We Can DO It

A few days ago, I realized that I had never blogged about our family theme for the school year.  I had this whole idea formed to tie it into the symbolism of running another race this fall, but then life intervened and provided a much stronger framework for highlighting this concept than I could have come up with on my own.  And really -- I'm sure that no one is anxiously awaiting ANOTHER race recap from yours truly.  Hahahaha.  {But rest assured that I'm still gonna put up some race pictures and attempt to draw some parallels between the metaphorical and the practical of applying the principle of "We Can Do It" in our everyday lives.}  ;)

When last we left off, we were optimistically hopeful that Jane's breathing was all better and that she'd be back at school the next day.  What happened instead was that Scott left early last Wednesday morning to head out to BYU for recruiting purposes and didn't return until Saturday afternoon.  In the course of that time, I ended up taking Jane BACK to the doctor's office two more times, as she started running a fever shortly after Scott left, and it kept spiking back up at least once a day for the rest of the school week.  With her cough sounding junkier and her breathing sounding a bit more asthma-y on Friday night at bedtime, I decided that we would probably end up needing that chest x-ray after all, and took her in on Saturday morning.  Third time's the charm?  I guess?  Because it wasn't until this third visit of the week, that Jane's sickness finally caught up with her enough to make her ACT like she was actually sick while we were there.  Hahaha.  I think that's what concerned our doctor the most when she came into the room on Saturday morning -- seeing Jane laying on the examining table and looking droopy and dragging as she checked her out, when the previous two times we were there, Jane was still partially bouncing off the walls.

 (Coloring in the waiting room during visit number 2 of 3)

She sent us over to the children's hospital outpatient lab to get a chest x-ray to determine if pneumonia was the culprit behind the slump.  And lo and behold it was.  Apparently she had a bit of pneumonia forming in the lower right lobe of her lung, and after picking up a prescription for Amoxicillin and receiving orders to have her rest as much as possible we were on our way. 

 She kind of looked so adorable doing the chest x-ray.

So yeah.  This last week was hard.  Having Scott gone while taking care of 6 kids is challenging enough, but adding sickness to the mix just gave it an extra kick.  ;)  Not to mention with the family room being turned into a sick bay/movie theater -- and Jane out of commission for chores because of her illness and Ethan excusing himself from chores because of his stress fracture -- the house has been slowly but surely turning into a disaster zone.  {Not that it needed much help in that department.}

So there you have it.  Life can be hard.  Parenting is hard.  Sticking to your guns while parenting is even harder.  It's stressful and a WHOLE lot of work a lot of the time.  Yes, it has it's rewards -- everything worthwhile does -- but it's easy to get discouraged when the going gets tough.  Especially when it's easier to just give up.  {And in full disclosure, I did give up on trying to get anyone to help with basic life responsibilities this past week.}  But that's what we're trying to burn into the fleshy tables of ALL of our hearts this year -- WE CAN DO IT.  We can do hard things.  Especially when it's the Lord asking us to do it. 

As Scott and I were talking over what direction we wanted to go with for our theme this year we both kept coming back to this idea.  For whatever reason (and part of me is nervous to know what that is), I feel really strongly that THIS is what we need to learn this year.  We can do it.  Our scripture for last month was an old standby in 1 Nephi 3:7 of The Book of Mormon:  "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

For this month, our scripture is the following quote from President Monson, "May we ever choose the harder right, instead of the easier wrong."  And for next month I'm already thinking ahead.  As I was studying my scriptures yesterday, I was reminded of a favorite hymn of mine (How Firm a Foundation) -- particularly the 3rd verse.  The scripture reference for this song is from Isaiah 41:10.

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

 Doing hard things makes us stronger.  Particularly when we're doing the things Heavenly Father is asking us to do.  But even for far more trivial things -- such as running a race -- I believe there is value in practicing and increasing the grit that will serve us well when the hard things that DO matter come our way.  And I might just stitch that and put it on a pillowcase.  ;)

4 Miler complete.  And it was HARD.  Haha.  The first half was basically uphill the whole time, but at least that meant that the back half was down.  My foot wasn't bothering me too much for the race, which was awesome, but I didn't quite make the goal pace I was aiming for.  Oh well!  Something to improve for next time.  ;)

 Official Time -- 41:35 (I was hoping to be able to come in under 40).