The beginning of the day was not so hot.
I slept until about noon because, well I was exhausted.
Jonathan woke up sick with a tummy bug of some sort, so that threw our original plans for the evening out the window.
My dear friend Toni invited me and the kids over for dinner since we weren't going to be doing anything.
Of course I took her up on the offer as I love her and don't see her nearly enough. She is also an amazing cook ;)
So we had roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, delicious made from scratch stuffing and for desert we had delicious sweet potato "pie".
Toni described it as sweet potato casserole since it didn't have a crust.
It was all gluten and dairy free and it was amazing!!!
While we were over there Ari attempted to kill himself.
He crawled up and down the stairs a lot as we were right there.
Well, he got upstairs and decided he wanted to crawl/slither backward to try ang go under the railing.
I got under him but had no idea how to catch him because he was coming down feet first!
I yelled "SOMEONE HELP"!
Luckily Judah wasn't in lalaland like he normally is and ran over and wrapped his arm around Ari's bottom and pulled him back up.
No more going upstairs anymore over at Toni's because of this. At least not without an adult right there to follow him around.
The problem is, is Ari is completely FEARLESS!
Nothing scares him. He will climb everything and do so many things that a baby his age should NOT be doing yet.
He takes after my husbands cousin Peter.
Peter was born premature. He was a micropreemie baby, born at home.
He should not have made it, but his momma wrapped him in foil to help him maintain body heat and they rushed to the hospital.
Despite all the things that happened he lived! He was a survivor.
Peter, like Ari, was fearless.
Peter later in life took up rock climbing.
One day he and two friends went up to do some rock climbing.
Peter was belaying his friend when rock began falling.
The friend who was not belaying or climbing ran for cover.
Peter too could have run to protect himself, but he knew that if he had done that, his friend climbing would have been killed.
Peter gave his life for his friend that day!
Peter made the ultimate sacrifice for his friend.
"Greater love has no one than this,
that he lay down his life for his friends."
- Jesus Christ
If you would like to read more of Peters story click here
Well I am quite sleepy and I have another Thanksgiving Celebration tomorrow so I should get some rest, but here are some photos from today!
My gorgeous and amazing friend who was a great host tonight. Miss Toni Kaye:)
Ari Patrick says "jfesgkjfvhhdstunfdyuvphpga" I am pretty sure that means "Happy Thanksgiving"
Happy Thanksgiving!!!! From Ora
Dreaming that he is saying "Happy Thanksgiving"
On Saturday we stopped by Sally's Beauty Supply store.
They have self ear piercing kits and I asked Ora if she wanted to get her ears pierced.
She was not into it at all, but Judah on the other hand wanted to.
I bought a kit, but was later talked out of it when Jonathan decided to scare the crap outta him.
Then I remembered I have metal allergies and have to wear gold, white gold or tungsten or else I get rashes that itch like no other, water blisters and pain.
The kit I purchased was gold plated, and that just wasn't going to cut it so I decided against using the kit.
On Sunday after picking the kiddos up from Nana's we stopped by the mall and into Claire's where we got Judahs ear pierced.
After getting the first one done he didn't want to get the other one done right away.
I was going to wait for him to collect himself, but again Jonathan stepped in and basically rushed us out.
Of course as soon as we were leaving Judah was asking about getting his other ear pierced.
I told him it was going to be quite a while before we would be able to do it because it cost us $50 for the earring, cleaner and piercing.
He told me he wished that he had gotten the other one done. :/
Also, here is something Judah shared with daddy then later wanted to share on the interwebs :)
On a side note, I attended a Benefit for Bram dinner.
I knew no one there, but that is ok.
I know TJ, Samantha and their other three boys need time to grieve.
I was there to support them and to let them know that I care.
I pray that God heals their souls and gives them peace in this difficult time.
I just wrote a very long post about my mental illnesses after watching a video of Ruby Wax speaking about mental illness. After getting close to the end, I decided I did not want to share so many details that are quite personal to me.
So to make that long story short, without trying to explain all of my decisions, I am just going to post a timeline of sorts:
May 2006-30 weeks pregnant, severe anxiety. Put on meds. Gave birth two months early.
2006- changed meds several times until I was on lexapro and it took the edge off
August 2008- gave birth to my girl, had PPD and PPA. Upped my dosage, was doing ok.
July 2010- severe anxiety/pain/depression. Tried to OD. Hospitalized for a week.
put on klonopin, ativan, cymbalta, trazadone. Was misinformed about what the drugs could do to a baby if I conceived then the psychiatrist vanished.
August 2010- got pregnant. was running out of hope. no one wanted to prescribe my meds while pregnant. I knew then how bad these were for my baby, but I needed them. I couldn't chance anything bad happening while pregnant. Found a psychiatrist who would see me and give me meds during my pregnancy. I was a high risk pregnancy.
May 2011- gave birth to my baby. he had withdrawl symptoms. was sedated, was on several meds to "wean" him off the meds. I had severe PPD and PPA. I chose to go back to the hospital.
late 2011- attempted to OD again. severe depression. meds were switched/adjusted. have been mostly stable since.
I do NOT know what the future holds.
I just need to trust the Lord will watch over me.
I pray my children never have to deal with the pain I have had to deal with since I was a child.
I wrote this poem when I was hospitalized:
Help Me Lord Jesus
Help me, my sweet savior
out of this pain and all this anger
Please take all these thoughts, these pains
off my shoulders for a happier life, to gain
I want these pains all gone
So for my children I may be strong
For my children I do pray
to never have these anxieties and pains
For my precious babies I pray
They will have a perfect life till their ending day.
Mental illness is something that is NOT controllable
While I do not believe in evolution and do not agree with everything she says, she makes several very true point about mental illness and how mentally healthy people see it.
"perk up, like I didn't think of that myself."
Check out this video, this is how it truly is.
Again I do not agree with the evolution part, just focus on the mental illness parts.
I truly believe that the Lord protects people and answers prayers.
I have many examples of times when I know the Lord heard my prayers and protected me from some sort of harm.
I am going to share a couple of my stories.
Babysitting Storm
It was a sunny spring day when I was asked to babysit for a neighbor of mine, who's son I used to work with at a daycare before babysitting him.
Elijah was about two years old when this happened.
I had asked for permission for a friend of mine to come along with me while I babysat Elijah.
His parents said that was fine and that we could go on walks or whatever.
My friend Judy came along with me and we decided to walk to the park and then to the store.
I don't remember much before the storm happened as I have the worst memory in the world but I do remember this distinctly.
We were walking down Cornell Street and the sky started to look very angry.
It was dark and had a somewhat green hue to it and I knew that the color green meant something bad was about to happen.
As we were walking I thought for sure there was going to be a tornado as the green can be an indication of one about to occur.
While walking as fast as I could I knew I had about a half a mile to a mile left to go to get back to my house or Elijahs house.
I remember fervently praying in my head and out loud "Lord, PLEASE let me get to shelter before the storm hits."
Then the thunder and lightning began and I just kept on walking and praying... praying and walking...
Meanwhile, my mom was about to take my little sister Kathi to get some swim shoes for a trip she was going to take with her class
My mom took the route she normally would have when she got blocked up from traffic as a traffic light was out.
My mom told me later that she felt like she was supposed to turn around and head to a different store with no reason other than the traffic.
As I was praying I saw my mom driving past us.
She stopped and told us to get in, that she would take us home as it was going to start storming soon.
Judy hopped in the car, I put Elijah in the car, folded up the stroller and threw it in the trunk.
I then climbed into the car and the second I had the door closed this penny sized hails just bore down on us in the car.
I had barely made it into the car before it happened.
Right then and there I knew the Lord heard my prayers and sent my mom in my direction to protect myself, Judy and Elijah from that horrible storm.
To this day, I get chills thinking about how everything played out!
His Protection Through My Stupidity
This next one, to me, proves that my Lord with come through for me even when I am making a really dumb decision.
I had been talking to this fellow from my school over chat.
He had expressed interest in me and like a fool I was playing into his game.
He was calling me pretty and making me feel good about myself all the while working his way into getting something out of me that he wanted.
He knew I had just broken up with my boyfriend at the time so I was vulnerable I guess you could say, so he used that to his full advantage.
One night he asked if I wanted to meet up to do... stuff...
Me, being the dummy that I was said yes, and even though I knew it was wrong I decided to go anyway.
I also had this gut feeling that something was off.
He asked me to meet him in the garage of the empty house he lived next to.
(Oh I should mention, he never once spoke to me in person at school though we would pass each other several times a day.)
I felt so uncomfortable that I went to the extreme and grabbed a knife and put it in my pocket for protection "just in case".
My brain was SCREAMING at me to stay home, but I was bitter over my breakup and he was paying attention to me!!!
Well I was walking down Cornell Street again (coincidence that both of these happened on the same street?).
As I was walking I prayed and prayed "Lord if something bad is going to happen, PLEASE make my mom get off work early and drive past, or make a friend drive past and stop me!"
As I was walking I noticed three figures walking towards me.
There was a light behind them and it was well past 9pm so all I could see were silhouettes and my heart jsut started racing.
I thought "Oh no, this is it, this is what I was worried about, it wasn't about , its these people. What is they try to hurt me?"
Quickly I grabbed the knife handle in my pocket but did not pull it out.
I just clutched onto the knife for dear life in case I needed to use it.
As the figures got closer I started to relax as I recognized the struts of each of these people.
It was my sister, her boyfriend and my ex.
When we got close enough to each other they stopped me.
I kept trying to leave and go meet up with the fellow I was talking to.
My sister fought me on it and kept telling me to come hang out, as my ex kept telling he wanted me back.
I tried to resist, but I knew this was God's way of protecting me from danger.
It was NOT what I was expecting and I surely didn't want to see my ex at that point, but it they were people I knew I could trust.
I knew with them I would be safe.
Again, I knew God had heard my prayers and led me and the other three into each others paths for a reason.
I don't know what would have happened if I had not ran into the three.
I am just glad that I did and glad that the Lord hears me and looks out for me despite my human nature to do some really STUPID things.
Said fellow who wanted to meet up with me was very angry about me not meeting up with me.
He said some pretty nasty things to me so I know it was meant to be, that I was stopped in my tracks for walking into what could have been a very bad night for me.
Now if you read all this, I give you kudos! You rock and thank you for stopping by!
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