And then there was Christmas...

We had a great time over Christmas. Not that you could tell, since I haven't posted any pictures this many days later, but that's a whole project still patiently simmering on the long neglected back burner. Anywho, so yes, Christmas was great, but...since we've come back, I have felt like I have entered one of the most stressful phases of my life. I have had that stressed-out feeling in my stomach where it feels all knotted up and achy several times a day almost every day. It just feels impossible to catch up. It feels like the boys have been fighting one virus or another the entire time since we've been back, although that's probably not true. They are still recovering their original vastly-preferred-by-Mommy sleep schedules of sleeping all night without crying out (Israel) or coming to find me (Gabe). Zion is still having a hard time getting to sleep at night, and I usually end up taking him to bed with me to put him to sleep, since he somehow seems to think that he needs to stay up with Mommy and Daddy, literally erasing any semblance of a peaceful evening. The past week has held croupy coughs for both Gabe and Israel, leading to a horrible cold with the most terrible sounding cough and a runny nose. Then Israel perked back up, to promptly have a few more episodes of diarrhea...then Gabe was out of it for a day or two, and after getting me up about three or four times during the night aside from the three or so times I was up with Zion, and spent the following day not moving from his spot on the couch, but slumped against the pillows drifting in and out of sleep, and not eating or drinking hardly anything for two days, I took him to the doctor where he was diagnosed with his first ever ear infection. Then, that night, Zion started with the Cough of Horribleness, and then at 10:45 that night, he got croupy.

Croup has first hit both Gabe and Israel at this exact same age, and we have had to make trips to the ER with their first episode, and it is a very scary thing. This time, Mommy of the Croup Boys whipped out her handy dandy prednisolone, whirred into research dosage mode, and promptly dispensed an appropriate dose of corticosteroid. With the way he sounded, there was little doubt in my mind that unless it was treated, we would be heading to the ER that night, whereupon they would give him a steroid shot, give him a breathing treatment, and then send us home with the aforementioned prednisolone. Can you tell I've been through this before? :) And then we PRAYED. Croup scares Tim so much. He cannot handle it when they sound even mildly croupy. Our first episode with Israel I think has been the scariest for me, where I was literally afraid he was going to stop breathing. So I prayed that God would protect Zion, that we wouldn't even have to have an episode where we had to decide whether or not to take him in, and that the other boys would sleep through the night, and not wake him up while coming into our room to find me, since I have been up several times a night with Gabe and/or Israel since we came home from VA. I slept on our bed with him, and Tim slept in Israel's room. And what do you know.

Zion slept great, waking only once or twice to eat. He had a phlegmy cough, but no croup episodes at all. And for the first time since Christmas (as far as I can remember), Gabe and Israel slept all night and I did not have to tend to them. Thank You, Jesus!!! What an answer to prayer!! Zion woke cheery and grinny. Mommy was a bit more on the bleary-eyed side...but did not care, as long as Zion was fine!!

All of the above was written Saturday. Sunday I had a WONDERFULLY therapeutic day, with lots of social interaction, sympathetic ears, and people to help with the kids. Our church...I can not say enough good things about them. I love them so much. People are so supportive of our family and help so much with our children and that is such a huge burden lifted. It is SUCH a huge help. Then we went over to one of our friend's houses at night, and ate homemade doughnuts (and hey, how can anything seem bad after such a glorious thing as homemade doughnuts, for sure...), and I got to talk more girl talk...and by the end of the day, I felt like life was just so much better.

Today, was one of the first actual normalish feeling days since Christmas, even though I did have to take Zion to the doctor just to make sure his horrible cough was OK. Which it was. Tonight he fell asleep around 10 PM for about the first time since we came home from VA - and stayed sleeping. This was my number one prayer request I gave everyone who asked about us. Thank you friends. Thank you Jesus. Amen and amen and amen.

Sorry this was such a stressful post. :) I'll try to be done with such things soon. :) I hope.