Oaxaca

Well, we made it to Mexico and we´re having a great time. The only internet access here is at the computer in the hotel office, so I won´t be able to post much if at all. Today we visited the Zocalo, or town square, and the Mercado, or market. The piles of fried grasshoppers and the vendors selling wares were colorful and interesting to look at. I´ll write more detailed blog posts on DH´s laptop and upload them whenever we get internet access.

My Spanish is coming back more quickly than I expected. I had fun chatting with a grandmother and her 2-year-old grandson in the Zocalo, and she showed me how to tie the rebozo I bought to carry Baby E in, since the wrap is so bulky and hot in this weather. Oaxaca is a fiendly and beautiful city. I am reminded why it{s one of my favorite places in the world.

Annika's Internet Insurance Policy

Annika, the 5-year-old in need of her third liver transplant, is home from the hospital for now. Her family recently found out that they have already maxed out their million dollar limit on insurance coverage for the year--in January.

Something's wrong with a system when healthcare costs so much, and when even the best insurance doesn't cover enough to go very far at all if a really serious illness should arise.

Since Annika's insurance policy can't do anything more for her this year, we have a bloggy brainstorm and fundraising effort going on. It's called "Annika's Internet Insurance Policy." I'll be donating something to be auctioned or raffled off, probably something I've crocheted, but unfortunately it will have to wait until I get back.

Meanwhile, I invite any interested readers to check out the links below.

Falling down is also a gift: blog by Moreena, Annika's mother.

Annika's internet insurance policy: the online hub for fundraising efforts. You can send a virtual casserole to Annika's family, bid on items, or donate items here.

Annika's COTA page: the official fundraising/donation site by the respected non-profit organization, the Children's Organ Transplant Association. All financial contributions go here.

On somewhat related note, I wanted to give a quick update on the two babies in our home group that were in the hospital. Both babies are doing well. Baby girl H was only in the hospital for a day or two and is now fine, and Baby boy C is growing well and doing great as a preemie.

5 years old

AJ turned 5 today. We kept our celebration small; her favorite foods, a cake, a few gifts at home with just our immediate family. The glow on her face as her eyes reflected the light from the candles was a sight to treasure. The cameras are all packed away, so I'll have to remember it by writing it here. She seemed quite happy with our little celebration.

She was reading aloud today so expressively and well that I was amazed even having heard her reading all these weeks. She has an ear for cadence and tone that makes her a better oral reader than many adults. I printed off two different reading level evaluations and had her try both of them, and on both of them she scored at a 4th grade level.

MM is making progress in her reading, too. She knows how to sound out words; right now she mainly needs to gain confidence. She tested somewhere between a kindergarten and first grade level today. Not bad for a 3-year-old.

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Both girls are beside themselves with excitement that we're leaving in the morning. All week, they've been begging to go to Mexico "right now!"

I still have some packing to do, and have finished only one of the raincoats. (Did I mention that I've never sewed a garmet with either a zipper or buttons before? It was harder than I expected, as things usually are.) Baby E has been less than cooperative about letting me get ready to go this week. I think she's cutting another tooth or three.

The nursing-friendly bathing suit I ordered from Motherwear came today. It has no lining or support of any kind in the bodice.

Who in their right mind would make a nursing swimsuit so that a single layer of thin spandex is covering most of the bust???? Plus, the way it's designed it's impossible to nurse the baby in it without full exposure. Not to mention that it's extremely uncomfortable.

I would have been better off to wear a normal bathing suit and just wear a shirt or blanket over it when I need to nurse. But it's too late now to run out and buy a bathing suit that has actual, you know, coverage. I was so disappointed and frustrated I cried.

After the fiasco with my last Motherwear order, where the sizing was so badly messed up that shirts were 4 inches smaller than their stated size and the XS was about 3 sizes bigger than the S, and the quality and poor customer service issues I've had, I doubt I'll ever buy from them again.

Motherhood isn't much better, though. There just aren't that many options when it comes to clothing designed for nursing. I'm going to have to start sewing my own. Regular T-shirts are ok in general, but when I have several yards of fabric wrapped tightly around my waist and shoulders for carrying the baby, it makes a higher opening almost a necessity if I want to nurse in the wrap.

Hopefully Baby E will go to sleep now and I'll be able to finish packing quickly so I don't pull another all-nighter (last night I was up until almost 5). But whatever happens, we'll be off to Mexico in the morning. I'm expecting that we'll have a wonderful time!

Busy, busy

This week has been rather hectic, to say the least. We've skipped or postponed most of our regular meetings and obligations so we can concentrate on the things we need to do around here.

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We're trying to get caught up on laundry and cleaning between shopping, list-making, refilling my vitamin prescription and packing, and arranging for the house- and pet-sitters, along with all the other things involved in getting ready for a trip.

My big project at the moment is sewing raincoats. I made a mock-up out of scrap fabric yesterday to check size, then got the kids' three coats cut out. They are going to be perfect--water-resistant, but lightweight enough to fit in a pocket.

However, the pattern calls for two-part zippers, and I can't get very far in the sewing process without them. Both stores I went to last night didn't carry separating zippers in the sizes I need, much less in the right color. I'll make one more attempt this morning and if I can't find them I'll either have to improvise with buttons on a pattern not designed for them, or start over with a different pattern (poncho) that calls for normal zippers.

I wanted to sew myself a couple of nursing blouses, too, but I'm running out of time. I think I'll have to make do with the few I have, even if we have to find a laundromat halfway through the trip.

I did find a long, lighter-weight piece of knit fabric and "made" a less bulky baby wrap out of it to take along. I put quotation marks around the word "made" because I actually didn't do a thing to the piece of fabric. I may serge the ends eventually, but for now I'm just using the piece of cloth as is, and it works great.

Tomorrow is AJ's 5th birthday, and the next day we leave for Mexico. We'll have a simple cake (chocolate, at AJ's request) and a small gift at dinner tomorrow night, but we've told AJ that we're going to Mexico for her birthday. She knows it's also a family reunion, but really she thinks the whole trip is solely to celebrate her.

I'm not sure how much if any internet access we'll have while we're gone, so posting may be light or non-existent for a while.

P.S. Baby E has been sleeping through the night (midnight or 1 a.m. to 7 or 8 a.m.) almost every night since we moved her to her own room. My main thought about this: "Why didn't we do this sooner???" However, we'll all be sharing a room during the trip, so we'll see how that goes.

Tactlessness

I don't know what it is about me that attracts weird comments from absolute strangers.

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The other day I was standing in line at the post office, and the man just ahead suddenly turned to me and said, "How old are you?"

Actually, it was more like, "How OLD are YOU?!?!?" No hello, no smile, no polite small talk. Just a bug-eyed stare and the blurted-out question.

I stood with my mouth open for a moment, wishing I had some witty reply. Momentarily I thought about saying, "Why do you ask?" or "How old are you?"

I could have asked him how much he weighed, how tall he was, what his annual salary was, or whether his mother taught him any manners. Maybe I should have. But I didn't.

I just mumbled, "I'm 29."

He said, "When did your hair start turning gray?"

I considered saying, "What a strange question," or "That's none of your business."

Instead, I gave my standard reply, complete with the obligatory little chuckle: "My hair started turning grey when I was 13. Actually, I was one of the late ones in the family. Some of my mom's aunts started turning grey at 10 or 12."

I didn't elaborate further, but I think it's interesting that my great-grandmother's hair was completely white by age 30. My grandmother had a white streak several inches wide down the back of her head when she was 18. All the other kids wanted to know how she did it. We joke that Grandma single-handedly started the fad of streaking hair.

The man didn't stop there. He asked what made our hair turn grey so young. (The Scottish blood, supposedly. He was quite interested in that, and probed about it almost introspectively. I'm not sure why. He himself was of African-American descent.) Then he went on to tell me how grey hair is a good thing, and ask if people commented on it often.

"Yes," I said, "people do comment about it. Once I got rear-ended at a stoplight and the other driver jumped out of his car and hollered, 'I hope I didn't just give you all that grey hair, haha.'"

People often ask me how old I am, when my hair started turning gray, why I don't dye it (I prefer grey hair to hives, I say) or whether it runs in the family. Some people pressure me to dye my hair (an Arab man at our neighborhood gas station was particularly insistent about it). Others tell me that it's beautiful or that they admire me for "going natural."

Many people experience congnitive dissonance when faced with the contrast between my graying hair and my youthful appearance and bearing. It doesn't really bother me. I'm not particularly self-conscious about it. I guess I just don't care about it one way or another all that much. One of these days I'll probably get around to trying a natural dye on it again. I bought the dye the day the checker at the natural food store asked me if I was a single mother. But I'm waiting to use the dye until I get my hair cut first. Why waste it on the 6 inches of hair I'll be cutting off?

The double-takes and comments about my hair don't faze me. I like to tell people that the Bible says grey hair is a sign of wisdom and a crown of glory.

Tonight, though, it wasn't my hair.

The checker at Wal-Mart commented about the fabric I was buying. "My, you're going to be a busy little bee."

"Um-hmm."

"You're quite the Little Miss Suzy Homemaker, aren't you?"

What to say to that? I don't mind the comments about my hair, but this I found a bit insulting. Busy little bee? Little Miss Suzy Homemaker? I was quick to explain that I don't really know how to sew well, but I just recently started getting interested in sewing and I think it's fun.

I'm not exactly sure what I found derogatory about it--I certainly don't think there's anything shameful or undesirable about being a homemaker. I don't think I would have taken it amiss if the checker had been old enough to be my grandmother, but she wasn't.

In fact, she looked at my driver's license and commented that she and I were the same age. She has a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old. When she told me that, it of course crossed my mind that she started having kids pretty young, but I had enough tact just to say something along the line of "How nice."

Mainly, I hate being talked down to. Some people can refer to me as "little" (well, I am--and was acutely sensitive about that as the smallest child my age in any gathering) or call me "honey" without being condescending about it. Usually it doesn't bother me. But sometimes I think it's a way for people to try to feel superior. Occasionally the tone and context really are condescending.

In this case, I'm not sure what the checker's motivation was. But she made a significant assumption about what type of person I am and what my abilities (or perhaps lack of abilities) are, based on the bare fact that I bought some fabric and fresh produce.

The way she said it almost seemed that she considered me of a different world than herself--a world she probably has mixed feelings toward. My guess is that some part of her feels threatened by someone who (she assumes) is good at sewing and (therefore by an incredible leap of logic) good at all the stereotypical homemaking sorts of things. But whether she sees those things as valuable or not is another matter.

Does she feel inadequate? Envious? Scornful? Superior? I don't know.

Maybe, like too many others, she just has the gift of complete tactlessness.

So that's what all this fuss was about

Monday, February 20th, 1:30 a.m.

We have a tooth!

I've been trying to put Baby E to bed for the last hour and a half, most of which she has spent crying. Trying to figure out what was wrong, I finally stuck a finger in her mouth. There were the edges of a sharp little tooth erupting from her gum. It's the lower front tooth on the right.

Congratulations, Baby E!

Have some Tylenol.

Now, please go to sleep. Please?

Little by What?

MM likes to tell people that "our baby has a tummy laugh", and often we get this at home: "Mommy, watch. I'm going to make Baby E do a tummy laugh. See? See that? She made a tummy laugh! Did you hear her tummy laugh? Isn't that cute? Our baby's so cute, Mommy. I love her."

So far the move to her own room seems to be going well for Baby E. Last night she slept from around 2:30 a.m. until 8 a.m. without waking, and then went back to sleep for another 2 hours after nursing. Completely amazing.

I however, um, got a little carried away with the cleaning and organizing and didn't go to bed until 4 a.m. What was that I was saying yesterday about "little by little" again? Still, a good 6 hours of sleep is a definite improvement.

I think my body has gotten a little too used to staying up very late with the baby. If I don't go to bed by 10 or so, I often get a second wind for a few hours.

Right now I'm just finishing Baby E's midnight feeding and plan to go straight to bed when she does. (Well, I am going to start a load of laundry first--but that will only take a few minutes.)

Just because it's easier to get things done while the kids are asleep doesn't mean it's such a good idea to try to be productive when I should be sleeping.

Little by Little

After I broke the glass here in the office, I carried the rest of the dishes downstairs. DH and the older girls had arrived home from their outing by then.

As I put the pile of dishes on the kitchen counter, I told DH, "Be careful with these dishes, because they might have slivers of--" CRASH! A little glass bowl slid off the stack of dishes in my hand, hit the linoleum and shattered.

There was a long pause, and then I finished my sentence: "broken glass in them."

DH and I laughed until we couldn't get our breath. The kids couldn't quite figure out what was so funny, but they laughed along with us anyway.

So the kitchen floor got cleaned, too.

7 hours after I broke the first glass, the area under my desk is the cleanest it's been since we moved in over 3 years ago.

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The piles of papers, toys, puzzle pieces and bits of junk are gone. The floor is vaccuumed and the printer paper is neatly organized. All the envelopes, packing slips and receipts I had saved from when I was selling on eBay are filed or thrown away.

For the first time in recent history, I can roll my chair across the floor without the sound of paper crunching under the wheels. My feet are actually sitting on the clean carpet instead of on a pile of saved paper bags with magazines and junk mail mixed in.

My dad brought over the shop vac, and it did a great job removing the glass slivers from the chair and floor. I filled two big bags with papers and clutter to throw away.

As I was searching online for tips on cleaning up broken glass, I stumbled across a website called squalorsurvivors.com and was drawn in. It helps you rate your degree of squalor and gives tips for digging your way out. There are 4 degrees of squalor listed. Our home is pretty solidly at first and second degree squalor (more clutter instead of actual filth), but the area around my desk was probably getting close to third degree with the bits of old popcorn and the occasional stale sunflower seed mixed in with weeks-old coffee cups and crumpled bits of paper.

The site looks quite interesting, and the photos and stories are motivating. The information on learning to let go of clutter and make better use of living space seems helpful.

Now that I have the area under the desk clean, I think I'll tackle the desk itself tomorrow.

We finally moved Baby E's crib into her own room today, and in the process did some organizing and decluttering in both her room and ours. Earlier this week I sorted through the kids' pajamas and got rid of all but a few in each size. I'm getting a stack of clothes ready to take to our local consignment store, and filling bags with things to donate as well.

DH and I have been catching up on laundry and organizing/decluttering everyone's clothes in preparation for our upcoming trip to Mexico. Today DH packed most of the clothes the girls will need into their suitcases. We're working on these things ahead of time, giving ourselves lots of leeway to get them done. It feels good to be planning ahead and not waiting until the last minute like we usually do.

Hopefully by the time we leave, our house will be presentable enough not to be embarrassing for a housesitter to come into while we're gone. :)

One of the FlyLady testimonials today was a letter from a member that talked about how when Israel was coming out of Egypt, God opened the way a little at a time so they would not be overwhelmed by wild animals. Exodus 23 says He made the way "little by little . . until [the Israelites] increased enough to take possesion of the land." She compared it to taking baby steps to get out of our clutter: reclaiming our lives "little by little" without trying to do too much at once.

FlyLady mentioned in her reply also that our possessions are like manna. If we pick up more than we need they become wormy and rot!

She said, "Since FlyLady started I have often thought about our clutter as Manna from heaven. If we gather up just the right amount and don't hoard then it won't turn to worms.

This is why it is so important to only surround ourselves with things
that we love and use. We can't hold on to all of it. Release your
clutter and find the peace you have been searching. Less clutter makes
it easier to do your routines."

Looking at the before and after pictures on the Squalor Survivors website made me realize even more how much I like an uncluttered environment. It's so much more peaceful to live without clutter. I'm glad to be making progress in that direction, even in baby steps.

Powdered Glass

I attempted to do some cleaning and decluttering in the office today. As I was stacking dirty dishes to carry downstairs, I dropped a mug onto the pile of dishes in my lap, and a glass broke.

I've never seen glass shatter into such tiny pieces before. It is pulverized into a powder. Even after washing my hands what I thought was thoroughly, I was still finding bits of it on them later. Some of the pieces are too small to see but still big enough to cut, as I discovered.

My clothes, the (upholstered) chair I was sitting in, the carpet, and the clutter in the surrounding area are covered with glass shards the size of grains of sand. Most of it was in my lap and down my front. I was trying to gather the bigger shards with my hands, but the tiny bits kept sticking in my fingers.

I'm thinking I might just throw the shirt and torn jeans away rather than risking so many tiny bits of glass in the washing machine. But what about the upholstery on the chair, and the carpet? How am I ever going to get all the glass out of them?

I'm just glad nobody else was in the room. I can only imagine if the baby had been on the floor next to me, getting showered with broken glass.

Update here.

Makes Me Happy

Valentine's Day evening DH and I didn't do anything to celebrate. Well, we told each other "Happy Valentine's Day" and cleaned out the baby's room together.

We had already gone out to dinner and pool/darts on Saturday night for our big celebration. Hey, a Sheri's chicken sandwich and a game of pool is pretty romantic when it's only your second time out alone together in 6 months.

DH stopped at the store on the way home Tuesday night, and he managed to find a Lindt chocolate bar with no dairy and no soy in it.

Tentatively, I tried a very small piece that night. Wow, it was rich. 85% dark chocolate, after many months of no chocolate at all. Silky smooth, dark, and flavorful. Almost bitter, but so satisfying. Even if that small piece was all I'd get to eat, I felt it could carry me through a few more months.

But it didn't seem to bother Baby E. So the next day, I ate more. Still no reaction from Baby E. I don't know if she grew out of being bothered by it, as she seems to have done with decaf coffee, or if it was soy in the chocolate I was eating that was bothering her.

I don't regret the nearly 5 months without chocolate. (4 months, 2 weeks and 5 days, to be exact--Sept 23rd to Feb. 14th) It was a good exercise for me, and I'm sure Baby E and I are probably both healthier for it. But I'm glad the long months are over. And having chocolate again for the first time as a gift from DH on Valentine's Day was rather fitting.

I can eat chocolate again. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Chocolate. makes. me. happy.

Sleep also makes me happy.

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Baby E woke up many times during the first part of the night Tuesday, but went back to sleep without nursing. She went from 12:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. between feedings, then didn't wake up again until 7.

Yesterday, I watched her like a hawk all day and laid her down at the first sign of sleepiness. She sleeps so much better when she's not overtired. She had three naps, and then was asleep for the night by 9, waking briefly but not eating at 10. She woke up 2 or 3 times during the night and was awake for almost an hour at one point, but since I'd gone to bed at 10 it was manageable. I'm starting to feel almost human again.

I think I'm going to stay home as much as possible for the next week or two and focus on getting Baby E into a good napping/sleeping pattern. Both the naps and the nighttime sleep have to be in place for her to do well. That saying "sleep begets sleep" really seems to be true for her.

Reading Readiness

MM has been talking about learning to read for months now, especially now that AJ is reading so fluently. However, she has so far liked the idea of learning to read better than the actual process.

I've devised all kinds of games and activities to get her to pay attention long enough to actually learn the sounds of each letter and be able to say them consistently when she sees them. But she hasn't been interested in practicing them enough to get consistent with them, and still gets many of them mixed up.

We've had a few brief tries at sounding out simple words, but when she didn't want to do it I didn't push it too much. She's only three, after all. I figured she'd give reading her full attention when she was ready, and I didn't want to ruin the excitement for her by making it too much work.

Besides, she's a child of extremely strong will and opinions, and tends to dig in her feet if I push too hard. Although it is possible to get her to do something she doesn't want to do, I try to choose those battles very carefully.

Yesterday, she plopped herself down next to me and announced, "Mommy, I'm going to learn to wead. Now. I'm going to wead dis book--the whole thing. You have to help me, okay?"

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I thought the book might be much too hard for her and end up being frustrating. It was a book from halfway through the second series of the Bob books--not exactly the best choice for a first attempt at reading a book. But she was insistent that it was the book she was going to read.

So we sat down, and she read. She really read. I helped her with the sounds of the letters she didn't remember, and she sounded out words. That's my MM for you--she tends to do the unexpected and ignore the traditional order of things. So what if she didn't know all her letters--she wanted to read, and read she did.

With some help, she read the whole book. Then I pulled out the first book in the early reader series that I (and AJ) learned to read with: Mac and Tab, about a cat and a rat. She read the first couple of pages of that, and then was done for the day.

Today she sat down while I was nursing E and informed me that she wanted to read all of Mac and Tab.

She has such a unique learning style. She fidgeted, joked and played so much between words that I kept thinking she was bored or not concentrating. But every time I suggested that we stop and finish it later, she protested. "No, I'm going to wead dis whole book." And she'd go back to sounding out words.

The ease and fluidity of her reading increased significantly just between yesterday and today. Yesterday she was frequently trying to put the last letter first, and often guessing at the words instead of trying to sound out the letters. Today she didn't do that much, and had a much easier time putting the sounds together to make a word.

She responds visually to words much differently than AJ did when she was beginning to read. AJ tended to concentrate on the letters so much that she would lose the word. At first she was more interested in how the letters fit together and made different sounds than in the words themselves. But to MM, the letters are important only as a way to get to the meaning of the sentence.

MM tends to connect to the word as a whole. Once she reads a word, when she looks at a page the other instances of that word leap out at her.

She read the word "rat", and a moment later she was laughing in excitement, pointing out the same word in the next sentence. "Mommy, they match! Look, it's the same word again. Rat. And rat over here. Look! There's another one!"

She grasped the story quickly, laughing aloud when she read, "Tab has a nap on the mat. Mac has a nap on Tab."

The spark has caught. Her interest in reading has ignited.

DH and I have been saying for some time that MM will read when she's ready. Watch out, world: she's ready.

Conversations with Mom

Last night I called my mom, crying: "Mom, I don't don't what to do. This baby just won't sleep. How do I make her sleep???"

"Oh, I'm sorry, honey. It's so hard when they won't sleep. Being tired is no fun. I don't know what to tell you. Have you tried . . . "

"Yes, I've tried all that. Nothing works."

"*chuckling* You know, you were the same way as a baby. You wouldn't nap during the day and didn't want to go to sleep at night. You didn't want to miss anything! But once you finally got to sleep you generally slept pretty well. Your sister J, though, she woke up every 2 hours every night until she was 18 months old."

"What did you do?"

"We tried everything. Nothing worked."

"Oh, boy. I wonder if it's hereditary."

"Have you tried having Baby E sleep in her own room yet, instead of yours?"

"No. I'd like to, but I have to clear out space for the crib in her room first, and then we have to take the crib apart to get it through the doors."

"Well, would you like me to send Dad over to help you move it?"

"That would be great, but we can't move it until we clear out that room. I'll work on that tonight and then if DH can't move it tonight, maybe Dad can help me move it tomorrow."

"Okay. I love you, honey. I hope you can get some sleep soon."

I'm glad for telephones and family.

Yes, it's another post about Baby E's sleeping and eating habits

It's amazing how much difference sleep, or the lack of it, makes. Last week we had a few nights in a row during which Baby E. woke only 2-3 times per night, going right back to sleep afterwards.

On Thursday I felt great. The sun was shining, I was relatively rested, recovering from being sick, and feeling pretty good otherwise. Life was good, everything was fabulous, and I was bubbling over. I had so much more patience and playfulness in my interactions with the kids, and we even got some much-overdue yardwork and housework done. Friday morning I started out strong, but ended up exhausted and in pain halfway through the day.

Maybe one of these years I'll learn not to overdo it the first day or two I feel halfway decent--especially when I'm also recovering from an illness.

Ever since Friday night, sleep has been almost nonesistent. Baby E won't sleep--day or night. Her daytime naps have generally dropped to 20 minutes if at all, and nightime sleep (what little there is of it) is mostly in 30-60 minute segments. I've tried everything from non-stop nursing to letting her cry it out. Nothing works.

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I don't know if there's something wrong, or if she's just teething, having a growth spurt, or both. She's constantly chewing--hard--on everything, including me. Sometimes she won't nurse when she seems hungry, because she's too busy playing and doesn't want to take the time. Other times she is ravenous and is nursing so much that it feels like breaking in to feeding a newborn all over again.

I'd make a pediatrician appointment for her, but we still haven't found a good pediatrician and she's so happy and energetic whenever I'm not trying to get her to sleep that it doesn't seem anything is really wrong with her.

It's after midnight, and as usual Baby E is still going strong. Last night she sort of went to sleep around midnight, but woke every 20 minutes or so until around 2 a.m., when she fell asleep after nursing yet again. She ate again at 3 a.m. and then fell asleep in my bed until I woke at 5 a.m. and tried to move her back into her own bed.

But she wanted to sleep in my bed, not hers. Even after eating, she would have none of it. She cried and cried until I turned on a low light to change her diaper and try giving her some gas drops and Tylenol. She played and cooed for a while, but screamed and screamed if I tried to turn off any lights or get her to actually, you know, sleep. She was awake from 5 a.m. until almost 7 a.m., and the older kids woke up shortly after I got back to sleep. Thankfully, DH let me sleep for an hour or two before he left for work, since he was sick and staying home for a half-day anyway. :)

This afternoon I tried for 3 hours to get her to take a nap. She nursed, nursed some more, ate a jar of yams and some rice cereal, and nursed again, all in a 90-minute period. She was obviously exhausted, having been up for hours. She was getting fussy, rubbing her eyes, the whole bit--as she'd been doing for hours. Still she fought sleep. I tried feeding her, rocking her, letting her cry, giving her gas drops and Tylenol, trying unsuccessfully to get her to take a pacifier, sitting next to her while she cried, leaving the room while she cried, and crying with her. Finally she fell asleep while nursing. The moment I laid her down she was awake and crying again.

Right now she's been nursing for about 45 minutes and is falling asleep, but if I try to stop feeding her she screams like she's being murdered. Her erratic eating is really messing up my milk supply. She'll refuse to nurse during the day until I'm engorged, and then she'll get upset because the milk is flowing so fast and will stop nursing after only a few minutes. Besides, playing and laughing is so much more fun. Then in the late afternoon or evening she'll want to nurse constantly for several hours and get upset that there's not more milk.

She's not nursing enough for the first half of the day to keep up the milk supply, then she nurses more in the afternoon and by evening I'm so exhausted I probably wouldn't be making much milk anyway. Then she wants to eat like crazy.

I don't know what to do, but surely this can't go on indefinitely.

DH and I spent our Valentine's Day evening clearing out space in the baby's room to be able to move the crib in there. We weren't able to move it tonight, but at least there's space in the baby's room so that I can go in there to lie down while she's wide awake playing or crying. We'll move the crib tomorrow.

When DH is over being sick (and thus snoring more than usual) we'll be able to try actually sleeping in the same room again. He's been sleeping in the playroom for weeks now, because Baby E and I sleep even less when he's in the room than we do when he's not, and every minute of sleep counts when you're counting the chunks of sleep in minutes instead of hours.

Tonight I don't plan to spend hours lying on the bed next to her covering my ears and singing "Hush little baby, don't say a word . . . Momma's gonna show you a mockingbird" over and over again while the baby screams. Several hours of that last night and this afternoon was plenty for a 24-hour time period.

Miracle Chowder and the Allergy Cookbook

I'm sitting here with DH's laptop while Baby E squeals and spins in the exersaucer at my feet. She has been laughing a lot lately, for no reason really. She just laughs when I look at her.

I just finished savoring a big bowl of clam chowder. Yes, clam chowder. New-England style. It was one of those foods I thought I'd never enjoy again, at least for a very long time. But, thanks to The Complete Food Allergy Cookbook: The Foods You've Always Loved Without the Ingredients You Can't Have, bought for me by DH, the impossible is happening fairly frequently around here.

This clam chowder is dairy, gluten, soy and nightshade free. It can be made without the clams for you vegans out there, too. (In that case, it's not clam chowder; it's mock potato soup.) Amy/Sparrow, I'm particularly thinking of you in posting it. With no dairy and no nightshade, you can finally eat clam chowder again. :)

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Clam Chowder (From The Complete Food Allergy Cookbook, by Marilyn Gioannini)

1 hour * 4 servings
This classic New England style clam chowder, thick with "potatoes", onion, and "cream", tastes exactly like the real thing. The "potato" is yuca (cassava) root, available in most supermarkets; the "cream" is cashew milk.
Absolutely delicious!

About 1 lb. yuca root
1/8 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
1/3 cup raw cashews
1 (6 1/2 oz) can minced clams with juice (check labels when shopping--some have preservatives)
salt and pepper

Peel yuca root and dice into 1/2 inch cubes. Cover generously with water, add salt, and bring to a boil in a medium saucepan. Simmer, covered, 30 to 40 minuts, or until very soft. Stir occasionally. While the yuca is cooking, heat vegetable oil in a medium skillet. Add chopped onion and saute until soft. Add the onion to the saucepan with the yuca root.

Put cashews into blender container. Blend briefly until they are broken up. Aded 1 1/2 cups of water and blend on high until cashews are completely pulverized, about 3 minutes. When the yuca is soft, add clams to the saucepan. Add cashew milk and heat just until hot. Serve immediately. Add salt and pepper to the bowl to taste, and serve with toast.

The book gives several variations on the recipe, including using other milk substitutes. I think next time I'll use a bit less onion, but I really enjoyed the soup.

I think I almost prefer the taste of cassava to that of a regular potato. It has a very similar taste and texture, but just slightly sweet and without that sort of sour flavor that potatoes sometimes have. It is, however, much tougher to cut up and takes longer to cook, and you have to be sure to remove all the little woody bits.

I like this food allergy cookbook; rather than just giving recipes (although it has lots of those, too) the goal is to teach you to substitute and improvise so that you can alter existing recipes to meet your dietary needs. I highly recommend the book. The information is truly helpful and fairly exhaustive, and almost every recipe I've tried so far has become one to add to the oft-repeated stash of favorites. There's also some helpful information about identifying and coping with food allergies in general.

The book tells you how to cook without the things you may need to avoid--including preservatives, animal products, dairy, eggs, soy, gluten, corn and other grains, sugar, nightshade plants, and even chocolate. The only area I noticed in which it is really lacking is that of tree nut allergies; several of the recipes require either soy or some kind of tree nut (none call for peanuts), and cooking without tree nuts is not particularly discussed.

This cookbook has quickly become my most often-used cookbook. Especially the recipe for Universal Muffins--my kids and I love that one, and it's so very flexible. I make it sometimes several times a week.

That family stuff

Last Sunday AJ came in bubbling over with smiles and hugs. "We missed you so much, Mommy! But we had fun! We stayed at Uncle B's house for two days and two nights! We went to the beach! And we had hot chocolate!"

As Daddy carried the sleeping MM up to bed, AJ came into the kitchen with me, chattering away. Then she went over to Baby E in the exersaucer, put her arms around her, and spoke in a high, squeaky voice.

"Hi, E! I'm so glad to see you. I missed you. Are you ready for some of that whole family together stuff again now?"

Oh, yes.

Ruffled Skirts and Braided Tiaras

It's a beautiful sunny day here; a perfect day for playing outside. I think I'll put Baby E in the exersaucer and let the girls ride tricycles in the driveway while I do a bit of light yardwork.

Baby E and I are still sick, but we seem to be on the way to recovery. We've been sleeping well the last couple of nights, with only two or three wakings. That's so helpful.



Yesterday AJ and MM wore the new skirts I had finished for them the day before.

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The girls are really enjoying their dance and gymnastics lessons. They have been begging for "ballet dancer" skirts, so when I saw ballet-print flannel on the $1-2 sale table at Wal-Mart on Saturday, I had to get some.

There was just a little over a yard left on the bolt, and between that and having only a size 6 of the vintage pattern I wanted to use, I had to do some creative cutting and adjusting of the pattern to get two ruffled skirts out of it. The sewing isn't the greatest, but the girls like them. That's all that really matters.

AJ and MM often beg me to braid their hair. Since braiding is an activity that keeps them quiet for a while and is something I can do while sitting down, I braided their hair in "crowns" while the baby napped yesterday morning. Without pins, the ends keep sliding out where I had woven them in, but the girls look cute.

Next time we're at the store I'm going to buy some hairpins so I can make more elaborate styles. I guess all those hours of sitting with my friends braiding and styling each other's long hair as a teenager are paying off. :)



AJ and MM happily posed for pictures with their new skirts and hairdos. Then I offered to turn on music so they could dance in their ballet skirts. They usually love dancing to music. But, to my surprise, they weren't interested.

"No thank you, Mommy," said AJ. "I don't want to dance. I just want to sit and look pretty."

She did, however, want to play with some new math puzzle cards I got out. I laid out one and said, "What's 4 plus 4?"

Without a pause, she said, "eight."

Surprised at her quickness, I laid out one that said 7 + 4. Immediately she reached for the solution card that said 11. As often happens, I found myself saying, "Wow! When did you get so good at this?!"

AJ matched the rest of her cards while I showed MM how to count out beads in different colors so she could do the problems on hers. Both girls enjoyed the activity while I prepared their lunch.

I'm discovering that MM, in particular, is very much a tactile (hands-on) learner. She isn't particularly interested in circling the pictures that begin with F, for example. But when we cut out all the pictures and she gets to glue the pictures that start with the F sound onto a picture of a fishing line, she gets excited about the activity and puts all her concentration into it.

The last couple of days I've been reminded to treasure and enjoy my children. So many people I know are struggling through health issues with their kids.

Two of the four families from our small group have babies in the hospital right now. Baby C, the son of CreativeCrafty and The Motivator, was born by C-section at (I think) 34 weeks gestation two days ago. At 4 lbs. 1 oz, his prognosis looks good, but he does have to stay in the hospital for a week or two before he goes home.

The other is the 4-week-old daughter of our friends the Malamute Rescuers. Baby H is in the hospital with an unexplained fever and elevated white blood cell count. We're hoping the situation will resolve itself with the help of some intensive antibiotics while we wait for the rest of the tests to come back.

I can't mention sick children without thinking of Moreena and her daughter Annika at falling down is also a gift. In Moreena's words, "We are still in the PICU, but anticipate leaving soon. We will not be leaving because everything is fixed and OK and back to life as usual. . . . the news here is not good."

In a nutshell, 5-year-old Aniika needs a third liver transplant but is not currently strong enough for the surgery. So they will be trying to help her gain enough strength over the next few months to be able to handle another transplant.

I'm so very thankful to have basically healthy children--even if they did just dump an entire Tupperware container of beads out and scatter them gleefully across the playroom carpet.

Building immunity, we hope

Amazingly enough, we seem to have somehow found another strain of flu we haven't had yet. At this rate, we should be immune to almost all the flu strains floating around this year pretty soon. :)

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Baby E is not the world's best patient. She's fussy, and isn't really interested in eating or sleeping. What she does want is to be held. Not just held, though--oh, no, that would be too easy for a sick and tired Mommy. She wants to be held so that she can see and touch my face. Being able to make eye contact and touch my face with her hands is--for reasons known only to herself--essential to her comfort and security. Her wiggling and squirming attempts to keep an unbroken gaze on my face turns the constant holding into quite a good imitation of an aerobic workout.

She's snuffling, sneezing, coughing and groaning, and I'm doing it right along with her. If my version of the bug is any indication, she probably also has a headache, sore throat, and that all-over-body-ache (a.k.a. hit-by-a-truck) feeling.

All she wants me to do is pay attention to her. All I want to do is rest. But a SAHM (stay-at-home mom) doesn't get to call in sick, and the other two kids are full of energy.

Thankfully, DH has willingly taken over upon entering the house the last few evenings, so I could go to bed. Tonight I got to go to bed at 6:30 and slept for an hour or two before Baby E needed to nurse again.

Right now he's making a run to the store for a humidifier and some decongestant/cough medicine. We had both a warm and a cool humidifier around here somewhere, but I think I got rid of the warm one in a fit of decluttering when I bought the cool one. In the summer, it seemed we didn't need two humidifiers. But in this cold, the idea of showering us with a cool mist seems less than appealing.

DH left and came back, then left again. He got to the checkout and realized he'd left his wallet at home. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who does that sort of thing.

I'm so thankful for my DH tonight.

I'm also thankful that, for the first time this winter, we were able to go more than a week or two between bouts of illness.

Apparently I shouldn't have noted that fact out loud last week. :)

Reading Comprehension

AJ is sitting in the living room right now, reading aloud from DH's Calvin & Hobbes anthology. I'm not sure I want her picking up ideas and attitudes from Calvin, though, so I think I'll try to redirect her. Last week I had to take a Reader's Digest away from her. Just because she has the ability to read and comprehend the words doesn't mean she's old enough for the themes and ideas. A 4-year-old doesn't need to be reading about plane crashes and robberies.

Now that AJ is reading so well, I'm going to have to figure out how to handle the book situation. We're not used to thinking about her picking up and reading things like the newspaper or Reader's Digest that are lying around. Even something like Baby Talk or Parenting magazine, though I've let the kids look at the pictures, has articles not appropriate for a preschooler to be reading.

I'm curious how other parents have handled this. Do you make sure things your children shouldn't be reading are out of reach, or do you designate certain books and bookshelves as theirs and tell them they need to ask permission before reading anything else?

I'm thinking I may need to rearrange my bookshelves to have the kid-friendly books on the lower shelves. But at the same time, I want my kids to learn to choose their reading materials wisely, rather than just picking up random books and reading them. I'm just not quite sure how to teach that.

I must say, though . . . I think it's really great that I'm dealing with these questions with a child under five. LOL.

Praying for Annika

Moreena at falling down is also a gift, could really use our thoughts and prayers.

Her 5-year-old daughter, Annika, is back in the PICU again after a long ordeal with internal bleeding, multiple surgeries, and developing issues with her liver. They had thought the issue was resolved, but after finally being home for a few days Annika started bleeding again.

Annika has had two liver transplants and may be looking at another. I'm praying for her and hoping for good news.

I will give you rest

The quote that keeps going through my head this weekend is this: "Come unto me, you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Mt. 11:28

This is my weekend for resting. DH took the two older girls a few hours' drive north to visit BIL, SIL and their kids. There was a goodbye party for a friend who is leaving for Africa this weekend that I didn't want to miss, so Baby E and I stayed here. They left Friday night, and we have the house to ourselves until they get home sometime today.

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Friday night I had great plans to go to bed early with Baby E and sleep in as much as possible. But I ate something that made us gassy, on top of the fact that we're both coming down with colds, and she would have none of it. Sleep? You've gotta be kidding, mom. No way! Not with an achy tummy and a sore throat! As usual, about 5 broken hours had to do.

Even though we were tired, we had a nice day. We lazed around in the morning, got a few household tasks done, but mostly rested. I had a lot of quiet time to think and just kind of talk to God. In the afternoon we went to the goodbye party, stopped to buy thread for mending DH's pants and $1/yd fabric to make easily-packable raingear for the family and a nursing dress for me, and went to Morning's house for a short visit.

In the evening I worked a bit on sewing some training pants for Nephew, we talked to DH and the girls on the phone (although AJ was too interested in the goings-on there to talk), and I did something I rarely do: I watched a movie by myself while eating dinner and nursing E.

The movie, Finding Neverland, was enjoyable. I found the main character hard to respect because of his interactions (or lack thereof) with his wife and the ease with which he abandoned her to turn his energies elsewhere. That element of the movie bothered me a lot. But the scenes about playing with the children and the magic they found in their play were wonderful. The film reminded me how essential it is that I make time to engage in imaginary play with my children. I want to do that more.

Baby E and I have been really enjoying the extra time to interact and play one-on-one.

Baby E is not a big snuggler unless she's falling asleep, but she really craves eye contact. She will watch me, craning her head every which way, trying desperately to catch my eye. When her eyes finally connect with mine, the connection is like electricity. Her whole body animates, and she is radiant. If she's sitting in my lap facing out, she'll be arching her back to look up and laugh into my face. At the moment she's in my lap, coughing occasionally. She's managed to wiggle herself into a reclining position, where she's kicking her feet and laughing whenever she can induce me to glance down. If she's across the room, she'll be creeping forward and trying to get around furniture to watch me move about the house.

Baby E loves to play peek-a-boo. She will watch intently, her eyes lighting up and her whole body shaking with laughter each time a face emerges from its hiding place. If anyone interacts with her for more than a moment, she'll initiate the game--hiding her face in my shoulder or pulling a blanket or her dress up over her face, and then peeking out over and over.

She loves lap games. Yesterday I introduced her to one the other girls loved at this age. It's simple, really. I hold her hands while she pulls herself to a standing position on my lap, and say "Up!" Then she sits down and I say, "down". It didn't take her long to figure out the cause and effect, and she had a lot of fun with it. She also enjoys lap games like "This is the Way the Ladies Ride", "Pat-a Cake", "This Little Piggy", and "How Big is Baby?" She is ticklish in her ribs, and has a deep, gravelly belly laugh much heartier than you would expect from a baby.

Last night we finally slept! I gave her some infant Tylenol after trying unsuccessfully for several hours to get her to sleep. She is quite uncomfortable with the developing cold, and seems to have a bit of a runny nose, sore throat and cough--as I do. We only woke once between midnight and 7 a.m., and then went back to sleep until after 11.

It felt so wonderful to sleep until we woke up, with no noise and (although I love them dearly) no older children bouncing into the room wanting breakfast and waking the baby with the emergence of the sun. I feel so much more clear-minded and cheerful after even one good night of sleep. Right now I have all kinds of plans and ideas going through my head; everything from ways to organize the household and inspiration for the kids' schooling to ideas for things I'd like to write.

Today I plan to try to get a few household tasks done, sleep whenever Baby E does (hopefully she'll make up for yesterday's near lack of naps), and spend some time reading my Bible, talking to God, and journaling about it (probably not on the blog :) ). I think my lack of time recharging spiritually has been affecting me lately almost as much as lack of sleep.

6 months

Baby E was 6 months old yesterday. Time rushes past like a waterfall.



This dress is a size 12 months, and is barely big enough for her. The tights are size 1-2T and are a bit big on her.



Baby girl, you are one of the great delights of my life. I love you so very much.

Prioritizing

Baby E slept for about 4 hours after we put her to bed without waking frequently like she'd been doing. Just that alone makes me feel tons better. Perhaps there's a light at the end of the tunnel, after all! Maybe all our work trying to get her to sleep more is paying off.

For those who can't access or didn't read the comments under my last post, I did want to clarify that the current issue is not that I don't see my kids or my job as a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) as important, interesting, or my main priority. I enjoy my kids a lot and I'm so thankful for them and glad to have the opportunity to stay home with them. I'm very thankful for my wonderful husband, also, and our many blessings.

I do think it's often normal for SAHMs to go through seasons of struggle with the reality of being home with young children all the time, and frustration with the way that limits other things they can do. But I don't think that's the issue for me currently. Right now I think I'm feeling more of a frustration that other things are infringing on our home time, our peace and quiet, and my time with my kids than the other way around.

Too easily I get into "feeling like a failure" mode, and when that starts happening it bleeds out every which way. I tend to feel guilty that I can't keep up with all my commitments (completely and on time), carry on a flawless correspondence in addition to maintaining friendships, have an extensive devotional life, keep the house (nearly) spotless, stay organized, cook hypoallergenic nutritious but gourmet meals from scratch three times a day, homeschool the kids, be supermom and superwife, do several church activities and ministries (not to mention enriching educational activities for the kids), have meetings or activities 4-5+ days per week, and care for two preschoolers and an infant all at the same time. I think I should be able to do all that, and I can't.

I really want to have a good balance in my life.

The main reason I'm struggling right now is sleep deprivation. I'm not feeling good because of it. Everything seems to take way longer than it should.

I am evaluating my time usage and activities.

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I don't think I spend a ton of time doing recreational things, watching TV, e-mail/blogging, etc. Often when I do those things it's generally either when I'm spending time with DH (I tend to watch as an occasional social activity, not a time-filler or way to relax) or nursing the baby. I usually feed her while I do things like blogging, reading online, and research. That's generally what I do instead of reading, watching TV, doing fun crafts, etc).

My computer time is my way to relax, unwind and do something that's both fun and is (I feel) of some value. Blogging helps me keep loved ones informed about our lives and keep my writing/critical thinking skills at least somewhat in practice, among other things.

I've almost completely cut out most other activities (eBay, freelancing, message boards, music, collecting, etc.) that have taken a lot of my time in the past, and this is one I'd like to keep--especially since I've been succeeding at keeping it to moderation for quite some time.

The time I spend with friends generally averages out to 1-2 times every week or two. Some of my friends tend to just hang out and visit with me here while I'm caring for the kids, cooking meals and doing housework--things I would be doing anyway. A bit of adult conversation every now and then is very helpful for me. I think that's important.

I do spend a lot of time resting with the kids when I can. If I could get more sleep at night, I might not need to do that so much.

The main unnecessary/frustrating drain on my time (besides being tired and as a result doing everything slowly) is being disorganized. Far too much time is wasted digging through the clean laundry basket looking for matching socks, looking for my mislaid keys, trying to find a certain spice in the cabinet, looking for my hairbrush, trying to fit too many clothes in overstuffed drawers, moving piles of clutter from one place to another, etc. That's the sort of thing that really makes me frustrated with myself. I truly hate living that way.

I want to streamline things by having fewer material things (we have far too many clothes, toys, and other "stuff" in the house), less clutter, fewer activities, more organization and better routines.

We are definitely doing too much, I feel. The kids are showing it too. When they start asking to stay home and have quiet time instead of going somewhere, I really know we're not home enough. DH and I are looking at ways to better organize our time and figuring out what things we can cut out. Prioritizing is a challenge sometimes.

I think part of it is that I just didn't realize how much extra time and energy adding another baby at this point would take, and I overcommitted to things--some of which I can't get out of at this point, at least until summer.

My friend JT was really smart--she made sure she didn't have any commitments or things she had to do during the day for the first few months after having her baby. I'm really wishing I'd done that so I wouldn't be burning out at this point. It's so much harder to cut things out after the fact than not add them in the first place. :)

I wrote down everything I did today, and I've done that in the past, but I end up spending so much time just writing down what I'm doing that it adds up to a bigger chunk of time than I spend doing things like e-mail. :)

There wasn't as much wasted time not "working" (doing things like relaxing, blogging and other random activities that don't involve childcare, planned events or household tasks) as I had expected--about 2 hours total, maybe 3, over a day and a half. I think that's fairly typical for me. Probably some days it's more, some less. Occasionally it's a lot more.

I plan to keep a record for several days, perhaps as long as two weeks, to get a more accurate idea of how I'm spending my time. I do see a couple of things in my schedule that I could change already. I know I need to get up earlier and go to bed earlier if possible.

Being so tired has a big effect in that I will sit down and then procrastinate on something I need to get done before I can go to bed. That's the time I unnecessarily burn at the computer or wherever. My downfall is when I sit down and I really want to go to bed, but have something I think I should do first. So I sit and do pretty much nothing for too long. I'm learning it would be better just to go to bed if I can (of course, that's very much dependent on the baby). It makes more sense to leave whatever it is undone until the next day than to lose an extra hour of sleep procrastinating.

One thing I am pretty sure of is that I'm better at time management and at life in general now than I have been in the past. Progress is good. :)

Well, I wrote this while feeding Baby E and now she's asleep again, so I'm going to bed. It's 1 a.m. already.

I'll close with a great paragraph from a friend's e-mail today (I hope she won't mind my sharing it):

"I love you just the way you are and I know God does, too. We are like little children in His eyes and it never hurts to look over the past and evaluate whether we've become more like Christ. If we're always growing in Him, what else matters?"

That's what I need to remember, and where I need to put my focus.

The 6-month meltdown

Baby E will be 6 months old on Friday. She is a delight to have around. I'm enjoying all three of my kids so much, and I love being a mom. I'm enjoying my friends and church activities, and lots of good things are happening. Last night I had a really rich time with God and other women at my ladies' Bible study, which I hope to find time to post about soon.

But at the same time, I'm struggling.

I've been having a hard time to motivate myself to blog much lately. I don't feel that I have much really worth saying, or that I can say it well. My perfectionist side is frustrated that my posts haven't been holding up to the quality I would like to see in my writing. I've been reading through my past blog posts, and they seem to be largely inane, far too long, boring, and poorly-written. I find myself wondering how I've managed to keep a few regular readers.

It's not just the blog, either. I have a huge list of things I need to be doing that aren't getting done. Everything from houswork to obligations to friendships have been suffering for months now.

Part of it, I'm sure, is that the long-term sleep deprivation is getting to me.


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I was reading back through some things I wrote after my other two children were born, and realizing that about 6 months after the baby was probably the hardest time for me each time. The novelty and adrenaline rush that comes with having a new baby had worn off, and none of my children slept well at night or were particularly low-maintenance during the day as babies, even when they were happy. The thought that "it will get better any day now" just seems to start wearing off after 6 months of no sleep. :)

About 6 months seems to be the point at which I become really aware of the progressive crumbling physically and emotionally after long-term sleep deprivation and months of not getting good enough self-care. Or maybe it's just that I'm not good at balancing life and responsibilities with a baby.

Most things have been much better this third time around. I am enjoying the whole experience more. The difficulty functioning and the mood swings aren't as severe this time (believe it or not), but I am realizing that something needs to change.

We need to start thinking more long-term, and thinking about getting a routine and a lifestyle that can be maintained. We can't go through the rest of our life just trying to survive today. Too many important things are falling by the wayside, and we don't want to feel constantly behind, exhausted and stressed. We can't live in crisis mode forever.

We are working on trying to get Baby E to sleep better at night, but she's still waking up every 30-90 minutes for the first half of the night even if I'm not feeding her. She will no longer calm down at all for DH, but she will eventually go back to sleep if I'm holding her. She doesn't want to sleep anywhere but in my arms or in my bed.

Last night we both finally fell asleep while I was feeding her in my bed around 2:30 a.m. When I woke a few hours later she was on her tummy a little way from me in the bed. It scares me that I didn't wake up to notice her rolling over, and that she was on her face in my bed. Between the danger of sleeping on her tummy in a softer bed and the danger of her rolling off the bed, I think I'm going to have to start sitting in the rocking chair to nurse her, which means of course that I can't doze off while feeding her.

It's getting harder and harder to accomplish anything, and it feels like I work hard all day and have nothing to show for it at the end. The smallest thing seems like an almost insurmountable obstacle. Today DH won't be able to get off work early like he usually does on Wednesdays, to help get ready for small group. I need to get the house ready and go grocery shopping, but I haven't been able to get up the energy do to anything other than get myself and the kids dressed and fed today.

Both Baby E and MM are sleeping at the moment, and AJ is playing quietly. I really need to pick up the house, clean the kitchen, sweep and vaccuum, and make sure the bathrooms and playroom are useable for the group tonight.

People will be here in two hours, and we're supposed to provide hamburger buns and a side dish. I don't know whether to try to get the house ready or wake up the kids and go to the store. I don't think I can do both. I'm not sure where the rest of the day went.

DH and I realized this week that we hardly ever spend time together any more. We're both so exhausted and we have so much to do that we are busy until we collapse into bed far too late in the evening. We decided that we need to just hire a babysitter to come every week or every other week, so we can go out and spend time together. It's expensive to pay a babysitter, but as we were joking to each other, it's a lot cheaper than paying for marriage counseling because we didn't make it a priority to spend that time together.

We don't have that much to do, and yet we have far too much to do. We're so blessed, and yet we feel like we're barely keeping up and hanging on. Is it just the season? Maybe we shouldn't be trying to do so much ministry, socialization, and other activities when we have such young children. Or maybe we just need to organize our lives better.

A friend and I were talking yesterday about how, as young moms, we seem to fluctuate between being bored out of our minds and feeling like we have no mental stimulation and aren't doing anything of real value, and feeling like we have way too much going on and are burning out. It's so hard to find the in-between. We want to give our kids enough time and priority without going crazy or completely abandoning other parts of life. But how?

I know I need more sleep and a better routine, and I have to make sure I'm eating and drinking adequately. But I also need time to recharge, time with my husband, and most importantly time with God.

It's figuring out how to make all that happen that's hard. Here we are 6 months later, and in some ways it seems like Baby E has always been a part of our family. She is a wonderful addition. I love my family and I'm so grateful. But operating with the new dynamics of a family of 5 still seems almost as fresh and strange as it did the first month.

I'm wondering if the first year after having a baby is difficult and challenging no matter how many kids you have, or if it gets easier with each successive child? I've always wanted at least 4 kids, maybe more, but I'm not sure I want to live in this confused, barely-functioning, sleep-deprived state for another few years or more.

How can we make this work better? There has to be a way, doesn't there? Or is this just what being a mother of babies and young children is like? I'm not sure just trying harder is the answer.

[Update: I was jsut about to post this when DH called and said he got out of his treaining meeting early today after all, so he's going to the store for me. Hooray! I'm thanking the Lord for meeting that need.]