Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice

Its been a while since I've updated-- my newly-turned 2 year old keeps me hopping!  That and a wicked case of bronchitis/URI that kept me under the weather for 3+ weeks.  But I just had to pop in for a quick update on Gia.

She is the most adorable thing I've ever seen. Truth be told, when she was a baby, I was scared of the toddler years that were to come.  What the heck do you do with a mini person all day long? But now that this stage of life is here, I love it!  Well, for the most part. I'm not one of those bloggers (you know, THOSE bloggers) who pretends to love everything about life all the time, 24/7. You know, those bloggers with 2 kids, a full time job where they work nights so they can watch their kids during the day, plan clever crafts and learning times, serve homecooked, organic meals every night, all while getting no sleep and still looking amazing?  Yeah, sorry. Not me. But for the most part, I am really loving this stage with Gia.

Sure she has her moments. We all do. She definitely gets her "moments" from me, anyways. Temper tantrums are a daily- sometimes hourly- thing around here. Her latest means of protest is to just fall to her knees wherever she is, if she doesn't agree with my request. More often than not, this happens in the middle of the street or a parking lots. Its loads of fun, especially when I have my hands full of groceries. :)  But its just part of the territory.

What I really wanted to write about are the sweet things she's been doing that just blow my mind. I already wrote about her precious prayers. They get cuter & sweeter every night. She's also started praying with us at meal times. She reaches for our hands, hers already coverd with cottage cheese or ketchup, and we grimace & laugh but hold them anyways. Several times a day, she will open her arms up wide and say "Mommy BIG HUG!" My brother was here for her birthday and taught her the art of a fist bump. Now, she'll make a fist, stick it out in front of her and say "hiss hump." She wants to do it over and over again. Its hilarious!

She's also taken to snuggling. She was never a really cuddly baby, but now she's making up for lost time. She always says, "Mommy nuggle?" Its usually when I put her down for a nap (stall tactic) but she'll do it at other times, too.

My two favorite phrases she now repeats to me daily are "Mommy so cute" and "Mommy you're boototiful." She says it was a draw in her voice, dragging out the "cuuuuute" and "boooootootiful."  So fun.  I love her giggles and squeals and am so thankful for this little girl who calls me Mommy... even if it means never going to the bathroom by myself.

Bread & Wine [Book Review]

I don't even know where to begin my review of Shauna Niequist's latest book, Bread & Wine: A Love Letter To Life Around the Table With Recipes.  There is so much I want to convey to you about the beauty, the authenticity and the absolute need for a book like this. As its tagline states, this book is a "love letter to life around the table with recipes." Like any good love letter, this one sucked me in, to the point where my eyes welled with tears at nearly every chapter, identifying with some truth and my mouth watered with expectation upon reading the delicious-sounding recipes. With every turn of the page, I found my heart crying out, "Yes! This! This is what I so often try to say but fail to articulate! Yes, this! This! This!" In more ways than one, it was as if I, too were a part of Shauna's inner circle of friends, one of her cooking club girls. Though the names and faces and specifics may differ, I too have been blessed with an amazing gift- a community of friends & believers with whom I "do life."

Shauna writes early on in the book about how she always longed for a home that was bustling with life, people coming through the door at all hours, any day; friends clinging glasses, playing music, telling stories and sharing silence.  She writes that she "wanted cars parked all the way down the street, and people who came in without knocking, so familiar with our home that they mixed their own drinks and knew where to put the dishes after drying them." As I read this, my heart swelled to overflowing with gratefulness for our current season of life. We have this right now, and it is something that I, too have long desired. For years, it was my deepest prayer-- that the Lord would bring some really great friends into my life with whom I could just be me.  I had only one real friend like this, Tracy, and she lived hundreds of miles away.  We lived in California at the time I began to pray this prayer, and I remember the anger and frustration that came with the pressure I felt to "keep up appearances" for my husband's job.  You see, he was (and still is) a pastor. There was great pressure on me to perform the role of wife with flawless dedication. I had no one nearby to turn to when I needed to honest and, well... human.  God answered so many of our prayers in a huge way.  After years in California, we were blessed to be able to move to Indiana, closer to family and back to the lifestyle we had missed for so many years. As we were preparing to move, both Sean and I prayed that I would be able to find some good girl friends and really make a connection in our new church and home.  

As we grew to know our new home and church family, God began to bring women into my life with whom I was able to develop friendships. It started slowly at first; I was testing the waters. Would they really like me if they knew my quirks? Can I really be myself around them? Afterall, I love Michael Jackson & Aerosmith... but can I tell them that? Would they still be there if they knew they depths of my saddest day? My answer to these questions came quickly, for which I am so thankful. Just a few months after moving, some friends decided we should all try to get together on Tuesday nights. No agenda or schedule or anything that we had to do, just time to hang out. The first Tuesday was fun. We drank wine, painted our nails and some of us brought our latest Pinterest baked good. We got to know each other a little bit more, and decided to do it again the next week. That was over a year and a half ago, and with with exception of a few Tuesday nights when I was sick out of town, Girls Night has been a weekly must. It is an island of sanity in the midst of a crazy, toddler-filled week. We hadn't been meeting together long before February rolled around, Whitney's birth month. The daughter I carried to near-term, all the while knowing she had a chromosomal condition that was incompatible with life. This would be our first year away from California where she was born, and oddly enough, I missed the things from our old home that had reminded me of Whitney. Though I hadn't known this new group of friends long, they began asking me questions about Whitney. They weren't shy, and for this I was grateful. They asked me questions that many of our long-time friends in California never dared to ask. We sat around Caitlin's table as I told them about our Random Acts of Kindness Day, in memory of Whitney and they all eagerly wanted to participate too.  That was when I knew this was the real deal. They saw my brokenness and all that went along with it, and they loved me anyways. Shauna writes, "The table is the life raft, the center point, the home base of who we are together." Her cooking club has soups & breads & bacon wrapped dates. My Girls' Night has Reggae Red wine & strawberry cupcakes & endless manicures. But they both add up to the same thing- the life raft, the home base, the breath of fresh air amidst the stifling heat of life. 

Since then, we've added more friends to our group and even a couple of babies. I received my review copy of Bread & Wine the week that my friend Mallory had her baby boy, Cam. She invited me to be in the delivery room so that I could do her birth photography. It was an experience I will never forget- the feeling in the room of great anticipation and the unworldly strength with which she labored and delivered her baby naturally. (I now believe this is a brag-worthy accomplishment. I used to pass it off as no greater feat than birthing a baby with an epidural, as I chose to do. But Mallory's strength and determination corrected this way of thinking in me. So women who have birthed a baby sans drugs- brag away.) Cam was born on a Saturday, and I went up to visit them again on Sunday after church. I couldn't get ahold of anyone to find out if it was a good time to visit or not, but I just decided to go see them anyways. When I opened the door, Mallory and her husband Jess were there, both with their eyes full of tears. I could tell they had both been crying, but I wasn't sure what was going on. I learned that the doctor had detected a problem with baby Cam's heart and they were being transferred to the Children's hospital NICU downtown. Uncertainty swirled around us as the transfer team loaded Cam into a hug space-age contraption. I met them at the hospital later that night, and after learning they were staying in a hotel nearby, a few girlfriends and I headed to the closest store to stock them up on things they might need... fruit, oatmeal, magazines, a soft blanket, drinks, chocolate. Mallory insisted she didn't need anything, but when showed up at their door with bags of groceries, we were glad we hadn't listened. In another chapter of Bread & Wine, Shauna writes "We don't learn to love each other well in the easy moments. Anyone is good company at a cocktail party. But love is born when we misunderstand one another and make it right, when we cry in the kitchen, when we show up uninvited with magazines and granola bars, in an effort to say, I love you."  Now you see why with every chapter of this book, my heart cried, "Yes! This!"

I'm not much of a cook. I cook for my family, but wouldn't say I'm great at it. Its mostly a mix of the usual weeknight dinners, with a few "experimentations" thrown in here and there. But the chapter Start Where You Are encouraged me to begin exploring more with my cooking. The chapter ends with a recipe for Basic Vinaigrette. Some Dijon, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. At the end of the chapter, she encourages you to "save a pickle jar or a jelly jar, and every few days, make yourself a vinaigrette. You'll feel like you're practicing magic, or like you've turned water into wine." Oh. Oh, ho ho. How right she is! I whipped up a basic vinaigrette, adding a few chopped shallots, and poured it into a fancy Crate & Barrel bottle a friend gave me for Christmas. (It had homemade Chai in it at the time. That had long since been consumed, but the bottle was too pretty to throw away!) I left it out on my counter all week and poured it over a simple salad each night. Mixed greens, thin sliced red onion and goat cheese. One night, I drizzled it over some pan seared pork chops.  It was divine! The simple act of creating this dressing from scratch has given me gumption to try more things.  Up next: risotto with mushrooms and bacon.  I know, crazy!

This book spoke directly to my heart in so many ways, but my perhaps favorite part comes from the introduction:

Bread is bread and wine is wine, but bread-and-wine is another thing entirely. The two together are the sacred and the material at once, the heaven and earth, the divine and the daily. ... [Bread and Wine] is about what happens when we enter the joy and sorrow of the people we love, and we join together at the table to feed one another and be fed, and while its not strictly about food, it doesn't happen without it. ... Food is a language of care, the thing we do when traditional language fails us, when we don't know what to say, when there are no words to say. And food is what we offer in celebration-- at weddings, at anniversaries, at happy events of every kind. Its the thing that connects us, bears our traditions, our sense of home and family, our deepest memories, and, on a practical level, our ability to live and breathe each day. Food matters. ... At the very beginning, and all through the Bible, all through the stories about God and his people, there are stories about food, about all of life changing with the bite of an apple, about trading an inheritance for a bowl of stew, about waking up to find the land littered with bread, God's way of caring for his people; about a wedding where water turned to wine, Jesus' first miracle; about the very first Last Supper, the humble bread and wine becoming, for all time, indelibly linked to the very body of Christ, the center point for thousands of years of tradition and belief. It matters. It mattered then, and it matters now, possibly even more so, because it's a way of reclaiming some of the things we may have lost along the way.

Two of my Girls Night friends have already bought Bread & Wine, since I couldn't stop talking about it while I was reading it. This is by far the frontrunner for my favorite book this year. When I do a book review, I usually like to read it and review it in a couple weeks or less. But this book was different. I had to take my time working through it. I underlined, highlighted and dog-eared pages. I made notes on recipes to try and the ones I have tried. I savored every well-written word. I hope that you will get this book and savor it over time, like I did. Or perhaps you will devour it in one or two sittings. Either way, I highly recommend this book. And if you do, let me know what you think! I'd love to hear about your community, the type of community you long for, or the recipes from this book that you try!

These are my people. My Girls' Night girls. Pic is from Baby Cam's baby shower!

You can buy this book now on Amazon.  Its available in Hardcover (only $10.98 if you're a Prime member) or E-Reader version.

* I received this book from the publisher for review, but all opinions are entirely my own.

God, Eh-ah. Amen.

I'm going to let the world in on a little secret: I don't really know what I'm doing with this whole parenting thing.  Oh, I've read lots of books on the subject and talked to many moms I admire.  I've Binged and Googled and Pinterested to my heart's content issues on the matter of parenthood, especially as it pertains to this new land we've recently entered: Toddlerdom.  But when it really comes down to it, I'm just doing the best I can with what I've got.  Some days, that's more than others.  At the end of every day, though, all I'm ever left with is a prayer in my heart and faith in my Heavenly Father that I'm raising my daughter in His way.

I realize most learning at this stage is through example.  For instance, on one particularly bad day a month or so ago, I stomped my feet and let out a loud "gggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" in frustration.  It wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, just more of a release from the day.  Of course little eyes were watching.  So it came as no surprise when it wasn't long before Gia had adapted her own version of this "foot-stomping-grrrrrrr" reaction.  As if asking forgiveness of anyone isn't hard enough, try asking it of an almost-two-year old who has no clue what you're saying.  Yeah, that's humbling.  I'd like to say that once was enough for me to really "get it" that my daughter will follow my example in many ways- good and bad- but I'm just going to be realistic and tell you that I will mess up again in front of her.  And I'll have to ask her forgiveness again.  But in this fallen world, I'm learning to become okay with that.  I know that when I mess up, its an opportunity to bring the Gospel to her heart (and mine).  

Just like I've realized my daughter will follow my cues in stressful or difficult circumstances, I'm learning (with so much joy in my heart) that she is catching on to the good things I am trying to teach her, too.  She's picking up phrases all over the place.  Sometimes, she will say something and I'll have to think back to what I've been talking about to realize that she did, indeed, pick it up from me.  I never realized I used "honey" as a term of endearment quite so frequently until she started saying it back to me in her sweet little two year old voice: "huh-neeee."  So Sweet.

Every night as I'm putting Gia to bed, we read some books, talk about her day, then I ask her who she wants to pray for.  She goes in spurts and it always warms my heart to hear the random people who are on her mind at the moment.  Sometimes it is Keegan, her newest cousin.  Sometimes its Pop Pop, Gram and kit-cats (their kittens).  But almost always, she wants to pray for Ella, her bestie.  Or "Eh-ah" as she calls her.  We had dinner with Ella & Heather tonight, so Ella must have been on Gia's mind, because after I finished praying (including thanking God for Ella and praying that they would be encouraging & uplifting friends to each other as they grow up), Gia wanted me to pray for Ella again.  So we prayed for Ella again.  When I said "amen," Gia still wanted to keep praying for Ella!  So I told her, "You do it."  As she sat facing me in my lap, she looked up at me, then deliberately down at her hands as she folded them beneath her chin. (I'm guessing they learned that at church?) She close her eyes and I held my breath to see what she was going to do.  In her sweet, angelic voice she simply prayed, "God.  Eh-ah.  Amen."  God, Ella.  Amen.  Talk about making my heart burst!  Now who knows what her mind can comprehend about those three little words she just prayed.  But I think children understand more than we expect them to, and I'm ok with raising the bar of expectations here.  As she prayed that, my heart cried "Yes!" along with a million thoughts of them growing up together, prayers that they will be good influencers to each other and those around them, that they wouldn't argue over boys, that they can be different and still be good friends, that they can do life together the way Heather & I (and all our other girl friends) do.  

So there you have it, my baby's first prayer.  I know I screw up as a mom.  Most days I'm just flying by the seat of my pants, hanging on for dear life and doing the best I can.  Speaking truth to my daughter and trusting in God, believing His promise that His Word will not return void.  In the moments where I see the sinful side of myself mirrored in my daughter, my heart breaks.  But in the moments where I see God's plan of redemption and promise bursting forth from my tiny two year old, my heart is not only healed it is grateful & joyous, abounding with hope at the grace given to us by our loving God.  And I'm okay with not knowing exactly what I'm doing in Toddlerdom-- I'm not alone.

March InstaGlance

Another month has come and gone... and Spring is still hiding out somwhere in the West!  March brought lots of sweet cuddles from my baby; a high school basketball game that was lots of fun; lots of playing with toys and sunnies; a sewing project (St. Patty's ruffle pants!); a trip to the Children's Museum where Gia got to explore all kinds of fun things; a bump on the head; some new canvases for the house; 2 trips in the ER and an overnight in the hospital for a sick little G; MORE SNOW (ugh); smiles, friends and Easter!!  Here's hoping Spring actually arrives in April.  Gia's decided she likes to wake up all hours of the night again, too... so here's also hoping to more sleep in April (ha!).

Book Review: Lord I Give You This Day

Not to be dramatic, but this is probably my least favorite daily devotional I have read to date. I was excited to get Kay Arthur's book, "Lord I Give You This Day: 366 Appointments with God" because I generally appreciate Arthur's other works and her well-researched fleshing out of Scripture. But I am sorry to say that this book was not at all what I expected. I imagine it is difficult to write a book of 366 daily devotions- so many topics and verses and writings! I found this daily devotional book to be a bit cryptic in its purpose. There was no overall theme or directive in any of the writings-- not even a continuity between any of the day to day writings. Each day's devotional thought was entirely disconnected from the one before. In some instances, that is ok. But I found it difficult to engage daily with this book when I had no idea how it built upon the previous days' readings.

I also found this book a difficult daily devotional because the dominant thought was often hard to decipher. Arthur didn't start with a specific Scripture or even a dominant thought for the day. It just seemed like random writings, with the point often being too far at the end of the reading. When I look for another daily reading, I will look for one that is more clear in its purpose, and that has a more poignant (less wandering) progression throughout the year.

All that being said, I do still love most of Kay Arthur's other works. This one bad egg won't keep me from reading more of her writings in the future. I just think the overall outline and purpose of this book is poorly executed.  You can purchase this book on Amazon.

"I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review."

InstaGlance: February 2013

February has been a busy month!  It always happens that way with such a short month.  But to wrap it up, Gia & I had a blast at our middle school Nerf wars.  It was a little weird to see my toddler wielding a gun- albeit a Nerf- and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that.  But she enjoyed it and had a great time.  We gained a new little man in our family- my nephew Keegan.  Gia is pretty crazy bout him, too.  Every night when I ask her who she wants to pray for, Keegan is the first person she names.  We celebrated Whitney's 3rd birthday this month.  Hard to believe its been 3 years since we last held our first baby girl.  Looking forward all the more to Heaven's reunion.  We geared up for award show season and enjoyed more than our fair share of red carpet watchings on E!  Celebrated Valentine's Day with handmade love letters in our mailboxes, then Sean & I had steaks and asparagus after putting Gia to bed.  We had our small group over for an impromptu dinner (thanks Heather!) the night before I got to watch the birth of Baby Cam.  Let me tell you... there is nothing more amazing than watching firsthand the birth of a new life.  One of the best experiences of my life.  And my friend Mallory did it all without drugs.  I hope to blog more about this soon.  (I was her birth photographer, so lots of pictures to still edit, too!)  Baby Cam was in the NICU for a while so we spent a good week loving on Cam & his parents.  Sean was awesome to pitch in and help with Gia so I could be up at the hospital for them.  I experienced (and hope my friends did, too) community/village life at its finest this month.  Had a fantastic time planning and partying at the Oscars with my friends.  And now its March!  Hoping this month brings lots of sunshine, warm weather and trips to the park!

Dimples

There are days when I don't think I can take it any more... She's growing up so fast. She already knows all her basic colors. She says "I love you" spontaneously at dinner (though her dad had to translate that one for me). She feeds her baby dolls like the Duggar mom, and has strong opinions about cheese (loves it) and milk (hates it).  Our books from the library this week were about counting.  I realized we haven't really been working on numbers.  I'm amazed at how much she soaks up so quickly.  While playing with Dad after dinner last night, she counted to eight!  She's growing up so fast.

She picks up the funniest things from Sean and me... "Huuuh-neeeey!" is currently her favorite term of endearment.  Apparently, its mine too at the moment.  She shouts "I'm tuummmming" as she runs from the play loft to her bedroom when its time for jammies.  When I'm sitting on my bed, making menus for the week or our shopping list, she brings me her toys and says "Here go" as she flings them up to me.  The need for discipline has appeared seemingly overnight, and we're still working on understanding what it means to "obey" and "disobey."  But she knows what is right and what it wrong- that is certain. In fact, several times today, she put herself in time out before I had to tell her.  It made me feel guilty and question myself for a brief moment, and then I reminded myself that loving guidance is necessary.

She's growing up so fast these days.  When she runs by me in a flash of excitement, hurrying on to the next toy that strikes her fancy, I can hardly recognize her as my baby!  But in my heart, I know, she will always be my baby.  So I search with fervor for signs of that truth- that she will always be my baby.  Tonight as we were watching a movie before bed, she held my hand.  And though she is growing up and learning and becoming more "girl" than "baby" by the minute, tonight, the tiny dimples in her hand remind me that she will always be my baby.

Some day, in the not so distant future, I will look at her and realize that she is becoming more "woman" than "baby."  And I'm not sure what will convince me then that she will always be my baby.  But you better believe I will search for it.  And I will find it.  Because though I know its her job and my prayer that she will grow up to become a beautiful, God-serving woman some day, she will always. be. my. baby.