This week has really been a trying week. I'm not sure if it's because at small group someone prayed that we'd all get to know God better this week, but man, it's been challenging. It feels like we are under attack and our only way out is to rely on God. I'm not a real big fan of moments like these.
I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not the best or more graceful during these times. I can become outright defiant, mean and tempermental. Which are all traits N just LOVES about me. I'm sure he brags to all his friends at school that I'm so tempermental that I just keep life so interesting and he can't wait to see what he's coming home to.
This week Zoe has come down with a nasty virus. We had a doctor appointment to re-check her ears. Yes, she had an infection. No, that's not why we went back. She has this green thing in her ear. It looks like a small blade of grass to the doctor, which really isn't possible since our grass is either under snow or is yellow. It looked like a green fuzzy to me. Which doesn't make sense either since we don't own green, fuzzy things. They tried to put some water through her ear that would help get it out, but that lead to much crying, screaming and general hate and that green grass/fuzzy thing is stubborn. It's been in there for a month. The good news is that it's coming out. In about one to three baths, we should see what it is. I know this is probably totally wrong to admit, but I'm super stoked to know what green thing is living in my daughter's ear since she doesn't stick things in her ears or nose. You can better believe if it is a fuzzy, I'll be searching for what that might be in our home and keeping it miles away from Zoe's ear.
While we got good news about the green thing, we got bad news about her illness. It's an influenza virus. Not the worst kind, but not great. She'll feel like junk for 5-7 days and probably have some vomiting with it. By the way, it's highly contageous! Oh great. What's been the really hard and down right scary thing, her fever will go from 100.8 to 104.6 in a matter of 15 minutes. That's like a drag race for fevers. I don't like drag racing.
We have to give her Advil every 6 hours just to stay on top of it. Even on meds, it's hovering around 101. Just to give you some insight, giving Zoe medicine is like telling her you're going to feed her boiling lava. She hates medicine, she cries, yells NNNNOOOOO, cries, gets herself worked up to the point of vomiting, cries, then kicks/pushes/covers her mouth, and cries some more. It's the most exhausting moment of my day. I get 6 of those moments a day because she also has to take cough and cold medicine at night.
We've bribed with chocolate, books, trips to Disneyland, her own brick of gold to no avail. "NO MEDICINE" is her motto.
I was looking forward to going to the gym after work to release some of this "NO MEDICINE" stress when N called. He was at Starbucks. His car was dead. He threw a belt. I know really nothing about cars. The only belts I know anything about are fan belts and timing belts. Fan belts make a squealing noise before they go out and his car doesn't do that. I had a near panic attack when I thought it was the timing belt. My Dodge Neon threw it's timing belt and now we have a new car.
When I asked him which belt, his response was, "the one that runs everything by the motor." I almost blacked out, but then he said something like, "you know, the air conditioning, power steering, alternator and stuff like that." Apparently there's another belt that I know nothing about. It's a serpentine belt. What was even better, he was positive he could fix it.
I know nothing about cars, N knows a few things, but he can fix just about anything you give him. I think if handyman was a spiritual gift, I could safely say that's N. I picked him up at the Starbucks and we went to the auto parts store. We came back to the car and he did this:
He had a problem. Apparently there are all these pulley things that the serpentine belt has to weave around. They were way down in there and he couldn't get his hand far enough down. I offered my arm because honestly, getting a little dirty and being nose to grease in the motor compartment is way cheaper than a mechanic. He insisted that my job wasn't to get dirty. Which is certainly one reason I married him. I do indeed hate being dirty.
I tried to get creative and found a toy of Zoe's in the car that makes a whistle sound.
He tried to get it to work and got a little music to entertain himself. That still didn't do it. We ran home, got some tools and voila, in about an hour total, he had his car working again. What's totally of God, a sweet lady in the Starbucks was leaving and brought N a mocha (which is his favorite) and told him to have a blessed day. If that's not God saying, "I've got this" then I don't know what is.
Now if we could just use a 1/2 inch wrench to get Zoe's fever to go down rather than Advil, I think we'd be home free.
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