Friendly Neighbor Gift

A very nice older lady who lives two doors down gave the BabyGirl a bag full of beanie babies. Apparently this lady was quite the beanie baby collector at one point, because she she said that she had already gotten rid of "most of them" before she remembered the BabyGirl, and was sad that she was only able to give us "the few that were left." We recently had instituted a strict NO MORE STUFFED ANIMALS policy, but who can say no to a nice old lady? Additionally, the BabyGirl loves them, so i think we'll be keeping up with them for a while. Thanks, friendly neighbor!

Big Girl Bed

Someone slept in her new bed last night!

And this is what her room looked like when we got her up in the morning:

Baby Mine

In the mom’s online discussion group that I’m a part of, my friend Emily shared a link to a post about “Your Children Want YOU!” It’s about being present instead of being pinterest. To be a mom who listens and loves. In the post, the author mentions her ritual of singing the song “Baby Mine” to her daughter every night. I thought, “Oh that’s so sweet! I love that song; I’ll sing it too.” I had to google the lyrics because I hadn’t heard it since I was 6 years old watching Dumbo. I couldn’t even read through the lyrics without bawling my eyes out. Oh dear, I thought, I’ll never be able to sing this song out loud if I can’t even read the lyrics silently!

At my next snuggle session with the BabyGirl, I decided to try it out. But I could only remember a line or two:

Rest your head close to my heart,

Never depart, baby of mine.

She said, “More,” so I sang it again. And again. And again. For several days, she would request, “Sing more Baby Mine,” and I would sing those two lines.

Those beautiful, timeless moments of snuggles and singing are what gives life to parenthood. At other times, however, things aren’t so well under our control. Being out of control leads to incapacitating Mom Worry.

At the BabyGirl’s 4 day check-up, the pediatrician found some concerning heart issues and sent us to the ER at Children’s for further testing. Well, the further testing was concerning too, so the ER visit turned into an ICU admission for a million-dollar cardiac workup. That night, after spending the entire day bouncing from doctor’s office to ER to ICU, we had to leave her there in the hospital. She was staying there alone, hooked up to wires and monitors. We were going home alone, without our bundle of joy.

We cried and prayed together and asked God to watch over her for us while we were away. I was terrified, that having endured the most grueling and traumatic birth of 90% of women I know, that I would lose her four days later.

Prior to having kids, I wasn’t too bothered by the cosmic questions of Why Do Things Happen. Issues like the problem of suffering, and to what extent does God control each event, were things that The Professor enjoyed wrestling with but didn’t hold my attention. Until I myself experienced suffering. Then I was plagued with all sorts of questions. Why did I have a difficult birth? Why was I in constant pain for months on end? Why did the BabyGirl have to spend a week in the ICU? What is God doing here? What is the point of this?

The thing of it is, my story isn’t the one that breeds questions. I have a friend whose twins were born 12 weeks early. Everyday she made a 3 hr round trip to the NICU to hold their fragile bodies in her arms and beg God that they would live. I worked with a nurse whose son had active hemophilia. One day she got a panicked call from the nanny and had to rush home to give him a blood transfusion. Another friend’s baby was born with a birth defect that required 4 surgeries before she was a year old. Another friend’s two sons had such severe learning disabilities and behavioral problems that she was constantly worried they’d be kicked out of another school.

Talk about Mom Worry! But it doesn’t even take extreme circumstances to ignite a bout of Mom Worry; the little things can do it too. Your infant chokes on something in the church nursery. Your toddler runs out into the street. Your child stands a little too close to the edge of a bridge. And then, oh my heavens, they turn into teenagers.

Mom Worry is everywhere. Some people face it earlier than others. For some it strikes in early pregnancy. Others don’t encounter it until after the baby is born. And others may not fully experience it until years later. But I think we all suffer from it.

In all my time of grappling with the big questions of Why, I keep coming back to this verse:

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;

May the name of the Lord be praised.

This baby of mine? She isn’t really mine. She is a gift from the Lord. He gave her to me, and I am honored to be her steward. But if I believe that this world isn’t my home, then it’s not her home either. If I am temporary here, then she is temporary here.

Our pastor has been preaching through Genesis, and we just studied the account of Leah and Rachel. Poor Leah was unloved and unwanted, but the Lord blessed her with children. With each son that she bore, she thought she would find the fulfillment that she sought. It took her until the fourth son, Judah, to be able to say, “This time I will praise the Lord.”

That’s how I am; too knuckleheaded to learn a lesson the first three times. When I imagine her story, I think about all the things outside her control. She was forced to marry a man who didn’t want her. She had to then share that man with her sister. She thought having a son would make him love her. She thought having two and three sons would make him love her. But finally, she saw the truth: I can control nothing in this life. All I can do is praise the Lord.

for Sarah K

Gardening By the Seat of Your Pants

When we moved into a house with a yard, i had such lofty notions of the beautiful and well-cultivated lawn i would keep.

And now, 10 months later, i'm STILL dreaming about the perfect garden.

My very first goal for my yard was to plant some tulips. Tulips are beautiful and one of my favorite flowers. They love this climate, so it seemed like the perfect idea. Well, the prime time to plant tulip bulbs is in the fall. It coincided perfectly with the onset of our money troubles. Tulip bulbs were definitely a frivolous expense that i had to surrender. It wasn't just the cost of the tulip bulbs themselves; it was that i had no gardening equipment. I was going to have to buy a shovel, some dirt, and other things. So unfortunately i didn't plant any tulips in the fall.

But then in late March, the craziest thing happened! I picked up our recycling bin to take it out to the curb for trash day, and underneath the bin were tender little green shoots! I felt so sorry for them having to push their way upwards with the recycling on top of them. I was so curious to see what would happen. After a week or two, they turned into this:

I got my tulips after all! Sadly, it only put out these three flowers. There were a few other buds that i was waiting to bloom so that i could cut the flowers and bring them inside. Those poor buds never bloomed. Maybe next year!

Since then, we've had so much fun watching all the surprise flowers pop up! We have a rose bush:

and this other thing:

I honestly don't even know what this is, but it's beautiful! The roses and mystery flowers are now dazzling our house with their elegance:

My flower-arranging skills are definitely not as advanced as Laura's, but i did my best. Now if my yard would spontaneously grow some tomatoes and cilantro, then i'd be in business!
  

First Date

The Professor and i went on a date last night! It was our first date in a looooonnnng time. Before we moved, our dear friend Sue was our babysitter. But you know how it is when you're starting out in a new town. It takes a while to trust anyone enough to let them babysit your precious BabyGirl.

Our friends Matt and Carrie heard that we hadn't been on a date since we moved to the Kingdom of the Cornstalks and were apalled. Even though they have three kids of their own, they demanded to babysit one night so that we could go out.

On the morning of the designated day, i started preparing the BabyGirl. "Guess what, BabyGirl? Mama is going on a Daddy Date!! Miss Carrie is going to come play with you! It will be so much fun! You're such a lucky girl to have Miss Carrie come play!"

The BabyGirl looked at me with wide eyes and said, "[Gulp] Scary???"

That's when i realized that "Miss Carrie" could sound a lot like "Scary." So we switched to calling her by her last name, as the BabyGirl is going through a major scary phase right now.

A second reason why The Professor and i hadn't been on a date in a long time was lack of funds. Fortunately, now we had an Outback gift card and a $20 off coupon to Applebee's.

At this point, let it be known that i don't like Applebee's. It's not a place that i would ever want to go, especially for such a special occasion as Our First Date in a Long Time. But we had recently been to Outback and i wasn't in the mood for it again so soon. Therefore, Applebee's it was. I decided to just focus on the excitement of an evening out and overlook the fact that it had to take place at a lousy restaurant.

What was lacking in the quality of the meal we made up for in conversaton. I love talking with The Professor! He's a pretty smart guy. I would submit that few can rival him in critical thinking. His well-trained mind, cultivated by years of grueling study, can quickly dissect any topic. We talked about this:

http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/christian-teens-say-gay-activist-made-girls-cry.html

and this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/fashion/at-family-meals-children-encouraged-to-take-part-in-the-conversation.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1335657810-KkHcbHXo6A6hDQZDF3h5Iw

At the end of our dinner when the waitress brought the check, The Professor handed her our $20 voucher plus a credit card to cover the rest.

A minute later she was back. "Um, i hate to tell you this," she said, holding out our voucher, "but this is for Chili's."

I busted out laughing.

The ONLY reason we stepped foot in that establishment was because of the voucher. The Professor was the one who had acquired it. He had kept up with it until the proper time. He was the one who told me that it was for Applebee's. Not that i love Chili's, but i would certainly prefer it over Applebee's. He felt so bad.

Even if we did have to throw away money on sorry food with 3000 mg of sodium, i'm still thankful for some quality time with The Professor!

And apparently Miss Carrie wasn't so scary after all. This morning when the BabyGirl woke up, one of the first things she said was, "Carrie come back!"