Well, it has obviously been awhile since I've bothered to update, when I wrote my last post Liam was 4 weeks old, and this time he is almost 4 months old. Needless to say, he is growing ridiculously fast! We are in love with each new stage but wish he would slow down a little.

I have been becoming increasingly aware of how tough mothers need to be due to the intensity of emotions that your children can stir up, and how very green I am still. On Friday we drove down to Mott Children's Hospital for Liam's pre-surgery physical and consultation. The trip was kind of a long one for our little guy, but he did really well. Usually it should only take us about an hour and 45 min drive to get there but somehow we were gone almost 9 hours. Anyway, the physical went pretty well, but right after that appointment we needed to take him to get blood drawn. It did not go well. Liam has had immunizations already and he did fine, but due to some idiotic phlebotomists, this was a pretty upsetting experience: They couldn't find his vein immediately but they poked him with the needle ANYWAY and dug around, all the while making comments about how hard he was crying and struggling, basically intimating that my 3 1/2 MONTH OLD BABY had an attitude problem. (saying things like, "Oh, he just wants to be in control," and "Well, you're going to make us have to do this the hard way.") No, he really just wasn't too pleased with having the needle digging around in his little arm. By the time they took it out without having successfully drawn any blood and said they needed to poke him again I was crying too and getting pretty angry with their comments.

Liam's surgery is in about a week...and even though I know it is a relatively minor surgery, nothing has ever made me so scared and sick as the thought of me handing my baby over to be put under and have his surgery...he'll be away from me for around 5 hours and then we'll be staying overnight and won't be able to breastfeed for a couple weeks while he recovers...anyway I could go on and on about all the aspects about this that worry me. But then I think about mothers who have so much worse to go through, more serious health problems and surgeries that their children have to face and I am in awe of how tough they have to make themselves.

Anyway, all that to say that I am scared but I know that Liam will be all right and won't remember any of it. I need to toughen up and realize that motherhood is about facing things that you think you can't but love makes you able to. I am very impressed with moms that have so much more to deal with than I do so far...watching your child suffer and doing what you have to do to help them requires a strength that I have to trust God to give me also :)