3 Beautiful Children – 3 Interesting Stories

So some of you know that I have three children: Abby, who is seven, Priscila, who is five, and Daniel, who is four.

As you can probably imagine I have many funny stories about them from when they were babies and toddlers. Like the time my eldest got a pip stuck in her nose right before we were about to go to a wedding.

And the time my middle one was sick on her dress on the way to a wedding (what is it about weddings?).

Or the time my husband took one of them to get medication for threadworms after going to the emergency services and saw the prime-minister at the chemist (it was midnight by the way!).

Or the time my middle one and youngest decided to decorate the lounge with eyeshadow!

Today, though, I decided to share three stories (one for each child).

Abby and the newspaper article

So last Friday afternoon my husband got a call from a journalist who was looking for a family with a child in year one to write an article about remote learning.

The journalist interviewed my husband primarily as Abby sits at the table with him while she’s doing the online classes and he’s doing work from home. But I chipped in with a few answers as I do the homework side with her.

The journalist asked questions about how distance learning was going, how many lessons there were, if we noticed reading delays.

We said that she managed to concentrate during the lessons but that she sometimes got a bit bored during the classes.

We also said she sometimes got frustrated because she felt like she couldn’t interact with the teacher very well or show that she knew the answers.

And finally, we said that we noticed she missed her friends, and while we thought she might be temporarily affected in her schooling, our primary concern was that she was missing the social aspect of school.

Anyway, when the interview was over, the journalist said the photographer would come the following day to take photos for the newspaper and the article would be published on Sunday. Talk about quick and easy!

As you can imagine, Abby was excited about being photographed for a national newspaper as she loved the thought of being famous (even if the article wasn’t exactly a positive one)! 😀

Priscila and the baby weight

When Priscila was ten months old, we took her to a routine check-up at the doctors as we usually did every two months.

We went not really suspecting anything to be wrong. But when it got to weighing her, a horrible truth unveiled itself. Priscila had lost nearly half a kilo since her last appointment, two months previously.

The doctor took it seriously and told us to put her on some baby purees, which were full of vitamins but also formula milk and sugar.

Up until this point Priscila had been exclusively on breast milk until she was 6 months old, and then she’d gradually started having food (soup, fruit, plain crackers, and bread).

There had never been an issue with her weight. But now this…I wondered if it was something to do with the weaning process, and so I resolved to increase portion sizes.

The doctor called us back in two weeks later, and Priscila had only put on a hundred grams. The same happened a month after that.

Because her weight gain was so slow and at nearly one, Priscila only weighed just over 6 kilos (13 pounds), the doctor decided to get her to do blood tests.

As you can imagine, we were anxious. We had no idea what had happened to our baby.

The blood tests came back, and nothing seemed wrong with her. The doctor decided it would be wise to do all the tests again. And again, nothing. It was so strange. We couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong with her.

Around this time, I really started praying fervently for my daughter. I didn’t know what else to do.

One day I remember we were at church, and I felt like something that day changed. I can’t really put it exactly in words, but I felt that when I prayed, God had answered with a yes.

And truth be told, from that moment on, Priscila gained weight. At first it was 700 grams. But then the next time we went to the doctor, she’d put on over a kilo. I was ecstatic! And relieved.

After that, we never had any problems with her weight again. We kept doing everything the same as before. She continued breastfeeding and eating the same quantities, but now she was gaining weight.

We never discovered exactly what had happened to her. The only “symptom” she’d had was low weight. Apart from that, she seemed fine.

It’s a mystery! But I’m ok with that (as curious as I am) because God answered my prayers with a “yes”, and she recovered.

Daniel and the night terrors

Abby and Priscila had been good sleepers ever since we had got them into a routine and they had learnt independent sleep.

But with Daniel, things were different. His sleep improved immensely after he learnt independent sleep, but at the age of one and beyond he still went through definite stages of waking up in the night.

We never knew exactly why it happened. And then one day it stopped happening, and he went through a long stage of sleeping through the night.

Until around a year ago. But this time we knew what caused him to “wake-up”. Night terrors! (Night terrors are different from nightmares. With night terrors, the child doesn’t actually wake-up from the dream.)

It was so weird going to him after hearing him shouting, and him having his eyes open, but being asleep.

It was a difficult stage, mainly because my husband and I don’t do well with broken sleep. The saving grace in all this was that sometimes I would wake-up and my husband wouldn’t or my husband would and I wouldn’t.

Perhaps that was God’s grace in giving each of us rest when we really needed it. Anyway, I remember I prayed repeatedly that my son would get over this stage.

The answer I hoped for didn’t come straight away, but it did come. And when the night terrors stopped, I was so relieved. It had been so hard to feel like nothing I did seemed to help. Thank you God!

How about you? Have you got any stories from when your children were little that you would like to share?

Funny, interesting, inspiring, I’ll take them all! Let me know in the comments or DM me. 😉