My little camper

Lilly is having a great time at camp.  At the end of each day she is tired and dirty.  Isn't that the best indicator of a happy 4 year old camper?  Each group has a turn leading the camp in a song or doing a skit or dance at the end of day assembly.  Lilly's group went on Thursday and I happened to have my camera that day.  I cropped the other campers out for privacy reasons.  And bonus...she is so busy all day that her braids stay in ALL DAY!!
p.s.  Check out my other blog, too, for some of the recipes I am making with the campers.

And we're home!

One of my favorite pictures of our time there.
She was cheery even after 44 hours of monitoring.

It feels so good to be back in our home! Lilly is so happy to be in her own bed with no wires attached to her tonight.  I bet she will sleep well tonight.  I hope she does so that I do too!

Today was actually more difficult than I had anticipated, and maybe that is just as well.  I had planned on trying to comb out the glue at home, but because Lilly was having the MRI they wanted as much out as possible beforehand.  I caught Vinnie right before he left the house so he was able to bring me conditioner.  I used 2 1/2 bottles and I did not even get it all out.  I just hope that Lilly never gets lice because I would imagine combing all that glue out would be kind of like combing nits out.  But I digressed.

Then we had to take her down for the sedated MRI.  She was enjoying the ride down in the special crib.  :)  This time I didn't have to hold her down, they just took her from us into the MRI room.  In less time then they had allowed, she was finished.  She was hysterically crying and trying to rip her IV out in recovery so they let us go up to her room.  She was the last patient so we had 2 nurses to ourselves!  All the nurses we had were great.  Lilly managed to charm each and every one.

Keeping busy while we waited for the conditioner.  

Eventually we got her to eat some crackers and drink some water and from there she ate lunch and we were able to leave.  She seemed to perk right up once we were on our way home and really perked up once got home.  She was still a bit wobbly for most of the day so I put some movies on, made popcorn and hot chocolate and we relaxed.

Thank you to all those who have sent me messages, texts, written comments and called.  It means so much to all of us to know that all these prayers and positive thoughts are out there in the universe for our Lilly Bernadette.

Warning: Philosophy major ahead...

What is happiness, exactly?   How do we know we are happy?   Do people in other countries have happiness as a goal in life?  And what does their happiness look like?  Sometimes I wonder if we think too hard about being happy, attach too much importance to it. I don't mean that we can't be happy or even strive to have happiness in our life, whatever that means.  Nobody wants to be unhappy.  But maybe it should not be a goal in life.

I know that I have said at different times in my life that, "I just want want to be happy."  But let's look at that.  What that really means is that something in my life is not working for me at this point.  It could be a job, a family situation, a relationship, a money situation.   Say I change that situation.  Will I be happy then?  I don't believe so.  We have to be "happy" or at peace within ourselves or nothing else will seem good.  Everything will be problematic if we do not have inner peace.

Very recently I have been made aware of a few situations in which someone died suddenly.  I am reminded to live life and don't hold back.  Love fully and completely.  Have no regrets.  This to me is more meaningful than being happy.  One of my recent decisions is to live my life in spite of the crappy stuff that might be going on.  I am making another goal to strive for inner peace in the midst of life-chaos.

In the past I have started to learn the practice of meditation but failed to make the time for it after the first few weeks.  It is time to make the time.  Can I have inner peace without acceptance?  Can I have acceptance without self-awareness?  Meditation can lead to self-awareness.  Ergo, I need to make the time for meditation.

Plus, studies have shown that meditation can help lower blood pressure and reduce stress.  Win-win?  i think so...

Okay, enough rambling from me for one night.   Do you meditate?  Tell me about it...comment below!


*There are obvious situations like abusive relationships in which inner peace should not be attained just to stay with the abusive person.  I know that and do not include situations such as those in my contemplations.