Slow internet = sporadic posts
/I sat and had coffee with Hatice this morning before heading out the door to come sit in Starbucks where I figured I'd get normal speed wifi and have ended up without any functioning wifi. She shooed me out the door as soon as I was done with my coffee, saying, "You too tired. You go be byself." She raised four girls, so she understands the fatigue that comes with the constant brainwork of having multiple children. Evening during naptime, evening in the still of the night, I cannot get my brain to quiet down.
So I'm typing this on a note on the desktop and will transfer it to the website and post it when I get home.
Some quick updates, knowing that the longer I write this and the more pictures I plan on uploading the less likely our internet will be able to hold fast until things post. So:
Health: about the same. Looking at starting a new heart medication that will NOT make my heartrate decrease and therefore shouldn't make me feel as down as the others I've tried. This will hold me over just until the next ablation.
Boys: boys boys boys. Josh and I are finding ourselves tested in this area. The boys each seem to be dealing with the change and transition differently.
Luke seems to be over it and for the most part is a much happier boy here than he EVER was on the island. I am convinced that something there, like it did for me, was making him feel yuck all the time. I think that's why he was constantly fussy and then it magically stopped literally the day after we left the island. He's been a peach and is so fun to watch grow and learn. He's SO curious! Much more than any of the other boys. He's our first kid that fits the things you read other people saying about their toddlers: pushing chairs to the counter to climb up and get snacks, coloring on walls, throwing everything in the trash or toilet, playing with the toilet plunger.....you name it. He keeps me on my toes for sure - there's not much down time when he's awake.
Joel is sensitive and cuddly and remains our easiest boy. He takes very little correction to redirect wrongs and aims to please at any point. He's is just so stinking cute! He and Judah are at odds much of the time - I think their ages play into this as much as anything. He's very emotional and seemingly cries about ever.y.thing right now, which I distinctly remembering happening with both his older brothers. I'm ready for that stage to be over with him, but we are loving him through it and hopefully helping him understand what is worth crying about and what is not.
Judah - small but fierce Judah. When he's good, he's very very good, but when he is bad, he is horrid (as the saying goes). He's spending a lot of time being fierce right now. His little heart is really struggling through making choices about behaving in acceptable ways and Josh and I are just toasted. I was telling Hatice just this morning that I've noticed over the years that when the boys are obedient, compliant and getting along with one another I do not feel nearly as fatigued as I do when there is nearly constant conflict in the home as there is now. Judah stirs up so much strife in our home right now. I've never known how to deal with conflict and it continues to be a struggle for me to figure out, especially when it's with a child and the communcation barriers that come with age. We spend a lot of time laying on his bed together, talking through whats going through his heart. I've made it clear that I'm a safe place for talking, but he rarely has anything to say. He seems blank about it all - so glazed over. It's discouraging and brings me to my knees, for lack of any better solution. I know that Christ getting a hold of that little heart will be the only saving grace. We are praying for that, diligently. We are working on alphabet and beginning reading with him this fall - I waffle back and forth between what I've been told by other homeschool mothers - start early and git er done, or wait until it's clear they are ready (he doesn't seem to be - but that could just be current circumstances). He squints often and opens his eyes wide and rubs them often and says his eyes are tired - we had his eyes checked on the island and he's got anough of a stigmatism to get glasses, but we'll have to retest him here in order to put a glasses order in. That will happen soon.
Elijah continues to grow and mature in figuring out how to be the oldest brother, how to be a good example for his little brothers and how to resist the temptation to dive into the wrong behavior of those around him. He's doing so well in school this year, especially in math! He.loves.math and is SO good at it! He's really started loving reading and is burning through the early readers we have for him - even the level 4 ones. He has a hard time sitting still and paying attention for very long, so we take frequent breaks in our school mornings. His imagination is delightful to watch - it's never ending, as are his questions about anything that comes to his mind.
Josh and I find ourselves getting more family time together but less time for just the two of us. Hatice has to leave base by 5:30 on the days she comes to our house, so we can't have her babysit in the evenings so that we can get out. Though, even if she could we aren't allowed to leave base and there is so so little to do ON base. I'm not sure what we'd do. But we need the time, so we are actively seeking out a babysitter for an evening every week. Where our evening at home when boys are well behaved give us a lot of time together, with the way the room arrangements are here in this house we spend much of our evenings dealing with boys playing and being much much much too loud too late into the night. We are wiped.
The house is coming along. We are still not allowed to leave base and there's talk that that will not end anytime soon. Some speculate it will be for another year. :/ That's a loooong time. We've noticed morale dropping around base as more families take the voluntary return to the states offer and more members PCS here not able to bring their families with them even though their families were on their order to accompany them here. We have to trust that whoever up high is making the decisions has good reasoning, but it's hard to be patient and understanding when we can't see those reasons. We were so very excited to travel Turkey, and the folks that have been stationed here say it's just incredible. Such a neat country! We are so sad to be stuck in these fences, but are trying to embrace the time we have as a family, that we really have never had. Josh has not been home this much since our first year of marriage - He's never been home this much since we started having children. It's a beautiful thing, despite not having any roaming freedoms.
I often long to be back on the island. I went out for a jog this morning and with the crazy storms we had all night long the air was blown clean and chrystal clear so the mountains were visible. They often are not due to smog, haze from the heat or smoke from all the things they burn around here. It was so refreshing to see the sun rising (OH how I miss those ocean sunrises! It aches to think about it!), hear the birds and roosters over the perimeter fence singing away and to run in the crisp, cool fall air - it felt downright chilly this morning.....at 71 degrees. HAHA! To think that was a typical summer temperature where I grew up in Northern Wyoming. These temperate climates have made me a such a sissy!
I've got a commissary and BX run to make, so I'm off for now. Hopefully our patchy internet at home (that we are sharking from our gracious neighbors ) will be fast enough at some point to post this and get some pics up with it.
