Gosh, my children are so great but there are so many of them that I really don’t take time to appreciate them during the day. Mostly I think about how great they are after they are in bed and I can lie here and regret all of the unkind things I did during the day.
Lydia has such a pure, honest, completely guileless heart. She is also SO affectionate and loves to receive affection. Sadly, I rarely give her that affection and most of the time I am barking at her to quiet down or do this or stop that. (In my sort of defense, she is also really loud.)
Mary is over-the-top charming and has so many delightful mannerisms, and tonight I was really mean to her. I blamed her for getting a nose bleed. It happened this way: She was throwing a tantrum, I was crazed trying to get all four kids down, and I was yelling at her to stop crying because, I yelled, I couldn’t and wouldn’t care about her problem until she calmed down and told me what the matter was. She, of course, cried harder and ended up with a nose bleed.
At that point, Ammon was in bed crying and coughing –to the point of choking and gagging–because I hadn’t given him long enough “scratchies” (back scratches) to fall asleep, I was holding a wide-awake, hungry and quite-possibly-ill Clarissa, and I was sweating up feverish rivulets all up and down my body. (I have had a fever almost all day.)
So, instead of handling this situation calmly, I took one look at all the blood on the bed and Mary and freaked out. I yelled at Mary and then went to take care of Ammon before putting down Clarissa and returning back to Mary. When I got to the room, Lydia said, “I wish this had never happened. I know not to give myself nosebleeds, but Mary doesn’t have the same life experience as I do, so she just doesn’t know.”
At that point, I laughed and calmed down a little. It was so funny hearing Lydia refer to her “life experience.” I ended up washing all of the blood off, and I hope Mary has enough warmth from her cover to stay well through the night.
On a positive note, Ammon seems to be getting slightly better. He was well enough to only take a short nap, and he pooped twice as much as usual, so maybe he’s pooping out his sickness. I sure hope so.
On another positive note, during the solitary hour that he and Clarissa napped simultaneously, I managed to make a big dent in our book club novel. It’s a murder mystery called Sister. It’s surprisingly well written, though somewhat slow.
