Few thoughts...

I love reading this blog. It might have something to do with the two main characters. I'm a little bit in love with them. My favorite times with them are reading before bed and having dance parties. I also really love the moment Haven sees Maiya and I when we pick him up from preschool. He runs to us, hugs and kisses us.

Life is a little busy, but I spend my days with a 2 and 3 year old, so they have a way of slowing life down. It takes a half hour to get shoes and coats on and walk to the car. In the few hours a week that I'm not with them, I have two part time jobs: therapist and teacher. Both of these jobs are hauntingly similar to motherhood in that they require a level of patience and insight that I am constantly reaching deeper into myself to find.

Efficiency is sort of the theme of my life. Instead of trying to get more of everything, I'm trying to better manage what I already have. The reality is that we have enough for right now. Enough money. Enough space in our house. Enough time. And yes, enough kids. Could we enjoy more of all that? Sure. But I understand now why God wants us to manage small things before we have more.

More soon.

Just another day in para ... oh gotta go!

It didn't seem crazy straighten Haven's room. Several nigths in a row I had shoved piles of plastic toys to the side so to avoid punctured feet when he got out of bed. Those piles were growing and climbing my to-do list.

In a frenzy I divided plastic food, plastic pots, potato head appendages and matchbox cars into various baskets. These kids aren't getting this stuff back until they ask, are well supervised and immediately clean it up! I decided idealistically.

Halfway through my reorganization of Haven's toys, I called out, "Maiya, what are you doing?"

"I'm wiping Boots' heinie." Her monkey, Boots, often needs extensive hienie wiping after Maiya herself needs the same.

"Haven, where are you?"

"I'm painting my nails."

Halt to-do list. I ran around until I found my 3-three-old hunched over his white toe nails with a bottle of white-out in hand.

At this point I will note that I have decided that yelling, screaming or raising my voice is not the type of parental practice I wish to further perfect. Like 911, it is to be use strictly in emergency situations and not for general chit chatting. In other words, just the day before I had decided that I would not yell anymore. It's not nice. Nobody likes to be yelled at. I am trying my hand at talking in a calm, cool voice. Should be interesting.

So, instead of letting out the, "what are you doing?!" that was raising in my throat, I smiled, took a breath, and grabbed the camera. I then extracted the white out from Haven's hand and returned it to the junk drawer from which it came (you know, in case he needs to touch up at a later date). Then Haven and I learned that white out does not come out with soap and water.

This is why, when over coffee Danna told me she recently spent four uninterupted hours cleaning her house, I could be nothing but envious (I mean, happy for her).

I never considered the great luxury of completing a to-do list until I became a mom.

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.