New Prayer

Hi friends! I did not intentionally take a blog break. I blogged a little bit about my headache issues. They are finally starting to decrease in intensity, but I still have not had a headache free day since 2/3 and it is now 2/19. In a way it feels as if I have been spiritually attacked because it is really hard to dig deep into the word and deep into prayer when you are in so much pain. The times the pain was the worst was during my normal quiet time too. I have still been having my quiet time, but it has just not been spent the way it should be. Last night I realized through it all I have not been praying enough for my kids...other than healing. I have not been praying specifically for their relationship with each other and WOW has it suffered! I will not name specifically the problem because it takes two...and honestly, there were two. Yesterday afternoon despite some pain and fuzziness I dug in. I dug into the Word--I dug into a few books--and I dug into prayer. I prayed Romans 12:10 specifically for my children "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves." Before yesterday I don't think I even knew about that verse. God is good and pointed it out to me. I also know despite prayer it is going to take more consistent action on my part. The disrespect for others has gotten out of hand. I want to discipline in love, but not squash personalities at the same time. I think that is where I am struggling. Each child has a very unique personality. One tends to make me angry and the other just drives me insane...yes, I know I have 4 children-2 are very easy going and tend to put others above themselves. They still get into the bickering too though.

Aside from prayer and discipline, I realized another change needed to be made. Wednesday's we pick everyone up from school and head to church. As soon as the car door opened the fighting and tattling began. At this time my head hurt, but it hurt less than it had in weeks. This went on as we went to Academy for baseball gear and on to church. It even continued through dinner. Following the example of the 2, the other 2 also started and it included throwing food and screaming (that would be Hannah, just so you don't think my big kids would throw food). I immediately put a stop to it. I removed little bit from the situation and made her clean up her mess. If you were one of the people who witnessed all of this, I apologize! By this time my head is pounding so bad I want to cry. I tried to sit down for a while longer with my family, but I had enough. I grabbed Hannah and left the table. One other child followed me, one went to class, and one went with Marc. Luckily someone realized my pain and that I was not able to handle a room of kids. I got to chill on a couch during kids choir in an effort to help my head. Honestly, I just wanted to cry though. After all the church activities Marc and I made it very clear we were not going to put up with any bickering, screaming, hitting, kicking....anything on the way home. I kid you not, we did not even make it out of the parking lot! My solution at that time was to have one of the 3rd row kids come to the 2nd row, leaving one child 3rd row alone. Honestly, I was so angry at this point it would have been an ok solution. The ride home was peaceful. Two of the kids in the middle row talked and laughed more than they had in years. It was so nice! I had to stop for gas, so Marc and I stood outside talking. We both agreed it would be really bad to leave one child in the back alone. We discussed how happy two of the kids were to be next to each other and how peaceful the ride was. My goal Thursday morning was to rearrange the kids seating! It required me to take Caleb's Britax regent carseat out of my car and put it into Marc's truck. We replaced it with his Radian from the truck. Check out the photos!

Here is Hannah hanging out in Caleb's Britax....you can see it is HUGE!

She even kicked back and went to sleep.
Here is the new seating arrangement in the car!
Many have asked how it has been working so far...we have only had one trip. :) So far though it has been great. Josh and Samantha are getting to rediscover their friendship without their younger siblings butting in. Caleb is loving being closer to me...he just needs to leave buttons and light switches alone. Hannah did not move. So far there have been no major issues with the middle row kids, but I do see some in the future. Caleb likes to bug Hannah and boy, can she scream!

I am going to continue to pray for their relationships with each other. We are working on a certain child's disrespectful attitude. We will make progress! If you are already praying for us, thank you!