Apology for upset feelings

To those of you who were offended by my post about my frustrations with Elijah, I am truly sorry. I was indeed not intending to seem "cutting" to my child. I was not belittling him, cutting him, gossiping about him or complaining that he's my child. The reason I write the things I do, about Elijah or not, is because those are things that are my life right now. That being said: I've been asked if I would say those things about Elijah to his face if he could understand them. I absolutely would! He needs to know the issues I have with his behavior.
Would I post the same thing on my blog if he were a teenager and could read the things I wrote?...Probably not, and that is where I need to do some serious thinking and praying about where the line is drawn. I am NOT NOT NOT intending to take for granted the "humanness" of my son or to splay him out for the public, I simply am at a loss. Should I be more careful in the way that I present that? Probably, and I encourage those of you that find my posts offensive or hurtful that I will, indeed, be working on how much I say and how I present what I say. I have no intention of "airing dirty laundry" for the world to see and I need to find where that line is.

wild saviar

With each passing day raising Elijah I feel I understand less and less about his destructive, loud, aggressive and violent nature. Not understanding why he is the way he is, out side of being a typical boy, means that I haven't any ideas of how to teach and train him to control this nature he was given. I was naive to think the only obnoxious time in a boy's life is the after the age of 10 and in to the early teen years.
I know I was an obnoxious child sometimes, all children are. Even the ones that aren't obnoxious are obnoxious at some point in time. I wasn't a girly girl. My mom tried with everything she was to teach me to be a lady and it didn't pay off for her until well after I started my teen years and really not fully until the past 5 or so years. I was crude right along with all the little boys and constantly a mess from digging in the dirt and building forts in our back field. But, I don't believe I was ever violent or destructive to the point of destroying things just to destroy. He yells, he screams, he hits, he hollers, he rips, he breaks, he pounds on EVERYTHING, he slams, he stomps, he punches, he headbutts and does many many other things that up to this point in my life have come to be one of the most aggravating and exhausting experiences I've had. If I ask or tell him to be calm and not scream or yell, he quivers with rage and makes this weird guttural noise out of sheer frustration with me. I know that boys will be boys. I know that I am not called to break his will, but mold it. I know that a harsh word stirs up anger and gentle words stir up quite the opposite. I know that me raising my voice when I tell him to NOT yell is completely confusing to him! I know that him seeing the temper I have and sometimes do not control very well is completely confusing him. Yes, I understand a lot more than this, too. I DO NOT understand how I am supposed to be able to raise this crazy saviar of a child to be a constructive, gentle, kind, loving, God fearing man. There are days I feel it will take a miracle for Elijah to not end up growing in to an overly aggressive, destructive human being.
All that being said, he's a fairly good child when compared to the masses. I know that seems to be quite the opposite of the very words I just typed, but he is. His fit throwing in public is minimal (though lately has been more than usual). He obeys...most of the time. He is gentle and loving to his younger brother, Judah, most of the time. He rarely lashes out to hurt someone - it's mostly inanimate objects to which he is destructive. That being said and as fun as he can be sometimes, it's hard for me to want to spend time with him and grow our relationship and mom and son or our relationship as friends. In fact, at this point I dare say we really don't have a relationship as friends. I hurts me to say that I usually prefer to not be around him. Breaks are few and far between and they are complete in their refreshment but it takes only a matter of hours for me to be seeking out another solace from his craziness. Every mother I've spoken with that was blessed with a little boy has sung the same song. The say that once their boys reach the age of 4 or around the age of 4, then the friendship can start. The hardest part seems to be over. The bratiness seems to fade and the temper and volatility that controlled their son's behavior before takes a back burner in his every day life. Oh the day! I pray for that day to come quickly, though I know you are NOT to wish your child's years away. I may also be naive in hoping or thinking that Judah will not follow the same footsteps, but rather be much more calm and compliant as a 2-3 year old. I hope that it helps that when he reaches these treacherous years, Elijah will be well past them (by the grace of God and my obedience in his calling to be a loving mother!). Judah has always watched his brother more than either me or Josh and I imagine that will continue. We constantly tell Elijah of how he is to be an example to his brother, but he says, "yeah" with that tone that screams "I have NO idea what you are saying."
One day these days of this phase of Elijah's life will be a distant memory, a vivid one at that, but a distant one. I love my son dearly, but there are many times these current days and weeks that he makes it REALLY hard for me to enjoy him at all.

lack of sleep, hormones, heaps of change - or maybe all of it together

I've been unreasonably irritable lately and I'm starting to get really tired of it. I'm getting tired of myself and this attitude I can't seem to kick. It could be a combination of a lot of things. I stopped taking my birth control a few weeks ago with the hopes that maybe, just MAYBE I was allergic to it and it's what was causing my ear issues...The answer to that question is clear. I feel like I'm hormonally imbalanced, over tired, ridiculously homesick, and just all around unsettled. It's an adjustment to have Josh gone all the time again after having over 6 weeks of him around all the time. That being said, I tend to get a LOT more done when he's NOT around all the time, but I prefer more time with him than we are getting. Our time alone together consists of unpacking or cleaning. We aren't getting much quantity time and it seems very little of it is turning in to quality time. The hardest part of that is that there's really no end in sight. Orientation is the easy part. There's all sorts of activities around here to occupy my and the kids time, but unpacking is the sole priority right now if only to get settled in a feel....settled. If we don't feel settled the crazy days will simply not subside. Unpacking with two kiddos is a serious challenge. No wonder I get into such a groove at night after they are in bed. I don't want to stop - I could unpack all through the night and be happy as a clam. I cranked up the techno in our bedroom last night and unpacked every box in there all in a couple hours. It's all fine and dandy until Judah chirps for the first time at 6am. Then I'm sorry - and it happens all over again the next day. Josh unpacks and cleans here and there but has been assigned study material and spends much of his time in the evenings occupied with that. The sooner I can get this silly house done, the sooner we can sit and relax and be together in the evening with little else to do. In the meantime I've taken to drinking caffeinated tea in the morning and catching a quick nap in the afternoon before dragging myself through another box of belongings and packing paper.
Settling in to a new house is an adventure for sure, but I just prefer it to go more quickly that it is. It gets aggravating trying to find new places to put things that perfectly in our old place and seem to have no place here. The bathrooms here have NO storage space and we have boxes upon boxes of medicines, cleaning supplies and other bathroom related sundries that were happily nested in the endless cabinet space in our place in Colorado. My outlet at home is decorating and painting and making our home beautiful and comforting. I simply have no time for making this home ours. It's just a space that we are occupying at this point. I'm not complaining - I do love the house, it's just not OURS yet. I've got creative energy bursting at the seams and no time to do anything with it.
I'm sure it doesn't help that I haven't sat and had a quiet time since we moved in to this place. I always make the excuse that it's because my Bible is buried in one of the storage areas under the boys seats in the van, but I know better than that. I just haven't made time for it, and there's no excuse. It should come as no surprise to me that I'm such a raging grump. I've had little contact with the very being that I get my energy and will power from.
My patience with Elijah wears more and more thin every day as he increasingly becomes more and more precocious and rebellious. He's really coming in to his own and as is typical with most kids his age, he has NO idea how to control/manage/handle it. He seems to waver a lot day to day. Some days I am surprised at how much I enjoy him and then the next it seems I don't know where he came from or who's been raising him these past 3 years. He's either a complete show-off or a complete emotional mess in public and it's RARELY anything close to a happy medium. He show-off tendencies get him in trouble, like when he threw the cantaloupe I can sitting next to him in the cart. Or when he's wildly flying his helicopter toy around as a show for a stranger and catches Judah, who is strapped to the front of me, right in the eyes with it. He's deliberately disobeying and being deceitful more and more and it's getting exhausting. I figured this would all slow down as he approached being 3, but it seems to be reaching it's peak - or at least I HOPE beyond all hope that it's reaching it's peak, or HAS peaked for that matter! I keep telling Josh that I want to adopt a girl next because I feel doomed to producing ONLY boys and Judah is showing little promise of being less spirited than Elijah. He is as dramatic as the days are hot! I'm not sure how I would manage 3 boys if I can hardly manage 2.
It seems we are just managing and surviving from day to day with little break and I really do detest that feeling. Even when we do venture out of the house in search for a break from the monotony, Elijah manages to spoil it in some way or another while Judah is fussy fussy fussy because he typically doesn't sleep well, except at night. I am not without fault in our outings not ending well as I seem to find it hard to keep my cool and laugh at things instead of winding myself into a tight little wad of short tempered anger and frustration.
The moving process always ends at some point. It has to. We are here for 3 full years, so I have plenty of time to settle. We'll get there. It's going to be a long summer of really HOT HUMID days and finding more and more tar balls and sheen float ashore onto our beloved beaches that are much of the outlet we have found. Am I a pessimist? At heart, yes! I find it really hard to pull my head up above the table top and look at something other than the half empty glass sitting before me. This has been a battle for me since I was a very small child. I tend to fret, worry and stew about nearly everything. God is growing me and I will get to a point, one day, where I am positive in all situations. Right now, I work hard at just being positive hour to hour.

12 hours and an overwhelming array of emotions

Elijah is eating his Kashi crunch, singing about it in humming as he always does when he's eating and has always done since he started eating solid food. It gets annoying to me, but it's very Elijah. It's a trademark Elijah thing to do, therefore I love it in a strange way because I love him, because he is my son. I'm grateful that God instilled in us a seeming impossibility to NOT love our children with everything we are. If he hadn't, Elijah may be in trouble, as would the rest of us at some point in our past or present lives. Judah is sitting glassy eyed in his Bumbo watching his brother do anything he can think to make him laugh. It doesn't take much and it's precious in it's simplicity. These two boys adore each other. Judah stares into the distance for a few moments until Elijah finds something to catch his attention upon which he chimes in with his adorable mumblings and chuckling while twirling his hands and feet round and round like babies do when they get excited. I love this scene! I'm very content in this moment. I have Brett Dennen Pandora radio playing online and Elijah is using the music to his advantage in making Judah laugh. But, Judah is quickly losing interest as his morning nap time creeps nearer and nearer and Elijah is sipping the milk out of his cereal bowl like his daddy taught him to do. I'm surprised at how good he is at sipping the milk without spilling. Elijah is going down for a morning nap today too, for the first time since he was 20 months old. I already told him so and he's fine with it. He would go down whether he were fine with it or not, but it's times like these when I tell him things that would solicit a fit in most 3 year old children that I love the way we've raised him, to be compliant and obedient... The previous typed statement proves that I am indeed a true mother, one with constantly fluctuating emotions, frustrations, understandings, confusion, insecurities and areas of assurance. When compared with the first hour of my morning me saying that I am pleased with the way we've raised Elijah just doesn't seem to match up. Judah woke up LOUD at ten till 6:00 this morning and woke up Elijah in the process. Elijah finds it impossible to roll over and go back to sleep if he wakes up anytime past about 5:00am. Both boys have been awake since then after not going to bed until almost 8:00 last night. This may sound like a dream come true for many parents, that their children would sleep this long, but both our boys are capable of and function MUCH better on 12 hours of sleep a night. Elijah had two dramatic emotional meltdowns in less than an hour this morning. One came with my simple request that he pick up the heap of crayons he dumped all over the living room rug. You'd think I'd asked him to shoot his childhood pet with the reaction the request solicited. After a half hour of him thrashing and wailing I helped him put the remaining 3 crayons in the bag that just WOULD NOT fit when he was trying by himself and told him after zipping the bag that he would taking a nap this morning when Judah took his nap. I told him he was tired and fussy and needed a nap and he looked at me very plainly and replied, "yeah." I'm at a loss as to why telling him he was going to take a nap (which he doesn't like) is answered with such a compliant response after a simple request of picking up crayons was the crisis of the morning. The mind of a 3 year old will remain a mystery to me and at times turn into a frustration that makes it tempting for me to turn my mommy badge in. What a different emotion I was experiencing last night.
I was picking through the piles of folders, binders, pictures, books and junk in the office area of our new house desperate for some semblance of organization. I came across several pictures of Elijah at 13 and 14 months old and held them up for Josh to see from the kitchen where he was working on the dishes. He came over, looked on for a moment while I told him I couldn't believe that Judah was a mere 6 months away from that same age. He sighed heavily and walked back to the kitchen. I stared for a few more moments, all sounds fading in the distance as the sound of our little 14 month old boy's laughter rang in my ears. Memories of his first year and a half of his life flooded my memory and I swallowed hard. Has it really been almost 3 years now since I brought his tiny little body home from the hospital in Kirksville, MO? Oh the adventures a new baby brings to a mom and dad. We had no idea the joy, excitement, frustration, laughter and exhaustion a child would bring to our lives. My trip down memory lane was interrupted by the sound of Josh blowing his nose. I leaned back and peeked in to see him stationed over the box of Kleenex on the counter wiping under his eyes and nose. A child will do that to a man who doesn't cry. I sat in my office chair, my stomach upsetting as I thought about how fast the past 3 years have gone. My natural instinct kicked in and I was overcome with an overwhelming desire to have another baby despite the fact that Judah is a mere 7 1/2 months old. I'm apprehensive about getting pregnant again, ever, with all the health problems I've been having as I've been told pregnancy makes them worse. Last night, that came to mind, but I just didn't care in that moment. The stage that Judah is in is one of life's precious gifts. He delights at the sight of his brother and his daddy and I can see the overwhelming joy that comes over him when he sees me. There is little that compares to the feeling this gives me. It's times like this morning, though, that snap me back hard in to reality and help me see that another pregnancy right now and another baby in 9 months would not be a wise idea. I'm more high strung right now than I have ever been in my life trying to manage two VERY different ages of children, unpacking a new house and fitting in to a new area of life and geography. I wanted to ring Elijah's neck this morning and it was because Judah woke up so early and woke Elijah up. I'm kidding myself if I think that having another baby right now would be feasible. My prayer is constant, for God to calm my temper and teach me to be patient with my children as he is patient with me. He is teaching me patience and I do not enjoy it, but it must be learned. I often daydream of the simplicity my life would have if not for my children, but as the cliche goes, I can NOT imagine my life without them, for they are the life God has given me and he has blessed me with the life he sees fit. I'm glad he knows me better than I do.

A huge update after not having internet for over a week:

May 11th:
We drove away from Denver and I cried so hard it hurt. My miss my Colorado family so intensely but know that the pain will ease with time.

May 15th:
Joshua graduated from Medical school. He became a D.O. and a Captain in the Air Force all in one day. It's still hard to believe I'm married to a real live doctor! I LOVE it!

May 18th:
We arrived to a VERY hot and humid Florida, checked in to our TLF (temporary lodging facility) at 2:00pm and were at a loss of what to do. We called up the only people on base we really knew and asked if we could come over. Wendi, you are such a blessing and have been so servant hearted through this whole process. (Thank you, Wendi, Brittny and Joia for all your help these past few weeks. I don't know how to repay you!) We went to Wendi's house, put the boys down for naps and scarfed down some VERY late lunch. I got to meet two other awesome ladies this day (Brittny and Tiffany) and we joined Brittny and her family for dinner that night. It was apparent then that Brittny and I will get along VERY well. :)

May 19th:
Josh went to the housing office with a couple numbers of houses we wanted to look at and we were told there were NO available houses in the area we wanted........and NO time line of when a house would be available. They gave us keys to look at a place that was ready - it sat high atop a small hill, in direct sunlight, with no trees, shrubs or sign of plant life anywhere around. We said no thanks and returned to the TLF a little disheartened, but sure that we'd be in the "perfect" place by the end of the week.

May 20th through June 2nd:
Wait. Frustration! Swimming. My ear REALLY acting erratically! More waiting! Phone calls. Questions. Crying, a lot of crying on my part! Naughty cooped up 3 year old boy with feeling of lacking all sense of security and constancy. Trips to the beach in Fort Walton Beach and Destin. Waiting more. REALLY wierd ear issues, cluing us in that it probably isn't Meniere's OR labrythitis. Making an appointment to get referral to an ENT MEETING JOIA! Feeling like MAYBE looking for a house off base would NOT be the end of the world. Look for housing off base. Find NEAT-O house, but still not wanting to live of base! Having to give landlord an answer. Saying "yes" to a house off base only to find out we can't get our stuff until the 8th. More crying on my part. More frustration! More waiting, swimming, and boring days in the TLF. Appointment to get referral to ENT.

June 8th:
The movers show up at 9:00 am with 7 HUGE crates of our "junk"! I was slightly embarrassed that it took a semi with 7 crates to carry our belongings and how long it took the movers to unpack it. Wendi, Joia and Brittny came to the rescue again! Elijah spent the day with Joia, Keenan (Elijah's age) and little Moriah while Wendi came here for the morning to help me while the movers where here. She was INCREDIBLY helpful and saved me from a serious amount of stress and nerves. Brittny watched her kids and then they swapped at lunch so Brittny could come here and help me unpack some boxes. All in all, the day went pretty well. The movers got our dresser up the stairs without breaking it, or themselves and there was minimal damage to a few of our other belongings. Joia returned a VERY happy and VERY sleepy Elijah to us at 8:30 that night and he went straight to bed but not without telling us stories of the days adventures as he fought to keep his eyes open.

From then up to now:
Unpacking. Unpacking. Unpacking. All sorts of weird ear issues. A MUCH happier 3 year old boy and baby boy. Still waiting to get appointment with ENT to get MRI to rule out a tumor or MS....yikes!
I've been LOVING tooling around in our HUGE backyard when I get the chance in the evenings. I've done a fair amount of pruning of the overgrowth that the past tenants have neglected to care for. The house is coming together much more slowly that I would prefer but I'm not a bit surprised at how long it's taking with two kiddos to keep track of. It seems I just get a box cut open long enough to remove the top paper and see whats in it and I have to drop all and change a diaper, feed a baby, make lunch or crack down on some bad behavior.....all well, it will get there eventually. Plus, it's no big hurry because we'll be here a FULL 3 years! That's longer than Josh has lived anywhere since undergrad and for me since I was in high school. It doesn't feel like home yet, but it will get there once all the boxes are gone and I can start painting and decorating.

My ear:
I have NO idea what to think now. I've noticed a pattern with my ear problems revolving a lot around stressful situations and that doesn't really come as a surprise to me. The nice thing is that while for the past 6 months any time my ear "stuffed up" it seemed I had to have a vertigo "attack" in order to be able to hear normally again. That hasn't been the case these past several weeks. I haven't had much problem with bad vertigo (only slight vertigo here and there), but in turn I've only been able to hear normally our of my left ear for 3 days out of the past 4 weeks. I never know what to expect from one day to the next and have given up and trying to guess what is wrong with my dysfunctional inner ear and balance system. I just have to wait for my MRI and ENT appointment and pray pray pray that they don't tell me "We don't know", or "we have bad news."

So, thats that. Not a terribly exciting post, but it's up to date and now come the musings of daily life in this hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot state called Florida for a family that is used to using TONS of lotion and not having to drink a gallon of water a piece each day just to stay lucid.