This morning and rottweilers.

I opened the blinds this morning and saw a white sky, covered as it were in clouds. It looks freezing.
I love Friday mornings. I don't have to go anywhere until 2. Except this morning I have to go teach kickbox in about an hour, but I don't mind that. I love that. Kickboxing is so releasing for me. Then we will go to Trader Joe's or maybe just Walmart (its closer) because right now all we have in our fridge are condiments, three eggs, a tiny bit of milk, and left over olives. Yum.
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The other day I got this wild hair in my pants and decided it would be the most fantastic idea to get a rottweiler, (whom I would name Riley), for a variety of reasons:
*Riley would sleep in my bedroom on the floor, right next to my bed, and tear to pieces any wacko who came into the house on the nights Joey is gone.
*No one would think about messing with me and Ethan on our walks or at the park with Riley at our side (no one has messed with us yet; I'm just being cautious).
*Rottweilers are so beautiful.
*They are MELLOW.
*Average shedders.
*They are known to be incredibly smart, loyal, and very good companions (exactly what I need!!)
But then we really got to think about it and it would be scary as Halloween to own a rottweiler because with any dog you're taking a chance, but if the rottweiler "accidentally" snapped at Ethan, or one of Ethan's friends, it could be really bad (they are also known to have the most powerful jaws of any dog).
So anyway, I think the rotty is officially crossed off the list. I'm sad about it. Besides, Joey said the most surest way to stop a wacko in our house is not a dog (although you can't tell me a rottweiler wouldn't help) but a gun.
Just the thought of it leaves me kinda weasy.
Well, now that I've left everyone with thoughts of rottweilers and guns and wackos--Enjoy your Friday!

Go read this blog.

I randomly found this blog and it is so good: "one day i moved to Kolkata". You won't be dissapointed.

Easy weasy. (Only the mother of a toddler would think that is a good title).

Every day is one day closer to both of us being as done as we have to be at UNR. I have had the most cake semester while Joey, on the other hand, is studying like a mad man just to hang on. Well, actually I wouldn't be surprised if he still pulls off some pretty impressive grades. This is a quality I married Joey for: his determination, motivation, and need to give everything he does 100%, at least.
It is also the reason I can find myself sulking in the kitchen while his butt is glued to a chair, working on a fourteen page research paper. But I am getting over this. Really. It's like my friend Sammie says (who's married to a soon-to-be doctor)--our husbands are not deadbeats. They are the opposites of deadbeats: alive and determined and motivated and gaol-oriented and thinking about retirement; ultimately for us. Because they love us.
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I REALLY don't want to go to class right now -and probably won't. (As you can see, my strengths are not those of my husbands--see how badly I need him? If our financial future depended on me, ,and goodness gracious don't' even mention our retirement, we would be in serious trouble people. I am talking serious trouble).
Which actually reminds me of a funny incident that happened not too long ago.
Joey and I were walking to our car from class and I was having a "mommy moment" that went something like this:
"I just don't know if I can do this mommy thing full time. I mean, everything I have ever wanted to do, I just have to give up. And I know you tell me I just have to wait six or seven years till the kids (Ethan plus the one(s) we haven't had yet) are in school, but seven years could potentially zap all the creativity and motivation out of me. I might not even care in seven years...." I kept going, on and on about my talents going to waste and not feeling valued as a stay at home mom, la de da. And this is what Joey says to me: "Well, if you want to work full time and financially support us, I will stay home with the kids."
And my jaw hit the pavement. And then I got this really queasy feeling inside of me. A queasy feeling that grew into a sickly black feeling the more the reality of what Joey was saying, what I was saying, sunk in.
Did I really want the responsibility of getting a job and making sure we can pay all of our bills(we have a lot of them!!!) and having to deal with FORTY hours of work away from home, away from Ethan? That thought alone was enough to slap me out of my somewhat deceived state. And how silly of me to think that I couldn't use my "talents" at home with Ethan, nurturing him in the process. DUH. That is what mommies do. Everything that I love to do, painting, reading, playing with Ethan, writing, decorating, cooking, throwing parties, exercising, hanging out with friends....I can do as a mommy. And the reality is if I got a full time job, even as a design consultant or journalist or whatever, it would seriously cramp my time to do those things I love.
I am so silly sometimes.
Again, why I need Joey so bad. He is a realist (sometimes a serious pessimist) and I am an optimist (sometimes not in touch with reality).
Anyway, my point when I started this blog is that my semester has been the easiest ever and Joey's has been his hardest. And I am not going to class (and I am sure Joey will).

No Nap.

Today Ethan didn't take his nap. It's amazing and frightening really how once you become a parent your entire world revolves around successful naps.
Today was not successful. So now it's six fifteen (a horrible time for toddlers, even when they do have a good nap) and Ethan's eyes are bloodshot and every whimper from his mouth is a long, drown-out whine.
I am about to go insane.
Presently he is playing with our juicer, watching it go round and round in slow motion--like he's in a quiet trance. Maybe it is putting him in a trance. That would be nice.
Joey is still at school. I came home over an hour ago and am still wearing my coat because it's freezing in our house and I am just like this. Its from my dad, a hundred percent. Cold? Put on a coat. Are you inside? Doesn't matter. Double your socks. Wear a fleece hat. What ever you do, don't touch the thermostat.
Five minutes later...
Ethan told me (whined to me) that he wanted eggs. I made him scrambled eggs.
"Ethan, I made you your eggs. Come eat your eggs."
He runs out of the kitchen. "No."
I hate no nap days.

Saturday.

I took Ethan to the park this morning. His pants eventually were covered in the camel colored wood chips from the ground and before we went home he had a dark pink bruise under his left eye from falling into the stairs leading up to the twirly slide.
He loves to be outside. I do too, it just takes a little persuasion to get me out there. Like Ethan asking forty times, "Park? Park?" And I have to plan on staying there a while. None of this twenty minute park business. Ethan has to be there are least forty-five minutes for him to get in the car to come home without a meltdown.
There was no little kids at the park, just four boys on their skateboards in the skate park. I watched them and for the first time could sense the feel of skateboarding. Whenever I tried it when I was young I wasn't too scared to just go for it; oh I did that just fine and landed in the emergency room. But I was too silly to understand (or watch and learn) that you have to really put your weight into the board. Instead of bending my knees and really feeling the board, I probably stood there like a stick and told my best friend Heather to push me down some hill, hoping to get to the bottom without road rash all over my butt.
Anyways.
I am writing a persausive speech on why midwifery should be legitimized in Nevada. It's good for me because I am doing a significant amount of reading and learning why midwifery actually is such a great choice, at least for wimps like me who hate needles.
No but seriously they have so much to offer. There was a time when Joey and I were considering having our second in the hospital, but I am pretty convinced otherwise now.

Thanksgiving yumminess.

Thanksgiving yesterday was wonderful. Joey and I almost got out of the house without some little thing escalating into a huge argument, which is a big accomplishment on the holidays, or really any day of the year. But maybe especially on the holidays.
It started with the batteries in the camera not being charged (and Joey being annoyed and blaming me for it because, ok, it was kinda my fault), and then Ethan climbing onto the toilet and opening the cabinet that hangs above it. This cabinet is full of all sorts of lotions and bubbles and one easily openable bottle of iodine. Ethan was quiet. Too quiet. So I decided to check on him and when I found him he was spreading the blood colored iodine all over the shiny white toilet saying, "Messy! Messy!". This was also my fault because I let Ethan climb on the toilet and Joey does not.
Later, after Thanksgiving dinner while I helped Grandpa Shaun with the dishes, I relayed the iodine-toilet story.
"Isn't iodine poisonous?" he asks me.
I shrug my shoulders and say, "I donno. Now that you mention it, it does sound like poison." I am embarrassed that I broke one of the all time biggest toddler rules ever ("Keep poison out of children's reach" and admit to myself that Joey might have a point to keeping Ethan off the toilet).
Anyway, when I handed iodine-covered Ethan to Joey and said, "Change him please," he gave me The Look.
So I was in intense bad mood.
But I fought it and by the time we got to Grandma Patty's the bad mood was gone. This was a victory. I don't always win these bad mood battles; in fact, most of the time I am like my nephew Aiden who told his mom after he scratched his knee, "I can't be happy right now."
I say that same thing all of the time for a variety of reasons, most of which have to do with the way my husband is treating me. And it is complete foolishness.
I have two young friends who just got married and like the rest of us are struggling and hurting as they are discovering their husbands don't make them happy in a direct, easy sort of way. This is a slow lesson to learn and I don't grasp it fully. I still expect Joey to be my version of perfect, fulfilling every single one of my emotional and physical needs. And when he doesn't, Bad Mood attacks.
So I try to recognize those moods for what they are (a consequence of idol "perfect husband") and fight it off so that we can have a happy Thanksgiving or a happy Tuesday night, or whatever.
And it really was such a blessing to be able to share Thanksgiving with Joey in light of his nuts-o schedule. He is such an amazing husband. I've been wanting to tell the world that I have never met another man who is working as hard as he is right now to provide and care for his family.
If not perfect, he still is amazing.

New wonder.

Yesterday we decorated for Christmas. I like unpacking all the little Christmas ornaments from my childhood and setting up all the snowmen and switching my orange, fall things with red and green Christmas things. But every year since I was, oh I donno, eleven, there has been an element of dread in the wonder of it all; the dread that in a couple of weeks I will have to pack it all up again and what a waste of time, or something; it's just not a hundred percent fun. In fact, it has been decreasing in fun percentage every year.
But this year Ethan is alive. And when he woke up from his nap I went in and asked him if he wanted to come out and "see Christmas"- I had the tree all lit up and you know how special that is.
He was already excited from the tone in my voice but when he saw that tree he about popped. And then everything else; all the snowmen on the bureau("Candy? Candy?"-I have no idea why he thinks snowmen are candy) and the little angel figurines above the TV ("Little girl? Little girl?") and of course the reindeer Joey's grandma made that is supposed to hold Christmas cards-we had to put it away because Ethan wouldn't stop straddling it and saying "getti-up, getti-up" while rocking it back and forth so it's poor old legs about snapped.
And then again this morning the first thing he says to me is, "Tree? Tree?" (and then something about watching Nemo).
There is one particular ornament that he likes to poke his finger in and talk about. It's a house figurine with a sleigh and reindeer on top and on the inside Santa has his bag of toys in front of a fireplace and tree. I loved this ornament when I was little too. Grammie and Papa gave it to me. Ethan pokes his chubby little finger inside and says, "Whas that? Whas that?" to everything inside and on the ornament. I think I have explained the anatomy of that ornament to him at least fifty two times since yesterday. This could be a very long month.
Ethan has upped the fun percentage of Christmas tremendously.
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Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We are almost done, we are almost done....

Put that title to a little song and you will understand how I am feeling about graduating from UNR.
Now, to move on to more important things in life, like how I am going to answer everyone and their mother when they ask me, "So what are you going to do with your degree?"
Because this is what I do with it mostly. I write in this blog. But good Lord I cannot say that. What a LOSER.
I have thought about this response: " I am going to be a very educated mommy"-which is totally valid and needed in this world. But also a little smart ass and I don't want to come across like that especially when these people will hopefully be sending me money for graduating.
I am VERY thankful I went to college. I am better for it, although it tore me up in the process, but nothing that God couldn't use to show me more of Himself and His greatness. Now that it is over I can say it was good. Sometimes life is just like that.
You know what I am looking forward to in the spring when I am NOT going to school?
Waking up every morning and feeding Ethan his breakfast as we watch Nemo (No, he is not sick of it yet). Decorating his bedroom with clocks or airplanes, because he loves them, or maybe like a camp site because I love camping. Reading him books and teaching him songs that I know I taught him and not Grandma (so far I can take zero credit for how Ethan can sing his ABC's to "P" and count to 11 because his Grandmas are also teaching him these things. It's not a bad thing at all, I just want a little credit here as his mother that I taught him something all by myself.) Going to the library with Ethan for story time and getting all dressed up just to go grocery shopping with him and making the house perfectly clean for when Joey comes home and cooking yummy dinners and eating together as a family more than twice a week. I am looking forward to actually having time to have people over for dinner and goodness gracious maybe a date-night once in while where we don't have to feel guilty using a babysitter because Ethan isn't with one everyday.
So what am I going to do with my degree? Just live people. I am going to enjoy my son because he is only two once and I am going to spoil my husband because he deserves good dinners and a clean home. I am going to go to my exercise classes because I love them and I am going to take a singing class through TMCC. Heck I might even pull out my crusty paint brushes and finish the painting that is hanging in our office (Joey would appreciate this. He hates unfinished "projects").
But still I don't know what I am going to say when they whip THE question..."Uhh...I'm not sure..."
Jeeze. You'd think after six or seven years in a university I could come up with something more intelligent or at least more charming than that.

Thank you.

It's Thanksgiving already and a little hard to believe since it was almost 70 degrees yesterday. Because it is always good to remember/become aware of what I am thankful for, I thought I would compose a little list.

Joey, you are the first one I think of and even though you are also the first one I would think of if I were composing a different kind of list, like let's say a "Who can put you in a bad mood faster than anyone else", it still means something that you are first on the Thankful list. Where would I be without you? I'd be lonely and wanting you. I'd be more insecure and probably fatter too because I wouldn't exercise regularly and I would stay up every night snacking. I'd be cold in bed and not have any body's legs to put my freezing feet on to warm them up. I am sure my room or apartment, or wherever, would be ninety percent of the time a disgusting mess. Maybe I still wouldn't shave my legs, who knows. I am sure I would do impromptu, very irresponsible things like getting a dog that I wouldn't want to take care of a month later. I would only see things from one perspective (mine), and thus I would still be paranoid about wasting money by flushing the toilet after only going pee once or taking long showers (and consequentially very rarely shaving because it takes so much time!) because every hot drop of water running down my face is a drop of MONEY. When you are with me I feel strong and without you I feel weak, like I have to pull myself up by my bootstraps and say, "Common Danae. Get in the car. Go to church. You can do this." What I am trying to say is life is easier, happier and smoother with you. You are God's most precious gift to me.

Ethan, number two! You bring so much joy to my life, like when you are sitting in your high chair and out of nowhere start belting out Hot Cross Buns. Or when we get to the winter page in I am a Bunny and you call the snow falling from the sky, "popcorn". Or when I try to sleep with you and tell you, "Ethan, mamma's tired. You need to go to sleep." And instead of you curling up, being still and quiet, you take your chubby hand and pat my cheek and give me a kiss like, "It's ok Mamma. You can go to sleep. I'm gonna stay up for a little while, ok?"-and then procede to move around on my bed (and my body) like it is a bouncehouse.

I'd like to keep going; this is a wonderful mood-lifter-upper. But I feel like I am neglecting Ethan in order to write all these lovely things about him, so I will stop for today.

????

I am having serious writer's block here. I can't think of one darn thing to write about. I am hoping that by starting something a great idea will come flowing through my fingers, but so far I can barely manage to finish this sentence.
Maybe I need to whip out some Anne Lamott. Does everyone out there know she is fabulous?
I have read three or four of her books, but I don't own a one. Hmmm....Christmas....Joey are you reading this?
I just finished a chocolate bar from Trader Joe's and feel a headache zooming in. Also, my teeth hurt from the sugar. But it was good.
Humm de dum....see how horrible writer's block is?
Well here is something. Joey and I are GRADUATING in about three weeks. We are throwing a huge party and if everyone comes I have no idea how they will all fit in Patty's house. But, we are thinking about it like a wedding; thirty or forty, or is it twenty? percent don't show, right? Anyway, it will be awesome even if it's standing room only and everyone is breathing into everyone else's drink.
And then Christmas! I already bought Ethan's present: a bunch of used classic books such as: Stop That Ball! Go Dog, Go! and A Fish Out of Water just to name the best ones. That's right folks all he's getting is books. For one, he loves them. For two, I love them. For three, a parent can never have enough books to compensate for a toddler's insistence on reading the same book thirty-two times. Every night. And morning.

Freaking Antsy.

I am so anxious today. I am sweating and can't sit still. I am having a hard time seeing my place in life as good; so prone to wander. Yes, I feel like I am ready to wander, to run.
I am so ashamed of this. It comes and goes; it hasn't come for a while and then this morning as I am sitting in traffic on my way to school it washes over me, like a sudden down pour.
FEELINGS. Freaking feelings.

Girl time = Oxygen.

I couldn't sleep. If I listened I could hear (and feel) my heart beat. It was one of those nights where Joey's body is missing and I can't curl up to him, can't feel his heat, so I toss and turn and have seventy-two thoughts going through my head all at the same time.
Usually after four tortuous hours of this I finally go to dreamland. But not this time. Every time I looked at the clock it was an hour or two later and my mind would not quit. My body was sleeping I think, but my mind wasn't, if that is possible.
Partly it was Joey's absence but mostly it was because I was stressed and excited for the party.
Which went completely and wonderfully fabulous.
I have been planning Jessica's bachelorette party for about a month and let me say right now that thinking ahead-like what you have to do to plan a party-is not my forte (put an accent on that e for me).
But boy did I do it. I bought candles and cake and stuff for dinner and I cleaned my house good, like even the toilets and windows; I picked out just the right music and I cut and pasted and made cute bags. And then the night before I was so stressed about it I didn't go to sleep, like not even for fifteen minutes.
Even the whole day up to it (it was at four) I was going going going. Lighting this, scrubbing that, frosting the cake, rearranging my fridge so that the cake would fit in it and then Finally-taking Ethan to the babysitters and then rushing home and jumping in the shower at three thirty.
I pictured Kelly ringing the doorbell and me answering it in my bra and panties.
But I was dressed when that doorbell rang, everything but my shoes, but it was cold and the slippers were more practical anyway.
But the best part, the best part, was when four hours had passed and I had hardly noticed because all us girls just talked and talked and talked. And talked (you know how it goes).
Just like the old days when I used to hang out with friends. You don't realize what a luxury that is until you go some years without it. And then it feels like fresh air, like when I got hooked up to to the oxygen machine when I thought I was dying giving birth to Ethan. Yes, it is just like that.

New thought: Commandments

Oooo what a scary word. COMMANDMENTS. Don't we all hate that word?
Well I sure did until about three hours ago when I was singing It is Well with My Soul at church. It is well with my soul, it is well with my soul.
Now my theology might be as strong as pudding here I don't know. I just got this thought, and it may be true .It just hit me, like something sweet, like someone pumping more blood into my heart: It is well with my soul.
It is.
Not is should be.
Not it will be.
Not try harder to be.
It just is.
Because every word Jesus spoke was true, no matter how I feel. No matter what is going on around me that seems incredibly wrong and sad.
It is well with my soul.
Now, lest I come off as a total hard nosed person who is just shutting their eyes to suffering or feelings, I'm not.
But I got a glimpse of something today. Something that even now is vague and I can't find the way to tell it. But it was good. It was comforting. It was forever.
It is well with my soul.
This is what God is commanding of me. This is what all of His commandments point to: a healthy soul; a soul that is well, no matter what. Why do I fight that?
"As a man thinkith, so is he" (and a man-or danae-can change the way he/she thinks--PRAISE GOD.)

New dress!! New dress!!

Oh boy! Did I just get the steal of the year!
So three weeks ago or so I was at Macy's looking for a brown dress for Jess' wedding. I found a cute one that I love but I also found a different one that I loved even more, but it was the wrong color brown. More milk chocolate than dark.
It was one of those dresses that I saw and thought, well, I'll try it. It wasn't glamorous on the rack at all. It was almost old lady, but what the heck.
It was the first one I tried on and it felt so perfect. Sophisticated. Also Joey said it looked good with my hair cut (He is so cute!).
But, Alas, it was chocolate brown, not espresso like I'd been told to buy.
So I put it back.
And really I had almost forgotten about it until I was driving to work today trying to decide what I was going to wear tomorrow to Jess' shower. Then, like a floodlight in my brain: Ohmygosh I could get that dress! I could wear it tomorrow and also when we graduate!
So I zoomed over to Macy's and ran up the escalators. I momentarily got distracted by the adorable and so expensive dresses at the top of the escalators but then I remembered my mission and that I was going to be late to work.
I walked over to where the dresses were three weeks ago and there were only blue ones left. Like royal blue. Like SERIOUSLY old lady.
I decided to try and find something else. Macy's is full of cute clothes. So full in fact that I kind of enter a Macy's haze. It must be all the new clothes smell or something. Anyway, I started looking at other blouses, and I found two that I LOVED. They both cost about eighty dollars but like I said, I was in that Macy's haze and eighty dollars seemed almost reasonable.
I forget when I am not in "Macy's haze" I itch and squirm over spending forty dollars at Old Navy for THREE blouses.
I almost bought one of those blouses, and a pair of pants that also cost eighty dollars. I was about ready to head down to the shoe department too, but then I saw a sales lady. And because I had two hundred dollars worth of clothes in my hands, she was very helpful and friendly. I decided to try one more time to find my brown dress.
"Um, excuse me. I was here a couple of weeks ago, and there was these brown dresses? Um, yes, could you maybe check and see if they are all gone?"
So we walked to the discount racks and looked at all three before coming to the last one rack.
And there was my brown dress. My size and everything. For half price.
And then the scales fell and I thought, "What was I thinking??" And I grabbed my dress and would have dropped those other clothes if I had no tact but instead I carried them up to the counter and told the lady, "I don't want those, only this one."
And now I am at work and that dress is in my car and I still don't have any shoes to wear with it. I will probably go barefoot.

Grace.

Prayer.
One time not long ago I came to the realization that praying wasn't so much doing as being.
Pray without ceasing...
I am always praying. The question is to WHO; myself or God. Most of the time I am praying to myself. Listening to my feelings. Reiterating my good qualities and ignoring any darkness.
In fact lately this has been so obvious to me that I have at rare times been placed in a state of awe and wonder (the foundations for joy) when I realize any good in me or my life is God's hand, his intervention. And I think, "Ohmygosh I can see it. I can see HIM in me. This whole religion thing isn't fake. I SEE IT. I see His fruit in my life. Holy crap. Hallelujah."
It's so practical people! so tangible! so obvious!
The pain in all of this is that for God's grace in my life to be so obvious, my own inclinations have to be as obvious too.
And this is where it has been hard.
I am so naturally angry. So naturally ready to say, "Screw it. Screw you. " So naturally ready to defend myself and protect my little heart, no matter what the costs: loss of relationships, loss of reputation, loss of God's glory.
Loss of God's glory.
Even a year ago I would have turned my nose up to that statement. Not because I didn't want to be a christian or want to love God or anything like that, but just because I didn't get it. I didn't understand it. What does that look like??? Could we stop talking about God's glory and start talking about something practical??
I now have had the second explainable experience in my life where I have seen the glory of God play out and it looks something like this: I am walking down a road filled with sin. I am enjoying it. It makes me feel good. I am led by my own thoughts, my own inclinations. But God, being rich in mercy....reaches down through people who love me, through books, and through music and turns my little body around. Turns my mind around. Turns my heart around. And suddenly I see what I was walking away from: companionship. goodness. love. peace. protection. (This is when I almost didn't marry Joey).
And now, today. It is obvious to me my being needs to be in a constant state of prayer, to God, the One who changes, or else my heart shrivels and turns gray and stops beating, in one sense. In the sense I say, "I give up. Screw this."
I pray for the scales to once more fall from my eyes, for my heart to be soft, to not fear, to see the bigger picture. God's view.
Oh Lord, be to us as eyes...

Frozens?

Yesterday Ethan and I had the flu. The first time he barfed all over my chest, I thought, ok, I am his mom, I am staying calm and sweet and talking softly: "It's ok Ethan. Just let it all come out. It's ok." Then I'd strip his clothes off him, strip my clothes off me, and into the tub he'd go, and into the shower I'd go.
Three barfs down my chest, three showers, and three loads of laundry later I was still holding myself together for Ethan, but I was over it.
What made it even more surprising each time Ethan hurled was that I thought the flu was over. He'd act like he was really really hungry, and I thought, if he's so hungry, he must be better. Especially if he's chugging down milk like there is no tomorrow. He must feel better.
And then, BARF.
After the milk episode I wised up and said, NO MORE MILK.
Then he ate about a hundred pretzels, thirty or forty chips, watered down Sprite (which he refers to as "Coke") and three cups of frozen peas.
Ethan has this thing with frozen food; he loves frozen peas or soybeans or berries.
So yesterday he keeps asking me, "Frozens? More frozens?" His little voice has such desperation in it. Like I never feed him.
So I kept putting more frozen peas on his tray. I'd only put like twenty, thinking, he's not really going to eat all these. They are gross. But then sure enough, four minutes later the peas were all gone and Ethan is asking again, "More frozens? More frozens?"
I decided to try one, thinking maybe I was missing out on something. I mean, Ethan eats these little green things like they are Pez or something.
So I put one in my mouth with a lot of positive anticipation.
It was cold, and the ice crystals on it tasted old, and the pea itself tasted like dirt, a taste that only grew once the pea went done my throat.
I wondered if as his mother if it was ok for me to be feeding him such disgusting food.
But it didn't really matter because they all came up about twenty minutes later.

Quiet desperation or belief.

Today I am weary. Slow.
I am baffled and defeated, because I cannot believe.

There is so much sin in this world. My own, and 6 billion others. That's a lot, and it has overcome me.
How will things ever be right? Do I really trust God, do I really believe?
Because His word is full of promises--one of which says that He has overcome the world.

Most men (and women for sure) lead lives of quiet desperation. I don't know who wrote that but my dad has it on a sticky note somewhere in the mess he calls his desk. And that is the truest thing I have ever heard.

So the question is, do I also believe Christ died and has overcome this world?

Not right now I don't. Right now I believe I am living--and so is everyone around me--in quiet desperation. Controlled by our fear, our pride, and all other earthly appetites. Appetites which satisfy for a moment, or even a week, or a year, but ultimately end in broken relationships, beaten up hearts and what seems an eternal distance from the only one who can redeem any of it.

My heart is weak, and my faith so small. I feel it struggling to live inside of me, on the verge of shriveling up and dying.

Listen to what he reminds me... I have separated your sins from you as far as the east is from the west....I chose you; I will always be holding you...I will finish what I began, in you and in this world...I am in control. Completely...All things are for your good. ALL THINGS....Trust me....I will give you the faith to trust me. Remember who I am and who you are in me.

Quiet desperation or belief.
But still, all I can manage to honestly say is please hold me.
Please, hold us all.

Me.

I have been three and bitten by my cousin (also three) in the laundry area in the garage. I was so happy when he got a spanking, and when my mom told his mom when she came to pick him up. I think I hated him that day.

I have been eight and said "damn" to my friend Jill, who told her older sister Kelly, who told my older sister Deana, who told my mom. I was just trying to be cool.

I have been fourteen and infatuated with a certain boy. He finally liked me back and we "dated" for a couple of months. One day he asks me, "Why don't you ever really kiss me?" I was baffled. I thought I was really kissing him. I try harder to "really" do it, but it doesn't seem to matter. We don't last.

I still ask myself while I'm kissing, "Am I doing this right?"

I have been fifteen and happy. I have been at a show with loud music and lots of people and in my favorite clothes: corduroys, a man shirt with buttons down the front, and hemp sandals that are falling apart. I cut my own hair and it looks like a robins nest, only darker. I dance however feels good to me, but I am very self aware.

I have been seventeen and alone. In a beautiful place, with wonderful people. I don't eat.

I have been eighteen and just trying to hold on.

I have been nineteen and in love.

I have been twenty-two and sitting in a doctor's office. They have asked me to pee in a cup, which is so gross. I'm waiting.
When the nurse walks in, she is so pretty. Her pregnant belly sticks out beautifully, covered in white scrubs with pink and green flowers on them. "It's positive,"she says.
I am shocked and immediately think of Joey. Is this ok?

I have been to the library. Ethan is fascinated with the tiny silver fish that swim in the aquarium. "Common buddy. Let's go pick out books."
"No! No! Fish! Fish!" I think everyone is watching me, even if they try to fake it. So I fake it and confidently swoop him up. "We'll look at the fishies later."

I have been twenty four and worried about my sudden onslaught of acne after getting through puberty so gracefully. What's with that?

Tolit paper, please.

I was on the pot and there was no toilet paper left. Just that useless brown roll with tiny shreds of the white necessity remaining. It was just me and Ethan and this was not a "drip-dry" scenario. Instead of waddling with my pants around my ankles, feeling tiny drops of pee hit my thighs, to the closet to get a new role, I smile at Ethan, who is waiting for me.
"Hi," I say to him.
"Hi."
"Wanna help Mama?"
He smiles.
"Go into the other bathroom (I point out the door) and get Mama some toilet paper (I tap the empty roll three or four times). Toilet paper, you know? It's under the sink (I hit the cupboard door). Under the sink."
He runs out of the bathroom, and I wait, pretty sure he'll forget what he was after halfway into the first hall.
He returns, holding a tiny corner of a piece of toilet paper. He smiles so proudly. I am so proud too!
"Good job, Ethan! Good job bringing Mama toilet paper!" I stick it between my legs and let it fall into the pot so he thinks I used it. He watches me the whole time.
"Can you bring Mama more? More toilet paper?"
He runs away again.
This time I am way more optimistic. I hope he can get enough to get the job done. Who cares if he didn't get the under the sink part. What he's doing is working just fine. I wait patiently.
Pretty soon he rounds the corner holding the end a long piece of toilet paper out to me. I say long because I can't see the end of it. It trails him like a skinny robe. I laugh and take what I need.
After I pull up my pants and thank Ethan about five times I follow the toilet paper trail all the way back to the second bathroom.

He's growing up. Last week he wouldn't have done this.
I couldn't be prouder. Also this just proves, once again, I need him just as much as he needs me.