news from the SLUG

I am a slug. ugh. Even moving my fingers to type requires almost more energy than I am capable of producing at the moment. Am I just old or what? I definitely don't remember feeling this sick and tired with my other pregnancies, but maybe that's a memory problem and not reality. I think I'm going to start praying for the perfect "nanny" to show up. I mean, shouldn't people like Alice on the Brady Bunch be the norm and not the exception? I would LOVE an Alice right now. One of Randy's nurses made us dinner last p.m. and I thought I was going to explode I was so thankful. I'm going to the doctor for my first visit in about an hour. I get to see this little bean today - this will make the fatigue a little more tolerable! :)
So I realize that I never gave my version of the camping saga. Here it is. Luke woke up at 5:30 that morning with fever and a sore throat. Immediately I thought what a terrible mother I would be if I took my sick son to sleep in the cold on the ground for the next three nights, but after praying, I really had peace that we were supposed to go anyway. Randy thought it was strep and we figured that with antibiotics he would be better quickly anyway. We actually left town in good spirits and we weren't even mad at each other. We were very proud of ourselves for this - perhaps we should've boasted more in the Lord. Our pride went before a great fall. Sure we stopped about 5-6 times on our way to Arkansas, but we still managed to maintain our joy until we reached the campground. I suppose I could blame what happened next on hormones. I'm not sure what happened, but I just lost it. The campsite was NOT kid-friendly. There were several little retaining walls built because it was steep and led down to the lake's edge. All I'm seeing is my 14-month-old rolling down the rocky slope into the water. As soon as we got out of the car, we were all covered in these tiny black gnats. And it was definitely feeling like we were in Egypt - I started crying out to the Lord!! :) It just suddenly hit me what we had done. We had about one hour to completely set up our "houses" and make/clean up dinner before it started getting dark. The amount of effort overwhelmed me and I wanted to go home. Did I mention that our campsite was at the end, meaning that we were as far away from the bathrooms as we could possibly be? Anyway, after dinner Malachi fell through one of the little "retaining fences", falling about 2-3 feet on the rocky ground. I couldn't talk to anyone. In fact, I hardly spoke a word the rest of the night. When the kids were in bed and Randy and I were sitting by the campfire, there were no romantic gestures or conversations. I coudn't talk to him. I was too mad. So I proceeded to cry uncontrollably for several minutes while he sat there helpless. What was this man supposed to do with a tired, hormonal, pregnant momma of six? We just went to bed. I didn't sleep most of the night, hearing lots of sounds, worrying about Luke (who was in a different tent), and wondering if I was brave enough to walk down to the bathroom alone in the middle of the night (I wasn't - I used a red solo cup hiding behind our Suburban. You get pretty good at this sort of thing after six pregnancies...). Anyway, as I lay awake that night I really pondered whether or not it was possible in Jesus to have a different attitude. I decided that it was and awoke determined the next day. I was really very nice. In fact I even smiled a lot and talked in a pleasant tone all day. I was pretty proud of myself (Randy just thought I was faking it and so I guess he wasn't that impressed). We went on a little hike and had a pretty peaceful day - until the rain. I think Randy described the rest pretty well. The funny thing is that I didn't even really think about leaving until my spouse started scaring me. I didn't want to spend the night in a wet tent in 40 degree weather. We left. And I was mad all over again. I mean, if we had never attempted this, then my children wouldn't have been wailing. Sigh. It was undoubtedly a catch-22. We grieved for the whole day on Friday. It was one of the saddest vacations (okay -the saddest) we've ever taken. BUT, we're all okay now. I think. I guess we won't know about some of them until it comes out in counseling someday....
Is he not just a beautiful little boy?

Isaac spent much of his time looking like this - it's tough being three.

Luke took about 5000 pictures of the ducks.

Here we are! Our happy family - did I mention that Randy made us all wear matching flourescent yellow t-shirts on our travel day?! THAT brought us some attention, as if we needed any help with that.