Adjusting to Three

I'm a little nervous. Tomorrow I will have all three kids by myself.

Yikes.

My mom and mother in law have been assigned to "check on me" throughout the day and make sure I'm still alive. Ben is coming home for lunch. Really, I'll be okay. I'm going to live.

I'm praying Simeon sleeps tonight. I let him have a super long nap this afternoon and I'm hoping that won't mess things up too much. My goal these past 9 days has been to feed him often during the day, wake him up and don't let him nap for too long. I feed him a lot in the evenings and I feel like that's given us some pretty good stretches at night. Now if only I could sleep…

With the other kids it's been kind of a rough re-entry into life. Picture one of those plane landings where the pilot didn't quite get it right. There are a bunch of bumps, luggage is falling out of overhead compartments and everyone is kind of holding on for dear life. It's been kind of like that.

On Tuesday afternoon my mom brought the kids back. I wanted them back, we were majorly missing them. The house felt SO empty without them. It had been almost a week since I had seen them.

Pretty soon I noticed that Aria was falling down a lot. She would just be walking across the floor and fall for no reason. That night she kept waking up screaming. I knew something was wrong. Both the kids were coughing, but she was just super irritable. We took them all to the Dr the next day and it turns out she had a major and a minor ear infection. Yikes.

After that our goal was the keep her away from Simeon until she had been on her antibiotics for a few days. It's hard to tell a little two year old girl who LOVES babies that she can't go near her baby brother.

My poor little Aria. It's been a rough week for her.

When Aria was first born we noticed that Levi went through a weird transition for about two weeks, just trying to get used to the idea of a new baby around. He was no longer the baby. Maybe he was trying to figure out his roll in this new family. I think Aria is going through that same transition. It's difficult because I think she doesn't know how to express the things that are going on inside of her little heart and mind. She's been throwing a lot of temper tantrums and just disobeying a lot in general.

A few revelations I had:

- Saturday morning she was getting into EVERYTHING she was not supposed to get into. Levi was frustrated with her, I was frustrated, Ben was frustrated. I just had this thought, "she needs to be alone."
She needed a place where she wouldn't be stimulated or bothered and just couldn't get into anything. I told her she was going to have quiet time in her crib. She simply asked for books and I brought her some. She must have been in there for about 30 minutes. She came out and we were all like a new family. I need to remember this alone time stuff.

- Sunday the Lord really spoke to me that I needed to raise my level of nurturing with her. Yes, she needed structure and discipline, but she also just needed to be loved. So we sat and read books on her bed, she got lots of kisses and hugs. She woke up from nap time first and we just piddled around the house, cleaning things up, putting things away. She "helped" me put away the laundry and afterward we did a lot of high fives and fist pumps.

Lord, help me to know the needs of my kids. Help me to see their little hearts and discern what it is that they really need. I'm afraid to move up to three kids. I can't do it on my own. Help me to lean on You. I need You, O I need You, every hour I need You. Thank You that I can trust in You and cry out to You at any and every moment of the day. I pray that I would not do this of my own strength, let me wholly lean on You.