It’s 5am and I haven’t been able to get to sleep after Laura’s early morning feeding. It’s an unusual night since she has slept in her crib the whole night. Usually, she won’t sleep without me, so it’s odd that I can leave the bedroom to deal with my insomnia. I have a cold that makes it hard to breath.
I turn 35 yo today! I was probably just a few hours old by this time. I couldn’t go back to sleep because I was thinking about David having eye surgery yesterday. My mind was also racing about him, needs within our church community, and lots of other stuff.
Yesterday, I had a neat day. I went to Mom’s Group and got in a wonderful state of mind. We’re reading a book called Breath, Creating Space for God in a Hectic Life. It’s a call for busy mothers to slow down and focus on the important things in life. So that’s what I tried to do. I was headed to Fremont to Cold Stone Creamery to pick up my birthday cake (mint ice cream 
with Laura. I decided to try Postmark Gelato, a panini and creperie lunch spot. It’s a small storefront just behind the statue of Lenin. I settled in trialing Herb’s Club Panini. It was an interesting twist on a club, subbing pepperoni for bacon and using a chutney. The panini wasn’t very crisp and the cheese unmelted (it kinds seems the point of a panini). I was nursing Laura and enjoying the slowness of the day. Then I noticed something wet. She had blown out all over her clothes. So in a small space with no restroom and rain outside I changed her in her stroller. She smiled at me the whole time. We had just talked about how something as mundane and unpleasant as changing diapers can be a calling from God. I guess I got to put my learning into practice.
After that, I treated myself to a mint gelato (much better). They had a wide selection of flavors including rose. I walked around Fremont checking out some of the new restaurants. The Asteroid Cafe has moved to an odd space in a medical building. The Baguette Box, a place I traveled to Capitol Hill to trial, has moved into the store front next to Cold Stone Creamery. I walked along the water down by Adobe. Finally, as the rain drops got bigger, I picked up my cake and headed home.
Laura and I took a nap together until I got a phone message from work reminding me that my medical license was expiring on my birthday. Laura continued napping (another usual event) and I took the opportunity to do some rare office work. I started looking in my file but couldn’t find any documentation that I’d filled out my license. I called Wayne, checked Quicken and our check records, but no evidence of a payment. I looked through my overloaded inbox. I found a notice, but no record I’d paid for the renewal.
Now life started revving up. I started to put my lessons into practice. I called the Department of Health in Olympia and they had no record of payment. Obviously, this important detail had slipped past me in the haze of new baby and holiday visitors. I was given the name of a courier that would deliver the payment by the deadline of my birthday. I then woke a hungry baby to go to the post office to get a money order (never done that before). It was slightly surreal standing in a long line of tired people 10 minutes before the post office closed with Laura screaming filling out money orders and express mail forms. It makes it hard to concentrate. Still, I continued to breath and prayed everyone else would too.
It made for an exhausting evening. Wayne still has a cold, as do I, and comes home in the evenings very tired. We had leftovers (a blessing). We began the evenings work of two hungry, tired girls. Laura got fed and played with by her Daddy. We started Sara on an evening of potty training in underwear. Sara got a bath. Wayne felt nauseous from leaning over the tub, so I took over the hair washing. Sara let out such a blood curtling scream when I was rinsing her hair, my ears started ringing.
The triumph of the evening was Sara urinated in the toilet. She begged to be put in a diaper (her usual method of waste management) and I marched her to the toilet. I started reading a book and she went! For our new 3 year old this is a major accomplishment. She can’t actually advance to her new class in daycare until she is potty trained. She’s never actually gone in the toilet until this evening. Hard to potty train when she’s never taken that first step. Sara got fanfare, M&Ms, stickers, and the promise to acquire a new kitten toy from the toy store. We’ve been heaping up the promises over the weeks trying to find something that would motivate Sara to potty train.
Laura continued to fuss and I nursed her to sleep. I was approaching true fatigue. She seemed in a deep sleep and I moved her to her crib. Sara was finally asleep and I lay down on the floor to do some pilates exercises to sooth my back spasms from kid related duties. Then Laura started wailing only 5 minutes after I put her down. Laura got to join us for watching Heros. It was an edge-of-your seat episode. Laura was asleep enough that I could put her in her crib and she stayed. It was now 10pm and I had hands free for the first time all day. So I ran upstairs and put some photos on the blog so I could send out belated holiday greetings. Laura seemed to be sleeping so Wayne and I crept in to our bedroom to finally get some sleep. And I’m up again 4 hrs later.
So this is my state on my birthday. But I’m “breathing” and actually very happy. Joy comes from God and happiness comes from circumstances. I’m glad my state of contentment does not rely on circumstances. I think I’ll try to get some sleep now