Harper's First Christmas!

:-) "Child of wonder, close your eyes, rest here in my arms tonight. Some day you will save the world, but tonight I'll hold you right here in my arms. Precious miracle of life, child of love. The gift of hope, the gift of light, from the Father above. And you were made, for all mankind, and you will always be mine. Child of love."
I think about this song a lot now. This Christmas season I have thought (more than ever before) about how Mary must have felt and how she dealt with not just being a mother, but being Jesus' mother. Talk about pressure. This song really illustrates in a such a beautiful way how she could have been feeling. I feel like this song illustrates how I feel about Harper. Our first Christmas with Harper was wonderful, all that I could have imagined and more. Not perfect, but it was truly special. I sang this song to her several times throughout the night on Christmas Eve and in the wee hours of Christmas morning. As Jason put it "She was too excited for Santa to sleep". Even teeny newborn Harper slept better than that night. We all survived, a little worse the wear for sleep, and had a lovely Christmas day with Jason's family. The day was cloudy and rainy on and off and it was just beautiful. Typically a rainy day is not beautiful but Jason's folks live on a lake and it was so pretty to see the gray skies against the water. Harper was very interested in all the shiny presents and the rustling paper. She even helped open presents (see pictures). We had a very merry Christmas day, I hope everyone in blog land did too!
PS- We Martins are real...these pictures show our real life. No makeup, snotty noses, fussy models, etc. But this is OUR life and we wouldn't trade it!

Helpless

Suffice it to say...I have felt very helpless as a mother over the past week. I knew Harper would get sick eventually, and most likely from daycare, but I didn't think it would happen so quickly! She got RSV and started feeling pretty crummy about this time last week. It literally broke my heart every time she would cough or sneeze. To see someone, especially your own child, so small and so unable to help themselves- even to the point of not being able to blow their nose- was horrible. Some days we were both crying because it hurt me so bad not to be able to wave my magic mommy wand and make her better (oh, did they forget to give you one of those, too?). I am very thankful for a wonderful support I have in my husband, mom, mother in law, doctor, and her daycare, all of whom helped ease her discomfort and eased my anxiety. I am most thankful to God who gave me HIS promise through his word that he would always be here and never leave me. I am very thankful that all we had to deal with is RSV. While it was scary and heartbreaking, I will never take the lack of severity of it for granted. She is well now and I am thanking God that my sweet, precious, tiny baby is well! What a test of my faith, though...leaving me with lots of questions that I am too superstitious to ask in this blog.

Born to Die by Bebo Norman

Andrew Peterson - Dancing In The Mine Fields

Child of Love

BOTH favorites...

If you know me well enough, you know this is a Brian Regan reference. However, there are more than 'two favorites' so, you will have to forgive the inaccuracy of my reference. These are some of my favorite songs of late, 2 of them Christmas, one of them not. Enjoy!

PS- Couldn't get them in THIS post...so they will follow.
PPS- Had trouble finding 'Child of Love'. Originally done by Sara Groves for 'City on a Hill' Christmas CD. Love it. My favorite Christmas song ever. Especially now that I am a mom. Hard to imagine Mary's emotions and thoughts this time of year...

Thankful!

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations". Psalm 100:4-5

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving (which was yesterday) I think it is a good idea to acknowledge all that we have to be thankful for. Okay, I won't be able to get it all, but at least I can reflect on some of the blessings over the past year!
I am thankful for...
1. My husband. Who is so thoughtful, attentive, sweet, caring, masculine (I think the sweet + manly combo is missing in a lot of men these days...), patient, forgiving, and loving. He is an amazing daddy to our daughter and I thank God everyday for him!
2. My healthy, happy daughter! I never thought I could feel this kind of love instantly, but the second I saw her my heart swelled! She is the most perfect gift I could have ever asked for! She is teaching me more about God's perfect love for us.
3. My family. After Jason and I were home alone with Harper for the first time, we said "wow, we really love our family, we couldn't have done this without them". The truth is, we could have. BUT thanks to the love and support of our family, Harper transitioned smoothly into our lives with very little trauma for her or us! Our parents have given us amazing models and I pray that we can live up to the amazingly high bar they have set!
4. Toby. Our sweet, sweet dog who has accepted Harper into our home with so much dignity. He was my first (albeit furry) baby. He is so gentle with Harper and wants to give her a bath so badly! After hearing reports about how other dogs react to such a dramatic change, I am thankful for Toby's kind and gentle spirit.
5. My job. And Jason's job for that matter. In these tough economic times we both have jobs. I am thankful I have a job that allowed me to work half time so I could be a good mom and a good therapist. I am thankful that financially I CAN work halftime, although it will be difficult. I am thankful that Harper will be only 5 minutes away from my office.
6. My friends (did I mention before that this is NOT in order?). I am so thankful for all my friends who have given me advice, support, and loved me even when I might have been forgetful or random or freaking out about something silly. You guys have helped me be a calm(er) mom and I believe this in turn helps Harper be so calm!

There are a million of other things that I am thankful for, but I have a baby that needs attention. SO thankful for that! :-)

Harper's First Halloween

Here are pictures of Harper's TWO costumes from Halloween!

Sleep Deprivation

:-) Being a mom is the most life changing, amazing thing I have ever done! Plus, Jason and I got very lucky and we have the perfect baby who only wakes up once at night! That being said however, we are still suffering from a little sleep deprivation. Here are just a few things that have occurred, most likely due to sleep deprivation!
1) One afternoon when it was just Harper and I home for lunch, I poured myself a glass of sweet tea...and then another. I'm not sure if I forgot I had just poured one or if I thought Jason was home. I drank both, I figured I needed the extra caffeine.
2) I was making beef stew. I dumped the entire package of beef into the pot, absorbent liner and all! I have a sweet husband, who scrubbed the burned pad off of the pot!
3) I put the milk in the pantry and the cereal box in the refrigerator. Fortunately, I figured this out right after I did it! (Have you noticed a lot of these involve food? Maybe I should be wary of cooking!)
4) I have called Harper the dog's name...maybe I shouldn't admit this, but it is true. I don't think she is scarred too badly.
5) I have put Harper's diapers on inside out and backwards...most of these have occurred at 2 am, but not all!
6) I have walked into a room and forgot why I was there (oh wait, I did that before I had her, too!)

I am sure there will be many more to come! I wouldn't trade a single second of sleep for this precious girl!

Two weeks old!!!

I can't believe Harper is two weeks old! It is strange because on one hand, I can't believe it has been two weeks already, and on the other hand, I can't remember life without Harper so it seems like she has always been here! Here are pictures of her at birth, at one week, and at two weeks!

Our beautiful blessing!

On September 24, 2010 Jason and I had our world changed forever! Harper Grace Martin was born at 4:40pm. She weighed 7 lbs, 2 ounces and was 21 inches long! There are no words that can ever express how MUCH love you have immediately for your child. Learning that you are going to have a child you know you love this being that you haven't even met, but seeing her and hearing her for the first time was AMAZING. I wish I could put into words exactly how I felt. We are so grateful and thankful for our sweet daughter and we praise God that He has chosen us to be her parents! I think the best way to sum up our feelings on becoming parents is to quote the last Psalm, Psalm 150.
"Praise the Lord.
Praise God in his sanctuary;
Praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,
praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord." Psalm 150
We feel like shouting from the rooftops our joy and our praises to God! Enjoy these precious pictures of sweet Harper!

Thoughts on our long awaited arrival!

Don't worry- no one is here yet! I have just been asked about a million times "are you ready". Maybe now I'll direct them to our poor neglected blog. My answer? Honestly? No. Of course not. I think Jason would say the same thing. We have been blessed with amazing friends and family who have given us many of the things we need for our sweet girl, we have taken childbirth/parenting classes that have mentally prepared (and possibly scarred) us for what to expect prior/during/after her arrival, and we have been praying that we are spiritually ready. BUT (isn't there always a but?) we have no hospital bags packed, no place for her her to sleep when she first comes home (not put together anyway), not enough diapers, and no car seat installed. Don't panic. It will get done. But even if we had been ready for months, my answer to the "are you ready?" question would still be no. How would I even begin to fathom if I am ready or not? And somehow, I am okay with that. Which might be the bigger lesson. Me, who is so planned, so future thinking, so OCD about deadlines (yes, I was the student that had her papers written prior to the night before) is okay with not being ready. I am already learning that God uses parenthood to teach you to lean on HIM. I have a feeling that many, many times over the next (fill in the #) years Jason and I will be at a total loss and have nothing but God to cling to. In fact, I know it. He promises it. And its okay. For too long I have clung to myself and my plans and my plans have not always happened, but you know what did happen? God's plans for my life, the plans he's had forever for me, have always happened. And my life has been so much more blessed (not in a "I'm rich and successful" way, but in a 'I now know my God more deeply and can praise Him through storms and celebrations' way). My prayer for anyone reading this is that sometime in your life when (not if) you are left with nothing but the Lord to cling to that you will do just that, cling to him. Let him fill you to the measure until you are overflowing. He'd love to do that. He longs to do that.

4:00 am

I have a feeling I will see this time on the clock a lot more in the coming weeks. 4:00 am really doesn't bother me TOO much, though, since I usually wake up at 5:00am anyway. What really bothered me was that I actually woke up in the 3's...I am the kind of person that needs her 8 hours every night. However, I am pretty sure over the past year plus, and especially the past several months God has been slowly preparing me for parenthood and what little amount of sleep comes with it. Job in another state in Eastern time zone? check! Leaving the house before 6am every day? check! Being pregnant and not being able to go back to sleep? check! I don't say any of this to complain. Sometimes I actually appreciate the time. I have always been a morning person, so I'd much rather wake too early than have trouble falling asleep. When I was little I would wake up pretty early every morning and I loved it because even on school days I would have time to drink my hot chocolate (precursor to hot tea) and play before I had to get ready for school. In the summers when we'd go visit my grandparents I remember walking down the road from our house to theirs in the dark and I'd sit with my grandmother and we'd watch the sunrise through her big picture window. It is comforting to know that another day is here. Another chance to redeem yourself at life! Maybe it is the farmer genes in my blood. Maybe its the baby hormones. Maybe I am just a touch crazy. I don't mind 4:00 am. We'll see if I will be singing another tune after our sweet little sleep stealer comes!

Put Up or Shut Up

So these are just my thoughts, not necessarily backed up by references but pretty much just pure emotion of the moment I'm in right now. I just feel like I need to get this out.

If I had a collective hand to slap the American public with, I would do so right now. After said slap I would get in their face and tell them to wake up and act like adults. Seriously people! What is up with this fatalistic view of reality we have come to develop in the last few years?! I don't know if it's because of the recession or the war or what it is but it has got to stop. This oil spill is just the icing on top of the cake, I guess. I hear more people bemoaning the end of the world because of this thing than I think I've ever heard.

Do we just lack perspective? Is that the problem? Are we all just so bad at history that we're unable to look at anything beyond the time frame of right now, this second? I think that might be the case but surely some of us are able to take the collective experiences & education of our lives and develop a rational thought about the situation. The Gulf of Mexico (GOM in interweb slang) is a big place. A HUGE place. It's no Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, but it's pretty doggone massive. The oil spill is big. It's huge. It's currently out of control. However, the GOM has seen something like this before. In the 70's. IXTOC I. Look it up. I suggest Wikipedia, though I'm sure there are better sites out there also. IXTOC I was bad. Real bad. It took a LONG time to stop. The Mexican government didn't pay many claims related to the spill. They didn't do near what BP is doing and is going to do to clean it up. However, the GOM survived. She recovered. She didn't die. In fact, I'll propose a really novel thought. We can't kill her! (Yes, she's a girl, same as a ship is a girl. Cause I said so.) How arrogant as human beings do we have to be to believe that we can possibly destroy a part of God's creation as big as the GOM?! Do we even understand what we are saying in a statement like that? (More on my thoughts on the environmental side of this later, if I have time)

I refuse to let this ruin my life, same as I refuse to let the recession dominate my thought processes. After a certain point, this will only be as bad as we make it in our reality. What I mean is, the economical & ecological effects of this will be, for the most part, measurable in terms of losses & costs. However, the emotional effects of this will be exactly what we make them. We're at a crossroads with this thing. We can choose to let it kill us or we can choose to use it to make us stronger and teach us a lesson. I personally choose the latter. I think the jury is still out on most people, but I'd say the vast majority will choose to sit at home and just cry about it, hoping somebody else fixes it so they don't have to feel guilty about buying gas from BP anymore. Let's face it, most people won't actually DO anything about it. It's the same as any other disaster. They'll sit at home, be angry, and hope somebody else fixes it so they don't have to get their hands dirty. Well America, now's another opportunity to get up off your lazy butt, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and be great. It's been a long time since we've been challenged to do that. For far too long now we've had leaders that have told us to just stay at home, they'll fix the problem, they'll make you comfortable. Well America, now you see where that has gotten you. You have a President who is so far detached from the situation that all he can do is give speeches about it saying the same thing over and over again. You have a regulatory agency that is so mired in red tape that they can't actually regulate anything. You have an oil company that's so pressured to produce products that they cut corners on safety so that you can live comfortably at home. So America, what's it gonna be? Put up or shut up? It's up to you, because like it or not, where we go from here is on our shoulders, not BP's. They just have to pay for it.

My apologies if that read a bit like a James Joyce novel. It was purely what came out of my head at the moment I typed it. I'm just tired of all the whining and crying. I'm about to have a baby girl. She'll give me all of that I need. I don't need to hear it from adults too.

A Life Beginning

Jason and I were talking about all the amazing things Baby Girl Baby has already gotten to do and I thought it would be fun to keep a record of these things to share with her one day. Since she has been hanging around waiting to arrive, BGB has gotten to:

1) Hear some pretty amazing music; she has attended a Roger Daltrey concert (of the Who), an Eric Clapton concert, a Toby Mac concert, and has gotten to worship with us at church every Sunday to some amazing music!

2) She has gotten to go to Dallas, Savannah, Providence RI (at the end of the month), Atlanta, Birmingham, Ft. Walton Beach FL, Columbus GA, Skipperville AL, Wetumpka, and of course Auburn!

3) She has been fishing, on a boat ride, running with her "brother" (Toby), 'played' in the snow, and flown on an airplane.

Oh the places you'll go Baby Girl...we can't wait to show you all this life has in store!

Amazing miracle!

So, in case somehow someone in blogging world missed it- Jason and I are going to be parents in September! Our baby girl (nicknamed 'Baby Girl Baby' for now since she doesn't have a name) is due September 19th! We are like kids at Christmas and can't wait to meet her! :-) Learning about the development of our child has really reminded me of just how amazing the Lord is! One interesting tidbit of information about how our very creative Creator makes our heart. People have 4 heart chambers, all separated, the upper chambers have a different job than the lower chambers. However, the two lower chambers are supposed to supply blood to the lungs- BUT- babies in the womb do not need this yet, so, there is an opening between two of the chambers. At birth the opening "miraculously" closes if all goes according to plan. The baby book uses the word "miraculously". I am amazed at all the intricate ways our God has chosen to form us. HE can think up things that no engineer could ever design. Our bodies are amazing creations and learning about the little one growing in me is just a great reminder of how amazing God is! When I learn about anatomy and physiology I fail to see how anyone can NOT believe in God. Our bodies are amazing! Praise God for the work that he is doing in our little girl!

Tis Springtime...

"'Tis springtime, 'tis springtime, cold winter has past.
Warm breezes are blowing and [March]'s here at last.
The birds are returning, their songs fill the air.
And meadows are smiling with blossoms so fair."

Jason and I planted our spring garden and it made me want to sing this song. Not sure what this song is, but my mom used to sing it to us each spring (and sometimes still does!). I love it! It just reminds me to celebrate all the goodness of the earth renewing itself. It is so fitting that Easter is in spring- a time of new life and rebirth. I hope anyone reading this is reminded each time they see a plant pushing out from the dirt or a flower opening for the first time that these are all little reminders of the amazing renewal and transformation that God is doing and can do in all of our lives!

Little things

Jason and I had the opportunity to stay at Ross Bridge Resort in Birmingham this weekend. I wanted a quick, fun, getaway for Jason’s birthday so this seemed like the ideal place. Jason and I lived in Birmingham the first year we were married, and while we can’t imagine another home for us right now other than Auburn, there are things we miss about Birmingham that Auburn will never have (read: food/shopping). While staying at this amazing resort I noticed some things about Ross Bridge that made it different from the usual hotel. Jason and I are blessed that when we stay in a hotel it is usually a nice one (i.e. no bedbugs) but I have compiled a list of ways that you can tell you are in a VERY nice hotel. Here goes:
1) There are soap dishes in the bathroom. Most hotels just expect you to put your soap on the counter which gets the counter all soapy and sticky and doesn’t seem like it makes for the cleanest soap.
2) The art is better. No crazy hotel prints- Ross Bridge has a beautiful print of Vulcan (classic Birmingham…maybe the words beautiful and Vulcan don’t go together, though….it’s nice at any rate) and a pretty painting of the Cahaba in the bathroom.
3) The coffee set comes with REAL packs of creamer- not powdered. As someone who brings her own tea bags when I travel, I detest (and usually refuse to use) the powdered creamer in my tea.
4) The staff is over the top helpful. And genuinely nice. It’s like these people got selected to work here from a reality show for super friendly people. I think Chick-fil-A might do the same thing. I love it! How can you not feel good when people are that caring.
5) Our room has a balcony! Other than at the beach, what hotels still have balconies? With REAL furniture, not plastic? Ours has a view of the golf course (be jealous Dad!).
6) Oatmeal costs $7.00. Not kidding. For a bowl. Seeing as how I am writing this before it has been delivered to the room, it better be a good bowl of oatmeal!

It's nice to just stop and appreciate the unnecessary (and maybe unimportant) things sometimes! And the big ones, too! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JASON! I am so glad you are in this world! :-)