I have four pounds of peanut butter on my desk.

Since Thomas was born, I've started to eat at the computer, where I spend my breakfast and lunch time trying to catch up on email or work on... stuff that I'm working on. I also eat a snack before bed every night. Breastfeeding has made my appetite go haywire. Between these three solo meals every day, I eat peanut butter almost once per day.

Matt doesn't eat at home much: dinner every night and then on the weekends. Pretty much every Saturday for the past couple of months we've had this conversation.

Matt says, "I'm going to get some lunch."

"Good idea."

After a long pause for rummaging, he says, "Where's the peanut butter?"

"Oh. Probably on my desk."

Last week Matt went shopping. I think he's trying to send me a message, because when he bought the peanut butter on the grocery list, he bought a jar that, at the least, is inconvenient to leave on the desk. It has that metal rim around the top inside. It's a daycare-sized tub of PB.

He's won this round. But I'm stubborn. I won't give up without a fight.

So far the Chambers' prayer book has 1 invitatory psalm, 3 rotating psalms, 1 regular and 1 lenten canticle, and 7 readings: one baptismal, one for Ash Wednesday/Lent, 2 for Lent/Holy Week, 1 for Holy Week/Triduum, 1 for Holy Saturday/Triduum, and 1 for Easter. Also the Magnificat, intercessions, Our Father, and conclusion.

By Easter I want to have done 2 more psalms, the Easter canticle, and at least 2 additional sets of readings for the Easter season.

I remember having a conversation with one of my Ph.D. student friends a couple of years ago about her advisor. She was having trouble getting in to meet with him.

"The problem is, he trusts me too much," I remember her saying. "He knows even if he doesn't have time to meet with me, he's sure I'll do everything well anyway."

Being, probably, a little more naive, I imagined basking in a similar degree of (merited) confidence, and it didn't seem like too hard of a problem. After all, she really does do everything well.

Now I feel like that's my difficulty. Not the confidence, although the silence from my committee, and, to some extent, from my loving family and friends is getting loud enough to hear with the dishwasher running (as it so often is).

No, the problem is doing everything well.

Is it because I'm a woman that I let my roles swallow me up, until I am emptied out from them all, and lost? Or do men feel this way?

I have paid for my place. I am emptied out with the cost of it. I will not give it up for any man. So the heroine says in Paladin of Souls. Yes. But I am no heroine, and nothing is coming in to fill me up again. In Paladin of Souls, it is the gods' grace that does so. I must be emptying myself out for the wrong place.

I don't think I even have time to find the right place for kenosis. But I do wonder if this is why Jesus' crucified body so often has a feminine aspect.

It's almost like Thomas has labels for his days. He has a secret calendar stashed in his playpen to give character to each day (and make Mamma's life fully unpredictable).

On that calendar, in the distinctive baby-script Thomas uses, Monday said: "Visitors. Cute." Tuesday said: "Sleep." Wednesday said, "No Sleep. Play With Mamma."

Today seems to be marked, "I'm Independent and Easygoing." I can only be grateful.