Two Maiya Stories

We made a horrible mistake. We let Maiya watch Chicken Run. Well, we let her watch about 10 minutes of Chicken Run, until she was puckering her lips, whimpering, "It's kinda scary, it's kinda scary" in a high-pitched voice. We turned it off, but she still remembers.

She found the Chicken Run case and was walking around the house with it. Processing. I heard her say, "It's kinda scary ... guy not nice ... say stupid ... " and in the most gentle, compassionate voice, "hurt somebody's feelings."

(I told Haven once that stupid is not a nice word and it could hurt somebody's feelings. He has made it his personal mission to correct anyone who uses the word. Maiya has joined the mission.)

So, last night we watched Toy Story 2. As soon as I said, "it's movie night!" Maiya looked at me with a quivering lip and said, "We watch Chicken Run?" No, Maiya, no, you will never have to watch Chicken Run again. We talked about Toy Story 2. She asked "where's Daddy?" I told her he was grilling some chicken. Whoops.

"Chicken Run?!"

So ... would anyone like our copy of Chicken Run?

On to the second story, which exemplifies our parenting skills a little better. Or at least Dave's.

Since she was born, Maiya has had a favorite blankie. She sleeps with it, she chews on it, she adores it. She loves it so much that even though I do sneak it into the laundry, it has a lingering smell. The corners turned colors, so we cut them off. Still, it is much more nasty than cuddly to the outside viewer.

Enter Dave. He found the same blankie on ebay and promptly ordered it. When it arrived I was sure it was the wrong one, as bright pink and soft as it was. But it had the same white edge I vaguely remembered from Maiya's infancy and the same "Thank heaven for little girls" message embroided on a satin square in the middle. I put it in the laundry.

When Dave got home we slipped her original blankie into a good hiding spot and put fluffy blankie on the couch. When she found it she immediately put it in her mouth, backed up, tasted it again, backed up, straighted it out to see the design and said, "What's that?" We told her that was her blankie. She stuffed her face into it, picked it up, and off she went. Success!

Spring Fever

It seems as if I've abandoned this space, but I have always liked abandoned spaces so here I am. In the five months since I last posted, I survived winter. I showed my children how to survive it. On a few, select days, we even enjoyed it. However, winter is a space in time which I am happy to have abandoned.

As beautiful as our neighborhood is in the summer, it is desolate in the winter. There is some beauty in the desolation, but as a stay at home mom (yes, I've accepted the term), loneliness is always lurking. I cannot say that I did not spare a few tears over the mounds of snow we had piled on our little street. I cannot say that there were not a few days we went out when should have stayed home. Strange how Target can become a refuge.

But Spring is here and Hallelujah! Just today Haven and I had peppermint tea and chocolate on the deck. He then played in the sandbox while I reclined in a chair, remembering that I love my life.

I was hired as a therapist. My first interview was in December. I cannot start until "The Board" (read the meanies at the state of New Jersey, one of whom yelled at me just yesterday) approves my "Plan of Supervision" which could take another month, or two, or three. All of that mumbo jumbo to say that it takes a lot of red tape to be a therapist. What I have actually earned is a Masters in Paper Work. So, it could be 6 months from my first interview to my first client.

Maiya has begun to talk to me constantly. Her voice is raspy and she ends most statements with, "right?" like a true Jersey Girl. For example, "That's mine, right?" or "It's time to eat, right?" She can make the tree shake when she screams 'no' and she would spend an entire day throwing rocks into the lake if I had the patience to sit there.

The most significant accomplishment of winter, aside from sheer survival, was potty training. Haven is now a proud user of the potty. We started on New Year's day and were pretty much done - I define success loosely - by Valentine's Day. Be skeptical of anyone who tells you that potty training can take 2 or 3 days. Haven was a good sport and I was too - again defining success loosely. During the process I shed a few tears, but none of them were sentimental for diapers. Haven learned to pee and poop in the toilet and I learned that his successes and failures are not mine.

I have felt rather gleeful on days with nice weather. I will wrap up with a short conversation Haven and I had at dinner:

Me: I had fun with you guys today! I had fun getting you dressed, I had fun going for a walk, I had fun eating lunch, I had fun playing with you [on and on and on] and I'm having fun right now!

Haven, watching me like I'm crazy: ... I not that happy.

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.

Good Deals

With my new education on managing money, I have become even more frugal. I know, some of you are saying, "How is this possible?" and others are saying, "I guess I can expect a bag of rocks for Christmas." What if they're pretty rocks?

Anyway, yesterday I stole the show with a sweep up at a certain department store that starts with the letter K. While cleaning my room the other day (miracle)I found a pair of shorts I never wore. I bought them early in the summer and grabbed the wrong size, so they were set aside to eventually return.

While Dave vegged out in front of football and the kids napped, I toted the shorts back to the store and was granted a $29 store credit. I began digging through the clearance racks in the kids department, then the men's department and then, since I couldn't leave myself out, the women's department. I left the store with something for everyone: 2 shirts and 1 pair of pants for Maiya, 1 pair of jeans for Haven, a nightgown for myself (I'm girly, accept it, I have) and 2 t-shirts for Dave. I paid $3 on top of my store credit.

Not too shabby. Especially in exchange for a pair of ill-fitting shorts.

While I'm bragging, I might as well tell you about some other great finds I've recently made. Trash picking is not best thing that a girl in New Jersey can do for her reputation, but I'm not a Jersey Girl at heart. So, when I saw someone throwing away a perfectly good deck chair and table, I loaded it in the car and have been enjoying on an almost daily basis.

Another day I was driving around town and found a swingset on the curb, sporting a FREE sign.

And just today I found a small cabinet, just what I've been looking for, sitting curbside. Waiting for my frugal fingers to pick it up, dust it off, give it a couple of touch-ups with a black marker, and call it mine.

So, I continue to "shop" but in more (what's a good word for it?) creative ways. I don't think I will ever regret saving money, but I have certainly felt the sting of regret after spending it.

Potty time at our house

Potty training is one of those things that you do in life that reflects your personality. Every mom I know who has even attempted it, had a different method. So, in the past few months I've listened and read and now I'm writing my own script.


Before two of his baths last week, Haven stripped off his clothes, sat on the potty that has been gathering stray hairs for months, and peed. Like it was nothing. Like it was part of his routine. I screamed and threw a party (bathroom style) and he smiled.


Then, suddenly, came his conviction that he could do everything himself. When he began to shriek "ALL BY MYSELF!" about anything from climbing into his carseat to washing his hair, I decided that pooping and peeing is something he is welcome to do all by himself. Thus I realized that while he may have been ready for potty training for a couple of weeks, I finally had the will to do it as well.


We're going gradually. I anticipate that this will take a while (weeks, months) and that's okay with me. Any progress is progress (says the therapist). Today he kept a pull-up dry for over 4 hours. Yesterday, however, he was wearing tighty-whities and peed on Dave twice within an hour. We're in the sit-on-the-potty-every-half-hour phase.

So, our style is slowly, no pressure. I'll be the one carrying loads of tighty-whities back and forth to the washer.


Feel free to leave your tips for potty training! What worked with your little guy or girl? What didn't work?

What I Did with My Summer.

Did implies that the summer has ended. Which it has. Abruptly. Silently. Quite unkindly, if you ask me. It was such a nice summer, even though the weather wasn't.

I learned a lot and felt mostly that I was vacillating between lost and found. That's why I had little to put on this blog. I could have filled it with stories, but my thoughts were too far gone to sum it up without giving more of myself than I wanted.

I will attempt to end the cryptic speech now.

Haven, Maiya and I spent a lot of time at the lake, as we anticipated. Not as much as I would have hoped, but those sunny days of splashing and finally watching Haven wade in up to his shoulders were good enough for me. Maiya started walking toward the end of the summer, but her fearlessness around the water remained. One day my sister, Jes, was with me and noted, "I guess you don't go to the beach and read a book." I don't think I will do that for many years.

I took a 12-week course on personal finances. I learned more than I can say, and I think Dave and I will look back on this summer as the time that we made changes in our personal finances that were significant. The course covered issues from budgeting to giving to insurance and lot more in between. It's the type of stuff we all should have learned before we got jobs with real salaries (or at least before we quit our jobs with salaries to stay home with our kids). If anybody wants info on it, let me know. I think they offer classes nationwide at different churches and organizations.

Finally, and importantly, my baby sister, Rebecca, got married this summer. The sister I remember as an infant got married. The sister who made us all laugh and hammed it up every time she had a chance, danced her little butt off at her wedding reception and left a married woman. Her husband is a really cool guy (who Dave would have liked to wish "welcome to the family and good luck, you'll need it" in his toast if everyone had a sense of humor to accommodate that, but Dave wasn't sure). So, I have my first brother-in-law and the kids have their first uncle, well, by official relation that is. Congrats to Bec & Phil!

There will more posting on my part, I miss this blog. Thank you for coming back to read, if you have. Hope you also had a restorative summer.