Monday, July 27, 2009

Love is Jesus Christ

If there was anything in the world that would show you, you deserve love and that you are loved, it is Jesus Christ.

I can't stop thinking about this and my new role as mom brings this home even more.

God loved us so much, he gave his Son to us.

Today's exercise, ok, more like, this week's exercise, is to open our heart to Jesus and accept the love that he personifies.

I suppose that sounds easy enough but if you really think about it, it is not. We can all say that we accept love but to truly accept is to truly give in.

My friends and I jokingly say, "You can't choose who we love." whenever our spouses do something that seems either juvenile or illogical to us. The more I think about it though, the more it's true. You really can't choose who you love. Just like you can't choose, you can't choose the things to only love about your spouse. You love him/her with all your being. You accept his weaknesses and quirks. You bolster him and support him. You challenge him and help him thrive.

Jesus didn't pick and choose who to love.

"...you can become His instrument to meet the needs of your spouse."

Through the craziness, the stress and the confusion, the underlying truth is I love my spouse and I have made a committment freely to be his partner in life. Just as my husband is a conduit for God's love for me so must I be. Through it all, we must trust in Jesus.

Prayers for Stellan


One of the questions asked is, "What has He shown you today?"

Today, I was reading about a mother's faith and a family's struggle to put their faith in God as they deal with the illness of their youngest boy.

I'm not a doctor but I've been surrounded by medicine all my life. My family is in the business of medicine. My worker bee role is in medicine. I think I'm sometimes a bit callous about things because of such but this struck me like nothing else in a very long time.

I am moved by her honesty and her bravery and her faith. I am touched by her son's courage and the beautiful life that fills his eyes in every photo she shares.

Stellan and his family reminded me today that love is more powerful than anything in the world. Love transcends distance. Love is all or nothing.

And it reminded me of something a sister used to tell me, "We are all here to make a difference in some shape or form. We need to trust God and put ourselves in His hands." Stellan and his mom have touched me and reminded me of God's love and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. This little guy, who is younger than my baby girl, is filled with so much love that it's bursting and spreading to so many. If that isn't the power of God at work, I don't know what is.

Blink

Honestly, I blink and my daughter gets a little bit taller, a little bit smarter, a little bit wiser and a moves away from being my BG and more like a TG.

This morning, she ceremonially woke us up at 6:30am with a diaper filled to the brim with #1. I recently bought a package of Pampers Premium Cruisers at Target to see if the extra 10% absorbency would reduce the amount of diaper changes we do per night. I'll write my little review after another week goes by.

After the diaper change, she quietly played with her new book, 10 Buttons and returned to me for a quick nibble or two, allowing us to take a quick catnap. Thank you baby girl.

At 7:30, she came over to me and we did our Good morning song and started the day.

I was just admiring how it's nice that she plays by herself and how as long as we have the gates closed and we do a safety check, she can easily crawl from the bedroom to the living room quickly and without worries. I smiled as she followed us to the living room and I splintered to the kitchen to prepare my breakfast, lunch, snacks and breast pump parts for the day as DH continued the cursory safety check.

DH went to the bathroom to freshen up.

As I was finishing up on my sandwich for lunch, I noted how extremely quiet it was. Normally, I can hear the sounds of toys or books or our baby investigating baby safe drawers and bookshelves. I hop over our dog and head out towards the living room and find...


BG sitting on the couch with her laptop (an old laptop we let her play with) and plastic jar of almonds. She's sitting there indian style trying to open the jar.

"How did you get up there? Did Dad put you up there?"

Thoughts run through my head. My husband wouldn't just leave the room with our daughter sitting on the couch. Could she have?

"Where is she?" my husband runs out of the bathroom. "Huh. Guess she used that pillow on the floor to help her climb up onto the couch."

DH congratulated BG as I stood there thinking, just last week she sprouted two more teeth for a total of 4 teeth. She's looking more and more grown up. Yesterday, I noted how her head peeks through the pack and play in our kitchen. She's no longer against the pack and play because now she can see me from the top. Now she's climbing on couches! There goes the 'she'll be safe in the living room while I sprint to the loo.'

DH sat on the couch and moved the jar away and BG gestured for a diaper change. Sure enough she had an early morning poop. DH changed her diaper and then BG turned herself around, put her feet on the edge and pushed her self back down to the floor before landing on her behind. "Well, she got herself down by herself. She put her feet down and then promptly landed on her butt."

She's growing up.

She also likes to stand on her tiptoes to reach for her books on the lower bookshelf in our dining room. One day, I must video this as it's cute as anything and it shows you just how much taller she's gotten. I never thought I'd have to worry about the bookshelf until she was at least two!

On the verbal front, she kills me when I ask her what a sheeps says. With a big 2 front tooth grin, she smiles at me and loudly proclaims, "BAAAAA!!!!!"

She knows what a cow says, a sheeps says and what a horse says. She's shy with the cow and whispers, "Moo", proudly exclaims the sheep sound and generously shares the sound of a horse. I'm in trouble after this as the rest of her flashcard animals include a parrot, a dolphin and a turtle. I have no clue what sounds to make for these animals although she knows the word turtle and happily says it to express her desire to ride her radio flyer turtle.

Oh and she has an affinity for toy cars as she started playing with the matchbox cars a boy in the neighborhood kindly shared with her at the park. Did she go for the minivan or truck? Nope. She beelined to two sports cars. DH thinks she has great taste.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

If the Hot Peas N' Butter Guy Says it...

During their concert this morning, the singer for Hot Peas N' Butter chuckled and pointed to our daughter and said that she was the youngest kid he's ever seen follow along with the song instructions to pat your head and wave your arms.

I'm pretty sure this is a sign of genius. :-)

They stayed for the entire concert. She had so much fun and they were in the very front and were unable to leave. So the am nap was missed.

By the time they returned home, BG passed out 1 stop shy from our home. As per my husband, as he was carrying her stroller up the subway steps, she folded over like a clamshell but maintained sleep.

She remained asleep until he picked her up out of the stroller to which she got cranky. He put her in bed and before he could even finish completing the diaper check, she fell asleep again.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Psych!

So BG has been giving DH a rough time with naptime.

Normally, she gives us cues for naps around 10:30am and 2:30pm.

I bring her to the bedroom and she goes to sleep within 30-40 minutes. I know that that's long but some folks have a longer routine.

She generally sleeps for 3.5 hours during the day and 11 hours at night.

Unfortunately, DH claims that without the magic boobs, BG opts to play and not nap even though she clearly is tired. I don't know about most babies but our baby walks around like a drunken sailor doing face plants here and there.

I've also figured out that the bedroom is too light and we'll need to black out the bedroom so we've purchased room darkening shades. Actually, I bought them over a year ago while I was pregnant and as things go, DH will eventually put them up.

Anyway, today DH thought BG was ready for naptime. She crawled from the living room to the bedroom, climbed onto the bed (we have the mattress on the floor) and grabbed her lovely, Jay-Raffe, and fell over on her back. This is what she does with me every night and nap.

DH quickly heated a bottle and turned the lights off and started the nap routine. However, by the time he got everything settled in the bedroom, she was up and about playing with everything and exploring.

"Your daughter psyched me out." was the message I received on my phone.

My theory is DH is the fun and play person while I'm the soother. So when DH comes to the bedroom, it's time to play. When it's me, it's back rubs and storytime and lullabies.

Eventually, BG will fall asleep for DH, usually out of sheer exhaustion.

For now, I just try to take the cues and roll with them.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Apparently, we're multi-lingual now...

Ok, either we are extremely tired parents or our ears have become attuned to our daughter.

A few days ago, our daughter was playing with her play kitchen, turned to my husband and said, "Hold this" and passed her play measuring cup to him.

Instinctively my husband said, "Hold This? Oh, Ok."

I turned to him and said, did you hear that too?

We both chuckled and figured soon enough our ears would acclimate to toddler speak.

Monday, July 06, 2009

More Words

Oh and before I forget, BG is now saying and recognizing 'apple'.

Last night, as she was finishing her tilapia and carrots, I pulled out some baked apples and she said, "apple" and pointed to it.

The girl loves her baked apples and will not say 'no' to some apples.

Good thing her birthday cake is an apple cake. More details to come.

Love is Impossible

I've been sitting on this one for awhile partly because I'm exhausted and tired and partly because I really wanted to reflect on how far we've come.

Love is impossible but anything is possible through God. The line that struck me the most is this, "love that is able to withstand every pressure is out of your reach, as long as you're only looking withint yourself to find it."

If there is any situation where pressure is involved, it's the first year of parenthood and I honestly think doing the dare has helped me become stronger and my yoke lighter.

I know that love is from God. I look at my daughter and realize love is the greatest gift to receive and God gives it to us freely.

I recently told someone very dear to me that we do the things we do because of love not for accolades and when we grow tired and begin to compare we must remember we do it because we love.

Every night, as I nurse my child to sleep, I say our prayers and I always remind her that her mom, her dad and God love her.

This exercise reminds me of what I try to instill in her, love is possible because of God.

So the exercise asked, "Were there some things that felt impossible throughout the first half of this dare?" Yes and I'm sure there will be more.

There were some days where I questioned everything. I think it's human and natural. We just need to take a step back and see the bigger picture or trust in the bigger picture.

How do I feel? I feel like it's been a slow go for me but I'm happy to be doing this dare and my relationship is better because of it. Heck, I'm better for this. This dare isn't just about my relationship with my spouse but my own relationship with self and God.

At this very moment...

My daughter is at Toys R Us getting the birthday girl treatment from the Geoffery's Birthday Club and I'm here at work missing it.

DH is sending me pictures but I wish so much I was there.

Spoon!

BG is trying to scoop things in her spoon now.

She's been good with me filling her spoon and then holding the spoon and feeding herself but now she wants to try to scoop and fill it.

Yesterday, she tried to pick up the food that was in her bib pocket. Then when that didn't work, she took a carrot and stuck it on the spoon but when she tried to bring it to her mouth, she tipped the spoon over and the carrot fell.

She's mimicking more. Aside from the spoon, she pretends she's on the phone. It's hysterical as she really hasn't gotten the idea that the 'phone' should be on her ear so she puts it behind her head.

She's also crawling around at a record pace. I turned around to grab some clothes for her and she was out the bedroom door crawling down the hallway.

She's also doing this left leg foot walk where she crawls with her right leg but lifts up her left so that she pushes off on her foot. Pretty soon she's going to do that with her right foot, I'm sure.

I can't believe that tomorrow she will be turning 1. That blows my mind. This time last year, I was in a movie theatre watching 'Wall-E' wondering when our baby would arrive.

I asked DH how he felt being a dad to a '1 year old' and he said, "Fine. I'm going to be a dad for the rest of my life." I think he's excited.

She's clearly hugging me now and reaching for me which makes my heart warm up every time. Her morning smile just radiates the home and makes the start of the day delightful.

I suppose I should ask myself, "How do I feel being a mom to a 1 year old?" Phenomenal. My daughter is healthy, happy, smart, personable and loved. I couldn't ask for anything more.

In the past year, we gone through enough diapers to probably cover a cross country trip to California, read enough parenting books and magazines to write one on an infant's first year, changed my mind on parenting styles, learned I was a stronger woman than I thought I'd be, learned to be more patient, learned to be more accepting and got that much closer to not sweating the small stuff (even when the small stuff is big stuff).

On the relationship front, I wish I had more time with my spouse and I wish I didn't feel as though I need to be the duck kicking underwater but in the end, I know God gave me the strength and talents to do certain things just as God gave my husband talents in other areas.

All in all, it's been a tough year for my relationship with my husband but with hard work and communication, I think we've strengthened our relationship. It's going to get harder but we're not naive and know that our foundation is strong and we will continue to protect it and build upon it.