Month: January 2026

Sometimes, it is very easy to change my daughter’s diaper. Sometimes, I have to pin her down on the ground with both of my legs, semi-sitting on her face while I change her diaper against her writhing legs and midst her wild wails. Sometimes, it is quick and I am finished within thirty seconds. Other times, I am gagging and crying as I avoid as best possible smelling the horrendous sludge that is somehow everywhere at once and seems endless for the first few baby wipes… and she sometimes decides to put her hand or foot in those, too…

And, on rare occasions – very rare ones – I don’t have to be the one to change the diaper at all, and it gets changed by someone else. But usually not. Usually, even if someone else is around and I think that someone’s or those someones would change her diaper, I find out after they leave that she is still wearing the same diaper I put on her before they came to watch her, and now she probably has a slight rash.

Ugh.

Sometimes, people suck.

But I like my baby. Even though she keeps pulling my hair as I write this.

Post-a-day 2025

Sometimes, you think that even a late bedtime will give you enough sleep to function tomorrow for a semi-early start, but then you choose family time over going right to bed, and so have wholesome time you rarely get together as a family, but then practically guarantee that church will be hard the next morning with just yourself and the baby on not-enough sleep.

Or am I the only one on that one…?

Goodnight…

Post-a-day 2026

P.S. A small plane seems to be circling our house right now. For once, I know it isn’t my husband, because he is currently in the shower in the bathroom right next to me. However, it raises the questions of who on earth is circling in the first place, let alone at one in the morning?

P.P.S. This circling is, in fact, perfect circling, most likely provided by the autopilot including in police airplanes, because it is, in fact, a police airplane. Yes, we looked it up and discussed it once he got out of the shower. Haha

Today, I got myself back on track with doing my kakizome 書き初め by having family over to do it all together. I ended up using the same phrase as last year, as it felt like it hadn’t been fulfilled enough, so to speak – the work hadn’t been completed yet. Given that I never wrote it last year, and just had it with my bedtime routine stuff on my phone, this felt all the more fair to use it a second year in a row.

Though, it was already a challenge this past year. I’m hoping that my slowly adjusting mindset will help me to do even better by it this year.

My kakizome this year is 生やす hayasu, which means “to cultivate, to grow”.

Funnily, my brother and his wife had their baby do one for herself. My brother held her in the air across the table while she had her hands on the brush that my sister-in-law held over the paper and used to write. My niece’s kakizome for this year? (Keep in mind that she is not yet six months old.) たべる taberu, “to eat”.

My baby was passed out on her personal rug on the floor, and didn’t feel like we should wake her, so she didn’t end up doing one this year. Maybe next year, and she can actually pick one for herself then. That would be quite cool(!).

Post-a-day 2026

I struggled today. I want to be a good Mom and a good Wife and a good Catholic, and I want to take good care of myself. I felt like I did a very poor job of all of them today, only barely touching the surface of any single aspect. I didn’t make it to Mass, I didn’t eat enough at reasonable intervals, I didn’t drink enough water, I’m exhausted, my baby fussed a lot and I fooled around on my phone instead of picking her up right away each time. I didn’t get up to watch the first sunrise of the year. I didn’t do any of the laundry.

But my husband surprised me this evening. He called me after he finished work, just to check in, and we actually got to talk for about 20 minutes. He reminded me that God knows my heart and my struggles, and that He doesn’t blame me for not being better at everything right now. My husband also reminded me that I am doing a good job taking care of our daughter. He also said that it’s okay for me still to have high standards, but that it’s also okay – and somewhat necessary – for me to have lowered expectations for right now.

But he also reminded me that I’m doing better than I think. He forgot his lunch at home today, though he did remember his coffee. But I’m the one who makes sure that he has a lunch ready every day, and I’ve started prepping fresh coffee for him to take each morning, too. I keep his clothes clean, if not folded. Same with the baby’s clothes. She always has clean diapers and wipes at the ready, and her clothes always fit. And she is clean, too, and very happy and healthy. Even if she does cry a lot in the evenings when I’m trying to get ready for bed.

Anyway, it was really sweet of my husband to reassure and encourage me today, and to talk with me for so long, just to spend some time with me. I’ve been so lonely these past several months, and everything has been so much harder being mostly on my own for it all. And he knows that, and he did a great job in supporting me how I needed it today. It may sound silly, but that 20 minutes made all the difference.

Thank you, God, for my husband and for his love. Please, keep him and me and our baby safe and well. Thank you for our lives and our home. Help us to do your will happily. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2026

(Happy New Year!!)

It’s weird, sometimes, living in a part of town that is full of Mexicans. The cultural disregard for the law is baffling at times. At holiday times, especially so. Tonight, hours before midnight, there were large fireworks going off all around us. No, not the legal kind, though those were also being used. Come midnight, we have borderline professional level fireworks displays in three directions, all fully visible from our backyard, no more than a few blocks away for any one of them. I’m pretty sure we aren’t even allowed to sit this close to legal firework displays at events like July Fourth and such. So, yeah. A bit wild.

Oh, and fireworks are still going off. Big ones. Not the biggest ones, but still very much the not-legal ones. And it’s 1:22 in the morning. Totally different world here.

Post-a-day 2025