This week Grandma left to go back to California, as she’s been here since a week before your sister Holly was born on April 24th; as we’ve transitioned into life with a newborn again. It’s been so nice having her here.
On Sunday, for one of our last meals with her before her flight, we took her to Chili’s; a place that actually serves vegan burgers for me and has mac-and-cheese that you are crazy about: “Daddy, this is the best kind!”
The day before, I took you out for some adventure as Grandma helped Mommy with Baby Holly back at the house.
Since it was raining, we drove to Jump Street in Cool Springs, which is an indoor trampoline park. It was the best decision. Not only did you burn more energy more efficiently there compared to any other way I can think of, but you truly impressed me.
You showed no fear with jumping off a 10 foot ledge several times. Granted, you landed on an inflated cushion each time, but there’s no way I would have done something that daring when I was your age.
We took a picture of ourselves together right before we left. You were soaked in sweat! And that’s a good thing, because like I said, it was raining outside and you had too much reckless energy to stay home with Grandma, Mommy, and Baby Holly.
That afternoon after your nap, the rain had stopped so we decided to go “bug hunting” outside. I taught you the trick over turning over big rocks, in hopes of finding bug underneath.
The only luck we really had though, was apparently discovering the skeleton of a crawdad (crayfish). You proudly placed it in your bug case and took it home to Mommy and Grandma.
Maybe we’ll find more interesting bugs this weekend.
When you were born just a week and a half ago and I got to hold you for the first time, one of the immediate thoughts in my mind was this: How could anyone hold a perfect, innocent newborn and not sense God?
I know you were “fearfully and wonderfully made” by God. You are not simply the aftermath of a cosmic explosion billions of years ago.
I know God wove you in Mommy’s womb. You are more than just science.
You were created, beyond just your parents.
To be “fearfully made” means that we respectfully recognize God’s achievement and creativity in your existence.
As your parents, we could never simply say, “This is our child. We brought her into this world.” It will always be much more complex than that, because God knew you before He ever wove you in the womb.
We recognize that children are a heritage from the Lord. You being here in this world is so much more epic than a Mommy and a Daddy deciding to have a baby.
Now, imagine this. You were born into a family where this all information will be intertwined into our family’s lifestyle and culture.
Knowing that this same God who knew you before Mommy and I ever did, it’s only logical that our family is to serve Him through our lives, something we can’t do without loving our neighbors as ourselves.
And how can we love our neighbors, or even ourselves, if we can’t love our own family?
What that means to me as your Daddy is that I’ve got a particular responsibility to teach you to love. Of course, there is no better way to teach you to love than to demonstrate love to you and in front of you, along with Mommy and your brother.
Struggle will always be present in life, but it’s a matter of how we choose to deal with it as it comes. We as a family can make a daily choice to be more than conquerors, though God’s love.
So I will lead our family to choose to be victors, instead of victims. We will make a choice to do what is often unnatural to the human experience, in attempt to love each other and to love God.
Here’s a little cheat sheet I crafted to remind me:
Victors versus Victims
Victor: compliments others
Victim: criticizes others
Victor: embraces change
Victim: fears change
Victor: forgives others
Victim: holds grudges
Victor: always learning
Victim: thinks they know everything
Victor: accepts responsibility for their failures
Victim: blames others for their failures
Victor: has a sense of gratitude
Victim: has a sense of entitlement
Victor: sets goals and develops plans
Victim: never sets goals
We will be conscious of these things. We will be conscious of our responsibility to love and serve the God who fearfully and wonderfully made us.
This is the family you were born into…
We are a family where we will choose for love to be patient and kind, where it does not envy or boast, where it is not proud or rude or self-seeking or easily angered.
We will choose a love that keeps no record of wrongs. We will choose a love that not to delight in evil.
We will choose a love that always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.
Because if we choose this kind of love, we will choose a love that never fails.
Here’s an off-beat question: What if we existed in a world where instead of people giving each other “the finger” in an attempt to psychologically punish other drivers, we all had smiley faces we could light up in our rear windows to psychologically thank and reward other drivers when they help us?
A couple years ago, I finally gained the emotional intelligence to allow me to realize that it’s pretty caveman of me to assume the following:
A) Every driver who speeds past me is a maniac.
B) Every driver who drives too slowly in front of me is an idiot.
C) Every driver who pulls out in front of me or doesn’t merge in time is a jerk.
I recognize that at times, despite my best efforts, I myself accidentally become that maniac, idiot, or jerk; in another driver’s eyes.
In these past several years since turning 30 years old, I’ve learned to importance of shedding that victim mentality I used to have; adopting instead an abundance consciousness.
I realized a lot of my driver angst and frustration was simply occurring because I didn’t leave the house soon enough or because I hadn’t discovered the best side roads to get to work.
There I was, allowing myself to become emotionally bothered by the concept of traffic; though I myself was literally part of the problem. And I was mentally getting angry with other drivers for it.
Now, just a couple of weeks since my 35th birthday, I have graduated to a point in my life where a MotorMoodsuits me well. In case you haven’t yet heard of it, I’m happy to introduce it to you today.
MotorMood includes a remote control you keep on your sun visor (like a garage door opener) that you press whenever another driver expresses kindness to you.
For example, on the way to work today, I was needing to make an awkward left turn onto a busy road, where traffic comes steadily from both directions. A nice lady in an SUV waited for me and let me go in front of her. So what did I do?
You guessed it…
I pressed the MotorMood remote and lit up that blue smiley face on my back window for that nice lady to see.
(There is also a red and/or green smiley face available as well.)
As you can imagine, I am a fan of MotorMood. I am grateful for Kina de Santis, the Co-Founder and Vice President, reaching out to me. I guess she must have figured I would be a good fit for her product when she saw the phrase “family friendly” as part of my blog title.
Kina is so cool of a person, that in addition to helping create this fun product for people like me to use on a daily basis, she is gave away a MotorMood to one lucky reader of this blog.
To enter the (now expired) giveaway, participants left a comment here on this blog post for MotorMood, telling me why they should be the winner.
On May 10th, 2016, I announced the winner, after I had read all the entries. Here was the winning entry, emphasis added:
“This would be so nice on my commute in and out of Detroit, just maybe instead of getting the “bird” I will get smiles. Seriously though, imagine driving during rush hour in a busy city and needing to change lanes, traffic is almost gridlocked as it is and that nice person lets you into their lane. Maybe a lit face with a smile will make their day, a simple act to show someone your appreciative and thankful. You never know what someone is going through in any given day and sometimes a smile (on someone’s face or via a lighted up smiley face on your car) makes all the difference in someone’s world. Congrats on the arrival of Holly, she’s a cute little one and I am sure Jack (as well as you and Jill) are smitten.”
While I was truly tempted by all the submissions, the reason I chose this person is because they are currently contributing to the economy and revitalization of Detroit. I have visited Detroit a couple times in the past few years and was impressed that, despite what is said about Detroit in media, the city has a lot of potential as it rebuilds itself. I only met hopeful, hard-working people there. I am a fan of the city of Detroit.
So whoever “kshill01″ is, I’ll be emailing you for your address. Thanks so much to all the participants in this giveaway!
Seriously, don’t you want one? As for me, MotorMood right up my alley.
For years, I was convinced I was perfectly happy having only a little boy. But now that you’ve been in my life for a week, I realize I was wrong. I needed a baby girl in my life.
I love everything about your brother; he’s the perfect little boy. With you here now though, I see that you provide the proper balance to our family.
With your brother, I get to be rough and crude and adventurous, as I should be with an all American boy. I get to drive through the mud with him and take him to PG-13 rated super hero movies that some say are inappropriate for him. I love that I get to feel sort of rebellious in parenting your brother.
With you, I get to make sweet cooing sounds directly into your face as I stare at you for no less than an hour at a time as I hold you. I am so in love with you.
I have never got to experience this before. Despite being a parent for 5 and a half years, having you here is completely different. You are such a sweet, adorable, and mesmerizing little girl.
You’re so easy to stare at. I love your amazing little smile. I love your uniquely folded ears. I love your tiny little cry.
Had you born a boy, I would have been just as happy; because I couldn’t have known what I was missing. I already knew how much I loved having a son, so I knew things would have been great.
But instead, you were meant to be Holly Joy. I was meant to have a daughter.
I’m not saying there’s no possibility of you never having a younger brother or sister… but I do know that our family has never felt so complete- like the way it does now that you are here.
Mommy made a deal with me that if she could give birth to you without getting an epidural, she could go on a “new wardrobe shopping spree” with the money we’d save; her epidural with your brother Jack apparently cost us $1000.
Well, Mommy gets her shopping spree because she chose nitrous oxide (laughing gas) instead of an epidural! Not that she’ll actually spend a thousand dollars- probably just a couple hundred. Either way, she earned it!
Last weekend began with our family having a pretty good idea that you would be born, since your due date had already passed.
Friday night for dinner we went out with Grandma at a place near our house called Homestead Manor, which is a very old mansion that has somewhat recently been converted to a fancy restaurant.
Then on Saturday morning, I took your brother Jack to the Franklin Main Street Festival. It was so packed that we actually had to take a trolley in and out of the place, which I think was Jack’s favorite part of the whole thing.
That evening we went with Mommy and Grandma to Arrington Vineyards, taking a picnic dinner from Whole Foods there.
That was Jack’s last Saturday as an only child, because the next morning, Mommy went into labor and gave birth to you Sunday night:
After laboring since 6:00 AM on Sunday, we finally left for the hospital at 4:20 PM and were at Vanderbilt by 5:00 PM.
When we arrived there, the doctor warned Mommy that the window of time was small for her decide whether or not she’d get the epidural. Mommy decided to delay, choosing to spend some time in “the Lexus of laboring tubs”.
That seemed to progress things rapidly. The doctor told us that Mommy was already so far along by that point, that the epidural might take effect too late.
So Mommy took the laughing gas, which according to the doctor, “It doesn’t numb the pain at all, it just makes you not care as much about what’s going on.”
At 8:08 PM, right at 3 hours after we arrived at the hospital, you were born.
Everyone in that room was so impressed with what Mommy did; myself obviously included.
Nonna and Papa had brought Jack down to the hospital Sunday night once I texted them the word “born” from my phone, using my left hand; since my right hand has busy holding Mommy’s.
We were required to stay at the hospital for 24 hours after you were born. Since all the doctors kept quickly confirming that you were perfectly healthy, we made it clear we wished to leave the hospital the moment they would allow us to.
Therefore, you and Mommy and I all got to leave for home after just 25 hours after you were born; and just 28 hours from the time we first arrived there.
Mommy had a very efficient birth!
Back at the house, Grandma had made dinner for all of us the following night. At one point, your brother Jack asked for more water. Immediately, Mommy jumped up and got it for him.
Papa commented, “Look at her! She just had a baby with no epidural and she’s already up and moving?!”
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