"The future is, most of all, in the hands of those people who recognize the other as a 'you' and themselves as part of an 'us.' We all need each other."- Pope Francis
I keep telling myself that I will journal and blog about these first days with Mary Allison but instead I just keep staring at her and soaking up her tiny-ness... one of these days I'll put her down for a minute and grab a pen.
She'd like you to believe that we never feed her but I assure you that is not true! She's up 9 ounces from her birth weight and already grew 5/8ths of an inch! Slow down, May!!
Happy Easter!
Shout out to our friend, Elizabeth Ross, for knitting this adorable carrot!!
Sic'em bears!!
Another knitting shout-out to our friend, Meaghan Bond, for knitting this adorable Baylor garb for our future Baylor bear!
First tummy time!
And one last shout-out to our friend, Tammy Quackenbush, for sewing this incredible quilt!!
Hi friends! We wanted to show off our little Mary Allison. :) We plan on keeping her (mostly) off Facebook until she gets older so we will occasionally post photos here so that our far flung friends can keep in touch this way. I hope that I will write blog posts as well, but for now, the photos will have to speak for themselves.
We were so lucky to have Esther Edith at the birth to photograph our girl's very first hours. We cannot wait to see the rest of her photos soon! (Obviously Esther took this top photo- not the rest of these not quite so professional pics.)
Despite her initial reaction, May has done quite well riding in her little car seat.
I think that she might have my eyes, but she certainly has her dad's big ol' feet (and hands).
Thank you all for your sweet well wishes. We are certainly blessed.
In some ways pregnancy is one of the most selfless things a woman can experience. For nine whole months-- that's 280 days-- women share their whole body. They give up comfort, sleep, food, privacy, and even the ability to zip up their pants. My little creature seems to be particularly comfy in my womb, stealing more and more space, and more and more time. At the same time, pregnancy has been one of the most selfish times for me. Although my body is now housing another, I am the one who gets to have nine months alone with my girl. I am the one who is invited to her nightly dance parties. I am the one who shares the Eucharist with her each week at mass. I am the one who provides her protection, her warmth, her food and her bed. But soon I will share my girl with the world. Soon, other people will hold my girl-- the girl I've been holding for 287 days and nights. Soon I will share the joy of feeling her kicks, of patting her tiny hiney and holding her tight. I promise I will share her. I promise I won't be a helicopter mom. But as her big entrance draws near, please understand that I'm not used to sharing my daughter. I may fiercely hold on to her little swaddled self and not hand her over to expectant arms and cameras. Please let me be selfish for just a little while longer. So little child of mine, you are welcome to stay wrapped up with me as long as your please. I'm happy to live life with you tucked away in my papoose. Thank you for keeping me company at work, for reminding me that Mexican food and Chick-Fil-A lemonade are as good as I thought, for staying up with me while I studied for my Boards and for being such a good tenant. I hear that there is an eviction notice quickly approaching so I guess we'll have to play by the rules, but you can take your time packing up. I promise to show you the world.
It's World AIDS day today so I thought I'd share a blog post that I wrote after my first week living at an orphanage in South Africa for children living with HIV. If you'd like to know more about Rehoboth visit their site: www.rehoboth.org.za. For the rest of my blog posts about my time in South Africa, check out my old blog: www.isaiah4817-southafrica.blogspot.com.
May 22, 2010
Just finished my first real week in SA! God is good. I can hardly wait to tell you all about it... we'll see how much I can cram in to my time at the internet cafe!
I've sung "amazing grace" a million times. Last week, I think I understood it for the first time. One afternoon I was out playing with a bunch of the kids on the jungle gym when Aphiwe toddled up crying because he was lost from the group of kids. Five-year-old Aphiwe is an orphan with HIV who is also blind. He had never met me so whenever I grabbed his hand he immediately started touching my arms, hands and face and smelling me all over. He asked for my name and hasn't forgotten it yet. He climbed up into my lap and then started singing "Amazing Grace." How awesome to hear those words coming from his mouth: "Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found. Was blind but now, I see."
Hope, joy and love are all very alive here.
Kids are funny. You can tell that all 52 of the kids are drilled in the Gospel. I was out on the jungle gym when group of pre-schoolers came up with a dead frog "crucified" to a cross made out of sticks and a broken balloon. Can't help but laugh. :) The kids love playing with my curly hair and keep asking me why my hair looks like that. Yesterday the girls gave me a new hair-do using sticks and sandbox shovels as brushes and combs. Yikes!
Kids are survivors. Most of the kids here are not just living with HIV. Most come from dark pasts including malnutrition, sexual abuse, domestic abuse and so on. One little boy came to Rehoboth barely alive weighing 2.2kg at SIX months!! He's a year old now and is quite chubby but is very developmentally behind. Some were raped as babies, left in toilets or hospitals to die, some relatives don't even know the child's name. Please pray for these kids.
I have learned so much about HIV/AIDS, Africa and myself and it's only been a week. Here's are a couple of lists for you:
You know you are in Africa when (roadside edition)... 1. You smell sugar cane and chicken farms from the road instead of feed-lots. 2. You see zebras, ostridges (sp?), and monkies from the car window. 3. People are taking a nap literally ON the highway. Like on the actual road where cars are driving!! 4. A Zulu woman is walking with a matress on her head, a baby strapped to her back and bags in both hands while her no-good-lazy-non-gentleman husband is walking ahead with NOTHING in his hands. 5. Three-year-olds are walking on the side of the highway with no supervision. 6. The speed limit is 60 kilometers/hour but the taxis are driving at least 120 kph.
Each day last week I had some sort of training. Here are some of the things I learned on the "HIV/AIDS training day" and other cultural lessons. 1. Three million people die each year from AIDS (that's the population of Chicago) 2. 8000 people day per DAY from AIDS. 3. 50% of people living with AIDS in America do not know. 4. 14,000 people contract HIV each day. 5. The going rate for sex here in Kwa-Zulu Natal is about $5.
With all that said, life is so good here. I'm continually reminded of God's majesty from the children and the beautiful rolling hills outside my window. The other night I sat outside and starred at the stars. I've never seen so many in my life. Psalm 8 pretty much sums it up for me:
"Oh LORD, our Lord. How majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all the flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the sea.
Oh LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth."
Well again, I find myself putting months in between my blog posts but so be it! Strangely enough my last post on Mother's day flows well to this one four months later... because now I'm starting my own journey into motherhood! :) Chris and I will become parents to a little screaming, pooping, sleep-sucking miracle in April!
If you knew me as a little kid, you probably knew of my obsession with becoming a mother. When I was eighteen-months-old my mom tells a story of how I threw a full-blown tantrum in Toys R Us over a baby with a "real" heart-beat. From that point on, I carried my babies with me wherever I went-- all vacations, shopping trips, family walks around the park... My baby dolls even had perfect church attendance for a number of years. One of the best days of my childhood was one Ash Wednesday when the minister not only put the cross of ashes on my forehead but on my baby's little plastic forehead, too. Finally, an adult recognized that my baby was real!! Alas, my baby dolls eventually became socially inappropriate and I transitioned into babysitting-- my favorite middle-school Friday night. Many hours have I spent pretending to be mom to other people's kids. (And a few of them I will always count as my own.) And now it's finally my turn!! Being pregnant is the most out-of-body experience anyone could imagine. The day those (much anticipated) blue lines appeared on my pregnancy test, I knew my body had been invaded by a little alien. My appetite has been stolen and replaced by a fat, 18-year-old college boy's. (Yes, I have eaten pancakes in bed past midnight. Yes, I eat dinner at least twice a night.. usually three times.) My emotional stability has been stollen by a melodramatic teenage girl and my youthful energy has been replaced with my 94-year-old grandma's need for an early bedtime. Of course while you all will soon see the obvious changes to my silhouette (bye double zero jeans...), inside of me, invisible to all of us, is the most incredible creation. When my baby was only the size of a single poppy seed, his/her little heart had already started to beat. And only a month later my blueberry-sized baby was growing arms and legs! And as I type this, that little plum-sized booger is doing somersaults! Meanwhile I have gone to work, watched movies, baked cookies, wasted time on Facebook and painted my toenails. Not once did I concentrate on creating a tiny set of lungs for my baby. Never willed my baby's eyeballs into existence. God is making this new creation in me. I am quite literally just a vessel. Many years ago, God made me into a new creation by His Son's death and resurrection and made me an ambassador for Christ. "So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come... So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us..." - 2 Corinthians 5:17; 20 What a miracle life is! What a miracle life in Christ is! -Brigid
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Happy (belated) mother's day to all of you mommas out there!
When I was a kid, I knew my mom definitely read the best stories, made the best lemonade and was obviously the best PTA mom that Belmar Elementary had ever seen. When I went off to college, my mom became my favorite phone call, my encourager in all things and a dear friend. I became more thankful for the nutritious family meals that my mom prepared for us every single evening, more grateful for the hundreds of concerts/recitals/games/tournaments that she endured for me and my brother, thankful for the hours that she spent quizzing us on our spelling words and even more hours teaching us how to be decent people.
This mother's day I am even more grateful for my mom now that I am a wife and special-ed teacher of sorts, myself. These are a few things that she's taught me along the way (and why she wins the best mom award each year.) 1. I never knew how great Mom was at being a wife until I became a wife myself. I am still learning how to be servant-hearted to Chris when there is a pile of dishes in the sink or when ESPN is on. (I guess Mom does have a few decades of wifehood on me.) But now I can see the millions of times that she served me and my brother by serving my dad first.
2. If you go to St. Thomas Catholic Church in Amarillo, TX, you know that my mom could be its patron saint. I feel sure that she has volunteered for every committee and has headed up quite a few of them. In about 30 seconds I came up with this list of involvement: sunday school teacher, bible study leader, funeral dinner committee chair, youth choir fundraiser, Eucharistic minister, parish council member, Alter Guide president, women's retreat chair, gift-shop person, adoration participant, RCIA sponsor, godparent, not-to-mention all of the other untitled things she has done for our church. I remember as a kid waiting for mom to finally finish gabbing with so-and-so or running to grab the key to sell something in the gift shop, or selling raffle tickets for the next youth fundraiser. My dad used to joke that the "rapture" had happened and that mom was the only one taken.. me, my brother and dad were left behind. ;) All that to say, her example has really stuck with me. I hope that I will become an active member of my parish, a servant to my brothers and sisters in Christ.
3. My mom went back to work as a special-ed teacher when I was a 7th grader. I knew she was a good teacher then but now that I am a working woman myself, I appreciate her dedication even more. Her example inspires me to work harder for my clients and to expect to work diligently each day. I am grateful that I have had her example of how to be a working mother.
So as motherhood draws closer for me I hold her example closer so that one day I may pass on her legacy of motherhood to my children. I often think of the song "gentle woman" when I think about my mom; it's no coincidence that she is named after Jesus' mother, Mary.
Gentle woman, quiet light. Morning star so strong and bright. Gentle mother, peaceful dove: Teach us wisdom, teach us love.
