She is not dead, nor doth she sleep

Well ok, maybe some occasional sleep. It seems as though this is one of those times in the parent/ child relationship that feels like I am one of those Israelites walking in the desert for 40 years. And I have done my fair share of complaining. There are plenty of struggles right now. Lately the children have been conspiring (it seems) to see how many times they can wake me up in the night. I have had about 5 nights of sleep since Feb. where I was not ever awakened the entire night. Thankfully 4 of the have been in the last few weeks. More often it's around 3-4 times. I think the record was 8 or 9 (I lost count that night) and I actually started one day at 1:30 am because the children timed their needs in such a way that I never went back to sleep. Jonathon is doing pretty well lately with the exception of being a bit whiny and he had Lyme disease recently. James is having trouble showing affection. He thinks the way to love the baby is to stand,sit, lay on him, kick,hit or pound him, and on several occasion I have caught him strangling the child. I'm sure is doesn't make sense to read is, but if you were here you would realize that it all comes from a feeling of "I love you so much I don't know what to do." We are, as responsible parents doing everything we can to discourage this behavior. Jeff has hit the "get into everything" stage and seems to continue hie fixation with water. He has figured out how to hold his hand to the faucet and soak the entire bathroom. He plays in the kitchen sink frequently and I find myself using most of the dish towels every day to mop up his messes. I don't really understand why he is still doing this. I think we have made it pretty clear to him that it is not ok. He and Rachel seem to frequently wander away from the play area as well. We have caught them riding their trikes in the sanctuary!, playing in the wood shop, in the attic of the dinig hall, etc. They seem to go everywhere and despite my efforts to keep track of them every 5-10 minutes, they can get away pretty fast.

So, this is what's going on - not to mention some severe excema problems on my fingers that make it painful to type and the internet being down for a while. Hence the lack of posts and it will continue for a while I'm afraid.

I'll just say that I realize this isn't a perky post and if you have a minute, a word of encouragement from others would be nice. I am having a hard time. Perhaps sometime soon I can think of all the things that are going well and jot them down here as well. Then this won't seem so unbalanced.