For those of you who have expressed concern about my down-and-out-ness after my couple of previous posts, you need not worry too much. I am kind of doing better. Some of the time. But it does feel good to just be honest about feeling bad and not knowing what I think or believe about anything.

As I wrote about in my last blog, I am getting better at just not worrying about what other people think. Maybe posting crap blogs about how [messed] up I am helps. Who knows. I think it comes partially from having a second child, because when you have two children with you, life gets crazier. Anything can happen. You never have entire control of a situation because there are two other entire human beings involved, and disaster is always lurking. So you really just have to get over the nervousness you may feel about nursing in public, because if your baby is screaming its head off and your older child is refusing to go home from the park, really, what else can you do? You have to just get over worrying about people thinking you are an exhibitionist or old timers who may think that breastfeeding is bad. Whatever they are worried about is their issue. Same goes for your kid calling everything poopoo or farty at inoportune moments. She can't help it! Her mother is a self-proclaimed lover of fart jokes.

I am also less self-conscious about doing the whole diaper free baby thing, which may even be tied to Sophia's poop joke craze. If Iris needs to go poop, you can bet I will just excuse myself and take her to the toilet (and drape her chubby little body over the side of it) even if all my friends think I am weird. Why would I make her poop in her diaper (which I will have to then clean) if she wants to poop in the toilet, just so that people won't think I'm weird? Well, I won't anymore.

It was really good to be at this place of not really caring about the general public judging my mothering techniques while we were away on our trip, because disaster definitely did strike a couple of times. Like when Sophia somehow woke up in the middle of the night and threw a temper tantrum on our camping trip. My mother, father, sister, and we girls were sleeping in a giant tent together, and Sophia just started yelling and screaming in the middle of the night. Before long, our neighbor tent people were flashing their flashlights at us and the cops even drove by. We eventually had to put Sophia in the car and close the doors. What kind of mothering technique is that? [I would say, A+ technique.] She eventually fell asleep in her carseat. So you can imagine that this would make me feel embarrassed. But not nearly as embarrassed as it would have in a past life. Seriously, my kid is irrationally throwing a tantrum in the middle of the night. What am I supposed to do?

I am also having an easier time with just being honest about my issues with Christianity. Like the whole lingo thing. Come on. Be explicit with me. What do you mean when you say God told you to do xy and z? And what does "feeling close to God" mean? Tell me in normal language. The truth is that I can kind of understand those things, but I feel like Christians get away with so much when they say it in Christianese. And, please, do tell what passage of scripture you used to come up with your rule against [insert any activity in here, such as drinking, smoking, dancing, gambling, cussing, eating, swimming, sleeping, laughing, BMX bike riding, reading, you name it], and while you're at it, will you give me a second to come up with one that could be interpreted to say pretty much the exact opposite? Thanks, 'cause I will. Being honest about your issues with Christianity makes it a lot easier to be a Christian and not feel phony, which is an idea so obvious, that I wonder if I should just delete it. But I kind of think there are some people who haven't realized that yet. I just started reading The Brothers K, some book that the whole world but me has read and no, it is not The Brothers Karamozov, and the way the narrator kid talks about Jesus is amazing. It is helping me realize how inane so many of our little Christian mental games are.

On the other hand, I still really really do believe in Jesus and that he died was a human who died for my sins. I don't know why, and I am still dealing with the fact that I feel embarrassed about it, but I do. Maybe it's because my parents tricked me into believing it before I ever had any control of what to believe in. And maybe it just so happens to be the truest belief. Or not. I truthfully don't know. But I think I really believe it. And I really belive that Jesus loves us. As crazy as that is. I think there is a lot of stuff about us that he probably would get really pissed off about if he knew because we are so messed up, but I believe he loves us nonetheless. Now the hard part is figuring out what I think about everyone else who believes different things than I do. Maybe that blog will be forthcoming.