GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS : ” OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES……….”

I try to avoid going to the supermarket on the month end, because I hate shopping in a crowded space and hate even more, standing in the checkout lines. Because of this, and by the help of God, we try not to live from paycheck to paycheck. Last month, I seemed to have miscalculated and so we ended up doing our grocery shopping on the month end. When we entered the supermarket, I had to send my husband to take home my mother-in-law, because she had decided to wait for us in the car. Luckily we live close by.

We finished shopping. It did not really take long because we wanted to join the checkout line as soon as possible. We were in the line for almost 45 minutes, as this gentleman in front of us seemed like he was shopping for an entire colony and was asking for bills at intervals. When it seemed like we would have spent the rest of the night in the supermarket, we switched lines. By this time the children were tired, hungry and cranky. Our 6 year old son, deciding to make the most of his time, took a lollipop that he had begged us for earlier and started boring holes in one of the snacks. I slapped him instantly and did not care who was looking on, or who would be judging me. He, being his dramatic self, bawled and bawled. I still did not feel bad for slapping him.

We got out of the supermarket soon after and by this time, I had cooled off. When we got into the car, I calmly said to him, why did you bore holes into the snack? He said, quite matter-a-fact-ly, “mommy, I am a kid and I am going to do kids’ stuff.” I was flabbergasted and did not know how to respond to him. I managed a smile as I thought to myself, who is this child, and why did he have to be so dead on. Knowing fully well that I had lost this battle, I said to him, just to boost my ego and make myself feel that I was still in charge here, well son, the snack you bore holes into, it will be in your lunch kit tomorrow.

That night, I was indeed ushered back into reality by a babe. The common phrase goes ‘out of  the mouth of babes spews knowledge’ (not verbatim). Too often we expect our children to behave like adults, to pick up after themselves, to be quiet, to not touch this or do that, but isn't that the nature of a child? They are by nature curious beings and we should try (as hard as it is sometimes, because they do wear on our last nerve), to remember this as much as possible and believe me, you will experience more peace and joy from having them around.

I am grateful then, for my recent dose of reality.

MONDAY RAMBLINGS – ‘A camping he has gone……’

My son went off a few hours ago to his first camp, which is an annual event put on by our Church and last for a week. This happens to also be the first time he will be away from home for an extended period of time and so I have been taking comfort in the fact that I have due reason to be feeling such anxiety. I am comforted in the fact though, that a couple other children from Church, one of which is his cousin and another, his best buddy, (who his parents sent only because our son was going), is there.

I have been missing my boy a lot and so I have resorted to using this as my post today, just to see if I will feel better.

This past week, as camp drew near, I realized that I was feeling a lot of anxiety. First of all, he will be about 4 hours away, on the other side of the country and it just freaks me out to imagine these little ones sitting in a bus for all this time. The other thing is, how competent is the driver? I remember saying to my husband a couple times this past week, that I hope whoever the driver is, knows that he is carrying precious cargo and many of these kids are only children, so this makes them all the more special. I know they will have a safe journey though, because prayer was said over them and I know God is control. 

There goes my anxiety over just the journey, As you can well imagine, I do have others, like how well will he be taken care of, as he has not yet mastered taking a bath, brushing his teeth and cleaning himself after using the toilet. He is afraid of being alone and he is terrified of the dark. At nights, he asks that his father tuck him into bed and will not settle down for sleep unless his father is snuggled up in bed with him. We tried to prepare him, by telling him that his daddy won’t be around to tuck him into bed and asked if he wanted to take his pillow pet, which would serve the purpose of pillow and something to cuddle and go to sleep. He responded like a big boy would, I want to take my regular pillow and so we take it that he will sort himself out at bed time. I know there will be adults there to help them, but as any parent can attest to, no one takes care of your child as good as you.

On a much lighter note, the setting for our Church camp is usually a school out in the countryside and so the classrooms become dormitories. My son seems to think that he will be camping in a tent outdoors (thanks to television) and even though we tried to explain to him, he does not seem to get it. Last night before he went to bed, he was building a forte and saying that he was practicing for camp. I decided to let him be and even helped him out a bit.  I guess when he arrives at camp and see that the setting is totally different from what his little mind has conjured up, he will be disappointed.

They should be getting there soon and the organizers told us that they will call when they have arrived and so my husband and I are anxiously waiting for this call, as we contemplate how we will spend this time without him and wait with open arms to greet him and hear all about his adventure, when he returns.

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MATERNAL AGE AND FERTILITY

It is widely known that maternal age does affect fertility. When a woman reaches age 35, her chances of becoming pregnant decreases and the likelihood that she will have a child with birth defects, increases.

This is why when I was struggling with infertility, as soon as I reached 35, I became very frightened and desperate to beat this condition. When I finally became pregnant, I was a little over 35 and felt that my pregnancy would be normal, turns out that was a problematic pregnancy, which I lost at 28 weeks. The pregnancy with my son, although I was now older and as a result more nervous and anxious, turned out normal. The pregnancy with my daughter, now I was over 40 and terrified and felt on many occasions that she would be born with birth defects, turns out I was highly favored by God and apart from some very minor defects, she was born my perfect little girl. I am indeed grateful to all my doctors and other medical personnel who were so committed in seeing to it that my pregnancies were successful.

Thanks to the advancement in medical science, like me, more and more women of advanced age are getting pregnant, (some quite easily) and  are having perfectly healthy babies.

Follow the link below to learn more about maternal age and fertility and see also the risks associated with conceiving after age 35.

 http://www.babyhopes.com/articles/birthdefects.html

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Why Did You Choose Me?????

Our five year old son is very witty. The problem is though, there are times when this wittiness comes off as  rude and so we have been looking out for those instances and try to deal with them appropriately, because my husband and I are on the same page, where we have zero tolerance for rudeness from any of our children.

With this said, just last evening our son asked for what he called his favorite night time snack, grilled cheese sandwich. The thing is, early that day I had a mishap, which resulted in a spill, which resulted in the bread being wet. I only noticed this when I was making the grilled cheese sandwich for him and I proceeded in hopes that the toaster oven would dry the excess moisture out of the bread. He returned a little time after he received the sandwich and said to his dad and I, “It is like someone wet up this bread, and I do not like it.” The tone came off in a ‘just so you know’ kind of way. My husband glanced at me and said, I am scared of this little boy, he is just too smart and witty.

On two occasions he asked me, stopping whatever he was doing and looking eagerly as he awaits my response, “why did you and daddy chose me?” (I guess in his innocent little world, this is his spin to procreation). The first time he asked me this question, I could not answer right away because this is not a question I was ever expecting from a 5 year old. Anyway, I gained my composure and responded, “we chose you because you are a handsome and smart little boy.” He did not seem to have gotten it at first and so I repeated my response. Sometime after this, he asked me the same question and remembering very well my response from the last time, I answered him without hesitation.

While pondering how to formulate this post in the wee hours of this morning, I realized that I was by no means satisfied with the response I gave to his question. I should have told him more. I should have told him how difficult it was for us to have him and how God sent him as a special miracle and gift to us after a long time of struggling, at least the parts of our story that he can understand at this time.

Our son stutters. You might have remembered me mentioning this in a few of my past posts. Well, last night I dreamed that I saw him struggling to say something that he wanted to say so much. When I saw his face getting red and his blocking becoming more and more severe, I rushed over to him, cupped his face in my hands and whispered to him, you will be alright son, you will be alright. I picked him up and began to cry. I guess I was just reacting to the difficulties I had as child who stutter and just felt scared for my child, now that it is his turn.

I have been preparing him as much as he can understand at this age. I have asked him if he noticed that he speaks a little differently from his peers, I tell him it is called stuttering to which I give him an example, ‘it is when you are trying to say a word and it comes out like mmmommy.’ I have also been looking out for signs of him being targeted for ridicule. I am happy to report that there is none to date, and he does not seem the least bit bothered about how he talks. I am  comforted in knowing though, that with his sharp wit, whenever he becomes aware, he should be able to handle, much better than me, all that will be thrown at him, as a result of his stutter.

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FEELING BLESSED AND GUILTY, ALL AT ONCE.

When my husband and I decided we wanted another child, some company for our son, when it was not happening as fast as we thought it should, I remember saying to God, don’t you think after such an intense, difficult and long struggle with infertility that I deserve more than one child. (I don’t know if I was being too much in God’s face, but this is the kind of relationship that we have both shared given the difficulties I have had to deal with in my life).

Well, he has seen it fit to bless me with another child which I will, by his mercies, welcome in a few weeks and I am not sure if he sees it my way or not, but I am grateful to him and feel eternally blessed.

The thing is though, along with feeling blessed, I have been feeling some amount of guilt. Why am I so blessed when there are others I know who have one child and do yearn for another and there are still some who are wishing for even just one?  

Life does not always go according to the blueprint we create for ourselves, and as someone who have had to deal with this reality, I find that I had to make an effort to identify the things in my life that I could count as blessings, a good marriage, good health and a sound mind. It is my hope therefore, that we all will be able to continue to find those things in our lives that we can count as blessings and in so doing, will be able to foster a thankful heart (this is one of the traits I admire about my mom, because even when her situation was less than favourable, I could always detect from her, an overwhelming sense of thankfulness to God, whenever I was around her).

Be blessed until next time.

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SPARE THE ROAD AND SPOIL THE CHILD?????

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

I know many parents have never spanked their children and do not believe in spanking children at all.

Infertility was difficult, as I have said over and over but raising a child, especially a boy,(I have heard these are harder) is now the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I hope I am not scaring anyone.

My son is at the stage which is termed the ‘terrible two’s,’ where he does not listen and throws tantrums. When he is doing things where he would hurt himself, climbing flipping etc., and I tell him to stop, I find myself sounding like a scratch record, telling him over and over to stop, to the point where I have to resort to physically stopping him or removing him, only to see him return to doing what I just tried to stop him from doing. By this time, I can hear my father’s voice, saying, ‘what is wrong with you parents these days?, you are allowing the child to rule you, you need to let him know who the parent is, meaning that he needs a spanking.’ Not wanting to feel like a total failure at being a parent, I am left with no choice but to give him two slaps. Then, the voices of all those parents who do not believe in spanking seem to chime in immediately thereafter, why are you spanking the child, do you want him taken away from you?

On Sunday, my son wanted to be with his father in the sound room, where he helps to operate the sound on Sundays. It would be difficult for my husband to carry out his duty because our son would be getting into things, as he is at the curious stage. He was so mad, he refused to sit quietly in church, instead he was throwing the program and hymn books on the ground, then he himself ended up on the ground. He was being a distraction so I took him outside. He lost his spine the entire way outside so I had to drag him like a ragged doll. By this time I was flushed with anger and embarrassment, I gave him two slaps. Junior church is usually held for them, but there was none today but he still wanted to go into the room. I went to the room with him where he kept himself occupied with the items used for Junior Church.

In episode two, I was sitting at the back of church with a friend waiting for church to end. We had just left the Junior Church room and he wanted to go back. I tried to stop him because I had no energy left to clean up after he had had his way in the room and that was when he ended up on the ground again. I decided to leave him there to cry out the tantrum. He cried and cried until his face was soaked with tears and mucus was coming for his nose. My friend attempted to pick him up but he did not want to be picked up. After crying for a while, he came towards me and I tried to pick him, he resisted and ended up on the ground again. I had had it, and so I gave him two more slaps. I regret having to do this in front of my friend as my husband and I had made a promise that we would not attempt to discipline him in the presence of other people, but I felt he had asked for it.

He soon calmed down enough that I could pick him up in my arms. At this point I felt like crying, having to see my child fall to pieces like this and worst, in the presence of someone else. I also felt inadequate as here I was unable to calm him and give him what he really needed. He soon completely calmed down and was about to go to sleep, but by this time, church had ended and soon as my husband appeared, I handed him over to him. For the rest of the day, I felt like I had ran a marathon, I could hardly find the strength to cook dinner.

This is the first time he had ever behaved like this at church.

I am very grateful for my son and it goes without saying that I am very much in love with him, but this is a very challenging time. Worst, I am from a background where our parents, especially our Dad, would just have to give us 'the look' and we would fall right back in line, fearing the spanking that would follow if we did not adhere. I wish I could do that to my son and then spanking would not be an issue at all.

I tell you and I can understand why some parents do not believe in spanking children because you can get really angry and hurt them, not really meaning to, especially when they act up in public and cause you embarrassment. This is especially so if you have other things going on in your life which is causing you stress and for mothers especially, we are often victims of our hormones. Little wonder, there is so much news out there, about parents who hurt children. I often wonder how a parent could hurt a child, but having the experience now, I can see why. This is why, when I am going through anything emotional, I try not to spank my son at all and I believe all parents should try not to do this.

Our son cries when his favorite cartoon ends, he cries when he cannot have his way and he cries of course when he is spanked. Many times I actually feel scared that my neighbors might send the Children’s Authorities on me, thinking that all those cries was because we were spanking him, to the point where the other morning I saw a car parked close to my home and a little while after that I saw a lady slowly walking by my house and looking over the fence, I felt really uncomfortable, what if my neighbors had done what I had been thinking? Mind you, my home is being sold by my Landlord, so it could be that this lady had seen the for sale sign and was checking out the property.

If you are a parent reading this, and you do not believe in spanking, please, please, give us some advice on how to discipline our son effectively, without having to spank him. He is our miracle baby and we really do not want to spank him at all, but on the other hand, we love him too much and really do not want to ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.’ I am thinking time outs could work but I do not think he is at the stage where he can understand what this is about, but I will definitely do that when he is older.

You may notice I use the word spank in my post. This is because I strongly believe no one should beat their children as this is child abuse.

Looking forward to your response.

‘MOMZILLA’

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

It is amazing to see how quickly a parent turns into extreme defensive and protective mode when they realize that their safety and most all, the safety of their child is compromised.

I turned into ‘MOMZILLA’ yesterday because my safety and that of my precious child was threatened.

We had just had breakfast and my son was lying beside me on the bed watching cartoons. I began dozing off because I had awoken about 4:00 a.m. in the morning and was chatting with my husband. He went back to sleep but I could not and so by this time, I was a bit sleepy. I heard this loud bang that jolted me out of my nap. At first, I thought it was just neighborhood noise as sometimes there would be construction going on and you would hear sounds of this nature. I heard it again and this time just thought it sounded odd, so I got up to check. It seem to have frightened my son as well. On my way to check this sound out, I heard it again and was in time to see a middle aged man stooping at my back door and trying to break it off. I did not know I could shout so loudly and ferociously at someone. Upon hearing my shout, he staggered back at first as if not sure what to do and when he saw that I was persistent, he took off like our golden boy Usain Bolt over the back wall. It is amazing how he did not cut himself because there are razor wires on the wall.

I was terrified, I called my husband and he called the police. He also told me he was coming home at once. I wanted so much to tell him I was alright but was also relieved because I was not sure at that point if I could have made it through the rest of the day. The police came promptly and I gave them a statement. I was surprised how calm and fluent I was, because as one who stutters, situations like these causes me to stutter even more. I was so proud of myself, I had things under control, I was doing my duty of mom well.

Last night I tossed and turned thinking of ways I should have sneeked upon this man and hurt him real bad. I also could not get the picture of him stooping at my back door and trying to yank it off out of my head. I am not sure what his motives were, was it robbery, or did he have plans to rape after observing that I was alone with a young child. I have been driving myself crazy thinking these thoughts since yesterday. The other thing I was thinking was, I did get a good look at him that I could have described him to the police and I suspect he knows that as well. What if he came back today to eliminate me because of this as this is what these criminals to these days, if you happen to get a good look at them, they eliminate you because now you are a witness.

Today was hard, because with the above playing over and over in my head, I kept checking my surroundings and checking every sound I heard that by the end of the day, I was so tired and fatigued.

The thing is though, after being terrified initially, this sense of calm came over me. I was not falling to pieces. I was more angry than scared. How could this man think it necessary to disrupt my family in this way. I felt if I had the chance, I would really have hurt him as that is just how angry I have been since. I was happy I was able to maintain a certain degree of composure that I could have given the police a fluent and accurate statement and I think it is my motherly instincts, that was in play. Probably if I did not have my son with me, I would have lost it, but I knew I had to protect myself and most of all, him, (after all, he took so long to come to us because of infertility) and so I know I could not fall to pieces and still protect him. Animals do this as well, they protect their young. I have seen this while growing up in our family home, our cat would not let any of us come near her kittens and neither the dog with her puppies nor the hens with her baby chicks and so it is with humans, especially mothers.

Thank goodness though, the house is very secure and I do not think there was any way he would have made it inside, but you never can tell, you just have to rely on the Almighty to continue to keep us all safe from these vagabonds that prey. I will also be drawing on my earthly security team, my machette, a lighter and my mace, because should he come back, I want to be prepared for him.

The good that came out of this is that this man has singlehandedly given something to blog about and we are now aware that we cannot get too laxed, where making sure that we are safe in our homes on a daily basis, is concerned.

Help us thank God we are alright and until next time be safe.

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My Infertility Story - My infertility and my family cont'd.

Now for the good part, my infertility and my in-laws, and I will be focusing on my mother-in-law, as she is the one who was visibly yearning for grandchildren.
I was somewhat able to talk to my mother-in-law about my infertility, but ofcourse not the part where she would have known exactly how much pain I was in. Like my mother, my mother-in-law began making her comments about grandchildren here and there, quite harmless comments, but sadly as time passed, I did not see these comments as harmless anymore. They began to cut deep within me and this became worst as my struggle intensified. This was even harder to take because, since I spoke to her on occasions about our struggle with infertility, to the point where she even recommended some of the doctors we saw. I thought that she should have known better than anyone else and be more supportive of us.
I now began to feel very insecure around her as I often wondered if she was thinking that I was not good enough for her son because I was not able to provide her with the grandchildren she wanted so much. As a result of this, our relationship, in my opinion did not develop in a more meaningful way, as the insecurity from my infertility was interfering with this process.
The biggest blow came when one of my husband’s younger brother and his wife announced that they were expecting a child. My mother-in-law called to share the news with us, and sadly I did not take it very well because I thought she could have been a little more empathetic in how she broke the news to us, given our struggle to have children. She was understandably very ecstatic and sadly, try as I may, I could not share in the moment, as I now saw all our efforts to provide the grandchildren proving futile. We were beaten to the chase.
This soon turned ugly as I began to tell her that over all I found she was not empathetic to what we were going through, as I expected her more than anyone else to understand and that some of her comments were now beginning to hurt and she should by now be thinking of stopping and start to support us in this regard.
This did not go over very well with her and my mother and sister got involved, to the point where I was told that I was jealous of my brother-in-law and his wife, I am faithless and weak and have no use for God and that was why I was going through all this, and that I am known to cause hurt on people as I had done it before. I could have easily taken my life at that point, as I thought now that my family knew the degree of hurt that I was going through because of my infertility, albeit, not in the way I wanted it known to them, I would have received their sympathy and the understanding and support I was so yearning for.
I was happy this happened, because after the initial hurt, something new was given birth to. My family now became sympathetic, apologies were given, relationships restored and I now began receiving the love and support which I think I truly deserved from my family.
This was indeed a new day, because as the saying goes, the darkest hour is just before dawn. This was to be the dawn of my triumph over infertility and now I was able to move towards this triumph, my family with me.

In my next post, I will address how I think a family can help and support another family member experiencing infertility, from my perspective of course. You don’t want to miss this either.

My Infertility Story - My infertility and my family cont'd.

Wow, when I was diagnosed with infertility, I really did not know how hard it would have been to talk to my family about it, to secure the support that one would need from their family in situations such as this. I thought it would have been easy at least to talk to my husband since he is the closest to me, but sadly this was not the case. It was as my struggle progressed that I realized that I felt embarrassed whenever I thought of sharing my story with my family and became even more embarrassed as time passed, to the point that I did not want to try anymore. I guess apart from the embarrassment I felt, I just thought they would not understand and would probably say things to make me more upset.

Where the rest of my family is concerned, as I mentioned before, I tried to talk to them occasionally about my infertility, but unfortunately did not get very far, as embarrassment would begin to set in or something would be said to turn me off. The little that they knew about my struggles, therefore, was sadly not enough to secure the kind of support that one would expect from their family.

I wanted so much a connection with my family so that they would ask me what is happening with me where children were concerned, when they realised that time was passing and I was not having any. I would have jumped at that opportunity to talk but unfortunately I waited and waited and sadly it did not happen.

The only question my mom, would ask was, “when are you going to pay the man back for his ring?” (She means giving my husband a child). I found this quite amusing at first but as my infertility progressed, I was not happy anymore to hear it and her other comments. My Dad, I remember visiting him once and was telling him that one of my sisters was expecting a second child. I really did not see his response coming. “What about you, he asked, you are wasting time.” I did not know if I was to cry or just grab my things and run until I reached my home. I was so upset and taken aback, as I thought my father would at least be on my side, as I think he understands me more than anyone else in my family.

Once my father took ill and my sister and I journeyed out to the country to see him. I was so excited about this trip as I had made a vow that I would use this time and fill my sister in about my struggle with infertility. I could not say a word, the cat must have had my tongue as I could not find it. I was so devastated I felt like crying.

I remember once I was talking to one of my sisters and I was beginning to divulge some of the emotional battles I was having. I was feeling very good about this, as this was the first time I was actually reaching this far with any one from my family. The wind was ripped from my sail as she began to tell me that she is really not sure that she would be so upset and depressed about infertility. I did not know what to say. She has a child I thought, how could she know what yearning for a child feels like.

On yet another occasion, I was telling another family member that I was at the supermarket earlier that day and it felt like my infertility was punishing me. There were so many cute babies that came into the store and if that was not enough, there were twins among them. I felt as if my infertility was being thrown into my face and so I hurriedly picked up what I went for and got out. To my dismay, my sister said to me, “just try and block things like that.” Block it, I thought, exactly how would I do that. (She has two beautiful children).
I was mortified and vowed that this would be the end of me trying to talk to my family about the struggles I was having with my infertility as clearly they could not help me.

I know if they knew that saying things like those upset me, they would not have said them, and so even as I was feeling upset, I was feeling guilty that I was being so resentful towards them.
Needless to say, the loneliness I felt following this was even more overwhelming, but I thought, I have made it this far on my own so I will carry on, even if it kills me.

More in next post. I am sure by now you do not want to miss the rest.