You're 3 feet tall and still pick your nose; you don't scare me...much

(Note: We want to get the girls started on an allowance, so they are going to need a bank of some sort for saving their quarters. These are $5 at Old Navy and are serious contenders, but then I start to think about it:

Ooo! Sparkly piggy banks! They'll love these!

Wait a minute...they are both going to want pink...and it's going to be a pain to try to keep up with whose pink bank is whose. Hmmm...maybe I make the pink one a special reward?...no, that could totally blow up in my face.

Ok, I'll get the pink sparkly one for myself, and I'll get silver and green for them...or would they like silver and gold better...

Why is this so hard! If only they had a purple one! Then I'd be set! Yeesh, this parenting thing is hard.

I still don't have banks for them.)


Oy, what a two and a half weeks it has been.

Friday, 10/2: S and C move in.

Monday, 10/5: S and C go to their new school and hubs and I suddenly become responsible for two little girls with HOMEWORK...I thought I was done with homework when I got that diploma a few years back...

Friday, 10/9: We celebrate one week with the girls with dinner at Pizza Hut! This is the first meal S and C have eaten outside of school or our house all week...this makes me happy! We are meanies and only give them water to drink, not the requested Mello Yello and pink lemonade...can you imagine?? Now relax, there will be plenty of time for sodas later...

Saturday, 10/10: We eat lunch at Sonic where they have their weekly desserts. S has a chocolate sundae and C has a strawberry sundae. We visit mom-in-law in the hospital. Her best friend is there and offers to watch the girls while we get more clothes from their house and buy school supplies. $84 later...we are appalled. C really needs 20 glue sticks?! Are they eating them for snack or something?!?! We buy 6 glue sticks, with 3 going with each girl. And when we get back to the hospital...C proudly brandishes the Dr. Pepper she's been given. See, I told you sodas would show up somewhere.

Tuesday, 10/13: I realize that I am reaching a breaking point. I haven't yelled or snapped at anyone yet, but I can feel its not far off. I start to take everything personally...I'm SURE S is taking 4 hours and 92 gallons of water to brush her teeth because she KNOWS how much it irritates me. C interupts me while I'm talking to the neighbor because she KNOWS steam will come out of my ears. I tell everyone who will listen that my full-moon transformation is about to happen and they better stop me or stand back. I pray...a LOT. I truthfully answer the woman who has been in the hospital for 3 weeks (mom-in-law) when she asks me how its going. Woman in Hospital is so comforting and encouraging...I feel like a selfish, whiny, brat. Dang it...

Wednesday, 10/14: I pour it all out to my mom, and she talks me down from the ledge. Lets me know it's ok to feel annoyed. Tells me not to beat myself up. The girls get in the car after school, and I am, very unexpectedly, a new woman. Go ahead, say my name 327 times, challenge each and every boundary I've given you, tell me a few fibs and definitely tell me how, since you've eaten chicken livers before and you don't have good taste, you really can't eat the mushrooms in the lasagna...I can take it.

Wednesday is not a breeze, but hubs and I handle it. Thursday morning is not a breeze, but hubs makes the lunches and has them waiting in the fridge, and we got to school early enough for me to walk C in...she'd been asking me to for 2 days.

Sunday, 10/18: We are finally ready for church only to look at the clock and realize we'd have to take the girls to their classes late as the current sermon series isn't appropriate for them (The Elephant in the Pew; this week's focus: pornography). I've done the late thing and its one thing for me to do it to myself, but I really really really want to avoid doing it to them, so we decide we aren't going. I'm feeling grumpy and guilty about this and I tell hubs I'd like for us to do something together to enjoy the beautiful fall day. Being the amazing hubs he is, he finds a local hiking trail all of 15 minutes from our house, and we spend a lovely couple of hours throwing rocks in the lake, picking up leaves, looking at colorful mushrooms and hiking through the woods in the gorgeous sunshine. My soul is recharged.

Can I just be a witness that God is good? Talking to wise people, praying like crazy and working together with my man results in postponed full-moon transformations and much happier Insta-Temporary Parents.

WE (using our huge network of support and leaning on God) CAN DO THIS!!

God is good: Or "Seeing his hand in the crazy times"

(Picture by caity sparkles via Flickr)

So you see that last post, there? Where I talk about what a great weekend we had with some precious little girls? Yeah, that one. I wrote it last Monday and had it set to auto-post Tuesday morning. Ummm...

Those little girls may be coming to live with us for the next few months.

Their mommy broke her leg Monday evening. She is also Hub's mom and single mom to these two girls she has adopted from within the family.

When she got to the hospital she found out she was diabetic.

Surgery to put a plate and pins in the leg on Tuesday evening went very well. But they didn't like how fast her heart was beating. So Thursday they sent her to the bigger hospital nearby for a heart catheterization.

Friday during the heart cath they found blockage in the heart and immediately sent her in for emergency triple bypass surgery.

Her birthday was Saturday (see festive picture above).

She is doing very well. She got to talk to her girls by phone yesterday for the first time since that eventful Monday night.

When a leg is broken the patient walks using crutches or a walker, putting much of the weight on the arms and none of the weight on the broken leg for 8 weeks.

When a patient has their chest opened up for surgery they cannot put more than 5 pounds of weight on their arms for 6 weeks.

Her unbroken left leg needs to seize the day and really come through for her. I'm believing in YOU, left leg!!

Thankfully my God is a very big God, way bigger than the problem of figuring out rehab with only one weight-bearing limb.

My God takes the very bad situation of a broken leg and uses it to help doctors find diabetes and heart disease lying in wait, undetected, ready to do their worst when least expected.

My God prepared hubs and I for the possibility of taking care of two of the cutest little girls you'll ever see. I was driven to find out ways to make their weekend stay the best it could be. Now I know who was the Driver.

My mother-in-law, Hubs and I have been surrounded by love and support from our friends and family. So many people have been to the hospital to see her or wait with us during surgery. More people than we can count are praying for her. She'll need every prayer she can get.

She'll need a lot of fight in her to get through the coming weeks. But she can do it. Her God is bigger than everything she's about to face.

Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." I see God working the crazy things that have happened these last few days to Mom-in-law's good because she has given her life to him, put her trust in him, and she loves him.

So the girls might be staying with us until their mom can take care of them again by herself.

.

By the way, yesterday I discovered snot wiped on the wall of my pink guest bedroom right next to the futon bed where the girls slept...the futon that has a full box of tissues on the arm next to where their heads were. Bless their hearts; I will be discussing with them how that will never happen ever again.