Friday 9 December 2011

....and Christmas came early

As many of you know we have had a tough few weeks. Seraphina s still only tolerating half strength feed, she has lost a considerable amount of weight. We went up to Sheffield again and have had to start another medicine called azathioprine which is an immunosuppressant as well as pushing the steroids up to maximum again as she doesnt tolerate them being lowered.
We saw the opthalmologist this week who again confirmed that she has a cortical visual impairment (although not too bad) and then we saw our local consultant who looked at a lump I had been a little concerned about in her tummy and confirmed it was an incisional hernia (her bowel has herniated through a past operation incision ) so this means another op for my girl to fix it.
Then we had to go to hospital twice with temperatures so that they could check her blood cell count due to being imunosupressed so they could see if she was able to fight off the infection and have medicine accordingly.
Life seems to be a game of ''hospital hokey cokey' at the moment and the other children are also feeling the strain,particularly the eldest three, . their schools have been good reducing the amount of homework they have to complete and we have spoken to them all and prayed together but Its hard when they ask you why God hasn't healed Seraphina completely yet.

I have no answers for that ... my faith is still strong ,but my longing to see my girl healed is too.

Yesterday was one of 'those' days.I was looking at the photos and pictures we had taken only a few days ago ...Seraphinas 5th Birthday.How my heart ached to see her eat some cake, open her own presents,blow out her own birthday candles...speak and run around like any other 5 year old girL
She had spent the morning crying with tummy ache, hadnt been well enough for physio for months and was having more spasms.

I cried out to God ...WHY?? Have you forgotten her ??? PLEASE show me you still care...that you remember my little girls name!!!

I immediately felt bad about my outburst even though I knew that God didnt mind.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. Isa 55:8

came to mind and I left it there and carrried on with the rest of the day.David had one of his rare working from home days and we had an appointment in the afternoon.

and then, a couple of hours later....with Gods help my little girl gave us the BEST Christmas present we could ask for


I grabbed my camera phone straight away and tried to capture some of it on film before she got too tired...she had already walked the length of the living room from the hallway and I just got the tail end of her walking here...Im sure you get the idea :-). She had walked with assistance for the first time a few months ago but this was something else!! watch out Christmas tree this year :0) !!!

I know many of you wont agree with this but this is WHAT I believe

God hasn't forgotten her...things may not be panning out the way I thought they would,or hoped they would but he DEFINITELY hasnt forgotten her and I believe this is what he was trying to tell me.

HIS ways not mine....always.

Thursday 1 December 2011

Tidy your room!

How many times a week can I hear myself shout this up the stairs to my children. Ive threatened no pocket money if they dont get it done.I have pleaded with them to move stuff before I literally break my neck over stuff that has been strewn across the floor.
Ive also gone into their rooms much to their dismay with a bin bag and thrown stuff away when they havent tidied up.

Im having some little trousers made for Seraphina and the ebay person asked for her waist measurment and leg length so I went to my bedroom to find a tape measure. I couldnt find it.
I decided to look in my bedside drawers..I pulled the first one open to be showered with bits of paper overflowing from it...oops, maybe I should tidy this. I pulled it out and masses of stuff fell out the back and onto the next equally overflowing draw and onto the floor where my mountainous pile of books toppled over *blush*...how did the pile get so high???!?

I started to go through the drawers bit by bit and was initially horrified at the mixed up jumble of things I found h broken hair accessory, a scribbled on envelope, a squished lipstick, a toy train, receipts, notebooks, hairbands,a bookmark the list is endless...bits of paper folded up with notes on a chocolate wrapper......ok more than one :-)

Then I looked more closely..each item told a story

The hair accessory was one I had bought and Eve had pinched without me knowing when she was about 4, I still remember her coming downstairs in one of my dresses and high heels with this pearly hair accessory twisted crookedly into her hair which was tumbling out of it one side and sticking up at a comical angle the other side.I was all ready to shout at her for pinching it until she said she was trying to be ''princess mummy''........and she did look really cute.

The scribbled on envelope contained a little tooth and on the front David had written 'To the tooth fairy'' and then it had been painstakingly signed by a very little boy ''J o s e p h'' surrounded by lots of kisses and a drawing of a car.

The reciepts were from things bought a few Christmases ago, things they had been 'desperate' for and I had felt so over the moon at being able to get...I laughed as I read them because  can still hear their voices as they nagged me for the hundreth time and I had already got the things secreted away :-)

The bookmark was from a Christian event I had gone to...I was so desperate for a little brother for Joseph but it wasnt happening even though I had felt God say he would answer my prayer. Someone prayed with me that night and at the end of the night everyone got given a bookmark..mine said ''God always keeps his promises ''............and he did only a month later when we found we were expecting Samuel.

The squished lipstick was one Aimee 'borrowed' aged about 3 and covered her face in it whilst the train is a spare Thomas the tank engine of Josephs that he wrapped up for my birthday one year ...

These are all things which would look like rubbish to someone who didnt understand, but each one is a memory.


Memories, each one so so special....Im a squirrel, I admit it and I think my children have inherited the 'squirreling' gene.
I'll still be asking them to tidy their rooms.....but maybe I wont be so ruthless when throwing things away and let them keep thier memories too.

Ive also made a decision
This year Im going to give my children a different present, one I have only done once before and one which money cant buy.

Im going to write them a letter each, with all these memories in, memories individual to each of them, little reminders of their growing up, how loved and special each of them is and how blessed I am to be their Mum.. meanwhile I might put this stuff back and save tidying my room till another day :)