crawling and cool kids

So...It turns out it was a bit too early to try cereal on Ellie's 4 month old, exclusively-breast-fed tummy. We had some interesting poops (I could go on in great detail relating it to food, but will spare you.) Her tongue liked it, however. Our eating adventures will continue at a later date.

Ellie's next big-girl adventure: crawling. While she isn't quite there yet, I know it will be any day now to when she starts those little legs and arms a-movin. Here's her favorite playing stance:

As you can see, she is propped and ready to go for the crawl. She pops her legs up and does this adorable little swaying-rocking think, like she's counting "1..2...3" and then she belly flops.


On a different note, I've been thinking a lot about social dynamics this week. After becoming a mom, and being home alone a lot, I think my awareness of people has become more sensitive. Sometimes, even in the 'grown up' world, I feel like I'm reliving middle school all over again. There's still the 'cool' kids that everyone else tries to follow and be like. It just seems silly. I wonder if God just laughs sometimes at the lengths we will go to feel like we are a part of the 'in' crowd.

As a new mom, I don't have the energy to even try be 'cool'. I don't get cool moms. Do they have magical cool-mom perfume to mask the smell of spit-up? Do they have cool-mom jeans that shrink them back to their pre-pregnancy size (or smaller!)?  Do their kids sleep 26 hours a day so they have time to do the dishes, laundry, finish 12 sewing projects and have their other cool-mom friends over for dinner? I'm baffled.

Then there are the Pinterest boards that all the single people have about stuff they are going to do when they become moms. You know, all creative and skinny and beautiful and organized...and definitely not sleep deprived. When I'm on it too long I begin to think I can be like that...then I look at our pile of laundry that's been sitting there for days that I haven't had the energy to do and am snapped back to reality.

Am I complaining?...maybe a little. Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't trade the sanctifying work Jesus is doing in my heart through all of this for anything. But...it doesn't always make it easy. I just don't always like to pretend it is all kitten-farts and butterflies.

I thought I was cool once. It didn't work out well. Here is a brief snapshot of my issues in middle school, personified through my 8th grade yearbook picture. Yes, I crossed that line from quirky into weird.

Ug. I know. Gasp in horror. Or roll on the floor laughing.
It's hilarious the photographer found it necessary to focus the picture including my hair sticking out to the side.
And why, mom, do you display this picture with such pride on the piano?

Well... at least I thought I was cool. In that maybe-I'll-be-cool-someday way.

I sometimes think of Ellie being in middle school one day. I holding my sweet babester, who now spends her days caring about what she can chew on, and think - I am so, so sorry, love, if you experience hurtful things during those trying years. But I know God will use them to shape her and teach her and sanctify her, just like he's using these awkward, sleep-deprived days to shape my heart.

 Here's to being incredibly awkward, and to being done with being cool. Because in the end, there's only One opinion that matters.

a study in snack

After the Doc's ok at her 4 month check-up, we decided to get along with feeding Ellie a bit of oatmeal cereal.

Even though both her parents are avid lovers of food, I wasn't totally sure she would follow suit.

So momma...whachya making over there?

I'm suppose to do what with this?

OOOHH it goes in my mouth!

(inspecting spoon)
Its not too strange...

In fact...I think I even like it! 

Wait, you're gonna what? 

Hey, there's stuff on it now!

(nom nom)....yummy stuff....

MORE!

MORE!

Yup, I think we have a foodie-in-training.

you know when your'e a mom to an infant when...

Sometimes you put your baby down for a nap when really its you that wants one.

You get frustrated because, even though you're home all the time, the dishes and laundry manage to pile up anyways.

Having your husband home during the day feels like he's interfering with your work.

When people ask how you have been, your response depends on how many hours your baby slept in a row the night before.

When you think about how often you are feeding/changing/generally attending to your baby at all hours of the day, you marvel at the fact you can get anything done at all.

During their naps you start a fun project, and have to stop literally as soon as you start because that nap ended up not being long. Two weeks later you pick up back where you started.

Every shirt you own has also doubled as a burp rag.

In the middle of a long baby nap, you start to look at the clock and think, "any minute now...". An hour later you decide you should do something productive. Baby wakes upon the thought.

When you don't have your baby around, you feel a bit more sane because that half of your brain that is always atune to what your baby is doing at every moment can rest.

Every baby you see reminds you of yours and is compared to yours.

Your shirts are organized by a boob-access scale: 1 - no access (think, I can only wear this for 3, 4 hours max) to 10 - complete access (only wearable when you will see no one else for the day).

Even though you are with your baby all the time, when you leave, you catch yourself wondering 1. if your baby will have pooped when you get back, 2. how long it has been since their last poop 3. what color it has been/will be, as you enjoy your Indian curry.

No matter how many sleepless, screaming nights there have been or will be, you will do anything and everything for your little one. Your love and dedication for them knows no bounds.

two years.

Its been two years since my last post.

Two.

Years.

 Two years ago, I might have chosen to try and reflect on it all, to ponder for hours what I thought life would be like as a bright-eyed, smitten newly wed, how I never thought about having babies and being wonderfully-horribly pregnant, or what it would be like to be a crazy sleep-deprived momma, or how I blogged before everyone else thought it was the 'cool' thing to do...

 but I think it will be just easier to jump into life. Perhaps there will be snapshots along the way of the past several years, but there's just too much to unload.

Ellie liked touching the flowers. (in the future we might have to control this...for now it's tame I suppose)

Today our little family (Peter, Ellie, and me) ventured into a magical place for too short an hour - Como Zoo Conservatory. The greenery, the thick air, the memories of heart-felt conversations with friends, does something for my soul.

I see hope there.

Hope that the bare branches outside, the arctic air, cold death, leads me to forget. What? It can be over 40 degrees? There will be green things shooting out of those branches? What, we will be sweating outside again? ...its too easy to forget we don't permanently live in a frozen tundra. Its also sweet (torturous?) to feel the contrast of 75 degrees to -3 in a matter of seconds.


Here's to hope and new beginnings. To old blogs revisited. To lives re-reminisced. Who knows, maybe you'll even seen a poem or too up again.


Well...lets not get too crazy. After all, the dishes are indeed piled high, the laundry overflowing, the baby, crying.

That's another (LONG) post.

Well...things have begun to pick up! Now i'm a little less turtle-ish, maybe a little more grazing cow-ish? I definitely like to eat like one sometimes...mmm now I want beef...

I've been meeting with old friends recently. Isn't it weird when you tell someone that you're completely free (or a few people, I suppose), and then suddenly you are booked again. Like, can't there be some kind of consistency? Maybe that is my scheduling probably. But how pick can you be? "Oh, well I have to meet with someone the day before that, and just to keep my schedule open for other opportunities, let's meet two days from then!" Umm...probably not.

Although, I suppose that does allow for the many hours of Etsy-ing I end up doing every day. It's probably a horrible habit, and I've even begun to feed it monitarily.

And it allows me to go to the post office. There's something magical about the post office - I really love the smell of packaging materials. I love the feel of a crisp box, never been used, and the contrast of that with an old beat-up, well-loved one that's been used many times. I love licking stamps.

tbc

whoa, hello!

I should probably say Hello. It's been a while.

Who am I saying hello to? The internet? The blogging community? No one? Hm.


Who ever you are, Hello!

I want you to know that it's been a long time since I've written. Like, written at ALL, much less something profound, or spectacular, or even very depressing.

My life has been going so fast for so long, I haven't had time for washing my 'teacher' cloths, for getting my lesson plans done, for stamping wedding invitations, for cleaning up the messes I leave everywhere in my crazy frantic I'm-going-to-be-late get-out-of-my-way moods. Much less for blogging.

And the suddenly, it has come to a screeching halt.

Well, to be technical, it has probably all come to a screeching turtle-pace. I'm still moving I suppose, but it seems so stinking SLOW. I was going 90 mph and suddenly, I'm hardly walking. I feel grandma-ish, in a lot of ways actually.

Perhaps it's the endlessness of job searching that is getting to me. I started too idealistic, picking out the jobs that only in a million years I could land, and the ones that had anything to do but teaching. Now I'm applying for anything and everything - I almost applied to a bagel place yesterday.

It feels weird to have gone through such a crazy time, and yet only have two pieces of paper to show for it: one that tells me I have a Bachelor's of Music Education, and one that tells me I am legally bound to Peter Buller.

Honestly, I feel like myself after it all. Maybe endlessly devoted to one man, maybe with some more skills. But the same Laura.

It scared me a little bit when I found out I was still me. All those hours of practicing, those years of studying; I was hoping they would have a little more effect on me. Like, make me a little less lazy or something. Maybe I would be really good at loving after getting married. Turns out, it's even harder sometimes. And I'm still hopelessly stubborn, and moody. Poor Peter...I think he knew that before the wedding though.

This time is good though. I'm creative again, finally! It feels like a breath of fresh air, yet at the same time, it's a little too fresh. Like, whoa this air is so good it makes me sick to my stomach sometimes.

Jesus and I have lots of time to talk, which is good. I need to catch up with him some more though. Maybe that's why I haven't got a job quite yet.

much better...

in summer
after the trees
have conceived and birthed
their nursing offspring hang
heavy
clinging to each limb

love’s lush green fertility
washes over me

as silk tulle caresses my brown legs
like cold butter on toast
i marvel at these delicate cobwebs
dancing about my knees
weaving strength in my bones
dimples in my smile

love stands at the end of the aisle
waiting for me

(revised) petticoat

next summer
when the trees are full again
tulle will caress
against my unshaven legs
like cold butter on browned toast.
those lace cobwebs will delicately
weave two lives together
into one
so strong not even death
can break it

wedding skirt

next summer when the trees are full again
tulle will caress against my unshaven legs
like cold butter on browned toast
and delicate cobwebs will weave
two lives together.

getting used to this writing thing again

It's been so, so long since I've written anything besides school assignments, even in my journal (which i used to write in every day), but especially on this blog. It seems time is beginning to speed up, or there's never enough of it at least. What's up with that? Time hardly stops any more. Sometimes I just wish it would stop for a while, I need to catch my breath, I need to pray, I need to think....

I think it has to do with being engaged. It's like this mystery about what life will be like when we get married, along with a future event that I have/get to plan all the details about, to show everyone who Peter and I are. That alone feels like a big weight. It's just a huge deal! And then I'm beginning to realize how big of a deal getting married is, how much it really does take to make work.

I'm super excited for this next stage of life, don't get me wrong. Its just that I feel like I have a long ways to go. I need to learn to love more. I need to learn to forgive more. I don't know if I can be who I need to be, I feel so not ready to 'begin my life'

When do you begin your life, anyway? I don't really want to settle down and 'begin life'...I want to start the adventure of a life!


Life will definitely be an adventure with Peter. :)

I'm avoiding writing and thinking about my hometown Eyota right now. It's almost overwhelming how many thoughts and memories and really deep feelings I have about that place. So, I'll wait til tomorrow. Yey procrastination!

I was reading a few of my older blogs and I realized how much hope I really do have now. In the past it's been hard, not going to lie. This time of year is especially hard for me. The darkness of winter begins to set in my mind and on my heart, and I feel particularly weighty, like my shadow weights 50 pounds and I drag it where ever I go.

Jesus has been patiently showing me what it means to put my whole worth in Him. It's something that is going to take my whole life, I'm sure of it, and I don't think I'll ever be perfect at it. But that's ok. He loves me the same anyway.

I'm delving into life like I never thought I could, or would. I don't have to worry about what my major is, or what people think about me. I'm actually beginning to live free, free from the results of putting my worth in something that changes every day, or isn't guaranteed. I'm actually beginning to remember what it feels like to do things because I passionately want to do them, not because I just feel like I should be doing it or that I have to do it.

It's a constant struggle to follow Him. But that struggle is worth every second, every hardship.

I'll leave this post with an amazing song I learned in 5th grade and clung to as my faith has waivered and grown stronger, and back again over the years.

All the chisels I have dulled carving idols of stone
That have crumbled like sand 'neith the waves
I have recklessly built all my dreams in the sand
Just to watch them all wash away.
All the pennies I've wasted in my wishing well
I've thrown like stones to the sea
I've dropped my guard, cast my lost, given everything
For a faith to be faithful to me

Through another day, another trial,
Another chance to reconcile
To the One who sees past all I see
I'm reaching out my weary hand
I pray that You'd understand,
You're the only one who's faithful to me.

snow

Nature decided winter wasn't over today. Huge quarter-sized clumps snow flakes decided to fall gracefully around Northwestern tonight, and I couldn't help but stare up in the sky with wonder. I was coming back from the Tea Garden with some friends, and like school children we swirled and skipped and let the snowflakes softly land on our heads and faces and tongues.

Snow makes me feel fresh inside, squeaky clean. It's brisk and cold, yet gentle when it lands on your cheek, like a small child's wet kiss. All these white kisses gather on the ground and pile up in heaps, on the muddy ground, the naked trees, the dead plants, and they cleanse everything they touch, covering the brown of winter.

This reminds me of a song I wrote with a friend two winters ago...

The cold is piled in heaps
I long for warmth and a smile on your face
Winter's long here, I can't stay
but for a smile on your face
Look up for sunshine here, I said look up for sunshine here

Cheryl

More than a year ago, I lost a friend who was dear to me. It was a slow process, the worst kind of slow. The fighting slow. I understand now what it feels to watch someone's body deteriorate while their mind continues to remain, tortured.

Cheryl was a fighter. She was one of four valedictorians in my graduating class, an unprecedented event in my small rural school where only two other graduates had kept a 4.0 all through high school. She had big plans. Plans to see the world, plans to succeed. Plans that involving going to college and maybe even changing her major to something her parents wouldn't approve of (I'm sure she would have done something like that.) That was the hardest part for her I think, letting go of all she could have seen, could have done, could have been. She held on so much longer than they expected her to.

She tried so hard to be 'normal,' til the very end, refusing to stay in the hospital unless it was absolutely necessary. She wouldn't even sleep in the hospital bed hospice brought for her. I saw her some of her worst days. Cheryl loved animals of any kind, and my friend had puppies we brought over to her house for her to see. The pain, or the medication, kept her distant most of the time we were there visiting, but her eyes lightened up when we asked if she wanted to hold the puppy. Even the weight of the puppy on her stomach was too much, and she cringed and cried silent tears. It was painful, but I think it was hard for her not to enjoy what she used to, even just seeing a puppy.

I've had my debates with God over Cheryl's death. Before it actually came, I prayed feverishly that whatever her turn out, someone would know about Him because of it. When it actually happened, the funeral and everything was done, it was like He didn't show up. He didn't allow any conversations to open up for me to talk about my faith, no one asked me how I was dealing with it all. I was furious at God. If He took my friend He could at least have a "good" reason for doing it, right?

one cheek slammed on clammy concrete
stinging cheese-grated skin
blood, brain, and arms open.
offer up those gasping stares
those shining shoes
that tiptoe around never stopping.

any second now
the ground will break
rumbling apart
to swallow me whole.

workings of reworked poem

this is what i have so far...I want to make it more of a metaphor though

one cheek slammed on clammy concrete

stinging cheese grated skin

blood, brain, and arms open.

offer up the stares gasping

shoes that tiptoe around

never stopping.

the ground should break

rumbling apart

to swallow me whole.

you have so much work to do on me, jesus. I just hope I can let you do it one of these days. It's so easy to hide the parts I don't want you to see, when really you just see them all along anyways.

Jesus, I'm sorry i've been holding on to this bitterness against the world. its not worth it anymore. I'm sick of it. i just want to move on with my life and have a better base with you, and with everyone. I want to turn everything over, turn my self in, because there is absolutely nothing left worth to defend.

I'm so dissapointed how this life has turned out. I've tried to be good, tried very hard, but I'm done doing this on my own. Will you take over? I'm giving up.

I'm giving you my future. I don't know what my plans are, I'm kind of waiting for your guidence, your gentle whispers and nudgings. I'm giving you my heart. I do'nt know what to do with it anymore, what to invest with it. It's become so hard, so caloused from everything i've encoutered. Will you soften me again?

Hey, Jesus. It's been a while...a long while. There are some things I need to tell you, I know I've been trying to cut down on the Laura-dominated conversation between us, but I really need to tell you some things. I know you know already, but I just kinda want someone to listen.

I do'nt know where I'm going, for the first time in my life, and it's kind scary. I want to follow you, but I have forgotten how to really listen to you. There's been so many other things I've put before you. It's not right, and I want to work on fixing it, but I know it's not all about me fixing myself, because I don't even know where to start. Will you forgive me for putting everything else before you? school work? boyfrienid? my own comfort?

I do'nt know why, but I do know that you do forgive me. I am so thankful...I have a hard time comprehending even, Jesus, you're so good to me.

I need to decide soon on somethings, if I'm going to Japan, if I'm going to finish up at Northwestern, what I should pursue. In order to know those things, I need to be in tune with you, in step with you. I've been asking you for the easy way, to be shown your way. But your way isn't just about knowing where I should go, it's a lifestyle of following you EVERYWHERE in my life, in every minute of every day.
That's a big commitment, Lord.
Can I commit to it?

I want to, but there's so much hesitance in me. Will you erase that hesitence? Guide me back to your love and your grace, I want to look for you, because this is all not working. It's so shallow, I need your depth.

"trace the shape of my heart, til it becomes more familiar to your eyes. I've been lost without you, down without your love, in time will I be what you're thinking of?"

<3 Your Child Laura

life.

oh life.

i've come to a crossroads, somehow on this journy. I don't know what I want any more, I don't know where I'm going, but I do know I really don't like where I am.

I've realized I don't like teaching. Its always been a forced thing, I'm assumed responsibility, I do what I need to do. But its a struggle. I don't want to trap myself into something that's a struggle for the rest of my life, or get even further down the line and not have ANY options about going back.

I've realized I don't like the people in my major. I don't click with them...or something. It's torture having every class with people who couldn't care less about you, who even ignore you all the time. It's tiresome. It takes the life out of me.

I'm sick of struggling, it feels like all my passion and my drive has left. I don't know what to put it in. I don't know what direction to point my life. I know what I should be doing in the mean time, doing homework, loving others, helping people, but how can I do that if I don't know where I'm going? How do I know what to invest in now?

And the frigging teachers who won't give grace because they play favorites so hardcore, they won't even converse with anyone they don't deem "worthy".

I hate musicians. Why am I one of them?

jesus,
i need your holy spirit residing in my heart.
i need your life pumping through my veins,
reaching to the farthest extremities of my life,
bringing the nutrients your word and your truth supply
so i can hear the intimate whispers of your hope and grace
when my spiritual muscles are aching and sore
from running this race.

i need your love to filter out all the infection of this broken body
i have sin cancer that i've let take over.
but now, my Yahweh creator
you heal and you mend and you sow
i'm letting the old go
jesus, will you transfuse my body with your life-giving blood?




"And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul" Deuteronomy 10:12

My confession.

The Eleventh Hour
by Jars of Clay

Trace the shape of my heart
till I become more familiar to Your eyes
I've been lost without you
Cold without your love
It's taken days and nights to make me realize

So rescue me from hanging on to this life
I won't give up on giving You
The chance to blow my mind
'Cause the eleventh hour quickly passed me by
I'll find You when I think I'm out of time

So take the place of my heart
Till I become a stranger to my life
I've been down without you
Cold without your love
In time will I be what you're thinking of?

This song has been my prayer of my soul for some time now. I always find myself coming back to it when the struggles of this life start to weigh on my shoulders, and I realize I'm letting sin take me under it's control.

This weight pulled me down particularly yesterday, and started to realize how truly overtaken with pride and selfishness and greed my inner thoughts and motives have become. I've even found a way to justify them in my own mind sometimes; that's the most sickening part. I play the part of a victim in my own mind, one who reacts only dependent on what the outside world does. In the end, everything is an attack on my identity, and I react with the same hatred and bitterness that I see attacking me.
My actions have nothing to do with love.
My thoughts don't have much to do with helping others or pleasing God.
I have become self-absorbed.
Perhaps it's not even visible to those around me, except maybe those closest to me, but it's such an easy thing to hide sometimes, especially in "Christian" circles. This is me being true, honest with what is really going on inside. I realize this is opening doors for me to be judged, and criticised, but I can't live the lie anymore.

Life was not meant to be lived the way I've been living it. I'm done. I want to move on. I need a heart transplant. Jesus died and conquered death so I can be set free from the slavery of this sin we all deal with. Paul explains to the Church, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

This song speaks to my soul because I'm still struggling with holding on to this life, wanting to plan my future, wanting to know where I'm going, trying to fit God into my plans instead of the other way around.

I need to trust. "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight" Proverbs 3:5

I need to hope. "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Romans 12:12
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time." 1 Peter 1:3-5