Tag: baby

A Blessing for Alex

My Son

May you grow strong

May you be like the willow tree and bend gracefully in life’s storms

May you learn to embrace life with tenacity, to love deeply and to be courageous

May you find joy in the mundane

May you know yourself and be confident in your own personhood

May your life’s journey be marked by grace, passion and kindness

May you never doubt that you are loved and cherished

May you learn to take leaps of faith, to serve your community and to live wildly amidst the beauty and pain of this world

 

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Holy Water

It’s late. The babies are finally sleeping…nested snugly into their cribs. I am at the kitchen sink, arms deep in hot soapy water. The dishwasher runs beside me but there are always those stragglers I end up cleaning by hand.

Dishes. I hate washing dishes. It was my chore growing up and in a household of seven it was the chore than never ended.

Tonight though, I am more reverential about washing cups and plates. I think of the millions of women around the world joining me in this act. A gift really for our families. And in that moment I realize that I’ve dipped my hands in holy water. Cleansing water. Perhaps even healing water? After all, to serve others often patches up one’s own soul and can soothe the wounded places.

This holy water tears down party lines. There is no stay-at-home Mom versus working Mom. Mother of six versus Mother of one. Wife versus single woman. There are only women. Weary from a long day and yet cleaning up the remains of a meal. They scrub the grime off, rinse and dry. They create order out of seeming chaos. They love through their hands. Holy water unifies.

There are also distinct marks that come from touching holiness…from participating in sacred acts. I think of Moses aging after he caught a glimpse of the tail-end of God’s majesty. Holiness marks us. I pull my hands out of the sink, wrinkled like prunes and know that later they will be dry and slightly chapped.

Holy water, not reserved for special occasions or important people. Poured out. Sprinkled over. Young, old, here and far away. Beauty and blessing in the small and repetitive moments of an ordinary life.

And suddenly I am thankful. Grateful for my children, my siblings, my  husband. Even thankful for the dogs. This holy water that I dip into also empowers me to pass it on. I am priestess of the suds. As small silverware and sippy cups pass through a rinse, on their way to the drying rack, I bless the tiny lips and miniature fingers that have touched them. I send up a blessing for the baby sister whose juice glass I swish in the soap. I pray for the husband as his dinner plate is scraped clean. Here, at this piece of counter beneath a fogged window in a small kitchen, much has been granted to me. The weight of this responsibility is sobering.

Still, more than that is the joy. This. This life. This little sliver of the mundane has been given to me. An indescribable gift. I smile. Run more water. There are more dishes to come.

My second baby

My heart hurts today.

My body aches to hold my baby boy.

I shed a few tears for the precious moments I’m missing. His first tooth. His first steps. The giggles. The new foods he tries every day.

And I worry. What will it be like for him? Will he feel abandoned? Will he feel angry that his Mom can’t tell stories of his first few months of life? When will he come to grips with the fact that he has two sets of parents–his bio-set and us?

Some day, when he’s older, he will have questions for me. He will have questions for his Dad. I hope we have the grace, the love and the wisdom to tell him the truth, but gently. I hope we can shield him from some of the pain and the hurt. Isn’t that what parents are for? To protect…even just for a little while…from the world that can be so harsh, so cruel, so exacting?

I thought adoption might be simpler than birthing a child.

I was wrong.

Whatever physical pain I may have escaped from by not bringing my son into the world from my  own womb, I have experienced in the heartbreaking, gut-wrenching process of bringing him home.

And this is only the beginning.

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2012: A Year in Review

I’ve been doing this for the past couple of years. This time it’s pretty late in coming. I know. I know. It’s almost March already.

Better late than never. When I posted 2011: Year in Review I thought that we had maxed out all the BIG changes possible in one short year. However, this year seems to have topped that one. Crazy.

Happy 1/2 Birthday lady bug

Emma turned six months old on the 25th and we celebrated with Nana and Papa.