One Month!

As I sit and reflect today on the last month, so many things come to mind! I have stared into the eyes of our little princess so many times today and watched her smile and heard her giggle over and over. I am simply in awe of her resiliency and in awe of our awesome God Who has been working so faithfully in her little heart and mind...and in ours. The first couple of weeks pushed us to limits that were stretched beyond anything I could have ever thought possible for any of us. Then progress began. Selah began to lay her burdens down. She began to let us love her in the moments of pain. It was still so hard, harder than I ever dreamed, but God kept giving me glimpes of His work and He worked in so many ways to reassure all of us. He worked through those around us loving us and sometimes just happening to say the very word of encouragement we needed to hear at that very moment.

Last week Selah came down with a cold which she seemed to have the worst. We all had the sniffles and didn't feel spectacular, but I think because her little immunity system was down with all the stress, she caught it and had the worst symptoms. Her nose is still running and she sounds congested. But, when she first caught the cold, she was pretty frustrated with it and it just made her plain old grumpy! Sweet Zach told me that morning that he just knew that this was actually a blessing from God because it would give Selah the chance to see how much better it is to be cared for and loved by a Mommy when you are sick. He said she was just going to love me more after this was done...and followed it with a "You'll see, Mom!". My sweet and insightful little guy...he is such a wise little soul who so often knows just the right words to make me feel better!

Well, anyway, the week wasn't the best...it was very exhausting, but in the midst we certainly did see growth in so many areas! She laid back in my arms for the first time that week. It was only a few moments and she had to jump back up, but she did it and since then has been surrending to my love and care even more. Then came Saturday night. To make a long story short, because of her extreme anxiety and stress and not sleeping for almost 48 hours, our doctor gave Selah something to help her sleep. It worked so well and allowed her to get some sleep so that she could deal with each new day and its new set of stimuli. Saturday night, we needed to start the new bottle which had been refilled. Within 20 minutes her personality changed and she raged and raged and cried and cried. She had an adverse reaction because the prescription had been slightly changed. It was awful. We found out later that a very small percentage of the young and the elderly can have this reaction. We called the doctor and after a few hours figured out what had happened and got the right medication which eventually helped and by Monday morning she woke up with her sweet smile! It was all so scary, though, because we were trying to figure out what happened, what triggered these behaviors, and then finally realized about the meds. Bryan and I and the boys were all stretched to the very limits watching our sweet girl regress so much and not know what to do with all this rage.

We had scheduled and rescheduled and rescheduled family photos with Vicki Lynn who is the most amazing photographer and person! She is beautiful inside and out and talented beyond belief! I was bound and determined to make this shoot...even with Selah still pretty unhappy! Our shoot was at 5:00 pm so it had been several hours for the medicine to get out of her system and for the new one to take effect. I continued to have faith that we would make it and at about 4:00 pm we started getting a couple of smiles out of her that would be followed a few minutes later by her favorite phrase which is "No More Mommy!!!!" said with all the feisty emotion one could create! It kinda makes me smile now, even though I of course always tell her "we don't talk to Mommy that way"! Anyway....we headed out to the shoot and it was a challenge, but we had moments of where our sweet girl was shining happy and moments where she was ticked at the world! But, she did love Miss Vicki and had plenty of hugs for her! At the close of the shoot, I was a bit nervous and wondered how the pictures would come out...and last night Vicki sent me the photos and created a slideshow. I sat there and cried because even with all that was going on she was able to capture our love for Selah and her love for us. It was such a gift to me because it showed me that even in the worst of days, we are all a family and our love still shines through! I won't say anymore...just watch!

O taste and see that the Lord [our God] is good! Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who trusts and takes refuge in Him.  Psalm 34:8

http://www.vickilynnphoto.myshowit.com/lb/index.html