Every piece of each of the activities ended up on the dining room floor. It is not easy picking up little pieces of straws, buttons, strings, stickers, paper clips, zip loc bags, etc while a 10 month old is crawling around!
5. The floor: While I was busy vacuuming one day, Meliya and Caillyn were playing on my bed. In the 60 seconds it took me to walk from the kitchen back to my bedroom, Caillyn found the hair cutting scissors in my drawer and handed them to Meliya. Meliya took this as a sign that she was supposed to cut Caillyn's hair. Needless to say a high pitched squeal is all that came out of my mouth as I saw all that hair on the floor. Melilya was sent to time out for her own safety.
6. Safety Time out: Caillyn decided that she would help me with my chores again. Instead of putting her clothes in the dirty clothes hamper after getting dressed for bed, she decided they needed to be washed. So she took my new bottle of laundry soap out to put some in the washer. She had learned from her previous laundry experience that less is more. Instead of pouring the soap into the dispenser directly as before, she tried to pour it into the cap first. Unfortunately, a full bottle is too hard for 3 year old's hands to control. I counted around 20 loads worth of laundry soap as I scooped it off the floor. Of course, that doesn't include what I couldn't pick up. Yes, that was about 3 weeks worth of laundry soap in a nice, all be it HUGE, puddle on the floor! I was crying as I pictured the suds that were destined to form when I tried to mop the rest of the soap up off the floor.
Yeah, there's another one! Since I don't have enough to do it a third time, I'll just let you in on the latest events they have blessed us with!
1. While on a visit to my mother-in-law's house, Caillyn was found emptying the trash can into the toilet in order to retrieve a bottle she insisted I had thrown away. (It was on the bathroom counter.)
2. One morning Caillyn aparently had grown tired of Meliya and Mommy being the only ones to get Bryleigh out of bed. This morning she decided it was her turn to get Bryleigh out. Thankfully this ended with Brlyeigh belly flopping on top of Caillyn and Caillyn falling neatly on her back between the ottoman and rocking chair. We have since had the discussion about who is allowed to get Bryleigh out of bed!
3. Samson has done his fair share to keep me busy when the girls aren't. (It's hard to imagine, I know!) Despite the constant need to be petted, we often take him out to our side yard to run hard and burn off energy. However, he has taken up eating other dog's poop while out. Disgusting I know! Unfortunately, that is not the end of the story. Last Sunday morning, he started stirring when I rolled over in bed about 30 minutes before the alarm. I told him to lay down because I wanted to enjoy every last minute of sleep I could if possible. He was a little persistent, but eventually laid down. When the alarm went off 30 minutes later, I reached to hit the snooze when something else hit me. It was a stench that you would not believe. Yes, he had an accident. No, it was not a pretty one. I turned on the lamp to find that he had left a trail of poop at the end of the bed that was about 2-3 feet long ending in 3 puddles of diarrhea. I swear a barnyard smells like a bouquet of flowers compared to that! Needless to say, we didn't get to experience our peaceful, quiet time before the girls got up that morning!
I hope this strikes your funny bone. In some instances, it has ours, but others will take more time! I hope you enjoy your day!
The 6 Degrees of Separation from Tears
Caillyn stamping furniture with her flower ink stamp.
1. Furniture: Meliya and Caillyn breaking all 4 drawers of their chest of drawers so that their clothes are held hostage. Now they can only reach their dresses without help.
2. Dress: Samson (our 11 month old yellow lab) apparently was so attention starved that he curled up and cuddled with a Barbie dress. This is better than pulling stuff out of the dirty clothes which he usually does.
3. Dirty clothes: Caillyn tried to help with laundry by pouring a 1/2 cup of soap in the high effeciency washer that only uses about 1 Tablespoon of soap per load.
4. Soap: Meliya tried to give herself a bath by emptying 3/4 of a new bottle of body wash in the bath tub while I was getting the baby dressed.
5. Baby: The girls were playing with their My Little Pony playsets when I told them to pick up the tiny pieces so that I could get Bryleigh up. We can't have the baby eat them. No sooner did the words come out of my mouth before Samson had chewed up some tiny plastic grapes. Daddy is going to have to watch for that green in the poo!
6. Daddy: Mommy wanted to cry like a baby after all of this happened within the 2 days Daddy was away on a buisness trip. I'm ready for my padded cell now!
Not bad for my first time playing that game. How about another go at it?
6 Degrees of Separation from Tears, Part 2
Meliya was wound up after bath one night while Dave was out of town. She was practicing her long jump from one bed to the other in her room, but did not quite make it. She belly bounced off of the side of the mattress and landed on the floor in front of the bed from which she had jumped off.
1. Bed: I went to get Bryleigh out of her crib one morning after hearing her play. When I opened the door, a strange blue light was shining from her bed. It was the puck light we keep at her changing table. I was thoroughly baffled as to how the light could have possibly traveled from the other side of the room to reach Bryleigh's bed until Meliya explained how she had tossed it in the night before when looking for Bryleigh's pacifier. Bryleigh didn't mind, she was enjoying turning on the light herself.
2. For herself: One day, Caillyn didn't want to wait for me to pour her next dose of cough medicine. She waited for me to leave the room and climbed up on the cabinet, got the couch syrup out of the cupboard and poured herself a dose. Amazingly, she only spilled one small drop. Thankfully, I caught her before she created an emergency.
3. Emergency: While I was taking care of Bryleigh and Dave was getting dinner started one evening, Caillyn decided to capitalize on the opportunity to play with his work phone/blackberry. It's official, we have talked with and about 911 now. Thankfully we were able to cut off the chastising from the operator before any emergency personel arrived. That would have been a mess.
4. Mess: One morning before nap time the girls decided to play with a bin full of homemade activities. In this bin were puzzles, button and lace type games, stickers, drawing supplies, and cut up straws used for patterns. Every piece of each of the activities ended up on the dining room floor. It is not easy picking up little pieces of straws, buttons, strings, stickers, paper clips, zip loc bags, etc while a 10 month old is crawling around!
5. The floor: While I was busy vacuuming one day, Meliya and Caillyn were playing on my bed. In the 60 seconds it took me to walk from the kitchen back to my bedroom, Caillyn found the hair cutting scissors in my drawer and handed them to Meliya. Meliya took this as a sign that she was supposed to cut Caillyn's hair. Needless to say a high pitched squeal is all that came out of my mouth as I saw all that hair on the floor. Melilya was sent to time out for her own safety.
6. Safety Time out: Caillyn decided that she would help me with my chores again. Instead of putting her clothes in the dirty clothes hamper after getting dressed for bed, she decided they needed to be washed. So she took my new bottle of laundry soap out to put some in the washer. She had learned from her previous laundry experience that less is more. Instead of pouring the soap into the dispenser directly as before, she tried to pour it into the cap first. Unfortunately, a full bottle is too hard for 3 year old's hands to control. I counted around 20 loads worth of laundry soap as I scooped it off the floor. Of course, that doesn't include what I couldn't pick up. Yes, that was about 3 weeks worth of laundry soap in a nice, all be it HUGE, puddle on the floor! I was crying as I pictured the suds that were destined to form when I tried to mop the rest of the soap up off the floor.
Yeah, there's another one! Since I don't have enough to do it a third time, I'll just let you in on the latest events they have blessed us with!
1. While on a visit to my mother-in-law's house, Caillyn was found emptying the trash can into the toilet in order to retrieve a bottle she insisted I had thrown away. (It was on the bathroom counter.)
2. One morning Caillyn aparently had grown tired of Meliya and Mommy being the only ones to get Bryleigh out of bed. This morning she decided it was her turn to get Bryleigh out. Thankfully this ended with Brlyeigh belly flopping on top of Caillyn and Caillyn falling neatly on her back between the ottoman and rocking chair. We have since had the discussion about who is allowed to get Bryleigh out of bed!
3. Samson has done his fair share to keep me busy when the girls aren't. (It's hard to imagine, I know!) Despite the constant need to be petted, we often take him out to our side yard to run hard and burn off energy. However, he has taken up eating other dog's poop while out. Disgusting I know! Unfortunately, that is not the end of the story. Last Sunday morning, he started stirring when I rolled over in bed about 30 minutes before the alarm. I told him to lay down because I wanted to enjoy every last minute of sleep I could if possible. He was a little persistent, but eventually laid down. When the alarm went off 30 minutes later, I reached to hit the snooze when something else hit me. It was a stench that you would not believe. Yes, he had an accident. No, it was not a pretty one. I turned on the lamp to find that he had left a trail of poop at the end of the bed that was about 2-3 feet long ending in 3 puddles of diarrhea. I swear a barnyard smells like a bouquet of flowers compared to that! Needless to say, we didn't get to experience our peaceful, quiet time before the girls got up that morning!
I hope this strikes your funny bone. In some instances, it has ours, but others will take more time! I hope you enjoy your day!
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