Inhale...and Exhale...

That's what I've been telling myself to do for the past few weeks...along with praying for the grace and strength to get through everything that's been going on with our little family. Where to start?? I guess I'll start with the last time things were semi-normal for us which was Easter weekend.
We had a great Good Friday and Saturday, Josh took off work and we went to the zoo and just hung out in general as a family.



We went down the Mud Island and saw the ever swelling Mississippi River-wow! Then Easter hit, and life hasn't been the same since...That day Annie came down with the 4-5 day fever virus that's been going around our lovely little city- so that knocked us out of all activities until Thursday when I decided to go to Bible Study. While the lesson was of course wonderful, that decision in retrospect seems to be quite a bad one.
Strike #1
While getting in the car afterwards I dropped Annie off in the back of the van along with the stroller so that she could make her way to her seat by herself - her favorite line these days is "Annie do it!!". Georgia was in the back seat and Annie stopped to pet her, meanwhile I was putting Ellie into her seat. All the sudden I heard a snarl, and then Annie started screaming. I came around the back of our car and never expected to see what I saw.
One half of Annie's face was covered in blood. I quickly stopped the bleeding, threw her in her seat and took off for our peds's office, which wasn't far. They saw her right away, -little shout out to Memphis Peds- thank you!- and sent us on our way to the plastic surgeon who sewed her up that afternoon. Now, a little over a month later, she's got the stitches out and is healing fairly well. The surgeon said we won't know if she'll need more work for about a year or so- so for now it's just wait and see. Here's a pic, post stitches, but pre-bruising.

Georgia, the one who I often referred to as our first child is no longer ours, she has found herself back again in NC. After much deliberation and many tears both Josh and I realized that we had to get rid of her. Thankfully a friend of my mom's wanted her, so she is now a "country dog" living outside of Raleigh. While the first few days were quite sad without her, it just wasn't an option to keep her after that. We've gotten used to it now, but every now and then one of us will say, "Remember when Georgia...." So sad...

Strike #2
For those of you who haven't yet seen Annie lately she looks quite different these days- and not just because of the scars on her face. It broke my heart, but a few weeks ago I was forced to cut off her pretty blond curls.
She had started this habit of pulling her hair when she was bored, or nervous, or something....Anyways, after months of this it finally got really bad over the first week in April. By the end of that week she had pulled so much that the hair on one side of her head was about 2 inches shorter than the other. Our pediatrician, who'd until that point blown it off, told us to get her a "Halle Berry" haircut- ie about and inch long all over. So, that afternoon I took her to "Fun Cuts"- which I wouldn't recommend- and had it cut all off. Amazingly, she sat there just as still and quiet as a little church mouse. But then at the end of the whole ordeal she looked into the mirror and just started to cry. I wanted to as well. It was awful.
Here's a pic.

She's gotten fairly used to it now, although she is going through a very insecure stage at the moment and I can't help but think that it probably has to do with her recently altered appearance. So, if you happen to see her, just don't mention it- please....
Strike #3
While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it was more the timing of the whole thing that really threw us for yet another loop. After four months of ear infections our pediatrician sent us to have Elliott's ears looked at by an ENT. After a quick look he said we most certainly needed tubes, so not even a week after all of that with Annie happened I found myself in the recovery room at Baptist at 7am in the morning holding my little baby as she came out of anesthesia. Bless her heart. But, now at least we won't be dealing with those quite as often- although she does have one at the moment, go figure...
Amidst all that I've already mentioned we also had several visitors at our house, both human and rodent (yuck!!), Josh had a week long trip to Tokyo, Annie and I were in Nashville for a weekend, we thought Annie was also going to be getting tubes, we flew to NC for the weekend, and oh yeah, the same day Elliott got her tubes our contractor began gutting our master bathroom- ahhhh......

So, if you're still reading after all that- bless you...you must be one of our faithful blog followers. To you I say, "I am so sorry for my blogging delinquency, I promise to do better from now on"- unless that is, we have another month like that again. If that happens, no promises. I just might quit this whole mom-thing. But for now little moments like tonight when Elliott just laid her head on my shoulder and immediately fell fast asleep make it all more than worth it. Thanks Lord, I think I'll keep plugging away here...