Well, we had a wonderful trip to Maine, the kids traveled really well considering we drove straight through and it was so great to be up there and see everyone. We stayed at Nanny and "Great" Grampy's old house, since they have moved up to the "camp" at Greenwood Pond now. Mama and Daddy came to stay there too later in the week and Dan and his kids came on the weekend. I got to visit with Heather and Amy and they had a baby shower for Sara and I on Sunday. The weather was great the first few days we were there, then rainy and kind of yucky the end of the week. It is always so relaxing to be up there, in a strange way, even though I don't ever get enough sleep. I came home far more exhausted than I left and still feel like I haven't caught up yet, although I am starting to.

This baby, or rather, the birth of this baby is looming larger on my horizon everyday. I hadn't really had many episodes of contractions again until today, and some of them this evening were getting almost painful. I felt a lot of downward pressure today, too. I did get a lot done, though, which is probably why I was having more contractions tonight. Nate has gone to watch the Vikings play football at Jer's house. I watched as much TV as I could before getting completely disgusted with the filth that is on the airways, and now I am just playing online. I got a new shower curtain today on ebay, it's really cute, with pine cones on it. Grace is doing really well potty training, and I think I might put her in real underwear tommorow. She had some on for a few hours last night and only had one little accident. She's such a stinker, though, she won't usually pee for you on the potty until after you've given her the little M+M. She does really have a lot of control over it for her age, at least compared to the boys. I don't know when Ian will get it, he wants nothing to do with the potty. I think he just doesn't realize that he could have control over going. That will come someday, I hope. At least he is doing better emotionally, although the last two days he has been a little worse. Overall though, he is communicating better and I have every confidence he will catch up to where he is "supposed" to be soon.

I have to say, my heart so is not in my blog anymore. I just have no more desire to write, and it's funny because I used to gain so much from it. I wonder if that will change again after the baby is born. I am looking forward to meeting this child and to seeing how my labor will go this time, but to be perfectly honest, I am just not looking forward to too much after that. The thought of nursing again, changing so many more diapers, the constant care, the lack of sleep, I am really discouraged when I think about it all, and I know that is just awful. I am just tired, and I have been for a really long time, and there is no real rest in sight. I am thankful for my children everyday, but some days I really wonder if it is worth continuing to have more if there is so little left of myself to take care of the ones I have. I don't know. I think Nate is becoming a little more understanding and sympathetic as time goes by, and he is a great help when he is here, but he can't be here very often. Every year the "slow season" gets a little shorter, it seems. We both know that this is the job and the place where the Lord has him right now, and we are so very thankful for it, but I don't know if our family can sustain itself on it indefinitely. As the children get older, they only become more aware of his absence and more bothered by it, and need his presence more and more. I'm glad the Lord knows all this and that He has a plan.

I must apologize for my last post. I don't think I even thought anyone would read it, and I think I should have just written it to myself and then erased it if I really needed to get it out. But, now it's there, for all the world to see, a shining testament to my little emotional pregnancy pity party. It's a choice that I made, wrongly, to focus on the negative, instead of the positive, and I was convicted for it. This morning's Daily Bread led me to Ephesians 4:1-3 "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." I know that was for me today, and that I need to make a recommitment to do just that, to walk worthy of the vocation that I have been called, that of being a Godly wife and mother, and to live in lowliness and meekness, keeping peaceful unity. Thankyou so much to those of you who left the caring comments, they bolstered my spirits and were a blessing.

I know it has been forever since I have blogged. I have no excuses, but I don't feel it is necessarily an "obligation", more like an opportunity that I have been deciding lately not to take advantage of. I don't really have time to be doing it now, I am just frustrated and don't really have anyone to complain to.......not that I should be complaining, I just feel the need to get some things out.

I don't think this is necessarily the most gracious thing to think, or say, but it is the truth, and one that I am frustratingly aware of over and over and over and again tonight it has been emphasized. And here it is......it sucks for me to have to depend on my husband. I love him, he is wonderful when he is here, he is just dependably undependable.....only when it comes to me. If it has anything to do with work, you can bet your bottom dollar he is on top of it, the hardest working one there, the last to leave, the one to pick up the slack and go the extra mile. He's such a trooper. Unfortunately, I don't think it is possible for a person, at least not him, to be this way at work AND at home, and it has never been even a concious choice with him that work is what is most important.

We had a very good conversation the other night. I felt like it tore down some barriers that had crept up between us. He looked into my eyes and said he was sorry for some things, and that he really wanted to make a new commitment to leaving work to be home when he could and even that he was going to call me everyday to see how I was doing. He called one day, and as for him leaving when he can, I have no way of knowing. I only know that I so don't get moved anymore when he has the once or twice a year emotional breakthrough and promises to put his family first. I just don't believe it anymore. It is very tempting to think that things are really going to be different, but they aren't.

And yet, whether I want to believe he has upped his level of commitment to me, to us, or not, there are still times when I have to depend on him, to be home at a certain time, to do the occasional favor for me that I can't do myself, and almost invariably, he does not come through. And it is frustrating. Not only because it means I usually have to break a commitment on my end, but because I always WANT to believe him. I want to KNOW that I can trust him to be here when he says he will be, to remember things that he doesn't get paid to remember, and it would be nice to think that he even thinks of me once or twice a day. But, I don't know that, usually I know exactly the opposite, that he won't be here when I need him to be, that he won't remember the very infrequent times I have asked him to do something, that he won't think of me when he's not with me.

I don't think I am a demanding person. I think a reasonable assesment of the things I ask of him would reveal themselves to be definitely in the category of "not much at all." I don't ask that he be home for dinner every night, or even to help put the kids to bed. I don't ask to be taken out on dates, or to have some "me time" every now and again. I don't ask him to go shopping for me, or even to pick things up on his way home more than maybe once every two months or so. I don't ask him to help around the house very often, (although he certainly knows I am extremely thankful when he does.) But, several years ago, I made a commitment to be part of a ladies Bible study that meets once a week, and I can't bring my children to it. So that's one night a week that I ask he be home by 6:30. It has been over three years since I have been going to this, and yet every....single....week......, I have to ask him whether or not he will be home so I can go. And most of the time, he isn't home on time. Recently, our computer broke. He hasn't taken the time to see if he can fix it, but that is beside the point. I still have my laptop to be online when I need to be, but I can't print anything out. We are doing a childbirth class with some friends who are having their first baby. I have gathered some resources off the internet and emailed them to him at work to have him print off and bring home. And he forgets. After I have reminded him hours before I need them. It's just not important enough for him to remember.

I don't think these tendancies would bother me so much if they weren't solely directed at me. If he were like this at work, forgetting "important" commitments, not being on time, breaking his word, then I would completely understand him being the same way at home. But, when he is so dependable and honorable when it comes to anything for work, and it is only when it is ME that asks something of him that he doesn't come through, it's kind of hard not to take it personally.

It just pounds the message into my brain..

"You are not important to me."

"Your concerns mean nothing to me."

"My word is worthless only when I give it to you."

"You are not worth thinking about."

And that hurts.

And there's nothing I can do about it. Should I just completely cancel all obligations I have made? Should I just stop wanting to trust him, to depend on him? Or should I just stop caring? I don't really know what is the "right" thing here to do. Probably complaining about it isn't the right thing to do either, I just know I am going to explode if I don't get this off my chest. But you know what? I don't really feel better about anything now than I did before.....