Decision making and Bi-polar Disease

For the last couple of days, I have been thinking of opening up this blog to the public - I know it would be an enormous step for me. I have mentioned here, what bothers me about opening it up, and that is the vulnerability of me and my family.
So I was sitting in Bible Study this morning, hearing a message about fighting the good fight for Jesus. Okay, I can do that. It also means, to open up, speak up and be an example. Well, how can I be just THAT if I don't share this with everybody? So I think I might just do it!?

Here comes another side of me, that I don't like to share, usually. It is something that I have found out about myself a couple of years ago. It is not proven by any doctor, but with any mental disease, it is hard to diagnose in any case. I think I have bi-polar depression and to top that off with a bi-polar eating disorder. (Yes, friends, that's why I am weird sometimes!) How do I think I could have this? Well, if one just reads the definition of each, I (!) have no doubt. A doctor may have doubt and wants more testing, but I just refuse to do so. Coming to God a couple of years ago changed my life completely - where I have to say that it is not DONE yet, but I am in a constant transition of being changed. And I strongly believe that with God's help I can, one day, overcome all of this. He has brought me a long way already, so far that for the longest time I actually had forgotten all about this disease. But one day, it just showed up again, and it brought alot of memories back. Finding old friends on Facebook doesn't help either...

So a definition of the bi-polar depression is, as you can just google it yourself, "experiencing extreme fluctuations of mood"; tending "to lose the inner balance", finding myself "at the far ends of the emotional spectrum". I think I have a mild case, as I am not laying in bed for days or maxing out the credit cards. I am fully aware of it and try to fight it. No, I will not kill myself, that would be a sin. God is with me every single day. He shows me my mistakes and I believe that I do not need any medications. (I am very anti-meds anyway!) But I can totally refer to extreme mood swings, sometimes within minutes or hours of each other. Staring with lots of energy and a restlessness, to a point where I don't care about anything and feel like nobody loves me. BUT I KNOW that God does love me, and with that knowledge I pull myself together each and every time. God gives me the strength to pull myself out of the pit and I am so thankful for that.

So why am I writing this at all? Because making up my mind about making my blog public might not be the end of it. I can see myself being fed up with the world one day and close it again. After all, this is mostly for me. And for those that stick by me no matter what. And I am so thankful for those people in my life. God is good ALL the time!

Baby On The Move

It has to come sometime very soon.... and I think as of today, she is on the move for sure. She has been trying for some time now, at first only pushing herself up and then backwards. That was very frustrating, for her and for me to watch her struggle. But she has to figure it out herself. So all this past week, she has been trying to push herself forward, just little inches. That became bigger inches, and now, she is on the move. She gets pretty far already....
I AM SO PROUD OF HER.

"Learning letters is fun" - but.....

Since we have visitors, our home schooling has lacked lots of attention.... but I calm myself down thinking that most kids my sons age don't even get any attention in that field. So I am okay..... Nonetheless, we have been concentrating on more practical fields like colors, shapes, animals, body parts, and such. He has become quiet good at dressing himself. He knows all his colors, mostly in both English and German - now we are working on shades of those colors, like light blue and dark blue, gray = apparently a very hard color to understand for children. I printed out a little figure and we studied body parts. We played kitchen and went through the fruits and vegetables, the meats and other edible things.

Of course, he also just plays 'normal' things like with his trains and blocks and cars and in the sandbox. Mema has taken him a couple of times to the playground - which is not one of Mami's favorite! I don't know why... This morning, he build a playhouse with Buelo, so now we have one! Yeah. With a kitchen, a fireplace and a barbecue!!! That was somehow important to him. Oh well.....

Update on the Sleeping situation

Hey, I hope you all had a Happy Easter. We did. We had an awesome Easter egg hunt at church and the service was great. We spent the day with the grandparents and it was relaxing and such great quality time for all of us, the kids, us parents and the grandparents. We were very blessed.

I also wanted to share with you that Peanut had no more screaming sessions for over a week now - so I hope that we are past this not so pretty phase! What a relieve! Mostly she is back to sleeping through the night - last night she woke a couple of times, but I was able to put her back to sleep pretty quickly. I am not so stressed anymore, and am back to just enjoying her as a much happier baby! Thanks for the prayers for those that prayed with us. It's greatly appreciated.

How the Grandparents got their names

As of yesterday, we are having visitors. The Hubby's parents are here, aka Mema and Buelo. It will be a fun week, especially for Coqui. He loves his Mema, and for the next week, Mami will be air for him! As for Peanut, she will hopefully have some bonding time, too. She has become so clingy.... so I hope with more people around she will loosen up a little.

So how did grandmother become Mema and Grandfather Buelo. Well, for the first 18 months of Coqui's life, she was just Grandma. Coqui being the first grandchild, on both sides of the grandparents, Mema wanted to wait until Coqui can speak, in order for him to determine what to call her. For the rest of her life as a grandmother. A great idea! So once Coqui was able to make sounds and little words, we offered Grandma. But he just wouldn't go with it, and came up with the name Mema. She loved it right away! It is very unique. So it stuck.
With Buelo, it is almost the same. We asked him what he wants to be called, and being Hispanic, he wanted to be an Abuelo. But Coqui couldn't say the 'a' and it got stuck with Buelo. Now it will be Buelo for the rest of his life as a grandfather.

My parents are just simply Oma and Opa. Which is German for grandma and grandpa. So we have for somewhat unique names and the grandparents can't be mixed up.
Now I go back to having fun, or actually more like just watching my kids have fun!