Getting Through It

Well, Daryn is in Jamaica again...this time for 15 days. I am trying my hardest to be a patient, fun mom-even though it's hard to have two 3 year old boys and a 5 year old by myself! Actually, this time has been going MUCH better than a few months ago when Daryn was gone for 12 days. As difficult as it gets sometimes for me when Daryn has to leave, it is still so worth it for him to have a job like he does. It's so great, really. Most days he is home for at least 2/3 of our meals...We eat breakfast and dinner as a family every night and sometimes even lunch if Daryn doesn't have a lunch meeting. His job is so flexible that he is able to take an afternoon off every once in a while to take Grace on a date or something and make it up by getting some work done on a Saturday. The funny thing is, I can't even imagine him having to work a 9-5 job. Not that he works less than that, (sometimes he works more) it's just that for the last 7 years of our marriage he has been in ministry with a job with irregular hours-that's just what we are used to as a family. The coolest part about his job is that it exists to help people. It's so great to talk to him when he calls from Jamaica each night and tells me what has been going on that day. Right now, T.R.E.K. has 4 interns living in Jamaica this summer doing some awesome things! There is a children's home with teenaged girls living there who have suffered various types of abuse and were taken from their homes. Many of the girls haven't been in school for months or even years. Our 3 girl interns are meeting with those girls in a mentoring type relationship, doing bibie studies with them, crafts, and just hanging out...basically, they are doing Young Life! Yesterday when I talked to Daryn at the end of the day, he told me how the team built a set of soccer goals for the orphanage kids. They are very sturdy and cemented into the ground. All week long they've been putting on a soccer camp for the kids there. And the day before they worked with another mission team that was in the area to take a group of kids from one of the homes to the beach and out on glass bottomed boats!
Well, back to life here on the homestead:) Right now one of our main obstacles is that Anteneh wets the bed regularly. I'm talking we cut off his liquids an hour and a half before bedtime (they go to bed at 8pm...no liquids after 6:30pm)...and at about 10:30pm get the boys out of bed and have them pee one last time before we go to bed. I did this last night and Anteneh peed the bed, STILL!!! He doesn't get in trouble b/c he obviously doesn't do it on purpose but we aren't sure how to stop it. You would think cutting off his liquids and taking him to pee again so late at night would eliminate the nighttime peeing but literally 2-4 times a week I have to strip his bed, wash the pee out, launder the sheets, and break my back trying to put the sheets back on a mattress that fits very tightly into a top bunk spot. It gets rather irritating to have to do this multiple times a week! Most of the time he pees in the middle of the night and never wakes up. (How can I tell this, you ask? B/C it's all over the sheets but has obviously been drying a little for the last few hours by the time I discover it in the morning...but no-it's not a little leaking...you can tell by the extent of the 'damage' that it was a full bladder...Where does the pee come from??????????????? When we take him to pee at 10:30pm, he doesn't have a full bladder! It's usually a light, short pee! Grace and Luke have not had this problem-they pottytrained early and easily. Anteneh is older than Luke (as far as we can tell is almost 4 years old) and is having problems...I know tons of kids wet the bed and have problems with this but this is new to me. Anyone reading have experience with bed wetters? I feel like we are doing everything right to avoid it (number one is that we are NOT making him feel guilty) but what's the next step? A little more info: for a long time after we brought him home he didn't do this...It's been 4 months and this problem just developed in the last 2 months...my theory is that he is sleeping more soundly b/c he is more at home and comfortable here and it's just an issue of being in such a deep sleep he doesn't realize what he's doing...b/c he is very well adjusted when he's awake...he used to wake up in the middle of the night for the first 2 months and now is sleeping all night long w/ no problems (except the bedwetting)...any advice is welcomed!

Well, the last bit of news: Luke is now on Greseofulvin (antifungal oral meds) for ringworm in his scalp. Kind of gross, huh? Well, when Anteneh came home 4 months ago he had that but the doctor said, "Don't worry-white people don't catch it..." Well, Luke did-and he's my fair skinned biological son. He's had it since 3 weeks after Anteneh got here and I've gotton rid of it with creams only to have it come back a few weeks later. So, finally, the pediatrician put him on the same meds Anteneh took for it and now says, "well, ALMOST never!" Haha...I love our pediatrician...it cracks me up, though...b/c 3 months ago when I called and said, "I think my biological son has the fungal scalp thing that Anteneh had," the doctor said he consulted another pediatrician and they both agreed he couldn't catch it from Anteneh...but looks like Mommy may have been RIGHT!!!! Haha... My poor little guy has a few little bald spots in his hair so I buzzed him with a #1 on the clippers just like I do with Anteneh-little almost bald best friends...wish I could post a picture but Daryn has the camera in Jamaica for the next week and half...Luke is not as cute as Anteneh with a buzzed head! Haha...Poor Luke-he looks pretty rough right now...he has sensitive skin and a slight milk allergy....sometimes I let him drink regular milk (just a little) when no soy milk is available...b/c he only gets a rash-it's not a life threatening allergy...well, I left a chocolate milk mustache on his face from lunch until his bath that night (ok, moms-don't lie-you've done the same at some point) and the next morning wher the milk had sat on this face was a horrible rash in the same shape as the milk mustache...and the day after that, all his cheeks and around his mouth were a blistering rash! The doctor said it started as an allergic reaction to the milk on his face and the naturally occuring bacteria got into it and now he has to use an antibacterial lotion on his face...he looks so bad-haha...buzzed patchy hair and a red crusty face...hahaha...so wish i had the camera....well, gotta go keep up the homestead.

Anteneh the comic

We have worked so hard at not only bonding with Anteneh over the last 4 months, but teaching him to be a well mannered little guy-as well mannered as a 3 year old can be-haha...today he was playing in his room with Grace and was getting really in to his character as some random superhero. Daryn walked into the room and Anteneh said in a mean voice, "Daddy-get out now!" (not trying to be mean-just playing). Daryn said, "Anteneh, it's not OK to talk to Daddy like that." So, Anteneh says, "May you please get out, Daddy?" in his mean superhero voice. You had to be there...

Another thing that happened today that made me laugh so hard...A little background: Luke is a little behind in his speech so sometimes words don't come out right. Anteneh is learning English so sometimes his words come out wrong, too. Well, I let them each give Shadow (our black lab mix) some treats but I told them they needed to have him sit and shake first. So, they stood there in front of Shadow with treats in their hands saying, "Adow: hit! ake!" then they'd get frustrated b/c of course Shadow had NO IDEA what they were saying..."Adow! HIT! AKE!" Poor shadow would look back and forth between them and then to me in a panic having no clue what to do...finally I helped the boys out but they didn't understand why Shadow wouldn't do what they were asking! It was pretty funny!

Anteneh is so afraid of missing out on something, he is always asking to do whatever he sees someone else doing or he frantically asks to eat whatever someone else has...Well, today Grace was in the bathroom yelling "done!" so one of us would wipe her (sorry to talk about something so gross) and I asked Daryn if he wanted to wipe her or if he wanted me to do it...(I was getting lunch on the table) So Anteneh enthusiastically yells, "Me!!! I wipe her!"...now, if he knew what he was volunteering himself for, he never would have offered! He just heard me offering something and didn't want to miss out! I asked if he was sure and he said 'yes' so we let him wipe her...I'm just kidding...we said, "thank you, Anteneh, we will take care of it!"
He is quite the entertainer

"Oh, my goodness!!!"

It's been a long time since I've posted anything! Nothing much is new...Anteneh continues to learn so quickly! His favorite phrase lately is, "OH, my goodness!"...He says it ALL THE TIME. I will admit-he gets it from me. But he says it all the time to himself with his little accent. It's so funny. For instance, he will be alone in the bathroom on the toilet and I'll hear him exclaim, "Oh, my goodness!" Hahaha...constant entertainment! It's so cool to see how his attention span and his ability to make believe have expanded. He now regulartly sits in Grace's room with her and plays with her little animals. He used to only bang cars together and fight w/ his sword but now he sits and concentrates on things...He will play with Grace for a long time, which gives Luke and I some great quality time together. We must be done having kids b/c Luke has officially taken the position of my baby. He always was but as he gets a little older I'm seeing that it's not b/c he's a baby...he's 3 years old-he's a little KID and he still holds that special place in the family. And those moments when Grace and Anteneh are playing in her room are priceless for mommy-baby time! Haha...it must be official that he is forever stuck in the 'baby of the family' position!

Anteneh has only gained 1 pound! Isn't that odd? I think it's kind of odd...We thought he'd gain at least a few pounds...The thing that has us baffled is that there is NO WAY he was eating this much food in Ethiopia. I've never seen a child his size eat so much. We still regularly have to cut him off after he's had seconds on everything AND asked to clean Grace and Luke's plates! He ate so much at Cici's Pizza today at lunch that he had to come home and sit on the toilet for 10 minutes and cried b/c his stomach hurt. There is no way he had access to that amount of food before so we wonder why he hasn't gained much of any weight. He has gotten an inch taller and his feet are definately bigger. (He was already tall with long feet)...My best guess is that he is so much more active now that he just burns those calories off! He really is extrememly active and doesn't stop all day. I guess that's where it's going!