7 Quick Takes - As We Wait in Joyful Hope

Hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary 

Reasons to Hope

1. It's been a pretty good year, all things considered.  I thought this was beautiful... and true.  Sure, there's some awful crap going on in the world today, but at the end of the day, we're still profoundly blessed to live as free men and women in the greatest nation on earth, where our freedoms far outpace those of most of our brothers and sisters elsewhere around the globe.

2.  It's nearly the 4th and final Sunday of Advent.  That means we are finally going to put the ornaments on my poor, dying Christmas tree which is now sporting about the same number of needles on its branches as my vacuum is holding in its dump tank (for lack of an official descriptor).  My dear husband and I came to a liturgical compromise of sorts whereby I was permitted to select our (live!) Christmas tree on the first Sunday of Advent, though we've been decorating it in stages.  So last Sunday was garland, the one before that was lights, and we've finally arrived at ornaments, though the aridity of our apartment has all but strangled the life from our poor, mostly-naked evergreen.  (Note: I realize Christmas trees are non-liturgical entities, and my husband is really not the hard ass this makes him out to be.  Our negotiations over Advent/Christmas decor and protocol have actually been nothing short of hilarious...)

3.  My little brother is home from college for the month and he waits tables at a karaoke bar.  They have Journey's entire discography in their system.  My high school babysitte... ahem, sisters are also on Christmas break.  Need I say more?

4.  It snowed last night in Denver!  Granted, it looked like fake fluff from the set of the Full House Christmas special and it melted by 10 am, but it was there!  I saw it!

5.  I have a new job.  A wonderful, incredibly providential and exciting new job, which I'll share more about after the New Year.

6.  My baby sleeps through. the. night.  He is 11 weeks old and he sleeps through the night.  Praise the living God for my dear friends Brigette and Eliz who pointed me toward Babywise while Joseph was still just a twinkle in our eyes.  It hasn't always been easy, but man oh man has it been worth it.

7.  I wake up to this face every morning.

Yeah, I've got hope.  And it has nothing to do with the dude in the White House.

Tap, Tap

Hello out there... is this thing on? 

So it's been 2 months.  2 glorious, difficult, rewarding, enthralling and exhausting months... but my baby is now sleeping through the night (with some rare exceptions), I've started running again in anticipation of this year's Colfax half marathon, and somehow my best friend Eliz beat me back to the blogosphere, though her Jude is more than a week younger than Joey... consider me officially shame-based.  

So far this whole motherhood gig is pretty much what I expected... but with way more joy.  I knew I would love my baby, in fact, I loved him in an intellectual sense for 9 months (okay, 8.25 months) before he made his debut.  But I had no idea the depth and intensity with which that love would manifest itself, allowing even the most hellish of experiences (labor, the first 6 weeks of nursing) to become redemptive in some way... to become acts of the will rather than acts forced against or upon me.  I think I'm getting my first real taste of redemptive suffering in this new role, and while I can't say it's enjoyable, exactly, it has actualized my faith in a way I couldn't have imagined before baby.  I'm pretty sure my husband would agree, though the times I've left my boys for a little mommy tlc, I've come home to tears of angst... and sometimes the baby is crying too.  Kidding.  Sort of.  Dave's an amazing father, but there are some things only mommy can do... particularly where a breastfed baby is concerned. 

As we gear up for Christmas at our house, we're praying for snow, (which is unlikely, thank you global warming.  Denver is a balmy 55 degrees today, and I've been running in shorts:) anticipating the arrival of family from around the country, and making room in our hearts for Christ in His most vulnerable form - that of a tiny infant, one who cried, who needed to be changed and nursed, and who probably had a bummer of a teething experience without the availability of ice packs...dang.  Mary was awesome, this much I knew already.  But only motherhood has shown me how awesome.  I've been listening to this song the past couple of days and looking down at my little guy, imagining how it must have been for our Blessed Mother all those years ago.