Living in the Moment

These days I am beginning to understand more and more of what it means to truly live in the moment. It's very hard to make concrete plans for the future when I've got this six-month old little guy (it's his birthday today, by the way) who may well have other ideas. You just don't know when he's going to have a crabby day or a happy day. If he's going to stay asleep for mommy to make another batch of strawberry jam or not. If he's going to go to sleep when we try to put him down so mommy and daddy can have some time together. If' he's going to have a meltdown in the car as we drive home from Meijer's or not.

So here's this moment, and he's smiling at me, talking to me, and playing the "sticking out my tongue" game. And here's this moment, when he's asleep next to me in bed in the morning, looking so sweet and precious it about breaks my heart. And here's this moment, when I it takes everything I have to contain my frustration and try to outlast his squirmy, fussy desire to stay awake instead of nap. And here's this moment, when memories of his birth, first month in the NICU, and first day at home flood over me. And here's this moment, when I have a chance to write some thoughts down.

And if the house doesn't get cleaned, and if the meal plan turns into mac 'n' cheese, and if the landscaping is getting a bit weedy, and if I'm not sure when I'll start working out regularly again, and if the photography hobby gets put on hold for a bit - it's okay. I have to remind myself. Really, it is. I don't get this moment back.

Runaway Bunny theology

I love the story of The Runaway Bunny. I was reading it to Brennan this morning (who really seems to like being read to - yes!) and suddenly saw it through more than just "the love of a parent" eyes.

Seems it's a great metaphor for the love of Jesus, too. Wherever we run, however we fail to live the way he created us to, he's always there, searching us out, guiding our journeys, waiting to embrace us. No rebellion is too great or too persistent to convince him to give up on us. Instead, he never ceases luring us, pursuing us, finding us, blowing us where he wants us to go, and being that place we can come home to - where he is always ready and waiting to catch us in his arms and hug us.

And now for some great irony - there's a bunny outside eating my perennials as I write.

Weekly Milestones

• Brennan can lift his head and support himself on his arms during tummy time! So cute! Now he can tolerate it for 2-3 minutes instead of 30 seconds.


• Raspberries! Every day is filled with happy tongue-sticking-out bubble blowing. He gets a big kick out of it if mommy raspberries back.


• 13 lb 3 oz at the pediatrician. Wow. Almost 10 lbs more than he was at birth. Plus, Mommy finally cracked out the 3-6 month clothes. Especially the jammies. Those big cloth diapers make his torso awfully long!


• Stopped reflux medication. The pediatrician said that both meds could make babies cranky, and perhaps we were at the point that we were doing more harm than good. Stopped Zantac on Wednesday and Prevacid on Friday. He does seem so much happier while nursing!
• LOTS of night waking. Crabby and fussy at bedtime. It seems that with his esophageal sphincter getting stronger and the reflux decreasing, now we can't get burps out of him. Especially during night feedings. An hour after Eric or I put him down - he's up and crying and uncomfortable. Yesterday it happened during naptime - and he was SCREAMING in pain. On top of it all, he lost his voice from all the crying. :(


• BUT - Friday night - he slept from 9:30pm till 4:00am! Saturday night, he went to bed quietly at 8:00, woke up twice to eat, but slept SOUNDLY between feedings, no burp awakenings, no multiple awakenings in the morning. Hurrah!


• First visit at Aunt Micki's. Disaster. Fussy, overtired Brennan; exhausted, overwhelmed Mommy.


• Laughter. Mommy found a ticklish spot by squeezing his back just above his pelvis. He laughed and laughed. What a hoot!


• 25 weeks old. Almost half a year this little miracle has been stealing our hearts.

On a One-Handed Life

Motherhood should be called "The Art of One-Handedness." Seriously. It's amazing the things I can now do with only one hand - the other hand, of course, being occupied with holding Brennan. Weeding, eating fairly complex meals, feeding the cats (which involves opening a fairly large container), putting on socks, even using the bathroom. It's astounding how talented I didn't even know I am.

I also have a beef with a certain very popular yet will remain unnamed company that specializes in nursing accessories. Their nursing bras are made for decidedly two-handed people. How on earth they expect a mom to quickly and unobtrusively reattach her apparal when the apparatus involves sliding a tiny little latch thing into a tiny little compartment thing - the compartment thing, of course, attaches to the bra at only one end, leaving the majority of it to flop up and down in abject avoidance of ever accepting the latch thing. On rare occasions I have managed to cajole the compartment thing into remaining calm enough to sneak the little latch thing back in, but most of the time I had to lay baby down, use my other hand, stabilize the mechanism, connect it all, and THEN go on with life.

Enough is enough. I bought another brand of nursing bra.

Last Times

Several months ago I was reading through a series of novels to this woman in the nursing home at which I volunteer. In one book, the mother of this family writes a letter to her son who is getting married in which she talks about the "last times." It's easy to commemorate the "first times" - the first smile, first tooth, first step, first date, but the last times often slip past us and are gone before we realize it, leaving only a bittersweet memory in hindsight.

As a parent who is not only celebrating the joys of finally being able to be one but yet also realizing that I may never have this opportunity again due to the potentential problems of another pregnancy, I feel the realization of those last times especially hard. Today I tried to get Brennan (who was, albeit, extremely overtired) to fall asleep on my chest so we could nap together on the recliner like we used to do. He just wouldn't relax and wanted nothing to do with it. On top of the fact that he was having a rough day, that realization that we might never spend that special naptime together again that way got me really choked up. How quickly things change. He's only been taking naps in his bassinet for just over a month.

And then I remembered, too, the forgotton "last time" of skin-on-skin naptime like we used to do every day in the NICU and only sporadically in the first month he came home. That, too, is likely gone and I don't even remember when that last time was.

I wish I had treasured it more.

Cancer. And death.

My friend's mom is dying of cancer. At first, when her once-stable leukemia took a turn for the worse it wasn't good, but it didn't have that immediacy of mortality. I have to admit sometimes I rolled my eyes when I got the several-times-weekly health updates - "do I really need to know the details about each and every doctor appointment???"

But in the last few weeks everything has come racing to the end. First hospice care at home, then scares with sudden mental status changes, then continued downhill progression of rapid tumor growth, and progressive weakness. Now it seems the end is within days, or a couple weeks at most.

It has been so hard for me to know what to say or do. I've replied to emails with encouragement and words of prayers, I've left phone messages to say I'm thinking of her and her family - but I don't want to be overbearing or expect return messages when life is so overwhelming right now. It's easy to say "let me know if there's anything I can do" - but it's so rare that people take one up on that offer. Words fail - last email I sent to her sounded like a trite sympathy card phrase - albeit one from the Christian bookstore.

The thing that has been often on my mind through her journey is the knowledge that it will be my journey someday, too. My dad's cancer is stable for now, though it's loomed threateningly from time to time over the past several years, he's still doing well. Eric and I know all too well that one day it will all come crashing down for him, too. And I'll be in my friend's shoes - sending out updates, leaving caring friends wondering exactly how they can support me, stumbling over awkward words.

I am so incredibly grateful for the life my dad has been able to live. He's seen four grandchildren come into this world - including, miraculously, one of my own. Though their marriage is far from perfect, he and my mother have renewed their relationship over the last several years. He grows their garden, makes vacation plans, sings with a choir... all elements of normal life, even with the threat of cancer hanging constantly over his head.

As real as that cancer continues to be, and as fully aware as I am that his health will likely fail sooner rather than later, I still can't imagine facing the end as my friend is now doing. And as inadequately as words can express, my heart goes out to her.