The Saturday before the flooding hit, Jeremy took the Norwich Police Department"s physical agility test, the one he'd been anticipating for six long weeks that weren't long enough. About a week before the test, he timed his 1.5 mile run, and after thinking it was a great run, found he had come up 13 seconds short. That last week before the test, despite his best efforts, life conspired against him and he didn't get to put in much more training at all, so he was extreamly nervous going into that test. It ended up being a very cool opportunity to see God's hand at work in our lives, because on test day he beat the run time by over a minute.
To follow up that display of God's grace, in the past week Jeremy has suddenly been innundated with more work than he knows what to do with. After going for so many months with next to nothing, and definitely not enough to keep living on, now he's realistically looking at hiring.
Mid March we went over to a friends house for lunch, and while all us Moms were sitting talking in the living room, Reuben came trotting through, tripped on a pillow, and smacked his head on the fireplace hearth. It busted open a 1" x 1/8" hole right in the middle of his forehead, and our hostess (who used to be a nurse) quickly pronounced this injury worthy of a trip to the ER.
They were able to glue it shut as opposed to stitching it, which was a blessing at the moment, but about a week later when the glue had come off it just busted open again. This time we just patched it up at home, and as of today, it's almost completely healed.
Later that same week Reuben busted his head open right next to his eyebrow, and Anna bruised her forehead in two places. I was getting about ready to wrap 'em in bubble wrap and duck tape them to the ceiling for their own safety.
Reuben and Anna are enjoying their baby sister more all the time. Every now and then I'll bring Laura along when we put the kids to bed and help her "give them kisses and hugs" (sorta stick her face close enough she can slime their cheek), or I'll "help" Laura chase them around, which they think is totally hysterical.
A couple weeks ago I decided to start potty training Laura. Yep, three kids at once. Laura was very consistently filling her diaper toward the end of each feeding about a minute after she got all squirmy and red in the face. It finally dawned on me that it was kinda silly not to put her on the potty if I clearly knew she was about to go. It's not taking much extra time, it just takes the extra effort to get up and go do it.
I've been amazed how quickly she's caught on. I'm not aiming for perfection here, just saving her the discomfort of sitting in her own poo whenever I can, and hopefully it'll be easier for her to grasp the concept of taking herself to the toilet when the time comes. It's turned out to be great "bonding" time for me and her too - one of the brief periods we get one-on-one time during the day. Comically enough, Laura sucessfully goes on the potty more than the other two kids combined.
Reuben specially asked me to get a picture of him brushing his teeth, and when I told him we could send the picture to his Honey Bear he was quite excieted and started happily waving and yelling, "Hi Honey Bear! Hi Honey Bear!"
We finally managed to catch Laura smiling, though we still need to get a shot of when she's really grinnng. You never saw such a face splitting grin! It's adorable.
Sadly, most of Laura's waking hours are spent screaming. Over this past weekend I started getting the feeling something was off. She was puking in vast quantities after every feeding, choking and gagging, miserable, not sleeping well, sudden fits of apparent pain for no obvious reason. So, I google searched "excessive spit up" and sure enough, that's not normal baby behavior.
Though I haven't had a professional diagnose it, it would seem my little Laura may be a victim of acid reflux. As one of the causes is a dairy intolerance, I cut out dairy and her symptoms have cleared up almost immediately. She's still pretty grumpy, but she's keeping her food down now.
The day before Easter Sunday Jeremy taught a Basic Pistol class, using our church for the classroom time. We'd pre-arranged for me to order them some pizza and then go pick it up and bring it to the church when Jeremy called for it. Well, that ended up being a bit of a disasterous experience all in itself - a rather hysterical story, but longer than I care to put you through here.
Anyhow, we're at church enjoying some pizza with Jeremy's class and the kids were getting roudy, so I took them outside to enjoy the glorious day we were having. It took less than 10 minutes for Anna to find some left over tar from a basement repair that was in progress. By the time I figured out she was playing in more than dirt, she had it all over her mouth, hands, and clothes.
Tar doesn't come off easily. Just in case you were wondering. One of our friends who was taking the class started scouring the church for any substance that could possibly be of use, while I got her stripped down and into the kitchen sink in some soapy warm water. Ultimately we discovered that Vasaline works wonders, and much to my relief we did eventually get Anna clean.
Several weeks ago I picked up a marketing book while nursing Laura, and as I read God started revealing a pretty glaring blindspot in my life. I've always helped Jeremy with his business, but the truth was I hadn't been totally dedicated to it the way he needed me to be, and his level of success was hurting because of my unreliable level of participation.
So I've started getting myself more organized. There really isn't much extra time in my day with three kids three and under, so each day is set asside for a different category of my varied responsibilities, and whatever time I can muster that day is dedicated to those tasks. So for instance, Monday is park day in the morning and business marketing in the afternoon, Tuesday is grocery shopping day in the morning and graphic design work in the afternoon, etc.
The key has been getting into the mentality that I am Jeremy's personal assistant, and if I don't do my job I won't get paid. Technically I don't get paid regardless, but the reality is that Jeremy's paychecks reflect both of our efforts.
This past Friday Jeremy came home to a one page "Weekly Report" that summarized what I had accomplished that week with the books, bills, and marketing, and what was on the agenda for next week. It has brought me to tears to see just how relieved and happy Jeremy is to have me working with him whole heartedly now, and to realize what a discouragement I had been to him before without ever realizing it.
