Back in the Saddle Again

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."  -Matthew 11:28-30

I am going to keep this post brief tonight for many reasons, but most of all because I need sleep.  Today we are back in the saddle again.  After a very busy weekend at home, I returned to Akron Children's Hospital this morning with Haven, Micah, and Levi.  Today Haven had therapy sessions from 10-3 with an hour long lunch break.  My wonderful mom drove us up here this morning and spent the day helping me with Levi. Micah was also a first rate helper this evening.

The morning started with PT lead by a another new physical therapist.  Haven was very cooperative.  She spent the entire hour playing with her favorite thing:  food.  Miss D found a shopping cart and plastic food toys to play with.  Our boys spread the food out all over the therapy gym and Haven had to walk around with her cart, bend over, and pick up each piece of food.  A couple of times Miss D had Haven crawl up a ramp to get to the plastic food.  Crawling helps build muscles in your hips - an area where Haven is weak.  Haven seemed to have fun in PT playing with the shopping cart.  What a relief!

Speech came next today.  Haven spent her morning session with Miss P and Mimi (that's what our kids call my mom).  Since speech is Haven's best session, I took the opportunity to lie down with Levi instead of attending her therapy session.  It was a great decision because Levi needed some extra attention.  Micah seemed content to hang out with me too.

We chose to eat in the cafeteria for lunch today.  I highly recommend the chicken pot pie.  It was very good!  Mom tried to help feed Haven, but our silly girl would only take bites from a fork that I held.

After lunch we attended Haven's second speech session of the day.  Haven did well with everything  except returning toys that she wanted to continue playing with.  In a last-ditch effort to remove a toy from Haven's clutches, the therapist said, "If you give me that brush, you can pick some new toys to play with."  Don't you know that she gave up the brush pretty quickly after that (additional proof that Haven understands much of what we are saying).

Our last session of the day was OT.  It went well today.  Haven's therapist shared some tips with me to help Haven improve, and she had positive things to say about Haven's progress.  I think OT is the most difficult to see improvement at this point, so it was good to spend some time listening and observing.

The boys, Haven, and I moved back into RMH this afternoon.  Haven actually skipped her nap because she fell asleep briefly during the quick ride from the parking garage to RMH in Mimi's van.  Of course she woke when I carried her inside RMH.  As a result, guess who was crabby today?  I have to tell you that the highlight of my day was learning that dinner was being provided by Chick fil A.  I could eat there seven times a day!  ;-)  What a blessing that I didn't have to fight with my Littles to get them to eat dinner tonight.  Hooray for Chick fil A!

IHaven has a raging head cold.  She came down with it yesterday late afternoon, and it came on fast!  Haven is very miserable.  If things are worse tomorrow, I'll have to cancel some of her therapy sessions in favor of catching up on some much-needed rest.  Aaron was up with our poor darling many times last evening and it already looks like that will be me tonight.  So, I'm going to say goodnight.

Please pray for an important meeting I am attending tomorrow morning at 9:45 with Haven's therapy team.  I'm sure it will be fine, I just hate attending those kinds of meetings without an extra set of ears to pick up all of the details.  We are really trying to keep Aaron at work as much as possible, so I'm going to handle this one solo.  Also, please pray for this weary mom.  I am beginning to feel run-down and exhausted.  Living at the hospital is becoming a heavy burden to bear.  Every day is beginning to feel like an exercise in determination.  I want to do the best thing for Haven, so I press on.  Isn't it wonderful to know that we serve a loving God who knows our burdens and cares for us?  For my friends out there struggling with weariness - struggling to tread water in a vastly deep ocean full of trials; the verse above is for all of us!  Trust your burdens to the Lord!  I'm praying for you all too, dear friends!  "Cast all of your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you."  -1 Peter 5:7