Battles of the mind

So all along throughout this journey with Isaiah I find myself racking my brain with the "what ifs and the should haves."  For instance, while I was pregnant with Isaiah I kept a caffeine chart by my side at all times and I very strictly kept track of how much I drank during the day.  I kept my intake below 200 mg a day.  Most days I maxed out at 100mg.  At the time I was working full time...most days leaving our house in Noblesville at 4a.m. to go to work downtown.  I also worked two jobs...one downtown manging the hotel and the other at the horse barn.  Did I overdo it?  Is it because we placed Isaiah in childcare for the first 10 months of his life?  I constantly kill myself with asking my conscience these questions hoping to find a magical instant answer as to why he has such delays in his development.  Is it my fault?  What did I do?  And then I hear stories like the one Isaiah's speech therapist told me this week.   She has been working with a 10 year old boy.  He in 10 years has never been able to drink from a straw.  For a year this therapist had been working on and offering him a drink with a straw in it.  One day this therapist went with this boy and his mom to a restaurant and they ordered him a drink with a straw like they had been doing for the past year.  On this day...the boy actually drank from the straw!  The therapist started screaming and cheering...so loud that the poor boy peed himself!  And it's stories like this that make me truck on and think I don't have it that bad at all!  This week we were fortunate to have Mark home from work for two days in a row and on the second day Mark walked into the kitchen, gave me a hug, and said "I don't know how you do it...stay at home with the kids...but I'm greatful that you do."  I'm so blessed that I can stay at home with the kids.  I'm blessed that we can afford it, and that I have a husband who appreciates what I do at home with the kids and the house.  I told Mark that when things get tough at home with the boys I just think about those parents or moms that sit up at Childrens every day with terminally ill children, or parents who have lost children and that will snap my mind back to reality real quick and I just have to think "I don't have it that bad at all."   And I don't.  Still praising God for the gifts he has given us and still thankful for our health.