Help me, please!

Maiya wakes up almost every night. She is 16 months old and I'm totally over it. What I have been doing (judge me if you wish) is giving her a bottle of warm milk, rocking her while she drinks it and then putting her in bed. She goes right back to sleep.

You might suggest that I give her water and I will tell you that I have tried that. She drinks it and then screams hysterically when I put her to bed.

Sometimes we think she wakes because she's hungry. She tends to be a picky eater and by principle I try not to cater to picky eaters (at least not to those under 3 feet tall). So, sometimes she does not eat much for dinner and we don't generally eat dessert. It stands to reason that she could be hungry by 2 o'clock in the morning. So what is the solution? Some nights I put whatever food in front of her that I think she will eat (generally all things pasta), sometimes I stick to my guns.

On the nights that she eats plenty and still wakes up, I often think that she is teething, cold or has soaked through her diaper. These thoughts make it impossible for me to leave her to cry it out.

On my strong nights, I have tried letting her cry. This worked with Haven. Maiya, however, gets extremely worked up and when I finally go in it takes ages to calm her.

Maybe it will work if I just leave her. Maybe I'm being more of a baby than she is.

Ideas, anyone?

There are so many babies and pregnancies around me. It's beautiful and exciting. Hopeful.

But it doesn't give me That Feeling. You know, the desire to make Maiya a big sister.

Yesterday I attempted to sell a truck load of baby stuff at a yard sale (it didn't sell, which I choose to believe is not a sign). More than a few people said, "but what about when you have another?" To be honest, those words make me feel a small amount of panic. I did not sleep through the night from some time during 2005 until some time during 2008. Actually, we're almost to 2010 and Maiya still often wakes for some middle-of-the-night quality time. In addition to the lack of sleep, these kids need a lot of pricey things like clothes, shoes, food, diapers and child care (which in our case, comes in the form of my unemployment) to keep them going. And let's talk about the time - it takes me months to get through books. I renew library books until I'm not allowed to any more. These kids have dramatically impacted pretty much every area of mine and Dave's life.

DO NOT get me wrong. I cannot overstate my sheer thankfulness that I was able to get pregnant and give birth to our children. I cannot overstate the amount of joy that their laughter, development and fat faces bring to me.

It might be that I so desperately want to do a good job that I can't imagine adding another infant to our mix at this point. I know my limits, and despite what I might hope you think of me, I am the opposite of super woman. (I know that we serve a super God, though, so should another one come, I'm sure He'd be happy to give us the grace we'd need.) I want to give H and M all of the one-to-one time they would like. I want them to be well-disciplined and confident. I'm sure I want all of the things any decent parent wants, I just so often feel like they're just barely getting those things now...

My need for more time might be less altruistic, though. It might just be that I'd like to look like a semblance of my pre-baby self at some point it time soon. Pregnancy and sleep deprivation were unkind to both my skin and my hair.

Anyway, back to Number Three. I imagine that Haven and Maiya's intensive newborn-baby-toddler stages will not last for the rest of my child bearing years (or so people who have made it through this phase have told me). I do hope that someday our family will grow. However, we'll be waiting until the sight of a new born baby doesn't fill me with the thought, "wow, that child is adorable, but better you than me."


ps - I say all of this and then I upload photos from Haven's (top) and Maiya's (bottom) babyhood. I forgot how cuddly they were...

If I would, I'd be a writer...

I think that one day I will sit down and write a book. It's my dream. It was my dream before I had the dream to be a counselor or a mother or a wife or any other role that I might undertake. I used to hand write pages and pages of stories, curled up on my bed. Anytime I mention this to Dave he rolls his eyes. He's tired of waiting for me to stop talking about writing and start writing. It's just that so many other things take my time.

It isn't actually time that is the issue. We make time for whatever is important to us.

You're supposed to write what you know. I'm familiar with plenty of topics, but one of the things I've lived and breathed my entire life is Christianity. I've seen so many versions of it and so many people who are convinced that they are right. I'm convinced that I am right, but since I am part of this tolerant generation, I will say that I'm convinced that I'm right for myself. And with that statement I've offended an entire wing of Christians.

Anyway, if I do write anytime soon, I will write about my experience as a Christian. I will write about how so much of my Christianity has been about following rules but that the deepest parts are more real to me than my own skin. I will write that some of the charismatic things I experienced as a child were sheer drama, but some was passionate and beautiful. I will write about the jewels of truth I have gained from watching others' lives unfold. I will write about things that a personal, like the map of my life. Maybe I'll write under a pseudonym.

This is all banter. Thoughts. I don't have much more to add at this point.