Time flies...

Lately, I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think about how quickly time is passing us by. Right now, it's quarter 'til five, and I don't know where the day has gone. At 5:15am, I got up to feed my babbling baby, and then he conked back out until 7:45am. We got up, went garage sale-ing, and then came home in time for his (and my!) morning nap. Two hours later, we crawled out of bed (and crib) and went about our daily routines. Now, the evening is closing in on us, and there are only a few more hours until Laiken goes to bed.



And our days go like this. Each one, flying by faster than I recognize until the house gets messier, the sun gets softer, and Laiken gets sleepier.




It's as if in the blink of an eye, another day is wrapping up, Laiken is another day older, and his baby days are slipping away.




I used to not understand why moms got so weepy and boo-hoo-ish about their babies growing up. It's inevitable, I thought. What's the big deal? But, now that I've entered into the mysterious world of motherhood, I get it. Like many of the things I could have never understood about being a mom until it was the life I was in, I get it. The sweet child that God grew in my body, the one who was a part of me for months, the baby who came into this world screaming while I wept along with him... is growing out of these days that we'll never experience again. When I think about the days ahead of us, I can't fight the smile that explodes on my face. Kevin and I spend our time picturing our future with Laiken, and we beam thinking about who he could become. But, my heart breaks thinking about never experiencing Laiken as a tiny, full-dependent newborn again (and how I desperately wished those days away, at the time), and how, if time keeps up its current pace, he'll be a kid before I know it.




Each night, when I put Laiken to bed, I pray over him, and I cry and cry, thanking my sweet God for giving us this precious, sweet boy, and for showing us this love I could never have imagined. Lord, help me to remember, and soak up, these days.

Reunited

Alas! I have returned to my blog. Assuredly, I have no time for you, Blog, but you lure me in with your promises of therapeutic ramblings and incessant time-wasting.

It's been almost an entire year since I last updated, and what a year of my life to fail at blogging about...

Let's see if I can manage to recap the most momentous, life-changing, incredible, difficult, and joyful year of my life.... in a few sentences and photo. Ahem...

October 16, 2010:

October 17, 2010:

And now, Laiken Robert, nine incredible months later:

Nobody could have, despite their best efforts, EVER prepared my heart (or my mind) for motherhood. The last nine months have been the best, and hardest, of my life.

Our hearts are full, our floors are cluttered, our brains are scattered, and our bank accounts are dwindling... and we are in love.

We got to see (part of) our baby's sweet face yesterday.

We are in love.

The Return

Wow.
It's been over 3 months since I've posted anything. I straight up ignored the end of the school year, the entire summer, etc. Blogging only seems to enter my mind when I'm bored, and fortunately, I haven't been bored very often.

Well, since my last post on May 7, many things have happened!

-My best friend, Kristi, got married, and I got to be the matron of honor.
-We found out this little baby inside of me is a BOY!
-I felt the baby move for the first time while sitting at my desk at school one morning. He hasn't stopped much since :)
-We bought and moved into our first house on June 4th.
-I got to be a bridesmaid in my dear friend Alex's wedding, and Kevin was a groomsman.
-We had a brief scare with baby when he decided to take the day off and not move for an entire day. We ended up in the hospital, but baby was fine... just relaxing, apparently.
-One of Kevin's best friends, Jordan, came to visit from Texas.
-Kevin turned 27.
-I started having lots of Braxton Hicks contractions, so I spent lots and lots of time lying in bed trying to slow down said contractions.
-I taught summer school, and that started in early June and ended in late July.
-I filled out endless job applications, sent numerous resumes and cover letters, and did a lot of praying in between.
-Kevin and I spent lots of time being discouraged about our job situation, and then being confident God would provide, and continually flip-flopping between the two.
-Finally got a job at the school where I was teaching! No more teaching (for now), but I'm doing a support staff position. Thank you, Jesus!
-Kevin decided to pursue nursing! He will apply this fall and hopefully be accepted to the program for the following fall. In the meantime, he'll be taking the non-nursing classes that are part of the program to lighten his load for the future.
-We've started working on the nursery because Baby Beck's arrival is quickly approaching!

Okay, as I often do, I'm losing interest as I'm typing this, so I will settle for that being my update for now. Basically, life is great. It has been the craziest year of our life so far (pregnancy, job loss, buying a house, etc.), but, overall, it has been good :)

The Scientist

This song, without fail, gets tears to well up in my eyes every time I hear it. When I was in college, I had to take a public speaking class, and for a persuasive speech we did, our assignment was to persuade our audience to donate money to a specific charity. Mine was the Women's Violence Prevention Center, and I started off the speech with a slideshow of images of women who had been the products of domestic violence, and I had this song playing in the background. Maybe that's why it evokes such emotion from me, or maybe it's because it's simply a heartwrenching song for some reason.



Tomorrow, one of my nearest and dearest friends in the whole world will be walking down the aisle. I am ecstatic, and I'm so honored to be her matron of honor and to stand up for someone I love so much. She is one of the most genuinely sweet people I've ever known. Her friendship is just precious to me. It's existed since we were 12, it's easy, it's comfortable, it's always full of laughter and good conversation, and it is just irreplaceable.

Here's the pretty bride-to-be and her fiance:















Life has been good, but hard. We're still struggling to figure out the job/insurance/baby situation still and really trying to trust that God is faithful and provides. We know that He does, we've seen it our entire lives and marriage, but I am a control freak, and I somehow often think that I can do a better job taking care of things. Ridiculous, I know. I get so overwhelmingly sad when I think about not teaching here next year. There are a few openings across the river, but the thought of being a brand new teacher at a brand new school for the third year in a row, plus a baby in the mix, is incredibly daunting. I've been sending my resume to various jobs but haven't had many bites yet. Our primary concern is health insurance, obviously, so Kevin has applied for a different job, too, and is planning on testing with the Belleville Fire Dept. this summer, too. He has no expectations for either of them and was hesitant to apply for the first one because it's not something he has a strong desire to do, but it has good pay and benefits, so for the time being, it would work, and he could still fit his horseshoeing in, too. He has been wanting to pursue a paramedic certification since he was at ALERT with the intention of trying to get on a fire department eventually, but even though has hasn't completed the paramedic program, he's going to test anyway for the experience.



We put an offer on a house and have an accepted contract, and the inspection is today. We know that inspections can be quite a deal breaker, so we're trying not to get too excited. We just desperately want somewhere to have our little family that is ours and is an investment rather than throwing away money renting every month. We found a cute little house that won't be much more than our rent each month, so we're praying the inspection goes well today! Like everything else in our life, we shall see what happens.

Random post. Aaaaaand end.

Ohhhh, baby.

Oh, baby, baby!
We are getting so excited for this little kiddo to join our world. We reference him/her in almost all of our conversations. We usually refer to it as a "her" because we think it's a girl (although we'd be thrilled either way), and Kevin often reminds me that his son is not going to be happy if he finds out we referred to him as a "she" for months of his gestation. About five more weeks until we find out the sex!

My belly is started to show more, and I'm rockin' the bella band pretty much daily now. I'm excited to hopefully start looking pregnant and not fat soon :)

My heart and brain have been on overload lately. They've been overflowing with thoughts and hopes for our life with this little baby, but they've also just been really thinking about my identity lately. I desperately do not want my identity to be found in anything of this world. I don't ever want to be focused on being trendy, or creative, or artsy, or smart, or funny, or or or. Don't get me wrong; I don't think being any of those things is wrong at all. However, when it becomes your focus and your identity and your source of pride, it absolutely is. It seems so easy for me to get sucked into those things. If it's something I enjoy, great, but if it becomes an idol, I don't want anything to do with it. I don't want to be the girl who ____________. If my name is brought up, I want people to know me as someone who loves Jesus and loves His people. I don't want people's first thought of me to be anything outside of that. Again, don't get me wrong; I realize that I am nowhere near that, but Lord Jesus, please continue to transform this heart. It seems like even as a mom-to-be, there are crazy expectations from every angle about how we raise our child and how we live, and if we want a nice home, that means we're wordly and obsessed with money, but if we want to abandon everything and travel, we're irresponsible and unrealistic. Sometimes, I just want to scream at the world to leave me alone. It's in those times, however, that I realize that it's my fault for letting those expectations affect me at all. Hellooooo conviction. Come, Lord Jesus!

160

A week ago, Kev and I heard our little pumpkin's sweet heartbeat. Our midwife couldn't find it at first, but I didn't panic, thanks to the wise advice of this lady.

Our midwife calmly rolled in the little ultrasound machine to make sure she was looking in the right spot. She isn't trained to use the machine, but we did get little glimpses of our sweet baby. He or she was moving around SO much. We got quick glimpses of fingers, and his or her legs and arms looked like they were doing the macarena. Kevin is said it'll be a boxer; I said it'll be a dancer :)

The heartrate was 160 which our midwife said was nice and strong. Almost everyone around us thinks it's a girl, and I kind of agree with them. I realized that everytime I have a thought about this baby (which is quite often), I think of it as a female without realizing it.

I finally realize why people usually say they don't care about the gender as long as the baby is healthy. I've been bombarded lately with all of the horrific things that can go wrong with the baby, so I am just in an almost constant state of prayer that his or her little body will develop strong and healthy. For some reason, several people from various parts of my life have been telling me lately about people they know whose baby died a week after birth, or they found out two days before it was born that it had a horrible, fatal defect, or they miscarried at 18 weeks, or other horrible things. Horrific! I just keep reminding myself that a) we serve a God who has promised us GOOD things and really and truly LOVES us. We have to just trust that our sweet babe is in His hands, and He knows what He's doing. and b) I know tons of people with babies and kids, and almost all of those have had normal pregnancies and healthy babies.

And lastly, I have been feeling like a fat whale lately. I haven't gained any poundage yet, but my clothes aren't fitting which is never good for the ol' self-confidence. Kevin's like, "YOU'RE PREGNANT!" Yes, darling, I realize that, but I've never had my clothes refuse to button or fit so tightly on my new curves. I'd rather just start looking pregnant because at this point, I just look like I have a big beer belly. Yuck.