Silver lining

An interrupted night. . .many times. Patience today people. Patience. Yet, there is silver in the interruptions. My sweet little girl fell asleep in my arms after struggling with who knows what. Gary asked her what was wrong, but she is unable to put voice to that kind of information yet. I enjoyed cuddling, holding, kissing and praying for her at 2:00. I was able to spend a few extra minutes with my man before he left for CA. Our alarms went off together at 3:15 and because I was still awake, we cuddled and just enjoyed being together. I even got a bit of a back rub. Mmmmmm 6:00 found me woken up again as my oldest "not quietly" got up to use the bathroom. I summoned him to my room and had a beautiful grin thrown my way--complete with big holes. The boy has lost 3 teeth in 2 weeks. He is cuter than every and I might add HUGE. Ah, my quiet is over. It is just past 7:00 and I'm being shown spiderman stickers by Simon who got them yesterday at the dollar store and slept with them. Each duck went with daddy and got to pick out something special. They also received a chat about "taking care of mommy". The boys have turned on every light in the house (why?) and are downstairs examining Garrison's bow and arrow. We hit the ground running. Silver. This morning when I hit a lull, I hope to be able to find the good, to mine the silver rather than just see the dirt. May there be lots of silver in your day as well.

Taking the plunge

I blogged about a month ago about the possibility of transferring our kids into the new Mandarin Immersion program at Zeeland Christian.  Well, the answer is a big "YES".

After all the list making, after all the stress, after going to all the meetings. . . we just decided to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Frankly, I'm glad that it comes down to that.  I'm glad that God opened the doors and asked us to follow Him.  He is allowing it and I am trusting Him.

That doesn't mean that all of the stress goes away.  It doesn't mean that I cease being nervous and scared.   It means that when those doubts and fears raise their ugly heads, I can give voice and say "I trust Him."  Then, I put it away.  I'm allowing myself to grieve, but I'm also allowing myself to celebrate that God is asking us to step out in faith and trust Him to do something our school has never done before.  Doesn't He love my kids more than me?  Doesn't He want the best for our family?  Didn't He ask us to go to China to get our son because Simon was living there and not in our home where he belonged?  How amazing He has given us an opportunity to celebrate our son's heritage right here in our little community--and at a Christian School no less!

So though our family, friends and the school knew about our decision, I realized my blogging family didn't.  Here we go a a new adventure!  Now I'm trying to recruit other kids to join mine in the classroom.  :)

Gerald Sprick

Gary's biological dad died on Friday.  Jerry was 73.

It is hard to believe that Gary was just there two weeks ago.  He sat with his father, looked at pictures, laughed and cried.  Things went very fast and in many ways, we are thankful.  We are thankful that Jerry doesn't have to suffer anymore.  We are thankful that Gary was able to spend some great time with him.  We are thankful that Jerry was able to hear the message of Jesus before he died.  Simon asked me yesterday if Grandpa Jerry was in heaven.  I had to respond that I didn't know.

Gary will fly out again early Wednesday morning and then return home late Saturday night.  He'll attend the service, finalize the house to be sold, take care of Jerry's personal things, and head to Pirates Cove to sprinkle Jerry's ashes.  Just Jerry and Gary.  Father and Son.

You know, this stuff with Jerry has taken a bunch of time over the past few weeks.  No doubt there will be a lot more time involved settling the estate.  Part of me gets a little miffed that our family is missing out on some serious husband and dad time.  Part of me gets a little miffed that Jerry didn't have everything together in the first place.  Part of me gets a little miffed that once again I'm a single mom.

Put away that miffing Shanda!  When I look beyond myself that miffing goes away.  How blessed that Gary and Jerry were able to be together.  Yeah!  How good that Gary is smart and responsible so that he can be trusted with handling Jerry's affairs--he understands the jargon and know who he needs to talk to if he doesn't understand.  How wonderful that I know I can handle being a mom to four kids for a few days.  Sure I might be a little crabby at times, but we will have enough food.  We will laugh.  We will do our things at school.  We will not fall apart.  We may. . . even be blessed!  We'll appreciate Gary a ton while he is gone and that my friends is good for me.

Then, we'll be leaving.  I'm just letting you know.  We'll be taking off for Chicago with our three oldest for an overnight.  We'll travel by car, we'll worship with friends, we'll go swimming, we'll eat out, we'll go to the Shedd Aquarium, and we'll meet up with Jerry's step-kids and have a little ole family reunion.  It'll be good for us to be together after being apart.  It is also nice to have a great goal at the end of our separation.

Our first parent death.  Thankfully there are still four left.  I pray we get to keep those for a long time.

Welcome Home!

I love going to the airport and welcoming folks home.  I just love going to the airport.  Gary arrived back home last Thursday and we made a night of it!  Noel and I dressed up.  She wore one of her Aunt Kate's old dressy dresses, put lots of bows in her hair, and had some silver pom poms.  (The pom poms never made it into any pictures--they were certainly there though!) We cheered and yelled "daddy" as soon as we saw him.  He said it made him feel special.  Guess what---he is.

 I was so thankful for a lego table!  It occupied them for about. . . 10 minutes.  Then we did relay races.  Good time.

 Penny dumped out the entire contents of the Goldfish bag right before Gary arrived.  Thanks for that!

 He is finally here!  Lots of smiling and shouting.  Nothing like four kids, several welcome home signs, and bright pink lipstick kisses from your wife.

Garrison took this photo of us.  We look like GIANTS!  I was also wearing my pink pajama pants and my pink croc boots.  Yeah, I love him.  (And he loves me too!)

Gorgeous! 

"sigh"

So we took down the crib this morning. Penny played all morning on her new bed. She was so exhausted this afternoon that she fell asleep right away, but slept very little and was crabby all afternoon. Boo. Now I think she is a bit scared. I would be too. Little person, big bed, limited vocabulary, no more safety bars. . . So I'm sitting here in the room both for comfort and for security. She keeps greeting out, standing up, playing with the shades, crying on and off, and just generally doing everything but sleep. Good times. I have the iPad and am blogging away. It'll take a bit, but we'll make it. No worries, just a pain right now. Ah yes, the life of being a parent. Then there is also the life of being a son. Gary is working so much on his dad's estate. He is the executor and things don't always go so smoothly when all the stuff is in California. We are thankful for computers, fax machines, overnighted mail and the phone. Jerry's nurse thought he might live through the end of next week, although the reports today were more encouraging. Then does he fly back out? Do I go with him? He had a conversation about heaven with his step daughter Laura after Gary left. We are encouraged by that. And so it goes. One child cries because his mean mom makes him each three French beans for supper. We laugh together while watching America's Funniest Home Videos. We don't make it to Meijer for groceries and have a very eclectic lunch. I go through the girls room and have two boxes of stuff to get rid of. I walk on the treadmill to Top Chef. We are good. We are normal. We are blessed.

Monkey girl

Well, I thought I was in a pretty good place.  I knew that all my kids would be different from each other, but my confidence grew as I walked through different stages with each one.  Potty training, switching from formula to milk, riding a bike, goose eggs on foreheads. . . I've seen a fair amount of things.  So, here we are.  Child number 4.  Deciding to change the rules.

She is climbing out of her crib.  I know some of you are shaking your heads and smiling, but this mama, she aint' doin' no smilin'.  This is new.  Not one of my other kids climbed out of their cribs.  I am tired!

Penny won't stay in when we put her down.  I put her in time out eight times one night.  She won't stay in her crib during the night.  She likes to get out and crawl into bed with Noel and wake her up.  Poor girl.  Noel is sleeping right now because Penny woke her up twice last night--in the middle of the night!  Gary and I woke up hearing Noel's sleepy voice saying "help please".  Penny was hitting her in the face with her pacifier.   Penny will wake at 6:00 and go wake Noel up.  During the day she is smart enough to not come out of her room even though her door is cracked open.  Instead, she'll pull all of the clothes out of her drawers.  She'll get into her closet.  I found her this morning sitting in the laundry basket wearing a rain boot and reading a book.  ACK!
We'll be putting her in a big bed sometime this week.  I'm washing her new sheets right now.  Hopefully we can teach this chica how to stay put!

Oh, and she has decided to climb into her high chair as well!  She climbs in and tells me when she needs a "nack peas.  Yes I do!"  Love her!

He's home. . . sorta :)

Gary is back.  I'll post pictures of our pick-up after he downloads them.  :)

Gary did a ton of work on his visit with his dad.  He didn't even sleep the night before he left so that he could continue going through documents.  Dying can be messy.  Messy with papers.  Messy with relatives.  Messy with the body shutting down.  Messy with fighting.  Gary didn't encounter any messy with people, just with papers.  Amen!  He worked with Jerry to put everything where it needed to be.  He talked with other relatives.  He talked with Jerry's step kids.  He is good. . . my man is good.  Everything is almost together.  There is still more to do, but we are almost there.  It does prevent Gary from being completely home though.  We held hands the whole way home and after putting the kids to bed, we sat together and talked, listened, and did some more hand holding.  It is good for us to be together again.

In a Spiritual sense, it does feel good to "Honor thy Father. . . "  There is something about taking care of a parent, no matter what the relationship, that feels right.  Gary was able to talk with Jerry about so many things.  They sat together, laughed together and cried together.  Gary said "good-bye" to him and knows it will be the last time that he sees him alive.  It is such an interesting road to be on and not one that is traveled very often.  This will be the first death of a parent for both of us.  There are so many mixed emotions in it all.  Gary did talk with Jerry about faith, though not in the way that I envisioned it.  I need to remember it isn't my vision that matters, but God's vision.  Gary feels really great about the conversations that he shared with Jerry.  Gary also talked with his Auntie Annie and a cousin David about living a life with Christ.  I love it that God used him to touch three lives.  Whether they chose to follow Jesus or not. . . only God knows.  I will continue to pray for them as well as love them.

Thanks for praying us through six days apart.  They seemed like a long time and yet it seems like he was barely gone.  Friends and family helped me a ton and I'm overwhelmed with joy at it all.  I was also so thankful today to pack a lunch for my husband while he sat at the table with the kids and showed them some coins from Grandpa Jerry.  My heart runneth over.