Monday, February 22, 2010

A Fun Family Hockey Night


We had a great day celebrating Rob's birthday yesterday and to top it off the USA was playing gold-medal contenders, Canada in men's hockey. The only bad thing about this was that we do not get cable so we couldn't actually watch the game. Rob's sister contacted us to tell us that where she lives (Peterborough, Ontario) the game was on 15 different channels in five different languages. We were not so lucky. We figured we would have to suffer until his parents called us with a first intermission report.

Somehow in the process of me getting Faith's bath ready, Rob and his parents decided to hook up using Skype through the Internet. Rob then came up with the idea that the game would probably be on the radio. His mom found it and put it near the microphone so that we could hear it. His dad was watching it in their living room yelling out who scored, who got a penalty, and other interesting plays. He may have missed his calling (he's a retired priest) and should have been a sports announcer!

Rob's mom stayed in front of the computer almost the whole length of the game. Faith loved watching her cheer. Faith was cheering for both the USA and Canada - quite the little diplomat!

During the third period of the game, Rob was feeling a little anxious, especially when he heard his dad yell, "the U.S. scored in an empty net!" It was around this time that Rob's sister called again and we put her on speaker phone so that she too could talk to her parents via the Internet. The US ended up defeating Canada in a huge upset, 5-3. They did air the last couple of minutes of it on NBC so we did get to take in the last few exciting minutes as well as the deadly silence that had overcome those Canadians in attendance.

Needless to say, Rob was pretty disappointed and I was pretty excited and a little stunned at the outcome of the game. And Faith - she could have cared less about the hockey game, she loved being able to talk to and see her Canadian grandparents and talk to her auntie all at the same time even though they were nearly 2,000 miles away!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Sleepless

Last week and now again this week we are experiencing some near-sleepless nights. Last week, Faith was only sleeping for about an hour at a time before waking up, tossing and turning on the verge of crying. Each time this happened I would get up with her and hold her until she went back to sleep. Then an hour later we would repeat the process. This was nothing new for her. It had gone on before and each time it happened I wondered what could be going on. Rob and I figured she was going through a growth spurt and having pains in her legs like I used to have. I decided this time though, that I would take her in to see her pediatrician.

I'm so glad I did. He attributed her restlessness to muscle spasms which is common for those with high muscle tone (tight muscles). It made sense too because of the way she was acting. It's as if she just couldn't get comfortable. When you or I sleep we can actually relax our muscles, but Faith can't because her brain is not capable of sending her muscles the signal to relax. He said the muscle spasms can be worse during a growth spurt. He gave us a prescription for a medication called Avitan which will hopefully help her relax so she can sleep better.

With that mystery solved, I had high hopes of actually getting some good sleep. This all ended though when Faith came down with a cold and couldn't sleep because of her stuffy nose. The only way she could sleep was in an upright position so we both ended up on the couch so I could sit up with her. I'm thankful she didn't have school on Monday and I was able to take advantage of respite care so I could get some sleep. But Monday night was the same thing with her not being able to sleep well because of her cold. Today she is better than yesterday but I still fear it could be another sleepless night. I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever again in my life get a full night's sleep and also how long a person can actually function on little sleep.

I do have to remember though that when I am weak the Lord is strong and I know He has given me strength to make it through some very tough days after little sleep. But despite this, I do continue to pray that Faith will one day have no sleep issues and that maybe, just maybe, all three of us in this household will have many good nights of sleep.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Gut Feelings

Have you ever had a gut feeling? Sometimes I think that gut feeling is really the Holy Spirit. This has happened to me a few times recently. Once I was getting ready to go to a meeting to learn how I could get more involved in a particular group. But at the last minute before walking out the door, something compelled me not to go to the meeting. I heard a voice inside my head ask, "do you really want to do this?" No, I didn't want to, I just thought I should. I really do believe God knows what is best for us and for whatever reason maybe He didn't think my decision was the wisest one to make.

More recently, I had another one of these gut feelings but I didn't listen to it right away. It involved our respite care for Faith. We were trying to get a third provider to help fill in some of our allotted hours. On the first day we were introduced to her I just had this feeling. My husband happened to come home for lunch and he said he felt the same way. I decided though that we needed to at least give her a chance.

Two weeks later, I finally decided to listen to my gut or my heart or the Holy Spirit or whatever and ended our respite care time with her. I felt horrible because it's not that there was anything wrong with her and she was a very quick learner but there was just this, this, you know, this feeling. Faith didn't seem to make a complete connection with her and I just didn't feel 100% comfortable. I really didn't want this respite care provider to feel rejected but I also knew the importance of having a respite care provider whom you can completely feel 100% comfortable with, especially when you leave your child in their care.

They say that we women have women's intuition. I guess this is another way to explain that gut feeling. Sometimes we may not understand why we are having these feelings but I think we need to listen or pay attention to them. Sometimes maybe God is just giving us a nudge reminding us that we need to pray about certain decisions. I really don't understand why I'm having these feelings with this respite care provider but I know that I serve an all-knowing God. And when I get these gut feelings I need to stop, pray and listen for the Holy Spirit's guidance.