Perspective

Tonight we were at small group and sharing prayer requests. JP asked for prayer for us as we are trying to put our house back in order. He said he knew how hard it was on me to live in such disarray. And he's right. I absolutely HATE living in this chaos. There is dust everywhere. My dishes are in the bathroom and my oven is in the living room. I couldn't find a wooden spoon if I needed one. My food from my pantry is upstairs in my office. The only thing I have been able to consistently locate is my coffee pot and coffee. And besides all that I feel like the rest of my life is at a stand still. Everyday I am working around letting people in and out of my house. I am trying to plan the best way to make a dollar stretch to try and redecorate our new kitchen and living room. I am organizing receipts and bills to submit to the insurance company. I am painting cabinets or moving things from one room to the next. I have not been grocery shopping or to the gym. I am barely making it through the laundry!

But as we sat in small group asking for prayer to make it through this time in our lives, I had to confess that today I felt convicted about feeling sorry for myself. I may be living in a dirty, messy, costly house, but I am living in a house that we own. We have a roof over our heads and floors under our feet. We have plenty of food to eat (even if it is right outside our bedroom door). We have clothes to wear and jobs that help pay for all of this. So I guess I don't have it too bad do I? In fact, I'm pretty darn blessed. And that was my healthy dose of perspective for the day. After 10 years together, maybe JP is influencing me after all!

Update on Riley

This is long overdue, but as I have been busy tending to a three year old this past week, I have not had a chance to blog.

I want to say first and foremost "Thank you" to all of you who have been praying for Riley and our family. It is insane the number of emails, Facebook messages, texts and phone calls (gotta love technology!) that we got from people all over the world who were praying for us. And let me tell you that God hears and answers prayers!

Monday morning we woke Riley up just before we had to leave. She is an apple juice fanatic so the thought of her not having her morning apple juice was like me not having my morning coffee...not pretty. So we waited to the last minute to wake her up. She was actually pretty excited to go to Vanderbilt for our sleepover (I guess I did a good job on working that angle!). When we got there she was fascinated by the waiting room and the fish tank. Just hanging out, talking, and only asking for apple juice a few times! She started to get nervous when they called us back to register us. It was funny because she just looked at me and said "Mommy, I'm scared.". I wanted to answer "Me too" but instead chose the reassurance method.

The "fun" part began when we got back to the pre-op area. Our strong willed child began to show her ugly side. The first battle was getting her vital signs. I don't know why taking the child's blood pressure freaked her out so badly, but it did. She went nuts. Crying, thrashing, all-out fit. At this point, they decided to sedate her. Thank goodness! So now we have a nurse trying to give her medicine, two anesthesiologists talking to us about possible side effects, a billing clerk, JP and I, and a wild child in a tiny holding room. Needless to say, I was stressed! But everyone eventually left and the Versed kicked in and we decided that if we could get our hands on some of that stuff it may make our lives a lot easier! Just kidding. But she was pretty funny. She got this drunk look on her face and she began this chuckle as she was watching videos on my iPhone. JP asked her if it was funny and in her slurred speech she replied "It's hilarious!". They came to take her back to surgery and she did not put up a fight. She let the nurse carry her back and as they took her away, a part of my heart went too.

JP and I went back to the waiting room to wait and pray. Two of our good friends, Denise and Melanie showed up to wait with us (and to bring breakfast!). Within an hour and a half, they were calling JP and I to "the quiet room". Waiting in this room really freaked me out. We had to wait 25 minutes for the doctor to show up in a room by ourselves with "mood lighting". I think I know too much about what sometimes happens in those rooms for me to relax. But he came in and said everything went great. The surgery was successful and they only had to fix one side. We should be able to see her in about 20 minutes!!!

When they called us back to the recovery room, JP and I fully expected Riley to go ballistic coming out of anesthesia. After all, she is a highly dramatic child. But she looked so peaceful and this was our first sight of her.

She did great waking up, just wanted Mommy to hold her...which I was more than happy to do. She didn't like all of the wires attached to her and eventually we got the monitor taken off and she was a little more comfortable. The hard part came when she started crying in pain. This just broke my heart. They gave her some Morphine which took away the pain and made her totally goofy. (JP even took video!). Then the charge nurse came and told us the hospital was full and we may have to stay in this tiny little cubicle for the night. I was starting to freak out. I just wanted our own space to be able to rest with my baby.

Finally we got a room. Actually it was a pre-op holding room that they opened up for post-op patients. It was small but private. And from what I'm told, it is a good thing we were not on the floor because there was so much RSV going around. Riley was still pretty groggy but not really wanting to sleep. She started to get a bunch of visitors which she liked but still was a little confused by things. And the room was SOOOO small! Finally everyone left and it was just me and Riley. She was uncomfortable but was receiving pain medicine every few hours. We hung out and watched TV and she developed a new love for Jon and Kate plus 8! She wasn't really too sleepy so I tried to hold off having her go to sleep until her pain medicine was due. When we finally settled down (her in the bed, me on the cot), she just wanted to talk. I think she finally drifted off around 12am. I fell asleep a little after that, but was awake at least every hour. The IV pump would go off, they would come in to check her, the cot was not comfortable. At one point I rolled over and the cot was so noisy Riley asked me why I had to move (she's so me!). She woke up at 4am and it seemed we were up for good at this point. So much for rest!
She spent the morning sitting up in the chair and coloring. The big obstacle was going to be getting her to drink and walk around. She still didn't want too much to drink. We finally got up for a walk around 9:30am. At this point, she had pain medicine in her and was raring to go! She even found a toy car to play in. She ended up wearing herself out in the car and our trip to the playroom. A little after 1pm the doctor came in and said she could go home. Yay!! I was definitely ready to go!

Our first few days at home went relatively well. She would rest some and then play a little. She slept great the first night home in her own bed. Eventually her resting became less and playing became more. It seemed a little like having a newborn to me. Just as I'd think she'd be doing okay and I could get something done, she'd need me. And at the end of the day I would have accomplished nothing! But we got through it and now, one week post-op, she is as good as ever. You'd never know she had surgery one week ago!

Our biggest challenge though in this has been that Riley has developed an aversion to taking her medicine. Actually, aversion is a NICE way of putting it! She is an absolute demon! The girl who would once take her nightly medicine by herself, now needs two adults to shove the medicine down her throat. It doesn't matter what flavor or what tactics we use, it always ends up in a fight. In fact JP has named medicine time "wrestlemania". (Sorry that there are no pictures of that, but it takes two of us to give the medicine so no one is left to take the pictures!!) So it is taking longer than usual for me to get the full doses of antibiotics in her. But hopefully by the time she returns to see her urologist in March, we will be done with daily antibiotics...FOREVER!!

Whew! That's a really long post, but I wanted to make sure that I included all the details and pictures! Thanks again for your prayers. God has proven to be the Great Physician to our little girl.

Faith

Lately I have been praying for God to increase my faith. JP always says that is a loaded prayer! And he is right. Because right now as I sit on my couch typing this, I am thinking that I need a lot of faith to make it through the next few days.

Tomorrow morning at 10:30am Riley will be having surgery to re-implant her ureters. She was born with urinary reflux which means that urine backs up from her bladder to her kidneys. Because of this there is a high risk of her having kidney damage. So she has been on daily antibiotics since she was 6 months old. I had this condition and so did both of my sisters. John Mark had it as well and so do 3 of my nieces and nephews. When we met with her urologist in November he said that we had a choice to make...either continue with the antibiotics or surgically correct the problem. This was a HUGE decision for us! My sister Wendy and I had the surgery, my sister Tracey, John Mark and my niece Paige have outgrown the condition and my nephew Joey, Riley and my niece Ainsley still have it. UGHH....what to do.

After a lot of prayer and consideration, we decided to go through with the surgery. I still don't know if this is the right decision, but I know it is not the wrong decision. But it doesn't make it any easier. I am nervous. I am scared. I would give anything to have it be me tomorrow. But right now, I just need to have more faith. We serve a God who loves Riley a million times more than I do. He will hold her and protect her and comfort her in her time of need. And for that I am thankful. I will keep you updated as to how she is doing. But for now, I'm going to work on my faith.

Beauty in a Historical Event

I am feeling the need to blog about the inauguration of President Obama. You may or may not agree with me, but hey, this is my blog and I am using it to voice what I am feeling.

First off....I slept through the inauguration. This was not in protest of our new president....it was simply because I had worked the night before and just needed to sleep. In fact, NEEDING to sleep through this major event in history made me sad. Looking back, I wish I had set my alarm to get up to watch. But when I woke up in the afternoon and turned on the TV and checked out the Internet, I began to feel the energy of the rest of the nation. We are experiencing history! And whether you agree with President Obama's views or not....he has made history.

I don't know what it is like to be oppressed. Or really treated differently just for who I am. But I watched some of the older black people in the crowds yesterday and I was touched. This is a day most of them never thought they would see. Now I have never felt that someone's skin color is a criteria for a job, but I grew up in a different time than some of those people. People who were not allowed to go to the same schools or ride on the same buses or eat at the same restaurants as people who had lighter skin than they did. It seems pretty ridiculous to us now, but to that generation, it was a reality.

We were trying to teach John Mark about Martin Luther King, Jr the other night and our conversation boiled down to this. If we are all created in God's image, than our skin color or our language or what we look like is beautiful to Him. I am beautiful to God and Barack Obama is beautiful to God (and his wife looked great in that white dress too! haha). Every person born on this earth is beautiful to God and that is a great thing.

So as I reflect on living through history with this new president, I know that there will be the issues that will arise that God will rejoice in or those that will break His heart. I know there will be issues that I will support and issues that I will oppose. But I do promise to pray for and respect this leader of our nation because in God's eyes, he is beautiful.

Disaster Strikes

For the past few days, temperatures here in Middle Tennessee have been extremely cold. Even hitting the negative degrees. I know that for some of you reading this, -2 degrees is not a big deal, but for us here, it is down right freezing. We just are not prepared for these temperatures. So much so that John Mark even had school canceled yesterday due to extreme coldness. (Something I had never heard of having grown up in the North!).

I came home from work on Friday morning and JP told me the upstairs pipes were frozen. This has happened before and they have defrosted in a few hours. But as I was sleeping, I suddenly heard a loud noise of rushing water. I went into our bathroom (in my sleepy state) and heard the rushing water louder, but could not see where it was coming from. When I walked out of the bathroom, I heard what sounded like rain coming from the kitchen. I rushed downstairs and it was a literaly rainstorm in our kitchen. The door frame between the stairs and kitchen was like a waterfall. There was water streaming out of the ceiling and door frames. There was 1/2 inch of water in our kitchen. I immediately picked up my phone and called JP (in what he called my panic-stricken state). Then I ran out to the water main outside but I couldn't figure out how to turn off the water. JP got home about 15 minutes later and got the water off. While he began to vacuum up the water I called a plumber and the insurance company.

Basically when the day was over, we had discovered that one of our pipes had burst. It amazed me that the hole that did all of this damage was a 1/2 inch slit. We had a plumber at the house within the hour who replaced the section of pipe. Our insurance adjuster sent out a company who specializes in water damage. They spent 4 hours ripping apart our carpet, walls, floor, and ceiling. Then they set up 3 industrial sized dehumidifiers and 8 industrial fans. All which make our house sound like a train station and feel like a wind tunnel. Here are some pictures of the current state of disaster.

The hole the plumber cut in our ceiling to fix the pipe.

Tearing up the carpet and vaccumming out the water.

Our kitchen floor with half the linoleum ripped up.

The hole in our wall and the wet sub-floor

Kitchen and stairs.

The dehumidifer that is taking up all the room in my kitchen.


More dehumidifers and fans


Dehumidifer and fan in the hall between the kids rooms.

Everyone keeps saying that at least we will get new carpet and flooring, which I am grateful for. I am also grateful that I was home, no one was hurt and that we have insurance. I am trying to focus on these things because right now it is hard to see past the mess we are living in and likely to be living in for at least a month (or more!).

I think next time we will remember to leave the water dripping upstairs!!

Reality Brings Me Back

This past weekend, I went with 5 0ther women to a cabin in Gatlinburg, TN. Now I went to Gatlinburg about 8 years ago and vowed to never return due to the overwhelming amount of stores that sold nothing but fudge....but this time, we were going to a nice cabin...no fudge. We left Friday around lunch time and got back Sunday at 5pm. It was AWESOME!!! We had a couple of rules. #1 No kids #2 No husbands #3 No agenda. We stuck to all 3 rules. We ate when we wanted to, slept as late as we wanted to, and stayed in our pajamas pretty much the whole time. We watched the 6 hour Pride and Prejudice movie which I will say (and this is a big deal for me), is as good as the book. We read books, drank wine and hung out in the hot tub. I crocheted my heart away (a new hobby for me!!). A couple of us ventured out once to hit a few outlet stores, but no serious shopping or anything! I came home feeling refreshed and thankful for girlfriends.

But now I am back to reality. And that includes cleaning and laundry and bills and work. JP has declared 2009 as the Robinson's Year of the Clean House. Obviously I did not make that a priority in 2008! I am trying to stick to it the best I can...except the kids rooms. Those are just a disaster! I just wish that laundry and dishes would somehow just freeze in time and that there would just be enough to occupy a small portion of my day instead of the majority. Oh well!

I am also committed to start scrapbooking once a week and so far so good. Here is a shot of my opening page for our 2009 book. I'll let you know (any of you other scrapbookers will understand) that I am by no means "caught up" on our family albums. For me, scrapbooking is a release of my creativity and I do what subject, date, idea I want to do. That being said...I have a little bit of everything started and nothing done. But I like it this way. It's me.

And one more glimpse into the reality of Jill with a story about Riley. Yesterday she was at her home-school preschool and was playing in the kitchen. This was her conversation to her teacher Miss Heather. “We are going to have dinner now. Baby Johnny and Baby Susie are having milk to drink because they are babies. Munchie is having apple juice because she is a big girl. And I am having wine because I am the mom.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is my reality.

The End of My Strike

OK, so I am coming off of my blog strike. No I was not protesting anything except maybe life. It's not a very interesting story, but for those of you who were wondering where I was here goes.

I have always loved Christmas. Next to my birthday (the national holiday that is July 10th), it is my favorite time of year. I love the decorations, the music, the baking, the spiritual side....all of it. But this year, Christmas and I just didn't click. I still can't put my finger on it, but I just never caught the Christmas spirit. Oh I still did the decorating and made my 117 handmade Christmas cards and listened to the Christmas carols, but I just wasn't into the holiday. In fact, I did minimal baking and didn't even make my famous Christmas candies (sorry to those who are normally recipients of those!). I spent the month in a blah mood. I was having headaches for no reason for most of the month, but I don't attribute the way I was feeling to that. I really don't attribute it to anything...I'm not that analytical. So instead of posting negative posts that were all bitter, I went on strike.

Then the week after Christmas was a whirlwind for us. I worked two horrific nights in a row. I was busy getting JP ready to take 70 people on a ski trip (and I was responsible for all of the paperwork and forms and money....yadayada). My parents came for a visit. I had to clean the house the best I could. And we had a wedding which JP officiated so we had the rehearsal and the wedding commitments. Yikes! So on New Year's Day JP left for 4 days. On January 2nd, my parents left and I just crashed.

Then I kicked it into gear....and got the house in order!

So now it is a new year and I am feeling pretty good about things. I am going to try a new work schedule that consolidates my days. I am committing to read through the New Testament in a year with our church. I am headed back to the Rec Center to work out. I am determined to keep our house picked up. I am dedicated to setting aside time each week to scrapbook. None of these are resolutions, just needed changes that will hopefully prevent those blah times that necessitate a blog strike!