Wow. We have had a FULL few months! People have been wondering if we dropped off the planet but no–I assure you…our feet are firmly planted here on earth. More specifically, we have planted them firmly in a blue-sky, clear-air little city called Denver. (Cue song: “Rocky Mountain High…”)
We decided at the end of April to settle down here for now. “Why Denver?” you ask. Because we have found LIFE here. (Now you’re REALLY starting to wonder if we have been outside the planet Earth, aren’t you?!) We have found Life in a very small church here. Our dear, dear friends pastor a small house church, and the people within it (because aren’t WE “the church”?) have brought us LIFE. They believe that church should be about true community, not just about a building that you step into once a week. They believe church should be about FAITH, for “everything that does not come from faith is sin,” and have FAITH in every aspect of who God says he is in the Word. They spur us on, sharpen us, and encourage us in this faith, in our marriage, and in our lives. Oh, and did I mention that we LAUGH a lot when we’re with them?
Life. Community. Faith. Sharpening. Encouragement. The true gospel. And JOY.
Yes, these are the things that we need. These are the things that we value. And so…we are here. It is also a huge bonus that Susanne’s family lives just a couple hours away!
Our family!Our new “extended” family!
Please come visit any time :). If you’d like our updated address, just email us here and we’ll be so happy to send it your way!
Oh my word, Selah is SO MUCH FUN. Her little personality continues to BLOSSOM and it is such a JOY to learn more and more every day about WHO SHE IS!!!
Selah officially has her first two words down this month!! She’s been saying “Mama” for a while, but just after she turned 9 months, she was using it consistently, in context, and without prompting…which is when we count it as an official word :). A couple weeks later, we noticed that every time we would say grace as a family before dinner and then say, “Amen,” Selah would say, “men!!” A few days later, Elliott was pretending he was going “Bye-bye,” so we were both saying, “Bye!” back and forth, when Selah chimed in and said, “Bye!” Then, right before she turned 10 months, she handed me a book and said, “Boo-ka!” Um, so cute. So since she doesn’t say “Bye” and “book” repeatedly, they’re not “official” words yet, but still! We’ve got a little talker on our hands!!
What else does she do now?
She snuggles.
Bless my ever-living soul. My girl has become a snuggler. She just DOES this now…unprompted. And when I put her down for bed, she pulls back and plants a huge open-mouth kiss on my lips.Snuggle time and books before bed!
She waves.
Yes, she was waving last month, but this month she is a waving MACHINE. She waves, “hello,” “goodbye,” and “night-night.”
She laughs.
SO happy to be outside!
She multiplies.
Twins.
She “walks.”
She’s still getting comfortable with it, but she’s used her little walker a few times!
She flies.
You saw it here first, folks.
She chews.
On everything. But especially shoes.Elliott’s are her favorite…
She does this.
And I have no idea why, or where she got it from, but is it not the cutest thing in the world?!!
And this.
Sassy pants.
She sleeps.
Precious moments.
Finally, the girl sleeps! After many months of sleeping-through-the-night regression, she is back. She pretty much always makes it through the night on her own now, but if she does wake up, all she needs is this little pat-pat from her Daddy-O, and she goes right back to sleep. This Mama is happy :).
She gives back rubs.
“Don’t worry, Mama, I’ll rub your shoulders next!”
She puts everything on her head!!
Hmm…who’s hiding behind the hard hat?Ohh! It’s YOU, Selah Bean!!!“Look at this cool hat!”“Does it look good, Mama?”“Look! It fits perfectly!”“Except I can’t see.”“Oh NOW I can see!”
She loves bath time, and her big brother.
“Elliott, will you teach me how to wash my hair?”“Like this, Selah!”
She loves the office.
Seriously, LOVES the office. When anyone is in there, she wants to be in there, too.
“Oh, come ON, Elliott! Let me in! Please?!!”
And when that door swings open, she books it inside and then shuts the door behind her.
“Victory. She’ll NEVER find me in here…especially since Elliott and I left all of these hand prints all over the glass. The windows are opaque now!”
She’s learning her boundaries.
I love watching her learn about boundaries. My love for training my kids is an entire other blog post, but I am remembering the joys of it this time around with Selah. She for sure knows her boundaries, and she for sure loves to test them :). She knows she’s not allowed to climb up the stairs by herself, and this particular morning I had forgotten to shut the gate. We were playing in the play room and suddenly she looked up and realized the gate was open…
And she gave me THIS face……and then crawled toward the open gate WHILE watching to see what I would do……then got to the open gate and paused…waiting for me to take action…
…and when I didn’t, you’d better believe she booked it up those stairs :). But you know what? That’s a VICTORY…because although she’s not fully staying within her boundaries yet, I love that she KNOWS what they are. But again, that is for another blog post :).
The other big boundary we have been working on is that some things are not okay to go in her mouth. She’s been pretty successful at listening to this one for a couple months now, but she started the cutest thing this month…when she puts something in her mouth that she’s not supposed to have in there and we say, “No, thank you, Selah!”, she hands it to us. Oh my word, it’s just too precious to even describe. So, watch this:
She LOVES rocks so much so that she eats them. This particular evening I thought it would be good to work on that little habit.
Well, she reached for a rock and the temptation overcame her. I reminded her it was a “no, thank you” to put it in her mouth.
She looked up at me and held the rock in front of her mouth while staring at me to see what I would do.
I looked at her with my “mom” face and said, “No, thank you, Selah…we don’t put rocks in our mouth,” and she immediately did this:
“Okay, Mama…here you go…”
She explores.
I can do this!Her classic “sit” position. Especially when she’s studying…Look what’s in here!Conquered.The tongs have been a popular toy in our house this month…oh, the endless fun you can have with tongs!She always wants to know what’s going on “up here.”Always.
She IS…Selah Bean, the wonderful.
Her personality has exploded this month…as I looked back over the pictures I couldn’t help but think, “Wow. Her personality is so apparent!” She is SO PASSIONATE. She is passionate about the bath tub, about not wanting to go to sleep, about heading out to the garage or anywhere outside, about the bathroom, about the stairs… Wow, is she passionate! And if anyone restricts her from her passions, she will LET YOU KNOW how she feels about that :). She is such a goofy, strong-willed, loud, SWEET little bundle of joy. It’s hard to believe that she can be such a strong combination of forceful and determined, yet snuggly and soft and lovey-dovey at the same time. What a gem. I love how God has knit her together.
Check out the personality in our sweet little 10 month old baby girl, just during one meal time!
Most days, Elliott completely overwhelms me. I honestly just marvel at the intricacies of how God made him…and live in a constant overflowing gratitude that God picked HIM to be our son…
He is so stinking smart. Brian and I can be having a conversation, in the other room, in our total “adult” language (fast, not tempered for kids, big words, vague…) and Elliott ALWAYS picks up on EVERY LITTLE THING WE SAY. He’s been like this for a long time, but in the last few weeks he’s picked up on such small nuances that I am just totally blown away. I could–literally–give you dozens of examples, but I’ll give you just one here, that was embedded into our day today:
So last week we FINALLY broke down and bought Elliott some pajamas. 98% of his pajamas have been hand-me-downs, and so they are really…umm…well loved. 🙂 They all have holes in the feet and are just too small. Elliott is extremely tall for his age and we are squeezing him into these well-loved, holey-footed 3T pajamas. It doesn’t help that he LOVES his footed jammies, is EXTREMELY particular about which set he wants to wear each day, and then he wants to wear that particular pair all day long.
“Mommy? Are ALL kids so tall that their toes poke through their jammies like this?”
ANYWAY, I finally ordered him a few new pairs, size 4T. So a few nights ago, I told him that as he pointed out the holes in the footie parts of his pajamas. I said, “Oh, guess what, Big Man?! I ordered you some new jammies without holes in the feet!” Well, I should have guessed, but then he wanted them “WIGHT NOW!” (which is his latest favorite phrase, ha!)
“New jammies, wight now!” he kept saying. So I explained (four times) that it would take a few days for them to get here and we would have to be patient.
SO, that brings us to today. We hadn’t talked about the new jammies in several days, but as I was changing his diaper I started thinking about them. I didn’t want to say anything to remind him of the new jammies on the way, so I carefully selected my words to Brian. “Hey, Babe, I wonder when my Carter’s order is going to come in?”
And. Elliott. Says.
“New jammies!! New jammies!!!!!!”
And I just stared at him with my jaw on the ground. Elliott has never been to Carter’s, nor do I shop their regularly–how could he have possiblyknown what I was talking about?!!! “How on EARTHdid you know I was talking about your new jammies???” I asked, incredulously.
“New jammmmmmmmies!!!!” he exclaimed with a big smile.
So I walked into the kitchen and asked Brian, “How on EARTH?!! Seriously, HOW ON EARTH could he have known that??”
Brian responds, “He must be omniscient!”
So a couple hours later, Elliott and I were playing with his little Fisher Price people. Elliott LOVES these ancient Fisher Price people and animals.
Playing with ancient people and animals in ancient pajamas…does life GET much better than this?
He pulled out the teacher and said, “Teacher, tractor!” and put the teacher in the tractor. So I said to him, “Hey, Buddy! Do you know that in lots of years, about 20 or so, you will get to choose to do a job that you want to do? A teacher is one job…what do you want to do when you grow up?”
Look closely…see the teacher driving the tractor?
“Jesus,” he calmly smiled in response.
Now, although he’s ALWAYS had a supernatural draw towards Jesus, and although I was 99% certain that he said, “Jesus,” I thought it was WAY too clever, cute, and awesome to be true. So I challenged him a bit.
“A teacher? You want to be a teacher?” (No pressure here…ha!)
“No…JESUS!” he said.
Our son wants to grow up to be Jesus. So either that’s the most blasphemous thing anyone has ever said, or…he really IS omniscient. You can decide for yourselves :).
In the meantime, check out what our all-knowing 2 year-old learned to do a few days ago…just in time for the toddler spelling bee!! We finally caught it on video today :).
You know when you’re on the first part of a roller coaster? And you slow-l-l-l-y creep, creep, creep you’re way up to the top? It’s exhilarating and exciting…so much anticipation builds in you as you slowly climb up, up, up. But it’s calm. It’s slow paced.
That’s what the first 5 months of having a baby is like for me. Like I said, for me, the first 5 months are a breeze! I mean, come on–all they do is sit there!! But then they hit that 6 month mark and, I am telling you…it’s like the moment your car rolls over the peak of that roller coaster, and life gets REAL up in here!!!
Cr-o-s-s-ing the 6 month mark…and holding my breath…
All within 5 days (the week after turning 7 months), our little Selah Bean got her first two teeth (FINALLY), had her first several vomiting experiences (SO SAD), started walking herself along the edges of things (IT STARTS…), started pulling herself up onto furniture (BINS, COUCHES, TABLES, ANYTHING IN REACH!) and learned how to climb up a step (TIME FOR A BABY GATE!). This girl is EVERYWHERE. I can’t believe how fast she moves, and she still pulls herself everywhere with her arms rather than doing the traditional “crawl”.
7 MONTHS: She-e-e-e’s…CRAWLING and EATING REAL FOOD!!!!! Weeeeee!!8 MONTHS: She’s CRAWLING FAST and EATING REAL FOOD and PULLING UP ONTO EVERYTHING and CLIMBING STAIRS and WALKING HERSELF ALONG FURNITURE!!! OH YES, and EATING SMALL CHOKE-ABLE OBJECTS!!!!THE REST OF HER LIFE: And it will only get wilder from here on out 🙂
But seriously, this girl is the essence of sugar and spice. The SUH-WEEE-TEST, SPIE-SEE-EST little thang that you’ve ever met. And oh, how we adore every square inch of who she is. Well, here she is…my big 8 month old girl!!!!
She walked her lil’ spicy self from the table to the couch all by herself!She climbs……over……everything in sight…And even taught herself……to joyfully……climb up stairs. She wants it, she goes after it, no matter what obstacle is in the way. In this case, “it” was a coat rack.“Yes, Mom? Is there a problem? Why are you running towards me so quickly?”
She started pulling herself up…and now pulls herself up onto EVERYTHING… 🙂
“Oh, hey Mom! Watcha doin’ up there on the couch??”
“Now how do I actually DRIVE this thing?”“Um, mom…could you give me a hand? I can pull myself up, but I don’t know how to get down yet!!”
Until the next week, when she learned how to get down, too!
This is where Selah usually camps out…she LOVES the backyard, and will just sit here, staring out the window like a little puppy until I let her out.“Can I go outside, Mama?”“Not right now? That’s okay. I’ll just squish my face up against the glass and dream.”…and…back down!
She LOVES BEING OUTSIDE!
Can you tell who taught her what the coolest toy to play with is?My sunshine.
She also LOVES…
…cabinets……chairs……drawers……t.v… (When both the kids had the stomach flu, I turned on a show for Elliott and it was the first time Selah had ever seen one! She was MESMORIZED, cocked her head to the side, and just STARED…)…and I mean LOVES making the “raspberry” sound…it is HER FAVORITE……chewing on Elliott’s shoes… (I know, I know…we’re working on it…)…AND, my feet.She seriously can’t get enough of my feet.
She got her very first two teeth!
“Whew, Mom! That was a LOT of work for just two teeth!!”
And I started giving her REAL food… and, unlike her big bro, she picked it up quite well, and LOVES feeding herself…
“So I just pick these little things up and eat them? No problem. But how do I eat this Puff on the back of my wrist??”She couldn’t pick up cut up banana chunks so I just gave her half a banana…Only a little gagging…“Hmm, the question is, ‘Do I LIKE this?’”“Yeah…this is cool.”
She had some very special play dates this month:
Special friend Stella flew in all the way from Tacoma!!!Here is Olivia! And the three of them started the “Big Blue Eyes Club”!
She adores her big brother, who also adores her. She follows him EVERYWHERE and wants to be EVERYWHERE that he is. Good thing that Elliott’s greatest thrill in life is being chased!!
This is the best summary of our days. Selah chases, Elliott squeals and runs (or drives) away. And she goes AFTER him. Maybe that’s how she got so fast at moving?!!!She wants to be next to him……under him…
…over him…(“Don’t mind me, Selah. Just a minor repair. Safety first!”)…on a stroll with him……with him all the time!Sing with me: “So happy to-gether!!”Elliott usually finishes dinner first, and so when he’s through he runs around like crazy playing. She ALWAYS twists around like this so she can watch his every move.But he usually can’t be that far away from her for very long, so he’ll pull up a chair and chat with her while she finishes… MELT.MY.HEART.INTO.FOUR.BILLION.PIECES.
Happy 8 months, my sweet little Selah Bethany. You light up our lives.
Oh, my Sugar……and oh, my Spice……you make EVERYTHING so incredibly NICE!!BEST ROLLER COASTER RIDE I’VE EVER BEEN ON!!!!!!
Infants are so easy, and then they have to go and cross the 6 month mark and get all complicated! 🙂 Once they hit 6 months they start eating, they start crawling, they start becoming ANOTHER CHILD, rather than just a baby. One more mouth to feed during mealtimes, one more kid to chase after, one more little person to train… THIS is where having two kids starts to get REAL.
Oh, Selah B…how do I love thee?? Well, let me count the ways…
1. Play
Selah just LIGHTS up when Elliott is near. They’ve really been playing together this month. Here is one of Elliott’s favorite games to play…bring as MANY TOYS AS POSSIBLE to Selah :).And then, of course, HE takes a turn :).Here is her other favorite playmate…the mirror!“Well she looks like a fun friend! Let me get a closer look.”“Mama, I want to be friends with her forever!”“What? Did I do something?”
2. Laugh
He just makes her laugh……SO HARD!!!
This is our lives…EVERY.DAY.
3. Stand
She is SO HAPPY when we set her up to stand at her play table! SO.HAPPY.
For a couple weeks, she would go into “push-up” position while on her tummy. Just toes and hands touching the ground. And then she learned how to get herself into the “moving” position…
“i really want that balloon.”“…but I can’t reach it.”
“OHHH…so THIS is how you go from a sit to a crawl! That was exhilarating!!”“Look at me! Look at me!!”
Her very first “movement” was a crawl, but she hasn’t really “crawled” in the typical sense of the word since. But boy, does she MOVE! She mostly pulls herself with her arms to get around. And wowsers! She is ALL OVER THE PLACE.
7. Explore
With moving, comes exploring! She got to experience grass for the first time at the McCabe’s house!
“Now what is THIS? It looks more interesting than that food my Mom is feeding me…”“Mom, is this dessert??”
8. Chat
This month, she has started having conversations with us! I love it!! Her favorite word is “Bap” but she also likes, Mamama, Bababa, and the raspberry sound. One night at dinner, she and Elliott had an entire conversation like this for a good 10 minutes. IT.WAS.ADORABLE. We only caught a few seconds of it on camera, but at least you get a glimpse of the cuteness factor!!!
9. Total and utter cuteness…
“We love our coordinating outfits from Auntie Melisa!!”Simply adored.My delight.“He-ey!!”The eyes!The wink!The lashes!I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of Being and ideal Grace…
Happy 7 months, my darling, precious, standing, dancing, moving, eating, laughing, babbling bundle of joy!!!
I dread starting solids. Solids makes everything about infants WAY more complicated. You start solids and suddenly they’re applying for college. Not my favorite. 🙁
I delayed as long as I could, but I could tell Selah was starting to need more to eat in a day. So, at about 6 and 1/2 months, we finally took the plunge. We decided to start with carrots…
“Ooh! That looks different…and quite yummy!”
“WHOA! Mama, I think you’ve made a big, BIG mistake!!”“Bleh! That DOES NOT seem edible!”“I mean, seriously! Should I spit this out? What’s going to happen if I swallow??!!”“Let me get this out of mouth!”“I think my tongue’s on fire.”“I’ll eat this instead. Yes, this tastes MUCH better.”“Whew! Well, glad THAT’S over…”
Elliott’s very first real word was, “more.” He had been saying “Mama” and “Dada,” but “more” was the first word that he used in context and consistently. And other than, “Uh-oh,” it is still his favorite word. When he’s especially passionate, he doesn’t just say, “more,” he yells, “More DA MORE!!!”
He uses it all the time, in every scenario you can possibly think of.
I’ll never forget one of the first times we were at Sea World watching the dog show (dogs are HIS FAVORITE). The “Who let them dawgs out” song blasted loudly as dogs of every type sprinted out from behind stage and into view, running to the beat of the music. I looked at Elliott and said with expectation: “Big guy!! Do you see all the dogs?!?! Aren’t they so cool?!!!”
“MORE!” he insisted, bluntly and impatiently.
This is–literally–how ALL of our conversations go:
“Elliott, did you have fun playing with your friend?”
“More!”
“Elliott, did you like going to the zoo?”
“More!”
“Elliott, was that a yummy special treat that you had?”
“More!”
Elliott, you did so great throwing that ball!
“MORE!!”
“Elliott, are you grateful that we got to take a special airplane ride??!!”
“More DA MORE!”
He is simply not able to truly enjoy or appreciate the present because he’s always looking to the future, and he wants to make it very clear that we know that he wants more of that thing that he loves.
And my heart breaks. Doesn’t he know that I long to give him “MORE”? Doesn’t he know that it fills my heart with utmost joy to lavish him with good things? Doesn’t he know that I want to spend the rest of my life giving him good gifts, whether the form of those gifts looks like special play dates, balls, a chance to serve, or every-once-in-a-while–sugar?! Doesn’t he know that his daddy has to literally hold me back from buying every thing I see in Target that I know will bless him???
But mostly, the state of his heart breaks mine because he reminds me so much of me, and my heart towards my Father.
Sometimes when I am really, really, really grateful for something, a sneaky lie creeps its way into my mind and quickly tries to convince me that that something will be taken away. So as a result, I cannot fully celebrate gifts or the ones whom I love because of this little lie that they will probably be snatched from my hands. It is a rotten trick, but nonetheless it has been trying to persuade me to grab hold of its false comfort every since I can remember. “If you don’t embrace it too much, it won’t be as hard on your heart when it’s taken away…”
I remember being a little girl and not being able to fall asleep some nights because I was so afraid that my parents were going to die. One specific night when I was about 4 years old, I cried and cried one night in bed until I finally ran to my mom for solace. And I don’t remember anything that she said, but I clearly remember what she did. She scooped me up, sat me on her lap, held me close, and rocked me. What brought peace? Not promises of what the future would hold, but the comfort and security of my mama’s love.
Fear robs. It robs from me. It robs from us. My God is not a God whom I should look upon with fear, because there is, simply, “no fear in love,” (1 John 4:18) and He is all-consuming Love. My God is not a God who tells me that I should live in fear, because He has “not given us a spirit of fearfulness” (2 Timothy 1:7).
It’s difficult to put into words how grateful I am for all that the Lord has given me in this simple life I lead. It is not glamorous or easy, but it is perfect. Perfect because of the ones I get to do this crazy life with. He’s given me a husband who adores me and lays his life down for me. Children who bring me more delight than I ever could have imagined possible. Friends who love us. Family who takes care of us. Yet as I approached my 31st birthday, and I examined the state of my heart, all I could honestly find was, “More DA MORE!!!” I don’t want more things, I don’t want more money. I simply want more time with the ones that I love. More days with my daughter, more days with my son, more days with my very best friend who has added such a tremendous amount of joy in the last few years that he has loved me. I want more giggles with my Selah and more tickles with my Elliott. I want more games of “Get you!” and more rides on the swings. I want more soccer and I want more tea parties.
And, of course, all of that is GOOD! It’s good for me to want more time with my family instead of less! It is good for me to miss my husband like CUH-RAZY when he hasn’t even been away from me for 24 hours. But it’s not good when there’s fear robbing from my gratitude. It’s not good when I am so concerned about what tomorrow may or may not bring that I can’t fully, fully value and enjoy today.
Colossians 3:15 says, “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts…and be thankful.” Don’t you love how the “peace of God” precedes thankfulness? I do. Not peace from financial security. Not peace from a known future. Not peace from the guarantee of prosperity. No, what brings peace? The comfort and security of my Father’s love. I love that it is only because I am at peace with Him, at peace with His love for me, that I have the ability to be thankful.
Peace from His perfect love, which covers and fills me. The peace of God.
Because of THIS: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11).
Ahhh, peace. HE longs to GIVE me more…more than I can fathom. Sometimes I think of Elliott and how little he really understands about the world. To him, Heaven would be a ball pit filled with every type of sports ball that there is. And while that does sound great, 🙂 he doesn’t even know…oh, he has no idea of the incredible joys that will be made known to him as he grows…the incredible gifts just around the corner. He, like me, literally cannot fathom what MORE there is to come. And that’s okay. I only desire for him to take great delight in the gifts and treasures of today, and simply trust that I long to give him more.
So this year, I desire MORE. More understanding of God’s love for me. More revelation of how much he lavishes me in love. More trust that He desires to give me good gifts. More peace in my heart that allows me to be filled with real gratitude..
Real gratitude for DA MORE…
More play dates at the park with my son, throwing balls, climbing high and swinging hard.
My morning birthday buddy.
More special treats at a cute little coffee shop, reading books together in a new, fun place.
Because SOMEONE’S gotta treat this birthday girl to a latte with whipped cream the size of her face when Daddy’s out of town!!
More HUMONGOUS, MEDAL-WORTHY tantrums thrown upon leaving said cute little coffee shop, if it means that I get to be the one to train and shape my son into becoming a godly, wise, filled-with-self-control man.
(No picture available. I’ll leave the scene of me trying to get him into his car seat while screaming, crying, and flailing next to a busy road up to your imagination.) 🙂
More scraped up knees and bloody faces if it means we were playing a rousing and hilarious game of “who can get the ball first?”
But you shoulda seen the other guy…
More special birthday outfits of yoga pants and maternity t-shirts (not because I’m pregnant! Only to hide my post partum belly!) because my crying, wounded son’s pee leaked completely through his diaper and onto my much-cuter, pre-blood and pee clothes while I was consoling him.
Well, at least I was showered when he peed on me!
More snuggles and kisses from my baby girl, who was so excited for my birthday today that she woke up earlier than she has in 4 months so we could start celebrating during the 5am hour…
Worth EVERY extra minute of missed sleep.
More ribbons and bows from my teething, fussy, adorable little blue-eyed beauty!
“If you’ll just let me chew on this spoon, I’ll stop crying.”
More laughter and love from this perfect face …
Elliott is entertaining her; can you tell she simply adores him??
More fun treats that bring the perfect end to hilarious days…
More, more, MORE of my handsome, strapping husband. More emails and text messages and phone calls from the love of my life, who has lavished me with celebration today, even from thousands of miles away. Who lavishes me with celebration every day, loving me and exhorting me and encouraging me and spurring me on and fanning me into flame and filling me with truth.
Mother’s Day
MORE. More DA MORE!! of days and days filled with the peace of my Everlasting God, which drives me to gratefully enjoy the many abundant and perfect gifts that He has lavished upon me.
Happy 31st birthday to me!! And may I have many MORE DA MORE!! 🙂
*This post is part of a series on Victorious Parenting. Click on the label to the right to read all posts in this series.*
I am determined to know my daughter’s heart.
Selah is more complicated than Elliott. And unfortunately, we tend to view the characteristic, “complicated” as a criticism. But it’s not a criticism, it’s a part of who she’s created to be. I’ve seen it from the time she was a teeny weeny baby… she would cry at times and I had NO idea why, whereas Elliott almost NEVER cried at odd times for no reason. Her naps have been totally unexplainable for long seasons of time, whereas Elliott was quite predictable. Selah is much more sensitive than Elliott ever was. Elliott was always perfectly comfortable and happy with every stranger or friend that he met, and always content to be in their arms. But Selah has shown lots of partiality to her mamacita, and has definitely had her fair share of tears at times when passed off to another.
In short, she has been hard to figure out sometimes. There have been MANY, MANY times in her short 7 months of life that I have said, “I just don’t know what she needs!! If I knew what she needed, I would give it to her!” I have been exasperated and frustrated–not at my sweet little daughter, but at my own lack of understanding. I so desperately want to give her what she needs.
And now, she’s in a new stage. She’ll be playing quite contently and then all of a sudden start to cry. She’ll spot me from across the room and look at me with pleading eyes through her tears as if to say, “Why have you abandoned me, Mama?! Please, please come!!!” I’ll go scoop her up, the tears instantly stop, and then…and then she pushes away from me. Seriously. She takes both her hands and pushes against me as if to get down. So, I put her down. And she begins to cry.
Tonight, days worth of this underlying frustration began to rise up in me. We were playing on the floor and she spotted her Leap Frog table. She bolted towards it with urgency, and I put her up so she was standing to play. And suddenly, she began to twist her entire body around and reach for me. I scooted closer and she grabbed onto my face with both her hands. So I picked her up, and–like clockwork–she pushed away and towards the play table. So I put her back, and she began to whine, again twisting her body around and reaching for me. I picked her up and put her on my lap, thinking she must just want the best of both worlds–to be in Mama’s arms and also be playing with her toy. But no, she twisted and squirmed, reaching for my face again. So I picked her up. Maybe she wants to cuddle? Nope. Instantly she began to push away.
“Sweet girl, what do you want????” I asked her, feeling the tension rising up in me.
I am so quick to give up, to push away, when I don’t understand. When I feel rejected. When I am hurt. When I don’t know what to do, I flee. Far too many Mother/daughter relationships and friendships are brought to destruction because of this pattern. One feels hurt, one seems to be distancing herself, the other doesn’t know what she did to hurt the first, so they both push away…and away…and away…until they are too far out of reach. It is so sad…how chasms as big as the Grand Canyon are formed through misunderstanding that leads to insecurity that leads to distance.
And I refuse to do that with my daughter. I know it sounds crazy. Yes, I know she is just 7 months old. Quit making a mountain out of a molehill, Susanne, you might be thinking. But, you see, I know the biggest of Oaks, formed over hundreds of years, started with a tiny seedling. And I want the seedling of my relationship with my daughter to grow up healthy, tall and strong. A tiny tree that starts to grow crooked because of an obstruction may not seem like a big deal when it’s only inches tall. But once that tree is full grown, it will be very apparent that it didn’t grow straight. The bigger it gets, the more the imperfection will be made very, very clear.
So I never want my heart towards Selah to be, “You are too complicated! I give up!! Just play by yourself and cry about it if you must!” Never, ever, ever. Even when she is “just” 7 months old. I am sure that Selah will be like me in some ways, and I am certain she will be very different than me in others. And I do not want to push away in exasperation because she puzzles me at times. I long to know her. To truly, truly know her heart. To understand how her mind works. Please, Lord, let not my frustration or my frustrated efforts lead me to push away from my daughter. Let not my insecurity that tells me I’m a bad mom if I don’t know what she needs, push me away from my daughter. Let not my fear that she will push me away, push me away from my daughter. I long to understand, not to reject. I long to know, not to run.
I read in a book once that a woman’s central fear is that she is too much, too complicated. Do we not all cry out to be known? To not be given up on? Oh, and how hurt we are when others choose to turn away from the journey of knowing our hearts because we are “just too much!” We see a woman sleeping around with men and are critical, instead of learning that she never had a dad to tell her of her worth. We see a woman who flaunts her body with short skirts and low shirts and we judge, instead of realizing that she never had a mother to teach her dignity. We see a woman who settles…oh, how she settles…instead of understanding that she has never tasted of her Father’s love; a love that died so that she could taste abundance. We push away because we do not know. We see the behavior, and we refuse to understand the heart. So we turn and run.
What destruction is brought upon women because we act this way. I will not tell my daughter she is too complicated, too sensitive, too fickle. I will not turn away when I don’t understand her. I will not settle for not truly knowing her heart.
Instead, I will find her. I will discover what makes her heart beat and I will fan that beat into flame. I will help teach her what to do with her emotions, instead of running when her emotions hurt my feelings. I will patiently bear with her in love when she knows not what she does because she is learning how to handle all of her own intricacies.
And lastly, I will celebrate her. I will celebrate how God made her–complicated and perfect. I will celebrate my Selah, whose intricate, beautiful heart within longs to be known and loved.
Because they’re too cute not to post, even if they’re late…
We had a super blessed Easter, spending time with family and friends and celebrating the resurrection of our amazing Lord. No presents or filled Easter egg baskets for us this year…and I made a rule for myself: If I’m ever more panicked over having the perfect Easter Egg baskets loaded with the perfect presents for my kids than I am URGENT over teaching my kids about “the reason for the season,” then I will promptly cut myself off from buying them anything. Good rule for me. And this year, with all we had going on, I barely had the chance to sit down and talk to Elliott about Easter. So, needless to say, no Easter baskets for our kids this year :).
We spent Sunday morning with our old church family, City Central. Such a joy to worship with long-time friends and let Elliott play in the BEST Kid’s Church program that exists 🙂 (shout out to Kingdom Kids and all of my amazing friends who make it run with such excellence and power!!).
Easter joy!How cute are they?Friends.
Then we spent the afternoon with the Mobergs. Thankfully, Grandma and Grandpa are a little more on top of fun Easter activities than I am :). Grandma stuffed a LOT of eggs with coins, dollar bills and chocolates, and Brian and I hid them throughout the backyard.
One of us even hid a couple eggs in the hot tub :).
I went back and read my Easter post from last year, and I’ll be honest, the tears FLOWED as I realized how big my baby boy has become. Was it just ONE YEAR ago that he was barely walking (well, running, ha!) and had his first Easter Egg hunt ever? Wow…I am so, so, so proud of who he is and who he is becoming…
Though he wasn’t as fast as his two older cousins, he certainly was good at finding those eggs!“There it is!”“Found one!”“Check out my loot, Mama!”
Kevin and Tabitha brought their dog over to play for the afternoon, and Uncle Kevin was trying so hard to teach Elliott that there was nothing to be afraid of :). As you can see my the fact that Elliott is clinging to him for dear life, he still hasn’t had full breakthrough yet! 🙂Everyone dressed in their Easter bestTaylor LOVES Selah, and as you can see, the feeling is mutual :).Two half smiles=one full smile?My lil’ Easter lady!Happy Easter, from the Mobergs!
Selah B simply becomes more and more delightful every day of her life. With every “ba-ba” and “ma-ma”, we become even more so delighted and enamored with her…
Well, she did it. She hit the 6 month mark. This isn’t my favorite milestone month because it means, for the first time in her life, she’s more than halfway to turning ONE! How is my baby growing so fast??? 🙁 It’s also the month that I know that I must start solids, which is not my favorite either…(more on that in another post!)
You will all be happy to know that her napping has completely gone back to GOOD… hallelujah!! It must have been all of the consistency that’s marked our lives the past month. (ha!!!) Oh my…talk about a lesson in CONTROL… When my circumstances and environments became SO uncontrollable that all I could do was throw my hands in the air and say, “I give up trying to control this! Nap how you want to nap!” well, that’s when she started napping like an angel :). NOTE. TO. SELF.
What an adventurous month my little Selah had! Selah had many “firsts” this month…
Selah attended her first birthday party–her brother’s! It was “ball” themed, and so she wore the closest thing she had to fit in with the theme–a White Sox onesie from Grandpa & Nonna Mauss.
…and a bow, of course.Still sportin’ the “chew-on-finger-constantly” look :).
Her first plane ride!
We flew from San Diego to SeaTac with Elliott, Grandma and Grandpa Moberg. Unfortunately, Daddy couldn’t be there for it 🙁 because he was driving our car all the way up! At least he got to pick us up at the airport :).“Look, Mom! I am TOTALLY ready for my own seat! (As long as you hold me up, okay?)
Although she had been sitting on her own last month, she truly perfected the art of sitting at about 5 3/4 months old. I finally put the sticker in the book then, because I realized I wasn’t afraid to leave her sitting by herself, whereas before I would only let her sit when I was within arm’s reach.
“As long as I have my finger in my mouth to help me keep my balance, this is cake!”“…or do I prefer the giraffe in my mouth?”“Aw, I’m just kidding, Mom! I can sit up all by myself without ANY help!”
Her first Easter!
Beautiful.
SHE SUCCESSFULLY TOOK HER FIRST (THREE) BOTTLE(S)!!!! This was a big deal. I had the opportunity to go on a women’s retreat and so we knew we had to get this little love to take a bottle. My dear friend Kari gave me great advice–to leave for an entire day. I knew it would be the only way she would do it. So I left one morning before Selah woke up (sniff, sniff) and by her second feeding (once she realized she’d better drink from that bottle or be really hungry!) she did it. Whew! I missed my baby girl so much 🙁 but I knew it was the best. Brian sent me this picture to assure me that she was doing JUST FINE without me :).
I can tell she misses me terribly, can’t you? Poor thing.
And, she still loves…
Going on walks with Mommy!…while wearing her owl hat.Going to Sea World with Grandma and Grandpa Moberg!Wearing one of her favorite hand-me-downs from the McCabe girls. Selah Bee Bee…it’s so fitting! 🙂Matching MamaMatching Mama again! (See my yellow flower earrings??)Getting kisses while matching Mama!…playing on her play mat, while filled with joy!…snuggling with Daddy and Elliott!And she LOVES her big brother….!
