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I have seen lately the fragility of life.  Not just the bodily life, although I did experience that in the last weeks as well.  But life as an institution, life as an existence, life as a path, a road to be traveled.  I consider myself privileged to have a God who loves me as I am, a husband who isn’t far behind, and a daughter who looked at me today and said, “My mommy … I kiss you,” and a dog that loves to be scratched and petted and really could probably live on love alone.  I have a job that I love, that daily helps me fulfill my mission for God, and am surrounded by those who love and serve the Lord.  I am abundantly blessed and sure, I work hard at it (sometimes harder than others, but always working) but in the end, the Father has laid before me a feast of abundant joy and hope, not just here but in eternity.  But around me, I see the fallenness of man.

So often it makes me long for it to be over – not this life, but this brokenness.  But we carry on, don’t we?  We keep marching on.  We make ourselves numb to what’s going on around us, because this is the only way we can cope – it is the only way our ravaged hearts can keep beating without weeping.  We make ourselves think it’s just not that bad, that we  just have to live with it.  The numbness is better than feeling the pain, so we accept it.  Because if we feel too much, it might hurt.  Or if we’re hurting others, we make ourselves numb to their pain, because if we feel their pain, we might not do what we want to anymore.  The fight between pain and numbness is never ending.

And I wonder why I’m one of the lucky ones, who doesn’t have to be in the fight.

Everlasting

Apparently this is standard now, 2 weeks between posts.  Guess that means I’m keeping myself plenty busy.

Quick updates:

*Half-marathon training going very well … am really starting to love the running feeling, although the weather has helped with that, too.  Not-90 helps that a lot.  Did 10 miles yesterday morning and it took 1:54:50 which puts me at around 11:30 a mile, which is well below my 12 minute mile mark for the actual half.  I hope it keeps going that well!

*School is freakishly busy but I love coming home at the end of the day knowing that I did a good day’s work.  Note that I didn’t say that I did a good job, just a good day’s work.  More often than not, I can always think of something I could have done better, think of a situation where I should have paused, asked God for guidance, and then proceeded, but in the end, I do hope that the kids are being changed for the glory of God.  And if they are … then I’ve done my job.

*Last night JJ and I had a date night – first in about 3 months.  The good news is, we take advantage of everything and every second we have, when we have those nights.  It was a fun night, good conversation, and these always help our marriage feel refreshed and realigned.  And that’s a good thing.

*Finally, this weekend, I have to admit I fell madly in love … with my daughter.  Something about the person she is becoming has just totally stolen my entire being.  So this is for her.

Dear Natalie,

You’re talking a lot these days.  Mommy has to admit that I don’t always know what you’re saying or what you’re even talking about but you’re getting so good at communicating concepts that about half of the time I can figure it out, and I think that makes you happy.

You have your own personality now: you’re headstrong, sweet, funny and you love to randomly run up and give mommy and daddy hugs and kisses.  So far you’re not very good at sharing mom and dad, but we can understand that.  You’ve recently started to ask for “menow” in your hair (translation: my bow) and I’m always happy to oblige.  Then you always want to run to the mirror to see “ppeee aaaaaare” (translation: pretty hair).  There’s a little girl in there, but it’s the same little girl that says, “Momma!  Kick! Ball!” and then screeches with glee when the ball moves, the same little girl that says she wants to go outside over and over, and the same little girl that would rather run around with the little boys than sit and play with dolls.  You are mommy’s girl all over.

I just want you to know that I love you lots.  I thank Jesus every single minute for you and through you I can see God’s love better.  I don’t know how God could have given up his Son for us … He must have loved us so very very much.  I hope to tell you that story some day, so that you understand how our hearts can be full of love for you!

Love,

Mommy.

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

Come to newhope church THIS Sunday, March 15.  8:45 a.m. or 10 :30 a.m.  You won’t be sorry.

That is all.

Top 5 Cont’d

Yeah so the busy-ness kind of caught up with me and the whole 1-a-day thing. I’m going to post the rest now so that I don’t get caught again.

(4) My husband cleans because he knows it will make me happy. In fact, if I’m totally honest, JJ does probably at LEAST 60% of the housework around here. He does all the laundry. ALL of it. I think the last time I did a load of laundry from start to finish was right after Christmas. He also does all of the dishes. I hate doing dishes, so I cook, he does dishes. And the amazing thing is he HATES to clean. He only does it for me. Amazing.

(3) He asks every night if I want a glass of water. For the longest time I found this the slightest bit annoying because I never finished the glass. But what it comes down to is that he always wants a glass of water because he gets thirsty right before bed and what shows me he loves me is he thinks of me.

(2) He lets me drive. I get motion sickness when I ride in other people’s cars for very long so even though he usually wants to drive he lets me do it.

(1) He is God’s gift to me. Unconditional love and sacrifice. Enough said.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Christmas Dare #2

I had 2 students bring in gifts today for our dare from yesterday.   Hooray for them for listening!

Today’s lesson was on loving others.  Jesus tells us to love everyone – even people that we don’t like!  This is an especially hard concept for the kids to grasp because the idea kind of goes that if someone is mean to me, then I don’t want to play with him anymore.  Or if someone is mean to one of my friends, I don’t want that person to play with us.  Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek.

Do something extra-nice for someone that you don’t like today.  It can be as simple as opening the door for him or her, or maybe smiling.  Say something nice to that person.  Instead of pushing him or her out of the way to get in line, let him or her go first.  And then keep doing something nice for that person, once a day, every day, for the rest of this week.  You might be surprised what could happen from a few nice things!

I dare you.  I double dog dare you.

Breakfast Cake

This is really random but I’ve been thinking about making a multi-layer cake made out of pancakes.  Has anyone ever tried this?  My thought was to make raspberry filling and chocolate ganache and put that between pancakes to have a super-light, super-fluffy cake, but I’m afraide the pancakes might collapse under the weight of the chocolate and I’m not sure they’d be sweet enough either.  It was totally going to be an experiment, a weekend project that may or may not have worked, but if anyone has already done this I might save myself a lot of effort and time if it’s a for-sure failure.

Back to life, back to reality

Well it actually happened.  Yesterday was the first day of school so at 7:30 I dropped Natalie off in the nursery, she looked worried, I rolled a ball and she grabbed the ball, smiled, and I hightailed it out of there.  I’m pooped.  I had forgotten that it takes this much energy and I can’t believe that I even did this while I was pregnant.  Good gracious.  The last couple of days have been really good, just full.  We don’t do anything like music or art the first week of school so the kids are with me all day, which is good for establishing a foundation for the rest of the year, but bad for how tired I get!

Natalie is growing like a weed – she now has 4 teeth on the top and two on the bottom.

Hey baby girl,

Last week you had your 9 month check up.  It was a little early because all the bigger boys and girls had to have physicals for school and your doctor was all booked up.  You were 19 pounds and 14 ounces, and in the 70% for weight.  You were in the 80% for head size and 60% for height.  In other words, you seem to be perfectly healthy.

You crawl like a champ and you like to pull yourself up and stand.  You also like to climb.  The other night mommy put you at the bottom of the stairs and you climbed all the way to the top!  My big girl!  You also like to share your toys with the dog and while this is really generous, it’s confusing the dog.  Mommy is still trying to come up with a good way to teach you not to do that.

You still go to mommy’s school and every day Miss Dawn and Miss Michele take care of you.  Your favorite babies in the nursery are Jonathan, who’s a month older than you, and AJ and Bella, who are a year older than you.  One of your favorite things to play is to bang on things like a drum.  I think your daddy taught you to bang on things like drums.  It’s pretty funny.

One of the new things we’re trying is “real” food.  So far we’ve tried pasta, blueberries, apples, bananas and rice.  You seem to like them all and you’re willing to eat just about anything.  I think your favorite is blueberries, though, because when you chew them, you smile.

Over the summer we went to the pool almost every day and you splashed and chased toys around the pool.  You even went under and had fun doing that … kind of.  Mommy hopes that one day we can go swimming together and that you’ll like swimming as much as mommy does.  You definitely like swimming so far, every time we get in the water you giggle and smile.

You are the happiest, sunshiniest baby we could ever ask for and mommy and daddy hope and pray that God keeps protecting you and loving you and helping us be the best mommy and daddy that we can.

We love our little girl,

Mommy and Daddy

Killing me softly

I go back to work this Monday.  I’ve spent 8 blissful weeks with my fantastic daughter and I have to go back to work full time and I have learned a few things in this world of parenting, some that I knew before and some that are totally new.  Let me preface by saying that these are merely my own observations of myself so they may or may not be accurate to a third party.  But that being said, what did I learn?

1. I don’t like it when other people watch my kid.  It’s not even that I don’t trust them – I often ask the ladies in the daycare whether they think Natalie’s rash is diaper or more serious, tips on how to get her to sleep, when to start solids etc.  I’m aware that I’m a first time mom.  I’m just very … protective of my time with my daughter.  I can never get enough and I don’t like sharing.  I knew this the first day I dropped my tiny 7-week-old off at daycare and spent the day counting minutes to my break when I got to see her again.

2. Schedule schedule schedule.  Natalie was on pretty much the same schedule all summer – up around 7 or 7:30, bottle, nap at 9, up at 9:30 or so, lunch around 11, nap around 12, up around 2 or 2:15, afternoon meal at 3, dinner at 6:45ish, bath at 7:15, prayers, and in bed by 7:30.  This made for a sunshiney baby and nice quiet nights.  We traveled all of last week and her schedule was thrown off by plane rides, car rides, nights in hotels and strange (to her) houses, weird feeding schedules and naps in moving vehicles.  The last two days have been hellish trying to get her to sleep and be cheerful and not be so clingy because she can’t recognize everything yet so I don’t even know that she knows she’s home.  Tomorrow and Friday we’re going nowhere that can interrupt her schedule so that she can get back online.

3. They can talk!  I have been working all summer trying to get Natalie to say “Hi, dada.”  And she can!  Only, the remote control is ‘dada’ and the dog is ‘dada’ and the pillow is ‘dada’ and so on.  But today when JJ came home and I said, “Say, hi dada!” she actually did.  Of course, she then turned around and said “Hi, dada” to the rattle on the floor.  Take it as you will.

4. Diapers aren’t as bad as I originally thought.  Moving on …

5. I’m glad that my dog and my kid get along.  It would be difficult if they didn’t.

6. My husband is a fantastic father – made even better by the fact that it doesn’t really come naturally to him so he works really hard at it.

7. I have a water bug for a child.  And I’m so proud!

Lower lip

Lower lip

Originally uploaded by nattysparents07

Along with her 2 teeth Natalie has developed a new facial expression. I think it might have more to do with the teeth than anything else. This one makes her look worried because she was trying to decide if she wanted to grab the camera out of mommy’s hands or not. At any rate, she’s reached an age which is way fun. She screams with glee when daddy gets home and gurgles and squeals when she sees Roxy in the morning (Roxy’s always first into her room). It’s totally fun.

So far this summer we have played and played and played. Last week we went to the pool every day and it really wears her out. She splashes and follows toys around the pool. She goes under and comes up with her eyes open wide. I love this staying-home-mom thing. Starting Monday I’m working at summer camp for a week, so it’ll make me appreciate this summer off so much more but it’s been way fun. Plus, my house is clean and I have time to cook!

Mommy dearest

My first Mother’s Day (which I know was last Sunday but I been busy!) was as lovely as a mom could have wanted.  JJ and I had long agreed that trying to go out to eat on Sunday was going to be hard because of UNC Graduation and all of the other moms going out on Sunday so we had always planned to go out on Saturday evening.  My good friend, Judy, and her family watched Natalie while JJ took me to Maggiano’s, one of my favorite restaurants.  While we were there I got a beautiful necklace that I’ve been wanting ever since I knew I was pregnant.  It’s not this exact one, but it’s close.  Then we went back to get Natalie and had a great time with Judy and her husband, just talking and hanging out.  Larry let each of us try a new wine that his company has just come out with and it was really really good.  I’m a big fan of rosee wines I must say.

Sunday morning I got a bagel from Breugger’s as a special breakfast and the offer of time off to get a pedicure.  Poor Natalie came down with a fever of 102 right after church so I spent all day being a mom on Mother’s Day.  Which was perfectly okay with me.  Turned out she had an ear infection that had gotten into her throat so her throat was sore and her ears hurt.  It was bad.  She screamed.  We didn’t sleep much.  But she’s mostly all better now.

It’s funny, I don’t know if it’s that I adjust to new routine well, or I predict things well, or the cute little smile makes things all better, but I feel as though becoming a mom has come quite naturally to me.  I don’t mean that to sound boastful, but what I mean is, at the end of the day with my daughter I’m tired just by virtue of the fact that I’ve been awake and doing stuff but not tired of being with my daughter.  Does that make any sense?  I could spend every day, all day, with her if I could.  Being a mom is exactly what I thought it was going to be, it’s exhausting, and wonderful, and fun, and gross (I am STILL trying to get used to those messy diapers – anyone know how to potty train a 6 month-old?) and I love it all.  One thing that I did not expect is how much the kid likes her baths.  I can’t wait to take her to the pool this summer.