Busy, busy, busy

Lillian has been doing pretty well. She has battled a small fever recently but it passed quickly and her health is good overall. She resumed speech therapy Monday and did well for her new therapist. We have started homeschooling and I have been negligent on keeping up on my blog family...I will promise to do better, just know I'm trying to catch up on everyone, but may not be commenting.

I continue to have ups and downs with Lillian's life as I'm sure I will always. It has been great to take her to the pool even though she is a WILD child. Her granulation tissue on her stoma site is larger than a pencil eraser, but the doctor doesn't want to do anything to it right now. She will see her in two months and we go from there. We have to continue to watch for signs for respiratory distress in case the same tissue is growing on the inside.

We are settling into a routine here at home and although it is challenging to be homeschooling, I love having the girls here and teaching them. Lillian likes to also sit at the table and "write" in a notebook as we work. She also has taken to ending our prayer time with a resounding AMEN. Precious.

I came across this poem during one of our lessons, and I struggled to hold back tears as I read it. It is so relevant to my life....

The Things God Has Planned

It's sometimes very difficult
For us to understand
The wisdom and the love behind
The things that God has planned.

But we wouldn't have the rainbow
If we didn't have the rain;
We wouldn't know the pleasure
If we never tasted pain.

We wouldn't love the sunrise
If we hadn't felt the night;
And we wouldn't know our weakness
If we handn't sensed God's might.

We couldn't have the springtime
Or the yellow daffodil
IF we hadn't first experienced
The winter's frosty chill.

And though the brilliant sunshine
Is something God had made
He knew too much could parch our souls
So He created shade.

So God's given us a balance:
Enough joys to keep us glad,
Enough tears to keep us humble
Enough good to balance bad.

And if you'll trust in Him you'll see
Though yesterday brought sorrow,
The clouds will part and dawn will bring
A happier tomorrow.

Author unknown

Pool Time again

Lillian got her first ride down the slide at the pool today. It was a dry slide until you got to the bottom. I was just too fearful for her to go it alone, I just think she'd fly right off the end. She just LOVED it. She came down with Bethany and started yelling immediately mo-mo-mo---she was so excited. There is a special kind of joy seeing her enjoy such simple things. After five "rides" down, I was afraid she was going to drown and we got ready to leave. It was such a fun day.

The only bad side to the day, for some reason, I'm burnt...crispy. I'm not sure I will function well tomorrow. OUCH!