Milestones.

Babyhood is, of course, marked by many milestones:  smiling, laughing, rolling over, sitting up, cooing, and babbling to just name a few.   In the past week, I've encountered two less publicized but equally significant markers:  leaving Buster in the church nursery and leaving my brains who-knows-where.

The nursery thing has been weeks in the coming.  We've practiced with five minute and ten minute stints in nursery care.  This week, however, we went for the full deal.  It went something like this:  I take Buster to the nursery fully prepared to sit and play on the floor with him for the duration of church should he show any signs of distress.  He shows no true distress as our friend takes him from my arms and tells me to go and enjoy church.  I hesitate and find several reasons to stick around for a few more minutes.  I dig through the diaper bag and lay out his favorite toys.  I spread out his fleece blankie on the floor.  I adjust his clip-on pacifier.  I procrastinate until I start to feel silly.

Then I kiss Buster and leave.

And I watch him from around the corner like some sort of secret service agent or spy.   He seems fine.  Our friend looks at me, gives me the "thumbs up" and mouths "go".  I go.  And I return seven minutes later.  He's still fine.  He's playing on the floor surrounded by toddlers who are thrilled to have a baby to pay attention to and offer every single toy in the nursery to.  Buster looks like a king accepting gifts from his toddler peasants. I leave again and return to spy.  And leave and spy.  You get the picture.  Basically, Buster did great and greeted me with a gummy grin at the end of church.  Big milestone for Buster.  Even bigger for his mom.

The other milestone, the brains thing, is one that I've heard other mom friends mention.  They talk about feeling like they lose their brains as they have babies.  There has probably already been plenty of evidence of this in our household, but the most obvious happened this past week.  I had made some roast beef for dinner.  We had some leftovers so I made note that I would try to use it later in the week.   Later in the week came around and I started to feel like old lady from the Wendy's commercial, asking "where's the beef?"  It was nowhere to be found.  Until it was found.  By my husband.  In a tupperware container.  Stacked neatly in the drawer with all the other (empty) tupperware containers.  He looked at me like I was kind of crazy.

But in my mind I knew that I had just checked off another milestone of motherhood:  I've left my brains elsewhere.

I'm sure I'll find them again.  I think I'll start by checking the tupperware drawer.

Slumber.

I don't think I ever realized how differently my newborn son and I would view one single issue:  sleep.  As a brand new mom in those early weeks and even months, I longed for sleep.  Not just naps, but genuine long stretches of deep slumber.  During that time, if I ever were a passenger in a car, it was all that I could do to keep my eyes open and not immediately drop into a head nodding doze.  I was bone tired, because, seemingly, my newborn was not.


I don't know that Buster ever really went through that newborn phase where "all they do is sleep".  Although I'm sure that he did sleep at some point, I'm also pretty sure that for quite some time he didn't sleep for stretches that any adult would term "long" or "deep".  It's hard to say, because my sleep deprived memory from that stage is foggy at best.


I am thankful to say that, now, a half a year later, we are sleeping.  In fact, right now, Buster is taking a wonderful snowy-day-post-church-mid-afternoon nap.  And, I've already had a little snooze myself.  Even more wonderful is that fact that our nighttime sleeping can be counted in hours, not minutes.


Perhaps if I had had the assistance of Andrea Bocelli, Buster's newborn phase might have included a bit more time in dreamland.  Click here to see what I mean:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv38j4lPzd0


Editorial note:  This posting was developed with the sole intention of sharing the above video.  My husband and I both find it very funny.  I have to laugh every time I hear Elmo attempt to bargain with Andrea by singing "Elmo will be okay up..."

Beautiful and Terrible

I came across a quote recently while reading a friend of a friend of a friend's blog.  I guess the truth of the matter is that I was chasing internet rabbit trails.  You know, the long twisty ones that beckon you further and further until you have no idea why you sat down at the computer in the first place?  Those are the ones that I'm talking about.  This particular trail, however, ended with this treasure: 


"Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Do not be afraid." Frederick Buechner


This strikes a chord with me.  A pretty deep one.  So I had to research the quote and the context a bit further.  Essentially, it seems that Buechner, a theologian, states this in the context of God's promise of His presence.  His nearness is our good.  Our circumstances are not our good.  The promise of the presence of the One we call Emmanuel is our good.  And the world, our circumstances, will display the fantastically beautiful and the horribly terrible.  But He is near.  We need not be afraid.

I think the reason this strikes such a deep chord with me is because I love the risking taking beauty of it.  I believe in the message encapsulated in the quote.  I love the idea of living life fully, without fear, and with the assurance of the presence of God Himself.  I long to be able to communicate this kind of courage and assurance to Buster.  And at the very same time and in the very same breath, I want to protect Buster from every possible terrible thing that could ever come our way.  What mom doesn't?


Today I am celebrating with one friend as she welcomes her fifth child into the world.  And I'm grieving with another as she is saying goodbye and waiting for a loved one to be ushered into death.   


Beautiful and terrible.  And honestly, both stories have threads of beauty and pain.  What story, fully lived, does not?


And, according to my conviction which is sometimes even reflected in my experience, He is present in both.


So, shortly, I will gather up a sleepy Buster from his afternoon nap.  We'll pack ourselves up in the stroller and head out into the world to see what we see and find what we find.  And, hopefully, the steady message that I will learn to communicate is: "This is the world, Buster, we will not be afraid.  He who is the both the Good Shepherd and the Sovereign One, is present."