Needle Man

Bella... poor, poor Bella!  

She started out Spring Break with a back-flip into a pool of foam balls which lead to some staples in her head.  Already we are winning right?!

Then, towards the end of the week Bella started complaining that her toe was hurting.  And, following in her moms footsteps {no pun intended} she had an ingrown toenail!

We met with the podiatrist.
He got the numbing needle ready to inject into the infection.
As you can imagine Bella did NOT appreciate this process.

After the injections the doctor left to let the numbing medicine kick.
Bella made it clear that she was okay to never see the "needle man" ever again.






But the needle man came back.

Bella didn't understand that everything from this point on was a breeze and she went into a little panic when that needle man retuned.

In her little panic Bella shouted "hold on, wait a minute... HOLD ON! Can we say a prayer?"

The needle man and I looked at each other and smiled.
We bowed our heads as Bella prayed her little heart out asking that it wouldn't hurt!

And, as prayer would have it, it didn't!

{until we went to the urgent care right after and had her staples removed - poor thing!} 

Expressed in a Dance

I have never seen an episode of "Dancing with the Stars" - I'm not familiar with the show and I'm not very familiar with dance... in general.

After watching this video today, I realize that dance {like music} speaks in a universal language.

This spoke to me today.

This is so accurate.
This is too familiar.
This is intensely beautiful.

It was easy for me to relate to the storyline {Alexa having an eating disorder} but it seems as though everyone, in some way, can see this in their lives.

Eating disorders {get vulnerable} My eating disorder emerges its ugly head in my life
EVERY
SINGLE
DAY

I hate it.  I hate it so much.  I hate everything about it.  I want to wrap my hands around its neck and strangle the life out of it.

I remember a time when it had its hands wrapped around my neck and almost strangled the life out of me.

I wish I could permanently get rid of it but it doesn't work like that.  Something like an eating disorder and/or an addiction never just "goes away".  But there are things to do to get to a place in life where the fight is easier.

Choosing recovery is the first step.  But choosing once didn't make it go away.  I have to choose recovery
EVERY
SINGLE
DAY

Sometimes it's easy, lately it has been hard.  And it makes me so mad and so sad and so scared.

I believe in miracles, I believe if God wanted my eating disorder to just disappear it would. But what my experience has shown me is that although God can remove my pain, my heartache, my eating disorder, He see's the biggest picture.  Most of the time that big picture consists of me us having to suffer with Him by our side.

I don't know about you but my greatest growth has {unfortunately} come from my pain.  It has stretched me as a person.  I have seen how strong I am and how weak I can be.  It pushes me.  Even when I don't think I have the energy to be pushed.

I will never be grateful for my trials {I hate when people say they are} but I am very grateful for what I have learned and who I have become through my trials.

With that said... I wish my eating disorder would just  GO AWAY!
But it won't.  Like Alexa, I will have to free myself.

EVERY

SINGLE

DAY!

{I see you up there seeing me!}

Listen

So last night I lay in bed.  I thought about getting up and posting something on my blog (nothing imparticular) but I reminded myself that I am NOT suppose to get out of bed even if I'm NOT falling asleep, even if I'm NOT feeling a inkling of falling asleep, even if I'm WIDE awake watching the clock move on not even BLINKING because I'm feeling so awake.  Stupid insomnia. Regardless, I obediently stayed in bed and strangly enough, I think I was alseep before midnight!  Strange.  I really didn't think I was going to fall asleep.  Stupid insomnia.

With that said, I woke up early... and abruptly.  Bad dream.  Like, make a note in my planner (yes I still use a Franklin every so often), make a note on ALL of my sticky post-its that are sparatically spread throughout my house, make a note in my journal, on my blog, tell my husband... DON'T FORGET.  Here's the thing about "my dreams"... (and here comes my first opportunity to drive any, if not all, of my handful of readers away)... I don't really dream.  With that said, how would one know if they dream alot?  Well I never thought much of it at all, that is, until I was married and my lovely husband woke up EVERY . SINGLE . MORNING with wide eyes eargly waiting for me to wake up enough to digest all his descriptions of the many adventures he had been on that night (and what the randomness is he dreaming about anyway... like Never Ending Story random).  "And then I was talking to Yoda and then I was all of the sudden up to bat at The World Series and then I was in a play and Paul Winkleman was yelling at Benny and Quinn and Trisha were singing Bette Midler and..."  Oh the stories this dreamer has... and they are litereally EVERY . NIGHT!  So, I started asking other people if they dream.  Some told me they dream everynight, like Jon.  Others told me they never remember their dreams.  Some were like me, only in a very blue moon did they dream.  But mostly, from those I asked, people seemed to dream a bit more than I do.  

So back to my opportunity to scare some people away.  So when I dream, I tend to have pretty relevant dreams.  Like, dreams that you don't want to ignore, six sense, Allison Dubuois dreams.  Don't think I'm crazy, I think it runs in the family and without "outting" any other dreamers, my grandma has the same sort of... thing (wait, did I just out my grandma right after I mentioned I wasn't going to out anyone... and wait, am I not using my pinky finder to scroll back over this and change it... yeah, I guess I'm not too worried!).  So this thing has probably only happened less than 8 times in my entire life.  Everytime I have listened.  Not because I'm this intuitively spiritual giant, rather because I get SCARED.  Nothing motivates like fear right?!  So last night I had one of "those" dreams.  They aren't dreams that when awoken, I just shrug it off and go back to bed.  Forgive me if my dream last night is too fresh to share with cyberspace right now but here's a dream I have shared with a number of people over the years about the choice that didn't seem like much of a choice (more like just what was going to happen and what was suppose to happen) to adopt Anabelle.  If you haven't heard the story you can read about my sweet little girl here.  

So, now that some time has passed (like over 5 years) I guess I feel okay about sharing this to a broad audience.  One morning I woke up and said those words to Jon that he inevitably says to me EVERY . SINGLE . MORNING.  "honey, I had a strange dream last night".  Jon's eyebrows lifted (he doesn't know what to do when I steal his lines) so he stole my line "tell me about your dream".  And so I did, I just said it.  "I had a dream that Sadie had a baby, a little girl, and we adopted her".  BOOM.  I said it, I could never deny it (although I wanted to a dozen times).  It was out there.  And more than the actual words being said out loud, there was the dream.  It was more than a dream, it was too impactful to just be a dream.  It was too detailed and WAY TOO EMOTIONAL than the dreams Jon described to me about his conversations with Luke Skywalker.  This seemed very real.  Scary real.  But I told myself, it was just a dream.  Nothing more.  Plus Sadie wasn't even pregnant.  Oh wait, she was... like 4 months pregnant, we just didn't know about it.  No one did.  She was scared and hiding her pregnancy and since she didn't live at home, it wasn't hard to keep it from our family.  

Then my dream turned into a thought that I would have while I was on my morning runs simply listening to great music and escaping the hectic world enjoying "me time" before the day started and I would think, just a small thought, about that dream and before I knew what was happening I would be walking, unable to run because of the emotion that would overtake me in thinking about that little girl.  I would look up at the cloudless Arizona sky and shout through my thoughts, "this is crazy.  It was just a dream.  I will NOT be looking into this.  I will NOT be following up on this.  Sadie isn't pregnant... and even if she was, I would NOT do something as crazy stupid as an "in-family-adoption".  That is just crazy.  It's willingly jumping into a MESS of MESSINESS." and with that, I would start running again.  But this happened more than a few times.  Too many times to ignore.

To make a long story... less long.  I never told Sadie about my dream and at 5 months pregnant she told the family she was having a baby.  I exchanged glances with Jon, my parents and Milli whom I had told about my dream.  When Sadie found out she was having a girl she told me over the phone.  She cried.  She cried because she knew she couldn't raise this little angle.  She knew she was going to have to find a family for this little girl.  I listened to her on the phone and I didn't say a word about what I was feeling, I just listened and cried with her.  I was NOT going to do this so I was thinking of the niece I would never get to know and I mourned for that little girl... but I was NOT NOT NOT going to adopt this baby.

Then, when Sadie was 7 months pregnant, after having met with 2 families and still meeting with 2 more later in the week, I got a phone call.  My sweet sister, in her stretched out body, said to me... "Tice, I'm looking at this long list of things I want this little girl to have in her new family and... well, it's you and Jon" and I'm thinking, what are you doing?  where are you going with this?  please stop talking... "would you and Jon EVER consider adopting this little girl?"

I wish I could say at that moment I fell apart and told Sadie about my dream and we cried and I told her we would adopt this baby... well I could tell you that I guess... but it's not true.  I calmly told her, "well, I'll talk to Jon about it when he gets home from work"... like she was asking us if we could babysit her dog while she went out of town or if she could borrow our car for a week... what the what?!?!?!  But I didn't know what else to say because I was uncomfortable.  I was a little angry too.  I was watching this miracle unfold in front of me and I was too scared to let it happen and just enjoy it.  

Anabelle has been such a blessing in my life and the life of our family and with 1 month preparation we prayed, consulted ALL family members to see how they felt, hired attorneys, signed the paperwork and got to Utah just in time for her birth.  Then we named her Anabelle, which means "easy to love".  Perfect. 

We've had our struggles and trials.  Bella has Cerebral Palsy and some other health issues that keep me busy meeting with doctors and specialists.  But it's crazy for me to think that I ever fought such a wonderful thing.  She is AMAZING.  Simply.  

And now I don't fight.  I listen.  Eagerly.