Well, friends. Today we begin a new blog series, and it’s a doozy. But it is time to share it with those who follow us and invest in our lives, and that is many of you people 💜 As if the last three years haven’t carried enough change and challenge with them, we are coming into yet another season of indescribable uncertainty.
So let’s just get into it, shall we?
Brady is having brain surgery on Thursday.
I know there is more to explain. There is obviously more to it. My mental energy is not so good today, but I’ll give you the little details.
Brady grew a mass in his brain.
It sat unchanged for a good while.
It prompted a seizure a couple months back.
We decided with our surgeon to (in his own words) whack it out.
And today – March 18th – we got the surgery date – March 21st. Admitted on March 20th.
That’s in two days.
There is a LOT more to all of this, and I’d like to be able to make some posts on the subject, but I am not putting a concrete date on them, for obvious reasons.
As far as speculating goes, this go-round should be simpler than the last one. Shorter. Less terrifying. Faster healing. Only God knows how it will turn out, but we have every confidence that His hand is in it, and He will be guiding our capable surgeons hands as he operates on Brady’s brain.
I’m sure you can guess how hard its been to (ready?) wrap our brains around all of this. Its brought a lot of (ready?) nerves forward. And now, its all coming to (ready?) a head.
We are praying for peace that passes all understanding. For confidence in Christ as our faith is tested in one of the most frightening ways we can imagine.
In fact, the lemon drop slept in its bed!!! So Brady and I both slept in our bed!!!
We still woke up pretty consistently to give bottles and change wet diapers, but thats regular baby stuff and feels perfectly appropriate! Which is the goal we all share over here!!! Regular, reasonable baby stuff!!
Thanks to a few hours of real sleep last night, the family was able to get up and make it to church! ALL of us!! Believe you me, that lemon drop of ours was very popular this morning, and we only got out of there around 1:00pm, but it was a really lovely time, and the rest of the day moved slowly and relaxedly, with some guitar in the background and even a little crocheting.
Dare I say, today felt like a *gasp* normal day. And it was nice!
Tomorrow begins another rowdy week, with two appointments on the books, the schedule having been complicated by yet another compressed school day. It’s all organized and we’ll make it work, of course, as we do each and every unpredictable day we face!
Thank goodness we have the Lord! How we would survive without faith in God, I couldn’t tell you 💜
Considering the lack of sleep over here alongside the need to still accomplish things, I am leaving you with a short post of just a few little laughs. As I mindlessly scrolled for a moment this morning, I happened upon one of those time waster articles and giggled my way through it. I can’t vouch whether things were actually funny, or I was just tired, so take my promise of humour with a grain of salt.
If only there were more “We’re already disturbed” signs…
This person is indeed strange 🤣 Like. I get it. But expect to be ridiculed, I think.
This is just straight up witty and I’m here for it 🙌
We call Dekker Dave around here sometimes, so yes, Daves for life!!
And seriously. Don’t. This is so hard to read for me!! 😅 Unless, again, thats just the fatigue talking.
These are really all I have to offer you today. Feel free to share your latest dumb meme or joke in the comments, if you have one. I can’t be the only person who could use a laugh!
After three doctors appointments, I can confirm that I am ready for this week to be over. It has been a LOADED week but not a bad one. Just FULL. SO many appointments and meetings!
Yet after all of our medical stuff with Brady in the last three years, and then more medical stuff with foster care, I feel quite comfortable and familiar with many facets of the medical world. I don’t claim to have doctor knowledge, don’t worry. I’m not that kind of special. But I can hold my own in a conversation with many different kinds of doctors and therapists, and I’m really grateful that I feign enough confidence to be trusted by medical professionals.
There were two appointments this morning, but both were with our dear Dr. Guselle, and Brady was along! We had a really really nice time, as she has a beautiful way of making everything seem doable and positive while keeping things realistic and in perspective. As always, we laughed a lot, and we left feeling pretty encouraged.
I went home, put the morsel down for short naps, and ate a bowl of mashed potatoes with a lemon drop on my lap. It was really chill 💜 But it was a short lived quiet time before I scooted one baby off to one loving grannie, a Wavy off to grandma, and me plus one headed into the city for the last appointment of the day!
It turned out to be a really helpful appointment, where I spent some extra time with a doctor, going to other floors, getting some extra help, and some real answers. It took extra time, and he truly went above and beyond. It is SO nice for my heart to have people truly invest, not just treat us like a number. Even as the last patient of his day, I wasn’t rushed, and didn’t feel like he was eager to get rid of us. It was really nice.
I drove back in the sun, and picked up baby from granny 💜 Upon arriving home, my mom had received the kids from school and made rice and curry for supper 💜 What an amazing welcome! How fortunate are we to have a beautiful team of people around us this way?!
Thank you, Lord, for getting us through such a massive week. Next week might even be bigger, though different. So we continue to look to Him and move forward! Lord protect us, as You always do 💜
Last night turned out to be the worst for sleep since our new little lemon drop joined the crew. I slept a total of one hour in entirety. One. Singular. ‘Twas a rough one, hahaha!
And here I am, trying to put a blog together while half asleep, waiting for an important phone call to still come in, and both babies are still awake! Ack!! PLEASE Lord let tonight be smoother than the last one!
I will leave you two pictures of kitchen stuff that made me giggle. Because thats all I’ve got at the moment! 😅
First, I trapped Laela in the teeny tiny corner of the kitchen while she was doing dishes. She is just terribly cute 😍
Aaaaand today, the bell peppers expressed how I was feeling on the inside.
I think they are also tired. They could be yelling. Or they could be yawning. Both work. Equally.
Goodnight, folks. Ar least I HOPE its a good night…
Yesterday morning was indeed something of a nightmare, but I am not above a silver lining! I still got all my needs met, and got to everywhere I needed to get. We also had some great wins otherwise, but they’re all related to our foster children, so unfortunately they remain off the blog :/ Merp.
Today was a much smoother start. I knew which vehicle I was using (the one that drives, duh) and didn’t fall behind in getting it started. My wallet was in it. It had enough gas. I was way better set up.
I loaded the morsel and the lemon drop into the bus to get to our morning appointment on time. I found appropriate parking easily, thanks to a wise helpful friend, and we made it to our appointment on time!
It was a VERY successful appointment! HUGE strides, real WINS! Thank you Lord!!!
I hadn’t picked up a coffee the day before, because, you know, no wallet. The last time I picked up coffee was Friday, and my special coffee became an iced coffee in the time it took me to retrieve the lemon drop. It turned out to be quite a disappointing coffee. So I justified buying myself a coffee today, and wouldn’t you know it – Starbucks has LEMON cake pops!! They are SO delicious it might be a problem…..
*drools just remembering*
I got everyone home and unloaded. One babe was eating and one was dozing, and I figured I could start to sorrrrrt of aim towards productivity. I pulled out some freezer stuff – pumpkin purree, bananas, and butter, with the thought of baking in mind. I figured, if everything fell apart and I had no chance at actually baking, at least it was defrosted and I could pick away at baking on the weekend.
And then 🙌 I baked ALL AFTERNOON.
Twelve dozen muffins and four loaves of banana bread got baked up! They’re still out, waiting to be wrapped, but goodness I have NO gumption to do it just yet, hahaha! Maybe I can pimp it out on the kids today, lol! I also peeled and cut a big bag of carrots and put them in water in the fridge. That will make cooked carrots SO fast in the coming days, and those are a staple over here at the moment. I felt quite accomplished this afternoon, and I’m going to ride that feeling, hahaha! After MANY bad nights of “sleep” where I didn’t actually sleep, I’m very grateful to have slept some last night, and I feel like I can take on the world! 💪
All glory to God!! 💜 And maybe a little bit of credit to that sugar coated lemon cake pop 👌🍋
Myyyyy goodness this morning was just absurd 😅 I still got to where I needed to go, thank goodness, but it was NOT as smooth as it could’ve been! It was so bad, it was almost comical. Almost. 🤏 Not quite, though. I’ll give you the rundown.
I needed to leave the house by 9:15 at the latest to make it to the childrens hospital by 10:00. It always takes me longer than I anticipate, so I gave myself extra time to get bags packed, the stroller in the minivan, and to let it run a little. I put our little lemon drop in the car seat, and went to retrieve the morsel from bed. I rushed the car seat out without a cover, because I knew the van would be toasty, and I ran the morsel out without a jacket, because I knew I’d take it off for the car seat buckles anyway, and again, toasty van. Everyone was in place, and it was 9:12. I threw the van into reverse.
I backed down the driveway, revealing a significant puddle on the driveway. I didn’t think anything of it, figuring things were just melting until there, but when I couldn’t turn the steering wheel to save my life, I realized what I was dealing with.
*sigh* This has happened before. I believe it was last winter that the hose had jumped off of our power steering mechanism, draining all the fluid out. Super fun in the moment, as you can imagine. At least I knew from last time that it was a decently easy fix. So I snapped a picture before I pulled back into the driveway. The pic gives me inappropriate vibes, I don’t know about you…
Aaaaanyway.
I pulled back into the driveway and realized I needed to make quick work of a vehicle swap. Thankfully, I had both vehicles to work with. I started the bus and began to transfer the babies over. Unsurprisingly, they were both cold, and not fans of this last minute change. But they managed, as did I.
I got the bags moved over. I got the stroller moved over. Grabbed the jackets. Locked the mini. And got on my way.
The bus was cold, and the windshield was frosty. I didn’t have time to let it defrost, and I knew it wasn’t too cold that I’d get myself in trouble, so I sprayed some washer fluid and let it take care of the frost for me.
Except then I realized one of my wipers had broken off the last time the bus was used, and there it sat, in my passenger seat. So I pulled over and popped that thing back on before continuing.
As I drove, I realized more and more ways where I was entirely screwed. For example, I was driving a crazy tall vehicle to a place where I knew I wouldn’t fit in the parkade, hence why I aimed to use the minivan. So I called the information department and inquired where I could park. They told me I could park in the oversized lot. Deal. I’d do my best. Except I’d have to bundle the babies more than if I were in the parkade, therefore losing more time. Oh well. That was doable. I could handle that.
I realized I had barely enough gas to get there, and not even close enough to get home. Deal. As long as I can make it there. Except my wallet was in the minivan. Because thats the one I was fully prepared to use. Yes. Adventure awaits. Cool. Cool cool cool. No time to figure that one out, unfortunately. Just have to get there. Time is ticking, and regardless of how warm my bus still is not, I am sweatin’!
I finally drive up to the hospital on fumes, and the oversized lot is not at all where I remember it being. So. I couldn’t tell you where it is now, or was all along, but I couldn’t find the thing and I didn’t have time to waste. I couldn’t have been more grateful to find a spot right outside the old fetal assessment unit, which is conveniently even closer to where we were going than going through the parkade! So even though it was an outside spot, it helped with time.
I took a picture of the parking info and texted it to Brady with little to no explanation. He immediately sent me a screenshot of the countdown of how much time he had paid for 💜 Thank you, love.
I got the babies into the double stroller, covered and jacketed as fast as humanly possible, and we made it to our appointment spot ONE MINUTE before our time slot!
And then our therapist was ten minutes late 😅 Which I was truly SO fine with because I was reeling from all the rushing. I sat and waited, while trying to think through my options for how to make the drive home smoother.
I felt I earned a coffee. But darn, no wallet. Still had to fill up with gas somehow. Sometimes we keep a few bills tucked away in the vehicle for emergencies such as these. I could see if we had that. Otherwise 🤷🏼♀️ I’d have to go in somewhere and see if they’d use a card number without the card itself. Maybe I could just fill up in Warman and go steal Bradys wallet! Nope. Wouldn’t make it. I had to find emergency money.
Thank goodness I did!! However, I only found ten dollars! And that doesn’t take our bus too far. I texted Brady and he said it would get me either to home or Warman. I chose Warman, because gas is way cheaper there, and I could take Bradys card and fill up all the way.
Until I remembered that one of the babes needs a time sensitive medication and that time was coming in hot! So I opted for home instead. I made it home in time with a formulated plan. I ran inside and grabbed the meds, came back out and administered them, then ran syringes back inside before driving back to our local Coop to fill all the way up with the more-than-Warman gas, just so I wouldn’t forget and be left scrambling another day.
*curls up in a ball*
It was a WHOLE THING!!!
At least I made it home in time to eat lunch before our social worker came out for a visit!
And as things tend to happen, this didn’t turn out to be the same issue we’ve had before with a hose popping off, but a possible fully pooched power steering system. We don’t know for sure, but what we do know is that, for the rest of this weeks crazy haul of appointments/meetings/commitments, I will be taking the bus. Even to the places it doesn’t fit. Because I have no other option. Whatcha gonna do!
This 🙌 has not been our best week, hahaha! And its Tuesday 😅 Only up from here, right guys?
Trust me. I know the weather this season hasn’t been ideal. I know that it will mess up a lot of things in the upcoming seasons. I know it could make for a really challenging farming season ahead, and that touches just about every facet of our lives whether we realize it or not. I know there are many things that will suffer as a result. And I don’t pretend that isn’t important! It is!
Its been a strange weather season of ups and downs, where I’ve really enjoyed the mild while positivelhy detesting the ice cold snaps.
However.
I’m not mad that there are birds chirping in my trees.
I’m not mad that the kids are really enjoying playing in the snow in our front yard.
I’m not mad that I can open the windows of the vehicle when the sun is out in full force.
I’m not mad that I can enjoy an iced coffee and without shivering.
I’m not mad that, during a week that feels WAY too big, WAY too full, and pretty stinking overwhelming, I can drive my van without letting it run first. That kids can run outside in hoodies. That I could wear a tank top this weekend!
Somehow, this lift in weather makes things feel so much more doable. This week is busy, and the rest of the month will likely be even busier. So I am relieved to have these busy days fall during a time where I feel stronger, and more capable, and generally better than others.
Of course, my strength if not found in the weather, or even within myself, but in Christ!
It has been a wild weekend! And not in the fun rowdy “going out late and making questionable decisions” kind of way. Much more so in the “getting no sleep while managing a second foster baby with high needs while diving into a new therapy and finishing up a home renovation ” kind of way.
😳
So ya. Its been a lot.
At least we were OFFICIALLY APPROVED as a higher level foster home as of just last weekend!! 🥳 That is something to celebrate, as we’ve been working at it for what feels like forever. We made it, guys. We are finally “qualified” to take care of the morsel we’ve had since June 😅 Aaaaanyway.
I realized very late in the game that the kids have tomorrow off of school! Go figure! It’s one that I apparently missed on all the kids’ schedules, therefore it didn’t make it onto my calendar. Ah well.
With tomorrow being a day off of school, there was some fancy footwork put in today to figure out how to make the day run smoothly. The girls are heading in one direction tomorrow morning. The boys are staying home with my mom, as is one baby, and I’m taking the other baby along with me to an appointment. After lunch, the boys are heading out, and the babes and I will have a meeting at the house.
Somewhere in there, Brady also has an appointment, but luckily its just a phone call.
After a VERY busy weekend, the week of appointments begins! Goodness. I don’t remember the last time we had this many appointments in just a weeks time! Ack! We’ll have to prioritize some downtime in the coming days. At least there were a few moments of rest today.
Maybe the babies will even *gasp* SLEEP sometime this week!!! 😱😅😩
Three of our kids got to pick up new glasses! Its kind of funny, but they all chose glasses very much like the pair they had chosen last year. On one hand, I wish they branched out a bit more and explored new styles, but also, I love that they loved their glasses that much! Win!
Dekker first! He previously wore a matte finish black pair of glasses that were a bit of a softer square shape, and now he has these!
I like these a lot! I like the shape of them, and how they’re more rounded but also have some subtle edges along the bottoms. Super cute!
Laela is next! She struggled to find a pair she liked, and she kept saying she felt like she was being picky. However, all of us including the staff reassured her that she needs to love her glasses 💜 They ended up ordering a pair for her, and thankfully, she loved them! (Apparently Dekker was really feeling them, too…)
They have a very slight cat eye shape, but much softer than she had before. They are light purple, and shiny and pretty. The color is much more visible in the sun, but you’ll have to take my word for it. She feels very pretty in them 💜
Rowan didn’t need new glasses this time around as he rarely wears his, and they’re still in perfect shape. Good thing he still loves them!
Solly is last this time around. His prescription hasn’t changed too much but his glasses have been through it and it was an appropriate time to replace them. He got virtually the same ones as last time – the unbreakable ones – except the lens size is larger and the shape is maybe a bit rounder.
Frankly, I like these a lot more than the last pair, and I think its just the size! They are SO nice on his face! He is neutral, though. His priority was the “cwip-ons.”
Aaaaand he got them, so he’s happy, hahaha!
One more year of glasses done and done! ✅ I’m so grateful for such a lovely place to go for vision care as Warman Eye Care. For staff to come and hold my babies, know my children by name, make exceptions for them, and ask intentional questions about our lives. We are so fortunate 💜 Thank you, Lord.
