{1:34 am}

I am sleeping, soundly, when I hear a door open and shut and little feet pad across the floor.  A little blond girl is then standing next to my bed and not saying a word.  She is just staring at me, which totally freaks me out.  I ask her if she is okay (because I know the answer), she doesn't reply and just walks into the kitchen.  I follow her.  She doesn't speak. She just stands there.  I ask myself, is she sleep walking?  She bends down and makes her "sad face" (I really need a picture of it because it's pretty funny) and then I know that she's wide awake and just wants something but until she tells me what she wants, she is just out of luck.  I take her to the potty and send her back to bed, where she tells me that she would like milk.  Ugh.  I take her milk (which I normally NEVER do, it's water or nothing) and she has a few sips and hands the cup back to me.  I tell her no more milk in the middle of the night, only water.  She says, okay, and goes back to sleep.

{2:07 am}

I can't sleep.  I have been tossing and turning for twenty minutes or so while the husband and the dog snore and the hamster runs on his not-so-silent wheel. 
I think about Cameryn's birthday party and the decorations that I still need to make.  I think about her cake, should I make one or order it?  I think about the errands that I need to run on my lunch break (No silly hats and masks are involved, though yesterday I did put on some big clown glasses.).  I think about the cheesecake that I told Chris that I would make for him this weekend.  I think about babies and how I want one.  I think about the floor and how we really need to finish the grout so that I can actually wash it before the party.  I think about our vacation coming up, because dear god, I need a vacation.  I think about the candlesticks that I want to give a makeover and the pictures that still need to be hung.
I hear a door open and shut.  I hear little feet pad across the floor.  This time the little blond girl does not come into my room.
I lay quietly and ask myself, what she is doing?  Then I see a faint light come on.
Really?  She turned a light on?
I lay quietly for a minute or two, but I don't hear anything.
I'm starting to worry a little bit.
I get up and walk out of my bedroom.

My child has opened the refrigerator and is climbing the shelves.  There she is, standing on the bottom of the fridge, stretching, one foot about to climb the next shelf (the bottom drawer) and she is saying, "I just need to get... a little bit... higher."

"Cameryn!  What are you doing?!"

"You said no more milk, Mommy, I was getting water."

Today, I'll share with you the grainy, blurry and random photos from my cell phone.  Fun, huh? 

Notice the Christmas cards behind me?

There you have it, peeps.  The life and times of me and my phone.

It's been one of those weekends.  The kind that makes you want to hit the eject button and leave the room screaming. 

This weekend my child challenged every fiber in my body.  Saturday morning began like every other morning, except Cameryn's ears decided that they need to block out every single word that I was saying.  I had to stop, multiple times, get down directly in front of her face and tell her, slowly, exactly what I expected of her.  Sunday was much of the same.  By Sunday night I had had enough.  You know what I'm talking about, you've been there.

Cameryn didn't want to eat, unless it involved chocolate chip muffins.  She didn't want to nap.  She didn't want to do anything but cry until she got her way.  Each time, I carried her to her room and let her continue to have it out, with herself.  Because the child is smart.  She pushes the boundaries, every single time. 

Bedtime is a battle.  My husband and I have differing views on how bedtime should go.  I believe that a child should be tucked in, kissed goodnight, and go to sleep.  BY THEMSELF.   I don't want to lay in her bed while she falls asleep.  I don't allow her to sleep in my bed.  Cameryn is a manipluator.  She will walk to her room, get in to bed, and then suddenly she is hungry.  Starving, actually.   And my husband, who cannot let his baby girl go hungry, will allow her to come out of her room and get something to eat.  So now, every night when he is home, she is hungry a full two minutes after she lays down for bed.  Nevermind that she just had a snack thirty minutes ago, she is so hungry that she may actually have to eat Lola the stuffed elephant, because Lola is big.  I tell her to just go ahead and eat the elephant (she won't, she loves that stuffed elephant) but he won't let that happen because he must feed her starving belly! 

And then she starts with "Mommy, lay down with me for a couple whiles, puh-leeease?!"  (A couple whiles is what Cameryn refers to as 'a couple of minutes' or 'a little while.')  So I tuck her in, lay my head on the pillow for a split second and then tell her goodnight.  "Just three more minutes, Mommy, puh-leease?!"  I tell her no, leave the room and not two minutes later, she walks out of her room, "Mommy, I don't want to lay down by myself.  Puh-leeease."  I tell her to get back into bed, where she cries.  Does my Mommy heart ache at the sound of her crying?  Sure, but after thirty minutes of crying, my mommy heart is no longer aching.  My head is. 

My husband is a SUCKER.  He goes in, every single night, and lays down with her until she falls asleep.  Last night she fell asleep, then woke up and only wanted me to lay down with her.  I won't do it.  I refuse.  So she cries.  My husband tells me that I am missing the point  (can anyone else find his point?! If you do figure it out, please tell me, you'll be my Tuesday hero), that she needs to go to bed and I need to lay down with her.  He takes the easy way out.  I won't.  I've been here and I've done this.  I was up with her every four hours, sometimes more, for 15 months of her life giving her breathing treatments thanks to RSV.  She was a crappy sleeper because so many nights I had to sleep with her in the chair and I went to work on 3 hours of sleep for weeks at a time.  I won't do it again.  I won't lay with her until she falls asleep.  I know that she is healthy.  She is not hungry (thanks to her bedtime snack).  She just needs to go to sleep.  She doesn't need us, she wants us.  I know this.  He knows this.   But somehow I am always the one who deals with it.

So we continue to battle it out at night, every night. We moved her bedtime up. We moved it back. We moved it up again. She has a fan in her room for white noise. She has two night lights. She has 5 gazillions animals on her bed that must be there every night.

I try to reason with her, but I forget that she is two, she's going to be manipulative and cry when things don't go her way. Cameryn is an intelligent child and her vocabulary is well beyond that of an almost three year old. She correctly uses words like dangerous and plenty. She talks about animals that most people have never heard of. Her ability to retain information is astounding and while I love this about her I also find it exhausting. I want her to learn everything that she can about the topics that strike her fancy. I want her to be curious, but cautious. I try to answer her many questions honestly with all the knowledge that I have. However, I forget sometimes that she is two, almost three, and that though her language is mature, her emotions are not. I forget that though she is in a big girl bed, she is not yet a big girl and still needs me sometimes.  I just wish it wasn't at 9pm when she should be sleeping and I should be enjoying my glass of wine.  Quietly.

We spent the weekend in Atlanta with my mom, brother, sister-in-law and niece.  We had a wonderful time!  We arrived Friday around 7pm and went to dinner where everyone ate and then proceeded to fall asleep at the table. Saturday we loaded everyone in my mom's car and headed to the Georgia Aquarium.  Cameryn and Quinn were running from one "big fish" to another.  Cameryn spent a lot of time in front of the Beluga Whale tank - they are such beautiful creatures!

Little Girl.  Big World.

Cool, crisp mornings make me crave big cable knit sweaters, warm cups of coffee, and the yummy scent of home baked goodies radiating from the kitchen.  I want to snuggle a little deeper under the covers.  I want to see the leaves change color and inhale the scent of the earth.  I want to plant mums and decorate pumpkins.  Drink hot apple cider.  I love the way that the light changes from a bright, bright sunny yellow to a silvery shine in the fall.  Light changes your perspective.  Fall makes me want 'feel' more.  Love more.  Be more.  Fall is teasing us today, it's too early for fall in SC, but I can feel it deep in my soul.  Waiting.  Wanting.




My best friend called me this morning on the way to work, like she does so many mornings during the week.  Our short phone calls are a great way to start the day before the chaos of work and everyday life takes over.  This morning she told me that she was laid off yesterday afternoon.  My immediate thought was, "How terrible!  What are you going to do?  Are you okay?  I am so sorry!  What do you want me to do?"  She, however, took a different approach.  She explained that she hadn't been happy in her position for some time, so it was a relief really.  She was at peace last night.  She said that today she is going to enjoy the silence of her home.  Enjoy a cup of coffee.  Watch the wind blow.  Take a nap.  Because she can.  

I loved her glass-half-full approach.  She could be focusing on everything that is bad right now - Job!  Insurance!  Kids!  Bills!  Trying to sell a house!  Instead, she's taking time to enjoy her life and enjoy the moments. 

I learned so much from her this morning in just a few short minutes.  I was reminded that God has his own journey for us, his own plan. Without it, we'd know his plan, and we would be a blank, boring slate.  Our faith would be non-existent because we wouldn't need it.  We cannot learn or grow without traveling through the journey, the tests, the trials, the tears.  The journey makes us who we are and our faith in Him defines the moments.