As It Is Meant to Be

I was scanning the headlines on msn.com one day when I came across this article.  I hope you will read it too. It resonated with me for many reasons, particularly that we, like Dr. Snyderman, never envisioned raising a child together and when that opportunity came along, with little or no time to prepare, we plunged in and said yes.

And it was meant to be, and it has worked out more than beautifully.

Firsts.

Sometimes I miss those little baby days of firsts.  First real food, first words, first crawling, first steps, first running....so many things. The growth is constantly visible and occurs so quickly it can be mind-boggling.

At one month old, everything is new and exciting!

Then, after a couple of years, the pace seems a little slower for some reason.  To be sure, there are still milestones - words turn into sentence fragments that turn into sentences, scribbles turn into letters that turn into written words, doodles turn into amorphous shapes that turn into stick figures.  The evolution is more reasonably paced - so much so that you might not even realize it's happening until it does.

Which is probably why, in these last few months, the several "firsts" we've experienced with Anna seem so striking.

This may be Anna's first real character drawing - "It's a minion giving another minion a haircut, mom!"

Thank You for Being a Friend, Part 2: The Wedding

Yesterday, I shared with you all the story of the chaos that our family experienced mere days before Heidi and I were to be married.  I had started to think all sorts of self-pitying thoughts:  why me?  Why now? What if we have to cancel our wedding?  I realize these are not, in the universal scheme of things, terrible problems.  Many people have it much, much worse than we did.

But in my little world, at the time, things felt like they were falling apart.  We didn't want to cancel the ceremony because we wouldn't be able to afford to arrange it all again. We had rented tables, chairs, fancy port-a-potties with sinks, all sorts of things we needed to make this farm wedding perfect.  More importantly to me, some of my closest friends were coming from hundreds of miles away. They would have to cancel their travel plans at the last minute. Or maybe they would get here only to learn of the cancellation. 

Photo by Kaitlin Jarry Photography

Photos of the Week: Sooo Not Ready for This!

Sometimes love blossoms at weddings.  Guests get caught up in the feeling of the moment, maybe they dance together, it's all very sweet..... (sound of record coming to a screeching halt) unless, however, the "lovebirds" are your young children.

Then, well, you just try not to freak out.

Bliss.

Our family has been through a lot lately with my health and wedding preparations - and for awhile, we didn't even know if the wedding would happen as planned because I had emergency surgery.  We'll talk about this in a future post, but for now I wanted to thank all of you for hanging in there with me and I also wanted to share a photo from our wedding day - a photo I had started to doubt would be possible just 48 hours before.

Here's to love and perseverance!

Photo by Mini-Me Photography

Happy Valentine's Day!

We at My Life With Pie would like to add our virtual Valentine's Day greetings to the many others out there, and wish you a fabulous day with your sweetheart, kiddos, friends, family, or all of the above!

Anna made an awesome Valentine's Day card at school:

Heart Attack Moments

I've written before on the blog about how having a child is like having your heart walking around outside your body.  While it's the greatest love you can experience, it also produces the greatest vulnerability.

That's just par for the course, but then there are those (thankfully) rare moments, which I call "heart attack moments," where it really hits home how vulnerable you are, and how vulnerable your child is to the dangers of the world, and how much you love him or her.

In moments like these, something happens that scares you half to death and you are confronted in an immediate, very real way with your worst fears about losing your child.

My Achilles Heel

Most of my parenting commentary revolves around the happy side effects of parenting - the unparalleled joy it brings, the funny moments, the thrilling life changes.

But there is one thing about parenthood that isn't always happy. In fact, that one thing is more difficult than just about anything in the world.

And that is knowing that your heart is gone, that it is walking freely in this world in the form of a beautiful little person, that you have no control over it anymore.  This can be the source of your greatest joy and also of your greatest sorrow.

My little girl is my Achilles heel.

Sleeping beauty, Nov. 2011

Happy 40th Anniversary!

Today is a special day: it's my parents' 40th wedding anniversary!  I just wanted to take a moment to commemorate that because these days, that kind of staying power is hard to find.

My parents have always been good role models of what it means to be committed to your marriage and your family.  Like everyone, they've had their trials and problems along the way, but instead of letting it tear down their strong foundation, they let it build that foundation up further.  Through good and bad times, happy times and tough ones, illness and stress and joy, they've stayed together. I hope I am blessed to have the same success in my relationship.

So, Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!  I am proud of you and I love you!

Since you don't want me to post pics of you, instead, you get this anniversary greeting!

It's Unconditional

Blogger’s Note:  This post is written in honor of National Coming Out Day..... for all who have found the courage to live openly and honestly, for all those who are still struggling with that decision, and for those whose families have let them down. You are not alone. It does get better.

Unconditional love. We feel it with our kids. Maybe we feel it with our pets. Hopefully we feel it with our other loved ones and friends too……

……Until we don’t.  Sometimes we have a falling out, a difference of opinion that just feels too hard to handle, and we just stop talking. Or our loved one does something that bothers us so much we can’t feel the same way about them, no matter how hard we try.

It’s always sad when this happens. Unfortunately, though, these cycles are a part of life. 

But one thing they should never be is a barrier between us and our kids.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Anna!

Three years ago today, the sun shined a little bit brighter and the world got a little bit more wonderful.  Our Anna Gloria was born.

Looking back now, I can clearly see that taking care of her definitely was part of God’s plan for Heidi and me.  But when I first met her, on her first day of life, I didn’t yet know that.  All I knew was that it was my first time holding a baby that new, and that she was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen.

So, I'm new here.....

Evidence of Love

I have a “thought for the day” type of calendar on my desk at work.  Heidi gave it to me for Christmas and I look forward to checking it out every day. Sometimes there are things I’ve thought of already, sometimes it’s a tad preachy for my taste (especially first thing in the morning, pre-coffee!), and then sometimes there’s something that really resonates with me.

Today’s calendar thought was about “evidence of love,” and it’s certainly the latter type of entry. Sometimes it’s the simplest things that mean the most, and I appreciate reminders to stop and examine things in a new way.

What's Love Got to Do With It?

Yesterday, we described an article about parenting skills prioritized by researchers. It listed, in order of importance, the ten “parenting competencies” that are most important to the development of healthy, happy children and strong parent-child relationships. This week, I’ll be discussing each of them in more detail and asking for your opinions as well.

It’s no surprise that love and affection top the list here. Surely everyone knows that showing that we care is important right? Well….maybe not so much. Or, even if we do understand that, sometimes we fall short in that department.