First Cold & First Tooth

It's been pretty exciting (if you can call it that) around the Stroud home lately. Last week, Mary developed her first cold, yuck! She was pitiful. Our little sleeper went from sleeping a solid 12-13 hours each night to sleeping only 2-3 hours! Mommy was not happy, needless to say. To his credit, Stephen did get up with me the first night to help his girls through the sickness (he politely asked to sleep the next night, as he should, since he's the one who goes to work each day). I took Mary to the doctor last Friday. He said she had an upper respiratory something, gave us a prescription, and sent us on our way. While walking around Sam's waiting for her medicine, I noticed that Mary had a little snot-ball on her gum. "Yuck!" I said. "Let me get that for you, honey." As I tried to catch the little snot-ball with my finger, I was surprised to find that it was hard and pointy - a tooth! Mary's first tooth! Which begs the question, is she really sick or is she just teething? Who knows. She's sleeping through the night now and seems to be getting better each day. Life is good. Stephen, however, got sick too (so teething can't be the only culprit), and now I'm pretty under the weather as well. I'm clinging to Proverbs 17:22 - A cheerful heart is good medicine... It seems to be working! I certainly don't feel wonderful, but I don't feel too shabby either. Lord willing, we'll all be healed up before our travels start tomorrow.

My brother Matt has been staying with us for a few days. My parents dropped him off Sunday, and he'll be riding back with us when we go to Fulton tomorrow. Matt has been an AMAZING help! He loves playing with Mary, feeding her, and even changing her diaper (shocker!). When Mary is napping, we play chess, games on his X-Box, or check out funny websites together. One of my favorite sites is a blog by a mom living in Saudi Arabia. She homeschools her son using the Christian Classical method (the same method that we plan to use). She has fun contests all the time, and right now she's in the middle of her annual Christmas Contest. This morning, Matt and I both won a prize (and Matt said he's giving his prize to Mary - how sweet!)! We've all had a great time together, and Matt says this trip has been relaxing for him.

Not sure when we'll get to post again (not that I have any certain schedule, as you can plainly tell from my previous sporadic posts), but we want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Please remember why we celebrate this holiday, it's much more than presents and Christmas trees. God put on flesh, came to earth as a little baby with the intent of dying and being our perfect sacrifice - our Saviour - to make us clean in our Lord's eyes, so that all who believe in Him can spend eternity with Him. Hallelujah, what a Saviour!