Penance with Pictures

I didn't blog for the whole month of November? How is that possible??? Well let me bring cute pictures as a peace offering to my faithful readers. :)

The first two are Jeff and Lilia at our fall farm trip to Vertuccio Farms. It was wonderful! She thought she was driving the barrel train, so that was a major highlight. The last two are from our friends who took cute pics of Lilia and her someday-BFF Abby at their house while Mommy and Daddy were on a date. Very cute!

More to share soon.

Domestic Violence

I went to a great meeting today of the Phoenix chapter of Christians for Biblical Equality. Since October is Domestic Violence Awareness month, they hosted a speaker form the Sojourners Center, which is apparently the biggest domestic violence shelter in the world. I was reminded again of some startling facts about domestic violence. A few things that were brought to mind:

• Domestic violence will impact 1 in 4 women in her lifetime.
• Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury for females aged 15-44.
• There are nearly never any legal consequences for abusers, even when abuse is reported, because they are often gone by the time the police arrive and, if not, there is nearly never enough evidence to prosecute. If they are prosecuted, it's a misdemeanor. In AZ, three misdemeanors constitutes a felony but no one has been prosecuted under that rule.
• When asked if they've experienced domestic violence, nearly all women say no in surveys. But then they say that they've been hit, kicked, demeaned, threatened, etc.
• Abuse is never an anger issue. It is a pattern of coercion that uses violence to achieve desired results. Abusers don't "lose control."
  

All of this reminds me of the need to speak out yet again on this subject. Everyone has a right to feel safe in his/her home. If you're wondering whether you're being abused, this quiz is a great resource to confirm your feelings.

I know as I write this that more than one person reading it is being abused. Please, please talk with someone who can help you. I would be more than happy to talk with you and to help you get whatever resources you need to be in a safe place.

Overflowing

"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Phil. 4:7

We and our friends have come through several storms lately -- relational, economic, you name it. But through it all, and now mostly on the other side of it, I've just felt such a sense of peace. It does "transcend all understanding," doesn't it? It doesn't make sense. Albert Camus said “In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” I think I'm beginning to see the summer God has put in my soul.
I've thought so much in the last decade about the biblical admonition to build your house on the rock, where storms will not overcome it, and to store your treasure in Heaven, where moths can't destroy it. What rock? What treasure? I think I'm starting to understand. I heard a children's pastor named Jim Sumner preach to children one day about the "meaning of life." He told them that grown-ups are always searching for "the meaning of life" but he was going to save them years of wandering by telling them straight out: the meaning if life is found in relationships. My dad has been known to say that relationships are the only things we can take with us to Heaven.

For me building my treasure where moth and rust cannot destroy means building my life around relationships. And the Rock, on which the house is built, is my relationship with God.

In the last "Anne" book I finished, one of Anne's extremely frivolous friends gets seriously ill and finally dies. On the day she dies she has a conversation with Anne wherein she says that she's afraid to go to Heaven because it will be so different than her life on Earth, and nothing there will be the things that were important to her before death. Anne realizes that her friend is right that Heaven will be very different than her life because this friend has built her entire life around shallow relationships and pretty dresses. Anne vows to live her life so that Heaven will be filled with familiar things that she's already loved.

This is obviously one of those rambling posts that's more for my benefit than for the benefit of the reader, but I suppose what I'm working out while writing it is that nothing can shake Heaven. If I can build my life around what lasts forever, it won't collapse when shaken by things that don't.

Tea Party

On Saturday I hosted a lovely tea party for myself, Lilia, and 4 of our dearest girlfriends. It was fabulous. The M's even got a special NEW tea set for the occasion from their mother! After we had sipped tea and eaten delicate sandwiches and baked goods we adjourned to the parlor to watch "The Princess Diaries." A fancy time was had by all.

True Love

I'm reading L. M. Montgomery's "Anne of Green Gables" series and, of course, I'm caught up in the romance of it. I'm also fresh from a little bout of illness (which I think was the flu, but didn't get to develop due to rest and good eating and drinking water!), which served to remind me of the make of the man I married. He is made from the strongest character there is. And our love is made from the strongest bond of friendship there is, but shaped into a romance. I know just exactly how blessed I am every day to be with the person I want to be with most in the world. And to see him reflected in our daughter is beyond what I can describe in words. I am so grateful that I learned, after searching far and wide, that the truest love was to be had right at home. And that love has become my home, a shelter from the storm built on the Rock.

I read this passage today at the end of Anne of Avonlea and it described our love so perfectly that I had to share. Anne has taken her view of love out of classic romantic stories and can't imagine that it could be next to her all the time, but she's starting to see things differently.

It was as if a veil that had hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation of unsuspected feelings and realities. Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music; perhaps... perhaps... love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a goldenhearted rose slipping from its green sheath.

Gratitude

Jeff and I are being totally challenged and changed by our new church's "Life's Healing Choices" series. It's the basis for the Celebrate Recovery program and it's essentially a brief overview of recovery based on the Beattitudes, which are the "Blessed are's" in Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.

Todays' devotion was about meekness ("Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth"), and about choosing your reaction to injustice. It's very appropriate in our life right now because a friend is facing some injustice and it's becoming a real challenge to choose our reaction. We still choose to take action on behalf of the oppressed because that's who we want to be, but we can choose love and grace as well. And we can choose gratitude rather than resentment.

The amazing thing is that when I look around, we have so very much to be grateful for. God is taking incredible care of our friend and of us as well. Jeff's job is wonderful and looking like it might get even better, I have the blessing of spending every day impacting our daughter, we own our first home, I can leave the house on a daily basis now if I want, the weather is great right now, we have more friends than we can count, I could go on and on.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Lord!!!

********** NEWSFLASH ***************************

Doot doot doot doot, doot doot doot doot....

This just in -- Lilia Joy has signed "Doggie" today! This morning, at approximately 7:30 am, in her mother's arms she looked at the dog and signed doggie with a smile on her face. She repeated it several times this morning.

woot.

Beautiful Bow!

There is a lot of heavy stuff going on in my life right now that I'm not at liberty to talk about, which always stinks.

So I'm going to talk about this ridiculous, gorgeous blue bow I made for my little pumpkin on Friday. Don't you love it??? It's so classic Hollywood, right? I am not a remotely craft-inclined person, so I was pretty proud. I made an equally ridiculous yellow one. I look forward to making more. I will of course post photos

Rhythms

I have come to be a big believer in having some regular rhythms in our family's life. I remember a pastor named Ray Johnston saying "The key to your future is hidden in your daily habits." It has proven completely true in my life for sure. It's not what we say we value or even what we think we value that seems to change us in the end, but what we do regularly, almost unconsciously.

I'm keenly aware that I'm shaped by all of these little things. It matters whether I eat breakfast, take a walk, pray, read to my baby, sing. So Jeff and I have decided to take stock again of our daily habits and routines to see whether they line up with what we want for our family.

I'm a big fan of not making sweeping changes to my life very often because they nearly never stick, so in these cases I tend to come away with one thing that I want to change permanently. I'm excited to see what that will be!

Blessings, Part 2

It's so easy to recognize that God is sovereign when things are going great, isn't it? But it's a little harder when you're dealing with something difficult or unexpected. "He gives and takes away" is a lot easier when He gives.

But in this valley I can't help but remember that God has been so incredibly good to us. We have a lot of great stuff right now -- a house, a new van -- but really the heart of our family is what I'm so grateful for. God holds us so close to Him! We know how blessed we are to be partners in leading this family (we both came close to really messing that up!) and we know how blessed we are to have our incredibly beautiful baby girl. Our life is filled with, and centered around, love. That is rare and we know it. We have deep, real friendships, a beautiful baby and true love. He gives indeed.

Before the miscarriage there were some great pictures I wanted to share of Grandma's visit! It was great to have her and Lilia was over-the-moon excited every day. One of the most fun parts was when we went up to Prescott for a half-day trip. It was great! I had to take a picture of Jeff changing a diaper in the park in front of the court house, and I had to take one of the sewing machine Grandma bought while we were there! We also went to the zoo, so I'll include a few of those as well. :)

Minus One

I miscarried yesterday. It was really, really sad. I had no idea how sad I would be when it was so early. My wonderful cousin said, "When a woman finds out she's pregnant, she starts to bond with that little baby. It doesn't matter how early." So true.

There's such a depth to the emotion going on inside of me that it seems strange to be able to summarize it by saying that I'm really sad, but that's what it is. Not really all too complicated, just big. And heavy. I don't feel good (it seems so wrong that it should make your body exhausted and achy to lose a baby! It feels like salt in the wound.), I'm tired, and I have waves of this big sadness at random times. Other times I feel completely fine.

Yesterday was a really, really bad day all around. Everyone I know seemed to be grieving some terrible news at the same time! But I was able to go to a friend's house who had lost her job about an hour before my miscarriage (I brought chocolate!), and we just cried together and felt better that we weren't alone.

So, as always, there's a blessing in the storm. I won't say there's a silver lining because nothing can make it okay to lose a baby, but God's whispered love seems to follow me into the valleys, no matter how dark they are. We will leave our life and our family in His hands today. Tomorrow has enough worries of its own.

Two Under Two

So.... There's going to be another baby in our family! Can you believe it? We're very excited! From what I can figure right now I think the due date should be May 31, 2010.

Yes, it was planned, but yes we're also nervous about having two babies at once. We're excited at the thought of them growing up to be best friends, but all that is after diapers and sleepless nights. Anyway, if anybody has two under two and would like to give us advice on getting through the first two years please feel free.

In Case I Forget -- Lilia

• She's alternating "tuh, "thuh" and "duh" sounds (very short -- not like they look in print!) now that she has top teeth. She thinks it's great fun to alternate doing them with Mommy or Daddy
• We swear she said "Mama" on purpose this week. Not possible, though, right? Too young? She was very fussy, Jeff was holding her and she looked directly at me with this adorable, pleading look and said, "Mmmmmammmmma!" Jeff and I looked at each other, shocked, and then dismissed it as an accident. Well, fifteen minutes later it happened again, just about exactly the same way. Now I don't know. Shall I choose to believe? ;)
• She's trying so very hard to crawl, but as she tries to focus hard on her destination she actually creeps slowly backward so that the harder she tries the farther away she gets from her goal. Does that sensation sound familiar to anyone else?
• She now basically stops fussing, no matter the problem, as soon as she sees one of us strapping on the Ergo. I love that thing, Daddy loves it, Lilia loves it. Definitely a winner.
• She likes rhyming books a lot. We're big fans of Dr. Seuss. Also Madeline.
• She would watch TV like crazy if we let her. I don't know how long her attention span would be because we've never come to the end of it, but it is eerily long.
• She studies everything, all the time. Her brain is working hard constantly.
• When you first put food in her mouth, she always gets a look of disgust on her face, regardless of the food, even if she likes it. We think it's what she looks like when she's working on chewing.
• She's getting way into squeaking now. Especially when nobody's paying attention to her. She's extremely social.
  

Blessings

Thursday morning I decided to start our day by thanking God for all the many blessings in our life -- our wonderful little family, our house we never thought we'd be able to buy, our family and friends outside of our walls, etc. I thanked God for something I've been grateful for for a long time -- that my sister, Erica, has found a place that she finally feels really comfortable and at home. (It's unfortunate that that place is so far away -- Edinburgh! -- but I'm so glad that she's finally happy that I don't care.) I also thanked God that she had found someone wonderful to share that place with. It was so fun to have them to visit and to see how happy they are together.

Well, later that morning I called my parents to check in with all of them (they were all in Yosemite together) and got the news that the happy couple is engaged! So "Uncle Badger" is really going to be Uncle Badger!

We're elated. Congratulations Erica and Adrian!

Up and Down in a Half-Changed World

Motherhood never ceases to amaze me in how different it is than I thought it would be. From the outside it can seem idyllic, quiet, simple. You see moms out and about looking mostly very happy, you get cute Christmas cards with smiling families on them. And people refer to having a family as "settling down," like a racehorse who goes out to stud -- just chilling out and reproducing from now on. Almost like some version of retirement. Things humming along with children laughing in the background.

Although opportunities of all kinds are open to women now, the view we pass on of parenting is still right out of a black-and-white television sitcom.

My sister told me about this article, which summarizes a study on stress and occupation. Apparently, at-home parents have higher levels of stress than any other profession they studied (including nursing, driving a cab, and trading on the stock market). Well, that's more like it. And I would imagine that parents who are working and parenting at the same time would experience similar levels of stress.

This is a cover-up that doesn't need to be. We need to accept, as a greater society, that parenting is very, very difficult. It is truly more difficult than any job I've ever had. Pretending that it's easy -- almost a leisure pursuit, really -- and part of a "quiet life" does a disservice both to those who are currently parenting and to those who are considering it. Parenting is a big deal. The stakes are high, the days are long, the decisions are critical, the pressure is sometimes overwhelming and the consequences are eternal. It is truly a life's work.

But the other side of this equation is that it has changed me so much more than I expected. It is my Everest. A daily marathon that shows me who I really am and brings me daily to my knees in a very good way. Would I want it to be easy, raising my daughter? While a selfish side of me whines about the difficulty, a very small and much wiser voice deep inside knows that this process is so much better, deeper, fuller than just a leisure pursuit or a shiny ad in a magazine.

I asked the Lord to change me and He sent me a child. I will never be the same.