a free pass

I'll start with a story, then explain... Last night, Nick had to host the induction ceremony for a math honors society at his school. I helped set up all the food for the reception afterwards, and there was a lot of food left over at the end. Naturally, I'm trying to send all the cookies, chips, and soda home with the high school boys that helped clean up afterwards. No one would take the cookies! Surprising, right? Well, one of the boys told me that I could just eat them, and I told him that I shouldn't eat that many cookies. His response...I'm a new mom, no one would say anything if I did eat that many cookies. So apparently I get a free pass to eat whatever I want, since I'm a new mom.

Back up about a month or so... whenever I would comment on trying not eating junk food all the time during my pregnancy, people would always tell me it's okay...after all, I'm eating for two! I hate that idea! During pregnancy, you're really only supposed to eat an extra 300-600 calories each day, and it should probably be healthy, right? And now that I'm not pregnant anymore, I'm trying to lose weight, like most new moms. Granted, I have quite a head start on that since I was sick most of my pregnancy and didn't gain that much weight. Regardless, I don't think being a new mom gives me a free pass to eat junk food all the time. This doesn't mean I don't want to...I never craved anything when I was pregnant, but now I'm craving chocolate like crazy!! So please, if you catch me downing a chocolate candy bar, please stop me! Just because I'm a new mom does not mean it's okay!

always looking forward

So I've realized something huge about myself since Ellie joined us four short weeks ago. (By the way, she'll be a month old tomorrow!!) All my life, I've always looked forward to the next phase in life. This may have been partially because I have an older sister, so I was always ready to do what she was doing. In high school, I was ready for college. In college, I was ready to find "the one," and be engaged. Once I knew Nick was it, I was ready to be engaged, and then eventually married. When we got married, I was ready to have a kid, and so on.

So my realization is that the future has been my idol my entire life. I look forward so earnestly to the next phase of life, not even knowing what it will look like, so much that it is an idol in my life. Now that we have Ellie, I don't so much look forward to the future, as I am enjoying my current phase. I didn't realize, however, how much I am content with life now until I realized that I have always struggled with looking forward to the future. I'm not sure that I was ever content with my present. God has blessed me more than I could have ever imagined...in every phase of life, and I never stopped to appreciate it because I was ready for my next step.

All that being said...as I always looked forward to the future, I had expectations for what that would look like. Those expectations don't always turn out to be accurate. Like when I got pregnant, I thought I would feel different; I thought life should feel different now, but it didn't. Then I thought becoming a mother would make me feel different, like I would become a different person, or my identity would change. It hasn't, which I guess is good. Ellie should not define me, which is I guess what I expected to happen if I thought I would feel different. My identity should be in Christ alone, not in my status as a wife, mother, daughter, etc. Although I love being all of those things, first and foremost, I am a child of God.
In this phase of life, Ellie is the biggest change. She is the reason for this new chapter in our lives. She will be a month old tomorrow, and I can't believe it! She is growing so much! Last night, Nick just laid on the couch next to Ellie for a few minutes, and it was precious! He loves her so much, and it makes me love him more when I see the way he looks at her. She is ours. God somehow fashioned the perfect baby for us when we did nothing to deserve it.

I think about 1 John 4:19 now when I think about my love for Ellie (and for others), which says, "We love because He first loved us." But the verse before it says: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear...the one who fears is not made perfect in love." So I know that whatever the future holds, whether it meets my expectations or challenges them, I will not be afraid of what it holds. I won't anticipate the future; instead, I will be content with the present and appreciate what we have now. I will love God, and I will love Nick, and I will love Ellie...forever and today.

unbelievably amazing...

March 22, 2010, at 7:02 PM, our lives changed forever, and it is the best change I've experienced in quite some time...possibly ever. Having a baby truly does change everything. It changes the way I see my husband, how I love my husband, how he loves me, how we love our new baby girl, and how I love God. God has changed our lives through the life of our sweet little Elizabeth "Ellie" Louise.

So the boring stuff first...it was a pretty normal delivery. The nurses and my doctor were actually impressed with how much I seemed like a "pro," although I'm not sure how that's possible considering I've never done it before. Waiting to find out if we had a boy or girl was the best decision we made. It really was fun to find out after a long day of waiting, knowing the baby was on her way :) It was even more fun making Nick's parents wait until Baby Ellie came back into the room to find out she was a girl! Ellie was upstairs getting cleaned up when Nick's parents arrived from Missouri, and we made them wait until Ellie got back before we told them she was a girl...it was a long hour! Anyways, it wasn't real until we got home with her that we're parents, and we'll have Ellie with us from now on! How exciting!

Now on to how our lives truly changed that night... My relationship with Nick is different, but so much better! I didn't really expect it to change so drastically and quickly, but I feel like it has. Seeing him with our baby is the best feeling ever. He's already such a great dad! It's hard to describe how our relationship has changed. I guess it's because there is another dimension to our relationship, so there is another dimension to our love. There's more to care about, more to love.

Today, our sweet baby girl is 3 weeks old (which is nuts, by the way). She is already growing and changing so much every day! She loves to cuddle, which makes us both so happy. We're convinced babies know exactly what's going on, and it is possible for them to smile. Ellie smiles a lot...it's often followed by a frown, but she's just figuring everything out, so it's okay! She has a beautiful smile! Life hasn't changed a whole lot for us; we just have another person enjoying life with us...We only missed one week of church through all of this; we went to the zoo last week for the first time as a family; we have been to community group each week; we go on walks to the store or around the block... Ellie does great living life with us so far :)

So Nick (Daddy) went back to work today after being off for three wonderful weeks with us. We miss him...a lot, but we look forward to this summer when we will all three be together all day, every day. We look forward to living life with Ellie from now on. We are so thankful for her and what she has already given to us by being here with us. God has truly blessed us with the best thing...a beautiful daughter.