the miracle of prayer

last night was particularly bad. i was having the mother of all fevers at 39 degrees and pretty much useless. my bones were chilled and frozen and i moved my feverish self out to the sofa to sleep and thaw. maeve woke every 2 hours, i guess because in place of mommy, she found a bolster next to her ( i was hoping she wouldn't notice). she shrieked and cried and kept calling for milk (even with an anguished "please"--her version is "bee-eh"). i just hoped dear hubby could manage her as i tried to ignore her cries. in desperation, he prayed over her in tongues and hey presto! she was asleep in 10 sec! If i'd known that worked so much better, i'd have asked hubby to do so every time maeve woke through her 1st year!

mortality

Today I am thinking about mortality. I just read a stranger's blog last night that was dedicated to her baby girl that lived for 3 days, and her other 2 babies that were still born. as i read, i wept into the keyboard, large salty tears that will probably corrode the keyboard. No mother should ever need to bury their babies. it is an act against nature, a complete reversal of nature and the pain i felt for that mother was profound and deep. While i haven't been on that road, i've walked a few steps on that painful road. The steps that made me wrestle with God each time i wasn't pregnant, cry in fear when i had to stick yet another needle daily in my tummy, collapse in grief when yet another fertility treatment failed. I've also thought about the little embryos that accompanied Maeve. where are they now? were they my unborn children? are they in heaven? or are they just cells? the un-children? I also thought about that time, years ago where i was so sure i was pregnant but later bled so badly all over a friend's polished parquette and refusing to look at the huge clots that clogged the toilet bowl later, afraid of what i might have seen. Did i lose her or him that day? And i look at maeve, grinning at me, banging around the house, practising her newly-acquired walking skills, smug as a bug. i reach out and hold her, breathe into the baby scent as she twists and worms around, a bid for freedom.All my love, for her.

And we all fall down

The trouble with having an affectionate baby is inheriting all the germs while being kissed. maeve absolutely loves kissing me (and I her), but because of this great display of love, i've also come down with conjunctivitis. While she gets a red eye for a day, i get it for 3 days and counting and its so bad i have closed my windows as light hurts my eyes. the little darlin is wondering why mummy seems to be crying all the time. she looks concerned, worried, and tries to kiss me more to offer some comfort. She is thankfully recovered (i hope) from her upper respiratory infection. She had a fever (really scarily high) for 5 days and finally today, didn't break out into a fever. i hope this means she is on the mend. i am just nursing her like crazy in the belief that it will provide her with strong antibodies to counter all germs.Don't know if that works, but a mother's got to do what a mother's got to do.I just thank God that her fever diudn't affect her sense of mischief or her dodged attempt to practice walking. Maeve is walking much more now, although she looks like a drunken sailor when she does that. Her grandparents dash after her each time, so afraid she'll fall, and I dash after them, so afraid THEY'LL fall. And so the merry-go-round continues!

why God made little girls

A little girl gave a beautifully wrapped box to her father. her father opened it and found it empty.
father: don't you know that when you give a gift, you have to put something inside?
girl: daddy, it's not empty! i blew lots of kisses into it!

when the day doesn't go well and adults make me mad, all i have to do is play with my little girl, who will invariably shower me with plenty of squeezy hugs and big wet kisses. that makes everything go away and puts a rainbow in my path, a skip in my walk and a song in my heart. and that's why God made little girls.