Month: January 2019

Emotional germs

There are so many germs surrounding us every day now.  Can you catch emotion, uncertainty, and worry, too?  Maybe emotion is as contagious as a virus?

Worry seems to be our word of 2019, though we have such high hopes for the year ahead.  Worried that warmth is more than viral, belly pain is more than surface, and all we do is just not enough.

We all need an outlet and a support system.  However, when children worry, how do we know that their worries are truly eased?  There is no antibiotic strong enough for our emotional fuel as parents.

It comes with parenthood, we guess.  When we consider how deeply our parents still worry about us as adults.  Ours, in particular, have caught the emotional virus, too.  Their worries may be harder than ours at times because the day to day knowledge is often lost.

The constant cycle of worry, it seems, will continue to run wild for now…

We pray and hope it escapes as the winter germs and blues fade, too.

 

 

Eight, Please be Great

In a few short days, we turn the page on another year and hope for a great year of eight.

Seven has been challenging, to say the very least.  Though we have been showered with love and support, questions remain unanswered, therapy options are still in conversation, and the unknown overwhelms us at times.

We look behind to another year of lesions, biopsy scars, and pain.

We look behind for joyful moments and laughter that have kept us whole.

We look today into the eyes of a child full of joy, uncertainty, and love for all she does.

We look ahead craving hope and answered prayers.

May eight be as great as she wishes…

May all of her dreams come true…

“Am I fat?”

Body image and confidence can be a struggle at any age.

Impeccable words and explicit attention to building confidence in our children is incredibly important.  We work hard to craft language that helps our children feel strong and healthy, along with encouraging exercise, activity, and healthy habits.

Tears of anguish brought the house down on this topic the other night.

“Am I fat?” was the question because a young man in Kelsey’s class said she was fat and she was deeply upset by his inquiry.

“Of all the challenges I have right now, I do not want fat to be one of them,” was her eloquent expression stunning us right there before bedtime.

Teaching our children kindness and love could never be more imperative in our world.  Helping our children understand to be kind and full of love when someone tells them otherwise is more difficult than we imagined as parents.

Steroids cause a moon face and a puffed look that an eight year old child cannot help but misunderstand.  His comment may have been with ill intent or perhaps it was simply innocent.  Either way, we want our children to love themselves for who they are and never let one feature define the young men and women they will be today or become in the future.

We call her strong and brave.  Of all the challenges she faces, those are the words we hope she sees when she looks in the mirror.

World Kindness Day

Switching medications and using steroids as a bandaid for what is happening below the surface is wearing us down.

Celebrating the tiny moments is what keeps us going.

Though World Kindness Day has  passed, we saw this for the first time today.

Timing is everything.

Excellent ideas baby girl:

 

New

A warm weather New Year brings hope at every corner.  The last week of 2018 was one that needed a day of sunshine and a glimmer of hope for our household.  It ended with a swollen knee and pain that preceded our dreams.

Our holiday break was full of so much family and friendship.  There is so much to be grateful for in our lives.  However, it was also filled with pain and a great deal of unanswered questions for our daughter.

‘New’ brings hope and we all feel that on January 1.  A fresh start and a new day to make new dreams come alive.

New for us has also meant uncertainty, swelling, and the inability to bear weight.  It is a ‘new’ that only prednisone has worked wonders on so far and one that resembles a stiff, soar, and immobile little girl.  New should mean bright, not swollen joints without reason.

Among the many wishes we have for the new year and the new beginnings we look forward to watching, you know what our top priority is as the page turns to the second day of the bright horizons and the promises that we hope new brings to you.