I was glancing back at the last couple of posts that I have made (not-so-recently–bad blogger!!), and there’s this prevailing theme of adjustment and coping. The difficulty of those first few months as we dealt with colic, milk allergy, reflux, and just the general transition to a new baby was definitely not fun. I don’t remember it being that way, AT ALL, with Autumn and Lawson, but of course, I was younger, they were younger, the grandparents were younger, and life was simply not as complicated. I wasn’t working on a master’s and serving in ministry.

I had no intention of blogging today; I was merely looking for a recipe I needed for this evening. But as I skimmed over those posts, I glanced up at Truitt playing on the floor in front of me: happy, content, fun, and I realized that I couldn’t not blog about him and how different things are now that he is seven months. I owe it to to him, really.

You know that old Virginia Slims commercial? You’ve come a long way, baby? That’s Truitt. At six months, he had eight teeth, was sitting up and crawling. He’s pulling up and doing some rudimentary cruising now. His crawling is turbo packed as he chases after Lawson and Autumn, bound as he is to be in the same room with them. He will probably wind up with slightly addled brains from the number of times he falls and bonks his head during the day, determined to stand and toddle instead of remain seated. I’m thinking about getting him a helmet.

He loves mashed potatoes, yogurt, scrambled egg yolk, and pancakes, but still refuses to hold his own bottle, lazy thing. He is the first of three babies that I am actually having to baby-proof the house for, and is teaching us all every day how to be better parents and siblings as we stretch ourselves, and find that we have untapped reserves of love, patience, and humor. At least–that’s what I see. I’m sure that Autumn just sees that she’s losing computer time as she keeps an eye on Tru while I’m in the shower, and Lawson just sees that he has to keep his voice down while Tru’s napping. But whether they realize it or not, they’re learning to step outside of themselves, and put someone else’s needs first.

It’s hard to reconcile this baby who studies us thoughtfully one moment and then offers a cheeky smile with the same one who wailed miserably for a steady fifty percent of most days the first four months of his existence. It’s a miracle.

I took fourteen staples for you, groaned my way through a stupid morphine drip that did nothing for my pain. (“Ten more minutes? What do you mean I have to wait ten more minutes? I need it now!”)

I spent weeks of nights that were more waking than not when you decided sleep was optional and ultimately undesirable, wearing a path in the floor and turning the muscles in my back into jerky as I carried, carried, carried you into a fragile, colicky sort of comfort.

And this morning, I scooped your watery poop into a tiny plastic container while you cooed contentedly at me, oblivious to how impossible it is to do so with the little claw the doctor’s office gives you to do so. I even smeared some on my finger—unintentionally, of course.

Ick.

So thirteen years from now, please don’t roll your eyes at me as if I’ve never done anything for you and I’m the most horrible mother in the world who doesn’t understand you and exists solely to ruin your life.

“Because.I.Have.Done.Stuff.” She says, as she washes poop off her fingers at the kitchen sink.

Truitt received his two-month immunizations on Monday, and has held world-records for irritability the week long. My mother’s paranoia has me convinced that it has little to do with those terrible shots, though, and more to do with some as yet undefined malady that plagues my little man and terrorizes his system. Perhaps, like Lawson, he is beginning to teeth early, and that is why he has suddenly begun to cry inconsolably at mealtimes that he used to attack with such enthusiasm. (I hear some of you scoffing–”teething at two months? Bah!” Lawson did begin teething at two months, continued painfully for two months, and cut his first two teeth when he was four months old.)

He was pitiful last night, so much so that I found myself cradling him this morning while he slept restlessly with the phone to my ear. “It’s hard to describe,” I tried to explain to  the nurse. “He just cries when he’s trying to eat, like something is hurting him. But he really wants to eat, so he’s mad and frustrated.” Thus it was I found myself making one of those “I-don’t-think-it’s-anything-but-let’s-be-sure” appointments.

It’s always fun getting yourself showered, dressed, and ready to appear in public while taking care of the prince of cranky and reminding Lawson to eat, dress, go to the bathroom, put shoes on, and brush his teeth. I managed, with the minutes counting down until Truitt’s appointment, to hustle us all into the car, Truitt cranked up to new levels of irritability. As we headed out, I calculated that if I only hit three of the fourteen stoplights between home and the doctor’s office I would only be five minutes or so late.

Several miles down the road Lawson’s voice floated up from the back seat. “Are you dropping me off at Grandma’s?”

“No, Lawson, I’m late getting to the doctor’s. I’ll take you after.” There was a long, suspicious pause.

“Uh…..I thought you were dropping me off at Grandma’s–”

“No, I don’t have time.”

“–and so I didn’t put on my shoes.”

Silence. My mouth struggled for words beyond the obvious, I told you to put your shoes on! while my brain raced for solutions. No time to go home. I dialed Anne’s. No answer. Can’t take him in the office barefoot. Can’t leave him in the car. Can’t chain him to a bike rack with a bowl of water.

“I told you to put your shoes on!” I finally wailed.

“I thought you said I could go to Grandma’s today!”

“Later, Lawson, I said later!” Okay, think. In desperation, I turned into Anne’s drive. Maybe she was just outside. Maybe…

There are things you must do in parenting a baby boy. It is critical that you keep a cloth by the changing station, for example, to prevent unpredictable showers during diaper changes. I’ve become so caught up in recalling what it is to mother a baby boy that clearly I have forgotten some of the intricacies in mothering an eight year-old boy. Such as reminding him, for example, to put shoes on his feet–not once, and not twice, but that absolutely essential third time.

“Are there any shoes in Grandma’s garage?”I asked Lawson.

“Yes!” As it happened, there were a pair of practically knee-high hunting boots in Grandma’s garage that Lawson slipped on, sans socks, with his camo shorts and wife beater t-shirt.

And no, amidst the sea of other little boys in their polos and khakis and sandals, I was not embarrassed at all.

With the exception, that is, of Truitt. With no regard for the sanctity of the night, he howled. And keened.  And flat out whined. You know that scene in Dumb and Dumber, where what’s-his-face asks the other what’s-his-face, “You wanna know the most annoying sound in the world?” And then proceeds to make it? That’s Truitt, baby-style. “Eeeeeeeeeh-eeeeeeeh-eeeeeh.”  We’re talking fingers on a chalkboard. Or baby coyotes…something like that. I’ve never heard the like in nature.

And so it was after a particularly grueling four-hour interval of this “eeeeeeeeeh-eeeeeeeh-eeeeeh”  I decided to install Truitt in the car seat and take him for a drive. Maybe this lovely night would rub off on him. It couldn’t hurt, right? Nothing else was working—swaying, rocking, sitting, lying down…nada. So I loaded him up, put the windows down, cranked the radio up, and started down our winding country roads. He was out after around ten minutes. I soaked it in—the silence, the solitude—it was heaven. No one save a doe bore witness as I rolled gently through a stop sign, loathe to pause long enough for Truitt’s body to register the lack of motion.

It was as I drove, relishing the quietude and the knowledge that I had nothing pressing on me other than the clock ticking down the hours of the night that it occurred to me that this was one more episode in the chronicles of parenthood that we all share. I’ve had many such episodes recently, and thought fleetingly of putting them to paper, but they fritter swiftly away under the demands of surviving this tiny human, much like the thousand or so tiny diapers that have passed from Pampers box to bootie to trash bin in the space of hours. When I do find a moment to record, for example, the symphony that I was composing earlier as I sat in a zombie-fied stupor at three a.m., marveling at the synchronicity of my child’s wide awake gaze and Darius Rucker’s “It Won’t Be Like This For Long” on CMT, I find myself more interested in a thirty minute nap, a scream-free shower, or even a vain attempt to keep abreast of the laundry, which has suddenly doubled overnight.

So anyway…I drove. And I enjoyed my drive. I finally arrived back home sometime around eleven, secure in the hope that the baby was out. Limp like spaghetti. I made plans as I put the car in park, put the brake on, and rolled the windows up. I’d have to take care of the dog, first…if I didn’t, she’d bark, and all would be lost…

So I left the car running and Truitt inside for a minute while I opened the door and alerted the Izzy the Chihuahua that It Was Just Me, I Was Coming Inside, and She Was Not To Bark Like An Obnoxious Little Dog. She rustled inside her kennel, but obediently did not make a sound. And then, still full of cautiously optimistic hope, I turned the car off and opened Truitt’s door.

Do you know what happened then? The dome light came on.  And of course those infant car seats are rear-facing so babies are very safe and get a face-full of dome light when they’ve finally fallen asleep after four hours of “eeeeeeeeeh-eeeeeeeh-eeeeeh.”  So he started to cry. And “eeeeeeeeeh-eeeeeeeh-eeeeeh.”  And flap his arms about, and kick his legs, and it was just painfully obvious that I was not getting to bed anytime soon.

I almost started to cry and “eeeeeeeeeh-eeeeeeeh-eeeeeh,” myself.   

But instead, I had to laugh. After all, it won’t be this way for long. Soon he’ll be like Lawson, wanting to wear camouflage everything to school every day. He’ll be covered with dirt head to toe, and offering me dandelions crawling with ants. He won’t be a baby.

He’ll be a Boy.

I received a comment recently asking “Lori…where are you!?” Instantly I felt a little like Waldo, swimming his way through a big pile of themed life and times.

You know, when I turned up pregnant in September I kind of had a feeling that things were going to change in a big way. Babies have a way of doing that to you, after all. I figured it’d be a slower evolution than what it’s been, though–at least the nine months of the pregnancy.

Ha.Ha.Ha.

Before I knew about the pregnancy, I agreed to serve as temporary youth pastor at my church, since ours had just resigned to go to a full-time position elsewhere. I missed my teenagers! This quickly turned into an incredible experience and blessing, and it wasn’t long before I decided “temporary” wouldn’t be long enough for me. These kids needed the stability of a youth pastor who was going to be around for a while, not the veritable revolving door we’ve had over the last ten years or so due to the position being a part-time offering.

Even as I felt the calling, though, I knew I needed more in order to do this job effectively and responsibly. A youth pastor is so much to the kids in his or her care–an instructor in faith, of course, but also a parent-figure, a friend, a counselor. These guys have questions. They have issues. They have needs. It’s exhausting and invigorating, all at the same time. I learned that I could apply for a scholarship, due to our church’s membership in a state organization, to attain my master’s in theology from Liberty University–for no more than the cost of technology and books.

So I did. And now I am two weeks into this master’s program and stunned at the amount of work entailed. I’m currently taking two courses, Old Testament and New Testament surveys, and each involves writing several essays per week and reading hundreds of pages apiece. It’s been hard for me to justify doing something “fun” (like checking blogs or working on my own), or even cleaning and doing laundry when I know how much work awaits me. I’m trying to balance it out, though…hopefully I’ll hit a happy medium here pretty soon.

Other than that, it’s just been an extremely busy past month or so. I went through a lengthy application process in order to get an extremely flexible online tutoring job with Tutor.com, and that’s been quite interesting. Autumn’s competition season is just beginning, so we’ve done a little traveling and are anticipating quite a bit more. (She’s all level eight and level nine (!@#$!) now…please pray for her safety as she does some pretty incredible, make-your-heart-skip-a-beat stunts.) We learned that the baby is a BOY, which has been very exciting for Lawson. Everything changes after you learn the gender…we knew which room to begin preparing for sharing, and baby stuff is calling my name every time I walk in Target or Burlington Coat Factory. I’m having mondo Braxton Hicks, and absorbed in feeling Truitt wriggle and squirm and kick and punch my guts into strange new formations even as I attempt to study.

And yes, the name is Truitt. Truitt Jeter. Truitt because I cannot name a child anything remotely similar to any of the thousand-plus kids that I taught in the past, and Jeter because Duane likes his Dad’s middle name.

So there you have it, my blog-buddies. My Waldo-pile in a nutshell. I will endeavor to do better with the whole blogging thing (especially Four Perspectives, because I’m feeling uber-guilty about that). I miss you all, think about you often, and wonder how you’re doing. Maybe I just need to take a little time out…

Over 7,000 flights have been cancelled, stalling close to a million passengers. Most will linger restlessly in their respective airports for five or more days, waiting in vain for the rare gem of a stand-by flight, others resigned to rescheduling far in advance.

Hotel bills for those fortunate enough to both acquire one and be able to get to one will mount, increasing the frustration and anxiety.

I feel for these people, I really do. It’s the culmination of my April Rome trip all over again, although we were stalled by a steady stream of volcanic ash and not snow.

It’s interesting though…in watching the footage, I have to say that I believe those of us stuck in Europe managed to embrace more a spirit of comradery than the me-against-the-world feeling that seems prevalent in our American airports. There are reports of rushing the boarding lines and scenes of irate, arguing passengers. We were equally frustrated in Rome—don’t get me wrong. Equally (or perhaps even more so) concerned with how to get back to our families from literally an ocean away. Anxious over the idea that a new sweep of ash would stall us yet longer.

Rome’s Fiumcino, though, was characterized by weary, rueful smiles, conversation to pass the time, and information whenever someone learned something new.

I feel certain that our own American airports must have a lot of the same. Perhaps the news is merely being true to form and reporting the most outrageous, disgusting behavior first, and situations such as this certainly bring out the worst in people. It’s a shame, though, to leave the world with this impression of American travelers.

We are so much more than the sum of our aggravations and discouragement.

I never do this. Ever.

I’ve been trying, though, without much success, to find a good time to take Christmas photos of the kids and “sixth grade” photos of Autumn. I’ve been trying to get this done, seriously, since August. I figured if I wanted to get Christmas cards out by Christmas, and if I wanted “sixth grade” pictures of an actual sixth grader, something extreme was in order.

So we skipped fifth and sixth period.

And I’m okay with that. Every now and then, some things are just more important.

I had done sixth grade portraits for a friend’s daughter, Courtney, several years ago, and this past summer I took ninth grade photos of her and a friend. Her mother is using Shutterfly to make albums of each year, recording the changes in her little girl as she grows into adulthood. I thought this was a beautiful idea, particularly when I saw how much Courtney had changed just in three short years.

Here’s Courtney in sixth grade:

And now, in ninth grade:

Can you believe how much this child has grown up? When I think that I’m going to go from there to here with Autumn in only a few short years, I’m torn between anticipation at seeing her “unveiling” and sadness at the inevitability of such.

Here’s my girl. I’m thinking it was definitely worth cutting a little school to capture this little slice of her “inbetween-hood.”

I love to see them thinking about these things, and growing in their faiths.

One question I was asked was why we don’t see miracles nowadays like there used to be in New Testament days, when Jesus walked the earth. I’ve talked about this with my husband, and we both believe that miracles exist…they’re not reported by the media, perhaps, or they’re simply explained away. Maybe they don’t exist on the same scale that they did in Jesus’ day.

I was watching Oprah one evening, and was caught by the story of “John of God,” a Brazilian man who is visited by thousands of individuals desperately seeking healing each week. These people sit in a healing room, collectively engaged in prayer or quiet meditation. They then meet, in full view of all of the others, with John of God, who does his thing, which varies from person to person. Some are healed completely, some partially. Some, like Oprah’s Susan Casey, experience a lightening of their spirit when dealing with things like depression.

When asked what she thought was “going on,” Casey replied that we simply “don’t know everything” yet. Oprah suggested a possible spiritual explanation, reminding Casey that the Scriptures say ”when two or more gather in My name” miraculous things happen. Casey’s response to this was interesting.

Casey said, in so many words, “it’s energy. When you have a room full of people, collectively praying and meditating, there’s an energy of love, an energy of faith, of hope, that’s very powerful. You have to feel it.”

Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps there is a scientific explanation for the “miracles” that are undoubtedly occurring.

Then it struck me: perhaps it is this mindset, this need to find a scientific rationale for things outside the realm of our understanding, that at the very least prevents us from seeing miracles when they really do occur.

I think a very human part of us wants to believe in the existence of miracles. We want to see them, want to be touched by them. And yet we’re skeptical when directly faced with the possibility. Maybe it’s as simple as being more open to possibilities, and not quite so hung up on what is and is not possible. Maybe then miracles will evince themselves in our own lives, when we most need to see them.

Well, I’m there now, and just as with any journey, the difficulties and discomforts along the way seem so long ago and just a little trivial now.

Trivial or not, here are the next couple of chapters of my journey to conception.

Chapter Six: Sarai

You can’t have a story about waiting on a baby without mentioning faithful Sarai. I hold a Tuesday afternoon Bible study in my home for a group of close friends, and one day we were looking at something–some tangent that had caught and held our interest that actually had nothing to do with the topic at hand. I believe it had something to do with the angels entering Sodom to urge Lot to leave and escape destruction. There was a reference to another verse that I was flipping through to check–we were interested in discerning whether the angels referred to were one of the “nephilim” (they were not).

I turned to the appropriate page and, finding the correct reference, began to read aloud.

Genesis 18:13-14 “And the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarai laugh, saying, ‘Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

I shook my head in confusion. “This must be the wrong verse.” I turned back, read the reference again. “No…it’s right…I just don’t see what it has to do with Lot or Sodom or the angels leaving…?”

They were silent. And then it started to sink in.

“Well,” I remember saying. “I guess God’s trying to tell me something?”

And then we all got teary and ate brownies, because chocolate is good for every situation.

 Chapter Seven: Where Believing=Crazytown

When do you stop believing? When do you give up, and make the choice to stop making yourself crazy, and to instead go on with the business of living?

Today was a day that reeled with pinball poignancy between moments: scary despair where I wanted a drug to make myself feel normal, manic spurts of activity to drown out my own mental noise, and finally…blubbery relief when I knew I was going to be okay. Tears accompanied all, turning my face into a splotchy red snotty mess. It wasn’t pretty.

It started with another negative test, which was dumb of me in the first place, because I’m six days out, and even though the box says “As Early as Six Days Before the Day of Your Missed Period,” you have to wonder how accurate that stuff is. Plus, wasn’t it just a month or so ago that I had relinquished my control issues to God? No more ovulation predictors. No more pregnancy tests until well after that friend fails to show up. And here I am—desperate for validation because I might be feeling just a little bit nauseous.

So much for that Grand Gesture.

I was on my knees beside the dryer, at the end of a rope I hadn’t realized I’d frayed with my own lack of faith and conviction. The laundry basket, half-full of clothes and towels warm from the dryer, was right before me. I sank my hands down into it up to the elbows and prayed aloud to an empty house.

“God, I need you to talk to me. I’m going to fold this laundry first because I really don’t want it to wrinkle and then I’m going to sit down with Priscilla and I really just need to understand what is going on here. I’m still taking my Topamax and I’m getting fat, Father! I feel sick to my stomach. I’m seeing all these signs all over the place, God, like that HVE F8H license plate and the parable and that totally random verse about Sarah and I just don’t understand how I’m not pregnant, Lord! I feel pregnant! And my face is covered in zits, God, and I just can’t take zits on top of everything else.

Father, you’ve made all of these amazing promises to me in Your Word. I know I’m being impatient…I’m sorry, Lord. I trust You. I just really need to hear Your voice, and know Your will. Please speak to me, God. That’s all.”

With an effort, I pulled myself as together as I was going to get, and finished folding the laundry. Then I made my way to my corner of the couch to begin my Bible study. It was a Priscilla Shirer study called, appropriately enough, He Speaks To Me.

I had already completed the first two days of the study, so I opened up to Day Three and set to work. It was a simple lesson, one I’ve studied in general terms before, no doubt, but never during so critical a context as my current situation. The lesson spoke of how it is impossible to please God without faith, and how He rewards those who diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6). It was interesting, though, because Shirer led from this point to the story of Moses in Numbers 20: 8-12 to demonstrate what disobedience and a lack of faith can do to those rewards. In these verses, God gave Moses and Aaron specific instructions: to take up the rod, gather the congregation, and speak to the rock. He told Moses that the rock would then yield water. Moses followed his instructions but with one exception: he struck the rock with the rod. God allowed the rock to yield water, but because Moses did not obey the letter of the Lord’s directive, He refused to allow Moses to bring the people into the Promised Land at this time.

This was an eye-opening reminder for me. In my haste to take a test this morning, I forgot about my promise to God to relinquish control of things that were clearly out of my control. I remember confessing my need to let go. I released my control of the situation, promising no more ovulation predictor tests, and no more taking five pregnancy tests because I didn’t believe the first two. That was me, letting go. One.clenched.finger.at.a.time.perhaps. But still.

Yeah. I messed up. Moses-style.

The wonderful thing about this lesson, though, was that Shirer reiterated how much God wanted to reward those who were faithful. My lack of faith wasn’t the end of the world, just as Moses’s disobedience wasn’t the end of his story. Despite the fact that we have been messing up since the days of Adam, Matthew 21:22 tells us how richly God is prepared to reward us for our faith in Him. Whatever we ask for in earnest prayer, believing, he shall provide. In other words, HVE F8H.

“I tried to tell him, Mom, that the tooth fairy is probably just waiting for his birthday.”

Despite a completely sleep-fogged brain, I gave Law a swift hug and murmured reassurances that yes, I was sure that was exactly the situation. Mr. Tooth Fairy left a twenty that evening as a “birthday/tooth-day” offering. It was very well received.

Lawson lost another tooth yesterday, right in the middle of a donut during Children’s Church. We packed in carefully in my “church bag” and carried it home to be tucked beneath his pillow.

That pregnancy brain thing is sort of still here, I have discovered. It is a brutal awakening, let me tell you, to stumble caffeine-less into the kitchen and have your kid look at you accusingly. “The Tooth Fairy forgot, again!”

Autumn went skipping out of the room. “I tried to tell him that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t work on Sundays.”

I sat down, pulling Lawson to me for a cuddle. “I have a confession to make,” I said, beyond the ability to come up with any quick stories. “Mommy and Daddy are the Tooth Fairy.”

‘’Oh.”

“I’m sorry I forgot. I’ll get you some money out of my purse.”

“Okay.”

As I put a plate of chicken, noodles, and green beans in front of him this evening, he said “You know, there are three things I love about you.”

“Only three?” I teased him.

“Yeah. So I love three things. Number one, you’re honest. Number two, I love your cooking. And number three, I just love you.”

My heart swelled. To think that instead of a grudge, I received the gift of unquestioning love. “I love you, too, bud.”  Then I started feeling guilty. Just a brief while earlier, Lawson had hovered behind me as I was finishing supper.

“So….if you’re the Tooth Fairy, does that mean you’re Santa, too?”

Choke! I pretended not to hear him while my brain desperately ran scenarios.

“Mom? Did you hear me?” He repeated his question.

“Umm…what do you think?” I finally answered.

He considered. “I think…not.”

“I think…you’re correct.”

Now, he was telling me that he loved me because I was honest. “You know, Lawson, sometimes mommies and daddies don’t tell you about stuff like the Tooth Fairy because it’s more fun for you if we don’t.”

“Yeah, I know. I’d hate to grow up and have kids and one of them lost a tooth, and then they woke up and there was no money, because I still believed there was a Tooth Fairy, though.”

“Yeah. I guess there is that.” I paused for a moment. “Hopefully your parents would tell you something important like that when your first child is born, though.”

“Yeah, hopefully.”