babies...yeah, i love babies.

i'm not really sure how to express this; my arsenal of words is so limited these days! i feel like i haven't used my brain in 4 billion years. muster through this with me, despite my lack of eloquence! it's all my opinion, what you shall read below - the way i see things. i'm afraid to post my thoughts on facebook, because more often than not, voicing your opinion stirs up more dust than i'm willing to sweep, and i just want to pour it all out somewhere to perhaps be read by someone, if they feel like it. what i write isn't the gospel.

so, what's up?

well, jack is basically the best thing that ever happened in the history of ever (aside from salvation and jole, naturally).

he is THE cutest baby. he is MY baby. he is the BEST BABY EVER.

his fussiness is the best. his serious faces are my favorite. i love all his little noises and his big noises. his kicks are funny, his cries are heartbreaking, his expressions are priceless! i am in love! all i can do is swoon and kiss him and smile at him! all the time!

and this is what i think: why was i so opposed to babies before jack? why didn't i want one? why did i cringe at the thought of having one, let alone touching one? i have been babysitting since the beginning of time, and teaming that with the fact that i've worked in schools and daycares and sunday school nurseries, you could say that i've been dealing with children for two solid decades...and all that time, i never saw anything sooo special that i thought, "dang, i need to get me one of these!"

my reasons were as follows: once you're a parent, you can NEVER STOP being a parent. such a notion is extremely daunting to me; having never desired living in a place for more than 2 years, and getting restless enough to move from state to state between each jaunt..."long-term" really didn't hold much appeal for me. getting married wasn't so bad, though...i didn't want a boyfriend for a long time, and i didn't meet any boys who struck my fancy until jole. when i saw him, it was over. that was the first "long-term" commitment i ever made. i gotta say, he was and is the best choice. perfect for me. he fits snugly in my heart, conformed to me like memory foam.

so, nope. didn't want to be responsible for another life. didn't want to deal with heartache or sorrow or disappointment or being "needed" all the time. didn't want to be a "mom", didn't really understood what that entailed, even though i had the most amazing mom in the world, who demonstrated how wonderful mommyness could be for everyone involved!

along with fear of commitment, jole and i wanted time to ourselves - to get situated in OUR relationship before introducing anyone else to it; we wanted to be alone and have the freedom to travel and move and do whatever we wanted without being tied down. we wanted to space them out to about a 5 years into our marriage, because we know our lives as we knew them would be "over".

could you imagine ever saying something like that to someone who really wanted children, but couldn't have them? could you say, "we just don't want them. they'll cramp our style. they'll get in the way. always having to think of how to care for them. all the poop and puke and snot and teething and toddler tantrums and teenage, hormonal meltdowns."

sure that stuff is hard, but how does that NOT sound selfish? weren't we children once? didn't our parents face the same requirement to lay their own lives down to raise all of us? some parents took the challenge and met it, sacrificing so much to give their children everything they could - and couldn't! - but others kept that mentality that children are nothing more than inconvenient, and marched on, doing what they wanted without thinking how it would affect their children. that's good parenting and bad parenting - ones who are humbled and ones who are egocentric.

marrying joel showed me how selfish i was as a single person. having jack blew that initial notion of selfishness out of the water. i was - AM - very self-absorbed. i am learning how NOT to be, but only by the grace of God. i mean that - it is by God's grace that i am learning how to parent jack and be a wife to joel with a babe in arms.

and...see this clearly: laying myself down, learning jack, learning ways to love joel, learning ways to continue my relationship with God, has been the greatest adventure i have EVER experienced.

it was not my choice to have jack, but i am so so so grateful for him, and i would have a hundred more babies just because of him.

i get to pray over him every night while he squirms and growls and burbles; i thank God with so many tears that He saw fit to let me take care of Jack while i'm alive here on earth! i get to hold his little hands and kiss his cheeks anytime i want. i get to raise him. i get to love him for the rest of my life. i get to show him Jesus and show him what a wonderful God and wonderful Savior Christ Jesus is for me, and can be for him. i get to be there for every phase of his life; i get to spend myself in the night, bent over him while he nurses at 3am, and i get to hold him when he's crying as much as when he's cooing.

i get to be a haven for him, a safe place - for the rest of his life until he meets his wife.

i don't mind the work. i love it. it's hard, but it's also so very easy. greatly in part because i have such a loving, tender husband to help with the rough spots.

in ways, i can see why people say they don't want children...because i felt that way once. i probably would have continued pushing the "deadline" for having babies until it was too late. but, i'm not going to lie...fertile, married, stable couples opting not to have children doesn't make sense to me - probably because i'm now on the "parent" side of things. i don't feel pity for childless couples - there isn't any sorrow or thoughts of, "well, they're missing out!" all i know is that i feel fuller and more joyful than i ever have in my entire life. sometimes, i feel like i've just run into a wall of "giddy" when i look at jack and a slow smile spreads across his huge cheeks. i never loved a baby the way i love jack. it is whole. i feel whole, even though i didn't feel "half" before. strange. wonderful! one thing i'm certain of is...couples (me and joel included) who don't want children only feel that way for selfish reasons, because since i've had jack, i realize all i do is "give" and "give up"...but, i don't care! i think when you're looking at it from the outside, you DO care. you don't see how you CAN'T care. they don't want the stigma of being parents. hey, i didn't want to smell like baby, but i am proud to wear his perfume these days! lol i didn't want to be seen as a "mom", because that stereotype usually means someone housebound, weird, frumpy, frowny, cut-off, consumed with babies, tied-up and trapped.

i guess that's kinda what happens. i have always been a homebody, though. and i've certainly always been weird. i'm not too frumpy...well, maybe i am, but that's because we're poor. i might be a little more frowny, but i'm not any more cut-off than i was before. i guess i am a little bit more consumed with babies - i get REALLY excited about pregnancies, choices people make about having babies, raising babies! baby stories, yes! (forest fires, yeah!) and i AM on baby time, but not so very trapped. so, what's so scary about all that stuff? nothing! why so fearful? not sure why i was - i kinda like all my future prospects, now, even if i am frumpy, frowny, weird, housebound, cut-off, consumed with babies, tied up and trapped. jack is still the greatest gift i've ever received, and i can't wait to have another baby. i can't wait to create life, again.

create life!? i mean, c'mon, how freaking cool is that??? with the man i love most in the world! a human comprised of both our DNA? yes, please! a chance to create someone who will change the world simply because they exist! plus, if anything happens to me, joel still has a little bit of me left in our babies. likewise, should anything happen to him. i'm all over the map, but who cares? this is my blog!  haha.

and, i'll prolly address this more another time, because the Lord has really been laying it on my heart, but i am quite certain that few things matter more than laying yourself down for others. especially for your spouse and children.

specifically, before jack (b.j.), i was so worried about how much weight i would put on during the pregnancy, and how my body would never be the same. after jack (a.j.), sure - i am different, but i kinda like the new me. it is a body that housed another body, and my husband still thinks me sexy, so...what have i lost? hey! - and what is body image, anyway? who says i'm ugly or beautiful? what does it matter? i gave birth to a PERSON! regardless, b.j./a.j. the only person's opinion that should matter is joel's! and, he, being a healthy, godly man, realizes i've never been a porn star or an athlete or a magazine cover and i never will be; i am me, and i am his standard of beauty, and i do what i can to look good for him.

b.j i was afraid of how often i'd get to travel. the Lord knows our desires; He gave us southwest. neither one of us feels trapped or restricted; that's just something nice He allows for now, and i'm soaking it up. it is truly a blessing to have this freedom.

b.j. we were freaking out about finances, but a.j. God provided in SO many ways! again, we went from joel making $10/hour at a call center to working for southwest! we're still kinda at the poverty line, but we have enough! and we are happy! the Lord also blessed us with many baby showers - some spontaneous and some plotted; all have lead to clothing, supplies, diapers, and food for us from our family at our church! what love the Father has bestowed upon us! He is taking care of us financially still, through His people. He is so good.

b.j. i was worried i'd be a bad mom. a.j. i realize that i'm the perfect mom for jack, or else he wouldn't be mine.

b.j. i was worried i wouldn't have time with the Lord. a.j. i'm still figuring that one out, but in many ways, my relationship with the Lord has found new roots, and i am discovering that if i want Him to be a priority, it's up to me to make Him number one.

b.j. i was worried that i would forget about joel and lose sight of our marriage, because i believe that in order to have a secure family, it starts with the marriage. working on keeping each other as our first loves provides a more stable home for our children, not to mention sets a good example of happy married life, and what to aim for - teach 'em the ropes! it's tempting to sway toward sending all my loves to jack, because he is so easy to please, and he doesn't have any words :) but, a.j. i'm learning to balance my relationship with joel, and it's almost more exciting since there is a new challenge, in a way...and i love joel more for being a father, and a GREAT one at that!

i think those were most of my fears, but now that i'm on the other side, i'm really not down and out because of these changes from jack; my life is improved with him. it's awesome.

these are my thoughts!

one new memory

i'm up too late and i'll be kicking myself in the morning more than i am, now.

i simply felt compelled to write something since i haven't in so long. a new update? what's this?!

joel, jack and i have just returned home after a visit to oregon. we spent a couple of days on the coast, admiring the scenery and introducing jack to my good friend, the beautiful sea. he'd already met it before along the california coast, but now he has tasted a mite bit of the truly wild portion of the northern coastal lands.

perhaps one of my most favorite moments of the entire trip took place on our last day. jack had just about had enough of our shenanigans and was sick of traveling; he was fussy and red-eyed, occasionally bursting out in rounds of discontented shrieks before i reached back each time and thumped a pacifier in his sweet little mouth. we were tired, and had just cleared out of cannon beach; we were fixing to go home (to sean and adnama's), but i had been disappointed in our early leave of the ocean, so joel headed our rental suburu north toward seaside.

the sun had finally shaken itself free from a bank of fog and clotted clouds, so it was relatively warm, stirred only by a smooth breeze. we stopped by taco bell (i was hungry!) before sidling down a street opening to the beach. we pulled jack from his warm cocoon of a carseat and lumped our way down across rolling, sandy dunes decorated with fields of long salty grass. we had been aiming for the lonely swings just over the last rise, but they weren't so lonely. a girl had taken up a seat on one and we didn't want to interrupt her, so we ambled a little further until joel spotted a massive chunk of driftwood (read: entire tree swept high onto the shore). it became our picnic spot and in a matter of seconds, we were surrounded by an army of seagulls. only one was bold enough to crowd me while i sat on the tree and joel stood in front of me to block the sun and wind from jack's face (the wee lad was strapped to my body in the moby wrap while i dropped taco bell chips on his head), so joel scared it away about three times, but it continued to flutter noisily back to its place beside me. it squalled and squawked and chirped and mewed at us for food; but, it wasn't until we noticed its injured, gimpy leg that we took pity and fed it the weirdly juicy taco bell meat from some of our tacos. we made sure none of the other seagulls could snatch his meal away from him...which might have been a cruelty in disguise, since the seagull had probably been wounded BECAUSE it trusted humans. :(

what made this memory sweet to me was the presence of my boys. joel stood to shield me and jack from the wind; he was protecting us and looking after us; he was thoroughly enjoying himself with first scaring the seagulls, and then feeding the one. i loved watching him. jack was adorable, and i had the privilege of feeding him on the beach. it felt so beautiful, to be breastfeeding outside in the sunshine and wind, with the clap and crumble of waves crushing the sand just a few yards away. i was so happy in that moment; i felt full. i feel full, now, just remembering that day! the scene is so vibrant in my mind.

and now, off to bed!