Having a child means loss of spontaneity. Not being a particularly spontaneous person to begin with, this was not something I appreciated until after the fact. Before, deciding to go out was a matter of getting off my butt and changing out of my pajamas. Now, it’s arranging for a babysitter, shelving out fifty bucks, and enduring her cries as we leave.
I was reading a scene in a novel that reminded me of times when it was just D and I, outside somewhere beautiful, and we felt free and alone and adventurous in the world. We felt surrendered to God, surrendered to each other, like we could face anything together. I still have that feeling in smaller moments, but getting away like that doesn’t happen anymore. At least not unless we make it happen.
In that way having a child is a lesson in what our marriage needs, because we have to be intentional about every little thing. It’s as if I suddenly had to walk a mile to an outhouse every time I had to use the toilet; I’d probably be a lot more aware of how much and when I needed to go than before. And one thing we’ve learned is that marriage is like a bank account: you can’t just keep withdrawing.
D put it well once: “By loving one another, having intimate times with one another, investing in one another, and spending valuable time with God, we put money into the bank. Things like crankiness at home, taking care of E while the other is on call, dealing with parental stresses, worrying about the future, all require that we take out money from this marriage bank.”
Investing in that account simply takes more premeditation than it did before. We have to make an effort to think about the other, to get out, to connect apart from the baby. Parenthood unmasks your marriage for what it is truly made of; reveals how much you are willing to do for it.
Children have this effect on our relationship with God too. My friend calls parenthood a spiritually formative experience: something that forces you to be either more like Christ or less so. Of course other spiritually formative experiences do this as well: intense work, lonely periods, loss of a loved one.
But it is good, to know what matters, and be intentional about pursuing it. Because one day not too far from now, our kids will leave, and it will be obvious whether our marriage was more important to us than our children. One day we will leave each other, and it will be obvious whether God was more important to us than anything else. And when that day comes, I think it will be worth a great deal to look back with no regrets.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Joy
I love how at times she becomes totally beside herself. When she sees Dave, for example, she just cannot contain her joy. When he walks through the door, she yelps and nearly wriggles her way out of my arms. When she sees me in the mornings coming to open the curtains and pick her up from the crib, she turns towards me and grins so wide her pacifier falls right out. When did I last feel such undiluted delight?
This is what I love about her, how she lives so wholeheartedly. If she wants to get somewhere, she gets this zany you-can’t-stop-me glazed look in her eyes as she starts the slow and rather pitiful-looking process of dragging herself there. Her only volume is LOUD YELP. Want more food? YELP. Happy to see me? YELP. Like the cats? YELP. She waves at, well, anything. Lots of times I’ll be trying to get her to wave at some person and find to my embarrassment she’s waving at a nail on the wall in the opposite direction.
She is just as transparent in her fear as her delight. She is completely devastated by the most random things, like a candle flame or the sound of garlic frying in oil. She is clearly going through a period in which she realizes not only that I exist, but that I can go away and not come immediately back, which frightens her so much that at times I can’t put her down without her breaking into tears.
This is something we’ve lost, this transparency and joy. Learning to hide our emotions is part of growing up, but I think about how much of my life I live half-heartedly. I think about her delight in seeing people, in eating food, in a tune or a book, and I think how much I have lost. Because I am rushed, because I am tired, because I take things for granted, because I gave it up long ago on my way to getting somewhere.
This is part of the privilege of being a mother, this re-experiencing of things with her. We experiment with the tastes and textures of food. We play the guitar, dance to music, read books, chase the cats. Her joy is contagious, and even just her bobbing and grinning face in the crib each morning reminds me to stop being grumpy and be happy for a new day.
This is what I love about her, how she lives so wholeheartedly. If she wants to get somewhere, she gets this zany you-can’t-stop-me glazed look in her eyes as she starts the slow and rather pitiful-looking process of dragging herself there. Her only volume is LOUD YELP. Want more food? YELP. Happy to see me? YELP. Like the cats? YELP. She waves at, well, anything. Lots of times I’ll be trying to get her to wave at some person and find to my embarrassment she’s waving at a nail on the wall in the opposite direction.
She is just as transparent in her fear as her delight. She is completely devastated by the most random things, like a candle flame or the sound of garlic frying in oil. She is clearly going through a period in which she realizes not only that I exist, but that I can go away and not come immediately back, which frightens her so much that at times I can’t put her down without her breaking into tears.
This is something we’ve lost, this transparency and joy. Learning to hide our emotions is part of growing up, but I think about how much of my life I live half-heartedly. I think about her delight in seeing people, in eating food, in a tune or a book, and I think how much I have lost. Because I am rushed, because I am tired, because I take things for granted, because I gave it up long ago on my way to getting somewhere.
This is part of the privilege of being a mother, this re-experiencing of things with her. We experiment with the tastes and textures of food. We play the guitar, dance to music, read books, chase the cats. Her joy is contagious, and even just her bobbing and grinning face in the crib each morning reminds me to stop being grumpy and be happy for a new day.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Change
I was feeling down the other day and realized I was sad because she is changing. She used to be small and still, just present, and with me. She has now emerged from the larval stage to become this totally hyperactive squawking, bobbling, wriggling, scooting thing. She sounds like a noisy seagull and moves like a paralytic determined to drag herself around by the arms. She’s less helpless, more willful. And I sort of miss the way she used to be.
D thinks I’ve gone off my rocker. He says he’s always loved her, but now he’s starting to really like her, now she’s getting more interesting and being her own person. Before she was this thing that cried and pooped. Now she laughs and babbles and squeals when we come in the room. She waves at us (and inanimate objects and total strangers) and shares her pacifier (takes it out, turns it around and jams it into our mouths).
She also likes, curiously, to pick at my teeth, carefully feeling each one with utter seriousness. I complain about feeling like a horse at the market or someone at the dentist’s, but secretly I sort of like it.
I’ve finally weaned her, a process which felt surprisingly natural, but which may be contributing to this sense of basic separation. I look back now, and the last nine months seem a gift, an extension of the first nine months she was inside me, when we basically just connected and hung out together.
It’s good to identify this, because it helps me be thankful and move on. They say it’s normal to grieve when you wean. It’s natural she’s changing, and a good reminder that she was always her own person. It’s okay to miss the old baby while I learn how to be with the new one—think of new foods to try, new games to play, new books to read or ways for her to explore the world. This is part of what it is to parent, I guess, to always be changing and learning. Or maybe, I think to myself, I’ll just have another baby.
D thinks I’ve gone off my rocker. He says he’s always loved her, but now he’s starting to really like her, now she’s getting more interesting and being her own person. Before she was this thing that cried and pooped. Now she laughs and babbles and squeals when we come in the room. She waves at us (and inanimate objects and total strangers) and shares her pacifier (takes it out, turns it around and jams it into our mouths).
She also likes, curiously, to pick at my teeth, carefully feeling each one with utter seriousness. I complain about feeling like a horse at the market or someone at the dentist’s, but secretly I sort of like it.
I’ve finally weaned her, a process which felt surprisingly natural, but which may be contributing to this sense of basic separation. I look back now, and the last nine months seem a gift, an extension of the first nine months she was inside me, when we basically just connected and hung out together.
It’s good to identify this, because it helps me be thankful and move on. They say it’s normal to grieve when you wean. It’s natural she’s changing, and a good reminder that she was always her own person. It’s okay to miss the old baby while I learn how to be with the new one—think of new foods to try, new games to play, new books to read or ways for her to explore the world. This is part of what it is to parent, I guess, to always be changing and learning. Or maybe, I think to myself, I’ll just have another baby.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Journal Excerpt
On a picture board near the nursery door we put up baby pictures of D and I, at the time because I thought it would be interesting to see who our baby looked like, though it’s now a mute point because she looks so much like D that he calls her his twin. There’s a picture of me looking fat and complacent with my hair sticking up while sitting up next to a series of obviously-posed stuffed animals, on a very 1980’s bedspread. There’s a picture of D standing up holding on to the edge of his playpen, a huge grin on his face.
I noticed she seemed really interested in the pictures, always craning her body and trying to crawl out of my arms in that direction. So I held her up to them today. She slowly extended her hand out, then started to wave it back and forth gently while staring at the pictures, as if to say hello, or goodbye. That’s mommy when she was your age, I told her. That one there’s daddy. She stopped waving, looked serious, then stretched out her hand and waved again.
I noticed she seemed really interested in the pictures, always craning her body and trying to crawl out of my arms in that direction. So I held her up to them today. She slowly extended her hand out, then started to wave it back and forth gently while staring at the pictures, as if to say hello, or goodbye. That’s mommy when she was your age, I told her. That one there’s daddy. She stopped waving, looked serious, then stretched out her hand and waved again.
Little Ones
I can barely keep up with her these days. I get tired just watching her, because she never stops MOVING. She twists, turns, rolls. She scoots her way along the ground like a lizard, or like a little crippled person. She has an amazing reach. I’ll think, good thing that’s out of the way, and then the next minute it’s in her mouth. I think part of this is her truly impossible degree of flexibility. Holding her feels like grasping a wriggling eel; she’s always twisting around to get or look at something of interest. Items of interest, in case anyone is Christmas shopping early, would probably rank:
1. Paper, particularly tags.
2. Keys (real ones; I bought her a set of fake plastic ones but she has no interest).
3. Anything that is going in my mouth.
4. The cat’s tails.
5. Anything she can tear cheerfully apart into little pieces, like tissues or flowers.
I think sometimes about all that she doesn’t understand, and it blows my mind. She doesn’t understand that when she rips a tulip apart, it is destroyed. That when she drops things, someone has to pick it up. She has absolutely no sense of self-preservation; that it might not be good to reach for something sharp or lean too far over the edge of a bed. She has absolutely no idea how much we do to keep her well.
It makes me think about my relationship with God in a new way. When I think of God as my father, it’s mostly in the way my father was to me as an older child and adult. I don’t remember much of anything before I was five. But surely God is also a father to me the way we are to E now. I get a glimpse of what the psalmist meant when he wrote that God’s ways and understanding are higher than ours. He sees the things I do that no one else notices. He understands the bigger picture, the purpose behind events, in a way beyond my usual thinking. He provides and is alongside me even when I take it for granted.
And in the end, he loves me. I think about how Jesus said to let the little children come to him, little babies like E who are too young to understand many things, to know how to act. I think about how much I love her despite and because of all that. And I’m a little closer to understanding how God loves me.
1. Paper, particularly tags.
2. Keys (real ones; I bought her a set of fake plastic ones but she has no interest).
3. Anything that is going in my mouth.
4. The cat’s tails.
5. Anything she can tear cheerfully apart into little pieces, like tissues or flowers.
I think sometimes about all that she doesn’t understand, and it blows my mind. She doesn’t understand that when she rips a tulip apart, it is destroyed. That when she drops things, someone has to pick it up. She has absolutely no sense of self-preservation; that it might not be good to reach for something sharp or lean too far over the edge of a bed. She has absolutely no idea how much we do to keep her well.
It makes me think about my relationship with God in a new way. When I think of God as my father, it’s mostly in the way my father was to me as an older child and adult. I don’t remember much of anything before I was five. But surely God is also a father to me the way we are to E now. I get a glimpse of what the psalmist meant when he wrote that God’s ways and understanding are higher than ours. He sees the things I do that no one else notices. He understands the bigger picture, the purpose behind events, in a way beyond my usual thinking. He provides and is alongside me even when I take it for granted.
And in the end, he loves me. I think about how Jesus said to let the little children come to him, little babies like E who are too young to understand many things, to know how to act. I think about how much I love her despite and because of all that. And I’m a little closer to understanding how God loves me.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Journal Excerpt
She is teething, and with a vengeance. That little bud that appeared and disappeared last December was definitely a fake-out; THESE are teeth, these wide white ridges rearing up from her ridgy gums.
We take our teeth for granted. I’ve learned to maneuver my mouth so I don’t bite my tongue or cheek; so my teeth don’t get in the way of my mouth closing; so they process food efficiently. I’ve learned to make them part of my sounds, of my language and my smile. She hasn’t done any of that. I hear her grinding her upper one against her two lower ones when she doesn’t think I’m listening, as if experimenting.
It must be a rather painful exercise, this bone bursting from flesh. When else does a whole new part of our bodies grow in? It’s as if we grew a third arm one painful joint at a time and then had to learn how to use it. Look, you’ll be happy you have them, I tell her. And I’ll love you the same even if you only have these three crooked-looking ones.
We take our teeth for granted. I’ve learned to maneuver my mouth so I don’t bite my tongue or cheek; so my teeth don’t get in the way of my mouth closing; so they process food efficiently. I’ve learned to make them part of my sounds, of my language and my smile. She hasn’t done any of that. I hear her grinding her upper one against her two lower ones when she doesn’t think I’m listening, as if experimenting.
It must be a rather painful exercise, this bone bursting from flesh. When else does a whole new part of our bodies grow in? It’s as if we grew a third arm one painful joint at a time and then had to learn how to use it. Look, you’ll be happy you have them, I tell her. And I’ll love you the same even if you only have these three crooked-looking ones.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Complacency and Purpose
I've been reading an excellent book by John Piper called "Don't Waste Your Life." Last night, I finally got to the meat of his message: forget entertainment, appearance, and all this other hoopla -- make your life count by screwing the world, screwing what other people think, and following Jesus! How else will you be able to stand before God and look back on your life without regret? How else will anyone who doesn't know about Jesus distinguish the difference between Christians and non-Christians. In our society, the two groups look the same! Except for the small fact that Christians aren't supposed to do some "immoral" things and spend 2 hours Sunday morning in a building with a cross on it.
"Therefore the man who stands before God with his well-kept avoidance ethic and his protest that he did not spend too much time at the office but came home and watched TV with his family will probably not escape the indictment that he wasted his life. Jesus rebuked his disciples with words that easily apply to this man: Even sinners work hard, avoid gross sin, watch TV at night, and do fun stuff on the weekend. What more are you doing than the others? (Luke 6:32-34; Matthew 5:47)"
I’m starting to think Satan’s strategy here is not to frighten us with the supernatural, but to deaden us into complacency and distract us with entertainment. In medicine, the temptation is to seek a life of comfort, because you’re so wiped out from your training and tired of being overworked and underpaid. You watch all your other friends in their late twenties and early thirties make more than you and live normal lives. When you’re actually presented with a choice, you just want to find some cushy job. It’s a strange mixture of entitlement and necessity, to pay back massive loans.
But even now there’s that feeling of deadened routine and pointless leisure. This past week was really long, one of those weeks where you wait for each work day to be over, come home to go through the routine of chores, wind down doing something mindless before waking up to start it all over again.
I was reading through some of D’s old blog entries, which was sort of an inspiring thing to do. He wrote so honestly, with so much of the heart and substance that he still has, but I don’t always uncover in the daily grind. What he wrote above really resonated. I think we all want that: for our lives to be about a greater, truer purpose than ourselves; to be about more than entertainment, appearance, status, or superficial comfort.
Of course, it starts now. It doesn’t start when I’ve caught up on my sleep, or after the baby goes to bed, or when we finish residency and get to wherever we’re going. It starts with the moment I take to be with God, to reflect and listen and relate. The type of boldness and faith it takes to be living a life like that takes a foundation built upon all those moments. For some reason this can be really hard to do. But no one ever said it would be easy.
"Therefore the man who stands before God with his well-kept avoidance ethic and his protest that he did not spend too much time at the office but came home and watched TV with his family will probably not escape the indictment that he wasted his life. Jesus rebuked his disciples with words that easily apply to this man: Even sinners work hard, avoid gross sin, watch TV at night, and do fun stuff on the weekend. What more are you doing than the others? (Luke 6:32-34; Matthew 5:47)"
I’m starting to think Satan’s strategy here is not to frighten us with the supernatural, but to deaden us into complacency and distract us with entertainment. In medicine, the temptation is to seek a life of comfort, because you’re so wiped out from your training and tired of being overworked and underpaid. You watch all your other friends in their late twenties and early thirties make more than you and live normal lives. When you’re actually presented with a choice, you just want to find some cushy job. It’s a strange mixture of entitlement and necessity, to pay back massive loans.
But even now there’s that feeling of deadened routine and pointless leisure. This past week was really long, one of those weeks where you wait for each work day to be over, come home to go through the routine of chores, wind down doing something mindless before waking up to start it all over again.
I was reading through some of D’s old blog entries, which was sort of an inspiring thing to do. He wrote so honestly, with so much of the heart and substance that he still has, but I don’t always uncover in the daily grind. What he wrote above really resonated. I think we all want that: for our lives to be about a greater, truer purpose than ourselves; to be about more than entertainment, appearance, status, or superficial comfort.
Of course, it starts now. It doesn’t start when I’ve caught up on my sleep, or after the baby goes to bed, or when we finish residency and get to wherever we’re going. It starts with the moment I take to be with God, to reflect and listen and relate. The type of boldness and faith it takes to be living a life like that takes a foundation built upon all those moments. For some reason this can be really hard to do. But no one ever said it would be easy.
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