She Laughs at the Days

"Mommy, when de baby is weady to be borned will it cwawl out of you?" I'm tucking Little in for the night. "No honey, I will need to push it out, and it will come out between my legs like this." I gesture appropriately. Her eyes get bigger, if that's even possible. "Oh! Why will it come out der?" "Well, because the baby is growing in my uterus and the way out of my uterus is through my vagina." "Oh. How will it come out?" "The baby's head will be down, like this," I show her where, "And then my uterus will start squeezing like this and pushing the baby down farther." My hand are now forming a pretend uterus, finger tips pointing downward to show where the cervix is. "When it squeezes down the opening, called a cervix, starts to spread wider and wider until it's big enough for the baby's head to fit through. Then I will need to push and the baby's head will come down out

You come to the playground with a Bible in your hand and read it while your son plays. You told me once that you like to say hi to people and tell them Jesus loves them as a witness to them. I have a better idea. How about you parent your child with a little bit of attention and compassion? Because he's making you look bad.  And you, by associating yourself with me through the word Christian are therefore making me and others who wear that label look bad. Not to mention what the people watching you must think of Jesus by now. No one wants their kids to play with yours. It has something to do with the way he daily yells at other children phrases such as, "You son of a b*tch." "You are a stupid f*cking b*tch." "Go to hell." "I hate you." "You don't matter, you aren't worth anything." We're on to you. Kids only repeat what they hear. He had to learn it from someone now, didn't he? And there's the part wher

Imagine kissing your kids goodbye, checking their backpacks and school uniforms, and sending them on their way to school. You watch and wave and they head off down the road. Only, you have almost 40 kids, and the road they walk 3-4 miles on, there and back, is a more like a secondary highway, with no shoulder, and no sidewalks, and this is Thailand where people drive, well, let's just say they believe that they are coming back again if they die and aren't as cautious as we in the west might think appropriate. Then imagine one of your kids gets sick in the middle of the night and needs to get to a hospital. Only, you have no car that can take them. Instead you have to hire a truck and a driver to take you there, and back again later. This eats into your already very limited resources for basic things like food and water, not to mention medical bills. Now imagine that one day one of your kids, on that road walking to school, is hit by a person on a motorcycle and has a brok

We had a routine once, and it's still there. At least, the bones remain. Things still get done but there are gaps where once there was more. It was maybe too full then, definitely too full now given my energy level, and it's good to let somethings fall right now. They can be picked up again later. But others I have lost and regret. As the fog of exhaustion clears for a moment I remember I used to pray more. I used to sing more. I didn't forget so often to do things that still need doing. I wrote more too. I need a new routine. Not what we had, but more than the bare bones we have now. I'm going to try this week to do that. I don't know how much I'll be here as a result.

I met with a nurse-midwife this week. (No, the insurance debacle is not fully sorted, but it is smoothing out somewhat.) It was so strange for me as to border on surreal. You see, every one of my prior pregnancies I have been in the care of a midwife, in the more traditional sense. Oh, we still had insurance to cover the unexpected, and there were unexpected things that called for it. But we were willing pay out of pocket to go above what our insurance would provide in order to see someone who really understood and had patience with what a woman's body does during childbirth. Did you know that a woman can go her entire pregnancy and labor without a single pelvic exam and nothing bad would happen? I did. Several pregnancies in fact. The first thing I was told upon entering the exam room this week was to remove all of my clothes in order to receive a complete physical, pelvic exam and pap smear. Um, no! I'm here for prenatal care and none of these things are necessary, or

She's screaming bloody murder because she wants a bowl of mush like the Boy has. She's already eaten spaghetti, and strawberries, and turned down the choice of chicken or more spaghetti. It is pure unadulterated covetousness. "I WANT WHAT HE'S HAVING!" He's eating porridge because he got an expander mostly installed today, and it hurt, and he cried, and it's still not all the way in, but they are hoping it will go the rest of the way by itself because it was too much to take out now. She doesn't understand the whys, she just wants what she sees her brother having. "My teef hurt too Mommy, I need some." She is tired. Past the place where correction is useful, or understood. It is time for mercy. So I gather her screaming body in my arms and take her to the bathroom where I brush her teeth, while she screams in outrage, and I carry her to bed. I rub her back and sing. Her sobs gradually subside into little hiccups, then slumber, and I th

Pregnant women need to sleep a lot. I sort of forgot how much until a few weeks ago. There isn't much time in the day after that, teaching my kids stuff, and getting work done for blogging, if I could get an idea out in a coherent fashion. So in the interest of having at least one new post up here this week, here is the bullet point version of the last several. I'm still working on IRS forms, but this is the very last stage, I hope. It got warm, my kids are swimming. The Boy gets his "robot face" today. Also known as an expander and head gear to his orthodontist. Perhaps his jaw will get bigger fast enough that we won't need to get braces alter to straighten all the teeth coming in. We got to see Hannah perform again last weekend and had dinner with her. It was really good. It also made us wish for more time with her. I am almost 26 weeks pregnant and have yet to have any kind prenatal care. I've been turned down by one subsidized insurance pla