If only I could know everything . . .

The hardest part of being a mom, besides getting no sleep, having all your personal things broken by small hands, not actually being the one in charge, cooking, cleaning, wiping poop, not going where you want to go when you want go, ignoring temper tantrums, and wearing ugly clothes because you haven't done the laundry in a week, . . . is not knowing what is wrong with your child.

My poor Noah has never been a great sleeper, but I had kind of hoped that when he started eating solids that his belly would get more full and he would sleep better.  Oh man, that is just about as NOT true and motherhood being easy.  He has just gotten worse.  Still up three or so times a night, but now he wakes up crying so sad or straining and grunting and crying or screeching.  No clue why.  And there are just so many variables that there seems to be no way of figuring out what is causing his distress.  Something he ate.  Something I ate.  His medicine for reflux.  Pooping too much.  Pooping too little.  Too hot. Too cold.  If I just knew what was wrong, then I could try to fix it.  But without knowing, we try to change different things, and then guess what may or may not have caused him to only be up twice at night or what made him cry for half the night.

Other things I wish I knew that would make motherhood much easier: how to stop a three year old from pooping in his underwear, how to get 5 loads of laundry through the washer, dryer, folded and put away all in one day, how to get dinner ready while nursing a baby, and how find clothes that fit the thirty three different sizes your body goes through between pregnancy and weaning the baby.

But other than that (and the other ten pages of things I wish I knew that I can't type right now because I've got one boy coming down the stairs with his pants around his ankles and the other one crying in his crib)- I am pretty close to knowing everything.