Chris and Jenni

Chris is doing much better today. Last night he came home about 5:30pm and went strait to bed without any dinner. He didn’t wake up until about 6:00 this morning. But then he went to work, without having eaten anything all day yesterday, then losing what little he had, then not eating anything until this morning before work. He was feeling pretty weak all day but says he’s feeling better now, after being really weak all day.

To be honest, I’m so thankful he’s feeling better. For one, I hate to see my husband sick, and I have been having awful headaches and back pain this week. I’m going to the chiropractor again tonight, I went last week and it usually doesn’t help. Please pray that the chiropractor can do some lasting good, I hate to take Ibuprofen while I’m pregnant but sometimes I have to just to get through the day :( This has definitely been one of those weeks, along with last week as well. I need some relief though, I’m starting to get tired of sitting around all day, trying to get over a headache :(

Well, enough of the sob story, I better find the energy to go make the family something to eat! The kids are suggestion Mac ‘n’ Cheese and I think they might be onto something!

On Monday, yesterday, I put all of Guenna’s precious binkies in my top drawer. All the binkie’s that I could find that is, I’m sure that several will turn up later on.  Chris and I have been dreading this day, Guenna LOVES her binkies and has required at least two to sleep with for naps and bedtime. But mama got sick of hearing the fits and screaming, so I told Chris that I wanted to attempt a shot at getting rid of those precious little sucky things :)

I’ve asked several people to pray that this transition would be a somewhat easy one (though I really didn’t have much faith that it would help;) And I must say, I think the Lord has heard my prayers. So far Guenna has not cried one time for her binkies! I’ve made a good effort to be as positive and cheerful as possible, and tried to help her to be a positive and cheerful “big” girl. I’ve painted her fingernails and toenails and gave her a manicure today with lotion and pushed her little cuticles back, she loved it! Whenever she mentions wanting her bink, I say, “Oh, I know honey, sometimes it’s hard being a big girl isn’t it?” And then I change the subject to something more interesting or give her a “big girl” task to help mommy with the housework. Usually, unless it’s nap time, it does the trick. Naptime and bedtime have been surprisingly easy, she’s not thrown fits and has been fine with holding onto her babies instead.

So, we aren’t completely out of the woods, but I’m going to venture to say that we almost have three down, and one to go :) Aidan still sucks his thumb sometimes at night (but only if I forget to put a bandaid on his thumb, otherwise he does really well). Cait is a big thumb sucker, but I really don’t mind. She doesn’t throw fits about it, she never loses it and we don’t have to spend $20 a month replacing the ones that she drops out of the stroller! :)

I better get going, Chris came home sick today. He threw up on the way home :( He doesn’t get sick very often so I better see if he needs me.

Before you start to thinking, “wow, Jenni is quite elated to title this post ‘The Perfect Bride’ and then post a picture of herself!” hear me out. This is actually a story about my son, he’s a dreamer.

The other morning, Aidan and Guenna and I were laying in bed, they had woken up a little too early and Guenna was a little grouchy so we all went back into my bed in order to for Guenna and the rest of us to have a much better day. Aidan of course wasn’t sleepy, and feeling very talkative like normal. He was looking up on the wall in our bedroom, at a picture of Chris and I on our wedding day. It’s a whimsical photograph of the two of us in our wedding clothes, him looking at me and me looking dreamily at the camera, but obviously thinking about his eyes on me, and not really thinking about the camera at all. Aidan laid there for a few moments looking at the photo, then he started thinking outloud, I say thinking because I could tell he was in one of those dreamy moods. He started talking about his “bride” as he called her.

“When my bride and I get married, she will have a long white dress that is so long that she almost trips over it when she walks…All brides are beautiful in their white dress…( I was responding to him, but it was almost as if I wasn’t there, he was just sort of thinking out loud)…my bride is going to be beautiful, she is going to have long white gloves and a crown…you know, it’s too bad you can’t marry your sister, because Guenna would make the perfect bride. Sigh.”

What I find interesting is that the bride he described looked an awful lot like the picture of his mommy on the wall :) And in spite of all the fighting and arguing that Guenna and Aidan do, I’m so glad that he thinks she would make a perfect bride. He has a lot of his daddy in him. I may have looked beautiful on my wedding day, but when the rubber meets the road, we fight sometimes and he loves me through it. And we come out stronger on the other side. One day Aidan will realize that there are other “possibilities” outside of our family:)  I’m glad that he hasn’t put a name to his “perfect bride” yet. The day is coming just around the corner. I think he is going to make the perfect husband one day too!

Here was the scenario the other day, sitting at the lunch table with all the kids:

Cait was throwing a fit about something. She’s developed an aversion to the word, “no.” I’m not exactly sure what I was telling her but I do remember trying to get her to say “yes, mama.” She was looking at me, almost glaring at me. She was not smiling, and she had this look of determination like, “I will NOT say ‘yes mama’!” This went on for a few minutes, between her looking at me and hearing me calmly saying, “Cait, say ‘yes mama’” To which she as learned to nod her head and say “mama,” it’s quite cute when she does it :)

Like I said, several minutes had gone by with no response from our sweet little rascal. Then Eamon piped in, in a very sweet high pitched, mommy-like voice, “Cait, say ‘yes mama.” She had been looking stubbornly at mommy, then apon hearing her sweet brother making a request of her she quickly looked at him, huge smile on her face, she nodded her head and said, “mama!” Of course everyone cheered and I laid down my momentary feeling of disappointment that she wouldn’t respond to me, and took this as a victory from my 15-month-old baby, swayed by her peers to do the right thing.

At that moment I was realizing what a blessing it is to have mulitple children, of multiple ages and multiple personalities (not the individual children, having more than one personality, anyone confused? ;)  What I witnessed was the blessing of positive peer pressure, right around our lunch table. The more mature, three-year-old, seeing that his sister was having a hard time obeying her mama, spoke up and encouraged her to do what he has already learned to do (or is the process of learning), to obey mommy. Had the other children laughed at her naughty behavior, this is what she would have continued to do.  Instead, my three-year-old son encouraged her to choose obedience.  I was struck by how often scenarios like this occur in our home, and what a natural blessing it is to have peers in your family to learn from.

So has Cait learned her lesson? Well, let’s just say she’s a work in process like the rest of us, and being the youngest, she’s got a LONG way to go! But she’s got an advantage, learning from her big brothers, and hopefully learning a thing or two from her very strong-willed sister ;) It’s a fun journey, most of the time :)

Tonight at the dinner table we decided to throw out the question for fun (who knows, maybe one of our kids has a good idea?) “Okay guys, what are some good boy names for our baby?”

Aidan- “Thomas!” As in Thomas the Tank Engine. Um, love the name Thomas but don’t want to name him after a toy train.

Aidan again- “Gordon!” As in Gordon from Thomas the Tank Engine. No trains please :)

Eamon - “Wawly!” As in “Wall-E” from the movie they just went to see with our neighbor. No robots either please.

Eamon’s next suggestion - “Biggers” What? Where did that come from? The suggestions digressed greatly after this one. Next came, Diggers, then Piggers. We stopped it there. Okay maybe Guenna has a good one.

Guenna - “Light-ning Na-Queen!” Okay, what’s the deal? No, our kids don’t sit in front of the TV all day! But obviously those shows have left a mark on our children’s sweet little brains. Okay, back to square one, I don’t think we are going to get any real suggestions from our children, considering they are all under five. But they had a lot of fun with it :) Hopefully they wont be too disappointed when we don’t use any of their suggestions.

Any of you want to make a suggestion?

We had a fun weekend, with a garage sale on Saturday and a fun day with our good friends the McPherson’s after church yesterday. This is Rene, she is 36 weeks pregnant and hoping that she doesn’t have the baby this week since her husband will be gone all week, building a house! She usually has her babies a few weeks early so we are praying that this baby holds out for at least another week to wait for daddy! We’ve all been rejoicing with Rene through this pregnancy, while it hasn’t been an easy pregnancy it has been much better than her last two. She with her last ones had severe morning sickness throughout her pregnancy and was on bedrest very early on, with this one she was really sick at first but has experienced a much more “normal” pregnancy than any of the others. So, who knows, maybe this baby will decide to just be “normal” all around and come around his due date:) We’ll see!

So, do I look pregnant in this picture? My friend Nicole was telling me that the other pictures I’ve posted I don’t look pregnant. I’m 26 weeks and feeling pretty pregnant these days. I had some really bad leg swelling this weekend and decided to buy some of those lovely support knee highs. They really seemed to help yesterday. My veins have gotten pretty bad so I’m thinking the swelling is due to the veins. Well, this too shall pass :) Better get back on my feet and get dinner started!

My sister sent me this picture of my sweet little nephew Eian, is he just absolutely irresistible or what?! I just want to kiss those little lips!

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a post on my Homemaking Blog, but I did one this morning about the beets we harvested from our garden a couple nights ago. So exciting, and they are so beautiful!

How often are you supposed to wash your books?

Aidan did tell me that there was a book in the washing machine. I was having the boys help me load the washer and he had mentioned that there was a book in the washing machine. I checked but didn’t see anything, I just thought he was mistaken about what he was seeing. I even moved the clothes around a bit. Well, this book along with all it’s little washed pieces, was right on top of the clothes when I opened up the washer after it’s cycle. The thing to the right is what the dryer caught :)

I’ve been posting much more frequently as of late, don’t count on this roll continuing, it could definitely stop as abruptly as it started so don’t get used to it ;) I thought I would type out a few of my thoughts while Chris is on an errand to Wal-mart to purchase the VERY much needed toilet seat.

Ours broke this weekend. Okay, so that is not completely true. Ours broke several weeks ago (oops while I was reading this to my husband he corrected me) 8 months ago, and my brilliant husband, encouraged by his money conscious wife, duct taped the toilet seat. It actually did the trick and I think he felt pretty proud of himself. Only this past weekend, the other side broke. Out of absolute need he went to the pantry and retrieved the duct tape once again, but this time was not nearly as successful in masking our toilet seat to near perfection like the first attempt. He did offer to put a piece of wood underneath the seat to stabalize it better, but I relented and handed him $6 to go and purchase a new toilet seat. I think the whole family, and any guests that we might have in the near future, will benefit from the purchase.

Have you ever reluctantly sent your husband out the door with a list? Tonight I had a list of things I needed at Wal-Mart. Bandaides, cheap ones for my son who is desperately trying to stop sucking his thumb, I put one on his thumb every night, so I want the cheap ones. Rubber gloves, size large, pink or a feminine color if they have them, I wash dishes by hand and have found rubber gloves really save my hands from cracking. Anyway, I had a few other things to buy,  am I crazy? It’s so hard for me to send him out the door with this list. I love my husband dearly, he’s amazing in so many ways but we are different. He is an opptomist, I tend to see the negative much easier. He is a spender, and I would rather wear holey jeans for two years than buy a new pair. And so consequently when I send him out the door with the list, the things that come back in his bag tend to look a little prettier than if I had brought them home ;) Well, he just got home and I’m anxious to see what he got!

Wow, I’m impressed! He was perfect, didn’t go over budget and he even found pink rubber gloves and they fit perfect, I like them even better than my other ones! So, now it’s my turn to return his wishes. He wants me to go to a bridal shower this week and my first thought has been (it’s an hour away), but what about the gas money?! So I will have fun shopping for a gift and will have a great time enjoying a night away with the ladies, while my very generous husband stays home to take care of our children. Thank you Lord for such a great husband!

Yesterday would not be one of those days that I would entitle, “I was a really good mom today” day. Well, at least part of the day wasn’t. Breakfast was finished (I had made my kids Mickey Mouse waffles, Aidan had been asking for them for several days), it was a cloudy morning and I had spent a good portion of the last two weeks outdoors, tending to my gardens. I had already declared, “today is a cleaning day kiddos!” So they knew. They knew, yes I am talking about my 5, 3, 2 and 1 year old. They knew that on cleaning day we clean all the house, the dining room, living room, kitchen, bathroom, hallway, and their bedroom. And they (the ones who have made about 95% of the mess that I’ve let accumulate over the past two weeks, but they still did it, not me) would be helping me clean-up all the mess. They’ve actually gotten really good at getting into the routine of doing most of the picking up and I just usually direct traffic, because if I don’t, they don’t do anything much more than playing with the toys I’ve told them to put away.

So, we were on a roll, and I was feeling pretty okay about our progress. But, we were not done, and I was starting to sense that the natives were getting restless because now I’m starting to see little messes where our just cleaned floor had been picked up! I’m wanting to get it all just right, once today, if even for just a few moments, “I WOULD LIKE TO SEE MY HOUSE CLEAN!” Cait is really not that much of a helper quite yet and we are working on the rest of them. But she committed “the sin” at just the wrong moment. If it had been an hour earlier, or even an hour later, it wouldn’t have mattered. I was trying to get the kitchen done when Aidan came into the kitchen to let me know that “Cait just dumped water on the rug.” This is her new thing. She demands likes to take a drink out of someone’s cup and then immediately dumps the rest on the floor.  Unfortunately we have this “rule” about taking drinks out of the kitchen, and Eamon had “forgotten” and left his 32 oz jug on the floor, in the livingroom. Of course, Cait delightedly found this treasure and took a little sip and then dumped the other 31.5 ounces on the rug.

Mom to the rescue? Not quite. Maybe this is where Guenna derived the term “Mommy’s a  monster“? I was angry. Not at Cait, of course she still doesn’t know any better, but my 3 year old, now he’s “been told!” I proceeded to tell the children, remind them ONCE AGAIN, that they are “NEVER TO TAKE WATER OUT OF THE KITCHEN!!!” And this is why guys, do you see this water? Guenna, my precious two year-old-daughter says, “you screaming mommy?” I do have to add this disclaimer though, she accuses me of screaming when I barely raise my voice, I think she instinctively knows when I’m in the wrong and likes to point it out ;) I said, “I am angry Guenna, that my children are NOT OBEYING ME!” Okay, so what does that say about the last two hours of cleaning they just worked really hard to accomplish with me?

So, I knew I needed to calm down, and I knew I was in the wrong. I got them to the table and I finished getting their lunch ready and then after I had calmed down I asked them all to come into the room and I apologized and asked them to forgive me. I explained that it was wrong of me to get so angry and that I’m working on not doing that. They all had little smirks on their faces while they said, “I forgive you mommy.” Then Aidan said something to me that just blew me away. He told me, “When you ask someone to forgive you, it means you wont ever do it again.” Whoa, is that what he expects of me? Or is he just clarifying? So I responded, “Well, when you disobey me and you ask me to forgive you, does that mean you wont ever disobey me again?” “No.” And I said, “Well son, I’m a sinner just like you. And God is still helping me to not sin, I’m changing but it doesn’t mean that I wont do it again even though I don’t want to.” “Well, when you are old, you don’t sin anymore.” Hmmm, I can tell that I’m dealing with a real perfectionist here, “No, that’s not true Aidan, did you know that nana and papa still sin (sorry to uncover you guys like that!;)” Well, he didn’t and I think he was just a little disappointed, but that’s reality folks. We all have sinned, and we all still sin, that is why we need His grace and forgiveness, daily.

As this interchange with my children, especially my five-year-old son was taking place I was really beginning to grasp how extremely important it is that we confess our sins to our children. We have our children confess their sins to us all the time, and ask us for forgiveness and they do it with oneanother. But in order for them to really grasp the importance of confession they need to see it in us. Otherwise they will begin to believe that one day they will arrive to that age where confession is no longer necessary. Like, now I’m 18, I’m an adult and now I can do what I want and I don’t have to confess my sins anymore! Freedom. It’s almost as though this passage into adulthood gives them passage into freedom to do what they will, without guilt or the need for confession. No wonder why we have so many teens who fall by the wayside as soon as they get over to that greener grass. The other thing that I can see confession doing in my children, it connects us. They now feel that we are more on the same level, she’s a sinner, and I’m a sinner. I think that we parents are afraid to confess to our children that we were in the wrong becasue they will somehow lose respect for us. But really it does the opposite. When I’ve confessed my sins to my children, immediately afterward there is this feeling that I get from them like, “maybe I’m not doing so bad, even she messes up sometimes!”  I feel more connected to them and I actually feel that they respect me more. And they get a real understanding that this life is a process of becoming more like Christ, we never get to leave this process, but we live a life longing to be more like him no matter how long we’ve been a Christian.

So all of that to say. Have you sinned against your children? Admit it in your heart, confess your sins to your children. Humble yourself and ask their forgiveness. And then move on. Don’t beat yourself up, let them forgive you and let Him forgive you. He’s still working on all of us and He wants to use our children to refine us, refinement is not punishment. He refines us because He loves us. Those of us who have a lot of children must need much more refinement ;)

Well I better get going, I need to play fetch with Eamon’s dog, Curly (Aidan, and I’m Eamon’s mommy).  Oops, now I have two dogs and they both want to fetch. I love this life!

Here’s an update from Tam that she left in the comments. I thought I would post it just in case some of you missed it in the comments.

Hello, all. Because I have to pump at 1 a.m., half and hour from now, I’m going to post an update here. :-) Talk to the nursery about what tomorrow holds. They said he would definitely not be checking out at 11 a.m., the anticipated check out time. Our nurse said she is going to post us as a late check out. So, unless they have extra rooms and we can stay longer, we will be checking out at 3 p.m. Friday, without our son. Eian needs to have been outside of the incubator for 24 hours, room oxygen, at normal respiration rate. He’s basically breathing normal now, at only 2% higher than room oxygen. Another added feature is that he was coming kind of jaundice, so they have him under a UV light. It’s doing the trick. He’d only been under for maybe 3 hours and he was already looking better and he made really good doodoo while I was feeding him. :-) First diaper change was a doozy! With all the wires and the incubator, I was glad San could hold one leg on the other side while I held a hand and leg in one hand and cleaned him up with the other. Ha! I wish we’d gotten a recording of that! He just laid there and watched us clean him up. He was so cute! My sister is right he is a strong boy and he’ll be out of there in no time. God is our healer! Amen!? Give me a witness!
He has given us much grace to deal with all of this. An incredible diversion from my plans for postpartum bonding. But, I’m doing what I can to make sure he gets as much contact with us as we can. I’ve started pumping and I’m able pump exactly what he needs each time. I was warned, “Don’t be discouraged if you only get a few drips to start out with.” I thought to myself, “Whatever. I’ll get what my son needs.” Sure enough, God is good and has helped my body to be ready. . . and what he needs right now is his mama’s liquid gold and contact with San and I coming down to feed him every 3 hours. Speaking of which, it’s time to shut my eyes for 20 minutes, before I attach the torture contraption. :) God bless you all!!! And thank you for your love and prayers!!! Give God glory!
More updates to come! Thank you, Sis, for helping the rest of the world keep updated! You are wonderful! Aloha! Call me tomorrow.

I’ll just add my own two cents worth (that must be where Aidan gets it ;) It’s got to be so hard to think of not taking your baby home with you, but, these days will fly by so quickly and he will be home so soon and will have all the bonding he needs. I know God has given them a good perspective and patience as their little one is getting all better. I think that my sister is handling it all much better than I would have :) I don’t know though, I’ve never been in a situation where my baby needed to be in the hospital right after birth.

Another side-note, my kids keep looking at the pictures of Eian and whenever they see them they get excited, they want to hold him and see him so bad! Yesterday when Cait saw him she said excitedly, “BABY!” She loves babies. The hardest part for me is knowing that I wont get to hold him until he’s about 9 months old so I will miss out on those precious newborn days. But, that’s life right? I am thankful that we get to see them in March, they have been so good about coming to visit us even though plane tickets can be quite costly. Well, I better get going now, I need to eat something before the heartburn takes a hold!

Update to my update:
Tam said that Eian is doing really well and thinks he’s on schedule to leave tomorrow. She sounds like she’s recovering quickly and is really excited about getting to hold Eian without any wires or tubes! She got to nurse Eian today and he did really well! Yeah! So we are praying that their evening with driving back and forth to nurse the baby wont be too long, and that he will be stable all day so they can take him home tomorrow and adjust to a “normal” life with a newborn. Thanks again for your prayers! Please stop by their site, they have posted a video of the cute little guy, he is so beautiful!

Yesterday we had the privilege of spending the afternoon playing in one of the local park with the Searles family. Sue and most of her troops were camping this week and they went out of their way to come spend the day with us, what a fun day! Aidan, who is pretty shy around new people, was so bummed when we had to leave and he keeps telling me that he wants to meet them there again really soon! We all had a great time spending the day with you, and we do hope to see you again soon!

Guenna and Lily especially had a lot of fun playing together, they were so cute playing together. And the boys had lots of fun playing with the “big” boys, and Cait had tons of fun dragging Ezekiel all over the park :) Thanks again you guys! We love you, and hope you have a safe trip back home. You have such a beautiful family! Blessings!

Talked to Tam this morning. She said that Eian is doing better today but still not 100% so he is still in the nursery. They had him on 25% oxygen in the little incubator and are weaning him down to room level which is only 21% so he’s almost there. Tam is anxious to get him out of there and to get him in her room so she can be with him at all times. It’s so hard to not be able to be with him so please pray with us that he will be completely stable today and she can take him to her room and then home tomorrow. In my humble opinion, the baby will recover much quicker when he’s close to his mama, like he’s used to.

Tam is doing really well, feeling much better today. Must have been that night of sleeping without contractions every 3 minutes! That will do it every time :) Thanks for all your prayers for Tam, and San, and baby Eian. I know they really appreciate it!

Welcome to the world baby Eian! He was born at 4:27pm (Hawai’i time) and weighed 8 lbs 4 oz. You are such a beautiful little guy! We are so proud of your mama and papa, they’ve worked really hard to bring you here. Can’t wait to meet you sweetie!

Aidan, Eamon, Guenna and Cait were all huddled around the computer looking at the picture of baby Eian. Guenna said, “Baby Eian belly button?” Eamon wanted to know what the blue thing to the left was and was asking if we could go to Hawai’i now because he wants to hold him, Aidan was confused because he was naked and then said, “he looks like a Japanese guy!” :) And Cait I think just wished she were there so she could poke him in the eye, or belly button, or whatever body part she could reach. We love you baby Eian and wish we were there so we could see you in person, you are a sweet little baby and will bring many many joys and laughter and sunshine into your mommy and daddy’s life. Bless you all!

UPDATE:
Just talked to Tam, they are all doing pretty well but Tam has a bit of a fever and her heart rate is up. Think she just needs some food and a good few days of rest. But Eian aspirated some meconium and is in the nursery on oxygen right now. He’s got a bubble thing over his head so he can breathe without having the tube on his face, I bet he looks like a little astronaut :) Please pray for him to recover quickly and for peace. Tam wants to nurse him right away but he has to be breathing stable first.

Another update:
I talked to Tam again and they said he would be in the nursery for at least 24 hours, possibly 48. They did a chest x-ray and he’s got a lot of fluid in there. I know they are anxious to just hold him and be with him so please pray for grace and a quick recovery for little Eian. And that nursing wont be a problem once he’s breathing stable and has the fluid out of his lungs. He looks like a strong little guy so I’m sure he will be just fine, it’s just hard for a mama who’s worked so hard to not be able to be with her baby right away. Hang in there sis, hopefully tomorrow!