Remember the how long the days were when we were kids? Time almost stood still. Christmas took at least 2 years to roll around. And summer vacation seemed endless.
Now, at 43, the days pass all too quickly. Fall seemed to whiz by this year and we’re already into freezing temperatures at night and 40 degree days. Where does the time go?
My oldest is almost ten and my baby is four. Wasn’t it yesterday that I had three in diapers?
Today was the very last day of school. We celebrated by swimming last night and today. Food was in order too as we dined at Pizza Hut last night for dinner. What a treat….we ended up at Pizza Hut on buffet night. You should have seen my guys eat. My littlest one…you know, the one with straight A’s this year. Yep, that’s him….He ate more than I did. I think I’ve seen the very first of “You mean we can eat all we want?” If I counted correctly he had two pieces of pizza, a plate of peaches and a gazillion cinnamon sticks. He out-ate both of his older brothers. Must be something about being so smart this year made him hungry last night. While he graduated from K5 the other homeschooled kids got trophies from mom and dad!
Boys!!!
I don’t know how many of you guys that read my blog have ever heard me speak of my oldest son’s birth. He was born on Christmas Day 9 years ago. I was admitted into the hospital at midnight Christmas Eve.
Fast forward to today. Our oldest son has been our hardest son to raise. He’s very emotional, strong-willed and just down right pig headed (I’m sure he gets it all from his dad – NOT!) We have days that both my husband and I are ready to throw up our hands, throw in the towel with certainty that we have NO IDEA what we are doing as parents.
Yesterday was one of those days…..a rough one.
So I pray and I pray hard for this son of mine. I pray that God would chase him down with all that He is and grab a hold of his heart and make it His own. I pray for a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and to others. I pray for a child who loves the Lord with all that he is.
And I fall back on the words the Lord spoke to me that night in the hospital when he was born. I knew God had chosen Christmas Day for a purpose. I was 11 or so days late and had such a peace that he would come when God wanted him to. The night after he was born I was awake, trying to figure out the nursing thing, and asking over and over, “Why Christmas Day Lord? I know you chose it for a reason”. I had praise and worship music playing, it was dark, my first born was in my arms and I felt God’s answer to my question as if He was standing beside my chair……”Because he is my gift to you. I never want you to forget that He is MY gift.”
I began to cry. Wow. For God to speak to me so clearly, choose a night so holy, and orchestrate it all for me to know……
Indescribable….
God knew that 9 years later I’d still be relying on those words from Him. Our first-born has been our most difficult child since day one. He had colic as a baby and didn’t sleep for almost 3 months. We prayed, the church prayed, we cried, begged my mom to quit her job and come stay with us and had lots of help. Friends helped with him for most of the first year of his life. It was a blessing.
Still today I remember the Lord’s words to me as I struggle with parenting my first born. When I’m in the aftermath of a hard day of parenting knowing I have no idea what I’m doing I remember the words…
“He is MY gift to you.”
And I’m encouraged to keep fighting the fight and doing battle on behalf of my son because I know there is one out there who wants his heart and hates him with all that he is. And I know the one I serve is bigger, stronger, mightier, holier and is all about changing me, my husband and our family as we raise one of “His gifts to us”.
Every once in a while you stumble onto an idea that really makes life easier. Like OreoSouza’s Cleaning Technique
that she got from Indianamom.
Well, here is ours.
My husband bought this “nifty” soap and shampoo dispenser at Home Depot the other day for $9 and some change. He loves gadgets and this one works great for us. Now the boys can not dump the entire bottle of body wash in the tub to make bubbles! OOPS
(or so they say).
The buttons are easy to push and “just the right amount” of soap comes out. I have two different flavors in each side. Don’t tell them, they think it’s actually shampoo and soap. We’re still at the age we use that all over body wash that doesn’t cause tears. I think Suave’s only 1.00.
Of course since the kiddos had something in their shower we had to too. This one was about $20something. Not only does my husband love this nifty little dispenser but it helps him to save on the amount of shampoo he uses. Just two squirts (so I’m told) and he’s good.
Now, if I can just get one full of Mary Kay Cleanser……
IN HIM
julie
An update on the Roberts Family who had quadruplets recently. You can also see an article on them on November 23rd, 2005 @ In love we weep for one another.
Their family’s website is www.expandingrobertses.com
Love,
Julie
Dear Friends & Family,
Merry Post-Christmas & Happy Pre-New Year! The latest updates on everyone…
Ashley had a great Christmas. Any notions of a small-scale Christmas were quickly dispelled, as friends, relatives, the First Christian Church Youth Group, and the Postal Service lavished lots and lots of gifts on Ashley. No possible way to describe how much fun she had, and how much fun we had. She’s still loving life with Grandma and Grandpa, and is becoming an increasingly sweet, increasingly smart, increasingly talkative “big girl”.
Benjamin is weighing in at 4 lb. 13 oz., and still doing better than anyone. He actually moved to an open crib, as he is able to regulate his temperature pretty well on his own now. His belly button started bleeding a few days ago, and he is finishing a round of antibiotics to make sure that any potential infection is knocked out. We would love to see Benjamin home with us in a couple of weeks from now!
Casey went back onto CPAP a few days ago, which consists of a rhinoceros-looking mask and hat. Not fun for picture-taking, but helpful for him for right now, and he is scheduled to be back on nasal prongs on New Year’s Eve. Casey has a reddish-purple mark on the underside of his upper lip—pray that this is simply a blood bruise, and not a hemangioma (a hemangioma is a sort of raised birthmark that can grow very large for a number of months before becoming small again—it wouldn’t be a good thing to be on his lip). Casey weighs 4 lb. 0 oz. and is still doing very well overall.
Danielle is this week’s superstar! We can finally see her nose, as she came off of CPAP just the other day and is now breathing through the nasal prongs. So far, so good. She now has a cute little nose to go with her big pretty eyes. She is lagging behind weightwise, at 3 lb. 9 oz. and is getting antibiotics for what is probably a slight urinary tract infection. Not out of the woods for a while, but she has made such amazing progress since her first weekend with us.
The candles pictured are ones that we lit on Christmas Eve and Christmas, the beginning of a tradition. We wanted to remember Emily at this Christmas, but also wanted to give thanks for the little ones that we have been blessed with, but also wanted first and foremost to honor and celebrate the Baby whom “Christmas is all about” (Ashley would love to tell you His name). Wal-Mart had a nice seven-candle set-up that accommodated us rather nicely: The white candle in the center represents the pure light of the baby Christ; the small white candle is in memory of Emily, who is with Him today; the two blue candles and the two purple candles are in celebration of Benjamin and Casey, Ashley and Danielle, respectively; and the green candle represents new life—the new life that Jesus came to bring all of us, the new life that Emily is enjoying, the new lives of our four little ones that we’re enjoying, and the new life that many infertile couples are asking God to give them, as we were just a few years ago.
Various odds and ends: *Lisa had another good cardiologist check-up. *It would be quite rude to give away someone’s age in a mass e-mail, but I will say that my Dad’s birthday on Friday started with an early morning party of sorts, as we downloaded and played the song “When I’m 64” for him. *If you are suffering from snow and bitter cold in your corner of the world right now, we feel bad for you, but we can’t relate at all. Sunny and high 70’s most days in Phoenix this week. *The old nerve-damaged laptop I’m borrowing from Savannah Christian Church died the other day, but the hard drive was resuscitated at Circuit City so that we can back up all of the files that were on it; we just sprang for a new personal laptop, so that we won’t have such a scare again. *I wrote the babies a NICU version of The Night Before Christmas, in an attempt to translate a little American folklore into their preemie world—if you want to see it, go to www.expandingrobertses.com and click the underlined link in the text to “Emily Anne Roberts” and find it on that page. *The deadline passed for the Smartest Nurse Contest that I referred to a couple of e-mails ago; it yielded nineteen entries. They were asked to guess what date the last of our babies would be released (i.e. when might we head home?). The 19 guesses ranged from January 28 to February 28. We will see who the winner is, but of course we would love to see The Amazing Jane run away with it with her January 28 wager.
Thank you to all of you who remembered us, prayed for us, and blessed us in so many ways this Christmas. It was a different one, and in some ways a difficult one, yet definitely lived up to the cliché “the best Christmas ever”. We pray God’s blessings upon you in 2006.
In Christ,
Phil, Lisa, Ashley, Benjamin, Casey, Danielle
& Emily (November 4-23, 2005)
Don’t you love it when you see all the hard work finally paying
off? All the “Be nice to your sister!” comments. All the
“We don’t hit in this family.” All the “We love each other and
help each other.” comments.
I actually got to capture this one on film. My youngest son is
trying to teach “baby girl” how to blow into this strange plastic thing
to make a cool noise. Oh, brotherly love!!! sniff, sniff!!
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