My goodness how time has flown! I've been lax at posting lately, but, in my defense, we've had a lot of major transitions in the last couple of months! Thank you to my (helpful-but-nosy) friends and family who tell me that I need to start posting again and remove some old posts. I need to figure out how to convert this thing into a book or print it off or something before I start the next chapter, so to speak. I don't want to delete anything (even the obsolete stuff like the fact that our old house is listed as for sale on there!!!) I figure this is a great time to start a new chapter because we're having another baby! That's our big news! We've also moved, are living with my grandma, planning to move again at the end of July into our new place, fought one round of pneumonia with Soren after a series of funny (well, funny now) trips to the hospital and overdoses, another with Jeff's thrown out back, and played a series of shows lately. It's been busy, but we are well and content. So, before I move on to chapter 2, there are some things that I want to tell you about Soren and some things that I want Soren to know herself...
Soren has been so fun. She makes us laugh our heads off. She is full of a certain joie de vivre and seems to remind us daily how to feel young. Although, some days when my head hits the pillow before bedtime and after taking her to the zoo, childrens' museum, or running through the sprinkler, I feel tired and old! :) She is talking up a storm. My favorite thing she says is an unprompted "thank you mommy" when I give her something. It is so very precious. When she runs downstairs saying "hi Sito" to my grandma, my heart about melts. She is a sponge and repeats just about everything - and I mean everything! She knows hundreds of words and recognizes some of them in books as she reads. She knows a lot of letters by name and has started counting a bit. She also is a good little signer - her favorite signs being "more", "please", "thank you", "happy", "milk", "drink", "apple", "cheese", and "together". It is so stinkin' cute. She loves to take bike rides with Daddy in her little cart that follows behind the bike. I love watching her climb in and wave bye-bye as they pull away. And Jeff - he is an amazing daddy. He does so much with Soren, but is amazing mostly because he adores her and loves her so well. He cuddles with her, loves to have her "helping" him with tasks, is so wonderfully patient with her, and laughs so hard at her VERY expressive personality. She has also started singing and dancing all the time. When we're in the car, I just hear her back there singing to herself. My heart is so full. She is still an awesome eater and sleeper. Even though she's a curly-headed near-blond, she does have a Mediterranean bone in her body when it comes to eating! She loves taboule, falafel, and lots of other various foods. She loves veggies, fruits, and ice cream. She still won't eat meat except for fish (although she ate a bite of Uncle Stephen's steak he grilled the other night.) She asks to go to sleep and I could probably count on one hand the times she's cried to go down. She is independent and lets us know when she wants her space and wants to go night-night. She knows our grandparents, parents, sibs, etc. by name now - or her version of their names - and loves to call them that. She's even taken to calling my mom by her first name - Marlene - because she hears my grandma say that. So funny!
I am so enjoying being home with Soren. I must say that there were times when I was working consistently - and I did love the work I did - where I would say that my work made me a "better mom". Now that I am home, I feel honestly that my thinking was erroneous. I try to translate that another way and feel that it would be like saying "Soren, I realize that if I'm around you too much, I'm worse at being a mom." Of course there's the element that I wanted to use my other talents too, but I've seen that I can still use my gifts in the context of home and, as time allows, outside of home and feel creatively and socially fulfilled. Really what I've been learning as I've been home is that the things that would make me feel inadequate, stressed, or unable to be home one more minute are the areas in which God has needed to work on me. Do I need time out of the house? Sure. Am I thankful that I have an outlet while Jeff is home that I can pursue different ministries and even girls' nights out? Yeah. Do I love going on dates with my husband and taking opportunities to let Soren know the adoring love of her grandparents while hanging out at their place? Right on. But, I am learning that what makes me a "better mom" is the time that I've had with Soren this past 19 months that has been dedicated to daily time with her, trips to library, learning sign language, cooking together, reading together, snuggling in the mornings, nursing until she was 14 months, taking her to the pool, sitting on the floor playing, and figuring out that no book can tell me what's right for my babies. This is what has made up my life for the last year and a half and I'm overjoyed at the gift God's given me to be able to be present with my children this way. Thanks for keeping up on our lives and we'll be back soon!
