Our Sweet One Year Old!

On Monday Gabriel turned ONE! How time flies! It has been the sweetest experience to be a mom and for Patrick to be a dada (as Gabriel says). We have already seen God's grace in this journey as parents. We don't have a lot of expertise under our belts, but we surely see the purpose in God's plan for children to be part of our marriage... always a life giving love. We have grown closer working as a team to love this son of ours, while Patrick working on his PhD and his second job, me working for Vandy Catholic, and trying to balance the rest of life... keeping house, exercising, eating well, and staying attached to our sacramental life. Gabriel has been such a source of selflessness for us and we are grateful. Time doesn't seem to be taken for granted anymore. Three days after Gabriel's first birthday we were able to give him the news that he was going to have a little brother! This is another part of our trip to Heaven... another little boy to love... we couldn't be more excited. God, again, you will never let us outdo You in Your Greatness and Generosity. We love you.

Happy Birthday, my sweet baby boy, Gabriel Patrick.

Last Year

One year ago at this time I had cleaned every last inch of the apartment. I had all the laundry done, every dish clean, every piece of furniture dusted, every inch vacuumed and my bags were finally packed. Right about this time, Patrick and I had just returned home from buying a rocking chair and we were cleaning out the cars... shop vac, dusting, etc. Everything was just about ready and I started feeling the lower back pain. I tried to stay on my feet all day because the doctor had said three days earlier that I would be in labor within the next three days. As soon as the lower back pain started, we rushed to bed, not knowing how much sleep we would get. The first contraction woke me up the next morning, May 10th @6am. It was the biggest high... to deliver a baby that day... we are starting the countdown tonight to Gabriel's very 1st BIRTHDAY!! Time so flies. We are so blessed to have this sweet baby boy... and can't wait for our next little one in September.

Nashville Flood 2010

The last 5 days have been crazy here in Nashville.  If you have seen the news at all, we had torrential rainfall during the weekend.  At least 25% of Nashville's annual rainfall fell in a matter of two days overwhelming one of the cities two water treatment facilities, leaving 14,000 homes without power and killing at least 18 people.  We were generally unaffected by the rains with the exception being trapped at work for 5 hours on Saturday afternoon.

When I woke up Saturday morning, I had a message from my manager that the golf course was closed but that I needed to help set-up for a wedding that evening.  I arrived at work at ten to 2 and there was water running across the entrance, but I made it across in the Honda just fine.  Not more than thirty minutes after I arrived, there was waist deep water running across the entrance, and the water was shoulder deep by 3.  There were about a dozen people at the club, and the golf pros set out driving the cart paths looking for a way out but were largely unsuccessful.  By around 5, the wedding had been moved to a nearby hotel, so I was just waiting to be able to leave.  The water finally receded by 7:15, so I finally left.

Below are some pictures of the flood.  All of these locations are within 5-10 minutes driving of where we live.


These are of the flooded water treatment facility:

These streets are right down the road.  As you can see, both are flooded:

Here are a couple boats that were swept away by the flood waters.  I should note that we don't live near a boatable body of water, so this is unusual:

Coast Guard to the rescue:

The water likely covered this taxi.  The driver must be airing it out:

Gabriel Patrick at Almost One Year

So, this is the first time I remember seeing blood. He hurt his mouth and was bleeding A LOT according to me... but then again I thought he had a temperature the other day when it read 97.9 degrees. Anyway, you can see the traumatic leftover tear he has, but he is still trying to smile for the camera in the midst of the pain!

Just the sweetest little face... he so looks like his dad.

This is our son who has been drinking out of a straw for months... people totally crack up when they see it. He LOVES drinking from his sippy cups with straws. So cute.

He was looking at his Daddy and laughing... he just adores him. Probably because he is strong enough to throw him around and make a waterfall/whirlpool in the tub. I have seriously never heard so much noise and water splashing at bath time! Mommy is a little bit less likely to soak herself and the whole bathroom... but, that makes Daddy "funner!"

Can you see his 2 bottom teeth? ... we finally have some! Yea!

So, I put him in his highchair today while making my lunch. I turned around after hearing him sing and clap for a while and saw this incredibly chill kid hanging out with one leg on the tray and leaning back like he was driving a cool car. It reminded me of how my brother use to drive. Oh, how silly he is!

Here he takes after his mom. Whenever we put him out back in the grass he tends to hold both legs in the air because he can not stand his legs or feet to touch the grass.. maybe it tickles. Here is the leg hold in action... he will hold it like this for ten minutes if we leave him there. We laugh so hard everytime. We have to work on this so he acts like a real boy and plays in the dirt.



A day when he was talking up a storm and helping me dust bust the kitchen. He is this pleasant all the time... even when on his most recent sleep strikes. Love 'em.

3 Poops, No nap, and an Ice Cream Cone

Life as a mom has a unique way of humbling us and making us feel insane, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I decided to write about yesterday because after seeing a good friend of mine who I haven't seen in a while I realized that even if no one else reads my blog, she finds comfort in knowing that there are other moms out there who have those days where they (as she said:) "die to themselves and die to themselves and the next day wake up and do it all over again." So, Maria, this one's for you.

Yesterday. Gabriel woke up in a state unlike many other mornings. Normally, I hear him talking and playing and sometimes even singing up there in his crib. Not yesterday. Yesterday he woke up screaming. A screaming as if pain was associated... so unlike other days, I took no time to slowly open my eyes and crawl out of bed. I didn't even allow this pregnant bladder to go to the bathroom before bolting up the steps to find out what could be wrong... nothing I discovered. He just decided to cry today. So, I tried to change his diaper, the whole while he screamed even harder and tried to flip around while I got poop all over myself, the ground and him and his outfit. It was fun. After changing him I realized he was pretty hungry or at least I thought food would ease the pain.. it did for a short while... then he pooped again. It was one of the grossest poops I have ever seen and smelled. It was half way up his back, all over his butt and covered his little guy (private part). It took about 12 wipes to get it all off and I sat considering a bath for quite some time until realizing that all this pooping had me running behind. After that I thought the day wouldn't get much worse. I had Encounter with Christ at my house yesterday morning and he did pretty good with all the distractions, but since his nap is usually at 11am and Encounter lasts till noon, he was overly tired. SO, I rocked him for a very long time... he fell alseep, I put him in his crib and he woke up. I thought, surely he will fall back asleep... nope... after 20 minutes, still awake, still crying and totally ticked at me. So, I got him out of his crib, giving up on the nap and tried to cheer him up for the next 20 minutes, while wiping snot off of me and him.... yuck. He was hungry again. So, I fed him. He eats like a vulture... HUGE bowls of food... tons. So, we sat and ate for about 40 minutes. Within 10 minutes of being done we had another poop... oh yes, just as grand and awesome as the last. At this point I decided to declare insanity because I just could not handle one more poop like this in my lifetime... at least yesterday I decided I couldn't. SO I changed it. That took about an hour and after he was clean, I laid on the ground next to him and just laughed. It is 1pm and I have had 3 poops and no nap. What better way to cure a little insanity: I pulled out the ice cream cones and chocolate and vanilla ice cream I have been craving every day of this pregnancy and I called Patrick and told him about our day so far... and he said, "What are you eating while you are telling me this?" "An ice cream cone," I said. He laughed so hard. "What!?" I said. "You are hilarious. I hope that helped." "It did," I said. We hung up the phone and I thanked Jesus for ice cream and the amazing sugar cones for the ice cream to go on top of and I licked that ice creamed and crunched that cone, while Gabriel (my well fed, well pooped, non-rested baby) played on the floor with his toys and giggled to himself while making car noises.

This is my life. This is what Jesus uses to make me holy. I have Jesus to thank for all the days of sleep strikes, poops and ice cream cones.

Marwige

Last weekend was our 3rd Three to Get Married retreat here in Nashville. The preparation and prayer and planning was super intense. With over 20 speakers, 12 couples, and the camp people to deal with I would have to say that it was purely God's grace that won us such a peaceful weekend. It wore me out so badly that I ended the weekend with the stomach flu... pregnancy and exhaustion don't go well together!!

With all that being said, I once again was amazed throughout the weekend at God's providential love within each and every couple who was there and each one who spoke. Each had been given such a different path in their marriage and to watch the fidelity through it all was simply uplifting. We had speakers who had converted to Catholicism, some who had spouses with cancer, some with 3 kids, some with 10 and others who were infertile. Some speakers who struggled with in-laws, some with how to raise their kids, others who were newly married, and none who were normal. It was amazing to see God's work in their hearts and lives and relationships. Each one had such a unique story which one way or another they all recognized as their path to holiness.

It was a reminder to me about the story I am living. What will the next page read and how have the previous chapters gone? What will the heavy crosses be and how will we get through? In the end, I don't think it matters as long as Christ is our center. Fr. Baker stressed throughout the weekend that marriage makes no sense whatsoever if you have no relationship with Christ, no goal of Heaven and you haven't decided to completely abandon yourself to Jesus. Of course, you could live life without having these things, but the bottom line is that your life will be pretty boring and pretty predictable. He sent quite a challenge to the couples to live always in the state of grace and to follow ALL of the Church's teachings instead of picking and choosing those you like. There is a wisdom in the Holy Spirit who has inspired the Church. Will we trust Him?

SO bring it. Lord, we abandon ourselves to you. What is it that you will ask of us? How can we be an image in our marriage of Christ's love for the Church.. the ultimate sacrifice.

We haven't been married quite three years and let me tell you, Christ has sent us on a roller coaster ride... it has required lots of trust, but the gifts from Him are countless and really quite hard to believe at times. He will never let you outdo Him in generosity.

Gabriel's First Easter