Starting Over

It's been a veeeerrrry long time since I blogged last. Not that many people read this, but still, there is at least two people who will read it.

As I'm sitting here, my almost-5-month old is having a hard time falling asleep and my two-year old is having another one of those days. Tonight we chose to take on the food battle. I know. The AAP says not to make food a battle. Well sometimes parent intuition supersedes some very well educated and experienced doctors and practitioners.

It's been this way for some time now. At least two weeks, and possibly three or four. M chose to throw her paci away and we rewarded with a swing set. Reward is a rather loose term since we were going to get one anyway to put in the play area we made in the back yard. But ever since, going to sleep has been a struggle. There are nights when she does quite well. And there are nights when it takes an hour and a half for her to finally nod off. C and I take turns lying beside her bed on the floor so she'll stay calm enough to fall asleep.

That's not to make you think it's been all bad. She has made some excellent choices and given us those morsels of toddler truth that make you smile and thank the Creator for allowing you to be a part of this process. Saturday, upon handing her her juice, I said "Knock yourself out kid!" She retorts: "I'm not a kid; I'm a girl." Well said. And a week before that I was changing her after she woke up. I put my head beside hers on the changing pad and she said resolutely "No Daddy. This is my changing pad." And one thing that never gets old is coming home from work and my little blonde ball of energy running at me, ecstaticly saying "Daddy's home!" and asking me "Have a good day at work Daddy?"

S is just a little bundle of love. It's awesome that she knows I'm Daddy. When I get home and give her a kiss and tell her that Daddy loves her she beams with an incredible love, seemingly at once telling me without words that she loves her Daddy and her Daddy loves her. She's not doing things at quite the pace M was, which is fine by us. We'll chalk that up to not having our every-waking-moment devotion that M obtained as the first-born. However, she is keeping pace on the measurables and the not-so-measurable "gallons-o'-drool".

God bless C. No really. If I had to stay home with the girls the way they are when I get home, we'd all be much worse off. Cl says it's some hormone that men lack. It's somewhat easy to take a hard line on some things with M when I'm not around her 12 hours a day, and it's amazing the patience, energy and guile that C exhibits daily to keep this house running. There are no commendations known to man to reward what she does for us. And I know that she enjoys it most of the time because that's what she's wanted to do since she was little. But to put up with the whining and willful disobedience that much? I'd barely last a day. We had a great Mother's Day. We were able to dedicate S at church two years after dedicating M. It was a blessing to have family there and at our home. Uncle N came down from Fort Worth, as well as Grampa, Opa & Gramma. Nana, Mamá and Papá came. What stunned us was when Aunt B, Uncle S and cousin Bob came to our house afterward. I don't think stunned quite describes it though. Flabbergasted more likely. But overwhelmingly pleased nonetheless. A quick note on the baby dedication: It is dedicating us as parents and the church to raise our daughter to know Christ as Lord and Savior. It does not bring her salvation, nor is it a baptism, since baptism is an outward expression of the choice of salvific faith in Christ.

Work has been back and forth, as most of you can understand. I'm in a lull with incoming work, so I've been filling my time updating methods & SOPs and trying to be productive with my time. I'm on a two-game win streak in Scrabble for those of you wondering. The FDA will be coming soon, so it's a little frantic around the building, but not too bad.

The thing I'm struggling with is feeling entitled to, when coming home from work, not having to deal with whiny, crying kids. It's wrong on at least two levels. You want me to enumerate? Okay.
1. Cheryl doesn't get a break.
2. That's part of the package deal with having kids.
But it's hard sometimes to come home from a grueling day at work and have to immediately put on the happy face and be the best husband and father I can be. Part of it is laziness. Another part is selfishness. But it would be an extreme disservice to C if I did that. I know that at least understanding this is half the battle. That if I was either ignoring it or just plain ignorant (that's ignert in the South), then I would be sunk, unable to at least be thinking and praying about it. And so it is that God is pruning me during this season of life to be the man He wants me to be. And that's just it: a season. This too shall pass.

That's it for now. Time to go spend time with my Babe.