Stuff

"When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. " Proverbs 3:24

It would be good to have some sweet sleep--any sleep at all, really. Lizzie has been sick--allergy/sinus type sick--for the last couple of days and not sleeping at night. Which means none of the rest of us are getting any sleep, either. I was up three times with her last night, and Tim took a turn or two. Even Hannah, in an unprecedented act, got up around midnight and told me to go back to bed, she'd sleep with her. But when Lizzie called for me at two, Hannah never even heard her, I don't think. The girls and I stayed home today, and Tim went to Philadelphia for Bible study.

Starting school was especially hard this year, but the worst should be behind me. It's always hard, no matter how much you prepare, and the worst part is knowing how hard it's going to be. It's like childbirth, in a way. Once you've birthed the first one, you know what to expect and that you've just got to get through it. You even know that you will get through it, but that doesn't make the prospect of it any easier. The first two weeks are always physically and emotionally exhausting, with little time for eating or sleeping or rest of any sort. Letters and e-mails and phone calls from parents to attend, and all the while administrators and support staff are doing everything within their power to make things harder for you. But, again, the worst should be behind me. Should be.

And so much good lies ahead. It is so good to settle back into morning meetings and footrubs and chapter books. And stories. Always stories. A level of a house is called a story, and we are building our shared dwelling one story at a time. On day one, we shared our fears: fire, nightmares, dogs, even an anaconda. Day two was about love and the people we adore: Blackie, Mama, T.J. All last week, we talked about our families and the things we do with them. When I pull a child's word envelope out of the basket, I can spill out the contents and find words and stories that help me to understand that child. And there's something different this year. We are moving through the day to the click, click, click of a ventilator. When things get quiet--while the children are writing, or I am reading, or we are having a quiet meeting--I can hear the steady beat of the machine that breathes for Lakyra. One day when the children went to P.E. I grabbed paper and pen and wrote about the breathing machine. It's a piece I'd like to work on a little more.

I have to go give Lizzie another breathing treatment now.