Today I enjoyed my daily morning visit from my dad. He must keep up his "pastoral" duties to the poor sweet baby in the hospital...whom also happens to be his granddaughter.
I also had a visit from the lovely Andrea Gregory. It was so refreshing to chat with another mom, to share our struggles and tips and joys.
Lo and behold, I also got visited by my mom and children. They are a joy to see. They stayed for dinner at the Ronald McDonald house. Christian enjoyed a special freedom of being able to buy soda out of the machine (it is only 25 cents). Over the course of dinner he bought 4 drinks... "to save for later." (take note that I didn't straight out give him money for pop. He originally found a quarter in my room, then after learning how to open the door to my room with the keyless entry card, he let himself in and retrieved a quarter from the dresser for each soda... Quarters left there by his daddy, who also seems to have a fascination with buying soda out of machines. Ahem...).
Adriah has been sleeping a LOT, but continues to improve. The IV in her groin was starting to leak so they put a new one in her ankle. The best part about it is that it doesn't require continuous flow, allowing her to be unhooked except for when they give her the antibiotics. I can walk around the whole room with her now! She is also smiling a lot more. So sweet.
The oldest three kids have been going to VBS at my parents' church this week, and they LOVE it. I've decided that they would probably benefit from having more routine in our daily activities, so I'm working on coming up with a schedule that we can follow each day. I am also going to make some chore charts so they can benefit from responsibility and rewards. Thanks to Andrea's visit this morning, I now have some great pointers on chore charts! I am going to use my time in the hospital
this week to plan out the specifics and implement them when we go home.
Tomorrow is Thursday already! Adriah will be 8 weeks old. And as of now, we've been in the hospital for 1 week. You never know what a day may hold, but God holds us no mater what!
1 comment:
Rachel,
Thank you for keeping us all updated on little Adriah....I can't even imagine how hard this has been on you all - I think of you often! Prayers for a continued recovery and rest for you and Simon.
On a side note, I love the part about routine for the older kiddos. Teaching Pre-K, I find that most of my struggles at the beginning of the year are with those students who have never experienced routine in their home lives. A great way to add routine to your day is to add an academic piece (you don't have to be a "teacher" and it doesn't have to be structured). If you go to the library, choose a handful of books in a theme and create "book boxes" for the kids to explore for a 10minute quite time - during this time you could feed the baby, clean up around the house, or even choose a little one to read with one-on-one during that time. Teaching the kids the structure of how you want it to work is part of the routine. Also, the chores are a great idea - they may not "clean" the way you want it, but they are so willing to help and love the positive reinforcement of completing a "job". There are tons of resources out there (I mean all you have to do is log into Pinterest!) But a couple of great websites I've found are "No Time for Flashcards" http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/ and "Toddler Approved" http://www.toddlerapproved.com/.
Just thought I'd share a few ideas I had after reading your post!
lots of love & prayers!
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