I got an overdue haircut yesterday (somehow I missed December; anybody see it go past?), and while I’ve had some silvery hair since high school, I was surprised to see how much more there was in the clippings as they cascaded past my eyes. Is this Lucy’s doing?
p{color:gray}. Photo: This post is about _Papa’s_ white hair, not Lucy’s new polar-bear snowsuit. (But isn’t it cute?)
Mostly, we’re pleased to report, Lucy’s doing really, really well! As Ann “noted last week”:/2006/mama-baby-attempt-fun, Lucy transitioned to sleeping at night with one arm out of her swaddling. But that’s not the half of it: she spontaneously, and apparently easily, dropped one of her two night feedings, too! She now goes down quite quickly around 6:PMish and (after an optional fussing session about 40 minutes later) sleeps straight through till a 4:AMish feed! Ten hours, we wouldn’t have believed it.
The feeding she dropped — the one we called the “dream feed,” around 10:30 or 11:PM — had been a longstanding fixture of her day, so who knows how these changes happen. She just did it. (Ann has already started getting misty-eyed saying, “I miss that special dream-feed time with Lucy.” Awww…) It’s been great for us to hit the hay and sleep half the night, knowing that Lucy’s sleeping so great, too. Plus, now Mama and Papa can go on a hot date without a curfew!
So why the white hair? It’s just that I’ve been noticing that, despite all of Lucy’s constant strides of development, it’s still so easy for me to worry about how she’s doing.
* Is today’s little sniffle going to blossom into something big?
* Are this week’s daytime nap troubles going to turn into a permanent struggle?
* What’s with that little shivery grunt she’s been doing, some kind of muscular spasm or just her usual enthusiasm?
* Are we doing the right thing to go along with Lucy’s continued desire to be “swaddled”:/news/2006/luv-2-b-swaddled/ for sleep?
I’ve been praying that God would grow my capacity to absorb — no, deflect — the stress and anxiety, when it comes along. In other spheres of life where I feel stress, I can sometimes “chill out” by remembering that after all the stakes aren’t so high; but of course that’s not the case here: Lucy and Ann and this family are immeasurably precious. And I know that the worries don’t go away, maybe ever, about one’s children. So I long to be a father who can rest in God’s provision.
But this feels like one of those tasks that’s too big to handle by tackling head-on. As Dallas Willard says (in “_The Spirit of the Disciplines_”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060694424/octothorppres-20), some spiritual tasks require small spiritual disciplines to accomplish. Any ideas, then, about what spiritual disciplines are useful for learning to rest in God’s care for one’s children and family?
Listening.
Which you two are great at. But, truly listening. I am sad to report that the other day Madelyn was trying to tell me that she didn’t feel good, I took it as I want to be held and play with mom instead of nap….really she was saying I don’t feel good and need more attention and care. It took vomit in my face to get my attention.
God is also trying to teach us, especially through the kids and about our children. Good thing he doesn’t vomit in our face. Often we rush past our time with him to care for them (Lucy/ann) that we miss what he wants to share with us about and for them. And some times it is hard to hear with the cries of the baby, the demands of the wife and the stress of work all coming at us full force. So it is a true spiritual discipline to listen and really hear. And it is another to respond and act.
I had a hard one today. Madelyn is so fussy, which isn’t her (she is the baby that everyone says “does she ever cry?”) So when she cries or wines I respond. Well now she knows that and It is driving me to breaking point. God had to slap me upside the head and say, “Katrina you cry and fuss too and you don’t die from it, it is okay to let her cry/fuss)”. Now just to have the pacience to let her learn to work through this. :-)
Ps– Love the bear, where did you find it. I collect bears so I love making my baby into on (halloween she was a panda!–not really a bear, but good enough)
We found the bear suit on sale at the store formerly known as Marshall Fields (now Macy’s, irritatingly). I wasn’t sure that we needed one, since we had received that pink suit as a hand-me-down, but her mittens were always falling off her hands in the pink one and it was hard to get into. The bear suit is easy to put on and has built-in hand covers at the ends of the sleeves! Lucy loves it.
Those built in hand covers are great – Benjamin had an outfit last winter that had that. This winter we’re trying mittens, but he always takes them off.
Lucy dear, will you please give Mo a call and discuss how to sleep with him? In the last 4 weeks, he’s only had 2 nights good sleep. Good sleep means he wakes only once about 2:30-3:30 for a bottle. Other than that, we’ve been up every 2 hours for no reason at all. He loves looking at your pics, so maybe he’d listen to reason from a beautiful young lady like yourself.