Clarification

I just realized many of you reading the blog might not be aware of all the goings on since I have last posted. The comment in my last post, "Cate and I stayed home from church so as not to scare away any visitors with her cough and purple face" may have found you quite curious and possibly frightened! Well, about the 3rd week in September Ryan came home with a cough from school. No big deal, they pass things around a school like candy on Halloween day. The thing with this cough was it was really severe. What started out as a minor cold turned into a very violent coughing spasm! What's worse is Catitlyn started coughing just a few weeks later, when we were in the states. After much research , a few trips to the Dr (which, again, proved pointless), lots of sleepless nights and many phone calls to my mom, God bless her, we decided they had Whooping Cough, aka, Pertusis! Whoa! Where did this come from? The Drs wouldn't support this theory of mine because "he had the vaccine, so surely it can't be that"! Well, in my research (www.whoopingcough.net) i discovered there is a rise in Whooping cough cases between the ages of 11-14 due to the vaccine losing it's affects. Now, if they had exposure every few yrs, they would be able to build up immnuty and keep strong, but thats another topic for another day. That's why Ryan came down with it and Caitlyn did because she hasn't had the vaccine (again another topic for another day). Aaron and Ethan didn't come down with the full blown illness but have a cold and bad cough. With Pertussis, you start coughing and go into a violent fit, often losing your breathe completely, turning shades of blue and purple, eyes bulging, and finally vomitting before you can finally catch a breathe again. It's really quite scary! They have been on antibiotics and are doing MUCH better, even though the Drs insist the antibiotics don't kill this bacteria. I truly don't understand Drs. Ryan got better over 6 weeks, and after missing much school. But he started to have these breathing attacks in the middle of the night. All of a sudden he would wake gasping for air! It is a horrifying sight and sound to hear, let alone be woken by in the middle of the night! This would last from 30 seconds to 2-3 minutes! It continued for a week or so and I took him in again in hopes they could tell us what was happening. She didn't give me much hope of a diagnosis but sent us to a Pediatric Pulminologist. I won't bore you with all the details, as it was quite an ordeal-par for the course in SG. Anyway, turns out he has something called Spasmodic Croup, characterized by just that, the throat spasming starting and stopping at any time. Scary! It can often be triggered by an allergy as well as an illness. We had him tested and he is severely allergic to dust mites! Now he is on a low dose corticosteroid for 3 months to keep this from happening. We need to find a Dr in the states in quick order to get him updated and continued support for this. So there you have it. This is why I haven't posted much lately, our house has been sleepless most nights and we are exhausted! Good news is, the children are on thier way to being healthy again, and, God Is Still On The Throne!

Baking with Mommy and Cate

On Sunday morning last week, Cate and I stayed home from church so as not to scare away any visitors with her cough and purple face. Well, I could have chosen any activity like going for a walk, reading books and the ever popular cleaning up the house, but I decided we would have our first baking experience as Mother and Daughter! This may not sound that exciting, but when you have baked banana bread with 3 boys "killing" the bananas and making sounds of anguish only boys can think up and having the ingredients beat eachother up in the stirring process, you would understand! Caitlyn took her job very seriusly! She wanted to add every ingredient and stir each time. I can tell, this is going to be lots of fun!

What does it feel like mom?

She had no problem adopting the rule of "every baker gets a taste". This is the boy's favorite part, and I think hers as well.

After a while she got a bit antsy, and just wanted to eat all the dough, so I decided to get a little crazy and give her the almost empty flour container and a measuring spoon. That kept her busy for a good half hour!

I was kinda proud of myself, can you see the mess? Inside I started to get anxious about all the mess she was making and I wanted to put an end to it immediately. I mean, when the boys come home and I am exhausted from the morning with just the girls, what will Steve think? Well, I held back those reservations and just let her go at it. She was so happy! Putting the flour in the container and taking it back out again, then smearing it all over the floor, repeat steps one and two 25 times.

The true test of a woman came when I told her it was time to clean up. I totally expected a meltdown only a 2yr old could give when in the middle of such fun. But to my delight, she said "OK" in her adorable little voice and promptly got the towel to clean it all up. I gave her the broom and she was content for another 15 minutes while I got everything cleaned up on the counters!

I am blessed by such experiences and can only imagine the fun she and I will have in times to come. Thank God for little girls!

Celebrations around the world

Last week Singapore had another public holiday called Deepavali. Also called Dewali, its an Indian holiday much like our New Year. This is a very important holiday to them, celebrated over 3 days in some parts. Our neighbors are Indian and they invited us over to celebrate with them. The children painted candle holders in preperation for that night. They also had a party for the rest of the complex this weekend. They had fireworks, aka, sparklers, henna painting, and amazing Indian food! We donned our Indian attire and headed our for a night of fun and festivities.

If you look closely on the boys hands, you can see the henna tatoos they got. Made from a paste of henna leaves, green tea and some other stuff I am not sure of, it stays for about 3-5 days.

Julie getting a henna tatoo Cate was so excited about getting her hands painted. She had her first one, a little flower, and then it got smudged after she tried to touch it. So then she got back in the queue to have it fixed. That wasn't good enough, she had to have the other hand done as well. So cute!

Ryan got a scorpion

Ethan got a peacock on one hand, and a heart with his name hidden in it on the other hand

Aaron got a peacock and a scorpion too.

Preperations for the special day

Creating a picture with colored rice

All the children gathered and painted small candle holders for the "festival of lights"

P.S. these picture are all backwards. I am still technologically challenged and can't figure out how to load the pictures when i have several that have a specific order. So, the prep obviously happned first and the pic of me and the children was actually the end of the night.

I haven't updated much on our move and house search, I know. Part of it has been due to the illnesses and craziness that comes with that. But a bigger part is due to the uncertainty of it all. I started composing a post about our nbew house, but never finished it. Now I am glad I didn't. We had a house we loved, and through a series of events and much prayer, we put a purchase on what I have called My Dream House for the past 5 yrs! What's not to be excited about right!??? Well, I did talk about it and dream about the spaces, ect, but I always felt inwardly that I needed to gaurd my heart until all the paperwork was finished and we closed on the set date of Dec 1st. I couldn't imagine that anything would go worng. I mean, it seemed that God was lining everything up and this was the house He has set apart for us. So, what's to worry about? This past Tues we had the inspection and decided to do a Radon test, much to our realtors dismay (which we thought was weird). We recieved the results, which at first seemed great. But, then, that's when we got the worst news we could have ever recieved. The radon test. The radon levels are 20 times the legal limit!!! This is big, I mean, HUGE!! This is not like a leaky pipe or an electrical outlet that needs to be fixed or even a crack in the tile flooring. We are talking about the long term health of our children and our family! Come-on, I don't even let the children drink milk due to the hormones and antibiotics, you think I will allow them to be in a house that needs 4 (yes, you read that right, 4) mitigation systems!? Right, NO!!! I mean, this is cancer causing stuff! Being radioactive is not one of those things that you want to brag about these days. So, as you can imagine, we decided not to go through with the purchase of the house. Three weeks before we are due to fly out, we have no house. I am okay with it, really. At first I was really upset, not about losing my house, but about the uncertainty of it all. Where will we go, do we buy or build, having to rent and move again in 6-9 mo. etc. But, I talked it out with Steve and my dad extensively and prayed alot and am doing much better now. Steve left for the states this morning. He will see a few building sites and a house that's in the final stages of building. Hopefully we will have a better idea of what God has for us. The best news is God is still in control!!