...but hopefully not at the same time

That's what I'm thinking after reading this on my bag of dried figs:

"Delicious paired with cheese and chocolate"

Happy Monday morning, everyone.

Debt-free.

As of today, Kathryn and I have paid off the last of our student loans. This marks the end to a long period of paying way more for our schooling than the initial price tag. It also marks the first time since my freshman year of college that I haven't had any consumer debt (okay, so technically we have a mortgage right now, but that's different enough).

But anyways. Debt-free! It's astounding to look back over the past year and think about all the Lord's done:

-Brought us Ewan when that should have been impossible

-Brought me a raise at just the right time

-Brought us out from under the weight of debt at just the right time

This certainly has been a "year of the Lord's favor".

And that's just the short list. There's more I hope to be sharing soon. But for now, we want to celebrate this. With a party. You're invited.

The View from Six and a Half Weeks

I've been leaving it up to this lovely lady to be the prolific blogger of the family for the past couple of months, but I think I'd be remiss to go much longer before sharing the inside scoop on some of what's been going on in my brain as we've begun experiencing the joy of parenthood for the first time.

I'll start shortly after where I left off last time. I'll start with...

Labor

It's actually a good place to start, because I don't think Kathryn mentioned much about it in her blog. Can't say I blame her, it was hard. Correction - labor was crazy. We did the Bradley method and took the class, so we were prepared, but we sure weren't ready, if there's a makeable distinction there. I think God's set birth up so that you're never quite ready - he's wrapped up the risks and wonders so tightly in there that new parents can't help but have an experience that will forever be deeply imprinted on their brains and hearts.

To spare you too much unpleasant detail, I'll just give you a representative sampling of some of what was going through my head throughout it all, in some semblance of chronological order:

-"I sure hope she lets me sleep a little longer, I've sure got a massive headache."

-"She says this is it, and she's in way more pain than Saturday... hmm, this is probably it."

-"I hate running around the house so much in the 2 minute window we have between the end of one contraction and the start of another, but I've got to get all this stuff ready."

-"All she wants me to do is rub this one spot on her back. What about this part of her back, doesn't it... okay, okay, I'm rubbing that spot!"

-"The timing's there, the intensity's there - let's get to the hospital."

-"You want me to park the car now?"

-"So is this our nurse? Couldn't we find one a little friendlier?"

-"6 cm - that's it?"

-time passes

-"6 cm still? Okay doc, if you have to break the water artificially to help us, I suppose that's what should happen."

-"Should Kathryn really be running around the room right now? Maybe this is transition."

-"Wow, her back has been hurting non-stop. This is a mess."

-"I'm sure glad my headache is gone, otherwise I'd be a mess."

-"Okay, good - 9 cm. After how hard that last hour's been, I don't think she could take much more of this."

-"Wow, she wants to push. Is this happening already?"

-"Damn it, nurse, stop playing with your scanner gun and check her again!"

-"Yes, she wants to be checked, just like I told you three times already."

-"It's pushing time!"

-"Still pushing!"

-"Lots of pushing..."

-"Poor Kathryn, she's working so hard and baby's still not that close."

-"We can see a little of the head!"

-"Hmm, we've been seeing that much of his head for a while now."

-"Good grief, this is so much blood. How did none of those horrible videos show this much blood?"

-"Doc's cutting her. This sucks. But I guess it's that or something much worse."

-"You can do it Kathryn, you're so close!"

-"Oh my gosh, there he is!"

-"Sorry, let me try cutting that cord again, it's so rubbery!"

-"Wow, Ewan calmed down just from my voice!"

-"Ah, finally Kathryn gets to hold him. Too bad she can only see a little out of one eye."

The first night

It was wonderful holding Ewan the first day. At the end of it, after a good bit of passing him around to all the grandparents, uncles and aunts of various generations, Kathryn and I were afforded time alone in the recovery room, just us and our baby. Having gotten a caffeine boost late in the afternoon, I was able to hold him while Kathryn caught some well-earned shuteye. Joseph wept. I just sat there and basked in the feeling that the Lord was just washing away old dust and dirt and making a new start. Not just was Ewan experiencing new life, I was a full recipient of it, too. And it was one of those rare moments in life where my feeling of it initiated my knowing of it. Usually I let my brain or my body take the lead, but this time it was my heart. So I cried. It was wonderful.

Who's afraid of a little poop?

Everywhere?

Not I, at least, not any longer. Despite the very large number of our friends with young children, and our regular rotation through the church nursery, I had managed to remain a novice at diapering. I wouldn't claim the title of expert just yet, but I've got the hang of it for sure now. And I have most certainly been initiated into the ranks of those who can say, with absolute candor: who's afraid of a little poop? Or: oh that? just a little poop, no big deal - it'll wash out. At times I'm even a little excited about poop, but just at the times when poop means Ewan's tummy is no longer hurting him.

Kathryn loves her Ewan

This might be one of the greatest joys of new parenthood, seeing my wife fall in love with our baby. It's both surprising and not at all surprising at the same time to me. I had every confidence in her that she'd be a wonderful mommy, but I really had no idea what she would look like in that role. She consistently remarks about how cute he is, and the sincerity of her affection isn't mitigated by her fatigue or headaches. She's head over heels, and what can I say? She's got great taste in babies.

It's gradual

Seeing as my last blog post was about anticipating how much life would change and how far upside-down my world would flip, what strikes me more about this period in my life is less how different it feels than how gradual monumental change can be. Sure, some monumental change can happen overnight, but surprisingly, having a baby doesn't feel that way to me. We've been eased into it to a large degree. It's when I start thinking about what having my own son will ultimately mean that I get overwhelmed at the thought of all that has to happen and how unready I am for all of it. But he can't read yet - so I don't have to worry about schooling. He can't run yet, so I don't have to worry about sporting. He hasn't even really realized he has arms yet - so we've got time. I'm sure some personalities are such that some people would use this time to figure all that stuff out, but for now, it just seems right to take one thing at a time and make the most of this sweet time in Ewan's life.

Even the disciples who swiftly and suddenly left their day-jobs and everything else that was their security at the time still had to follow Jesus the same way anyone else would - by putting one foot in front of the other. Not to put the how of following him on some kind of pedestal above the why or the who, but sometimes it's God's grace to provide me the realization that all that's going to be required of me isn't necessarily required of me all at once. And not that I'm holding anything back from him about how I might follow him in raising my son, but he'll provide it when I need it.

More to come

I'll try not to be such a stranger, interwebs and loyal reader(s). Since this is by no means a near-complete representation of even the highlights of being a daddy so far, I'll leave it to another time to give you more of the "inside poop", as one book we've received lately refers to it. As I sign off, I'll leave you with a fatherly blessing, which you can interpret into your life as you can reasonably metaphorically justify:

May all your diapers be snug, and may all your pacifiers be clean.

Changes

Any day now, our little boy will make his way into the world and turn it upside down for us.

From what I've heard.

And I don't have any reason to doubt those who tell me I have no idea how different, how new my life will be once the baby makes that big transition from fairly low-maintenance to ultra high-maintenance. Indeed, it's already starting to become that different.

I'm not sure that I handle transitions so smoothly - kind of like an engine low on transmission fluid. Even just the shift the past week or two from the frenzy of finishing house projects to the relative calm before the storm (a quick Google image search of "baby in a tornado" didn't net me anything useful to link to here) has been weird. We bought our house two years ago and never really finished construction on it or unpacking boxes into it until more or less now, and so coming down off of months of always having too much to do and trying to settle into a less busy pace is just ... not easy. We've got a little more time for a few days, but soon we won't. Crazy.

A month or so ago, after a stressful morning at work in which I was feeling the squeeze from work in addition to all the other life stuff stressing me out, I went to pick up Kathryn from her job so we could get lunch. After venting a little to her, she asked me, "Do we need to go to China King for lunch?" What a wonderful woman. That much at least will never change.

For everything else, though, I don't try to maintain any illusions that I'll recognize my life even as soon as a week from now. When I hold my son for the first time (and sob), endure my first week of sleep-deficient nights (sobbing), drive for the first time with an infant in the back seat (sweating), and whatever else the super-near future entails, I undoubtedly will feel like an alien in my own skin, but a happy one at that, like the ones that come and vacation on Earth and return to their home planets without leaving a credible piece of evidence that while they were really here, they weren't really from here. You know, that feeling.

Whether or not I recognize my life at that point isn't so important, though. Because it will be awesome. And I'll be the proudest dad there ever was, and we'll have the cutest baby boy there ever was, and Mommy will have had the easiest labor there ever was (a dude can dream), and we'll realize more deeply than ever the goodness of the Lord to us in giving this little person into our care.

I'll keep you posted. From the underside of the world.

The big push before the big push

I've noticed over the past eight months or so the way that expecting a baby can reorder life. I'd noticed it in other people before myself. In some men, though I wouldn't have called them irresponsible before, there's a marked difference in the seriousness with which they begin to approach life, and they really turn into good husbands and dads. As far as I can tell, at least - but it's hard to chock it all up to appearances when their kids are turning out so well, and I see firsthand (even if only once in a while) how they interact with their wives and kids. (In case you're the type of reader who likes to reread sentences in your head and make things sound weird, I should clarify that last sentence by saying that I don't personally know any polygamists.)

I've even thought some about my dad lately, and the good examples he sets. He would always drive the older (at times junkier) car and let mom drive the better or newer one. He would go out of his way to set up activities where he could spend quality time with me - including such things as building uneven bars for me in the backyard when I was in gymnastics, or pouring a concrete slab in the backyard and putting up a basketball goal when I was in basketball, or coaching my YMCA soccer team, though I'm pretty sure he'd never played soccer before, and I can only speculate as to whether he'd ever even seen a match prior to hanging the whistle around his neck. Probably, but who knows? He's also always gone to great lengths to engage me spiritually, and teach me the importance of knowing the Lord and making that central to everything that I do.

Is Kathryn's and my first child having the same impact on me? It's hard to tell - change for me usually tends to happen so gradually as to be difficult to notice on my own (maybe others can see it more clearly). All I know is that there hasn't been an abundance of time lately to sort all these things out. I would have strongly preferred to have all the major work on the house done months ago and spent most of 2010 reading and thinking deeply about the upcoming change to our family. As it stands now, cosmic diaphragms are starting to get sore for all the laughter at my naiveté for thinking that, amid all the things that we decided we needed to get done in the last several months, somehow we could have completed them in a more timely fashion than all the other do-it-ourselves endeavors.

Does God laugh at us the same way we laugh at children? Since I'm pretty much always laughing at them, I think I'm a more likely candidate than some to be a source of heavenly amusement.

I think this will be the perspective to help me be a good sport about achieving the following in the next few weeks:

-Planting six raised garden beds

-Installing window blinds throughout the house

-Finishing baseboards and trim

-Organizing a very unorganized house

-Finishing dining room table and chairs

-Having gutters installed (thankfully not something I'm doing myself)

-Refinancing the house

-Doing taxes

-Setting up a baby room

I'm sure there's plenty I'm leaving out, but that hits most of the big stuff. It's funny to think that a little baby could inspire such a frenzy of activity, that we begin to suddenly realign our whole lives in anticipation of something we know is coming, but isn't fully here yet in the sense that we know it will be soon enough. Yes, it's pretty obvious I'm going somewhere with this, which is here. Pretty amazing the way God has knit together all the kinds of new life he brings. It comes subtly, but surely (though, ask my wife, and she would say there's nothing especially subtle about the active little boy in her belly); hidden for now, but with signs, and the anticipation of a glorious breaking-in to the world. This is comforting for those of us who find difficulty living in the reality of a kingdom that we can't see by looking at life as it's packaged and sold by an eager world. Despite appearances to the contrary, I can say this with confidence, and in more ways than one:

He's coming. And I'll be ready.

Close Call on Crappy Coffee

A little over a week ago I nearly sold myself out for recognition and compensation. These guys were doing a jingle contest and I attempted to enter, only to be denied at the last minute by the contest website (yes, I waited until the last minute to try and submit my entry, but it was a very busy weekend).

That "SERIOUSLY?!" moment was quite a long time in the making. At first, I was hoping to do the contest with this guy, until we found out he makes too much of his money as a professional musician. Oh, well. Then I thought this guy would be fun to put a jingle together with, but it turned out to be not a good time for him. Oh, well. But all was not yet lost - we have no shortage of musical talent among our comrades, so I gave this guy a call, and he returned an enthused, "let's do it!" Only, schedules didn't jive, I think some illnesses got in the way (oh, well), and long story short, it's February 27th and I've got less than 48 hours to put my song and video together.

So I decide to go solo (well, sort of - I know I can talk my lovely wife into putting something amazing together for the video in a very short amount of time, and she certainly did, as you'll soon see). Oh, and this is the weekend that we're working on the house, have both sets of family in, have our first baby shower, and meet and chat with our future housemate for the first time - but no big deal, we'll squeeze in cutting a music video, somehow.

The deadline is 11:00 PM (midnight Eastern Standard Time), February 28th. Wouldn't you know, we get to about 9:00 PM and I'm still finalizing the song, no video shot yet. We get to about 10:00 and we're just getting the camera rolling. 10:30, Kathryn's editing the video on our low-end laptop (PSA: don't edit video on low-end laptops). 10:48, the video file is exporting. 10:53, I'm furiously typing on the first of three screens on the contest website, hoping to get my personal info and the video submitted in the next 7 minutes. 10:56, the website malfunctions and won't take me to the screen to upload my video.

This is a true story.

10:59 - 11:01ish, Kathryn pulls up the correct screen on the other computer, I throw the video on our jump drive like a mad man, rush to the other room, and get it uploading.

Shortly after that, we get a failure message from the website - they obviously shut it off at 11:00.

No problem, I'll just email the company, explain the issue their website caused, and hope that someone will have the consideration to let me send in my video still, somehow. Two days later I receive a CYA response, with the applicable portion of the contest rules copied and pasted into the email. I was actually impressed how many scenarios they'd thought of beforehand, that they did have actual control over, for which they found a way to excuse themselves of any liability or responsibility.

Oh, well. I suppose the bright side has two parts to it:

1) I don't have to endorse coffee I would never drink, and

2) I have a fun song and video to share with you today*!

*Video does not constitute an actual endorsement for any products it may seem to be actually endorsing. JoeZone and its affiliates are in no way responsible for any dissatisfaction, bad tastes in mouths, vomiting, regrets, wasting of a few dollars or more, or yuckiness of any sort that are in any way connected to you seeing the preceding video and finding yourself unable to control the urge to go out and purchase the coffee advertised in the video.

Quick stats for ya

I'll leave it to Kathryn to give you the exciting updates on our near-finished marathon bathroom remodel.

I, on the other hand, will provide you with some exceptionally illuminating statistics:

17 - the number of months we've been in our work-in-progress house.
17 - the number of months it's taken me to figure out that caulking is my absolute least favorite thing ever when it comes to working on a house.
17 - the number of times last night, while caulking, that I considered packing our bags and moving us to a state park or Alaska or something so we could just live in a tent.
17 - the number of minutes it took me to scrub and scrape the dried caulk off my fingers after getting less than half the remaining caulking done in the bathroom.

Last, but not least:
17 - seventeen more than the number of people who are likely to want to return to my blog anytime soon after reading this post.