Wow, it has been far too long since I have blogged. It has been far too long since I last wrote much of anything. My heart aches for it when it is absent from my life. Most days I think, yeah, no big deal, I’ll try tomorrow. But tomorrow always comes and goes, it always does. I heard an expression recently, “the problem with life is that it is so daily,” how true is this. I can’t think of a more accurate statement, well actually I can but that one is for another day. I don’t want to say life gets in the way, but there is always something going on. Even today, I feel like I have to choose between working out and writing on my “day off.” Writing wins, it comes in first place today. Although I have been craving time on my bike down in the dungeon lately, maybe I’ll get a chance later, because today I crave writing like yesterday I craved chocolate. My mind, my body, my soul feel like a piece of me is absent when I don’t have a pen in my hand or a keyboard under my finger tips. Just like God gave my husband the gift of his lifelong dream to be a firefighter, God put stories in my mind and words on my tongue that need to come out.

“The problem with life is that it is so daily.” Yes indeed, life happens every day! Like yesterday, my 6 year old came home with new shoes because his shoes broke and the sweet note from his teachers that talked about how they needed to duct tape his shoes until they found an extra pair in the classroom that fit him. I have been in his classroom several times this year and can just picture the comical scene of his teachers wrapping his shoes in duct tape, bless their hearts, they love those kids so much.

“The problem with life is that it is so daily.” I stopped at the firehouse to get the debit card from my fireman this morning and he told me he’s probably not coming home tomorrow. Thank you Lord for providing overtime to take care of these bills that come every month and providing food for all these growing boys that need to be fed at least 3 times a day(they want dinner every night?! Come on that is like so daily!!!) And this is the perspective I must have, a perspective of thankfulness and gratitude, mixed with a dash of laughter, otherwise I would cry at doing another weekend on my own. But the good Lord provides, and he knows that all three boys need new shoes, even if that means that it is currently Friday and daddy won’t be home until late Monday afternoon. It is ok. It is ok.

January was one of the longest months I can recall. I would even go so far as to say November-January were all a big blur looking back and reflecting. While life was so daily, we had a sick child for a long time, from Thanksgiving week until almost Christmas. We had a sick child who experienced vomiting episodes for 3 weeks and when he wasn’t vomiting he was waking up 4-5 nights a week with belly pain. I hate belly aches, because, I legit can’t fix them. I can rub tummies til my wrist is numb, but I can’t take the pain away. I was so tired and so worried I didn’t know what to do. It clearly wasn’t the stomach bug, as no one else had it. It wasn’t strep, which we tested for after round 2 of vomiting. I started keeping a food journal and restricting food. By the time round 3 of vomiting came along, I was physically and emotionally spent as I’m sure my husband was too. Round 3 was so severe that we contemplated the emergency room. Little man and I were able to rest all the next day and by Monday went back to the pediatrician for tests(it was now December). They tested for everything, food allergies, kidney function, etc… At some point that week when he was still complaining DAILY of belly aches, I pushed for an abdominal x-ray. By that evening we knew that poor guy was severely constipated and began treating him for that. A little note to all you moms out there with kids independent in the bathroom; if it’s coming up, it might not be going out, something that I had no idea about.

So from there I thought we were good and in the clear. Lab results were coming in slowly. The first phone call revealed one funky result that needed a follow up at MGH because it indicated that he could have cystic fibrosis. ROCK MY WORLD, WHAT!? Repeat after me, google is not your friend, google is not your friend. Yay me, I managed to not google Lipase(the enzyme) or cystic fibrosis. Instead I walked around in that anxiety driven fog. Bare minimum activity please. I thought we were done at the point when the next phone call came telling me to call genetics at MGH because he could have a metabolic disorder or mitochondrial disorder. My firefighter was at work and actually offered to come home. ROCK MY WORLD, WHAT?! Google is not my friend, google is not my friend. But I went to dr google anyway which assured me that my child could indeed be dying from a toxin in his body.  My beautiful thriving child had been symptom free for weeks. Now it felt like we were starting from scratch.

“The problem with life is that it is so daily.” Sometimes and in some seasons, you find yourself going through the motions. I was daily going through the motions. Even though in my heart, oh deep down in my soul, I knew, I just knew that Logan did not have CF, and I knew that he didn’t have a metabolic or mitochondrial disorder, I still had to wait on this daily life to hear back from genetics to book this appointment. But for crying out loud, it was the week before Christmas and nothing was happening, phone calls weren’t being returned, records weren’t being reviewed. FOR THE LOVE, all I could do was go through the motions and pray. We finally got an appointment for April… APRIL. Genetics would be in April, and the test for CF would be the week after New Years.

By the time the week of the CF appointment came, New England was hit with this microburst snow storm. It was wild. It just snowed and snowed. The snow started later than anticipated and ended later than anticipated. I called MGH on the day of his appointment and said, umm, we are totally not coming. For crying out loud, why risk it, I knew my sweet boy didn’t have CF!!

I think it was about a week and a half later, I still needed to reschedule the CF test, when genetics unexpectedly called and left a voicemail saying that they had a cancellation the following day and we could have it if we wanted. I called Kenny and told him, not feeling any big pull to rush to this appointment. We talked about it briefly and got off the phone. He called me back not 5 minutes later and said, DO IT! I called genetics, they had to call me back after making sure it was still available. So I waited, heart in throat. They finally called back, we were in! Now I decided to push it big time. I called the CF lab and asked if they could get Logan in for the test before the genetics appointment, and they could. One trip into MGH, two appointments. Thank you God, everything fell into place.

Only a few short hours later we knew that Logan did not have cystic fibrosis. We bought him a giant cookie for a being a champ at his first test. The next appointment ended up being very long. After a long family history talk, a Logan history talk, and a physical exam, the sweet doctor looked at us and said, “Kids get constipated.” She had no reason to believe our sweet boy had any kind of disorder. At that point she talked about drawing labs to give us some ideas that might point to his developmental delays. So we did that and she also drew his lactic acid which was the funky lab that brought us there. He yelled ow at the nurse who jabbed him with the needle as we hushed him and said, “we are going to McDonald’s! (Yuck, but for him, no, not yuck, this kid was getting chicken nuggets, chocolate milk, I would have bought him the world).

As we sat in the car in rush hour traffic coming out of Boston, I could care less, because our boy was healthy. And two days later, when my house was empty and I finally got a moment alone. I sobbed. I was overwhelmed by emotion that after all these weeks, all the unknown, all the tests, all the waiting. Our sweet, sweet boy was ok, thank you God.

“The problem with life is that it is so daily.” Oh those 2.5 months were so daily. They were painfully daily. But being on the other side of it now, I can look back at the sweet moments in it.

*The first night Logan got sick, in the living room, my oldest looked at me, as I calmly asked him and my middle to bring me different things(paper towels etc), he looked at me and said, “I could never have kids.” I asked why and he began to say that he didn’t know how I was able to just take care of Logan the way that I was. It might have been the most mature thing I ever heard him say.

*Over those weeks of food restrictions, Christopher and Evan had a genuine concern for Logan and never teased or bragged when they could eat something Logan couldn’t.

*I saw love in action as friends reached out to see how Logan was feeling.

*I felt deeply loved when a friend took Christopher and Evan for a whole day after Logan’s 3rd round of sickness. Logan and I would not have gotten the rest we so badly needed had that not happened

“The problem with life is that it is so daily.” The beautiful thing about life is that it is so daily. On a daily basis, God’s mercies are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. When I have a rough day, when I have a parenting fail, or many, when things are just a crazy tornado because shoes are broken, there are dishes in the sink, I didn’t get to spend as much time with my people as I would have liked, the laundry has been in the dryer for 2 days, my fireman has been gone for 84 hours, there is comfort in life being daily. Because the laundry and dishes will still be there tomorrow, and God willing, I will have another day with my family where I can learn from my parenting fail, recover from the crazy tornado that is my life, and we can all learn to have a bit more grace with one another.

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