my arch enemy, the stomach bug

last night, clara joy woke up vomitting. i deserted my husband and puking daughter and fled to the guest room in the hopes that i wouldn't phsyche myself into throwing up too. i'm so nauseous lately that listening to someone throw up is almost unbearable. thankfully, matt handled it well and like the great hubby he is, he woke up with her throughout the night and cleaned up as needed. thankfully, i slept and didn't spend the night throwing up! i woke up discouraged though, thinking of the doom that now lay over matt's spring break and the next several days for us. i confess that i am very afraid of stomach bugs. i know they pass quickly and that God has not forgotten us, but i struggle with even the thought that my nausea is possibly going to get worse. i spent the morning feeling depressed and talking to God about it. i snuggled up in bed while the kids watched a movie and rested. i checked email and facebook. i read an update from a missionary couple in Japan, the aoyagis and a woman they met who had lost all three of her children during the earthquake/tsunami. i read about an officer who was shot and killed this morning in chattanooga. suddenly, i was thankful. when i think about my four healthy children and my husband who is alive and well it doesn't seem to matter so much about stomach bugs or nausea. i am blessed and humbled that i have been so fearful with so little to be afraid of and so much to praise God for.

a fresh start?

after some deliberation on the merits and challenges of facebook, i have decided to try to blog again, even though i have surely lost my followers for good. it serves as a kind of journal for me, and with as much as i am cooped up lately, i think this will be good for me.

as for why i have been cooped up, i'm pregnant with our fifth baby. this was a huge adjustment for us, because we had hoped to be done having children. God has better plans though and we are thankful that He's in charge. right now, i'm 12 weeks and counting. it's been a rough transition so far. i've been very nauseous and unable to keep up with much of our busy family life. thankfully, we made the choice to put our older two in school this year, so i'm only home with two during the day and i'm able to rest. if we were homeschooling, i'm pretty sure things would be a little bit crazier around here.

we sold our house last may. i wish i had been blogging then, because i would have posted some pictures of the house finished. it was beautiful. the only mistake we made with it was buying a smaller house to start with. it was very hard to outgrow it and leave. we love the house we're in now. it's much larger and older, with so many amazing little details, but nothing will ever feel the same as the house my husband put so much loving care into. maybe this house will feel more like home to me when our new baby comes home to it. there's such a connection with the place you have brought your babies home to. i can't think about the old house without seeing snapshots of my life as a mother in it flashing through my mind. i used to feel so cramped and crowded there, with laundry piled up and children running laps around the house. it was our life though, our family. there were messes and accidental art on the walls and delicious smells and happy screeches.

thankfully, our family is a family in this big beautiful house too. we have suddenly found a way to make every square inch of a large house messy too! we have lovely neighbors, old and young. we have flowers blooming, little friends knocking on the door, and thankful hearts. i suppose these are precious things, aren't they?