Making A Getaway

She finally figured out what the presents under the tree were about. We're going to wait until husbands working over christmas arrive to open most of them; we'll see if that works..

Contentment

My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and forevermore.
- Psalm 131

Thus I have become in his eyes like one bringing contentment. – Song of Solomon 8:10

This year I am thinking about contentment. I am thinking about how easy it is to want things. Material things, like a new dress or designer bag; simple things, like not having to work twelve-hour hospital shifts on Christmas day away from family. Deep things, like a second child. Reasonable things, like knowing where we will be living next year.

To some degree I feel entitled to these things. I feel I need them; I feel if God were good he would give them to me. But none of that is true. I am not entitled to anything. I do not need them to be content. God’s goodness is not conditional, his sovereignty nothing less than complete. To believe otherwise is to lose perspective in light of my selfishness, to place faith in myself rather than in God.

If anyone had right to feel entitled, it would have been God coming into our world. But he was born to an ordinary girl in a stable. I read E these Christmas books, where the sheep smile down at the manger, the doves coo and the donkeys pull a warm blanket over the baby, and I think, what a load of hogwash. The stable probably smelled of manure, was drafty and definitely unhygienic. The hay was scratchy and the manger soaked with dirty water and horse saliva. It would be the equivalent of giving birth in a garage or parking lot.

I look at my sister’s baby lying on her chest. I think about E lying her head on my shoulder. And I think, God, give me a heart that is not proud and does not try to understand more than I can. Give me rest in contentment. He gives us the strength to be content, because he understands our deepest desires, our unspoken sorrows; he sustains us and gives us hope. He has shown us how, even from the beginning.

Then we can become like one who brings contentment, to friends and patients and those closest to us. And that would be a wonderful gift.

Hair

I don’t know what to do with her hair. Around six months she was developing a mullet so I trimmed the bottom. Then I was so anti-bowl-cut that for a while she didn’t have any cut at all, which meant she looked like Justin Bieber on good hair days, and Ashton Kutcher on bad ones. Sometimes after a long nap she would develop a small afro. I finally gave in and trimmed her bangs, and most days I try to clip up the sides or tie ponytails, but she’ll only tolerate that for so long before pulling it out—though she’s always very good about holding on to the ties and giving them back to me. She tries to pull my hairclips out as well as a favor. And she looks so innocent.

Journal Excerpt

Seeing E with her newborn cousin definitely amps things up to a whole new level of cuteness. It’s like taking a newborn kitten, tying a ribbon around its neck, putting it next to a puppy, then watching them cuddle in front of a mountain stream. Sometimes I find myself having to look away.

She likes to go up to him whenever he’s in the room, stick her face right in front of his, and make this excited smiling sound while scrunching up her face into a big grin. She walks around with that expression plastered on her face for minutes afterwards. She likes to rock the chair he sits in up and down, rather vigorously. She pushes the buttons on it for him and wiggles her butt to the music. She likes to point to his nose and feet. She likes to lay her head down next to him when he lies on the floor.

She is surprisingly gentle. I like to think this is because of the million times I have repeated GENTLE- GENTLE to her while she pets the cats, but it probably has nothing to do with that.

Today she brought over a diaper while he was lying on the floor, opened it and tried to stick it on his bottom. She also likes to give him desitin and baby wipes. Why don’t you work on changing your own diaper first, I tell her.

Security Blanket

This is a pillowcase from Ikea she slept on and liked to bunch around her face when she was a newborn. Now she drags it everywhere around the house. She points to it about fifty times a day so we can remind her what it's called (bae-bae in chinese). D bought a whole bedding set just so we'd have an extra one in case she loses it, though we've been careful not to let her see both at the same time, because the universe might just explode if that happened.

Journal Excerpt

Let’s face it: this is a great age. This is the age when you start to think, wow, kids are so wonderful, let’s have five more—which explains why most kids are spaced two years apart. She eats on her own, obeys commands, poops fewer times a day, goes to sleep quickly, and spends the rest of her time waddling around looking cute.

She falls flat on her face every five steps and doesn’t get phased: she just puts her hands on the ground, pushes her bum straight up in the air, and stands up again. I can tell her to go give someone a hug, or to put something back, and she’ll do it. She even dances on command, which is hilarious. Her hair can go in two pigtails, which with her bangs makes her look just like the little girl in “Monsters, Inc.” After she brings me a book she turns around and backs up to sit herself in my lap. When I wash the dishes she comes to tug on my pant leg.

I am fully aware that one morning she will wake up and start throwing tantrums when I don’t give her that extra cheerio and thirteen years later will not want to be seen walking with me in the mall. So I’m just trying to remember everything and be present to enjoy it as much as I can.

It Takes A Village

I’m home for Christmas. I’m wearing new pajamas, in a freshly-sheeted bed with a cinnamon candle burning. My sister is nursing her seven-week old to sleep. My dad put E to bed, which really means he let her fall asleep with him for an hour before finally putting her in the crib. My mom decked out the house, baked a turkey in time for our arrival, and stocked the place with toys and books.

E puttered around the house all afternoon, constantly eating, both the food my mom made especially for her, and the food made for everyone else, until her stomach got enormously large. She would pat it fondly while waddling around. Everyone took turns keeping an eye on her wherever she wandered around the house. My sister’s newborn got passed from arm to arm so we all got a chance to eat, or talk, or nap.

I think we’ve lost this kind of community in the real world. Coming home always makes me realize that children are meant to be raised in community—a real one, not a manufactured series of play-dates so we can tick “social interaction” off our list, or in a daycare where parents rush in and out without even knowing the names of the other kids in the room. Children love being around lots of people who love them. They need to be around people who teach them different things in different ways.

And it’s so much healthier for us too. It’s rewarding to see how much she delights our friends and family. And we need a break, so we don’t lose ourselves; to recharge our marriages. Seeing how other people love her also helps me love and appreciate her in different, new, or deeper ways. Other people bring different things out of her. Other people see things about her that I miss, or that I’m too tired or habituated to notice.

This would be a nice way of life. But in our individualistic, fragmented society, it’s so hard to find, and sometimes it seems harder to find the farther along you get in life. It makes me grateful for times like these at home. And it helps me resolve to be more intentional about pursuing this in the future.

Dress-Up Shoes

Someone gave these to us when she was born. I finally got to pull them out for a holiday party last weekend. Dressing up baby girls is just about as fun as I thought it would be.

Journal Excerpt

I really like the way she hunches up her shoulders while she’s walking, as if she might fall right over if she relaxes too much.

I also like the way she says “www-OW!” if she sees anything exciting. She says it when pointing to fish at the aquarium. She says it when she sees the cats for the first time every morning.

Because she doesn’t talk much I tend to forget that she notices things, until she’ll do something that completely surprises me. Like when we walked by the hand sanitizer, she pretended to squeeze some out and made washing movements with her hands. When she grabs her toothbrush, she’ll also grab the toothpaste tube and pretend to squeeze some onto the brush. When I say “all done” after a bath, she’ll reach down herself to unstopper the tub so water flows out. I caught her trying to put her own socks on the other day, and she also tries to put her feet into our shoes. Seeing her do these things without previous instruction is sort of be like seeing one of the cats suddenly grab a broom and sweep up spilled litter on the floor. It’s rather bizarre.

Noises

The more I talk to other people with babies, the more I get the sense that E is really a pretty loud person. You mean it’s not normal to not need a baby monitor because you can hear her cry in every room of the house? Oh. My mom used to remark on how “resonant” her cries were. And the nurses in the hospital on what a “healthy” pair of lungs she had. Ha.

Sometimes she’ll start to yell AAAH—AAAH—AAAH continuously, usually because she’s bored. I’ll be switching her to different positions in my arms, trying to distract her with things, but she just keeps going. She’s not upset, or crying, or squirming, just sort of yelling. It’s like I’m holding a little car alarm. People start to look over and I’m tempted to leave her there and pretend I don’t know her.

She’s good at letting us know in the mornings she’s awake. She’ll go sequentially through all the sounds she knows how to make, which put together means GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND COME GET ME NOW.

She likes to copy other people’s sounds. When other people cough, she makes little fake coughing sounds back. If I say “mmm, that was yummy” she’ll go “mmmmmm” back. She likes to mutter to herself, with lots of “sh” “ppuh” “pht” sounds, when reading a book on her own. She’s starting to copy our words: “up” is “UHH.” Bubble is “buh-boh.” Banana is “aah-na-na.” Apple is “ah-puuh.”