Tidbits

Multiple times this week I thought of different things to blog about, but I'm finally sitting down to update you on our life and I'll just have to write about lots of things in one post. :)
Cheating
This has been our first week without family helping me in 2 1/2 months! Wow, how the time flew! We've decided to have help in the house every day during the week days.  Ana is here Monday/Tuesday and then returns for Thursday/Friday. She was upfront that she doesn't want to work probably more than 6 months like this, so we will eventually need to find someone else for Mon/Tues. Ana's main responsibility is the children. She is more of a nanny while I've given the bulk of cleaning responsibilities to another lady who comes twice a week. Her name is Santa and she is with us on Mon/Wednesday. With Theo still gone due to his broken leg, we've hired another gardener for two days a week - Wednesday/Friday. We hope Theo will be getting his surgery next week and then be on to a speedy recovery. The majority of my girlfriends have a driver and while we've lived here for 3 1/2yrs without one, we are considering getting one for at least 2 days a week. Needless to say I've definitely gained the title of House Manager with all the extra help we have.
I feel like I am cheating as a mommy, especially when I think of all the moms in the States. And while I'm okay with having the extra help in order to be able to nurse in peace or deal with a crying infant while someone else takes care of my 16 month old, I'm not at complete peace about it. Maybe it's a pride thing. Maybe God in His sovereignty knew that I needed to live here during this stage of life in order to survive being a mommy to 4 under 5 1/2...or rather I needed to live here so that my children would survive this stage...know what I mean?

Silliness
I watched Adeline giggle like I'd never seen her do when we were stateside these past few weeks. I LOVED IT! I watched her be silly with my or Scott's parents or even Scott and enjoyed each moment. But then as we were doing school this past week, she wanted to be silly with me while working on phonics. I DON'T HAVE A SILLY BONE IN MY BODY! It was at this point that I realized a new way to bond with my daughter...to be silly. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to try. It's going to take a true conscious effort in order for me to be silly....and that's no joke.

Macklin & Matthias
Macklin is now 5 weeks old and weighs 10lbs. He's only waking up once at night to feed! What a blessing from my merciful God! He smiled directly at me today while I was talking to him!

While in TX my "sweet" Matthias turned into a little terror...I'm not exaggerating. Scott didn't quite believe me until he arrived in TX and realized he had a monster to tackle with trying to teach Matthias discipline. Needless to say after daddy was his full-time caretaker for 3 weeks Matthias now FULLY understands when he is disobeying and usually does so with a smirk! He's still addicted to his pacifier and when you ask him where it is, he always knows where to find one. He actually wakes up multiple times in the night and searches for his pacifier. If he doesn't find it, he starts to cry...but he usually always finds it. I took Adeline and Darton off the paci at 7-8mths. I tried weening Matthias around 12mths...don't know when we'll try again. He's learned that Macklin has his own (one) paci and Matthias has his own army of pacifiers. He started this week trying to share his pacifier instead of trying to steal Macklin's. He also started this week kissing on Macklin instead of hitting him every time he came near! It's still a love-hate relationship, but that's to be expected.

My mom took Matthias' stitches out! Let's just say the paci really helped when stitches were being put in  AND taken out!

What to say....
Today I walked away from two conversations thinking, "Man, I wish I would have said..." Each time the statements caught me off guard, but here's what I would have said if given the chance again.
BAckground to conversation: I've challenged 5 non-Christian girlfriends to do the 30 Day Encourage Your Hubby challenge from Revive Our Hearts with me. The handout includes scripture references and the challenge is based upon biblical truths. I let the gals know that up front. That's when one girlfriend said, "You don't have to be a Christian to be nice to your husband." I said, "Well, no that's true."
But then I should have continued with.... "It's true that you don't have to be a Christian to be nice, but I know that in my flesh there is no way I could complete 30 days of encouraging Scott (without saying a bad thing to or about it) and that I need outside help to encourage and nourish my spirit to do so.  That's where God and Christ come into the picture."
Then I had a short conversation about how I plan to homeschool my children even though our company will pay for an education here which costs $10,000US a year. Moms ALWAYS say, "Wow, you must have a lot of patience." And I ALWAYS respond with that I DON'T have patience and I have to work on it EVERY DAY. The lady then replied, "And you want to work on it?" Hmmmm....didn't know what to say to that one.
But if given the chance again I would say....."Yes, I do want to work at it because I've chosen to make Jesus Lord over my life. I want to fully embrace his way of living life which means living by the spirit and not by the flesh. I want to possess love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control."
I know the Spirit puts words in my mouth for those moments when I'm defending my faith, but I haven't been in my Word enough...hence the lack of words