Is It Worth It?

I had a great post planned (in my head), but am short on time due to people needing me. :-) I'll try to make it shorter (yes, you can thank me later).

I know I've complained more than normal lately. We've had a very hard year ++. I'm pretty much worn out right now! Moving was much harder than I anticipated and I think we are still dealing with the stress of it. But I've noticed something. When I do complain about life, the response I generally get is what to do to get rid of the problem. This seems to be the way we handle things in our society.

If your marriage is tough, get out of it! If you don't like your job, get a different one. If you have a friend who is difficult, get rid of her. Basically, we shouldn't have to ever do something tough or deal with something hard. We have so many choices that we can always choose something easier.

Lately I've been asking myself the question, "is it worth it?". Is it worth it to live the life I live or should I change it? Homeschooling - yes, it's worth it! It's worth the hard work, worth the long hours, worth the struggles, worth every bit of it. Even on our hardest day, I cannot imagine sending my kids away to school. Now, it helps, in all of this, to remember that we know God called us to homeschool our children. We prayed and were convicted that this is His path for us. If we chose to do something else, we would be disobedient. Is it worth it to obey Him? YES! :-)

There are many other examples of things that we've decided are worth it, even when others think we are nuts. :-) Natural childbirth might be the top one on many people's list as not worth it. But for us, yes it is worth it.

Now, my girls need me to tuck them in, my husband needs me to rub his sore leg. I would rather post pictures on my blog. But, what is worth it? THEM. :-)

Life

Lately I haven't felt like posting much here. Actually, I haven't felt like doing much of anything lately. My mother-in-law is coming into town tomorrow, so at least the house should be getting cleaned today and I got laundry done yesterday.

I asked my kids today what they would change about me if they could change anything. Joseph said he would change my legs. Huh? He would make them "brighter". Not sure what that means. My legs aren't exactly tan, but he was saying they should be more like his, which are WHITE. Who knows. Anne told me she would make me skinnier. Nice, thanks! Dawn said she wouldn't change anything. Which made me feel pretty good. But then I said I would change to someone who never loses her temper, never loses her patience and always has a quiet and gentle answer. Dawn's response? "Well, that isn't ever going to happen."

Does this mean that in addition to being short, I'm fat, grumpy and have dull legs?

Motivation

Seriously lacking motivation these days to finish up our school year. Any help? With multiple sicknesses (yep, we're all sick again - including ME this time), visitors, a trip, another visitor coming to town next week and just major burnout, I'm D O N E. I want to clean up the school room, be done with this past year and start thinking about curriculum for next year. I want to let the kids play outside all day, go hiking on a whim, throw out the schedule, plan good meals for the grill and just relax. Can't be done. According to Colorado law, I have to have 172 days of school, with 4 hours of "instruction" per day for it to count. Guess that means we'll be doing school for the next 6 months to finish up this year. Just kidding! I think I figured out we'll be going until June 12 or something. Unless I can count field trips when my mother-in-law is in town. :-)

Next year we're majorly revamping our curriculum. What we've been doing just is NOT working with 5 kids. Only 2 are seriously doing school. Two are getting into serious trouble most days. And one is seriously cute all the time (except for today when she will not nap). Seriously.

***Edited: About the homeschool law in Colorado. Yes, it is stricter than Maryland's law. At least I feel it is. In Maryland you had to have a portfolio review once a year. Here you have to take standardized tests (GAG) every odd year, starting in 3rd grade and you have to log attendance. I think the general feeling is that you just log attendance and assume you're getting 4 hours of instruction per day. Doing math counts as one hour whether it takes you 10 minutes or 2 hours. Kids in school have a "one hour class" no matter what gets accomplished in that class. I have been logging attendance (and I count field trips). I haven't felt right counting every day as a school day (I mean, Saturdays cleaning the house are educational, right?). So I only count days we are actually working on "school" or on a field trip.

She's Back!!!!!

This morning, I heard a meow coming from our garage and I sprinted to open the door. SHE IS BACK!!! We cried, thanked God and hugged her. She, on the other hand, wanted us to leave her alone so she could get a drink of water, thank you.

The lyrics to this song I remember from my childhood have been going through my head all day. Found it on the internet (I love googling stuff). Here is the chorus:

But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn't stay away.
Away, away, yea, yea, yea

Positive

I know that my posts lately have been a little on the negative side. So I'm going to make more effort at focusing on the positive lately (now, how many of you saw the title of this and thought I was pregnant? Nope.).

I got a pretty decent night of sleep. Only the baby woke up and she always just nurses and goes right back to sleep in our bed. I go to sleep while she's nursing, so I'm really awake for a very short amount of time. Actually, Little Bit is a great sleeper and I could get plenty of sleep. If I'd only go to bed earlier ...

None of the kids have cried about the cat this morning. Note, none of the KIDS have. I have. Whatever, they've asked, but aren't still crying.

Little Bit's bum isn't looking as bad as it was the other day (yep, the small things can be big some days!). She was getting very red and sore. Too many antibiotics, too many poops, led to a yucky bum! I've been giving her rice cereal, lots of probiotics and loading up on the diaper rash cream. It's helping!

The girls are having good attitudes about school work today. Helps that they're doing Spanish worksheets, which they do enjoy. :-) We'll see how they do when we get back to practicing for standardized tests.

That's all I can come up with at this moment. There should be more today!!! There WILL be more today. :-) How's that for positive?

When Will This End?

After our stressful week last week, I was really looking forward to this week being a little less stressful. Old Man is traveling and I thought we would just hang out, slow down, keep the house messy (sorry honey), eat "easier" meals (ie junk). I would get some time to myself in the evenings. I had such high hopes!

Enter Sunday afternoon. Our cat is missing. Our sweet, loved, fun, indoor, not fixed, cat, Cami. She is Anne's cat. We realized Sunday afternoon that she hadn't been seen all day and was not in the house. She's still missing. I woke up at 6:30 this morning to two bawling girls, in my bed, because Cami is still gone and it snowed 5 inches overnight. We've all been in tears off and on today. I keep checking outside, checking in the garage, going outside and calling for her. Nothing. My heart aches and my stomach hurts at the thought that she could be gone.

We also have a cough/cold going around the kids. After the bawling this morning, three of the kids were coughing. So I have 3 kids coughing, 2 crying, 1 still recovering from all the torture we put her through last week and Old Man left town. Ahhh, the joys of being an adult. Can someone please tell me why we ever wanted to grow up??? Seriously here, why? What is the benefit?

And to top off the start of my week, the girls had a track meet tonight. Dressed the boys in long underwear, sweats, coats, hats and took blankets. We lasted outside for about 15 minutes and then went and waited in the car. When I got home I checked the temperature (for laughs). 36 degrees, wind chill of 25. Nice. The girls did well though! Anne came in 2nd for the 400 meter "dash?" and Dawn tied for 1st in the 800 meter run. Not sure on their times, but I'm guessing it was around 4 minutes (or less) for Anne and about 7 minutes for Dawn. Yeah, they get their speed from me. (You can start laughing now!)

When does life get to be fun? When do we get to relax? When do we get enough sleep and feel rested? Am I doomed with feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, stressed, spent, worn out... for the rest of my life?

What???

Not sure how to start this post, but I noticed my last post started with telling you that Little Bit DOES have a UTI. So I will start this post by saying Little Bit does NOT have a UTI. Confused? I am!

I still don't know where to start here! In January she spiked a super high fever, we took her to an acute care clinic close to the house. They "bagged" her instead of catheterizing her (cath-ing from here on out - not typing that word again!). Severe UTI. Sent it to the lab and it "grew" something on it. We kept her on antibiotics for SIX weeks until we could have some tests run on her. Invasive, painful tests run on her.

March - another high fever (over 104), back to the acute care clinic, bagged again, another UTI. Antibiotics for another 10 days.

April - well, you can read about this "UTI" on the previous post. I took her back to the doctor yesterday (Thursday) and they gave her another shot of rocephrine since she still had a pretty good fever. Today, I call the doctor to find out if they have the cultures from her urine back yet. Yep, NOTHING grew on them. NOTHING. NO UTI. What? So what is going on here?

The doctor thinks it was either just a virus (you can imagine how I feel at this point - I've had her poked, not done any school, not slept, worried myself sick for a VIRUS?) OR a blood infection. Now, there is NO way we can prove either one. And the reason it could have been a blood infection? Because she hasn't been immunized yet. Nice plug for immunizations and to scare a parent into them Doctor. :-(

My guess? She had a virus. We have a family history of very very high fevers with a virus (both Old Man, Dawn and David - over 104, all the tests run, nothing wrong).

This week has just been so awful! I'm thankful she doesn't have a UTI, don't get me wrong here. It's just that we've been through "has to be a kidney infection", "could be appendicitis", "may need to hospitalize her", etc. this week. FEAR people. FEAR. And all, most likely, for a virus.

I keep thinking that God has a plan for all this. What is His plan here??? Any clues?