growing

I've had several blog entries percolating in my mind since last week, but haven't quite gotten around to writing them.  Little Miss Esther has taken to waking up at 6 AM every morning (occasionally earlier!), so I've been more tired than usual and trying to get in a nap during her naptime more often than usual.

Oh, my lyme disease titer came back negative.  So I have no idea what that rash was about, but since it's mostly gone, it doesn't appear to be a matter of concern.

Esther has also taken to waking up at least once more nights than not.  We're not sure what's waking her up, but...well, like I said, I've been tired lately!  Last week I was reading the story of Jesus calming the storm, and when I got to the point where his disciples woke him up out of an exhausted sleep, scared and angry at him for not doing anything to protect them from the storm, I thought, I guess I'm in good company when I get woken up by the cries of someone who depends on me to make everything better!

It's been interesting to see how becoming a parent has affected my spiritual life.  Last year we were discussing spiritual growth in our small group Bible study, and one parent of a toddler said she hadn't had time to grow spiritually because she was too busy and tired with work and parenting.  (And we had a similar conversation with other close friends who have been deeply involved in the life of a friend of theirs who was going through a crisis.)  Both times, I thought to myself that surely something must be going on inside of them while they were giving so much of themselves to serve others.  Then a couple of weeks after we came home with Esther, I found myself sitting on my couch and wondering if I would ever have a spiritual life again, when I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to read a Psalm, let alone meditate on it, and whenever I set out to pray I would find myself instead planning what to feed Esther after she woke up.  I know that God is just as present--if not more!--in the ordinary, absorbing task of raising a child as in any other life experience I've had, but it's a very different feeling from getting insights into God's ways through study or prayer.  So, one of my birthday presents is going to be a book called Authentic Faith, by Gary Thomas, which talks about how God uses life experiences that we often don't choose or control to form us.  I'll be interested to see if it sheds any light on my life now.  (Tim says I'm supposed to forget about having ordered books, but how can I when the box from Amazon.com arrived yesterday and is sitting tantalizingly in our entryway??)

All that aside, remember that famous quote from Eric Liddell, when he said he felt God's pleasure when he ran?  I feel God's pleasure when I care for my baby.  It's not going to change very much of the world, but right now this is exactly what God is calling me to do.  After all, Jesus took time out from doing more "important" things to hold babies and bless them.  And Esther has her ministry to me, too.  Of course, babies are very useful for making cracks in our carefully constructed self-image, and making us take a good look at how impatient and self-centered and unreasonably angered we are.  But there's more than that.  We've been taking Esther into the church service with us, where she usually falls asleep in her carrier.  A few weeks ago we were singing a song which has the line "There's nothing made that was not made to show Your power," and I looked down at Esther and was just overwhelmed by the truth of that.  How many times have I not been in awe of the One who made her so beautiful and complex?  And how many times have I not been moved to gratitude for having her in my life?  So...while there are some ways of relating to God that I've had to mostly set aside during this stage of my life, there are other ways where, in between the mundane moments of feeding, and cleaning, and waking in the night to walk in bleary-eyed circles through the living room, there are new moments of beauty and blessing.  And I'm thankful for this gift.

Linette

quick update on Esther

Esther seems to be weathering her sickness well.  Ibuprofen evidently works better for her than acetominophen, so she has been reasonably cool and happy today as long as we keep her medicated.  Last night she went through a period of time where she was her normal self even after the medicine had worn off.  So at 2 AM she was cool as a cucumber and wanted a bottle--something she had adamantly refused for most of yesterday.  The doctor told us that many kids with hand, foot and mouth disease don't want to eat anything, but for whatever reason Esther ate a lot better than she drank.  I guess it takes an awful lot to spoil that child's appetite!  She is both eating and drinking today.

sick day

So, a few days ago--maybe Sunday night, but I can't remember for sure--I noticed a funny red patch on my thigh. I thought I must have bumped into something, although I couldn't remember the incident and that wasn't quite what the patch looked like. A day later it was still there, so I thought maybe there was a zit deep under my skin, although that also wasn't quite what the patch looked--or felt--like. Yesterday morning I noticed it again, and suddenly remembered that Maryland has a high incidence of lyme disease and Tim and I had gone for a long walk in prime deer tick territory a few weeks ago. The rash was/is very generic, consistent with a lyme rash but also consistent with various other causes of skin inflammation. However, given the possibility of exposure and the long-term nastiness of untreated lyme, I decided to make a doctor's appointment, which I did for 9:30 this morning.

That was me. Then there's Esther. After unusual fussiness and tiredness yesterday, she woke up twice in the night last night (also unusual), and the second time she most definitely had a fever. On the way to my doctor's appointment I took her temperature under the arm and it was 102.3 despite her being under the influence of acetominophen, so we called her doctor, too, and eventually got an appointment for 11:30. Turns out the poor baby has a probable case of hand, foot and mouth disease, though in her case her hands and feet aren't affected and she only has one little blister in the back of her throat--but it's probably giving her the dickens of a sore throat, and the fever isn't fun either. Since it's a virus, there's nothing to do for her but treat the symptoms and hope they go away fast. The doctor said she should be feeling better by Friday.

Meanwhile, Tim's mom wasn't feeling that great this morning either (although she's fine now). So out of the whole family, Tim was the only one today who was certifiably healthy! He took half a day off to watch Esther during my doctor's appointment and to go to hers. He's a caring daddy!

I doubt anyone wants me to illustrate this entry with pictures of Esther being cranky and lethargic, so instead I'll leave you with a few photos from the fateful hike on which I may (or may not) have provided free lunch for a tick.

Here's Esther before we began the walk, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and enthralled with her new view of the world.











This is what she looked like twenty minutes into the walk.












And this is what she looked like by the end!

bedtime song

Esther likes me to sing to her, so sometimes when she's whiney or otherwise out of sorts I'll sing to her to try and make things go a little easier.  One of the small trials of her life is getting dressed.  It just requires too much time in one place!  So here is the second verse of the song we sang as I was putting on her pajamas tonight, with her doing the relevant motions at the appropriate places:

I put your left leg in, you take your right leg out.
I put your right leg in, and you shake it all about.
You do the squirmy wormy and you turn yourself around:
That's what it's all about!

Tales from the table (and a few other places)

First off, apologies for my long absence from the web. Things have been a little unusual around here! Tim's grandfather passed away a couple of weeks ago, not unexpectedly since he was over 100, but Tim went back to Arizona for the memorial service and brought his mom back here with him for a visit. So Esther and Grandma have been having fun together.

And now for Tales From the Table!

I think I've mentioned before that Esther likes to eat. Make that LOVES to eat! Since she's under doctor's orders to gain weight, I thought I'd count calories for a while and find out how much she was getting. Let's just say that I don't think weight gain is going to be difficult--or if it is, it will be because her genes tell her to be small, not because she's not eating enough. She averages 800-some calories a day (with wide variations), but on one noteworthy day my teeny-tiny baby girl consumed 1095 calories. 1095! That's more than half of what an ADULT female is supposed to be getting in a day! Admittedly, your typical adult female isn't growing and doesn't spend her day squirming, crawling throughout the house, and pulling up on anything that will support her weight (as well as a few things that can't), but still!


This is one of Esther's first attempts at finger foods, when she was still stuffing her fingers in her mouth along with the food.












"What do you think of my new goatee?"




























"I hear avocado facials are all the rage this year!"

Now that Esther has decided that the food supply isn't drying up anytime soon (at least, I'm guessing that's the reason), she's beginning to get pickier. She still eats a lot, but foods that she couldn't get enough of when I first served them to her now are greeted with a whine and pushed out of her mouth. She also requires variety: at any one meal I have to alternate feeding her different foods if I want her to eat very much of any one thing, and I can't serve her the same food too many days in a row or she'll start to turn her nose up at it. But she still likes trying new foods, and she still eats a sufficient quantity to keep her doctor happy, so I don't have anything to complain about. Actually, I think the pickiness is probably a sign that she has a normal and healthy relationship with food for her age, which is not a bad thing, annoying as it can be to have to throw away a half portion of something that she wolfed down last week. I'm sure she'll get even pickier as she continues her journey into toddlerhood!


This is what happens when lunchtime comes too close to naptime.













As for the self-feeding, she has expanded her repertoire considerably, but it is still limited to things she can convey to her mouth with her fingers. This is what happened when I let her have the last little bit of cottage cheese in a bowl:

"I can't believe my good fortune!"














Um, Esther, I don't think you're going to get much food off of that end...













Then there's Esther's tendency to eat things that are not food. One day Tim let her play with a thin cardboard insert that came in a package. When I noticed her mouthing it and went to take it away, part of it had been bitten off. But her mouth was empty. Apparently she had chewed and swallowed it. So, for the moment, paper is very much on the no-no list at our house.

Esther the hillbilly, chewing on a blade of grass at the park.












Judging a book by its flavor.