Be glad in it.

I've discovered that it isn't super easy to keep up with writing regular blog posts.  For one, life is busy, especially around the holidays, and secondly... it seems silly to write unless I have something worthwhile to say.  When life is really really busy... its hard to find the time to sit down and write something at all, much less, something profound.  But now the holidays are over and therefore here is my attempt to catch up with another post about our life lately.

We celebrated Carter's first Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Years.  Sigh.  It was very special... and also very tiring.  It is such a joy to be around family but it also takes a toll on Carter to be out of the normalcy of his daily routine and staying overnight in places that are still new to him.  We managed well though, despite the travel aspects of it all.  We also had many wonderful, sweet, helping hands around us and that is always a blessed thing.

Carter is growing and growing and growing.  He will be 7 months old on Sunday.  At this point, he has changed A LOT since the tiny little newborn that I held for the first time last summer.  He is showing his personality (his laugh is the sweetest sound I have ever heard), he is much bigger (and my arms are getting toned thank you very much), he is sitting unsupported (95% of the time), he is rolling over (because he hates tummy time), he is eating solid foods (except for yucky cereal), and he has 3 teeth (ouch)!

In the beginning I could not wait for the developmental milestones to start happening with Carter.  I couldn't wait to see him sitting or rolling and would grab my phone to snap a picture the second he would do something new.  And like many new moms, I would constantly read or consult our pediatrician to make sure he was developing skills at the normal pace he should.  Now my attitude towards all of that is changing.  I will still be excited when he learns new skills but, I am okay if things just stay the way they are for a while.  I am not so much concerned with the timing of it all anymore.  Carter will learn and grow just as God sees fit and I am not worried with comparing him to all the "normal" baby charts out there.  He will walk one day, and maybe crawl, but when he does... he won't need me to carry him everywhere.  And honestly, that thought makes me a little sad.  I am not ready for things to change, although I know they inevitably will.  So for now I am just soaking up all the ways that he needs me and not wishing away new things to happen.

I

It all reminds me of the sage advice an old friend of mine gave me when I was pregnant and anxiously waiting on Carter to come.  She basically told me to cherish the time that Mitch and I have as a couple before Carter is born.   Her words are even more appreciated today for their truth than they were a year ago!  The Lord gives us such sweet blessings in the everyday moments of life.  Stages of life come and go and one day we will miss the little things that seem mundane now.  I will miss the way Carter needs me in these days just as I miss the freedom Mitch and I shared when our family was just two.  Each day is a beautiful blessing.  Carter has helped me to see that.

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens... He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:1,11

"This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24