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Dear Holly: Your Pennsylvania Cousins “Adopted” You and Your Brother for the Weekend

3 weeks.

Dear Holly: Your Pennsylvania Cousins “Adopted” You and Your Brother for the Weekend

Dear Holly,

Mommy’s older sister Jenny, along with your Uncle Tom and your cousins Taylore and Rachel, visited us all the way from Pennsylvania; near the New Jersey state line. They were here for about 4 days.

Immediately upon arrival, Taylore “adopted” you for the weekend, as she is planning on going to school to become a labor and delivery nurse after she graduates high school next year. She visited Vanderbilt University (where Mommy works) as a potential college.

Dear Holly: Your Pennsylvania Cousins “Adopted” You and Your Brother for the Weekend

Taylore immediately (and literally) jumped up at every opportunity to hold you, feed you, burp you, change you, and play with you. She loved taking care of you.

Similarly, your cousin Rachel naturally “adopted” your brother Jack for the weekend. Though he is 5 and a half and she is 13, they were perfectly suited as buddies. The way they played together was effortless.

Dear Holly: Your Pennsylvania Cousins “Adopted” You and Your Brother for the Weekend

This sort of double cousin adoption was evident the whole weekend. While we were all at Starbucks enjoying the parade right outside, Rachel and Jack followed each other around. Meanwhile, Taylore studied the way Mommy fed you your bottle.

Dear Holly: Your Pennsylvania Cousins “Adopted” You and Your Brother for the Weekend

Later on at Mellow Mushroom, Jack wanted to try his hand at the crane machine, in which all the prizes are rubber duckies. In addition to the black with rainbow polka dots one that I won for Jack, Rachel also won one for Jack.

Conveniently, Taylor won a very appropriately themed princess rubber ducky for you!

Dear Holly: Your Pennsylvania Cousins “Adopted” You and Your Brother for the Weekend

We had a wonderful time having them in town. Not to mention, Aunt Jenny’s family gave us a break by staying with us. I say this not only because your cousins took care of you and Jack the whole time:

Your Aunt Jenny helped with cooking, washing and drying the dishes, as well as waking up at 6:00 AM to take care of you each morning; allowing Mommy (and me) to sleep in.

As for now, it’s back to the real world.

Love,

Daddy

Dear Holly: Your Pennsylvania Cousins “Adopted” You and Your Brother for the Weekend

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Dear Holly: Your Brother Likes to Check on You

2 weeks.

Dear Holly: Your Brother Likes to Check on You

Dear Holly,

With your brother Jack being 5 and a half years older than you, it’s plain to see that he perceives you not as competition, but instead, as a responsibility.

He legitimately helps Mommy and me with you. Having already raised him from a newborn, this time around as parents we know not to pick you up from your bed every time you start to make noises, as you transition into waking up.

So during the daytime, Jack will run over to you to check to see if you’re really awake or not. He then announces to Mommy and me, “Holly’s eyes are still closed. She’s still asleep.”

That helps us to know we’ve still got a few more minutes before we have to get your bottle ready to feed you once your nap officially ends.

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For all these years, Mommy has always sat in the back seat with Jack, to spend quality time with him. I say that because when you live in the Nashville area, anytime you get in the car, it’s going to take at least 30 to 45 minutes to get where you are going.

But now Mommy is sitting up front with me, meaning that it was Jack’s job to keep checking on you by looking over at you in your car seat.

Turns out, this weekend you were asleep the entire car ride in the 2016 Lexus IS 200t to Whole Foods and all the way back as well. Even so, we truly depended on Jack to check on you.

Thanks to him, we had assurance you were doing okay back there. Jack served as our eyes and ears.

I am so pleased with the age difference between you and your brother. He’s truly helping take care of you and I can tell he’s so proud to be doing it.

Dear Holly: Your Brother Likes to Check on You

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Holly: I Particularly Love Your Ears

1 week.

Dear Holly: I Particularly Love Your Ears

Dear Holly,

Before you or your brother were born, I always thought all babies basically look the same. And for the most part, I probably still do believe that.

But as for you, there is one certain feature I have noticed from the very beginning that I just really find adorable: your ears.

Mommy noticed this too. The fold at the top of your ears are 90 degree angles. That’s not something we’ve ever seen before.

I love your ears.

No matter how old you are, you’ll always have your unique ears. I will always adore them on you.

Your eyes still have that bluish tint in them that newborns have, but it looks like it’s only to cover up brown eyes for the time being. I think in the next couple of months, it will be obvious to the world that you have brown eyes like Mommy and me, and unlike your brother Jack who has blue eyes.

Dear Holly: I Particularly Love Your Ears

As for your hair color, I’m seeing what appears to possibly be (at the moment) a sort of strawberry blonde color. I definitely see hints of red, but then your eyebrows are clearly platinum blonde.

Obviously, your brother Jack had blonde hair for most of his life. Only recently has it truly started looking brown, though he still has some platinum blonde in his bangs when I spike his hair up.

Speaking of Jack, you actually look a lot like he did when he was a newborn. I predict that the two of you will resemble each other.

I am enjoying seeing you in your girly clothes that we’ve had ready for you all these months. You are such a beautiful and precious little girl.

And you are particularly fun to hold. You are so mellow and so cute, that time just flies by before I realize it.

Love,

Daddy

j8

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Dear Holly: You are a “Fearfully Made” Gift from God

1 week.

Dear Holly: You are a “Fearfully Made” Gift from God

Dear Holly,

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.

Dear Holly: You are a “Fearfully Made” Gift from God

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.

Love,

Daddy

Dear Holly: You are a “Fearfully Made” Gift from God

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Dear Holly: I Never Realized How Badly I Needed a Baby Girl

1 week.

Dear Holly: I Never Realized How Badly I Needed a Baby Girl

Dear Holly,

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.

Dear Holly: I Never Realized How Badly I Needed a Baby Girl

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.

Dear Holly: I Never Realized How Badly I Needed a Baby Girl

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.

Love,

Daddy

Dear Holly: I Never Realized How Badly I Needed a Baby Girl