Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

"Thy Nativity, O Christ, our God, Has shown to the world the light of wisdom. For by it those who worshipped the stars, Were taught by a star to adore Thee, The Sun of Righteousness; And to know Thee, the Orient from on high. O Lord, glory to Thee."
-Troparion of the Nativity

 A blessed Christmas to all those celebrate, especially for those Christians in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. 

I am also 36 weeks today, and so the countdown to baby Solomon continues! Yes, we've decided on a name for the little one. 

 

Back again (hopefully for good)!

Hello out there! (if there's anyone still reading)

I know that I keep doing this, but I really do miss blogging and the little informal community that developed out of it. Can I keep updating regularly this time? I'm going to give it one more try!

So, what's new with me you might ask? Layla is finally getting a sibling, who should be born in mid to late January, and documenting the end of my pregnancy as well as birth and the early days of his life is a big motivator for starting this again.

In that vein, expect a lot of posts on pregnancy exercise, midwifery, and how to take care of baby on a student budget. I am also finishing my MA in Biblical Studies this year, so there will be a fair amount of posts related to my studies as well.

With all that said, here is a picture of me yesterday, at 30 weeks with baby number two:

Here's to staying in touch!

The Pacifier Queen. . .

A pic from the same trip as the sleepless wedding

I definitely didn't plan to have a daughter who still uses a pacifier at almost 3. In fact, I didn't want to give her a pacifier at all.

Basically the problem started when she wanted to nurse literally almost every 30 min. all night long, and I couldn't get any sleep. The pacifier bought me at least a couple hours of sleep at a time, which made the difference for me in those early months.

Over the months, it became something we used to allow my husband to put Layla to bed and a convenience for me at night and in the car.

I realized how severely addicted she was to the thing when I took her to a Somali friend's wedding in Dec. 2008. She was a little over a year old at the time. I forgot the pacifier at the family's house, so she went without it until 5 am. Somali weddings are very late affairs! She would normally go to sleep around 9pm, but on this night, she literally stayed awake until 5am. I tried nursing her to sleep in one of the girls' rooms at the hotel. It didn't work. I tried walking with her in the Moby wrap, it didn't work. I tried getting her to suck her thumb, it didn't work. She didn't cry much that night as long as I held her, she just wouldn't go to sleep.

We've tried taking the paci away a few times. All of them resulted in her being awake way past her bedtime and me eventually giving up.

Fast forward to today: I bought Layla a Dora comforter for a birthday gift to give her next week. We planned to give it to her and have her trade the pacifier for it. We started talking to her about it tonight to start preparing her mind. She immediately ran upstairs and said, "I want to throw my binky away, I want a Dora blanket." I couldn't convince her otherwise, so I decided to do the switch tonight.
I think the husband wanted to wait until last week to do the switch, so I'm not sure he'll be a lot of help during the night.

So far its 1hr past the time I put her to bed, and she is still awake. She has gone to the bathroom once and asked for cuddles and water twice. She also asked to nurse even though she has been weaned for a few months now. There wasn't any milk, so that didn't last long :-)

Pray that I at least get a little sleep tonight!

At least I don't have anywhere to be early tomorrow morning.

Speak Babylonian?

I saw an article on BBC today about a new online poetry archive that is bringing ancient Babylonian writings to the public. The language is known in academia as Akkadian, and it ceased to be a living language about 2000 years ago. As a student of Hebrew and Arabic, related Semitic languages, this was obviously of huge interest to me. The article also links to the archive of the poetry, and if you speak Arabic or Hebrew you will recognize some of the words and forms.

The Professor in the interview about the archive has also released a book designed to a person to teach himself Akkadian. I might pick this up since I'll eventually study other Semitic languages if I go on to Ph.D. studies someday.

The product has only been released in the U.K. so far, but it will be out worldwide sometime soon.
Complete Babylonian: A Teach Yourself Guide


For some reason, I just love learning dead languages!

A real Interfaith Moment

A friend posted this on Facebook and I just had to share. In my opinion, this is how all Christians should be living out the teachings of Jesus. The saying "love your neighbor" comes from the story of the Good Samaritan.

25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

26"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

27He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'[c]; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[d]"

28"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

30In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

36"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

37The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

-Luke 10:25-37

Pray for Pakistan

As you are praying today, don't forget about the whole country of Pakistan, which has been devastated by monsoon flooding. I read today that close to 900,000 homes have been destroyed, which means that millions are now homeless. About 1/5 of the entire country is currently flooded.

This means that there will be huge risks of waterborne disease, as well as people lacking food, clothing and other basic necessities.

I'll let you guys know if I see any links for organizations that are going over there to help. In the meantime, send your dua's. They need it!

Travel, moving, and Friends, Oh my!

Hello everyone! I feel like it's been entirely too long since I posted. There have been a lot of things in the news and such that I've wanted to comment upon, but I've just been too preoccupied as of late.

The trip to Minnesota went great. Even though we didn't have the cord to the mini DVD player for the car, Layla was awesome and behaved almost perfectly for those long days of driving. It was 28 hrs. each way. We took 2 days to drive on the way there, and 2 and 1/2 on the way back.

Layla got a lot of time with her grandma, aunt, and uncle. We also got to hang with old friends, walk around near where we used to live, and eat a lot of yummy food. I definitely got my Somali fix while we were there!

I got to visit my friend Idil who moved to Grand Forks, ND and hang out with her and the family for a few days. Her sweet brother Abdisalaan offered to drive 5hrs to Minneapolis to pick us up! Her son is the little boy Layla is throwing rocks with in the picture. Their family basically adopted me quite a few years ago.


There was so much scenery on the drive there and back, but the drive is brutal. You lose your appreciation for beauty once you're in the car for a few hrs.

Once we got back, we had one day to relax before we had to start moving to our new place. It took 3 days to move, but now we're living in the best possible place for us and Layla too.

We are living in family housing townhomes for the school that I will be attending in the fall for my MA program. There are tons of  kids near Layla's age, and the houses have a fenced courtyard in the center where kids can play. It has been really easy to meet people and start making friends. I will also be able to walk to my classes, and it will be super easy to find babysitters on campus to watch Layla.

We have a week or so to relax now, then my parents and brother are coming to visit!