It's FINALS week!!!

So things are winding to a close. Woohoo! It is always nice to get a break from the normal routine. And so this weeks marks such a break....the summer begins. Finals week is always a chaotic whirlwind of activity with no classes only tests and papers due, people packing and cleaning and checking out and leaving. On Friday this place will be very empty and by Saturday night it will practically be a ghost town. But not for long. Summer school classes start on Monday and the beginning of summer camps will start to trickle in soon after. Summers on a college campus are so different than the rest of the year. I love to see the beginning come and even more happy to see it come to a close because that is when my normal returns.

It has been a busy week for Grant as well. This week they learned all about the farm. They had two field trips scheduled for this week but Wednesdays was canceled because the guy who was coming to give the Head Start classes a wagon ride was sick and could not come. But on Thursday they got to go to a farm and see all the animals. And pet some I am sure. And they even got to ride a horse. The teachers had gotten all the kids cowboy hats to wear while they were there. I did not get to go however, I had to take Kaylyn to the ENT for a consult visit...she has had 5 ear infections in the past 9 months. So we were talking about tubes. They tested the air pressure behind her ear drum and tested her response to voice. Her ear drums were moving some, which is good and she was responding very well to the audiologist voice in the sound booth. Both are very good signs. She has a small amount of fluid in both inner ears so we (the dr and I) decided to test her again in 4 weeks before making the surgery decision. I am hoping her ears will be totally clear when we go back next month and surgery can be averted, at least for now. Then we will see if fluid becomes a problem again in the fall.
Kaylyn is still having trouble sleeping though the night. She has been teething off and on for the past 3 weeks...ugh. But I noticed today that the tooth that has been giving her so much trouble has finally started to break the gums surface, praise the Lord. I gave her a precautionary dose of Motrin before she went to bed...so we will see how she does tonight. She woke up 3 times last night and Grant woke up once. So momma didn't get much sleep, though I am sure if you are a mom you know it goes without saying.
I am doing a womens Bible study called Walking by Faith. On Wednesday night the instructor on the video talked about 1 Thess. 5:16-18. She said that in order for us to find the blessing in the trial we must learn to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in EVERYTHING. So I am trying to practice that this week when the kids wake up in the middle of the night. I am not happy when going on interrupted sleep, especially when there are several interruptions in one night, but I am trying to look for the things I can be thankful for when I am having to deal with this difficulty. I can be thankful that Kaylyn calms down in my arms and goes back to sleep. I can be thankful that I have to beautiful children to love and care for.... I can be thankful that I have a nice comfy bed to crawl back into. And I can be thankful for all of this while I am praying, Lord, please comfort them and help them sleep ALL through the night or at least the rest of the night
But you know what really struck me about this is that we can rejoice in the Lord, pray/talk to God about it all, and give thanks to Him in every situation, as hard is it may be and it is still okay to be sad and grieve and be heart broken. I guess a part of me always felt guilty for feeling that way. I always knew God was in control but man was I devastated and filled with sorrow and unanswered questions and whys and I'm not worthy, and what ifs...But now I can see that when I had no strength the joy of the Lord was my strength, He carried me through the raging waters for what seemed like miles but we finally reached the other side and the clouds finally started to part and I started to get a glimpse of sun light again.
Goodness, how quickly the past two years have flown by. And I can't even begin to express how wonderful it is to see the great progress Grant is making. He still has a lot of ground to cover but the gap has finally started to close.
You know, I'm never really sure what all will come out when I start a new blog entry but I am always sure that the beginning and end will be at far apart from each other as the East is from the West.
Well, if you are still reading this post God bless you! You are a true friend to entertain my ramblings. I thank God for you, my fellow blogging mommas!

PS. Kaylyn did not sleep all through the night...she fell back to sleep in my arms as I finished this post. It seems her mouth is still bothering her. Thank you Lord that I can still hold her cradled in one arm and type with my other hand :o).