Thank You for the Bad Things

My girls learned a cute little song with a catchy tune recently.
"Thank You for the good things,
Thank You for the good things,
Thank you, Lord, for all the good things.
Thank you for the hugs and kisses,
Thank you for the stars and wishes..."
It goes on thanking God for all the good things that He gives to us.

My nephew was being silly and started singing,
"Thank You for the bad things,
Thank You for the bad things..."

It got me thinking.

There have been times in my life that I've endured some bad things-from being betrayed by a close friend when I was 12 to experiencing the death of my first boyfriend when I was 16 to becoming a mother of a child with continual health needs. Compared to some, I haven't experienced many bad things, but they sure have rocked my little world.

It seems that while I'm going through a "bad thing" it is really hard to thank the Lord for it. No matter how hard I tried, I did NOT want to thank the Lord for giving my daughter a heart defect that would follow her the rest of her life. I did not want to thank God for taking away my special friend. And why would you thank God for giving you a "friend" that would betray you?

I guess I have always equated thankfulness with an emotion. You know, the ooey, gooey kind that wells up within you and then spills out because you just feel so grateful for being able to experience the goodness bestowed upon you by someone else. Then you say, "Thank you soooo much!"

But God uses thankfulness in the command category instead of the optional one-"In everything give thanks." (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

But how? How can we thank God for the bad things?

I'm not really sure how it happens, other than we must rely on the character of God. "When we place our trust in God's faithfulness-when we consciously and willingly put our full confidence in Him-we will enjoy personal security and inner peace unlike anything the world can provide. Despite our raw emotions and regardless of what the surrounding circumstances may seem to tell us, our trust can rest in the fact that God is faithful. And if that is true, what can rock us? We stand confident, peaceful, secure." (quote from Myrna Alexander)

So, in the bad things I will be thankful that my Father in Heaven stands by me and that He will be faithful to me-even if I never know the purpose of going through a bad thing, even if I never see a good thing come from the bad things. God is faithful. God is good. God does love me. For that I can be thankful.

"Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassion's never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefor I will wait for him.'" (Lamentations 3:21-24)

Happy Birthday

One year ago today we welcomed a little bundle of testosterone into our predominantly estrogen filled home. Our first son and fourth child, Craig, has turned out to be ALL boy and yet such a joy!

Through the hitting, hair-pulling, growling, and drooling, he's the first one to go running to see his big sisters when the get home from school.

He perches on his biggest sister's hip like a pro and wrestles with Jessie until we say, "No!"

He's played with lots of pink but that doesn't make us think that he's NOT all BOY.

A major league pitcher he'll be, this we know, because of his increasing desire to throw. Balls, food, toys...there's no discrimination to his ever growing imagination.

He's had many bumps, as you can see from his head. But that just makes him tougher, just like his Dad.

The doctor may say that he is too small,

but that doesn't keep him from climbing to feel so tall!

He's made mom vaccum the floor over and over

because of his love to dig and discover. (In the plants.)

So little bundle of blue,

please know that our hearts LOVE You!

Happy first birthday, Craig.

Disclaimer: (A very rough attempt at poetry...which was never my thing.)

I Wonder...

(Natalie at one year old)

Natalie's latest:

Me- "Natalie, come here so you can take your medicine."

Natalie- "No."

Me- "Natalie, you need to take your medicine."

Natalie- "Why?"

Me- "Because it will help you stay healthy."

Natalie- "Why, mommy?"

Me- "Natalie, you need to take it for your heart."

Natalie- "Why? Heart broke?"

It made me ponder what she really comprehends. We don't talk a lot about her imperfect heart. She has watched her picture DVD hundreds of times so knows about all those tubes and bandages she experienced. But I really wonder. Does she realize that she breathes heavy when she comes up the stairs? Does she know that other children her age don't get tired after walking 50 yards? Does she comprehend the fact that her heart is "broke?" I wonder...

Fallin' into Winter

Can't you tell she's having fun playing in Aunt Mindy's leaves. Last weekend, we left winter at our house (were the ground was already freezing) and managed to get a little more of Fall while we were in Anchorage.

We don't have any deciduous trees around our property so my kids haven't gotten the privilege of raking leaves and running and jumping in the piles. I remember having piles of leaves almost five feet tall when I was growing up in the Midwest. I would make mazes in the mounds of maple and oak leaves. Our little aspen and birch leaves don't create the same affect.

This is a happy man. He had his nap and was outside playing in the warm sun. He wasn't so crazy about the leaves but enjoyed crawling over to the slide.

Little man is on the count-down to his first birthday. He's just started being brave and taking three and four steps at a time. It's not a regular thing yet, but he's getting there.

Can't you just see the mischief in that smile! It's all him! He is one ornery kid. From hitting and pulling hair to throwing food and climbing onto the rocking chair and standing with no hands. He's the little terror that will keep his big sisters on their toes.

(Sorry Jess, I ran out of space to get a picture of you in here. I'll have to find a good one.)

I'm one of those...

I can't believe I did it. I yelled and screamed like one of those crazy parents that I had always laughed at during Heidi's first Little Dribbler's basketball scrimmage today. I was even trying to coach her from the bleachers! Oh it was so hard to sit there and watch. It may be my competative nature...or maybe my maternal instinct to keep my daughter from experiencing the feeling of defeat. Whatever it was, I got excited. I have to say that my other half did also. Bless his heart, it's just so hard for Tim to sit there and watch any sport if it's not being performed to the peak potential.

Heidi put forth a lot of effort and energy during her first game. She figured out how to guard "one-on-one" and stuck to her man very well. But occasionally she would get hit in the back with the ball because she was paying more attention to her man than where the basketball was. Heidi is not a selfish player and had some good passes, but unfortunately her team was unable to score. The other team scored twice. But I have to say that Heidi's team was composed mostly of girls and the other team had some pretty good boys on it.

Of course, I forgot the camera. Must have had something to do with trying to get all six of us out the door to get her there on time. There is another game next week. We'll see if the parents can handle themselves any better because I'm sure Heidi will do great!

Snow

It's been snowing all day...even before I got up. Hasn't given up yet. We've gotten a couple of inches by now. Natalie's first comment when she realized that we had snow, "Yeah! Egg Hunt, Mommy!" Ugh! Only in Alaska does snow trigger reminders of Easter Egg Hunting. So I proclaimed that today was the first day of Rock Hunting (as they are covered in snow now). Maybe more appropriately we should be hunting for the garden hoses that haven't made it into the garage yet.

Return to Reality

It can be so nice to live in a land of fantasy. Cinderella, Snow White, Goldilocks, fantasy football and the list goes on. Even though we don't believe in our hearts that life is "happily ever after," it has been nice to enjoy these past couple of years with Natalie being relatively free of concerns for her heart. She's been an overly energetic little girl with an attitude. She loves to tease yet can be tormented to tears by her older sisters. She's loving life and wanting to try everything.

But...she seems to be slowing down. I notice that she's wearing out a lot easier with activity. She'll be running around the house or in the yard and come over and ask to be held. "I tired," she'll say. I can feel her little half-a-heart beating rapidly through her chest and hear her panting breaths trying to get her body caught up on it's demand of oxygen. My heart aches for her as I see how hard she tries to keep up with those around her. Her will is willing, but her body ain't!

We had a regularly scheduled cardiologist visit this past week. Since Natalie's in a pretty fearful stage of her life right now, I tried to prep her about them listening to her heart and looking at it with pictures. Her appointment was in one of the satellite clinics (not Anchorage) so we were in a whole new office too. She did quite well emotionally.

She weighed in at 26.6 pounds so we will still be waiting awhile before the surgeons will be willing to do the Fontan procedure on her. Her sats started out at 72% and climbed to 77% after a couple of minutes. This was just after her walking into the clinic, not even running. So I know that when she is overly exerting herself she must be getting down there. No wonder she's getting tired.

Dr. Brauner did an echo this time. It had been a year since she had an echo down in Seattle. Overall her heart function looked good. He wasn't able to see the pulmonary arteries that carry blood to the lungs. They're really hard to see because of scar tissue. These can sometimes become narrowed where they surgically attach the SVC during the Glenn procedure thus reducing the blood flow to the lungs. While we know that the bigger that she gets, the more she will self-limit her activity, we may need to see if there can be some options to help improve her oxygen saturations if they continue to drop to the low 70's or high 60's before she's big enough for the Fontan procedure. (Click on Fontan to learn more, Mom) So, if Natalie's sats start to hang in the low 70s to upper 60's when she is resting, we'll be heading back down to Seattle for a heart cath to see if she can get tuned up.

Dr. Brauner turned Dora the Explorer on the little DVD player that he had while he was doing the echo. Natalie held really still until Dora started singing. Then her feet started to wiggle, then her hips. The wiggle kept working it's way up. She was trying to be still, but just couldn't. Dr. B. is a very understanding man and was impressed with how well she stayed put despite her interaction with the music.

The reality of her heart defect and it's impact on her life just hits me sometimes. I hate it when I see her get so worn out from her play. She has so much spunk that I wonder how she will handle not being able to physically keep up with other kids her age as she gets older. I know that what has been surgically done to her heart is just palliative. It's not a "fix." I pray that she will live a long and happy life with her own heart, but in reality most literature and cardiologists always bring up eventual heart transplant for a single ventricle person.

On a lighter note, Natalie has now moved back into her brothers room. The side-rail on her crib is off so she's learning to stay in bed like a big girl. It works well at night, but only because she hasn't had a nap the past couple of days (because she didn't stay in bed).

Her vocabulary has blossomed to the point that she is speaking in sentences now. Sometimes she gets the sentence structure mixed up, but is doing better. She still speaks jargon a lot when she is playing, but at least she has started to speak words to us and communication is going a lot better.

Natalie loves to dance to music. If you've ever seen the PBS show about Wilbur the cow, she has the same kind of wiggle when she listens to music as Wilbur does. It's so cute. It makes me laugh every time I see her do it. She can work our keyboard quite well and one of the songs sounds like a horse race. She loves to race around the living room when that song is playing. Of course, when she gets tired she runs over to me and asks me to pick her up...then I have to run the race holding her! We make a lot of memories running and dancing our way around the seclusion of our own home, just Natalie and me. I will treasure these times in my heart!

There are other things that I know I'm not thinking about tonight that I had wanted to post about her. Guess it will have to wait.