I've Been Up, I've Been Down...

It’s the eve of Thanksgiving.  What a crazy day!  I have been through just so many emotions today it is nuts. 

5 am: “Bang.  Bang.  Bang.  Bang…”

Me:  “Ugh…what time is it?” 

Husband mutters something I can’t understand.  Tired and cranky, I start muttering as well, until I realize there is a baby in a swing next to me and I do not want him to wake up just then.  I stumble out of the room to see my toddler peeking out from his door and smiling at me and flapping his arms.  Realizing there is no chance he might lay back down; I reach over the baby gate in his room and pick him up.  After our kisses, I tell him how much I missed him while he slept, a ritual we have done since he was born.  “Too bad you didn’t want to sleep a bit longer…” I think to myself with a sarcastic laugh.

And he’s off.  There go the toy bins, turned over in 3 seconds flat.  Like a tornado, he starts to rip through the living room of our apartment, making all of his things just the way he likes them:  everywhere!  I set off to make my coffee and get him juice and realize I need to change his diaper.  After a few fast thinking hops and jumps over blocks and toys I manage to catch him and get him changed.  Hear the baby start to cry and time to get him situated as well.  Must at least get a few sips of coffee in so I can think! 

By noon, we have had a lot of action.  Baby cried his head off for an hour and did not want to be consoled, many things went crashing to the floor, several bumps and bruises from toddler running too fast into things, my busted lip because he threw his head back too hard into my mouth, and somehow there is a broken door. 

Finally sitting down to my now cold coffee I think about the two smiling little faces both taking naps.  What an insane morning, but I am so thankful for every minute of it.  All I can do is laugh, looking around at a now completely destroyed living room and kitchen. 

“I’ve been up, I’ve been down, I’ve been Yes, and I’ve been OH H—L NO!!!” starts playing from my ITunes list and all I can do is start dancing and turning it up as much as I could without waking the kids.  I realize that these lyrics mean something completely different, but for me, I listened with flashbacks of the morning.  That is the great thing about listening to music, instead of letting a video tell you what the song should mean to you:  you make the song whatever you want. 

Later, I managed to make brownies for my little toddler.  He has autism and is on a diet that restricts gluten and casein.  If you have a child on the GFCF and want to give them a treat, get the GFCF brownie mix and mix it with a can of pumpkin puree and bake!  Let me tell you, these brownies are amazing! 

So, since I did not use egg in the bowl, the spoon was safe to lick.  The little guy looked so surprised when I gave it to him!  Oh my gosh, there are chocolate hand prints everywhere!  So it is time to change the little guy’s diaper and my ITunes library has shuffled its way to “Blessed Be Your Name”.  The song that I sang in my head for 7 days straight in the hospital room that our little family called home after Michael was born.  Watching, waiting, rocking, pumping, praying, anything but sleeping we waited until the medical team at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital gave us the all clear to bring him home.  The song I softly sang in the middle of the night to calm him after bringing him home.  The song I sing every night before the Lord in quiet time…and the same song that I sang when the doctors told me that I delivered a healthy baby boy last April. 

Yep.  I am tired.  I don’t even want to describe what I look like right now, horror of all horrors!  But as I look back on all the little smiles and shrieks of delight to games of “Peek a Boo” and “Here Comes the Bear”, spinning and dancing to “A Bushel And  A Peck”, and slobbery infant kisses…I am so extremely grateful. 

Lord, Blessed Be Your Name.

Happy Thanksgiving