little man has been on the outside longer than inside...

Happy nine months, little man - we cannot believe how much of a little kid you are growing into!  I cannot believe that you've now been on the outside for longer than you were growing in Mommy's tummy.  It feels like just yesterday that we were finding out that you were on your way, waiting and hoping for and expecting your arrival.

Your Profile
You weigh in at almost 20 pounds and getting quite tall.  You wear 9-12 month clothes, and even a few 12 month clothes.  You are becoming more and more little boy, and less and less baby.  Mommy can tell that toddler years are right around the corner.  You are pulling up and cruising around the furniture, and even occasionally free-standing, although it catches you completely off-guard most of the time!  You eat like a banshee - and so far, we haven't found anything you won't eat.  You current favorites are lentils with raisins and cumin, avocado, and, as always, banana and cheerios.  And as before, you are constantly on the go!  You badly need a haircut, but we haven't managed to do that yet!

Things you've Learned
You know how to pull up and stand up on almost anything - you are also comfortably cruising around the house on the furniture.  My guess is that you will walk before you are one.  You are also very comfortable feeding yourself - even things that you're not supposed to, like mulch, onion skins, and plastic - and are starting to learn how to use a sippy cup and a spoon.  You've learned how to splash in the bathtub, and how to turn the light in your room off and on.  You haven't said any words yet, but you love making farting noises with your mouth, and can make all the vowel sounds, plus Z, S, and B and some other indistinguishable noises.  When Mommy sings, half the time, you "sing" along with her.

Your Firsts

• You went apple picking for the first time - and loved it!
  
• You went toilet bowl fishing for the first time.  Wish I could say it'll also be your last time, but I'm not so sure.  Needless to say, the toilet locks were installed.
• You've started making farting noises all the time now - and learned how to say "S" and "Z".
• You moved to two meals of solids each day - and love it!
• You stood on your own for 5-10 seconds for the first time.
• You are no longer a vegan - you have tried meat, eggs and yogurt within the last month
• You also had your first cold - and you thought it was hilarious the first few times we used the booger squeegie on your nose. 
• You switched from the front carrier to a back carrier - much more comfortable for Mommy and Daddy, and you get the added perk of getting to pull our hair! :)

Things you Like
You LOVE making farting noises.  You love it when Daddy chases or wraps you up like a burrito after bathtime - and you love having splashing wars with Daddy in the tub.  You love eating - anything and everything.  You like it when Mommy comes home from work - you sprint crawl across the house to get to her.  You like going out - grocery shopping or out for meals - you are fascinated by people watching - and you still love being tossed in the air or tickled!

We love you so much, buddy!  And we love watching you grow more and more into the little man that you are.

When fear threatens to rob you of joy...

For as long as I can remember, I've been a "realist."  Never one to flippantly expect the best, I was always considering and aware of the worst case scenario, always the one who asked the "but what if...?" questions.  Always aware that for every good outcome, there were many ways that it could go wrong along the way.  And always waiting for the figurative "other shoe to drop." The dreaded "but..."

Marriage is really good right now, but...
We had one healthy pregnancy, but...
My job is really exciting right now, but...
I'm really excited, but...
I'm healthy right now, but...

When Jon and I got married, we took a pre-marital assessment (Prepare-Enrich - I highly recommend it) as a part of our counseling which, among other things, measured your "rose-colored glasses-ness."  We both scored off the charts... on the bottom end.  And in some ways that was a really good - neither one of us was/is deceived into thinking that marriage is easy, or that it will be all bubbles and jelly beans.  But our counselor at the time - who was very wise - warned us that in the midst of that "realism" that we actually need to have hope that good things will also happen.  In other words, to believe in the possibility of a good, beautiful, happy marriage, just as much as we were preparing for the hard work and refining.

Realism without hope isn't actually realism.

A few years ago, one of my spiritual mentors told me, "realism isn't the same as 'waiting for the other shoe to drop' - that's actually fear and pessimism."  Realism, in contrast, acknowledges also the possibility that the other shoe won't drop.  That a good outcome is just as possible as a bad.  That statistically, there's not a limit to how much good can be expected, or how much bad or hard must occur.  It's not counting beans - where you run out of one, and you only have the other left.  Fear expects and prepares for the worst, always.  Fear is always waiting for the good to end, and the bad to come.  Fear focuses on the what ifs and loses the other side.

Fear robs us of joy, it buries hope and declares it foolish, and it declares the verdict before it ever occurs.  All in the name of being rational.  And, when bad things do happen, it hinders our ability to fully grieve them, because our mentality is, "well, that figures... of course it was going to be that way."  Fear is self-protective, and self-deceptive.  It neither protects nor enables us to see "realistically."

I don't know about you, but I would prefer joy and hope, in balance with wisdom and good preparation, even if it is more risky than fearful security.

Sure, hope is far more vulnerable.  Hope requires that we acknowledge that it hurts when we fall, are disappointed, or bad things happen.  Hope requires acknowledging that we actually do want the good things which we want regardless of whether we acknowledge it or not.  Hope can be disappointed, whereas fear rarely is.  But hope actually allows room for joy.  For life.  And for grieving.

So what do we do, when fear threatens to rob us of joy?  And I need to make it abundantly clear that I'm preaching this to myself here as well - I don't have this figured out yet.

But, I think we start by asking the "what if" question... the other way.  What if, instead of the fear-filled situation...  what if, God actually has something good here instead?  What are the potentially positive, hope-filled outcomes?  Not saying we have to believe them, or know that they'll happen - or that they will happen, for that matter - but I think hope begins to grow when we deliberately create space for it.

And maybe that space is as simple as beginning with realism - the balance of both sets of "what ifs."  Without automatically shooting one down because it's "unrealistic."

And then if we're really audacious and really bold, maybe we look for what we can be joy-full about in the here and now, regardless of what might happen next.  And maybe we choose, deliberately, joy - for as long as it can be ours.   Without damping it with cynicism, or waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It's audacious.
It's so simple.
But it's so hard.

I have no idea how to do this day in and day out.  But I am wholeheartedly persuaded that it is better than living in a fear-filled "realism" and so I'm going to try and keep plugging away at it.  With joy.  :)

- KD

Letters to my son: Being Your Mom

Dear son,

I've been wanting to write this letter for a while, but I just haven't quite had the words.  I still don't, but they say that words start to flow when you start to write, so here I am.  I want to tell you how much I love being your mommy, and how much more full I am than I ever thought I could be.

It's not one story - that would be easy to describe or tell.  It's not even one sweet tender moment, because I'm pretty sure I could find words for that as well.  It's the days, in and out, with your good moments, and your scream-y ones, that make my heart fill and feel like it cannot hold any more, but still it grows and overflows even more each day.

You are a man on the move these days and from the moment that you sit up in your crib to the moment that I lay you down for the night, you never stop.  Over legs, under tables, climbing trash cans and strollers: by the end of the day, you have more bumps than I can count - but still you grin.  You are unfazed by each set-back, and your persevering little personality keeps trying again, and again, and again.  Grinning and pouting and crying and chortling, all the way.  Nothing melts me like your laugh.  Even your preciously adorable pouty lip doesn't come close.

The other night, you had a hard night.  You were startled awake around 10:30, and you screamed and cried and wouldn't go back to sleep in your crib until almost 1:15.  And so we held you, and rocked you, and walked with you, and you fell asleep on our chests, your breathing slowing and relaxing, and your body slumped against ours in total trust, arching and screaming the moment we tried to put you down.  And as frustrated as I was, and as tired as I was, and as much as I wanted you to go.to.bed, I kept thinking, "I get to be his mom.  And we get to be the ones who comfort him.  Who help him feel safe when he's scared."  We get to be the ones who sit with him on these long, dark nights and as well as bear witness to the happy, laughter-filled days.  We get to be the ones...  and baby, even though I was SO glad when you finally let Daddy put you down in your crib, and stayed asleep, and we could crawl into our own bed and fall asleep, lying down, I wouldn't trade the privilege of getting to be the one who gets to be your mom - your safe place, even in those long, dark nights - for anything.

As I write this, you are crawling around on the floor, under daddy's keyboard, under my chair, pulling books off the shelves, and in general leaving total chaos in your wake - but every so often, you come back over to me, pull up on my leg, and just grin, as if to say "still here, mom?"  I'm still here, baby.  And I'm not going anywhere.

I love your fearlessness, even when that causes heart failure as you launch yourself off couches, beds, and chairs.  I love your laughter when daddy tickles you or you find something totally random, funny.  I love your snuggles in those last few minutes before bed, those precious, rare moments when you curl up and snuggle in and are still.  I love how you grin when we brush your teeth, and how you impishly consider whether to obey or not when we tell you no.  I love your wild crazy hair, standing on end and going every which way.  I love hearing your voice, as you sing going up the stairs, or along with me when we're cooking in the kitchen.  And I love how you crawl/run to greet me when I come home from a long day at work.

I wear many hats, baby.  But being Daddy's wife, and your mom are two of the most precious to me. When I am with you both, I am home and fully me.

I love being your mom, and as long as I am alive, I will always be here.  Whether you're screaming and running away, or screaming and running towards;  whether you're smiling and laughing, or crying; whether you are being fiercely independent, or just needing reassurance that we're here; whether you despise us or delight in us; whether you need us, or are fine on your own; whether I understand you or struggle to; whether I'm tired and just need a break, or loving every moment of motherhood, I will be here, with love, hard or easy, as your mom.  Loving you regardless.  Listening.  Staying.  And grateful for the gift of being your mom, always.

Love,

Mommy

blogger identity crisis

So I have a bit of a confession to make...  as a blogger, I'm going through a bit of an identity crisis - or at very least, a re-forming period.  When this blog began, it was a simple place for me to externally process the knowledge that I was called beloved, loved unconditionally, with-or-without my "little bit" of whatever I had to offer.  It was mostly private, and shared with just a few friends - mostly just for my own processing.

Over the last year, though, it has expanded in audience, and content.  And right, wrong or otherwise, I enjoy that.  I love comments, I love feedback, and I love "likes" - one of my love languages is words of affirmation, and so I thrive when that feedback is positive.  It also can be a dangerous place for me, because it can make it difficult at times to share parts of my process, vulnerably - which may or may not get likes and comments - even though that was the original intention of the blog.  I know, intrinsically, the type of post that gets likes.  And the kind that doesn't.  And it's very tempting to write either one or the other - but not really both.

Somewhere in the middle is where I hope to land - writing in light of the audience at hand, but also staying true to the intention of this space, regardless of the feedback or lack therein that I may get.  All that to say, I'm still figuring out how to do that.  And I'm trying to intentionally wrestle through my own need for affirmation - and the unhealthy parts of that as well as the healthy.  As well as consider how having an external audience may also - healthily - require me to share about the happy, light,  moments as well as the heavy, processing, heady, realization ones.  Which, even though it might not be my standard modus operandi to share out loud, is actually really healthy and good for me.

All that to say, I'm still figuring it out.  But, in the spirit of vulnerability, being real in the blogosphere, and comfort in who I am, I thought I'd share that out loud, rather than just keeping it to myself.  Here's the goal:

• I'm going to write some posts that have no point - that are funny, that are random, that are life - and I'm going to write some that are serious, pondering, and deep.  Because both of those are part of who I am. 

• I'm also going to write some that many people will love, because they resonate on a broader spectrum.

• And I will also write some that no one will like, but that are important for me to write to get it out of my head and into a place where I can process it out and be reminded of truth in the midst of chaos.  And that's a good thing too.

• And, easy or hard, with wisdom recognizing that this is the freakin' internet, I will continue to write posts that are vulnerable.  Even when it feels hard.  

And I have to be okay with not fitting neatly into one category of blogger - the sweet, inspirational, or the mommy-blogger, or the ridiculously funny, or the beautifully parsed, or the "gets a hundred likes even when she writes about fill-in-the-blank."  (I have some ridiculously talented friends who write blogs).  And at the same time, I have to be okay with sometimes getting pigeon-holed as a mommy blogger - hey I am one - or a heady-realization-rich blogger - because I have those and I like that about myself - or one who is expected to have beautiful words always - because I do sometimes.  And with that, it's okay to enjoy getting lots of positive feedback, comments and likes - but those cannot define the way that I write, process, or imagine and dream.  Therein, the journey is stunted, and I, not you, confine myself to a far smaller space than I long for.  That's my #beingreal moment for the day.

It's a terrible branding strategy - but hey, I'm not selling myself, for likes, comments, or money.  Because after all,

"I am called beloved. And in that, is a freedom to process and be transparent with everything else above. Because in the security of knowing that I am called Beloved, I also hear the truth that the chaos, the mess, the awkwardness, is not who I am. It does not define me." 

And that is my only brand.  So... stay tuned.  :)  The journey continues.

Letters to my son: Easy Answers

Dear son -

This has been a month of a lot of hard moments for mommy.  Questions of why that don't have answers.  Tears.  Memories.  More questions.

This month, two dear friends that are trying to get pregnant, but haven't been able to, clocked in yet another disappointment and heartbreak.  Yet another month without a longed for, beloved member of their families.  Earlier this week, a friend gave birth to her beautiful daughter, stillborn, at 6 months after receiving a fatal diagnosis earlier this month.  And those losses have hit me really hard this month.  Even as we celebrated with rapt delight countless other friends delight in welcoming home a new baby or discovering/announcing that they are pregnant.

This last month [Sept] is host to suicide prevention week, and with it come the memories of those that mommy has lost to suicide and thankfulness and prayers for those that she feared she would lose.  Those she holds dear, in this life, and the next.  And with it comes both grief for those absent, questions of why, and sadness for the oft invisible hurt, heaviness, and darkness that is felt by so many.

This month, mommy had hope for something new that might be had.  Thought that it might happen.  But it didn't.  And the hope that was, fell, in the silence of that which never was, but was hoped and longed for.

And this month, mommy has prayed with more people who have lost a loved one or are losing a loved one, to death, disease, or divorce, than she has in a very long time.  And it's been hard.  Really hard.  With lots of tears, lots of sitting with, and lots of why questions.

Right now, your hardest why questions are most likely "why is it taking so long for mommy to arrive?" and "why can't I eat this onion skin or climb on this chair?"

In a few short years, I am sure that you will overwhelm us with your questions of "why?" Why do birds fly, mommy?  Why don't airplanes fall?  Why do football players wear helmets?  Why do some people speak a different language than us?  Why does the T move so slow or smell so dirty? Why do you kiss daddy? Why isn't the sky orange?

And while those are tricky questions, I am fairly confident, with the help of google search and wiser friends, we can ascertain an answer to them.  But you will learn, son, that there are many many questions that don't have easy answers.  Whys which we don't know.  Whys which no matter how smart mommy and daddy are, or how excellent their google searching skills, we cannot figure out concisely.  Or at all.

Your mommy thinks a lot (and so does Daddy).  And for years, she has wrestled with those whys.  Wanted simple answers.  Tried to simplify complex things.  And tried to understand why.  And that's not a bad thing.

But in my now slightly older wisdom, I am learning that we do some of those griefs, some of those hard places, some of those questions, a grave disservice, when we attempt to make what is complicated, simple.

Oliver Wendall Holmes once said, "I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity."  I love that quote, and it hangs on the wall of our dining room, in a piece of art that I created, when I was wading through a season of my own complexity and story, grief, and history.

There comes [eventually] a simplicity to these why questions - even if it's just an inexplicable peace in the "I don't know"- but it only comes from wading through, sitting in, walking with, crying through - those places of complexity.  Of I don't know.  And it's beautiful - far more beautiful than a cliche simplicity.   When we settle for the easy, feel good answers, we do a disservice to the grief.  To those who grieve.  And to ourselves.  And we cheapen the beauty that rises from the ashes.  

Son, in my grief this month - in my grief for others this month - and in my grief with others this month - I don't have answers.  I don't know.  And I can guarantee you that you will ask questions that I don't know the answer to also.  That you will likewise wrestle with.  Or those around you, that you love deeply and dearly, will wrestle with.

And there is a temptation - out of a good desire, and deep compassion to mitigate pain - to give easy answers.  To hold on to easy answers.  And to resolve the why quickly.

But son, this is my entreaty to you, as well as my promise:  [I will] be willing to say "I don't know."  Without explanation, but with compassion and empathy.  I don't know why, but I love you.  I don't know why, but let's wrestle with it together.  I don't know why, but I want to love you well.  How can I do that?  I don't know, but I'm not going anywhere.

Perhaps there are times when a simplified [but still true] answer will be helpful - when you ask where babies come from, when you're 2 or 3, for example.  But, in as much as I am able, and with room for discernment and wisdom to lead - I promise you, I will not give you trite answers - or make something up, when the reality is that I don't know.  I will [endeavor to] not be afraid to say "I don't know."

Because while it is extremely tempting to give or cling to easy answers, it is not comforting to those who are stuck in the complexity.  It would be easy for me to teach you trite answers - cliche phrases which you can always give.  In one blog post letter, I can give you at least four that can always be [inappropriately] dished out in any circumstance.  But the harder and more compassionate thing is to teach you to sit with.  To model sitting with.  Pressing in.  Digging deep.  And wading through the complexity to find the beautiful simplicity on the other side.

That is what I want to live.  That is what I want to model for you.  And what I want to invite you into as well.

Love,

Mommy