Aches and Pains

Break out the Tylenol! Or perhaps something a little stronger! The Myers family has had its share of aches and pains this week. On Tuesday morning, Caleb and I were playing in the living room. Since he's become pretty proficient at walking around with his car, I wasn't too worried as he pulled up next to the coffee table to look at his Big Trucks book. Well, he must have mis-stepped, because he tripped and fell head first into the side of the coffee table. There was screaming and crying, and to my utter dismay, an immediate bruise and bump. After all was said and done, he was fine, but he now has a quite the little blue bruise on his head.
Then that afternoon I started to develop a headache. Anyone who has known me over the past 10 years has known that I get headaches pretty often. However, in those ten years, no one seems to be able to tell me what is really causing it or what they really are. I've used sinus medication, migraine medication, no medication and on and on. Needless to say, whatever I was using didn't help and the headache (I'll call it a migraine because it really was that bad) lasted into the night and right through the next morning. It didn't go away until Wednesday evening.
Wednesday night we were changing Caleb's diaper. Being that he is so mobile now, laying down for a 5 minute diaper change is not his idea of fun. So as we tried to hold down our little C.T. Wigglebottoms to get a fresh diaper on, he wiggled and screamed until we had almost gotten it on. In the meantime, he was holding one of his new train toys (distraction is the key!) and got so upset about the diaper change that he smacked himself in the head with it. Ouch! Add that to the bump counter!
That brings us to Friday evening. After a blissful Thursday of no headaches, I was feeling pretty good. But Friday evening I started to feel that familiar pang of achiness on the right side of my head. Long story short, I still have the headache, and frankly after 4 days of this, I was in tears at the end of my rope. My doctor's office was closed, so I had to head to the Doc in a Box. Apparently, according to that doctor, I have a form of TMJ. Because my jaws do not line up, possible teeth grinding and stress, I am having migraine symptoms that are really caused by the TMJ. At this point, I throw my hands up in the air because I don't know what to think. No one has ever told me this, but I was so desperate to have relief, I agreed with him and promptly headed to the pharmacy. Want to guess how much 9 pills for TMJ cost? $176.60!!! Man, those pills better work miracles, that's all I have to say! So it's now 7pm, I have taken one pill and my headache seems to be subsiding - hallelujah! For my head's sake, I hope Doc in the Box is right - for my checkbook's sake, I kind of hope he's wrong, but I digress!

Teachable Moments

Recently I've been reading the book, "A Mother's Touch" by Elise Arndt. This wasn't a book I had intended to read necessarily, but by happenstance, I was scheduled to work at Elise's speaker table at the Minnesota Hearts at Home conference. During one of the slow periods of the day, I had the chance to talk to Elise for a good 30 minutes. What an incredible lady! She is in her 60's, raised the majority of her children in Papa New Guinea, is a pastor's wife in Michigan and has written a few books, with aspirations to write more. In fact, she rolled off at least three more topics she wants to write about in the future. How fortunate I was to have the time to sit and chat with her. After the conference was over, she signed and gave me a copy of her book.
In the book, she talks about having intentional conversations with your children about God - even before they are old enough to understand. By doing so, you will be comfortable saying those things and your children will grow up hearing the Word spoken in your home. Now I am definitely one to read a book and say to myself, "well, that's a good idea", but never take the initiative to really go any further. However, yesterday I had my chance. Caleb and I were running errands in the afternoon and our last stop was the bank. I needed to drop something off in our safety deposit box, which meant unloading the munchkin and going inside. We took care of everything and then headed back out to the car. On our way, I noticed a very thick, well-used pocketbook laying on the sidewalk. Clearly someone had accidentally dropped this. It contained their money, checkbook, credit cards, everything. I picked it up and brought it back into the bank. They assured me they knew who it belonged to and that they would give her a call right away.
As I got back in the car, I thought about how this would be a very "teachable moment" for my kids and how I could bring Jesus into the conversation. So there I sat, talking to my 11 month old about the Good Samaritan and how it's important to help others and do the right thing. Gosh, if anyone had seen me, they probably thought I was crazy (in fact, they probably thought I was talking to myself). Oh well. And even though I know that Caleb didn't understand a word I was saying, I'm considering it good practice for the future.
So my moral of the story is this: look for the teachable moments in your life and share them with your children - they'll grow up knowing your love for them and the love of God.

First Snow

When Gabe came home for lunch today, he took Caleb out to enjoy our first real snow of the year. It's hard to see it in the pictures, but it was coming down. Nothing was sticking to the ground (that's the best kind), but it was beautiful. Caleb liked it too!

And here are some other pics from today....

Whoa, someone needs some hair gel! And no, he did not stick his finger in the light socket. :)

Watching the construction and concrete trucks go by is a favorite passtime.

Caleb is walking like crazy if you put him behind something that moves. He loves it! He always has a huge grin on his face. He'll walk until he runs into something and then turns around to look at you like, "hey, are you gonna help me here?"

P.S.

I forgot to mention that we also saw the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile...could we have had a better trip or what!

My First Time Away

Sorry I've been MIA for the past week or so - here's an update on what's been happening around here. On Thursday morning I left to head to Rochester, MN for Hearts at Home's final 2008 conference. That meant that I was leaving my boys for exactly 3.5 days. Knowing that I have the fabulous husband that I do, I really did fine with leaving. You can ask my friend Brenda, there were no tears (at least not on my part).
So off we went at about 10am in a van full of 5 ladies - we were determined to make the 7 hour drive riveting. And did we ever. Boy, it sure seems like it's taking us forever to hit LaCrosse. Has anyone seen signs for LaCrosse? Maybe we should stop, I could use a bathroom break anyway. So we run inside and a couple of us notice that there is a big sign on the gas station wall for the Minneapolis area. Trying to keep our cool, Brenda asks a nice lady, "how far are we from Rochester?" "Oh," she says,"probably about 2 hours". I think Patty almost had a heart attack. We thought we were 20 minutes away. Apparently, if you miss the 90/94 split, you'll head to the Mall of America instead of Rochester, MN. Oops! So we put our smiles on, informed Janae, our driver and made the best of another 2 hours in the van. However, I would like to point out, that if we hadn't missed the split, we would have missed the following: The Laura Ingalls Wilder highway, the birthplace of waterskiing, the dead possum that Janae hit without even flinching and of course, the beautiful rolling hills (at least that's what we're telling ourselves - it was 8pm and completely dark). Ah, good times! See, I know you are all jealous that you missed that!
Anyway, it was a fabulous weekend! I attended our National conference in the spring as a mom, but I worked this one, so I was able to see the behind-the-scenes of what it takes to put one of these things on. It was awesome and I can tell you that God was certainly at work not only in the conference itself, but in these ladies' lives. What an awesome thing to be working for an organization that touches people's lives and makes you feel like you're really making a difference. I was exhausted and sore by the time I got home (well, really by Saturday evening), but it was worth it. And I'm happy to report that it only took us 7.5 hours to get home. Hallelujah!
As for my boys, they had a good time together. When I went in to get Caleb from his nap, he just looked at me and kind of whimpered like, "mom! where have you been?" Ah, it's nice to be home!

Thanks...I think?

Last night someone said to me "how are you doing, you look tired." Now what in the world is the appropriate response to that comment? Are you supposed to say "thank you?" I was just thinking to myself "wow, thanks for pointing out that I naturally look fatigued". Of course, I didn't say that. And really, I didn't have an excuse for looking tired - we got one whole extra hour of sleep courtesy of Daylight Savings Time AND I got a nap in the afternoon! I also could have said "thanks for noticing my genetic disposition to under eye bagginess", but that wouldn't be appropriate either. Now I'm sure that I have probably made this comment to someone in my lifetime, and I know for a fact that this isn't the first time someone has said it to me. There is a part of me that wants to sting them back and say "yeah, and your hair looks a little frizzy today too" - but that wouldn't be very polite, now would it? :) Being the ever-polite girl that I am I simply said "oh, well I suppose that's the permanent state of motherhood, huh?" I'm open to ideas, as I'm sure this won't be my last encounter with the you-look-tired comment.

Trick or Treat

We had a very nice time visiting with friends on Friday. Caleb was quite the trooper making all of those stops. He was the cutest turtle you ever did see! It was especially cute when he would crawl across the room, because he really did look like a turtle. Enjoy some pics from the weekend.

We stopped by the Hearts office so the ladies could "oh" and "ah". He looks a little bored.

And we're off!

Cole and Cade Luginbuhl came over to say hello - aren't they cute!

Caleb and Ella Michalak - don't you think they're asking each other why their parents put them in such puffy outfits?

We also stopped at Josh and April's to see Grace, but I didn't get a good picture (or rather, the picture that I have is upside down courtsey of our beaten down camera). So rest assured, she was as cute as ever - just no pic to share. Sorry Gracie!

And in honor of Caleb being a turtle, we thought it would be appropriate to have a memory verse for the week about patience:

"Let us run, with patience, the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." Hebrews 12: 1b-2a