stress

I am totally losing it.  I am super behind at work.  Exhausted.  Have a concert tonight with the alto part of two quartets I am not really ready to sing (thank God my solo was easy to learn).  We have something going on tomorrow night, church on Wednesday night, about three different things to do on Thursday night, the WIC conference that I am working on is next weekend and the list goes on.  To top it all off, I got a crazy bill for over $300 in the mail today for some lab work Ben had done 7 months ago!!

When I am stressed I am a horrible mommy.  My fuse is short and Ben bears the brunt of my frustration simply because he spends the most time with me and he is three, so therefore the most likely to push me past the point of no return on the stress-o-meter!

Can I just throw in the towel?

paging doctor newberry

As of 11 am this morning, I am officially married to a doctor (of philosophy, so don't be calling for any prescriptions unless you need one for an ailing comma splice)!!!  I am so proud of Jeff!!  Many years of seriously hard work have gone into today and Jeff has done it all with style.  So here's to you, honey!  You are the man. :-)

illness

There is nothing that hurts a parent's heart more than a sick child for whom there is not much you can do.  Ben seems to have gotten a stomach bug from somewhere, so we have been contending with the, uh..., consequences of said virus all day.  He has not been actively sick all day, but the first time was all over me, the recliner in his room, his bed, and the floor and it had been an all day long process to try to get the chair back in decent condition. BTW: I would love some mom cleaning tips for future incidents!  Anyway, I will keep him home from church tomorrow with hopes that he will be back to normal quickly!

Besides the obvious yucky consequences of some illnesses my child can experience, it just makes me so sad to hear him cry and not know what's wrong or, like he can now, to actually identity what hurts and communicate that to me, and I not really be able to do anything about it.  With all that said, I am grateful that all I have had to experience as a parent has been colds, ear infections, stomach bugs, and a couple of seizures.  Things could easily be worse and I am thankful to God for Ben's general good health.

discipline

Ben's:  Last week was horrible on the behavior scale for my little man.  If a rule could be broken or a line crossed (or as Jeff would say, "dove over head first") then Ben did it.  It was just one of those weeks where you really wonder why you ever wanted to be a parent.  After lots of discipline, hugs, and encouragement we survived to turn the leaf of a fantastic week.  Ben has been great at school this week and has been pretty good a home too!  Yay!  I thank God for weeks like this.  They are a like a refreshingly cool breeze in an otherwise hellashious time in our lives I like to call toddlerhood. Its also good to be reminded that the creature I am raising is actually a boy - and my boy at that - and that I love him and am proud of him.  I'm sure Ben enjoys the reminder that I am his mom and not screaming banshee.

Jeff's: Jeff is working like a madman and I am so proud of him.  He is basically teaching 7 classes, about to begin teaching a Sunday School class at church on Tim Keller's book The Reason For God (check it out, it's great!), is doing a super job taking care of me and Ben, is finishing his dissertation and preparing for his defense on Oct 21st, and on top of all that he in going to the gym three days a week.  Now that is some discipline.

Mine:  I pretty sure that am lacking in this area.  My kitchen is a mess, I have about 2 months worth of clean laundry piled on the guest bed waiting to be dealt with, I have a to do list that is about 3 miles long and all I do is read.  I am totally obsessed with the Bodie Theone books that Amy lent me and I just can't put them down!  They are super great though and I suppose I will eventually finish reading them!  So, thanks Amy.  At least I have good book reading discipline. :-)