Poor Charis!

That phrase came out of my mouth about a hundred times today. I'm saying it even now as I speak because she is laying (ok, probably standing) in her bed, with this whiney cry because she's been sick all day! She's been running a fever and sleeping all day long. If she wasn't sleeping, she was whiney or trying hard to play with her toys. She's been miserable! I'm hoping that she's just going through what she went through on New Year's Eve - fever, runny nose, etc. - that cleared up the next day! And then 2 days later her first two teeth came in. So...hopefully her top teeth are getting ready to poke through, and she doesn't have an ear infection. During Cayman's nap, she woke up early from her's, and I brought her to my bed with me. She couldn't decide whether she wanted to eat, lay down, sit up, play with the remote, or just cry. Anytime she decided to try sitting up, she didn't have the energy to stay there and ended up falling over! It was so pitiful. Eventually she fell over on my belly and fell asleep while I rubbed her back! Poor thing.

To make matters worse...I decided that we would all get in our large "swimming pool" bathtub for bath time. (Ian had to close tonight, so I was single-parenting it!) Unfortunately, our bathtub is a little slippery compared to the kids' tub (it has one of those rubber mats in the bottom.) Cayman is fine in our bathtub, but Charis doesn't quite have the balance yet. But I figured with me sitting in there with them, she would be totally fine! WRONG! She was literally sitting right beside me, and all of a sudden, she just slipped right down under the water! (For a second...) After that she did NOT want to be in that bathtub. I bathed her real quick (through her screaming) and got her out!

After she was out of the water, she calmed down and even started playing with toys and crawling all over our bedroom. I thought she was perking up, but right around bed time she was getting really cranky again. I finally got her to go to sleep. And then Cayman woke her up when he screamed because he was unhappy about going to bed! And now I just got her to go to sleep again (about 40 minutes later), but I have a feeling she'll be up again because of a stuffy nose...

All day today I just kept thinking about how badly I wanted to be able to be sick instead of her! I hate seeing my kiddos so pitiful! It literally makes me want to cry when they look up at me with those rosy red cheeks and tears streaming down their faces because they just feel so horrible. I would much rather be sick than them! As I was telling Charis today that I wished I could take her place, I just imagined my Jesus nailed to the cross, and I couldn't help but wonder if His Father whispered the same thing in His ear! If it's hard for me to handle a fever and a stuffy nose, how much more difficult would it be to watch your child dying a horribly, painful death. I pray that I would never have to go through such an experience. However, I do know that if any difficult situation were to ever come our way, we have a Father in Heaven who is fully capable of providing us all the comfort, peace, grace, and understanding we could ever need because He has been through every kind of trial imaginable. He has been there before, He knows our sorrows, and therefore He's the only one who can perfectly help us through every trial. (Hebrews 4:15) I'm thankful for a Savior who cares enough about me to comfort me and provide me with strength even in the "minor" trials - like caring for a sick baby girl!

[caption id="attachment_1350" align="aligncenter" width="1024" caption="She landed on my chest and fell asleep! Poor thing..."][/caption]

(I am not even going to try to lie...the only pictures I took today were on my phone! But I think I added enough pictures last week to help you make it through one day...)