I'm doing the mommy thing today...

And I'm a little short on words. Thought I'd share my new desktop background. It's worth a couple thousand, I should think.

And have a song about them too: Bubbly, by Colbie Caillat





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Piper's Pipings

Piper is talking now. BOY she is talking now. I can finally start my toddler talks collection!

...

Her Monday night babysitter asked Pete about her increased use of "verbal aggression." We looked at each other and laughed.

"Scat; get out of here!" is a frequently-used expression around here. Our cats are very bad. (Well, cat, now. Nanook squeezed out of the garage during the week we were away. I think she is happier as an outdoor cat now. We are seeking a replacement - perhaps a puppy? Mia wouldn't know the difference...)

...

Yesterday, I was out (yes, out - I went shopping with the two yesterday and enjoyed most of it immensely!), and got stuck for two cycles at a left-turn light (seriously, they fall asleep at the wheel here at the first sign of warmth!). When the light turned green for a third time, I honked my horn and the driver in front of me finally moved. I wasn't too put out, since B was sleeping, but as I turned, I heard a little annoyed voice behind my seat on repeat:

"Stupid car. Stupid car. Stupid car."

Yeah, we think the drivers down here are baaaaad...

...

Last night at dinner, Piper decided she didn't want to eat her sausage. Instead of a simple "no," she opted for a re-route with a shocked "Oh my GWRACIOUS!!!" She topped off the effect with her hands over her mouth in feigned horror.

I think my mom might get the credit for that one.


This morning, I was puttering in my office when Piper came tearing down the hall with one of her two stuffed Minnies to grab her scarf and coat from the doorknob where they were hanging temporarily.

"We gotta find Mickey - and fast!" (Mickey went to work with Pete this morning, having been left overnight in the car.)

"We gotta rescue him!"

...

My favorite of the week came last evening while we were waiting to pick Pete up from work:

"Shweetie," Piper said from the back seat, "I'm gonna help you..."

Oh how sweet, I thought. Then she finished her ramble.

"Shweetie, I'm gonna help you find a mouse!"

Say WHAAAA?








(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

A Post About Piper

She's so serious here. Trying to figure out the camera with the sensation of mother-love that comes all too little lately. I borrowed her for my 365 project today.

I'm working in a self-portrait angle this year, and three days into it, I'm certain it's going to be a stretching experience. I view myself in pieces right now. There is writer-me, depressed-me, insecure-me, loved-me, mama-me, person-me. The feelings ram against each other; my stay is not in my mood.

But this is a post about Piper.

She has grown so much. I hardly believe she is two anymore. Her homeschool-mama sitter sat Pete down after fencing recently (my husband is teaching fencing again, and taking Piper with him) and told him that she is operating at a four-to-five-year-old level. This report made one rather bad day of mine a rather good day at its end.

With her growth comes an expanded capacity for trouble.

I have an aunt who reads this blog who will cringe at this next photo:


Piper destroyed my grandmother's chair yesterday. I inherited a few small things from Grandma, things I treasure more than I should probably treasure earthly possessions. They're right up there with my camera in emotional value. Probably more so. This was one of those.

I didn't know it until I went into the living room to take a little time with her and found the pieces scattered all over the floor.

And mama-time went out the window.

Because I had told her. And I know she is old enough and responsible enough to know that she was not supposed to tear the chair up.

So I yelled, as all good mad mamas do. And I spanked her. As most good mad mamas do. And I sent her to her room, because I was too angry with her to not keep yelling, and I needed a little help with my self-control.

I didn't know what to do. When love rams up into loss, how do you react? What course of action can you take?

By now the baby was hollering to be fed, so I pulled him out of his bed and nursed him, fuming, frustrated, trying to figure out how to fix the situation - not the chair, the broken relationship. The relationship I had just knocked over the foul line.

I was still fuming when I heard her door open. I steeled myself, determined to keep my quiet, as she padded into the kitchen, crying softly.

She laid her head on the arm of my desk chair, on my arm resting there, holding Bredon as I nursed.

"I'm sowwy, Mama. Sowwy, Mommy."

Now it was my turn to cry. My anger dissolved. How did she know?

I got to forgive her. And then I told her I was sorry too, for yelling, for my angry. I told her I loved her.

And she moved on.

Childlike, childish - it was okay now. She could play again.

I sat and watched her, amazed, stunned at her tender heart.

And something else caught me. She didn't doubt my forgiveness once she knew she was still loved. She received the mercy she'd asked of me.

I don't even do that when I ask it of God. I'm too busy kicking myself for needing the mercy in the first place.

Wow.


Talk about lessons in abundant living...





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Rhythm

This is my afternoon sunspot. I sit on the bed for our afternoon nursing, or rock in my glider rocker and watch the sun and talk to baby.

We've settled into a rhythm here at last, and I'm starting to add little things to my day. Laundry-doing so my husband won't have to do it on weekend. Sitting in sun to play my little-used piano, remembering God's faithful as I sing songs I have sun before, as my fingers remember their place on the keys. Picking up around the house, planning meals, answering emails, returning comments. Making time for necessary conversations, for reaching past the comfortable, for choosing vulnerable and welcoming tears.

Sometimes, on the hard days (I've had two this week), I have to make myself stop. Sit down. Breathe. Recognize that no matter how much I do I will not be able to accomplish all I have planned, all I feel I need to accomplish. Let go of the me I think I should be and remember with God that I am dust, that it is His Spirit in me that gives me strength for anything, His grace that must be enough for my not enough on every level.

It helps me. He is my safe place now. There is rest I haven't appreciated before now.

I am sick on top of sick on top of sick right now - a cold and cough on top of yeast on top of gall bladder on top of lyme - I guess this is what happens when you're not sleeping so much. It's always kinda cool to me to get regular sick, the kind that runs its course. It's an odd thing to be thankful for, I suppose, but there it is.

My new computer is almost here, and I will be able to play with the pictures I have taken: Piper's silly, Bredon's smile, his first bath, our new fish, my bright tulips from last weekend's grocery run. I filled an 8-gigabyte card with photos and started another.

And we have a new dream now, one that is coming true, one that will change and freshen things, a new home and an easy move three streets west, with one room that is full of light now and new floors and new paint and two bathrooms instead of our one and four bedrooms instead of our two and a garage for the cats to play. It's not much on the outside, and we had refused it months ago before they removed the fireplace and added a sliding glass door, a wall of light, but now we can't turn it down, this offer for some safe from Pete's boss, from God-who-provides.

I squirm a little to admit that I have already considered that we might have room to have a third and even a fourth little person in our world. I squirm because Bredon's birth is still fresh in my memory, and who would willingly put herself through that kind of pain again? And yet the life...

Every day, I hear echoes of my own birth cries, remember me helpless against the shocking pain of transition, remember how I cried out to God - at God - or against Him - or for Him... Some feelings cannot be defined; some moments can only be remembered, never described. But I know what the earth feels, how it groans to be subjected by His will. I know its travail, the sound of its cry. Even so, come quickly, Lord.

He is near to me now, and I can't define Him or pinpoint Him - I just know it. I have quiet joy, peace I don't understand and I look at it and touch it gingerly and try smiling and it doesn't disappear, not even when I consider that bad things happen and dreams get deferred and hearts get broken and kids scream and laundry piles up and things are just hard sometimes.

That is my light right now, the bright that insists on piercing the dark that haunts me, that has been here since before my baby was born, in the questions, in the frustration, in the fear that God would not come for me. I haven't lived this before, this free.

It is a lovely rhythm, this. It is not too much. It invites even more.

I love that.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Jesus for My Children

He makes my small hands look large with his tiny.

Sometimes he looks up at me when I'm doing something or saying something, and I look down and catch his wide-eyed wonder.

And he smiles. Just for me right now. Goofy smiles for giggling. Happy smiles for flying. "I want to stay up smiles" that come by night-light late when I'd much rather be sleeping than rocking. Smiles that make me feel so loved when he meets my eyes as if he is talking to me, sharing his little happy heart.

I think he likes me.

This amazes me.

Already he is growing. Already his skin is losing that new-baby softness. Already his weak is stronger, his eyes are brighter, his voice is louder.

My heart is planting dreams, hoping stories for my children, for our family, praying laughter and conversation and silliness and dancing and happy and together-growth. I picture my children talking to each other, saying one another's names.

Names that we chose for them...

I imagine Piper's first crush, Bredon's first ballgame, girls' night out, boys' time...

I think we should get a dog. A family needs a dog. That would really annoy our house cats. They would so deserve it.

How will I talk about Jesus with my children? I am only beginning to learn. If you ask Piper who made her, half the time her answer is "Mickey Mouse."

She is a silly.

We read to them before we go to bed. We go to bed at the same time right now, with Piper needing her normal and Bredon up late with evening colic.

I want them to know about God. To know how He makes me who I am, who I don't realize I am until I think about it.

I realize it takes courage to stand in Jesus and say "I am human; I am justified. I am dead to sin and alive to God now." I have been gaining that courage to live so free.

I feel so very young sometimes. So unready to be the mother that I am now.

I notice my hands as I hold my children.

They don't know how small I feel. They don't know that I am only me for them because of Jesus loving me.

I think sharing that love with them doesn't have to frighten me. It is just His bigger hand on my tiny.

Every day I pray for grace.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Diet Change: Help Wanted

No, we didn't make it to the beach this weekend. I am scrounging through my archives for photos lately. I apologize for this. I so want to reveal the new I am seeing, capturing, living. I have a couple hundred new ones awaiting processing, awaiting the arrival of my new computer, awaiting the software I need. I want it for you. I want it for our families. I want it for me - I take the picture because I forget.

Still, this is the same light we saw tonight on our organic co op run. The light that was streaming through bare trees onto standing water left over from last night's rain, glory reflected in pools of sky-tears.

Breathe in, breathe out. This is what the light helps me do. We had spring today - sixties and open windows. It was amazing. I love that spring comes in January here.

But I'm getting a little sidetracked. At the beginning of my post. Go figure.

...

I have been attempting to formulate a diet plan for us that began as simple meal and menu ideas to help with grocery trips and snowballed on Tuesday with our discovery that I have gallstones and must eat better for my gallbladder.

I need to cut sugar and dairy and refined flour from my diet. I have some old allergens resurfacing with the lack of sleep that contributes to my body's post-pregnancy breakdown. It is my goal to attempt to put off surgery for my gallbladder until Bredon is weaned, since I'm not sure what pumping to avoid his getting my anesthesia would do to this baby/mommy bond.

I have a few recipes left over from my old no-sugar-dairy-corn-lemon-onion diet, but with all of the changes coming at me with a new baby in the house (and the need to retry this without potatoes because of Pete's death-allergy), I'm coming up a little short on fresh ideas.

So I have a request to make:

Would you be willing to share a link to fresh, healthy, family-friendly (delicious would be good too!) recipes that are low-fat (to be gallbladder friendly) and use no sugar or dairy?

If you have a link, please leave it in my comment box or email me. I would so appreciate your ideas. After nine months of not being able to think about food, I was so hoping to help out by planning for us in this area.

...

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Cor. 10:31)

There is a post coming on this soon. At least, I hope there is. I have a lot of thoughts chasing around in my brain, and when I sit down, I'm too tired to figure out what goes where. So you get my mish-mash in poetic prose.

Thanks for "listening."

...

Oh and yes, I know. What does the light on the water at the sea have to do with food?

Not much.

*happy sigh*

It's just so preeeetty, isn't it?






(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Two

These are my children. I cannot help the absolute wonder I feel looking at them together like this, learning each other in the way babies do, with a simple acceptance that "you must be part of my life now."

Sometimes, it takes seeing it like this, through my lens, processed before my eyes and under my hand, to make it real.

Is this what God felt at creation, I wonder? Was it a capture of something He had dreamed about, had foreknown? Or was it at incarnation, when He clothed Himself with the dust He'd made to live and be and feel as we do?

What glory He gave up to become a man, a helpless infant. What glory does He now deserve? Can we possibly know its measure within the bounds of our human imagination? Even imagination is not enough to describe Him.

What is man, that He is mindful of him?

Two lives given to me, two little faces that bear some of my image, two little hearts to steal my heart, and love that takes my breath away...

I am not enough for this - but oh, how beautiful!







(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Christmas Photos - Set the First

Bredon liked Nana's colorful quilt. Mommy liked Nana's bed. VERY soft.


Daddy and Bredon had a conversation. Mommy missed the context because they took her breath away.


And here we continue to fall in love...


Piper "flwys"... and Mom catches her in midair. I haven't lost it!


Christmas pose. Er, Looney Toons pose.


A Little Eskimo with her Auntie "M"

More to come as I get time to process - and get my brother to send me some. He got this terrific video of Piper and her cousin Chip banging out a piano duet together...





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

As Time Allows

Bredon is here. He is four days old. He looked at me clear-eyed this morning as I was talking to him and he smiled at me. Twice.

I am so in love.


My husband is amazing. You'd have to see to understand. There are no words. We wrapped gifts this afternoon. He is off to the post office to mail the stuff.


Piper has grown up overnight. I hold her, and she is huge compared to her brother, but her heart is the same. She is just talking more. I cry more when I am with her.

I remember her small when I hold Bredon; something in my hands knows he is not so tiny as she was. I don't feel so helpless.

We are living now, resting, eating, learning our life all over - winding down two hours earlier than before, getting to bed two hours later before we wake again. I know time passes; the sun rises and sets and brings us closer to dates we've marked on the calendar. I wait for my heart to wake, putting things away as buried treasure, accepting the moments I own. I have enough for today.

I have so much...

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This post also linked at Holy Experience, sharing with the Gratitude Community in listing my own One Thousand Gifts. I will number today's when I find time again.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

"Happy - Sad"

Piper has a new favorite game to play with Daddy.

She'll give him an emotion to portray - "happy" or "sad" - and he hams it up until she dies laughing. The other night, I caught these between strong baby-contractions that blotted out the rest of the evening.

The "happy" in which I took these photos was exciting. We thought we were having a baby. I thought I would finally get to touch his face. The midwife thought I would get to hold him. The contractions were strong, 4-5 minutes apart, lasting 1-2 minutes. We were ready to call the midwife to come... and then everything stopped.


Yesterday's "sad" wasn't that comical.

I've been making an effort at my blog and in our home to keep things as normal as possible, trying to notice the life we are living in between, trying to hold these last few days, hours - minutes - close.

I've also chosen to be open with many of the ups and downs I'm experiencing at the end of this pregnancy. I'm sure this has left many of my friends and readers feeling as though they are on the roller coaster with us, but I have wanted to write through this, to be open with those who are praying, to have this here for myself so I remember.

I don't want to remember yesterday. Not the tears, the disappointment, the frustration, the questions, the deep, deep depression. Yesterday I hit my limit on what I could share. For the first time during this pregnancy, I was ready to slam the doors shut, beg for some privacy, tell everyone to just go away with their good wishes and their hope for pictures and good news that I. didn't. have.

For all the words that spilled out here yesterday, I felt an eerie stillness in my soul as the contractions kept coming, ten minutes apart, just as they had the day before.

Internally, I was writhing with new pain unlike the pain I'd experienced with Piper's birth. The "I can't take any more of this" that didn't hit until transition with Piper pounded me, reverberating with God's promise to Eve that she should "have pain in childbirth..."

I kept wanting to ask Him what I was doing wrong. As if I was back at that tree thinking God was holding out on me - maybe if I just knew what He knew, I could get to Him faster so I could...

And there I was, exposed.

My "I delivered one child" pride, my demand for His presence in my own timing, my willful control of my own destiny - and that of my child.

A child whose story God was writing yesterday on my heart, preparing me to receive him, preparing me to return him as willingly to the heart of his Father as I learned to do with Piper when I was afraid she wasn't breathing, when I have wanted to hold her and change her to be what she is not.

God may exist as God outside of my circumstances, but He uses them for His own purposes in my heart.

It's an up/down, happy/sad walk, this being human and waiting for His timing outside of time.

I am not like Mary. "May it be to me as You have said."

I wouldn't have gotten picked for her job.

But He did choose me anyway, to let me know Him, to be the mother of these two children, to walk this path as He brings forth fruit in me that is His for the harvest.

Piper is sleeping on my lap as I write this morning, bundled up in a blanket, listening to my heartbeat. She wouldn't be here if Button had come already.

It's one more gift, one more chance to let my first baby know how much I love her.

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Just a Note:

I promise, I will post updates as they come, and pictures as soon as we have them. Please don't pressure me for more than I have to share. I have been so encouraged by so many of you, and I want to keep writing and sharing this journey here, but I'm feeling really vulnerable right now, and it's taking a lot for me to not shut everyone out.

This introvert would not make a very good celebrity, I think.

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My friend Emily at Chatting at the Sky hosts a weekly "noticing" party - giving us a chance to unwrap and share the little gifts (and the big ones!) God gives to us in the midst of our dailiness.

Do you have a gift to unwrap today? Stop on by and link up with Emily, and share in the (mostly) paperless unwrapping!





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Warm Cozies and a Haircut - A Few Photos

So blah, yeah, it's me. (Sorry about that... :-P)

I'm showing off today. My hubby bought me a haircut for an early Christmas gift.

It. Was. Awesome. A few minutes for myself. A seriously perfect shampooing and head massage. To. Die. For. Girl talk - you know the kind about babies and hair and makeup and dreams and stuff?

And on top of it all, I absorbed lots of really sweet commentary about my baby belly and how good I looked pregnant. It was SO nice to hear, especially when the majority of people take one look and ask "so you're due soon, right?" They've been doing that since about seven months. I am seriously ALL baby here.

I am so spoiled. I'd feel like I'm being downright narcissistic, except I have felt so frumpy recently, it's really nice to feel pretty today! So I'll take it, and be grateful for it, and share it with you, narcissistic or no!

Oh, and Pete bought me flowers, too, but I'm saving a photo of those for Monday.


And it's such a cold and rainy day here, I have to pass on Piper's new favorite thing: cuddling up over the heat grate (any of them) and getting her "warm cozies" fix. It is so seriously cute, I want to cry. I just love it!

Yesterday, when I took this photo, she was cuddling over the grate in our bedroom while I made the bed, and I dropped the blanket over her as she buried herself in. WHAT a cuddlebug!

And this photo just reminded me of another one, taken when she was about three months old. So you get that today as well.


I cannot believe she was ever this small. Wow.

I cannot believe we're about to do this again.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Just "Hanging" Out

Piper is being a Toddler today. Not that she isn't normally. But sometimes she's the cute, learning, sweet-speaking toddler, and sometimes she's the "let's get everything out" and "make lots of messes" and "play with the no-touch things" Toddler. She is the latter today.

And I'm the Hormonal Pregnant Mama today. Which translates to the Toddler as The Wicked Witch of the West when I say "no." And Daddy is, of course, Our Hero. He gets rather caught in the middle sometimes.

But in the midst of the messes and the Thwarted Toddler and the Thwarted Hormonal Pregnant Mama, we did sit down together for a few minutes. We read some books. We hung out. We took pictures to document that sometimes we DO have fun together.

Actually, the Toddler was interrupting a limited self-portrait session of mine (limited, because I've only got so much energy here, and I'm NOT seeing me today). But we decided to make it fun, and whacked our personalities together for a few minutes to see what we'd come up with. Without further ado, I give you (friends, relatives, and posterity):

Piper and Mama










(Images © Informal Moments Photography)

Unwrapping a Morning

Noticing today.

Revisiting winter beauty in sleeping crepe myrtle. Oh, I love that stuff.

Figuring out that my lack of inspiration for a photo montage means that I need to go find these pictures of grace - fresh, new - soon.

Grateful for sleep last night, for feeling better today, for answered prayers (thank you for praying, friends), for sunlight in my eyes as I type.

Having breath, feeling baby movement and strengthening womb, drawing anatomy of my face with cold little girl fingers trying to figure me out - "lips, sad?, zit?, eyes..."

Replaying unexpected before-sleep conversation, stolen midnight moments.

Beauty in crazy, new supposed-to-be-un-pressured moments broken by toddler interruptions - for hug... after hug... after hug this morning.

Almost wishing to rewrap this Piper-gift that is so much chaos in my world sometimes.

Planning to bake cookies with her. Germs and all. Promise not to send them to anyone.

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Shared today with Chatting at the Sky for Tuesdays Unwrapped.

Original, unprompted material to come at some point soon. I'm disenchanted with my own writing at the moment. And disenchanted with Blogger, which spontaneously ambushed all the permalinks in my archives. Anybody have any suggestions?





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

It is Saturday at Our House

The morning fog swept in up the river from the sea and into our neighborhood hasn't yet lifted to let the sun. It's not a low fog here. It drifts high, giving cloudy-day illusions that burn off into blue with the sun.

I wake early, first at 4:15, then again at 6:15, and I can't return to slumber between baby-movements and tearful thoughts of dreams deferred - dreams that aren't mine, dreams that are just like mine. I ache a prayer heavenward, then ache and creak my way out of bed, grabbing robe and responsibility and an hour for contemplation before the work begins today.

And there is much to do - in delayed promise-keeping and baby preparation. I breathe long and deep and think of sneaking out to grab warm coffee and a few small Christmas gifts, but I don't, and Pete wakes up and creaks his way across the cold floors into the kitchen for garlic and C to chase away his hard-earned sore throat and tired.

Now Piper is awake, chattering away on couch with Daddy, watching "Einsteins" after having relocated and dropped bedroom toybox with a cute "whoops! Sorry!" onto the living room floor.

We hadn't cleaned up after her last night anyway.

The contractions are already working this morning; I am at 36 weeks tomorrow. Sooner than we have realized Button will be in our home, changing our lives beyond my popping joints and a writhing baby belly.

I take a breath now, and the day begins and the weekend begins, and I ponder grace and measured strength and what it means to listen for Him through the noise of What We Need to Do.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Found

Every once in a while, Pip just disappears on me. We have a very small house, so when she goes quiet, I usually assume she's getting into trouble and trying to hide it. This afternoon, however, she wasn't in trouble. I found her buried under her pillow on the air mattress we keep in her room for laying down with her after we transfer her out of our bed at night. She was sound asleep.

A sweet, sweet way to end the mom-panic.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Now you see her, now you don't.

Working this weekend while I have backup childcare. Meaning Pete and Piper get a lot of bonding time. And our very good friends get their wedding photos early next week.

But all this begins AFTER we make these for breakfast. I dug up this recipe yesterday, because I have been CRAVING blintzes since Pete's and my anniversary brunch at a Really Nice Restaurant in downtown Charleston.

(We might get a Christmas tree this weekend too. Because the baby is coming and we can justify the early.)

Ahem.

P.S. Those are Piper's footprints in that photo. I took it last Christmas. When it was 70 degrees and we went to the beach for a picnic.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)