Sickness & Stress

Emily is just starting to feel 100% better from her illness that started last Thursday. She has felt fine, but she lost her appetite Friday evening and it continued through the weekend. Emily loves to eat, so when she doesn't feel like eating, she is definitely not feeling well. She was eating more today, though.

Eleanor complained of a sore throat throughout the weekend and mentioned her stomach hurting every once in awhile. Her throat hurt this morning and she didn't want to eat her cereal like she normally does, so she stayed home from school today. I had a feeling that about an hour after being home that she would be active and feel fine, and I was right. Oh well.

Now Zoe is sick. Really sick. She has thrown up 5 times this evening. Poor thing. This is no way to start Thanksgiving break! Tomorrow is the last day of school, but Zoe will be staying home.

Now on to my stress. Two years ago as I watched the parade of lights in 17 degree weather (crazy, I know!), I had a thought that a group of people should be in the parade spreading the word about the Creche Exhibit. The parade is always on the same weekend as the Creche Exhibit. We didn't make it to the parade last year because Noah was only 5 months old, so this thought didn't come to mind. Several weeks ago, I had this thought again about the Creche Exhibit being represented in the parade and I thought it would be a fun activity for our family. Matt expressed no desire to march in the parade and opted to stay home with the 3 youngest children. The older girls were excited to be in the parade, so I told them I would look into it. I gave it a few more days of thought and almost had myself talked out of it, but I have been doing a lot of reading lately on promptings and the whisperings of the Spirit and I couldn't ignore this prompting. I called Doreen, who is in charge of the Creche Exhibit this year and told her my idea. She loved it and felt it was inspired. Okay, now the fun begins. I filled out the parade application...with a vague idea of what exactly my vision was for our group. Filling out the application was actually good because it forced me to come up with a plan to carry out. I put on the application that there would be 15 of us marching, but as of that time there was only 4 of us. Hmmmm, who to ask to march with us? I asked several families I know, but nobody was committing or even a little bit excited about it. This was confirming that not only am I crazy for going to this winter parade, but now I want to march in it??? A family kept coming into my mind to ask to march with us, but it is a family that I do not know very well, so I kept going back and forth between ignoring the prompting and procrastinating. All of this time I am stressing about the number of people marching and how am I going to act on the idea to wear nativity costumes for the parade. I am not gifted with a sewing talent, so I would have to ask someone to make costumes in a short amount of time or buy costumes, which would be expensive. What to do??? On Saturday, I decided to make the phone call to the family I felt I should call. This neighbor of mine thought it was a great idea and was actually excited to participate with us! It's amazing how things come together when we act on the Lord's will. I felt so good after I made that phone call! The same day, I looked on the internet at costumes and I found nativity costumes at Oriental trading that got great reviews and are inexpensive. Perfect. I'm planning on getting a lot of use out of them, so I figure they are worth the money. I ordered them this morning and they will arrive on December 2nd. They better! More stress...will the costumes arrive on time?, will they fit?, will they be good quality? How will we determine which costume each child will wear? There are 7 children participating, so I think we should put their names in a bag and draw names to see who will wear what costume. That's fair, right? We will have Mary and Joseph, 3 wise men, and 2 shepherds. I think my neighbor and I will wear dark clothes and carry the signs that will hopefully be lit with a string of battery powered lights...another stress...will the lights work with the signs? Our Stake President's wife ordered signs about the Creche Exhibit for the parade and I hear they are very nice, but I haven't seen them yet. When I filled out the application, I said we would be singing Christmas hymns, so now we need to practice. The stress goes on and on, but at least I do feel like things are falling into place and everything will work out. I have a constant headache, though and I will be one happy person when the parade is OVER! I'm trying to enjoy the process, but it's just hard when thinking about it intensifies the headache.