Learning to Walk

Amelie took her first consecutive steps last weekend!
She has been pulling herself up to standing since Thanksgiving when she was just 8 months old. But she lingered over the transition from a stander to a walker. Content to pull up to reach the toys (or brother) she found interesting, or cruise along the front of the couch, she never showed interest in being able to walk across the room since dropping into a crawl happened so naturally.

I find myself content with where I'm at too. My friends are great. We are being challenged at our new church and meeting great people. Our family is blessed and happy. I've been crawling around in my world of safety enjoying the cool life God has given me and not really wanting to take a step out into new things because of the dreaded fear of the unknown.

But there is so much more to discover and the first step is to move past crawling to walking.

Walter and I coaxed Amelie again and again to walk in between our open arms. She wanted to cross the gap and make it to the other person, but in her excitement she quickly dropped on her bottom and began her familiar crawl. We picked her up and pointed her in the right direction again only to watch her revert to crawling.

And then her focus switched. Her mind got bored of checking out mommy and daddy and her hands, mouth, and eyes started to explore the toy in her hands. While she focused on the object she forgot the unknown of taking a step. As she forgot herself and what she didn't know how to do, her feet started moving and our little girl walked!

And I wonder what would happen if I allowed myself to forget what I don't know, focus on the One who controls everything, and take a blind step. Would my world open up to amazing new life to explore?

Where could my feet take me if I simply forgot to focus on myself?

Dear Amelie

Dear Amelie Hope,

You are ONE! Happy Birthday my sweet girl.

Has it really been a year since I first snuggled with you? When you wiggled and punched inside of me I both winced and smiled. Knowing you were alive and moving filled me with hope that God had redeemed rough times. And then when I held you for the first time my unbelief that I would ever get to hold you turned to reality and I couldn't hold back almost two years worth of tears.

You are truly a gift.

I knew you would be a girl. And whether you like it or not, you have come in to this role as princess very well. Knowing the ups and downs of mother/daughter relationships makes me way more worried about being a good mom to you, but I'm excited to keep on trying. And don't worry I won't let Daddy overprotect you too much just because you are a girl.

Sitting on my hospital bed, I couldn't stop smothering you with kisses and now I love being on the receiving end of your endless wide open mouthed kisses. Slobber has never been so welcome and I wait for more of it

This next year is going to be so fun. Your hair will grow and I can finally brush it into pigtails and tie it with bows. You will became more confident in your walking and will soon be running after your brother. We will get to listen as you learn more words and hear your little girl voice around our house. No doubt, we look forward to discovering more about who God has wired you to be.

And so, we are celebrating you today. Celebrating because you are absolutely worth celebrating for the sweet girl that you are and celebrating because you represent the hope God restored to our family.

Happy First Birthday, Amelie.

Love,

Mommy

When Mom's away

Attention Moms! Here's a sure way to feel like a great mom.

Leave your house for an evening at the Hearts at Home conference celebrating motherhood and this could be how your children entertain themselves too!

My precious little girl yields a sword with great skill, don't you think?

Flamingos

Maybe Asher inherited his love of birds from Grams. Grams loves flamingos. The pink feathered friends have become her signature item and my kids know the books she has given them by the flamingo stamp on the inside cover.

Grams also loves her family. When she comes to visit Asher knows he can convince Grams to play anything he wants. She has been known to chase him around the house with a large Elmo doll, convince mommy to allow a huge yellow dump truck to be brought into the house, and read stacks of books higher than Asher all in one sitting.

So when we searched for the perfect birthday gift for her, we combined her two loves: flamingos and grandkids into a plate by making handprint flamingos.

While our plate spent a weekend baking in a kiln, my excitement over our creation led me to think about it way more than I imagined I should think about a ceramic plate. God reminded me that He thinks of me, His creation, even more often than I thought about that plate.

I wrote a devotion about this experience and you can read it today on Christiandevotions.us.

Restaurant gluttony

I love to eat out.

I'm sure I inherited this addiction to packing up the kids, baby food, and toys from my mother, but I do love the mindlessness of not having to choose a meal and then prepare it.

It's like a moment of vacation that I look forward to every week.

So when we started planning our vacation to Florida, I began relishing in the thought of a luxurious week of no meal planning! In the past, a highlight of vacationing for Walter and I has been finding the best local restaurants. We love experiencing the ambiance of a hidden hot spot and Walter regularly orders the item on the menu he is most unlikely to try at home. Those vacation meals often pop to my head when I remember highlights of past vacations.

But!

Now we travel differently.

We now search for all the McDonalds playlands rather than the romantic quiet spots with views over the ocean. We checkout the kids menus ahead of time to make sure we can accommodate a picky little boy who only eats a bunless hamburger. We look for the loudest dining areas so after our little girl holds her 17th staring contest with a stranger and then bursts into hysterics when they smile back at her we won't have to rush to the parking lot.

And so I find it ironic how I looked forward to returning to my kitchen, my recipe box, and my grocery stores.

Sometimes too much of a vacation is too much. Dining out in bits and pieces throughout a month is wonderful but a weeks worth of menus and booths with dirty floors to lay on is more than I can handle.

I guess we learned the meaning and dangers of excessive indulgence - restaurant gluttony.

So give me back my Kitchen Aid, my 20 year old stove, and my weekly excursion to the Coffee Hound and I will be a happy mom.

Scenes of a roadtrip

Ahhh....we walked into our home last night and sighed. We survived the 20 hour one-way car ride home from chilly Florida.

Part of the story I want to write this year includes making choices for memories we won't soon forget. One of those choices (influenced by airplane ticket and car rental prices) included spending 52 hours in the car with my family over the course of 10 days.

After I finish reading a book, I know its good if memorable scenes stand out to me days after I've finished reading. I am still smiling and sighing over many scenes from our hours in the Jeep. There were many stand out moments that I won't soon forget, but here are some of the highlights:

- Sleepy-eyed party girl Amelie fighting sleep with all her might so she can continue to watch every move of her brother's for two 10 hour days of traveling.

- Asher realizing his sister might actually be a fun source of entertainment and "Fishing for Babies" with his daddy.

- Walter talking into the pink tube turned phone about knight adventures.

- Assuring Asher that the man in the car next to us was not obligated to share his breakfast sandwich with mommy.

- Everyone being content with viewing Dino World through rainy windows in the parking lot.

- Exploring office parks and wooded backlots of Georgia to find geocaches.

- Mommy refusing to give up the wheel because driving is easier than entertaining.

- Daddy proving the love he has for his kids by enjoying the screaming baby and hyper Asher backseat.

Did we write a good story? If memorable equals good, then the answer is YES!

A pet

Every parent eventually must reflect their child's requests for an animal of their own.

I remember begging for years to get a dog before we finally got our shaggy cocker spaniel, Lucky. When she came home, I proudly led her by the red leash all around the yard and fed her morning and night, really I did! She faithfully brought stability to my family for more than 15 years.

I tried having a dog in my adult life, but it just didn't work. So when Walter and I began to feel the parental urge, we decided to get a hedgehog. We loved P.Rick Lee for several years and carried him around with us on the weekends to the farmers market, Coffee Hound, and on walks up and down the trail. He was a great test for parenting and actually the specific parenting we do with a regularly prickly little boy.

Well, that prickly boy put in his first pet petition yesterday and because I'm still chuckling over the conversation, I want to record it here.

Asher: Mom, I want an animal.
Me: Oh, that would be fun, maybe a hedgehog would be nice.
Asher: No, I want a bird.
Me: Really, a bird? I don't like birds, they are noisy.
Asher: But I want a bird.
Me: Well, what color of bird do you want?
Asher: Mom, let's not talk about color, but let's talk about what type of bird.
Me: Ok, what type of bird do you want?
Asher: I want a crow!!

A crow! Not a dog, not a cat, not even a hedgehog. The first animal my son begged for is a crow.

Anyone ever have luck with a pet crow?