Happy Zac

Mealtime can still be frustrating, but Zac is indeed happiest when he is eating food!

Losing My Joy...And Finding It Again

I have sort of lost my joy in the past several days. That is a terrible thing to type, isn't it? Especially for a Christian.

How could I write such a thing? I just get so frustrated at Zac when he, for example, completely freaks out when I put on his dinner bib. Then he is so mad he refuses to eat. What did I do?! I am trying to keep his shirt clean so I don't have to wash 7 loads of clothes per day. He wore a bib in the orphanage for every meal. It's not a new thing to him. But it makes me angry. Angry that he is so mad. Angry that he has now wasted the food that I took time to prepare for him. Angry that we cannot just be normal in normal things like sleeping and eating!!

So I took him out of the high chair and just had to leave the room before I completely lost it.

There are so many emotions. And the lack of sleep really brings out the worst in me: anger. Saturday night Zac was awake from 12-3am. Around 3am I just sat rocking him and I cried and cried. Actually, I bawled and bawled so much the front of my shirt was wet. After he FINally fell asleep and I put him back in his crib, I cried and cried on my pillow until I fell asleep too. I was mad at myself for being mad at him. Mad at myself that I thought we would instantly be this happy family together. Mad that I can't fix his problems. Mad that everything else in my life has taken a backseat.

Yesterday God whispered in my ear: The joy of the Lord is my strength. So I just sang that song in my head all day. And that's part of the problem: I've been too exhausted to pick up my bible or my prayer journal. I miss talking to God and spending time with Him. And his behavior and issues make me ask: "Why did we do this? Is this really what the rest of my life looks like at every meal, every bedtime?!"

I read this on Kris Vallotton's Ministry page yesterday and chuckled:

Have you ever thrown a pity party and have no one show up? Feeling sorry for yourself is a recipe for disaster! So is blaming others for your lack of success. It may very well be true that you have been mistreated, abused, beaten etc, but God is able to restore, heal and deliver you. Let your identity be in your Christ not in your crisis. I certainly understand pain and depression. I know what it is like to not want to go on with life. But sitting around counting your crosses will only perpetuate the problem and leave you stuck in a pile of poo.

So I decided to fix my attitude today. I decided to open my Bible, even if the house is falling down. (This is something I do every single day, up until the day Baby came. I view my Bible-time and Prayer/Intercession-time as very, very important in my life.)

That's what I usually do when I have a problem: open my Bible and read. Read until I find an answer to my problem. Read until I hear a Word from the Lord. Read until I find my Joy back again. Because being joyful is a choice. Even if you have to fake it. Fake it until the emotions follow. So today I did my Bible time. I played the kids' Bible songs with breakfast. We did our usual Family Time at the dining room table before we started school. If I am miserable then everybody around me will be miserable as well. The Joy will come. This is a season. It does not last forever.

So I am reading in Joshua today. And he spends pages and pages describing the land God gave each tribe. Pages and pages of the blessings God gave each tribe.

⁴⁴ And the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had solemnly promised their ancestors. None of their enemies could stand against them, for the Lord helped them conquer all their enemies. ⁴⁵ Not a single one of all the good promises the Lord had given to the family of Israel was left unfulfilled; everything he had spoken came true. (Joshua 21).

I love that God speaks to me, especially when I need it so badly. God will give me rest. God will conquer my enemies one by one. God will fulfill all the good promises he made to me. Everything God speaks will come true. So I cling to that. I cling to Christ, my Joy.

Do not forget in the dark what God promised in the light.

**To make matters worse, most of my family is completely unsupportive (mine, not Kevin's). One aunt and two cousins are the only ones that have even acknowledged Zac's existence. It literally breaks my heart. Well at first it did. Now I am just mad about it, too. I just don't understand.

Frustrated. Having Sleep and Food Issues.

We are having issues with food and sleep the last couple of days. And it makes me so mad that I can't figure out the problem!! I'm just being real, folks. I cannot understand this little dude. And I know it will take a long while, but it is so frustrating during the process.

Our food issues. For example, someone brought us over a beef stew a few nights ago and Zac ate 6 kid-size servings of the stuff. So I froze the leftovers in little ziplocs to pull out for lunches since he loved it so much. But when I gave it to him again, he threw it on the floor. I took away his plate and put it on the table and he screamed and cried like somebody broke his heart. I know he is hungry. I know he likes this food. He is crying and pointing to Sabrina's plate. I tried giving him a bite of her food. He got even madder/sadder. He wanted her fork. He wanted her cup.
He seems to only want what other people have. About 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time he shoves food in his mouth like he is starving. There seems to be no pattern.

So the problem is, when he doesn't EAT then he doesn't sleep well. He wakes up every 3 hours like an infant and wants to have a sippie cup of formula. It took a really long time to get him to sleep last night. He twists and fidgets his little hands back and forth, he shakes his left leg back and forth. I figure since he was in the orphanage he didn't have a mommy to rock him to sleep, so these are the ways he soothed himself to fall asleep for 17 months. He doesn't understand that he has a mommy to rock him now. He doesn't understand that I won't leave when he falls asleep, that I will be here when he wakes up. I get that. Last night I desperately posted on the Trust-Based Parenting facebook group (join it if you are adopting - - so helpful!!). Other mommies with similar situations said their kiddos had sensory issues or were really feeling the trauma of switching caregivers (from orphanage to mommy) or were self-soothing also. I really have to finish the book The Connected Child by Karyn Purvis because she discusses these types of issues.

I know it takes patience. Holy Spirit please pour your Patience and Love into our house every morning!
I need to pray these problems away. I have not started his prayer journal yet. I have a separate notebook for each of my kids, and I write out any behavioral or health problems so I can pray them out and declare blessings over them. Then I write out when the prayers are answered. I just realized we have been so busy adjusting that I have not even started his prayer journal. Will do that today!

The Lightbulb Went Off...

So last night when I was up feeding Zac, the lightbulb went off in my head.
The reason he is waking up during the night is because he is hungry!!

It has taken some hit-and-misses, but I have learned that when he snacks too much around 5pm or so  (even like a little bowl of Cheerios) then he will NOT eat dinner. And at first I was giving him a sippie cup of baby formula to drink with his meal, but unbeknownst to me, he was drinking it first and then filling up his tummy. I just thought he needed a drink with his meal. But then he would be hungry again two hours later because he barely at at dinnertime/lunchtime.

So...I cut down the size of the snacking and I cut out baby formula altogether except for when I'm rocking him to sleep at naptime and bedtime. He would much rather have the cup of baby formula, and he cries for it, but I cannot let him just eat just that.

I also found my Super Baby Food book on the shelf. I love it - it lists out the types of foods Baby is supposed to eat every day. Vital! So we will see how the next few days go!