Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Augy Lately

It's been a little quiet around here lately, yes?
Last week we got hit with a bad cold/flu bug at our house, and it really took us down for the count!
Thankfully Neal stayed well and was able to help out, but yikes that was rough.

We're pretty much back to normal this week, and Augy and I are leaving tomorrow morning to spend two days visiting Auntie Tiff & Grammy.
So these pics are mostly for Daddy who will be missing Augy something fierce tomorrow night!
(But hey what's gonna be so bad about a full night of sleep, man?)
But this post is also for me to be able to collect a few pictures of the face I see every day and never want to forget at 3.999 months old.
4 months tomorrow!

Sunday, November 10, 2013

A Few Fall Scenes

Some fall scenes around our life and neighborhood, cause fall is just a beaut.
My allergies are pretty much over for the season (YAY!!) so I can enjoy it more.
Just wish I didn't want to wear my puffer coat everywhere already.
It's gonna be ok, it's gonna be ok, it's gonna be ok.

Also, here's a favorite post from last fall.
Now we have a baby boy (!!!)  Here's looking at you, August Wells.
Hope you had a great weekend!

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

These Two

These two in the nursery this dark, rainy morning just got me.

These two also got drenched in the downpour on the walk to drop off Augy before Neal & I both went to work this morning.
Oops.  It's so hard to tell from our 12th floor apartment sometimes if it's actually raining or not! 
I don't think Augy himself actually got wet because his carseat cover took most of it.

But like I said before, spirit of adventure, right?

Monday, November 4, 2013

The Noticer

A little something different on the blog today.  Last week I wrote an article for the Christian counseling practice I work for, but since I have the rights to the article's content I thought I would post it here as well.  Here's the short article; a little reading for a Monday.

The Noticer

Freshly back to work from maternity leave with my first child, it’s predictable that the thoughts I’m mulling around lately come from lessons I’m learning from the very small among us.  I’m not the first mother to see God and His love in a clearer light after having a child, and I won’t be the last.  I imagine that the unfolding of this understanding will continue throughout a lifetime of motherhood, and I look forward to how it is that I might be changed by these new angles.
 
            The primary picture God uses to help us understand our relationship to Him is the parent-child relationship.  So when my infant cried his very first tear, I responded instinctively to him as his parent, but my heart also was instinctively impacted by seeing the similarity of how it is that God relates to me in my tears.  Infants cry from their first moments after birth, but they do not produce actual tears until about a month into life, as their tear ducts take time yet to form.  So the first time that a big, wet tear rolled down my baby’s face, I noticed.  But to say I just noticed is an understatement; I remember stopping in my tracks and almost in slow-motion turning my hand over to catch the tear in my palm.  I was cut to core by the sight of that little tear, by the feel of its wetness dropping into my hand. 

            In that moment Psalm 56:8 sprang to my mind, “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.  Are they not in your book?”  In that moment, so many different occasions of my own tears flooded my mind and I realized—God noticed.  Each time.  Each tear.  I knew that the Bible taught that, but the emotion behind the noticing—the love behind the noticing—became so much clearer to me now that I am a parent to my little boy.

            In my work as a counselor, I see what I do as part of joining God in the work He’s doing in the world. So when I sit in my therapist chair where I am witness to many tears, I try to represent to my clients God’s heart in the matter.  I take notice of each tear, and with my presence I hope to say, “I see your pain, and it matters,” because that’s how God treats us.  Of course a therapist is limited; we can’t see or know every time you cry or hurt but what we try to be for our clients one hour a week in our office is a small, imperfect slice of what God is to us all the time.  Attentive.  Seeing.  Knowing.  Compassionate. 

Some people see therapy as a waste of time, “Why should I sit around and cry about my problems?” or as something to fear, “I’m afraid I will break down and cry.”  While none of us particularly enjoy sitting with our pain, it’s a faulty cultural message we’ve received that tears should be hidden, brushed aside, or simply pushed past.  The God who made us cares so intimately about our pain that He says in poetical language that it’s like He collects each of our tears in a bottle.  I learn from God that my pain and your pain, my experience and your experience, it matters.  He knows and notices and feels for us.  Let’s let ourselves be seen, allow our tears to be noticed, and in so doing experience the love and compassion of God—the one who notices, always.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Augy & The Pacific

  During our weekend in California I was so excited for Augy to visit the shores of the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
I mean, it's the Pacific Ocean!  And he's a 3-month-old Midwesterner baby, so it's pretty cool.

I just had to dip his toes in for that carpe diem heart that beats in my chest, which is the same heart that fully intends to raise my son with the same spirit.

Consider this post to be like a book without words.
I think you'll be able to read it just fine...
 
I think we need to work on his spirit of adventure, wink!

Friday, November 1, 2013

Happy Halloween!

It rained all day, literally all day, in Chicago yesterday on Halloween.
A bunch of "Now what?" texts got fired off until we came up with changing our trick-or-treat plans to soup-cornbread-and-halloween-candy night at our apartment with a group of our friends.

I lit little votive candles all around our apartment to make it cozy and holiday-ish, and it actually kind of worked.
Want to have more nights like that!
 Kirra and I dressed up Ellie and Augy for about 5 minutes until they both promptly decided they were done.

We put Augy to bed sans bumble bee costume and enjoyed a good, good night with friends.
He got a dream feed at 9:30pm which we did out in the living room so everybody could see him.  
We also kind of woke him up when we brought our friends into his bedroom to say goodbye when they left, but we can't help it.
We just want him to be part of the party!
Happy first Halloween, Augy!