Not A Creature Was Stirring
The week before Christmas at our house was filled with many quiet hours. It’s not what you think though. This is how I expected the week to go: casually catching up on all of my stitching in plenty of time for deadlines, finally doing some decorating and wrapping some presents, maybe baking some Christmas goodies, maybe even seeing some friends. It couldn’t have been further from what actually happened. The house was unusually filled with all four kids most of the week, but it was eerily quiet as they were sleeping or curled up in fetal position for hours on end. My teen tried to go to school once, after 70 minutes she was calling for a pick up. She missed all 5 days of school this week and the rest of the girls’ attendance wasn’t much better. I won’t go into all of the details but it was definitely a way to force slowing down. Nothing went as planned, we had to skip out on a lot of Christmas activities and all in all, it was pretty sad.
Besides feeling sorry for my children, I coped fairly well. I’ve been trying to choose joy. In the NOW. I know that if I’m waiting for things to get easier, simpler or better…I’m going to miss out on the NOW. Life will always be complicated, there will always be struggle, unresolved conflict, days and weeks that don’t turn out the way you thought they would. Despite feeling miserable on and off myself, I’ve been trying to just take it as it comes.
Another thing I was thinking about this week is all of the families who deal with illness on a daily basis. I know of so many parents who have children with chronic illness. Yes, sickness in our house has been inconvenient for the past 6 days but it is nothing compared to what others face each day. My heart goes out.
Very thankful for both my mom and Erik’s mom sending soup over this week and to my sister who checked in on us. My husband went above and beyond with taking care of us all and doing all kinds of extra things around the house. At times like this it is so clear that we are in this together (cue “clowns to the left of me jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you”) There’s no one else I’d rather be stuck in the middle with than him. Also thankful for a whole pile of natural remedies we used to help us (chicken broth, thieves EO, RC, deep relief, lemon ginger tea, cold compresses etc) It was a very quiet week but there are always things to be grateful for. Always. Merry Christmas friends!