Grandma

Well, I didn't get to the birth story yesterday as I intended. The internet was down all day, and it just turned out to be a hectic week. Whew! For those of you watching Belle's "Trixie Tracker" site, you'll notice she's been waking in the night again, and it's catching up with me. I chose sleep today over cleaning, work and blogging. So, it's coming. Here's a picture of my mom with Isabelle on her weekend visit. One of the highlights was feeding Isabelle rice cereal for the first time. She's doing okay with it, except that every time we feed her it takes about 10-12 spoonfuls for her to remember what she's doing. It seems like she's never seen the stuff before EACH time we feed her!

On a "me" note, I've been working on being less anxious about stuff. Whenever my mom visits, she always comments about how I worry too much, and I've really been working hard to let stuff go. I'm afraid of not doing things well or properly, or of making other people upset a lot, and it's really affected my adult life. Already this week I've had some triumphs over it...so I'll press on.

New Hangouts

High Chair

Dad's Arm

Doorway Jumper

It's been awhile. I was all charged up about writing again after my last post, but it was one of those months where I just had to get through this thing, and then that event, and then this piece of work, etc. So now I am post-Easter, post-family visit, etc. Except I'm throwing a baby shower this weekend.

Tomorrow is Isabelle's 5 month birthday, and I was inspired to write down her birth story by my friend Karen (who posted her daughter's birth story at 5 months). Stay tuned for that. This past weekend my mom and older sister Alison came for the weekend. Alison attended the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College, while Mom hung out with Isabelle and helped me with several projects (including updating my wardrobe). A true mom is one who not only helps you pick out new clothes to buy, but alters them for you before she leaves. Thanks, Mom.

Ben preached a zinger of a sermon on Sunday that was part of a series on Christians being the bravest people on earth (basically because they are not afraid of death). It used several examples from our life, and one of the main points was about God asking us to take risks and not always taking the safe path. One of the examples he used was us coming to seminary, both Tyndale and Calvin. As much as I still believe that this is the place where we are called to be right now, when my mom was leaving on Monday morning, I still sob like I'm a prisoner here! Sometimes it's hard to be brave.

Honestly

So it's been awhile. I've been feeling somewhat contemplative lately. I've been reading lots of blogs: adoptive mothers, new moms, people who are living far away, a sucessful author and future writing coach, teenage music dude. I realized the other day the reason why I don't watch TV (also because we don't get any channels) is because I now spend more time reading on the internet. One of the things I realized in all my blog reading is that I have blogged much the way I interact with people. I'm polite. I don't go too deep. I tend to get easily emotional. I spend most of my free time with my husband and daughter. I have envied the honesty of many other bloggers that I follow, but have felt nervous to let people in on my thoughts. Honestly there are many days in the last four months I have not posted only because I couldn't think of anything "happy" to write about. I could have written scads about how sad I felt at the time!!! So, within reason, I'm going to try posting more often about what's really going on, instead of what I think would be nice to read about.

Isabelle has been fussy again during feedings, which I find very distressing. She's also really strong and fights me, so when we're done nursing sometimes I feel as though I've just finished a wrestling match! The other thing that's going on is that it's Lent, and irritatingly so, God seems to be calling me to reconciliation with several people, and it's something that I resist in the same way my daughter fights me, when I'm trying to give her what she needs to live.

Tomorrow is a double preaching day for Ben. He's well prepared and is currently downstairs preaching at the back yard. Last night we fought during the night about whether to pick up Isabelle or let her cry, and even though she went back to sleep, I was so riled up about the whole thing, I didn't sleep anyways!! Honestly, parenting is the most confusing and confounding task, and I'm only four months in.