On the Mend

Well, it took a few days, but Eli is finally getting better.  We aren't sure what the deal was.  After two days of fever, we started antibiotics.  Although he still had a fever, we planned to go to church.  We hate to miss the morning services and classes in the evening.  However, Eli had different plans and began the morning with vomiting all over me.  Ok, change of plans.... we are staying home!

Eli didn't feel well and took two long naps that day.  When he woke up in the afternoon, we took him on a walk.  Being outside really soothes him.  On our way home, we ran into Pastor Zac.  He was on his way to our house to pray for Eli.  Which he did, right there on the road.  So sweet.  It was good to see him as we made plans to finish planning the camp and continue with classes next Sunday.

Fortunately, that evening, Eli seemed to improve.  The fever left and there was no more vomiting.  We don't know what he had, but are so happy it's gone.  After dealing with another mystery illness, it just reinforced our desire to get lab equipment.  George is a lab tech and can do all sorts of diagnostic tests... if he has the right equipment. 

So, we are seeing how to get some basic lab supplies to start with.  Then he can test not only Eli (and us) as needed, also test others for free as part of our ministry work.  We think it will cost about $1000 for a simple start up.  We'll keep you posted on how that goes.  

Thank you for praying!

Aches and Pains

George and I have had some aches and pains going on lately and we would love your prayers for our family’s general health.  Eli is just getting over a cold he had for the past 8 days.  He seemed to be feeling ok, but his nose wouldn’t stop running.

My issues are primarily with my joints.  My wrists are the worst.  I believe I have something called DeQuervain's Tenosynovitis.  I self-diagnosed it on the internet.  It’s basically strained muscles that new moms often get from lifting babies.  Mine began when Eli was two months old.  It started off in the right and when I shifted to using my left more, it began to hurt as well.  Now, both are VERY painful.  There really isn’t any doctor here I can see for it.  People here just live with pain.  In the US, if there is something wrong, we go to the doctor and “get fixed.”  Since I can’t “get fixed” here, I am trying to manage the pain as best as I can.  I have a wrist brace that I wear as often as possible,  but I am really just praying for healing.  That is the only way I will get relief from it.  George is struggling to sleep well for unknown reasons and, again, we pray for healing for that too.

Thank you for remembering us in your prayers.

*** Update - I wrote this yesterday and have something new to add.  Today Eli developed a fever.  It went up and down when we gave Tylenol, but as of bed time is still there.  We are keeping an eye on him and praying it goes away or is something simple.  

Youth Camp

Church on Sunday was a nice one.  Pastor Zac taught about prayer.  This week is their annual week of prayer.  They put on hold all their evening programs and instead meet for worship and prayer.  They also encourage fasting this week.  Zac encouraged everyone to write down their prayers… and not hold back.  “Dream big” he said and let the Lord know the desires of our hearts.  Sometimes we focus on what we don’t have and the prayers we think have been unanswered instead of remembering what He has done.

In the evening, George continued in James and gave an intro into the next topic: taming of the tongue.  Next week they will look at the power of the tongue and what that means to us as Christians.  It’s a big, but important topic.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling well so we left early.  I was planning on teaching about pride, but will save that for next week.  I encouraged the ladies to not go home early, but to stay and work on their prayer lists.  I know how hard it is to do stuff like that when you get home and your attention is demanded elsewhere.

One really good thing that happened on Sunday was the planning of our youth camp.  George and I sat down with Zac and began to crunch out the details.  We are planning to start small, which means we’ll be inviting the youths from local churches.  We hope to have around 50 kids (high school and college age) come for the weekend.  We’ll be teaching about lessons we can learn from the life of David – what to do and what NOT to do.  My topic will be purity, something I am passionate about.  We got excited during the planning meeting and can’t wait for this event.  We have to meet again and finish up the details.  That will probably happen in the next week.  There is a lot to do, but we know the Lord will guide us and provide all we need.

9 Months

Eli turned 9 months on Sunday.  This has been a fun month.  He is learning so much.  Here is what he has been up to:

- He can pull himself up on furniture and stand there playing.  He actually likes to stand a lot.  Even in the bath.  I can’t keep him sitting anymore.

- He babbles a lot.  He finally started saying mama, but it’s not applied to me yet.

- He waves hello… all the time.  It’s really cute.  He even waved at me in the bath tonight.

- He sleeps through the night!  He doesn’t cry when we put him to bed and rarely does at nap time.

- He is eating more food, although it depends on his mood.  Sometimes he is very interested and other times, not so much.  His favorites are beans, tilapia and yogurt.

- He can’t crawl or sit up from lying down (there is a large belly making it more difficult!), but he can do an army crawl in which he drags himself around the house, surprisingly quickly. 

- He still loves his walker and zooms all over the house, but we wonder if that is making him lazy.  Maybe he got independence too early and doesn’t realize he needs to work for it and walk without it.

- He has become Nala’s greatest fan and tormenter.  She takes it like a champ, though and puts up with endless eye pokes, ear pulls and fur plucks.

- He loves walks in the stroller and we go out with it almost every day.

- We don’t know his current weight, but he looks a little slimmer lately to us.  He wears 12-18month sizes.

- He has been healthy with the exception of a cold this past week.

- One of his favorite things to do is read.  He squeals with excitement when we start reading to him.  Of course, half the time he tries to eat the book, but he still loves it!

It’s been a busy month for him! And us!

Slacker

Sorry....I have been a slacker with the blog this past week.  In my defense, nothing too extraordinary has been going on.  I actually have no good excuse.  I have just been tired at night and my brain didn't feel up to the task of writing.  I will have some blogs this week, though, so stay tuned...

Thanks for the Clothes!

We are having so much fun dressing Eli.  Thanks to the generosity of people back home, Eli is stylin’!  We had pretty much been down to a few onesies that fit him and now we have shirts, pants, shorts, shoes and hats!  Thank you so much, everyone.  We appreciate it more than you know.

(Wearing his new Sunday best)

Sleep Training

(Warning: this is a long post about Eli's sleep.  Feel free to skip it if you aren't interested!)

On May 4^th, it happened.  The day I have been waiting for eight and a half months at last arrived.  Eli slept through the night!!!!!!!  And it was lovely.

We have wanted to do sleep training with Eli for quite a while.  We knew he physically didn’t need to feed at night and that he was capable of making it through the night on his own.  Our questions were how and when?  We were going to do it at six months, but then he had the bad ear infection and then teethed like crazy.  Then we had visitors.   A couple times in between we were going to do it, but then chickened out because we knew it would be hard.  However, after my Mom and Al left, we knew it was time.

How, was the next question.  Sleep training is not done here.  Babies sleep with their mom and every cry is attended to.  When a baby cries, they are picked up and helped immediately.  We did research on several options including Babywise and Sleepy Planet.  And then there is the age old standard – the cry it out method.  Everyone we talked to (from the US), said that is what we should do.  It’s hard and horrible when you are doing it, but it works and is worth it in the end.  An American we know in Kisumu did a consultation with a sleep expert over the phone and he said the same thing. Establish a routine and let them cry it out.  They will be ok and won’t hate you in the morning.

I have always believed it was ok to let a baby cry a bit, but I didn’t realize we never let Eli cry until my Mom was here.  One time she asked, what would happen if you just let him fuss and cry for a minute?  I thought and said, I don’t know!  Eli isn’t a baby that cries endlessly. He is easy to soothe when he is fussy.  He is either tired or hungry. 

The attachment parenting style is more common here, although they don’t call it that.  It’s just what they have always done.  I have always thought I would be more for the parent directed method, but I think we ended up with a blend of the two due to our different cultural backgrounds.  It's funny how different it is here.  When we talked about sleep training to George's cousin in Kisumu, the thought of letting her daughter cry, horrified her.  I wonder how much of that is due to living conditions.  Most people here live with several people in a small house and often share beds with others.  In that circumstance, the need to hush them as soon as possible is understandable.  I also talked to my neighbor about sleeping arrangements for kids.  She said she would never put her child in a room away from her or alone in their own room until he was three.  Again I wonder how much of the parenting style came from necessity. 

Although Eli was easy to soothe, his sleeping habits were not very good.  To get him to sleep, we had to bounce him (in our arms or in his bouncy chair) after feeding him and then lay him down and pat his back until he was asleep.  If he woke up, he would cry and we would have to start the process again.  It wasn’t uncommon for him to wake up 4-5 times a night needing our help to fall asleep.  For naps, it was the same process, but he would sleep in his swing.  After the first three or four months of not getting much sleep at once (and almost losing my mind from exhaustion!), my awesome husband began trading off night duty with me.  Since then, we rotated and got to sleep uninterrupted every other night.  Enough was enough, though.  It was time for our little guy to do this on his own.

                                                                  

When we settled on the cry it out method, I felt uneasy.  I heard and read about the horror stories: babies crying for two hours.  I felt sick thinking about it.  I was worried that George couldn’t handle it because it’s very un-African to let a baby cry like that.  Meanwhile, he was worried that I couldn’t handle it.  The day after Mom and Al left, we committed to doing it.  We came up with a game plan and gave ourselves pep talks throughout the day.  This was going to be terrible. I envisioned Eli crying a long time, several times throughout the night.  Especially since he had become so dependent on us to sleep as well as had the habit of eating at least once during the night.

When the time came, we implemented our new routine and prayed.  Eli would have bath time, followed by play time on the bed, bottle, and books before being laid down in his crib awake.  It was much like the routine he always had with one big difference, we weren’t waiting for him to be asleep to leave him. 

And so it began.  He cried.  Our hearts broke.  I was so anxious; I didn’t know what to do.  We both tried to keep busy; wondering when the crying would end.

15 minutes later. 

Yep, that’s it.  He only cried for 15 minutes and then fell asleep.  Could it really be that easy?  We waited uneasily for him to wake up and begin crying again.  After all, it became a habit to wake up a few times a night.  Surely he would freak out when he realized no snack was coming and no one would bounce him back to sleep. 

He slept until 2:38am.  He cried for three minutes and then went back to sleep until 6:10am.  Wow, day one was SO much easier than we expected.  Thank you Jesus.  I totally credit Him for this miracle.

Night two was even better.  He cried for only six minutes and slept until 3:38am.  Cried for eight minutes and went to sleep until 6:00am.

Night three:  Cried for three minutes at bed time and slept until 5:12am!  Cried for two minutes and slept until 7:07am!

Night four: Cried for 30 seconds at bedtime and slept until 6:22am!  We did it!  He slept through the night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Night five: Didn’t cry at all when going to bed and slept until 6:00am.  I think he has the hang of it!!!

We decided to do nap training at the same time.  He has gotten too big for the swing.  We can no longer fasten the buckle and he has nearly fallen out since learning to sit up.  Naps have been a little tougher than bedtime, but he is doing very well.

Where I used to dread bedtime, I now look forward to it.  It has been amazing to sleep through the night again.  And Eli is doing so well with it.  I think he was ready long ago, and we just held him back unintentionally.

Ahh……………. Sleep glorious sleep!   I missed you so….  Welcome back!