Surgery and sock purgatory...

I just realized how long it's been since I have blogged.  Boy, things get busy quick...and stay busy.  Much has happened!

Miss France did indeed have her surgery on March 8th for her cleft palate.  No one prepared me for what it would REALLY be like!  She woke in pain and even with all the pain meds I had to hold her down while the kicked and cried.  It was horrible and exhausting.  She never slept for every long.  Praise the Lord that Becky came and stayed with us for most of the time.  I never would have gotten to go to the bathroom or just get a breath of fresh air or get meal cards for us to order from (more on that wonderful plan later).  she was supposed to be released the next day, but she was still refusing to suck and even with syringe feeding her we were unable to get an ounce an hour down her.  They put it off until the afternoon.  It had improved by then, but not by much so we were told we would spend the night once again.  About 30 minutes later they came in to tell us they were releasing her only because they felt we would truly make sure she didn't dehydrate.  We were relieved and on our way home.

Now, while we were waiting the long 4 hours for her to get out of surgery (Caroline and I), Locke calls to say that our oldest will be having surgery Thursday morning.  What?!!  Not 2 in one week!  His broken finger was not healing, was completely separated and would not heal on it's own causing major problems because the tendon would continue to try to pull the bone back together.  Eventually this was cause great pain and very little use of the finger.  Oh boy.  What a week.  He would be put under and it would take about an hour and cost almost as much as my hysterectomy. Not kidding!

We also got the results of the ABR hearing test and it seemed like it was a miracle.  Almost normal in many areas.  We were told there was no need for hearing aids and then I processed this for 24 hours.  I didn't feel like this was the case, but we left the hearing aids off and Miss France quit talking or verbalizing in any way.  In fact she didn't respond to anyone any more.  I began my research and found out that the test she was given was probably not the best test for her type of loss.  Hearing aids went back in and she began verbalizing a little bit once again.  She has not gotten back up to where she was before this process, but we are gaining ground.  We will test again in 6 months with a different type of test.

Since then we have dealt with 2 children recovering from surgery, had one child get his learner's permit against all odds with DPS (the journey with communicating with them is just more humor that one can stand....it epitomizes everything we joke about with government agencies.  It made me laugh out loud on the phone more than once while talking to employees at DPS).  We have painted and painted and now have taken our house off the market for 2 weeks so we can once again paint some more and hope for the best.  Yes, we wonder what God is trying to tell us and we wonder if this is the sign that he doesn't want us to sell, but we don't feel convicted of that just yet.  Pray that we won't miss when God speaks, but so far we believe that timing is everything and he is still in control.  Patience is a virtue, right?!

That is as updated as I can get right now!
While painting we re-enacted Camp Curfman and got rid of even more than before.  We are truly trying to live with less and so far the kids are seeing the advantages of that because they can find what they have and have much more fun playing with those things and not cleaning their junk.  You won't find us on the show Hoarding.  Hope's Closet knows us by name!  They love us!  It's nice to be loved.  Don't you know they wonder when we'll stop coming and if we are on the show Hoarding.   I'm still not down to 9 to 12 outfits like I read and blogged on last summer, but we are improving.  Baby steps, right!  I just think with that few clothes for the kids I would be doing laundry constantly.  I will have a count soon for each child and then the reality check will begin and I can make decisions based on what I find.  I can also listen to your comments!  LOL

Tonight is sock purgatory meets Jesus night!  I have more mismatched socks than any human.  They are all meeting together in one room tonight for the great sock burning event.  We are all going to have only certain kinds of socks for each kid so that we don't get them confused.  We are also really and truly going to burn (have the fire pit ready) the mismatched ones.  Come on over.  We have marshmellows!